First Step In Japan.

I'm introducing a new section to this blog, known as Friday Macha. Friday means Friday (obviously) while macha means green tea in Japanese. Friday Macha will be a special section in which I share whatever I can remember about my 10-month AFS student exchange programme in Japan, with you readers. I truly regret that I didn't blog about my journey while I was there. It would have been better compared to now. Well now I need to refer to my diary besides getting correct facts from the Japanese websites.

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Let's not waste time by starting on the moment I set foot on the land of Nippon. Before retrieving our luggage and proceeding into the arrival hall, my group which consisted of 14 Malaysian students had to go through the immigration counters. We weren't accompanied by any adults; parents, officers or guardians, meaning that we were actually on our own. In other words, we had temporary freedom from our parents and guardians. Grew horns we did...right after we walked pass the immigration officers and into the oh-ever-amazing Japanese toilets. Malaysia is not an outdated countries in terms of restrooms. But believe me, we were behaving like aliens who just landed on Earth. Toilets in Japan are more advanced than those in developed countries. We call these toilets the BIDET TOILETS, also known as the Super Toilets.

I went, "Jo, there are buttons on the side of the toilet bowl!" *pressed the music button, played toilet-flushing sound* "Ahh..I thought they would play some Beyonce's songs." *facepalm*

A typical basic bidet toilet has bidet washing, anus washing and seat warming (the best thing on Earth during winter). More advanced bidet toilets have additional features such as massage options, deodorization and water jet adjustments. I've tried the one with massage options but honestly, i felt no difference. Just the humming sound of the machine of the toilet.

Chatting excitedly among ourselves, we entered the arrival hall, dragging our huge 25 kg luggage and hand luggage. We were greeted by a few AFS volunteers. Japanese student volunteers. Hence, those who have studied basic Japanese tried to converse with them in simple Japanese. Anthony was among the first ones to speak to them in nihongo (Japanese). The common words and sentences we used:

1. Genki desu ka. 元気ですか。(How are you?)
2. Genki desu. 元気です。(I am fine, thank you.)
3. Watashi no namae wa ....... 私の名前は.... (My name is ......)
4. Anata wa kirei desu. あなたは綺麗です。(You are beautiful.)
5. Hajimemashite. はじめまして。(Nice to meet you.)
6. Hai. はい。(Yes.)
7. Iie. いいえ。(No.)

While waiting for students from other countries to arrive, we lingered around the airport and eventually decided to buy our very first Japanese meals at the ubiquitous Lawson convenience store. Tell me, who would never start converting the currency when you're in a foreign country? I bet the cashier there had a shock to see the 14 of us calculating and converting the price. At that time, 100￥is equivalent to around RM3.60 to RM3.80. So, a 500￥tuna onigiri cost RM19 at most! I could have bought a filling black pepper chicken chop with that RM19!!!

Nevertheless, I had my first onigiri with shrimp filling. It felt so delicious simply because it was my first onigiri. Nowadays, I just eat onigiri with the 'meh' feeling.  

Once everyone had arrived, we boarded the shuttle buses to head to Narita Airport Hotel for an unexpected journey. 

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I don't think I would want to blog about my stay in Japan in the diary way of writing. I prefer writing about random things I can think of from the stay. So it won't be like Day 1, then Day 2 and so on. It gets really boring, in my opinion. 

Les Miserables - All Gavroche's Parts (Four songs - Lyrics)

Among the songs featuring dear brave little Gavroche. I just love his voice and accent!!

Do You Hear The People Sing? - Les Misérables 2012

In addition to my list of high-quality movies is Tom Hooper's Les Miserables. I love how the plot is carried out in wall-to-wall musical numbers, accompanied by the excellent expressions and acting by a crew of talented casts consisting of Hugh Jackman, Russel Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, Eddie Redmayne, Aaron Tveit, Samantha Barks and Daniel Huttlestone among them. I am simply amazed by how entranced I was during the movie. There's not much dialogues going around, just a little, but I love every bit of the movie including the wonderful sets and the French Rebellion part.

Some of my friends told me that it's too much of a musical, hence appeared to be a bit boring or dull to them. Indeed, those who lack patience would find the 3-hour movie draggy, but nonetheless, kudos to the team for putting up great effort to produce such a remarkable movie.

