Supa 10-minute hair cutto!

Some of you might not know this (or most of you), but I HATE HATE HATE getting a haircut... I actually prefer going to the dentist! Why you ask me? NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS! Heh no I will tell you why. It all started with the big bang... and then some million years later, when I was maybe 10 and already kinda blind without my glasses, I would go to get a haircut, and have to take off my glasses. Then for half an hour or so, I would have to sit there with a guy (Shawke back then) working on my hair without me being able to see anything! And so since then I developed a deep loathing for cutting my hair. So now I just let it grow until it is too fluffy and unbearable and then I shave it off, rinse and repeat.

With all that useless information out of the way, I get to today's topic. Getting a haircut in Japan is different than other places. It's not as cheap as in Lebanon, but not as expensive as in Europe I guess since you don't tip anyone here. The average for a guy would be around 24$ (more with the conversion rate but it's equivalent here). When I feel like getting a nice haircut I go to this place that gives a 10-minute head massage with a hot tower under your neck along with a usually very cool haircut for that much. I will post a video at the end of this post of the chair that you sit on for the hair washing and head massage! It starts off as a chair, then just like our favorite robots from when we were growing up (not the crappy recent movies...), it transforms into a bed! Too cool!



There is however a place just for someone like me! Who usually doesn't care about how good the haircut is, but just wants to go in and out as fast as possible (so Japanese!), paying as little as possible along the way. Along comes QB House 10-minute cut!



You go in, put a 1,000 Yen bill in the machine (10$ish) and get a ticket.



You then proceed to sit at one of these stations. They ask you which haircut you would like, and proceed to take your jacket and bag and stow them inside the closet. Then they start the haircut. There is no washing at all here of course.
The monitor at the bottom has the latest news (which of course I cannot read unless I have my lenses on...). Then after they're done cutting, the pipe at the right is actually a head vacuum machine thingie that they use on your head to get rid of the cut hair haha. It actually feels kinda nice :)
And all the hair on the ground will be broomed (it's a verb apparently...) to the bottom of the unit where there's another vacuum that sucks it all in. Very efficient. Very Japanese.

When you're done, just as when you enter, all the staff will bow and thank you (or welcome you) quite loudly.

And while I was going to class that day I passed near the university hospital chopper!

Sapporo snow festival

The snow festival in Sapporo is a phenomenal event that happens once a year, and attracts (apparently around 2 MILLION) tourists to Sapporo, most of which are Japanese from other areas, but many are also foreigners.



The festival lasts for one week, but for people who live here, the preparations start way before that! The snow plowed off the roads are gathered to be used to make the sculptures. This year however, as it was not near as cold as previous winters, extra snow was needed and brought over from around Sapporo (or so I heard).



I have already uploaded the photos to facebook, but I will upload my favorites again and briefly talk about them.



My favorite sculpture. It is just too cool and no words can describe its awesomeness!



It's so interesting to see how many cultures have similar outtakes of the same subjects. This is an Indonesian sculpture that really reminds me of the Orthodox st. Georges statue fighting the dragon.



You would think that there would be this balance between large-scale and finely-done sculptures but to have both combined is very impressive!



The Lion King musical has been running for a while here so they had a big ass sculpture of Timon and Pumba!



The temperature drops 5 degrees as soon as you get there and stand in front of the HUGE ASS snow statues! However these guys are singing and dancing in half sleeves!!!
Wow!



DOGGIES!!!



Awesome Chinese temple! With all the details that goes with it.



The slope made for snowboarders and skiers jumping around day and night! Too awesome! Mules we need to do this!



Ice jaguar!

The long-awaited return!

People of the world (all two or three of you who read this) rejoice! For the blog is back... with a vengeance. It's been a while since I've written anything, and the more I waited before starting again, the more things I had to write about, and the less I felt like tackling it.. procrastination is a warm and comfy bed...

Anyway, much and more has happened since last I updated my blog, including but not limited to:
1- The Sapporo snow festival in February
2- The Toohoku earthquake in March
3- My birthday in April
4- Beer garden in August
5- Carine's wedding (couldn't attend :( )
6- Majed's wedding and my trip back home for a week passing through Moscow
7- Rami's wedding (couldn't attend either :( )
8- Rainbow march in September

I will write a post about each of the afore-mentioned events. I might also think of other stuff along the way, but first, I should talk about the earthquake, and the resulting nuclear power plant incident.

