桜の綺麗な友人

Okie. I am dedicating this blog entry to my dear dear travel mates in Japan. Introducing the 桜の美少女：（from left to right: Jing Ping, Kane Kane and Michelle)

And the 桜の美少年：(Thor and Weili)

Right after my Wwoofing at the goat farm and the strawberry farm, I joined this group of beautiful people at Osaka. Our travel itinerary was to spend 5 days in Osaka, 1 day in Mount Koya, 5 days in Kyoto and the last day in Toba. I am really really thankful to be able to travel with them; without any of them, this trip would not be half as fun.

Weili: He is the chief planner for this trip. He did most of the planning and booking of the guest house and budget hotels. Otsukaresamadeshita ne, Weili san. He is also a big fan of Ramen (he just had 3 Ramen for dinner) and Milk Tea (drinks at least one big bottle of Milk Tea everyday). Good to have him around, as you know he would always be there if you need him.

Jing Ping: This little girl has the appetite of an elephant. She can eat so much, and I doubt if she ever felt full in her whole life. Really a funny character, and if we ever have any leftover food, she would be more than happy to help us get rid of it. Our official ゴミ箱 (rubbish bin).

Kane Kane (pronouced as Ka-Ne Ka-Ne): This girl is always been bullied by me. Her favourite lines are 'I'm very full. You eat lah.", "You eat first lah, it's okay." and very very Kawaii 'Deshou". The good thing is she is very caring and selfless, always putting others' interests be4 her. Very nice girl, in fact too nice at times, so she is always bullied. 誰のせいですか。

Michelle aka Ah Lian: Wah, I tell you this girl is the Chilli Padi. Very fierce hor. Don't ever cross her path, or else you may not live to see the next dawn. Okay lah, but at least she's the Ang Mo type Ah Lian, so she is still considered as the upper class of the Ah Lian society. Very easy-going girl, can joke with her and know that she won't get offended.

Okay, gotta pack my bag now. Moving out of the hotel at 9am tomorrow, and going to Toba to enjoy my virgin Ryokan experience. And in less than 3 days time, I will arrive in APU and officially begin my exchange life in Japan.

Frenz in Singapore, 気をつけて！

Posing in front of a 忍者専門店：

Daimaru's latest print advertisment 1:

Daimaru's latest print advertisment 2:

谷口の苺ファアーム

Since tomorrow I will be moving to another guesthouse, I might as well do another update of my entry. Really not sure if the next guesthouse has a good wireless connection. Here's the story of my second week in Japan:

My next Wwoofing was with Hiroshi San at Taniguchi strawberry farm. Work at the farm was not as tedious as the one I had at the Ueda Kashikoubou. The work mainly revolved around picking stawberries, preparing strawberry jam, doing carpentry and house chores. Though the workload was lighter, I felt less happier over there. Hiroshi, the host, was the typical Japanese man: stern, reserved, always grouchy. And stingy (erm, don't get me started on this).

From right to left: Hiroshi (the strawberry farmer), beautiful and friendly helper 1, Thor and beautiful and friendly helper 2.

However, looking at the bright side, I did pick up quite a few things during my stay at the farm. For one, I learnt a lot about strawberry. I also went to the stawberry distribution centre and withnessed how strawberries are packed and shipped out to other parts of Japan. I also made stawberry jam, which I had it the next morning for my breakfast. And that was seriously the most delicious stawberry jam I ever had in my life.

Pic 1: Me at the distribution centre.

Pic 2: the yummylicious handmade strawberry jam! (You can see the strawberries!)Overall, I would rate my second Wwoffing experience above average. I'm glad that I only stayed there for a week; any longer would have been a little unbearable. The host for the Wwoofing plays an important role, and a less than friendly host really makes a great difference to the overall experience.

Fresh Yummy Strawberries:

Young beautiful 25 yrs old-looking mummy picking strawberries with their kids:

Okie, gotta pack my bag now, as I will be moving out of the guesthouse tmr morning. Just saw the invitation email sent out by Harvey, and suddenly memories of the first 2 chalets with the class just flash across my mind.

Really miss all of you who are back in Singapore! Take care, everyone! Good luck for your final! And take care Shorn! Really wish that you are coping well!

