Kaoru~

Day 1 ~ Universal Studio Japan

After touch down, as i mentioned way earlier, we headed into the bus and proceeded to Universal Studios~! Leaving the Kansai Airport we only stared out of the windows, with mouths gaping open and the occasional "OMG!! Look at the driver! So smart!" Yeah, clean and smartly dressed people are a rare species here where we stay. Hehehe..

Moments later, we reached... Universal Studios~!!! We pranced down the bus, making a commotion among ourselves, ('ourselves' here meant me and Hika pyon, because we hadn't got the time to interact with everyone..YET). I mean, Gawwdd... we're in Universal Studios~! the sight of the gigantic Elmo by the gates was enough to make me squeal in delight~

We sauntered in was.. er.. overwhelmed by the amount of people we saw lining up. I mean, its the school holidays and we're in Universal Studios. It's like a public holiday in MidValley (-.-")
So our beloved tour guide Elina and Ernest-san gave us options to either walk on our own, or we should follow them. Flustered with excitement that we just saw a Kaneshiro Takeshi look-alike amongst the middle school boys, we decided to float along with them. What's the hurry? We have five days to walk on our own anyway~
First stop, The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman-The Ride. Well, we were enthusiastic about it, we're told by Ernest-san that its a 4D ride~ By the way, anyone, someone please explain to me what's the difference with a 3D? Anyway, we bounced into the theater, went on into the foyer, into the numerous lanes segregrated by railings and queued up. And we waited, and scooted along.. 10 mins, 20 mins, 30 mins, legs twitchy, 40 mins, 50 mins, started to curse why did we changed our currency into notes intead of changing some coins so we'll be able to use the vending machine because we finished our bottles of water, 70 mins, and so on. We queued for 2 hrs. I was dehydrated and cold and tired. Again, i had low blood pressure and Hika-pyon had a minor headache. But anyway, along the queue, we were shown 'artifacts' or rather props from the comic and given 3D shades~ Very lifelike, having a glimpse of the props gave me a feeling of what was to come. We got onto a tram/train/ ride and we held our breaths as we started rolling onto the railings. In a sudden, all of Spiderman's nemesis', enemies, girlfriend, babysitter, uncle, whoever associated with him appeared and using my own cluttered understanding of Japanese, ol' Peter will save our asses as helpless citizens caught in a fray. (Ha ha ha) But, believe me, the 2 hour wait was ultimately worth while~ We screamed, laughed, gripped onto railings, flung arnd by those bad asses, got shaken around by Spidey, sprinkled with water and blew with hot air when Dr octopus got into a bad mood swing. We got in grumbling and got out beaming.


After the ride, obviously pleased, we sauntered around, fooled around and went into Backdraft, where they showed us how firefighters fought against the fires in the movie. i didn't watch it, and wasnt exactly thrilled about it, but it was cool, how they repeated a scene from the movie.

That was all for theme parks and rides in our Universal Studios tanken, becaue we had enough of lining up and we're not ready to sacrifice our precious time lining up~ So, we told Elina we're splitting up and she told us at the very least, follow them to the place where you can eat those yummy turket legs~! We again, lined up like good little kids and bought one for each of us the roasted turkey leg~ Oh man, one is really enough to fill you up silly~! it is the same place where we got our throphy wtaer bottle~! Hahahahaa~ We just barged ourway through while ordering drinks, we'd figure we'd share our drink so we ordered the Oolong Tea. There's no regular or large. There's half yard and footlong. Again, someone please explain. We ordered foot long and a trophy-like plastic bottle filled with oolong tea was presented to us and it's really a foot long. (-.-")

So there we were, like how the tour group described us as, two 9 year olds walking on our own, gleefully smiling to ourselves. We shopped around, chased after Hello Kitty, met Matsumoto tenchou (huhuhu...), took photos with Woody Woodpecker and gf, and gave major hugs to Elmo, the softie. All in a day's play, we had to leave at 5pm and crash into Cross Hotel~

