Year 16

I slept at 2am last night. Surprisingly, it took me 1.5 hours just to dust 1 and half section of my figurine display cabinet s so I decided to stop first and continue some other day. After that I flipped through the FF XV Official Works that I bought 2 weeks ago. It gave me an impression that this game is rather emo and sucky. There is older Noctis and fat Prompto which makes me go what the hell. I got curious and after googling this and that, it was 130am. Haha.. I find out that Lunafreya and Noctis die in the game and the happy ending in the game is either a dream or is an afterlife. Seriously what the hell? Can't we go back to PS1 era with decent games and plots which are great without making people confused with all the time travels, dream world, etc?

I was surprised that I did not have any emo post on this day last year. Perhaps I was too caught up with all the shit that happened with my work that time as usually I will not not feeling emo on 28 October. 28 October 2002 was the day I left home. It has been 16 years away from home and being homeless and I still cannot stop imagining what life could have been in the alternate universe if I decided to rebel against my parents' wishes 16 years ago. Noone will know if things would turn out better or worse but when the going gets tough and I hate my current life, I cannot help to run away to my imagination and dream world.

I know I am supposed to be grateful for what God has given me. Sadly I decided to skip mass today for Pokemon Go. I am sorry, God! Lol.. An error occurred during Community Day last Sunday so this Sunday was the replacement. My luck was not as good as last week, perhaps because I was naughty and skipped mass :p Last week I caught 8 shiny Beldum in 1.5 hours while today I only got 3 in the full 3 hours. I had high hopes with my power bank but it did not work or maybe I don't know how to use it. 2 Giratina escaped and I did not get Feebas from 10km egg. Nonetheless, I should be happy with my 7 Metagross and the remaining shiny but has room for improvement Beldum.

No special meal or celebration today but I ate at Fisherios at Takashimaya Basement because that was one of the places with available seats. I still consider it a special meal because I have been curious about this place (well who will not be tempted with fried stuff) but I have never tried once in my 16 years here. I am quite amazed that it can survive this long because I think the food is only so so at best. I was thinking if I should get the Alladin Gallery of Light that I saw yesterday but in the end I decided that if my diet tea was available at Donki today, I would just stock up and settle Aladdin this coming Friday after work instead. That turned out to be the case. Lol.

My worries about my eyes after changing to a desk job become a reality. Seeing signboards at road side and shopping malls confirms that my visual acuity has worsened. What's the point of sacrificing health for work/money? If I go blind, what's the point of all the money? Haiz.. Seriously fuck la. I am not blaming my new job or hating it. I just hate my life. While emo-ing about this, my Catholic quotes calendar happens to remind me 1 Timothy 6:10 : For the love of money is the root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced their hearts with many pangs. How true :(

What a busy Saturday...

I was pissed with Fedex. During failed delivery attempt 2 days ago, I spoke to the delivery man he said he could help me with arrangement of the re-delivery on Saturday morning between 9am-12pm. He did not leave any missed delivery notice and when I called Fedex yesterday evening, the customer service person said nothing was reflected in the system. Then he said the delivery timing for Saturday is 11am-3pm or 2pm-6pm. Cham liao. I already promised a meet up with carousell seller for the phone case of my Huawei Nova 3i and now everything was messed up.

I woke up at 5am this morning and after playing game for awhile, I went to sleep again until 830am as I wanted to call Fedex again to ask the status for my re-delivery. During this short sleep, I had a good dream about my grandma. It was a happy dream but it made me cry. I think I still miss my grandma. Basically in the dream, I was having a meal with my dad and my grandma. My dad bought fried chicken for my grandma and chicken strips for me because I am lazy to eat things with bones. Surprisingly my grandma said she would like to eat the chicken strips inside. Haha.. My grandma is in her younger years in the dream as I recall vividly her still black hair and full set of teeth. I pray and I believe that my grandma is happy in heaven now.

I received an SMS from Fedex delivery man about my item and thank goodness he replied me back when I asked about approximate time that he would arrive. Item was delivered about 10am and that meant I was able to go to the gym for the 12pm session.

