Sunday, April 27, 2008

i went to ooyama today but i didn't take any pictures. still, i feel like blogging about it because i seemed to have found something awesome.
first up, there's TONS of wet market/supermarket around. but i still feel that 100yen shop is cheaper so whenever i go to those shops my eyes will zoom for those below 100yen. and i managed to buy canned food at 100yen (still cheaper by 4-5yen lol), and salad leaves for 58yen.
then there's this 105yen shop which sells pots, pans, bottles, etc!! sugoi! i managed to buy my frying pan here... which really works! yay! now i can fry stuff. feels like i'm unlocking some abilities here.
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then i saw a 10yen cd shop. YES 10yen only. but it's mostly singles. i searched for the most familiar title and bought the mai hime one. there's 3 songs inside. oh well. i saw glay and koda kumi, but i just bought the one with the nicest cd cover. haha.
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and then there's diy shops selling buttons, yarns, threads, diy (you know those japanese fabric kind of protection charms? about 1000yen though) stuff. i really really wanted to buy them but they are all so expensive. speaking of which, i met a lady here who thought that my scarf was cute. today i went out with a scarf on my head. i thought it was normal, but apparently when i went home today, the station uncle also thought the scarf was cute. and both of them even said the same things - '日本人似てる!' (you look like a japanese). hahaha interesting. i had a looong chat with the uncle till my train came.
will visit ooyama again! the yukatas are all so nice there. and i finally bought my toe socks for 210yen. next is my geta, yukata and bag!
i tried to do scramble eggs yesterday for breakfast!
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then this morning, i sort of mixed the egg, poured it over the bread and toasted them in the oven. made a mess but it still looks good. daeyoung annoyingly told me that it won't work cos the eggs would burn, or it won't taste good. but it turned out fine!
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and i bought my first snack in japan for 105yen.
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finished all of them while watching episodes 9-12 of paradise kiss. fat fat fat.
Blog Post #1 for Business Communication

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By tissue marketing, i am hereby referring to the usage of tissue package as a medium of advertisements. I am sure the locals are so used to the rampant handing out of tissue packages wherever they go that it might not occur to them as something bizarre to the foreigners. I, for one, may not have gone to many countries, so what I say may not be totally accurate. However, tissue marketing was not at all common back in our homeland. Rather, it was usually left to be sold by homeless people for $0.20/packet (or 15Yen) around busy areas as a form of income. Herein, I will talk about who such marketing techniques would work on and some thoughts on its development.
So who are these target consumers? From the pictures, you can see cafes, handphones, courses, etc being advertised. Of course it would try to target the locals. However, after speaking to some Japanese friends, they either think the tissues are boring (see lower right-hadn corner of the picture), troublesome or are just plain marketing gimmicks, and would seldom take the tissues from the distributors. To us (foreign students), we would gladly take them because tissues are something you might have to use everyday in different circumstances. Still, the advertisements are in Japanese, and if it does reach out to the foreigners instead, I am not sure if all of us would bother to read - or even able to read - what is written there, especially if the contents are text-loaded. Perhaps it would be better to just put pictures there (like in the lower left-hand corner of the attached picture), or just the company's name (see eyecity) for easy reading.
In addition, have also noticed odd sizes of the tissue packets (the large squarish ones), and how it is sometimes distributed together with another leaflet or poster (since we can't just take the tissue, we are forced to take both). Dustbins are not readily available everywhere, so I can understand why it would be a pain to take the leaflet/magazine and having to hold on to them till we reach home, and wait for a particular day to send the trash out. In Singapore, Singaporeans are happy to take the leaflets from the distributors, because we can always trash it in a bin just within 5metres of the distributor. Maybe that is why tissues aren't really needed to make people take the advertisement papers. And why selling tissues would remain an ideal income source for certain people.

