Very Weekling

It has been 10 days since my last post.  I am calling Japan Blog 2.0 quits.  I am just too busy nowadays I think.  And I think it will be this way until the end of my 3-years here in Japan.  I've been here just 4.5 months so far.

But this don't mean I ain't posting nothing no more.  I'll still be here.  Just not regularly anymore.  Certainly not daily, but no, I can't promise weekly posts.  My intention also is to post more photos.  Or do a videoblog.  But I can't promise anything.

And, as you can see, I've been blogging on practically a daily basis for my 1st 4 months here.  That is a world record.  4 straight months of daily updates!

Unfortunately, like for most part-time bloggers, and now, the end is near, for daily blogging.  I do not have anything in mind yet for Japan Blog 3.0.  But I do know that I plan to gather together all my Japan posts into this one blog, which means my posts for my Japan Blog 1.0 (from 2005) will also be found here in the near future.

Anyways, just to let you know, I finished two papers the past week.  I had been delaying it because I thought it would be easy enough - supposedly I have the materials to write them.  But, no, it wasn't easy.  I was just too busy last Thursday and Friday, and then Saturday - Microsoft Word crashed on me!  Well I was doing structural analysis and other stuff in the background so that might have added to it.  What happened though was that I was already 90% finished on my first paper and boom, I went back down to probably 70% finished.  I just thought, 70% is better than 0%.  Thank you (or not) for those Auto-Recovery functions of Word.  Anyways, I was so on a roll those two days, but when that happened, I just went blank.  I just didn't wanna do it anymore.  I spent just two hours or less on it during the weekend.

But that is so also because we went to this eat-all-you-can/tabehodai place called "Carnival Buffet."  Western food?  Nope.  It's "Western."  (Emphasis on the quotation marks.)  It is actually Japanese-style Western food.  There's a salad bar, a drinks bar, your choice of ramen, udon, or soba noodles.  There are 4 kinds of pizza - two are more like Indian-style pizza.  There is curry.  Japanese love curry.  There was roast beef for a little while.  There are these small hamburgers that you heat on a teppanyaki grill yourself.  And hotcake mix for making hotcakes for yourself.  There was fried chicken and sausages, and pizza - did I already say there was pizza?  I ate mostly the fried chicken, the sausages, and the pizza.  I have been craving for real pizza.  Or the taste of cheese.  It was good enough.  The fried chicken tastes a lot better (more Western-tasting maybe?) than the fried chicken at the cafeterias here in school.  Then there was a salad bar where I had me a medley of fruits and an ice cream.  Then "ka-ching!"  I thought, I could have a float as well. So I made a Coke (Zero) Float.  Yum.  I was already "wa chun la" (200% full) just before eating dessert.  I was "wa chuns la" (so full, I'm almost like dead) after the float.  It was a good ending to a 1500 yen meal.

And then we rode our bikes back home.  It was quite a long ride, and then I checked using Google Maps how long our trip was.  It was 6.4 km each way!  By the time we got back to the apartment, we were back to "wa pao la" (100% full) again.

Anyways, it was probably that long bicycle ride, maybe 40 minutes each way, that got to me.  I was so dead tired on Sunday.  It was a no-day.  I was just at home.  But I did find the need to go the grocery store.  But I just can't ride the bike again.  No sir, not yet.  So I took the bus.  And then, lo and behold.  The supermarket was probably nearly half empty of groceries!  I saw two of my fellow students and they confirmed, we should just come back another day.  Anyways, I did go back the next day, and it was still probably close to half empty.  But there were a number of employees putting some stocks back on the racks.  It is so weird.  I noticed then that apparently the furniture outlet store right beside it is closed.  Is something going on?  I really don't know.  I wasn't able to find some of the stuff I needed so I went to the nearby grocery store #2, "Coop."  It was my first time ever to visit a Coop grocery store.  My friend told me about it already but I forgot - you have to pay a hefty amount for plastic bags.  Anyways, it was a good thing I had extra plastic bags.

On Wednesday night, I feasted on sweet, sweet Tacos.  12 of them. :-D  And then just today, I finalized probably 3 dishes: tokwa't baboy, postek, and sinuglaw.  It was my first time ever to prepare tokwa't baboy - not a problem actually.  But it was my first time ever to prepare kinilaw na tuna.  I wondered how come my kinilaw at first didn't look at all like the ones I order from most restaurants.  I think, based on what I read, that kinilaw actually has coconut milk or something.  Anyways, I bought so much pork, I converted the kinilaw into sinuglaw, a mix of sinugba and kinilaw.  Sinugba of course is Bisaya for inihaw.  For the tokwa, I used Japanese tofu, of course. :-)

Wait, Ronjie, you bought so much pork??????  Yes, I bought them last Sunday but because I felt so tired that day, I was able to cook them all only now.  It's not that I eat pork only.  The last couple of days, I've been eating beef.  I had tapsilog the last two days, and Tacos (ground beef) last night.  My tapsilog looked better than ever.  It is because this time I was able to buy a cut of beef that was more appropriate for tapa.  It tasted great as well.  Recipe was from my mom.  I didn't use patis though.

Last Sunday, my engineering mentor, Doc Benny, arrived here in Tokyo for a 3-day conference and so we met up Tuesday night, together with my former thesis adviser, Prof Fer.  We went to the Imperial Palace and the Asakusa area.  I didn't realize that the walk to the Imperial Palace was that long.  Actually, we did a lot of walking, even just for getting to/from the train stations and transferring between stations.  Anyway, the Palace grounds was just so huge a place.  Sunset actually caught us there.