After gym, I went to Plaza Singapura for the meet up and I stupidly tempt myself at the toy shops there. I saw the rare Olszewki Disney Gallery of Light Magic Carpet Ride figurine at Movie Replicas. There was Bambi too. I asked about Aladdin and the guy only showed me Bambi ($160) and said Aladdin should be the same price. I did my homework online. Bambi is available in eBay for about 130-140USD including international shipping but noone is selling Aladdin. Past price showed up to 300USD for Aladdin. Looks like I will have to buy it.

So while googling, I ended up finding ArtFX+ Newt Scamander and ArtFX J Ash and Eiji from Banana Fish from Amazon JP. In total, they were $100 cheaper compared to if I were to preorder from local shop. Wow.. I was also hunting for ArtFX J of Kaito Kid and Conan which are just earlier this week. I did not pre-order a lot of things because I was running out of storage space but after tidying up my things last week, I realised that I still had some space and that's why I ended up splurging again. Oh well.. At least it urges me to dust my figurine display cabinets now. I have been procrastinating about it since before I went to Japan in September and the dust is visually making my fingers itchy to clean already.

IT madness

National Steps Challenge season 4 will begin on 27 October and it seems that HPB never learn to improve itself. I went for the new tracker collection at Jurong few weeks ago and although the closing time was at 7pm, when I reached there around 630pm  the queue was already closed due to overwhelming responses. It is so stupid because HPB should know how many people already join and complete the previous seasons and yet they restrict the places for these people to collect the new tracker while opening more places for first timers. In addition, HPB adds a MVPA category (moderate to vigorous physical activity) component by tracking heart rate and only the new tracker is capable to support this. Obviously everyone is forced to collect and we are not simply there just to collect free stuff. Anyway it is smart for them to add a new category since the steps tracking category is prone to abuse like shaking, strapping it on pets, putting it on fans etc. Now people really cannot cheat heart rates eh?

Luckily I did not chiong to queue on the first weekend because after that, the collection method through post office was made available and I collected mine from the post office. Unfortunately the problem does not end there as the new tracker was undetected by my phone. I went to one of the shops for troubleshooting and it was a waste of time. The person at the shop was also a noob and did not do troubleshooting as she claimed "we are here only to settle exchanges". Well the thing to be exchanged also not detected so no point for me to exchange.

Emailing the customer support was also a waste of time as they only gave guidelines. I had no choice but to waste more time to go to HPB. The people were also noob as they were only following the guidelines I already followed. In the end, they conveniently blamed my Android to be "too old" while it is still perfectly within the minimum requirement of the app. Pfft...

With that, I have no choice but to start using my iPad. Yup.. it has been a month since I bought it and I have not even opened the packaging. Lol. I think all the tax free and 5% savings by buying it in Japan is spent for the screen protector and the protective case already which are given free if I buy directly here. I will definitely need to learn and adapt to use iPad as I have been on Android all these while.

My Samsung E7 is near to its end of life and I have to start looking for replacement. I am due for recontract in January but I am glad I did my research early. Now there is SIM-only plan that it is no longer worth it to buy the phone bundle plan. In total, the phone bundle plan will only save about $100-$150 but I will be "tied" to the contract for 21 months at least. Bleah.. not worth it.. I made up my mind to change to SIM-only plan so I can get a replacement phone now and I decided on Huawei Nova 3i.

I bought it on Tuesday from Best Denki for $378 (after $20 discount) and there were some freebies such as memory card, power bank, cable, and stand. I am not sure how long this will stay in the box as I have to find a screen protector and case first before using. Lol. I consider myself lucky because I was told that I bought the second last set that the store had.

Only available in black or purple so I choose the colourful over the boring one. Lol.

When I switch to this phone, my prepaid card which is currently in my Galaxy Note (the first gen) can finally move to my current Samsung E7. I already prepared myself with the new nano SIM which cost $37.45. After checking with M1, it reaffirms that I made the correct decision to get SIM only plan next time because the $40/month phone bundle plan will not be eligible for corporate discount. Wow... The SIM only plan will not be eligible too but that simply means the calculation that I did is correct that it is not worth it to the get the phone bundle plan.