We were told by Elina it is a 5star hotel, so we behaved and got into our room full of wide eyes expectation. i loved the toilet. The first thing i did was to study how to use the toilet properly~! hehehehe.. we didn't linger too long in the hotel, basically we're told to leave our bags and meet up in the lobby for dinner. So, being the very good and PUNCTUAl little kids that we are, we did and off we trotted to.. Shin.zai.ba.shi!!!!!!!!!!! p(#>,<#)q

kaoru~

YO~! It's time to start our story from Day 1~ Sorry, even though we intended to keep all of you informed while we were in Japan, we just didn't had the time or the connection to update you people with.

So we started our journey to Japan on the 29th March 2009, night flight. We had Tamaki, Hikaru's bro, sis in law and sis saw us off.

We admit, it was our first time sitting on a plane and when the plane took off, lifting its wheels off from the ground, piercing through the darkness, we held hands and gripped on the handle. It was scary, exciting, exhilarating and a little sad. Well, of course the sad would be the thought of leaving Kazuki alone for two whole weeks. I was thinking whether he would sleep well, but i know he was in the good hands of my family. All through the flight, we tried to take my mind off things, tried to relax, flicked the in flight entertainment, watched some movie, listened to Frank Sinatra and played games. We tried to sleep butthen, it was uneasy and uncomfortable. The uneasiness becomes unsettling and the unsettling is because for me, personally, i wanted to shout, "YAY!".

We were awaken by the hustle and bustle at around 4am. The air stewardess was distributing breakfast. 4AM. it was supposed to be started by a happy grin on my face. I had low blood pressure. Hmmph. Anyhow, i chewed and grumbled. We reached the Kansai Airport at around 7Am. We were jumping in our skins as we made our way through the alley and the first thing that hit us was a wave of chilly air. At that instant, we did regret about the weather. Hahaha~!

We made our way to the tour bus after refreshing ourselves up. Its kinda the first time for me to brush teeth in a public restroom. Anyhow, first stop. Universal studios~!

kaoru~

Yes people~ its only 2 days to 日本~! As exciting as it sounds, i'm tremendously fatigued with leftover work and also preparations for the travels (-.-)"

Anyway, tomorrow i will be going over to Hikaru's place and we'll cross examine our stuffs to make sure we are very well prepared~ BTW, my room is in chaos right now~ (^.^)"

Yesterday, after work i was walking along with my colleague to our car park and as annoying as it is, it was misty and raining. While we carefully looked down on the road to avoid puddles while trying our best to stay under one umbrella, i just had the notion to look up. Over the hills, behind Ipoh Parade, in between the trees and Syuen, i saw a very bright and big ass RAINBOW~~

I tried to use my crappy phone to take a photo of it, but it was too grainy so i wont bother posting a vacant picture. Nevertheless, i was happy, very happy. I'm obsessed with RAINBOWS and are definitely reminded of it as God's promise. In my case, it was before i embarked on this journey of planning and saving for this trip, i did asked Him to look after me and bless this trip. And yesterday, as if He wanted to tell me, He promised and it is happening. We had a bumpy ride, saving money during this economy meltdown was tough.

But, what a ride. It's definitely worth it.

2 days to 日本~!!

kaoru~

It's finally down to one numerical alphabet but it's taking forever~! The last 9 days to 日本~! The past week had been excruciatingly long and busy and annoying.

It's funny how fast days and hours go by for the past year and now that we're getting so near the departure date that we feel it's so near yet so far~ i guess its what you call ANTICIPATION with no patience at all~

Anyhow, it's just another 9 days to 日本 and we're already packed and sitting on top of our luggage waiting for time to past~! (^^)

hikaru~

severe hallucinations (my colleagues start pole dancing), heavy eyelids (can't see a single thing on my screen), and mouth-wide-open (yawning every 3 seconds)...

... the verdict?

Yes, i'm sleepy... very sleepy ... ね、眠い……(-_-;)

but heck it is FRIDAY...~

.... and another 10 days to 日本 !