When we got to Asakusa, most shops were closed.  The good thing was, there were very few people.  I didn't think the Sensoji Temple would look so much better in the evening.  And then, we had dinner at this ramen and gyoza resto wherein they serve...  just one kind of ramen, and gyoza!  Their specialty, apparently.  Not the greatest, but pretty good.  Not so salty ramen.  They had beer and Japanese sake (or rice wine; beer is also sake, actually because sake literally translates to alcoholic beverage.) as well; we had a cup each of sake.  Pretty strong.  And overall, a pretty good dinner: the ambience, the company, the food.  It was a fun evening and it was nice to meet up with fellow Filipinos and chat in Tagalog.  Doc Benny, who probably spent 6 or more years here in Japan for his PhD and associate professorship back in the 80s, still had very good Nihongo.  But he wisely chose when to use it and when not.

So, well, that's it.  Back to the books.  Stay tuned for updates here and there.  God bless, everyone!

One Day till Mt Fuji???

I woke up really late today because I stayed really late last night at the office, to finish as much as I can before TPU closes tomorrow!  And today, we'll be doing some shopping for gear and necessities for our Mt Fuji climb.  Supposedly I should be at the office already by 10:30am to help Kim-san move to his new desk - because he's graduating already!  He'll be Dr. Kim soon.  Anyways, Kim-san's current area is an ideal position and so one of the next senior students, Jiang-san, had already "reservate" the area so he was moving there.  Meanwhile, I "reserved" Jiang-san's seat.  So when I got to the office I moved my stuff first.  I knew I was going to be busy today and so I ate my 2nd batch of franksilog (frankfurters, sinaing/rice, and itlog/egg) at the office.  I also started copying files to my hard drive so that I have the option of doing some school work during the summer break while TPU is closed and the electricity is down (hence I cannot access my school PC even remotely).

But wait, when I arrived at the office, there was "bad" news.  The last couple of days we were weary of this typhoon that started from around north of the Philippines and which has made its way to Korea and forecasted to hit Japan from the west.  There was a chance it could make the weather really bad on Thursday and so Kim-san, our Mt Fuji trip organizer and 2-time Mt Fuji climber, postponed our bus reservations a day later.  Yay!  One more day of rest before Mt Fuji.

At around 3pm, it was time to go for our Mt Fuji shopping already.  5 of us went by bicycle.  We first went to the 100-yen store at AT.  My Fuji trip buddies bought flashlights, gloves, sunglasses, and hats/caps.  Next stop was downtown Atsugi where we wanted to buy Oxygen supply cans.  The store which sells them was closed!  So we went to SATY, a mall / department store, hoping to find those O2 cans there instead.  No luck.  Instead, there were some jackets selling for only 500 yen.  Wow, that is extremely cheap!  3 of us bought jackets.  I didn't bring the jacket up to Fuji though because it is not water-proof.  The other 2 did.  My trip buddies also bought sunscreen lotion.  So anyway, next stop was the shoe store.  As expected, I didn't have any shoe size so I had to make do with my Nike running shoes.  3 of my trip buddies were able to buy hiking shoes at relatively cheap, sale prices at around 4000 yen.  Wow.  I have this difficulty of finding shoe sizes in Singapore and in Japan.  I had this problem years ago in the Philippines but thankfully now, there are more people with big feet like me and so they do sell the larger sizes but mostly only for non-formal footwear like sports shoes and sandals.

Anyways, after that we went back to AT to buy food and drinks for our climb.  Actually earlier today I received my online order of Nature Valley granola bars from Amazon.co.jp.  Plus last Sunday when I did my grocery shopping, I already bought 4L of this Gatorade-like Aquarius sports drink by Coca-Cola, but more similar and more in competition to Pocari Sweat.  So, I only needed to buy another carton of juice and milk which I didn't buy last Sunday because I thought my week is only until Wednesday and that Thursday and Friday will be devoted to the Fuji climb.  Anyways, I saw one pack of Dried Green Mangoes for sale and I bought it. :-D

Actually, whenever I do get a chance, I buy these Philippine-made products (like these dried mangoes and Magic Flakes) so that hopefully they would think there is a market here and so they would continue to import from the Philippines.

And so, that was the shopping we did.  We all went back home of course, and then I had my last batch of BBQ ribs.  Ate it together with steamed pechay.  Then back to the office, to do my last minute work before TPU closes tomorrow.  I stayed quite late at TPU, along with probably 4 other guys.  Literally there was no tomorrow, not until 6 days from now.

Early!

Woke up relatively early today, and went to school relatively early.  As usual I was busy, considering that I wanted to finish a lot of stuff before TPU closes on Thursday, the 12th of August.

I went home for lunch and stove-grilled/fried the frankfurters and made a couple of perfect-looking sunny-side-up eggs.  I really wanted to eat frankfurters because I regretted not having to eat some during the Hanabi festival last Saturday.  I have forgotten what frankfurters taste exactly but these to me tasted like Japanese-style frankfurters.  Nonetheless, they are just what I needed.  Or rather, wanted. :-D

And last night I heard that Mara enjoyed Rodic's tapsilog, and wow, I want some too!  I had to have some silog of my own.

Anyways, the secret to my perfect-looking sunny-side-up eggs was an egg shaper.  But, actually I wasn't able to find one for use when frying eggs.  Instead I got me a microwave egg shaper.  Pretty convenient.  Two minutes in the microwave and voila, I have me two perfect sunny-side-ups.  Wasn't uniformly cooked though.  The outer part resembled more like soft-boiled egg while the inside was cooked egg just right.  Anyways, the one thing I like about this is - no cooking oil! :-)

And then a busy afternoon yet again.  Tuesday is usually basketball day but I thought, no more basketball - I have to be well rested for our Mt Fuji trip on Thursday.  But, the boys wanted to play.  So, I thought, what the heck.  I <3 basketball.