I started to play Pokemon Go enthusiastically again. I think partly because the amount of walking with my new workplace that hatching eggs are do-able. Haha.. I am surprised that despite being desk bound, I still can hit 10000 steps everyday leh. Wahaahaha.. Nice nice.. There is no need to be worried about the steps challenge now. I also raid at Bishan if there is ongoing raid on my way home and finally I am able to complete the Mew quest. Lol. My luck has been pretty good in the game as I caught Mewtwo and that is the very first legendary that I successfully catch from raid. Although the Community Day ended early today because some errors, I miraculously caught 8 shiny Beldums in 1.5 hours. That is really amazing. I hope my luck will continue in this game or I will quit again. Lol.

Oh ya, the teaser trailer for Aladdin Live Action was out last week. It is a bit what the eff as it was just a CGI galore and only at the end of the trailer that the Aladdin appears. Although I am a fan, I am somewhat disappointed sia. The guy looks to old to play Aladdin who is supposed to be 18 years old or something. Anyway the teaser trailer actually follows the original teaser for the original cartoon. Because the lack of anything in the teaser, most people are actually commenting about Disney being finger snapped by Thanos for the sand being wind blown effect. One thing I have to say great from the trailer is the music.

I will still be supporting the movie as it may mean more Aladdin merchandises coming up (ouch my poor wallet!). I think it will mean more competition for Aladdin characters at Disneyland though I hope this will make Tokyo Disneysea think about having Aladdin and friends as regular photo characters at the Arabian Coast instead of merely as roaming characters!

Yesterday was my volunteering and that was my first time back in dispensary after changing job. I think I have not lost my touch. Haha.. Throw me to any dispensary and the black face and the chiongster spirit will somehow come back.

Shopping spree again

I applied for Bank of China Elite World Mastercard in preparation for my trip in September. It is so stupid that the card only arrived after my holiday ended. It took almost 2 months for approval so it is not a good first impression of the bank that already has a lot of negative perception from people. With the bonus miles promotion ending in the end of the year, I have 3 more months to maximise the miles. That is not a good thing because I have no more travel plans so the foreign spending basically means shopping.

The first item that has my attention is Age of Ultron diorama by Royal Selangor. Remember the statue shown for ending credits of the movie? I always want a figure of that and this diorama is basically the first figurine based on that statue. I have no idea I end up at Royal Selangor website for this item so maybe I am just fated to spend. Lol.

$2800 for this beauty

I know Royal Selangor has series of Batman and Star Wars figurines but I never know they have Marvel. They even have 1/1 scale of Iron Man on display at Suntec City. Good thing I am not a fan of Iron Man. I spent the past few weekends checking out all Royal Selangor outlets in Singapore to see the physical item before deciding to buy. Apparently only MBS has it on display and each of the character is actually quite small so I am still undecided.

I contacted Royal Selangor online and they allow payment by foreign currency if I want. Currently MBS and Suntec City is having a promotion until tomorrow spend above $400 and get 3 mini figurines ($55 each). So I am calculating whether it is more worth to get the bonus miles for foreign currency or to get this mini figurines. However likely I will wait until December in hope of Christmas promotion or something.

When I checked out Royal Selangor at Takashimaya, I opened more cans of worms. Swarovski has this amazing Mickey Mouse and friends figurines to celebrate Mickey's 90th anniversary for $25500. Wow!! As wonderful the figurines are, this is something out of my reach. Perhaps it will be apt for my 10-year-plan to get whatever limited edition figurines they have for Mickey's 100th anniversary.

I think original price is USD 17000

It is also my first time coming across to the brand Lladro which also produces Disney porcelain figurines. Thank goodness I am not a fan of Mulan or Snow White as their faces look so pretty. If Lladro ever produces Aladdin and Jasmine figurines, I will definitely buy. The one that has my interest this time is Peter Pan figurine. The retail price is $910 and when I searched eBay, I find one for USD 375 with USD 32 shipping. It is a no brainer not to buy. Haha.. While eBay-ing, I find another Peter Pan figurine by Lladro but it seems that the best price that the sellers are willing to give me is USD 190 so I shall KIV this first since I am getting the other one.