I'm also homesick! Miss squeezing my sister's cheek, miss teasing my cat Wang Wang, and of course my Mum! And a little on my Dad and my brother. Nonetheless, all of you please take care until I come back okay! Bao Zhong!

日本の最初の一週間

Hi Minasan,

I’m so sorry for the late entry. Didn’t have a fast connection for the past few weeks, but now it shouldn’t be a problem: I’m in Kyoto now! Okie, so much things have happened over the last 3 weeks. Here's a little update on my experience in Japan so far:

I spent my first week working at the 菓子工房上田。The Ueda couple, who own a bakery shop, a goat farm and a Japanese restaurant, are around 70 years old each, and they have been really nice to me. They treated me like their own son, really touched.

Pic below: Frenz I made in my first week of Wwoofing:

Short intro of other WWOOFers around at the菓子工房上田. Kylie and Claire from Australia:

Yoko san from Japan (around Tokyo area):

And David from Canada. Extremely funny guy. Always preaching about Christ, and he thinks taking photo is an act of vainity (that's why he had a towel over his face)/

Work has not been easy. There were really quite a lot to do, and the goats can be really irritating at times. My daily rountine was like to wake up at 6.30am in the morning, have breakfast at 7am, start work at 7.30am, lunch break at 11am, continue work from 2pm to 5pm and dinner at 7pm. The days were structured, but they were peaceful and rejuvenating. No internet and handphone; so my body and mind had a good rest.

(Pic below: My first falling snow experience and me freezing my ass off)

Did quite a lot of things over my first Wwoofing. I did Sai Kang, like cleaning the stables (which were damn smelly) and feeding the animals and changing drinking water for them. But there were some priceless experiences too, like I saw the mother goats gave birth, and I even helped in the process too. Also tried making raisin bread and waitering in the japanese restaurant. (Pics of me helping me to make Bento) Okie, that's my very very brief update on my first week of Wwoofing. Will tell u on my 2nd Wwoofing experience when I have time.

Take care in Singapore! Miss you lots!

Pics below:

My bedroom; the 5-star hotel standard Ofuro (Japanese bathroom); bakery shop; japanese restuarant.

お久しぶり！

My apology for MIA for the past week. I was working in this bakery/goat farm/japanese restaurant/ pizza shop at Awa Ikeda. And Awa Ikeda is a small town, so I could not find any Internet cafe over there. That is the reason why I have not been replying emails and updating my blog... (btw i got 255 emails to clear right now)

For those who are not in the know, I am currently WWOOFing in Japan. It is kinda like the work and travel, but I do not get paid. Instead I am given food and accomodation by the host. So I have just finished my work in Awa Ikeda and am moving over to Saidaiji in Okayama to work in a strawberry farm.

Just a recap of my life in the past week:

1) I passed JLPT 3! Hoooray! 288 out of 400. Not a fantastic score but given that i only studied for 3 days, Thor you rockz! Haha, so i will be exempted from the entrance exam in APU. No mugging for me until April!

2)　I had a lot of first times during the past week. I withnessed the birth of baby goat on my first day working in the goat farm. After that, I withnessed another 8 or 9 more baby goat being born, so much so that i got sick of it. Oh i also helped pulled a baby goat out from the mother goat; it was kinda a new experience.

3) I had my first onsen experience yesterday. It was so different from the one I had in Korea. In Korea, everyone wore swim wear, and the onsen was more like fanstasy island or water theme park. In Japan, there was only one pool. Everyone got naked and I withnessed a lot of grotesque things being done in the japan onsen. Definitely a culture shock for me, though I have read up on it and prepared myself. this one deserved a blog entry by itself, so i shall leave it to the next blog.

4) My japanese host has been real nice. The male host, whom I addressed as Sensei, is a real famous Wakashi and Yokashi Sensei (Japanese and Western pastries) in Japan. And I get to try a lot of pastries and cakes and breads everyday freshly out frm the oven. The female host, whom I addressed as Mieko San, opens a Japanese restuarant. So she also treated me to a great feast everyday. at the end of the day, I have put on really a lot of weights.

5) argh, okie gotta catch the train to saidaiji. Hopefuly there is internet cafe over there. Will blog again soon!

Ja, mata ne!

P.S. Japanese are real pretty!