When we got to the gym, Kim-san, the Korean basketball superstar, wasn't there yet.  And when he arrived he said that he can't play anymore because his girlfriend was at his apartment and he had to attend to her.  So, Okada-san joined us instead.  A little bit thankfully though that because there was no Kim-san, there was no "betting," and so it was a relatively light and easy casual game of basketball.  It was China vs the World (i.e. Japan and the Philippines).  And then suddenly, the women's basketball club using the gym approached us and said "We are closing the gym now."  Yikes!  So off we went to the 4th floor to do some running instead.  The whole time running, we were all thinking of how we can go down by rope from the 4th floor to the gym floor (2nd floor) just to be able to play basketball.  I probably ran already about 500+ meters when one of the guys checked the gym door if it was "accidentally" left open by the women's basketball club members.  It was.  So back to basketball it was.  Yahoo!  It was a really fun, relaxing game of basketball.  For some reason, I just did so much running though even during the basketball game supposedly to "confuse" the opponents.  But, that was too much running for a day.  But actually it was good endurance training for our Mt Fuji climb.

For dinner I ate the BBQ ribs again.  I also prepared a Ceasar salad again, with lettuce, tomatoes, and bacon bits as usual.  The ribs tasted a little better than yesterday.  I think some were just better marinated than others.  Or maybe better cooked than others.  Maybe the basting had something to do with the taste.  I don't know if I just over- or under-basted some which didn't taste as good as the others.  Anyways, it was my first time to "baste."  It was probably also my first time to marinate and "grill" BBQ ribs.  Nonetheless, I loved it.  Like yesterday, I went back to do some more work at the office right after dinner.

Busy Monday

Slept and woke up a little late yet again.  I went to school just a little past lunch time already, but there was lunch already waiting for me there.  Last Saturday, one of the professors bought lunch from the convenience store and he was not able to eat it so he gave it away to the students.  It was pork, I think, and so the non-pork-eating guys can't eat it, meanwhile the pork-eating guys were full and so they passed it on to me.  The dish was a spicy kind of pork steak of very thinly sliced pork with some onions and chili and cabbage, on top of rice.  The kind professor also gave away chicken Ceasar salad to go with the rice and pork dish.  I ate my lunch past 2pm already.  Generally it was a busy day for me as I had only today and the next two days before the school closes down for the 6-day long summer break.

For dinner I went straight home and cooked all 1kg of my marinated BBQ ribs.  It was looking and smelling really good.  When I ate the ribs, oops.  They didn't taste as good as they looked or smelled.  But it was still good, nonetheless.  I ate them with my leftover nilagang veggies from last week's nilagang baboy.

Busy

Today and yesterday are almost identical, except I didn't play basketball today and I had nilagang chicken this time (a 5 day wait for it) and ginisang giniling with pechay (can I just call this GGP for short?) with some leftover steak.  Without basketball, today was even busier than yesterday.  But I went home early, considering I have class tomorrow.

Busy + Bball

Busy day today, though I got to the office a little late.  I woke up late and so I had lunch first at home before going to the office.  For lunch and dinner, I ate my 2nd and last batch of steak and eggs (or "steakalog" - steak, kanin, and itlog - as Mara would call it), and finally gave a chance to my nilagang baboy.  Not bad.  After four days of waiting, my nilagang baboy was happy that it finally realized its purpose: to meet my stomach.  :-D  We also played basketball today, where we won only 1 of 3 games.  It was so hot (and the gym is enclosed), the air-con can't function that well, it was more difficult than usual to play.  Anyways, I was gaining some momentum in the work I'm doing and so I stayed in school until 1am or 2am already.

Need for Medicine

Laughter is indeed the best medicine.  When I watch anything offline or online, I always choose comedy.  Or funny old action films (i.e. they're action supposedly but you laugh at how they make movies back in the day).  I can feel how other kinds of movie genres have an effect on my overall well-being the next day.

Anyways, today I woke up relatively early, after that long rest (a.k.a. Sunday, the 1st of August).  So I went to the office early.  Last Saturday when I did my grocery shopping, I didn't buy yet all the milk and juices I need for the week because I bought so much already, my bicycle can't carry all that weight anymore.  And so I left relatively early for lunch but also to continue my grocery shopping.

So, me not feeling well, I had to go for "medicine," things that would make me feel good and comfortable at least for a little while.  This in my dictionary is also known as "McDonald's."  :-D  I had me a quarter pounder with cheese meal.  Just once a week (or every two weeks) is fine, right?  I exercise twice a week anyways, not counting my walking to and from school, and bicycle rides to and from the grocery or Hon-Atsugi. :-)

Then off to the grocery I went, and got what I came for.  And then I felt it again - not having enough energy.  And so I bought even more "medicine."  Nilagang Baboy and Nilagang Manok was waiting for me at home, and I thought those won't help me feel a little more energetic.  And so I bought me 1 pack (4 slabs) of some kind of steak (tenderloin?  I wasn't sure).  Actually since this morning, I was craving for Tapsilog.  Now, the Tapa requires marinating overnight and so on, and so that's why I bought steaks instead.  So of course I also bought eggs.  And then back home I went.  Have I mentioned it is summer?  And it is so much hotter here now than in Manila.

Back home, so I "grilled" up the steaks for dinner and fried a couple of eggs as well.  I really have a hard time making perfectly good-looking sunny-side up eggs (hmmm, maybe the sunny side up look helps make you feel better and more energized - and that's why it's good for breakfast).  And so, while it didn't look great, it was enough to meet my "medicinal" requirements.  After frying grilling the steaks, I cut them up so they feel like Tapa.  And Voila, Tapsilog.  Made me feel really good.  :-)  I didn't finish all the steak and eggs, of course, so I have some left for another meal.

Other than all that and the usual summer weather, it is a normal busy day today.

Trouble

The trouble continues.  Trouble sleeping that is.  What were you thinking?  Those deadma faggies?

Anyways, I was really intending to sleep early last night but no.  Ended up the same time...  But this time I woke up sooo late, almost 2pm already.  Why?

Because it's rainy and a little cooler today!  Hooray!

It is a big, welcome break from all those days of sunshine and humidity and highs above 35 degrees.  Daytime high today was 28 degrees.  Hooray indeed!

I do have a problem though with my umbrella.  So the one I brought here from the Philippines which I actually bought for around 5 USD in SG last December already has gout.  It can still work but it is bound to totally break soon.  So I bought me a new one, but only a cheap one, only 1 USD equivalent.  It is so weak.  Today I think was the first time I used it, and it is already showing signs of weakness.