The only problem I have with this is the closed eyes

I also managed to find Final Fantasy Dissidia Ultimate Collector's Edition being sold at original retail price. I managed to bargain to USD 120 so I am very happy that I did not succumb when the game was released earlier this year when sellers were jacking up the prices. The box is not as big as what I imagined so I am thinking of trying to sell this at carousell while there are still eBay sellers selling at original retail price.

It is a crazy waste of money but I think I shall excuse myself of splurging to commemorate my new beginning at a new job. Hahaha...

Adapting well

I am adapting pretty well with my new job and life is definitely better with responsibility and stress level commensurate with pay. Regular working hours and travelling by MRT allow me to have regular schedule throughout the day. Gone are the days where remembering roster time and setting alarm clock change everyday.

I also enjoy the "own time own target nature" of office job. On some days I can go home earlier when I already complete my work. If I come late, I can just stay a bit longer to compensate and a bit of plus minus for lunch time is also okay. Thank God for allowing me to experience an office job kind of life. Lol.

I never understood what is so great about dressing down on Fridays. Now that I have experienced it, I can testify that it makes a huge difference. It makes Fridays more enjoyable and I woke up feeling happy. I only started this Friday because 2 of my working pants got holes so I had to "save" my working pants for next week.  Bleah.. I decided to buy 3 sets of working pants from G2000. Maybe this is a sign that I am getting fatter from the sedentary office work.

Nothing is perfect so what are the stresses with the current job? Mostly they are minor things like competing with lunch crowd, expensive food (double or triple the amount I paid in my previous job), keeping myself awake at work, and my eyes. Sigh.. perhaps the last one is a serious thing. Anyway I spoke to my boss about it and she also said that I should be taking frequent breaks for my eyes. I am trying to look at the bright side of the expensive food as it forces me to go back to my L-men for dinner. I really need to lose weight as I am inching closer to 70kg and it is scary!

There have been some hiccups as well. I think my boss can be cold and moody at times. Well I always tell myself that it is normal to have sucky boss so I should not be complaining at times. What irks me the most is the inadequate training. I was just thrown the SOP and when I asked questions, I was told to refer to SOP. However, the SOP is badly written that I need clarification. When I try to clarify, the answers really reinforce my point that SOP is bad. Some parts are inaccurate and when I just follow, things are not actually being done according to the SOP. What the heck.. Nonetheless, I am not going to be quick to judge if I dislike this job or I dislike my boss. After all, it is only 3 weeks. For most part of the days, things have been more on the good and happy side.

The next few months look great for movies. I was just talking about Fantastic Beast and the Crimes of Grindelwald with my friends few days ago and the final trailer was out a few hours later. The final trailer reveals Nagini as a human character and action shots look promising. Can't wait for 15 November. Wreck-it-Ralph 2 is scheduled to be out a week after that and these 2 movies are sure watch for me. Bohemian Rhapsody looks promising (because who does not like Queen's songs!) but perhaps I will wait for reviews first since a movie based on a real life of a huge persona may potentially be damn good or damn bad. Meanwhile for December, I am still on the fence about The Nutcracker and the Four Realms and Mary Poppins Returns while I will give Aquaman a miss just like how I skip Venom. Wow.. Disney sure has so many movies lined up.

Hataraku Saibou

Hataraku Saibou (or Cells at Work) perhaps is the most unique anime this summer that transcends the interest of normal anime fans as my friends at work were the ones who introduced to me. As people working in healthcare, we all studied biology before and Hataraku Saibou is basically biology as an anime.

I cannot remember much beyond the basic functions of red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets so I cannot really comment on the accuracy of the biology presented here. That is actually a good thing because it allows me to simply enjoy the anime as an anime, instead of looking out for factual accuracy.

Hataraku Saibou tells a story of anthropomorphised blood cells in a human body fighting various diseases in typical over-the-top anime ways. I enjoy the anime and find it hilarious as I view it as a fun 'biology in animation'. However, there are still serious moments when the narrator introduced new characters and their physiological functions or the disease conditions. This keeps the biology portion somewhat grounded.

Putting biology knowledge aside and watching this just as an anime, the series gets repetitive with each episode following the same formula albeit with new or different characters involvement depending on the featured diseases. There are attempts to break away from this formula with few episodes on the characters' past when they are younger and in training. These are done pretty well with reference to the actual physiological process of blood cells differentiation.