Friday, April 25, 2008

hahah more of my cooking!
i'm eating this for lunch almost everyday now... cos cold soba is something that will remain cold and still taste good anyway.
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then i have no idea what is this. i think i will soon have a chain of lump-sum rojak rice. it's probably tuna, enoki, rice and topped with egg and nori.
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my last attempt at cooking fish. first try, i just sort of steamed it and the guts were horrible. then i removed the guts and marinated it with soy sauce, and cooked another time, but it was still bad. and finally, i removed the bones and sliced into half, and used cheese over it. cheese is a fantastic solution to everything! it's pretty ok now. but i don't think i'll buy the fish again (even though there's like 12 of the little fishies for a hundred yen). this rice is cooked with tomatoes and enoki. ooh tomatoes just taste so good with anything.
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bought this from the 99yen shop! simple and easy to make. just that i probably gave it a bad shape now...
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will wait some more till it's colder. maybe i'll have everyone try it heh. :D

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

OMG harutoki's cosplay!!! and gosh i just missed it.
at ikebukuro's sunshine plaza, in january!!! i'm SO SO SO SO MADDDDD.

some of them look like girls but the hachiyous are ALL GUYS. WOWWWW.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

though akihabara was a bit traumatizing for me at the end, i still managed to get some stuff!
my long sought-after valkyrie profile ost!! (¥2625) the figurines of lenneth are like about ¥6000-¥9000 (-_-`) so expensive...
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a crisis core guide book. (¥210)
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and some figurines. i bought tsuna only because he cost ¥50. haha. lelouch is ¥500 and squall is ¥350. hooray! i found the cheapest squall around! the rest were all like ¥500 - ¥700.
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lastly, nana stickers. i got the punk nana, thank goodness! lucky!
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went to akihabara today, and i finally understood why you should NEVER tell anyone that you are going there, especially to the locals. because they'll just think you're a hentai. and lots of hentai stuff there are in akihabara. i went into sooo many shops and at least 20% of their goods has figurines/cards with perverted images. it makes me soo sick and disgusted. i think i've seen too much, may grow needles in my eyes soon.
and frank seems to be having fun at torturing me at it. (-_-`)
aside from that, anyway at least they have lots of decent square enix stuff.
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and that sephiroth vs cloud figurine costs around $500 (SGD) yes. no kidding. it's really gorgeous though.
when we went back, rows of punk cos-ers and maids were still giving out tissues near the station.
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and next time, we'll definitely be here for the maid cafe.
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AHH YESSS i went to jackson's hole!! i'm so happy!!
it's the bar featured in nana!! WHEEEE!!!! and i ate the jackson's burger!!!
amazing what anime can do to a place. or to me.
but before i go on to that, me and frank were in shinjuku for a while.
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not sure why there are christmas trees, but there's a pretty skyscraper at the back.
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and we went to this apparel's shop for ladies and men at lumines. it has sooo many chandeliers and the lightings were very pretty.
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after that... we took the keio line (special express) and landed 2 stops away at choufu. had to navigate ourselves around since it was the first time both of us were there.
ooh! we should be on the right track!
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and then when we finally reached the place...
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omg. it moved. but thank god it was still around the area, just in the opposite direction. so we backtracked and waited for the train to pass. (moved from 29th march to 7th april)
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and going through strange streets...
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we're here!!
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me at jackson's!
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this is what you see when you enter the place.
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as the counter was full, we were directed to the second floor... and underneath the staircase...
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nana treasures!
here's some view of the second floor.
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a cozy cubicle!
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and a harley davidson!
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and time for the food.
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complimentary starters (i think)
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beer and cocktail
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raw chicken with onions for appetizer!
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and my chicken burger!
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oh man i can't believe i forgot to take the jackson's burger but hopefully you can see it from here. jackson's burger is a beef-based cheese burger. delicious!!!!!! hmmm mmmmm~
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and how can we not take a photo with the man who is an exact replica of kosuke in nana?
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then after we left, we saw this funny looking statue.
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and we stoppped by shinjuku again.
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yes, to the red light district.
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WAHAHAH male geishas!!
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aren't they just too cute to be true? their hair is awesome. 在り得ない!
and japan phone decors.
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also saw a lot of yakuzas along the way. but think we'll get beaten up if we take their photos.
and we managed to take the puripuras! only 400yen! yippee!!
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these was sent to our phones.
and then it was time to go home. i think i must have been too tired, because i stopped at asaka. luckily there was another (and the last train too) train to take me back to asakadai. almost got scolding from the dorm jiji. but i made it at 12am!