The rain wasn't like long, continuous, heavy, torrential rain.  It was just a little shower for probably half the day.  But that and all the cloud cover was enough to turn today into more like May weather.  Love it.

But with the sudden change in temperatures comes a headache.  Can't hit two birds with one stone this time.  It is annoying.  Then again, maybe it's because of the sleeping in so late?

Or, maybe it's because...  So I woke up say around 1:45pm, took a shower, then went straight to school to do some pre-Nihongo-class studying, then Nihongo class, then back to my desk for a little work, then went home and had Pork Steak and Steamed Pechay dinner at around 7pm and...  Notice anything?  Yup, I had dinner relatively earlier than usual today.  But actually, it is my breakfast and lunch as well, relatively later than usual.  Maybe that's another factor.  In any case, the headache of course is annoying; it is difficult to concentrate and stuff.  Oh well, this too shall pass.  Can't wait to sleep!  And I really hope to be able to sleep really early today!  Can't be late for my 11am class tomorrow.

Ho-hum... Do spices make you gay/bitchy?

I was so tired yesterday but still I had trouble sleeping.  So today I woke up a little late, had grilled salmon and steamed pechay for lunch first and then off to school. Work, work, work, then I went home only after 9pm, for my adobong manok and steamed pechay dinner, again. I didn't return to school again for the day. Did I say the adobo was just perfect? It was a jackpot. I hope to sleep earlier today and be early to school tomorrow. :-)

So, did that sound very much like yesterday except for no basketball yesterday.

So instead, let's add some SPICE by way of a spicy story.

So I'm new here in school starting this school year's Spring term in April, which actually starts officially around the 1st of April.  There are three of us newbies, the other 2 guys being from southern India.  They arrived maybe 2nd of April.  I arrived 16th of April.  So I'm like the newest of the new students.

Now, there is a total of 5 students here from southern India, 2 of which are actually a married couple.  There is 1 student from Bangladesh.  I think all 6 can speak the Hindi language.  There are also 5 students from China, 2 of which are actually a boyfriend-girlfriend couple.  There is 1 researcher also from China, 1 researcher from Taiwan and 1 researcher from Hong Kong, and all of them (8) people can speak Mandarin.  There is 1 Korean student, and 3 Korean researchers, all who can speak Korean of course, but also Japanese quite fluently.  Lastly, there is one Vietnamese and one Italian researcher.

Anyways, my 2 Indian "batchmates" and I will be here together for 3 years.  So at the beginning I consider them as my buddies around here as we all on the same footing.  The older, married batchmate, probably cannot take new-to-the-taste food, and so he goes home for lunch and dinner and eats by himself everyday.  So there is the younger batchmate, who is probably 10 years my junior.  At first, we would invite each other to eat lunch together, together with another relatively young Indian guy.  There was an Italian short-term researcher here when I first came here, and together with the Italian researcher, we all ate lunch together with some Japanese students and another gaijin (foreigner).

The Italians and the Japanese and the other foreigner had future lunch dates of their own, because what would happen is we would already go to lunch but they would have lunch a little later.  As for me, I was warned about some locals befriending you so as to practice their English, but once their English or your Japanese is much improved, they will ditch you just like that.  And so we were left to just me and the two Indian guys.  At one point, the more senior (by school years) Indian guy had a business trip and so it was just the two of us, the younger batchmate and I.

To tell you the truth it was quite difficult to get a conversation going.  He would usually be quiet, and even more so when those other nationalities are there.  One time, we had lunch with the Japanese and the Italian, and well I was making conversation with the two of them.  This young batchmate was dead silent the whole time.  Uninterested.  Sure, what we were talking about is something new to him, but it also was to us.

Anyways, things happened here and there and one day, at around 12:00 noon, I came up to the two Indian guys and asked them if we can go for lunch already (because on previous days we go to lunch at 12 noon, to avoid the "traffic" and rush of people at 12:30).  They said, "a little later."  So "okay," I said, and waited back at my desk.  We're in the same room, by the way, where all 13 PhD students and 1 researcher have our desks.  It's not so big.  1:10pm came and I was wondering, aren't these guys hungry yet?  So I come back to them and said, "Shall we go now for lunch?  We should go now, because the cafeteria closes at 1:30pm."  They're like, "We already ate lunch.  We thought you already ate lunch!"

Yup, I didn't hear the word "Sorry."  As for me, wanting to keep the peace, I just said, "Oh okay, it's okay."  And so I ate lunch by myself, an hour later!  If only I knew.  I thought, it might have just been a misunderstanding, although I thought if I were in their shoes, I would have passed by my desk to ask me if I already ate lunch or not.

On succeeding days, my batchmate and I have class until 12:30pm on Thursdays and Fridays, and so usually I would still invite them to have lunch together.  Hey, we're all foreigner students here, right?  We could learn about each other's culture and stuff and talk about our situations as foreigner students.  But no.  And then I noticed that they're not inviting me to lunch anymore.  At one point, they were like totally avoiding me already!  As in my batchmate-classmate in the 'til-12:30 class was avoiding eye contact with me right after class, and then go straight to meet up with his boyfriend Indian guy and have lunch together.  I was like, what's going on?  What did I do?  Lots of things happened since that first time they did not invite me to lunch, and well, I don't really know what caused all this to happen.  Do they feel insecure?  Or, fine, there's not so much "chemistry" (because mostly I start the conversation and they don't probably have any interest in other people or are ready with questions to ask or tools to interact), but to me I would at least exert some effort.  But no.

Well now, my attitude is, I have offered them my friendship and they have rejected it.  This is how they want it, and so this is how it will be.  We are but professionally related.  I don't need them and certainly I won't willingly offer them help unless asked to by our professors. They are not my friends.  But, of course they are not my enemies.