The characters tend to be one dimensional as like the actual cells, each cell is highly specialised with own functions and fits into a particular mold (no pun intended so I am not referring to fungi here lol). This is a double edged sword as it works well for the comedy through over-dramatisation of their characteristics but it makes little possibility of character development through the episodes.

I hardly follow in-season anime as I hate to wait a week for the next episode. Hataraku Saibou is interesting and special enough to make me following it weekly. I also think it is worth repeated watching for the biology part. I learnt and got reminded of few things here and there while watching this. It is unfortunate that the final episode does not leave a nice wrap up and feels anticlimactic. The penultimate episode sets up the severity of hemorrhagic shock really well as a possible doomsday scenario but the resolution with the blood transfusion is just eww... They do it so much better with the IV fluid during the heat stroke episode.

Thumbs up to the creators of the series as it takes great creativity to make boring topic of blood cells into a fun anime. Leave it to the Japanese and they can even add in touching moments. The episode on cancer cells is really mind-blowing. We associate cancer as a bad disease although in reality there are always cancer cells in the body. Watching these mutated cells have to be killed in an anime creates such a furore while in reality we all want that to happen with our bodies.

There is a spin-off manga called Hataraku Saibou Black which takes place in an unhealthy body. Hmm the word unhealthy is controversial here because even in the original one, the body keeps falling sick. Lol. A body in poor health (imagine chronic diseases) is more appropriate to describe the Black. I read the English translation and wow.. it really gives a completely different vibe.

After watching Hataraku Saibou and reading Hataraku Saibou Black, I feel more conscious about my health as it is quite poor thing for the cells inside me if I don't take a good care of my health. I am also pretty sure this series will inspire some kids who watch this to become medical professionals in the future. Who says anime cannot be a positive influence?

Anyway with the knowledge of the blood cells in reality, there are 2 things that bother me. First is how these blood cells and bacteria are depicted to bleed. Second but the most important is about the physiological age of these blood cells in the body, how will the mangaka approach this? Lol.

Socially drained

I am naturally an introvert and a shy person so I feel extremely drained with all the mingling with strangers this week. It takes a mental work to think of conversation topics with strangers. Firstly there is the new work environment. Then on Thursday, I went to PSS Industry Chapter social night. I will normally avoid this kind of thing but I promised my friend to support the event. I decided to give him face since he helped to introduce me to my new job. Wew.. I think I will not make it big in the corporate world since I really do not like approaching strangers and start conversations. Plus I don't drink alcohols although suprisingly some people think I was already drunk because I kept laughing. 

The third one was yesterday when my ex-colleagues invited me to their church event. I usually will avoid attending Protestant Church since I already go to Catholic Church but since one colleague offered to pick me up, it was hard to refuse. While I knew my colleagues, there was dinner after the event and when my colleagues spoke to their church friends, I was being introduced and I had to make friends also. I have to applaud the community spirit in a Protestant Church and it is no surprise that people are more close knitted. It is something that Catholics should learn from although ultimately for me, it is not something to tempt me to change church. After all relationship with God comes first and I believe that is the reason why I am "called" to Catholic Church in the first place.

It has been a tiring week and I did not even have the time to play game after work this week. With the unfamiliarity of new work, I have to be attentive and cautious with everything I do and this is really working my brain. I suppose it is true that when you are familiar with something, you just go auto-pilot without much thinking and that is perhaps why I was not as tired in my previous job. Another good reason will be managing red numbers and settling childish workers clearly do not require that much brain power. It is all about black face and creating scary atmosphere back then. Lol.

New job

I am a loyal person and it has never been my aim to job hop. It is sad that things come to how they are right now and finally I am moving on to my next job. I concussed after the first day yesterday so I only managed to blog today.

I felt a mix of excitement and worry but overall I was looking forward to the job. The worrying bit is because I have to start and learn from scratch all over again. I did not really have experience with that since for my first job, I had my training when I was still undergoing pre-reg training so it was really under a learning/training environment.