Personally, I was surprised by the beautiful Anne Hathaway's singing. She is definitely a top actress for she had successfully shown the right emotions through her face expression while singing I Dreamed A Dream. Daniel Huttlestone as the youngest rebellion member Gavroche also won my heart with his cheeky and high-spirited character. The pair of money-swindling innkeepers acted by Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter added a tinge of happiness and sense of humour into the shadowy concept of the movie. I couldn't help but to laugh at the comedy and trouble put up by this pair. I don't think I need to say much about Hugh Jackman and Russel Crowe. We all know how good these two professional actors are.

Among the songs in Les Miserables, this is one that strikes me to the core.

Do You Hear The People Sing

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?
Then join in the fight
That will give you the right to be free!

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!

When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

Will you give all you can give
So that our banner may advance
Some will fall and some will live
Will you stand up and take your chance?
The blood of the martyrs
Will water the meadows of France!

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

Friday Macha

Friday Macha!!!

Coming soon to this blog on this Friday night (Malaysia time)!!

Hint: It's not a drink, neither a dessert.

When Grocery Shopping Goes To Hell

How many of you LOVE grocery shopping at those large supermarkets?

Honestly, I love it, especially when I am shopping for ingredients to cook. I even spent a long time in supermarkets in Japan back then. My longest record - 3 hours shopping for snacks in Tesco. And those were for the Orientation Camp prizes only. I spend too much time because I'm a fussy shopper, always comparing prices, net weights and quality. But that won't be my rant for today.

As much as I love grocery shopping at supermarkets, I also DESPISE it when they are crowded with selfish, thoughtless and bitchy shoppers.

I was at AEON supermarket recently, if I'm not mistaken, it was on last Saturday. My mum wanted to buy toppings for pizza, mostly veges, hence we ended up at the vegetables and fruits section. Here's how the section looked like. Basically, a massive traffic jam consisting of  female shoppers from all ages with their bulky trolleys although there were some who only shopped for LESS THAN 5 items. Nope, they weren't holding baskets. And yes, we even had baby strollers with crying babies! And the best part of it, nobody moved for at least every 2 minutes because some selfish morons decided to leave their trolleys in the middle of the aisles to rush to elsewhere. Sadly, moving those trolleys aside made no difference simply because there was no space to move at all. It was also pointless to have loud sighs or even a polite "excuse me" around because these selfish shoppers didn't seem to care about the hundreds of other people who were stuck halfway no thanks to their lack of consideration for others.

While queuing up to weigh vegetables, an old lady behind me had the audacity to push me with her trolley although clearly, the line wasn't moving! What, you want me to push everybody out of the line so that you can weigh your stuff? Na-ah! I know there are people who would say, "Oh, she's an elderly, why don't you give her some space and show her respect?" Excuse me, first of all, she was being rude and pushy. Pushing me would never make the queue miraculously shorter, instead it's bloody annoying. Second, so what if she's an elderly? Don't get me wrong, I do my part as a youth towards the old people. When they need a seat in the bus or train or need help to walk down the stairs, I help them. But being an elderly doesn't give them the 'wrong' right to take advantage of their physical conditions to push people around. Third, I find it difficult for me to respect people who don't respect others. That old lady was lucky that I was patient enough by just holding her trolley back with my foot.

Then, we had uncontrollable kids wrecking havoc in the supermarket. Where on Earth were you, dear children's parents?! Your kids were about to bring the whole building down! What were you even thinking when you let them run around freely, bumping into others causing shopping bags to fall, when obviously you knew that they can't behave properly? Or were you actually ignorant? Or perhaps you were proud of them? I can't count the number of times I felt like smacking kids who pushed past others rudely. Whatever happened to 'excuse me'? Did you not teach your children to be polite to others? Sure, run around and spill sweets everywhere for they are kids, but please don't forget the words 'excuse me', 'please', 'sorry' and 'thank you'.

Speaking about smacking kids, my nephew who is almost 2 years old, slapped my aunt (his grandaunt) a few days ago. Whatever my aunt's response (which I am not going to reveal) was plainly not effective to let him know that he should not have done that. I told my mum that I would slap him back if I were in my aunt's shoe. So my mum said that I should not be too sadistic(?) or maybe too strict because he is still small. I think that I will have trouble raising my future children up. Because I might smack or spank them whenever they are rude despite their age. I honestly don't have a vivid memory on how my mum disciplined me but her ways are effective. Now this raising-up thing is making me doubt whether I would want to have children or not.

If you have any advice, opinions or thoughts on how to discipline a child or anything about grocery shopping, feel free to leave a comment in the box below or send me a message in my tumblr. :)