If you were wondering, I did not confront them about it anymore, (with the intention of confronting them diplomatically, of course) because well I think their culture is not like that.  These people have issues and instead of opening up to the challenge, they group together and wallow in their sadness.

So why am I even talking about them?  Like I said, we're just adding a little spice to this otherwise one-paragraph of a blog post. :-D  There is one other spicy story I have reserved for you in a future "boring" blog post. :-)

Busy

If yesterday I woke up at 2pm, today I woke up with just 2 hours of sleep.  I can't do anything about; I wasn't sleepy anymore.  It wasn't too early; 'twas just right.  Was relatively early to school.  Had yummy postek and salad for lunch.  Work.  Felt so sleepy.  Had yummy grilled salmon, steamed pechay, and carrots for dinner.  Back to work.  Tried communicating back home via Skype, YM, GMail Chat, and Chikka, but  I ended up with a PC-to-Phone call via Jumblo.  And it was still a little bit choppy.  Maybe because it's peak time.

Oh, today was hot as usual, though maybe upto 3 degrees cooler than the hottest it has been.  Only 33 degrees Celsius!  (90 degrees Fahrenheit)  Yeah, right.  I just discovered that actually because of the high humidity this time of the year, it actually feels more like 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit).  Welcome to summer.

And then Somebody said, "Okay you have had too much sun!"  All of a sudden, thankfully just after I got home, this big thunderstorm sweeps through town with very, very strong wind, thunder, and lots of lightning.  The wind was nothing like I've experienced before, not even during thunderstorms in the Philippines.  Maybe the thunderstorm winds here are stronger than those in the Philippines?  Anyways, thoughts of flying debris blown away by the strong winds crashing through my glass door leading to balcony tried to knock on my door.  Ah, but everything was safe.  During any kind of storm, it is safer to stay indoors.

Surprisingly when I stepped out, the weather was so cool!  Suddenly it felt like 25 degrees or cooler!  And not much humidity.  It felt like a really nice summer day today, one without much heat and humidity!  I think, Somebody was just thoughtful enough to think that this place badly needed a bath after those 15 days of pure, summer.  This is actually the cycle of nature; too much heat, particularly near water, brings rain, which cools down a heated area.  This is why while most of the Northern Hemisphere is experiencing very hot summers, it is rainy in the Philippines.  There's always a balancing force that restores things back to order.  This is why when the world warms and we start to experience extremely warm temperatures, expect extremely cold winter-time temperatures as well as very strong rains, floods, and windstorms.

One other thing I did today was read P-Noy's SONA.  Is it just me, or was it quite an inspiring speech?  I liked his inaugural address as well.  A couple of hours though after reading his speech, I was able to watch the video of his speech at http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/07/26/10/state-nation-address-pres-benigno-s-aquino-iii-video.  I thought I liked the written version better. :-D  Anyways, it is sad that some people, with closed minds to change, have what I would call "stupid" things to say about P-Noy.  I read something to the tune of...  "Why is he dining out with these media people?  Because he needs to continue polishing his image to the media?  Why doesn't he dine out with the poorest of the poor?"  Uhmm, duh, I'm sure he'll do that one of these days.  He's been in office for only around 3 weeks.  I'm sure he'll do that within the next 6 years!  Ah, these doubters, these "mga may pakialam."  It is exactly that kind of thinking that will bring us down.  Our downfall as a country would make them happy - because they could say "I told you so."  Anyways, those kinds of things, let's ignore.  Whoever you are, wherever you are, if you are Pinoy, just give your best at what you're doing.  That is P-Noy's call.  I believe in it.  It is the only way.  Change starts from each one of us.  No need to wait for your neighbor to change.  Be first.  God bless us all!

Wa pao la

That is what I said after eating... Shabu-Shabu! :-)

Anyways, almost the usual Saturday except I got up really, really late.  But I was able to finish my laundry and hang them up for drying.  Then lunch, the last of my cooked meals for the week, nilagang baboy.  Then I went straight to the "regular" Saturday seminar, by bicycle of course, because it is not so easy to walk just yet.  My ankle feels much better though, thanks to the good, long sleep I enjoyed last night.  Thank you, Lord!  I think what happened was I tied my shoes too tight after the injury, and that may have caused the pain.  I didn't notice any significant swelling so maybe it wasn't a sprain?  Yikes!  Well, I don't know.  Today it feels like there's a very minor sprain somewhere inside.  As mentioned I still can't walk straight, but I can walk now.  And even do brisk walking.  But riding the bicycle is not a problem at all.  Plus it's just two minutes to get to school by bike then the short walk from the bicycle parking area to the seminar room (or to the office), compared to a 5 minute walk, completely on foot.

Anyways, after the seminar, went back to the office, did a little teeny beany bit of work, while Skyping with Mara. :-)  And then off to Hon-Atsugi we went!  By bicycle!  As I've mentioned before, it's about a 30-minute bicycle ride, but it's not so boring because there's two of us on this trip so we could chat a little bit.  At the restaurant, called "Nabezo," our two more senior colleagues who got there by bus were just waiting for us.  So there was 4 of us at Nabezo.  Then we started ordering, and the food started coming!

Because one of our colleagues didn't eat pork, and there was no seafood or chicken on the menu, we only had beef as meat.  Tofu was another source of protein, but mostly it was veggies, veggies, veggies.  Did I mention this is tabehodai, i.e. eat-all-you-can?

So there was me, the Filipino, and I was with one Japanese researcher, and two Chinese.  We learned how to say "I'm full" in our respective languages.  So I taught them "busog ako" or "ako ay busog."  And I learned...

Wa pao la.
Wa chan la.
Wa chans la.


Respectively, those are Chinese (Mandarin) sentences for:

I'm full.
I'm more than full.
I'm practically dead because I ate too much.