So yesterday my friend offered to meet me at Labrador Park MRT to walk to office. There was a last minute change so he ended up driving. He picked me up and sent me home so I only managed to explore the area today. From Labrador Park MRT, it is about 15 minutes walk to Alexandra Technopark. It is not bad but when it is sunny, it is quite jialat. Alternatively there are 2 buses (93 or 155) that I can take if I do not want to take MRT but I think I have to spare 1.5-2 hours for that so perhaps I shall explore some other days.

So after all orientation, there was a welcome lunch for me. Whee... 2 hours lunch and paid by the company. Something that never and will never happen in the previous company. During the interview, I came to know that my team would consist of about 16 people but it turned out that only 4 are based in Singapore and the rest is in the Phillipines. So essentially I am working in quite a small team here and my dream of making Japanese friends for travel advice will just be a dream.

I feel like now I am back in my pharmacy year 2 times busy mugging biostatistics. What I could not understand and remember back then, I still cannot understand now. Haha.. Oh well. Clearly the B+ means no shit.

Japan Trip Day 7: Last day

Previously my habit is to pick morning/afternoon flight back so there is nothing to be done on the last day except for going to the airport. This time in order to maximise the trip, I chose a 5pm flight. Things did not work out as expected as the Airport Limousine bus from the hotel to the airport was not as frequent as expected. Yup, that is what happens when pre-trip research was not done properly in a correct sequence. I chose the 1210pm bus since the bus journey might take 2 hours+ if there was traffic jam.

My plan for the day was to quickly to go to Diver City to take a picture with Gundam. The photo deck opens at 11am so after taking the photo, I need to quickly go back to hotel. With the shops open from 10am, I get to walk around for an hour. I went for breakfast at 830am and hence I still managed to try the tuna/spicy tuna don that I did not get yesterday. Otherwise the food was the same as yesterday although sadly the takuan (yellow raddish) was absent and they switched the potato tater tots with wedges. I would like to take a second serving of the tuna don but because of the rice (and the other things that I ate), my stomach did not have more space.

After that I checked out, put the luggage at the lobby, and went to Diver City. I bought the Gundam TWC international version and while waiting for 11am, I decided to get the hojicha ice cream from Nana’s Green Tea although I was still full. I have been craving for it since the first day arriving here. Hehe.. I passed by the souvenir shop and saw Tokyo Banana Kit Kat. How could I forget about that!! My luggage was already quite full but I was sure I still could squeeze another 5 boxes of the Kit Kat. After I made payment, I saw the Conan acrylic stands in the same shop. No discount here but at least I could get the Sera that I missed out yesterday as well as Ran. To make up for 5400 JPY to get the tax-free, I also bought Heiji and Akai although they are not from the beach series.

I waited until 1110am and sadly the photo deck was still not open T_T Looks like I had no luck and I could not wait any longer. I had to make my way back to the hotel already. I planned to take a purikura at hotel lobby since it has Disney theme and I already had 500 yen coins prepared. Urrgh.. There was this lady hogging the machine and after that there were people near the machine so I got a bit self-conscious to enter the purikura machine by myself.

The Japanese is known for the timeliness so it was another surprise when the Airport Limousine bus came 20 minutes late. I had plenty of buffer time so I was not worried. The journey to Narita was smooth without traffic jam so I reached just before 2pm and I had time to explore the shopping mall at the airport. Since I did not get the purikura at the hotel, I used my coins for a Narita Airport souvenir medallion and 2 tries of Conan pouch gashapons. I got Conan and Heiji’s design. Thank goodness no duplicate and I did not get the criminal’s design. I felt like a pig during lunch with my ebi furai, vegetable kakiage, and pumpkin tempura to accompany my beef udon while the locals who were eating there did not have so many side dishes to go along.

It was a miracle that I did not buy any more tidbits from the duty shops inside the terminal. I was so tempted with the Potato Farm and despite going in and out so many shops, in the end I convinced myself that I should avoid more tidbits, especially the potato chips kind, if I really want to have my diet start again after this trip.

Good luck did not repeat itself so the flight back was not using Star Wars plane. The journey back was not comfortable as the cabin temperature was warm. It was not only me as other people were also fanning themselves. The snack was quite bad (a dry and hard to swallow bread) although the dinner was quite filling for an airplane meal.