Actually at one point I thought I was like, wa chan la.  But after some time, I became just wa pao la.  The trouble though was, we had a 30-minute (or so) bike ride ahead of us.  Uphill.  Well, it wasn't a problem.  We were very happy about the food, though my Chinese colleague said that this time he did not eat that much because if he did, he would find it difficult to sleep early enough.  It is summer, though.  The temperature was not so bad as it was already around 8pm, but it is still summer.  Humidity!  And the daytime high was 34 degrees.  I was like soaking wet when I got to the office.  But it was all still worth it.  I like trying new food and new places, and interacting in such an international setting, sharing stories, words/sentences, and so on from each other's hometowns.

By the way, so while I saved 520 yen for a roundtrip bus fare to and from Hon-Atsugi for this Shabu-Shabu escapade, the Shabu-Shabu price itself was... 2000 yen.  It is a little bit expensive, but for an all-beef meatfest, which they say is all-Australian beef, I think it's still not bad.

Usual Friday?

...Nope.  Not until around 5:30pm.  I went straight to class, had lunch, back to work, then off to the gym to play basketball.  The score was 1-0 when... bam!  I injured my ankle again; this time the right one.  This time a little bit worse than the last.  I am getting too old.  Subconsciously I seem to think there are things I can still do that I used to be able to 5 years ago.  While the mind can think of the many different things I can do with a basketball in my hands, the body cannot follow as religiously as before to the mind's wishes.  Mind over matter almost doesn't matter anymore, not in this case.  Not when the body is truly incapable of what the mind can perceive.  This is similar to trying to finish a 42 km marathon in 10 minutes.  No matter how much the mind wills it, the human body even of the most athletic human on earth cannot ever do it in 10 minutes, or at best, not without any undesirable consequences to the body or the mind.

Unlike the last time I got "injured," which healed after a 5 minute break, this one did not.  I was so sad about not being able to "exercise."  I can't move.  I can still shoot, but I can't run after balls.  The pain is really more than the last time.  So after seeing that the resting wasn't helping "heal" the pain unlike before, I went straight home.  It was difficult, of course.  I had dinner.  Then right after dinner, lights on and table not yet cleared, I fell asleep.  I think I needed the sleep though.  When I woke up in the middle of the night, maybe around 10 or 11pm, my ankle felt better.  Although maybe, chatting on Skype also made it feel even much better. ;-)

Check-Up

Today I got up earlier than usual and got to the office earlier than usual.  At 11am, I paid off the whole of my loan to TPU.  I could pay in 3 payments but since my money is not earning interest in the bank (yup, no interest for savings accounts in banks here), I thought what the heck, for peace of mind; one less thing to worry about.  Then a little bit of work.  Then 12 noon was my medical check-up schedule.  The usual schedule is in early April but since I arrived here mid-April, I missed it.  So I should not miss this medical check-up or else I need to pay money to get a medical check-up outside of TPU.

Anyways, I was told to go to the main building 2nd floor.  When I got there, I waited in line a bit, only to find out  that I should go first to the 1st floor.  When I got there, I was held yet again.  The lady there, noticing that I brought with me a Japanese-speaking friend, said that I should have studied Japanese first before coming to Japan.  Who is this lady?  So basically I'm scheduled already for this medical check-up because I missed the one in April and that's what we told her, but she doesn't trust that we actually arrived in mid-April! So she made a dozen phone calls first.  She was saying, if we missed the April check-up, then they can only accommodate me if I have some illness and otherwise, I should spend for a medical check-up outside of TPU.  Aaaargh!  What is it?  Is it because I'm a foreigner?  Is it because I can't speak Japanese?  Why wasn't she informed beforehand?  These people.  What could have been a 10 minute stint turned into 45 minutes.

I am glad that it is over.  By the way, it was my 3rd X-ray in a span of 14 months: May and December last year, and now July this year.  Come the next medical check-up, it will be my 4th X-ray in a span of 24 months.  I'm radioactive.  (No, I consulted with a doctor friend and she said it's fine.)

Also, although they are using not a digital sphygmomanometer, they reported my blood pressure to the nearest 1 mmHg (i.e. 132/78).  Yeah right.  Of course it should be reported 130/80 instead, but anyways, that is good news to me a bit.  I probably have 120/80 blood pressure in the morning.  I am thinking about bringing it down to 110/70.  So that I can eat more burgers!  Ehehehe.  Kidding.

Anyways, thankfully there was no blood extraction.  I wasn't psyched for that.  And if there was, no one told me beforehand that I shouldn't have eaten or drank anything for hours before going to the medical check-up!  Apparently it was only for researchers (i.e. PhD graduates already); no blood extractions for students.

The urine test was quite fast.  I wonder if it is as comprehensive as the urine tests I get in the Philippines.  Basically I give them a sample in a paper cup, they put some paper in it and immediately they know the results.

I am glad to know my weight is down to 85 kg, from 87 kg when I got here (and from a high of around 92 kg when I went to the US last year).  I thought my BMI now is below 25, i.e. I'm not overweight anymore.

But surprisingly my height measured 183.5 cm only!  Whereas I thought I was 185 cm.  Maybe I was kuba when they measured me?  So actually given that height and weight, my BMI is 25.2!  I'm still overweight!!!  Anyways, just 1 more kg down, and I'll be fine again.  I think I need to lose a lot of skin in the belly area...

What else did they do...  No, what else did they not do...  They didn't bother asking me about my family's health history!

Is Japan's medical practice this much less sophisticated than in the Philippines???  Or are professional medical service fees so expensive here, such that it's a significant increase in cost to require the medical check-up to ask about family history, and hence companies usually do not get such "sophisticated" medical check-ups?  Anyways, this is a medical check-up for students only.  And there's probably thousands of us here.  And they have to spend for all of that.  Of course, for most students here, they paid quite hefty tuition fees that are supposedly inclusive of this medical check-up as well as some level of health insurance.

As I said, my "appointment" was at 12 noon; we got there 11:55am, and left maybe 12:40 already.  I went straight home for a yummy ginisang giniling with pechay lunch.  And went back immediately to school, because I had class at 1:30, which is the last session for this semester, and then again at 3:00 (my Nihongo class).  After class, I did some work, and then went home for the last half of my lechon kawali for dinner, together with a green leafy veggie (lettuce?) + cherry tomatoes + Italian dressing + bacon bits salad.  The lechon kawali as you know I fried yesterday (or was it the other day?), and so today I microwave-heated it. It still wasn't so bad.  But I guess after another round of refrigeration and then reheating, it won't be so good anymore.

And that's about my day.  I'm still doing a little bit of work.  I'm sort of not used to this pace, but I like it.  I'm literally managing my own time, unlike in my work experience in the Philippines when you are asked to manage your own little time, i.e. it is always deadline yesterday and so there is practically little to no time to manage!  My analogy to that work environment is this: if you give me only 10 minutes to run a 42 km marathon, there is no amount of time management that can help me finish running 42 km!  But that's what is almost always expected (silently demanded) of us there in the Philippines!  So now I have a little extra time.  So actually this really needs a lot of management and paying attention to, otherwise I can just find myself in a lull.  Then again, maybe because it's only my first year of this PhD stint.  The more senior PhD guys say the 2nd year is the busiest.  Others say, the 3rd year is the busiest.  As for me, I'm thinking, I'm already too old for that.  If I can finish this thing in under 3 years, I will!  Oh well.  We'll see.

Busy!

Busy day.  Went straight to class - the last day of our Wednesday class which is about evaluation of the environmental efficiency of buildings.  Then lunch.  I did the "2nd part" of the cooking for the Lechon Kawali, which was basically to fry it.  It was yum-mee.  Ate it with Dole sweet baby carrots (which are already peeled and ready to eat after some washing) and the typical sawsawan/sauce prepared and used by Pinoys for Lechon Kawali.  Then back to work.  Studied Nihongo a bit - because tomorrow it'll be a little tight because of some things I need to do and a shift in schedule.  We also went out to pay for our rent today.  We need to go with the "older" guys here because they know which buttons to press on the Japanese-only ATM rental payment service. It's a 5-minute bike ride away also; we can't just make payments from the ATMs right here in school.  We left school around 4:30pm instead of earlier because it was just too hot today!  37 degrees!!!  That's a record high since I came here, but I asked one of my Japanese colleagues and he says it is not totally unexpected, but yes it is not the usual summertime temperature highs they've experienced before.  It's exceptionally hot this summer here in Japan!  I heard somewhere up north, in Nikko, it was as high as 38.5 degrees!  This after having exceptionally low temperatures in April when I arrived, which was around 3 to 7 degrees.  This is already more than a 30 degree temperature difference in a matter of 3 months!  But, again we are talking about extremes here (or nearly extremes, is the worst yet to come?).  It is all just unusual.  I look around and it seems that the houses look less attractive and homey; ah the weather really has something to do with it.  Last year when I went to the US east coast also around summertime there, it was so hot, I didn't feel like I was in the US, because all of my previous visits where in the Bay Area (west coast) and during early spring (between March and June) or at the start of winter (sometime between November and February).  And then dinner.  Dinner was also yum-mee.  It was Nilaga.

My Nilaga "feels" different this time, because previously I was using this more like a lettuce veggie, but now I am really using cabbage which I think goes better with Nilaga.  I still used pechay, of course.

Anyways, about tomorrow, basically a medical check-up was scheduled for me at 12 noon since I missed the one scheduled in early April.  I was told I cannot move the schedule, and so I told my professor for my 11-12:30 class tomorrow.  Thankfully, he and all my classmates agreed to move the class to 1:30-3:00.  So my schedule tomorrow is like, 12-12:30 medical check-up, 12:30-1:30 lunch, 1:30-3 wind engineering class, 3-4:30 Nihongo class.  Yikes!  So that's why today I'm already studying for Nihongo tomorrow.

Busy?

Yeah.  Usual thing.  Woke up, went to school, did some work, back home for lunch (finished the last ni-pizu of my chicken from Sunday), back to work, basketball, dinner (ginisang giniling with pechay - yummy!), then back here again for a little more work.  Nothing new today, except that a new visiting researcher/professor started here in TPU today.  No betting in basketball today, because our opponent's teammate went to the beach last weekend and did not put any sunblock on.  It was a fun, easy basketball game.  Just right for me.

I did post something new on another blog of mine.  Check it out at this link: http://coachpotato-consumerwatch.blogspot.com/2010/07/philippines-bureau-of-customs.html

Hot! but Yumm!

Well if we were talking about the weather, no surprise there.  Daytime high this "Marine Day" holiday Monday was 36 degrees!  Hot indeed!

But we might as well be talking about the Thai cuisine we tried, at a restaurant called "Guan" in downtown Atsugi.  We could have biked going there, but it was so hot, so we took the bus.  Going to and coming from.

We ordered pad thai (noodles; they also call it "yakisoba" so that it's a little bit familiar for the Japanese, but obviously it is very different from yakisoba), beef green curry, and this spicy seafood dish that tasted more like Chinese than Thai food.  But they were all yumm.

Shouldn't I say yummY?  Well, for 3 and a half people (Ali-san, Okada-san, and me and my belly), those 3 dishes just weren't enough; no, not for me.  We even had 1 and 2/3 cups of rice each.  And all-you-can-drink water.  So yeah, it's bitin.  Yumm.

Right after lunch we went straight back to TPU, which was again on Open Campus mode.  A lot of high school students were there, possibly seniors graduating soon and looking for a college to go to.