I also chose wrong in-flight entertainment with a My friend “A” which is quite heavy and dark. The next movie My Little Monster (Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun) was better as it fits the high school comedy genre that I like. With those I had no more time for Avengers: Infinity War.

And basically that wraps up my solo trip. I am honestly very proud of myself and very amazed with my achievement. Last year I was damn scared having to spend the first day alone at Osaka and one year later I survived 1 whole week alone at Japan. It feels so refreshing to go on a holiday with nothing to worry about work issues and piling backlogs. Usually I dread the end of holiday as it means returning to the shit hole. I do not feel as dreadful this time as I feel quite excited to experience a new job this Monday.

I am really thankful to God for all the blessings for this holiday. I 'anyhow' chose my hotels simply based on the prices and both hotels turned out to be very accessible and I would say the best options in terms of location among the Disney Partner and Good Neighbor hotels. I had fun during Samurai photo shooting experience (although I can't help my ugly and fat face in the end products) and I am really happy with the good luck at Disneysea and with the Star Wars flight. Looking back, it was quite crazy to take 1 week overseas holiday literally for Disney as I spent the first 2 days going around Disney Stores and then the next 3 days at Tokyo Disney Resort out of a total of 6 days. Haha.. It may not be a perfect holiday but it is a holiday I will not forget. YOLO and I survived a SOLO trip yo ^o^

Time to settle my laundry and sleep soon. Past 3am liao..

Japan Trip Day 6: Shinjuku, Nakano, Akibahabara

I only had about 4 hours of sleep last night since I slept at 3am yesterday. Although the shops usually open at 10-11am, I woke up earlier because for the last 2 days, I decided to give a try having breakfast at the hotel. I came down at 9am and there was a long queue for the breakfast. The breakfast had pretty good spread with mixtures of western, Japanese, and Korean food. Though the breakfast time ends at 10am, it was considered late when I came down as some food already ran out. The one to be missed was the DIY donburi with spicy tuna and spicy salmon. I still had a hearty breakfast with my favorites being the totter tots and bacons.

It took me about 1 hour to be satisfied with breakfast and timing was just nice when I reached Shinjuku to get my iPad. The shop was still quite empty but unfortunately the staff really could not speak English. My Japanese was quite rusty and I read the katakana for “gold” as “black” instead so I was asking if there was a black iPad. There is no black iPad haha. That is what happens when non-fanboy tries to buy. I gave the AppleCare a pass since I could not communicate with the staff.

Since it was early, I also explored to find Don Quijote at Shinjuku and that brought me to see the Godzilla at Shinjuku for the first time. It looked quite amazing but was dwarved by the surrounding high-rise buildings. The Don Quijote here was so small and the alleys in between the shelves were so narrow for 2 people to walk pass each other. I can’t understand why people love coming to here so much. I bought some Kit Kat and mochis and I made the best decision of the day: to return to the hotel to drop off them and iPad first before continuing with the shopping for the rest of the day.

Next destination was Nakano Broadway and I was surprised that I competed the place in 2 hours. I guessed I came too often that there were not that many new things to see. I bought nothing from Mandarake and honestly I sort of rushed through the artbook sections because I don’t think I have enough luggage space and I still have yet to see if I will get any figurines at Akihabara. Unfortunately, the Pocahontas porcelain figure that I saw in June was already sold. Bleah.. should have just bought it then.

The loots from Nakano Broadway today were Aladdin figurines. There was one Aladdin figurine from Tokyo Disneysea 15th Anniversary which still came in box. The original price tag is still at the box (4800JPY) but I only paid 3000JPY for this. Hehe. I think it is quite sad that nowadays they seldom have Aladdin merchandises.

The best picture of the figure that I can find online

I decided to get a set of Aladdin-Jasmine-Genie porcelain figurines for 5800JPY. They were without boxes and there were some chips here and there. I was not even sure where they originated but I think at the bottom of one of them there was still a Tokyo Disneyland (or sea) label so they might be official items from the past. I was pretty undecided and after going one round, I made up my mind to buy them rather than regretting not buying like the Pocahontas figurine.