And then it was busy, busy, busy.  In the evening, I finished two of the yon-pizu left of my nana-pizu chicken. :-D

By the way, I was able to get back my RONJIE.COM domain name.  So if you enter RONJIE.COM on your web browser's address bar, you would be brought to my main homepage, from which you can find a link to this blog.  God is good! :-)

3 months

Today marks my 3rd month since leaving home and, of course, it hasn't been easy.  But it's not very, very bad; "I'll live."  Some problems are here and there, unavoidable, and just needs managing.  Aside from today's "monthsary," nothing is special.  Went straight to class, got home, ate my yesterday-bought convenience store ulam (burger, chicken, sausage, potato balls) with ready-to-heat-and-eat frozen veggies and the last batch of my own cooked rice.  Did a little work.  Played basketball.  Forgot my knee braces, but I was still fine the whole time.  Got a little bit of my form back.  But, one typical "injury" in basketball: landing on someone else's foot!  This causes a kind of ankle sprain.  But I'm a (self-proclaimed) "veteran" of ankle sprains now and I knew what to do - hold them high and apply pressure (tighten your shoes) to keep it from swelling; i.e. let the blood flow out of there!  After a 5 minute rest I was almost back to normal and shooting just as well as before the mini-incident.  No one won the "betting" again.  That's probably 3 weeks now since anyone has won.  Anyways, as usual I showered after basketball - like everyone does.  Well not straight from after basketball, I rested a bit and let my sweating come to a halt first before I went into the shower.  It feels good to shower after sports!  Yeah, I know about the Pinoy myth that you shouldn't shower right after sports, but why is swimming an exception?  Anyways, I looked it up and it's safe, mga kababayan.  The important thing is you take a warm shower.  Not a hot one because you could get burned (duh!  but actually because your body temperature is warmer than usual, you might think the water is 3 degrees cooler).  And definitely not a cold shower, because that could cause muscle cramps, which is fatal.  After shower, as usual I went home to park my basketball stuff but since I didn't have any food to eat, I went to the convenience store to buy my ban-gohan (dinner; night food/rice).  But I actually didn't eat any rice.  I instead got a salad (I really liked this one), two kinds of pasta (baked ziti with shrimps, and the usual red sauce spaghetti), and apple iced tea.  Very nice dinner.  I think the last time I had pasta like these was still back in Manila.  On my trips to the "Italian restaurant" tabehodai place, there wasn't any pasta on the buffet menu.  You have to order it separately.  Of course as I mentioned, last time I went there, I ordered pizza (with a very good crust).  And then I find myself back here, typing away on the computer.  Tomorrow is another day.

By the way, we don't have any seminars tomorrow, and Monday is a holiday which means it's a long weekend!  I don't know yet what I'll do though; I haven't made plans yet.  I'll ask around and see.  Have I mentioned?  The school will be closed from August 12 to 17 - as in no entry, and no electricity (so no access to our computers here as well).  Some of the PhD students here are thinking about going up Mt. Fuji.  Yikes, I haven't climbed a mountain before!  Walking for 6 or 10 hours (with stops), I can do better than running 1 hour and 30 minutes for a 10 kilometer marathon!  Of course the problem is the thin air in high altitude.  Plus, as with any long duration physical activity, hydration is important.  So I'm bringing with me some cans of O2 (oxygen) and powdered "Pocari Sweat," and some water of course.  Basically the trip starts from the 5th station, which is 2,300 meters up.  The summit is at 3,700 meters.  There is a total of 4 more stations before the summit, but as you can expect, prices rise exponentially for goods sold at each station.  And, there's a price to pay to enter each station.  But anyways, the hike up is generally easy, and climbing season is only mid-July to mid-August, I think.  But it gets as cold as around 2 or 3 degrees Celsius (35 degrees Farenheit) there in the wee hours of the morning.  The start of the climb should be timed well in order to get to the summit just exactly before sunrise, which thankfully is around 4:30am here in Japan.  If you arrive early, you'll have to endure the cold for hours! If you arrive too late, of course you miss the sunrise.  Anyways, the climb might be 6 to 10 hours, depending on the pace of the people you're with. :-D  I have maybe three weeks to think about this really hard, and to do some preparations (i.e. cardiovascular exercises).  I'll keep you guys posted.

Beezee

The usual Thursday...  Two classes, one being my Nihongo class.  Lunch was the last of my pork adobo, but since I didn't have veggies anymore, I heated up some microwaveable frozen Japanese-style veggies (i.e. seaweed and mushrooms with carrots and sesame seeds).  For dinner, I already ran out of cooked food, so I bought me a couple of bentos from the convenience store, and capped it off with banana.  I also bought my tabemono for tomorrow, a bunch of fried stuff (chicken, burger, sausages).  I still feel sleepy.  And that's about it...

Two lectures

Starting at 1:30pm, there was going to be two lectures given by one professor from Australia, and one from Germany.  Supposedly we should be at the venue by 1pm, because we have to arrange the tables and chairs.  I woke up, still a little groggy, at 11:30am.  I didn't get to eat lunch until after the lecture, which was at around 4pm already.  And then basketball at 5pm.  And then dinner at around 8pm because I took a little rest first, and cooked my meal.

No one won the "betting" again.  Lunch was adobo with steamed pechay.  Dinner was grilled salmon and steamed carrots.  The steamed carrots didn't come out like steamed this time; I think it was microwave cooked (or dried) and not just steamed.  I should only steam them together with pechay, which somehow traps the moisture and doesn't get microwave-cooked/dried like the carrots.  Actually, next time, if I'm thinking of steaming, I should just buy these ready-peeled baby carrots already.  One less thing to worry about.  Also for some reason, I can't estimate the proper amount of salt to put.  My salmon turned out a little too salty for me.

So you want to live in Japan?

This is quite an interesting vlog (video log; a more advanced form of the blog, or weblog):  YouTube - unrested's Channel.

Anyways, Thursday was like the usual.  As usual.  Class in the morning.  Nihongo class in the afternoon.  Except I had a meeting with my PhD supervisor / professor, and I think it turned out well.  I felt good afterwards.  The one bad news though was that I won't anymore be able to visit Belgium next year.  The Professor suggested I consider conferences that will be held in Jacksonville, Florida, USA or Istanbul, Turkey.  Hmmm, let's see...  Other than that, lunch was at the by-the-pound cafeteria, and dinner was the last batch of my nilagang manok.