Wow surprisingly I can find an image of the set online

Once done, it was time for lunch but the tendon restaurant that I was eyeing earlier was closed after 2pm T_T I was hungry so I could not wait and decided to eat at a café at level 1. My Japanese really cannot make it. I could answer the first question (that I was eating alone) but I did not get the second question if I would like a smoking or non-smoking area.

With that, it was finally the last destination for this holiday: Akihabara. I only discovered now that there is a direct station gantry to Atre1 so that is kinda cool. I went to Radio Kaikan first before checking out Animate, Surugaya (the one near Animate), Mandarake, and Akiba Culture Zones (where Lashinbang is). I somehow could not locate Kotobukiya store and I forwent about it since I was running out of time.

I actually did not find things that I really wanted to buy. Yet I did not want to waste my luggage space by returning back empty. So it was a bit of impulse shopping to buy whatever decent looking enough and I like. I was even thinking of getting Heiji nesoberi but decided that ultimately I prefer figurines to plushies.

I returned to Surugaya and ended up buying I never planned to get. Well some of the things I actually never saw or knew their existence before. Lol. I found this cute Gundam SEED Picture Studio series that I never saw before. I suppose it should be a series of figurines but there were only Kira as 3 Little Pigs (2400JPY) and Yzak as Emperor New Clothes (1700JPY). I think they are not cheap but oh wells. I also bought Prince of Tennis One Coin Grande set for 2800JPY. It is much cheaper than the original price but I would not even think of buying it under normal circumstances since I don't really like this kind of chibi style figurines.

Gundam SEED Picture Studio series that I bought

Prince of Tennis One Coin Grande

The one that made me happy is Haruichi Kominato Palmate figurine for 926JPY. After all I already own Eijun and Ryosuke. His price is weird because he was considered "junk" lol and hence the price was already without tax. Something new learnt today: those yellow tags in Surugaya are those considered "junk" items. I also bought Mikoshiba figurine for 1000JPY although I already owned this figure. He is actually the prize figurine when ordering the Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun volume 6 and I actually already bought the manga when it was released. Told ya that I was just chionging to race against time.

I was glad that I already went to Don Quijote this morning and did not go to the one at Akihabara or else I would already miss returning to Radio Kaikan because unexpectedly the whole mall closed at 8pm. Wew.. The drizzle sort of helped as it made me decided to quickly call it a day and I returned to Radio Kaikan. Lucky they still allowed me to enter at 755pm and quickly chionged at Amiami. I was really kancheong as I forgot where Pupu plushie (2288 JPY) was placed so lucky I managed to find it. I don't like to collect acrylic stands but in order to hit the 5000 JPY for tax-free purchase, I just quickly grabbed the acrylic stands of Amuro and Sera (1528 JPY). Basically the main characters were already sold out and only Amuro, Sera, and Sonoko were left. To my horror, I actually grabbed Sonoko instead of Sera -_-" That was what happened when shopping in a hurry with a tired body and a tired mind.

I was so emo that I did not manage to visit another store to get Shuichi Akai figurine since after checking various shops, the cheapest was in one of the stores here. Cannot be I have to rush tomorrow morning to Akihabara just to get this and forgo my photo with Gundam. Before going home, I decided to just check out the Surugaya store near this Radio Kaikan blog and thank God, I saw the Shuichi Akai figurine here for 1500 JPY. That is about 300 JPY cheaper than what I thought was the cheapest. If only this was available at the other Surugaya store earlier, I would avoid all the emotional roller coaster and I would avoid the tax as well.

The drizzle was getting heavier and it was really time to say goodbye. Sigh.. sad.. that really marks the end of my solo trip. I bought oden again for dinner and as previously, I always end up overeating for the last evening of the holiday. Other than the oden, I also bought chicken cutlet (the snack kind), chicken karaage, and my diet tea.

Time to do packing now and from now on, I think I will always choose ANA over SQ. The allowance to have 2 pieces of check-in luggage (ANA) is so much better than 1 piece of 35kg (SQ). Usually I am quite particular about the boxes of my figurines but for now my hand carry is already full with iPad and the fragile figurines. So hopefully those I put in the check-in luggage will not be crushed too badly. And surprise surprise.. I do not buy any anime book this time.