My last post was about Iron Maiden. This was partly due to the fact that I was going to watch their concert in Tokyo. I arrived in Tokyo the day before the earthquake, and was in bed on the 8th floor when it hit. I know people that were on the 30th floor when it hit and so my experience pales in comparison to their own, but it was still quite scary.

Living in Japan for a year already (when the earthquake happened) makes you accustomed to the occasional earthquake. And you learn to shrug it off as a monthly (or more) event. That is how that one started. I was lying on the bed reading when the room started shaking. Normal stuff. This always happens for a couple seconds and then subsides. Then it started getting stronger. Stuff started falling off shelves. This is when I stopped reading and started paying attention to the shaking, which at this point, instead of stopping, was getting stronger. Drawers were starting to open and throw their contents on the floor. That is when I started thinking of the disaster prevention training we had when we first arrived, and the earthquake simulation we participated in. So I grabbed a pillow, covered my head and crouched near the cupboard (the simulation suggested ducking under the table but there were none and the next best thing I guess is either the bath tub or near something solid).

A little while later, the shaking stopped. And so did the phone lines. That was the very first time I was ever really glad I had a facebook account. We were all checking up on each other through it. The subway in Tokyo was also shut down, and there was so much traffic on the roads that people just walked to their homes after work (of course everyone finished their work day first). A friend had to walk 7 hours to get home. News of the resulting tsunamis that hit started spreading, along with the danger of a nuclear meltdown in the Fukushima plant. Supermarkets and convenience stores all over Tokyo went empty. People rushed to buy supplies and especially bottled water.

The international media however, was a whole other story... I lived my whole life in Lebanon. As such I have witnessed how the international media blows news out of proportion and our families and friends abroad become more worried about us than we are! What happened in March took that to whole new heights. Russian news were showing footage of Sendai that was hit by a tsunami while describing the ruined state Tokyo was in (a fire and some partially destroyed old buildings was the actual damage I think). I don't feel like talking more about it because it pisses me off.

The next day, I went to the onsen (hot springs) with a friend because I was not really worried, and had a relaxing afternoon. That is when my friend's parents started freaking out, and so we decided to go visit my Lebanese friend Dina living in Kyoto that was far and safe enough. We took the express train and realized it was full of women and children. The fathers stayed at work, but sent their children away just in case it was dangerous to be in Tokyo. All evidence suggested it was safe enough to be in Tokyo (opposite of what outside media was claiming) but better safe than sorry. Off to Kyoto. We spent a day there and it was snowing so couldn't really see much of Kyoto, and the next day we went south to Kobe and flew to Sapporo where it was nice and safe far away from all the trouble.

What the news never showed was the thousands of people who lost their homes and were living in schools all over. They didn't show the scores of people preparing rice balls to send to these poor people, they didn't talk about everyone else going on with their lives as best they could, going to work

Iron Maiden: part II

The second song to display will be one from the new album. It's a cool and very mellow song about, as za title suggests, Coming Home. It was written by Bruce Dickinson (the vocalist) who is also a pilot, and so there is a lot of references to his flying.

Sorry for the silly video but didn't find any live versions of it. Beace.



When I stand before you shining in the early morning sun
When I feel the engines roar and I think of what we've done
Oh the bittersweet reflection as we kiss the earth goodbye
As the waves and echoes of the towns become the ghosts of time

Over borders that divide the earthbound tribes
No creed and no religion just a hundred winged souls
We will ride this thunderbird, silver shadows on the earth
A thousand leagues away, our land of birth

To Albion's land
Coming home when I see the runway lights
In the misty dawn the night is fading fast
Coming home, far away as their vapor trails align
Where I've been tonight, you know I will not stay

Curving on the edge of daylight til it slips into the void
Waited in the long night, dreaming til the sun is born again
Stretched the fingers of my hand, covered countries with my span
Just a lonely satellite, speck of dust and cosmic sand

Over borders that divide the earthbound tribes
Through the dark Atlantic; over mounting stormy waves
We will ride this thunderbird, silver shadows on the earth
A thousand leagues away, our land of birth

To Albion's land
Coming home when I see the runway lights
In the misty dawn the night is fading fast
Coming home, far away as their vapor trails align
Where I've been tonight, you know I will not stay

To Albion's land
Coming home when I see the runway lights
In the misty dawn the night is fading fast
Coming home, far away as their vapor trails align
Where I've been tonight, you know I will not stay
Coming home, far away when I see the runway lights
In the misty dawn the night is fading fast
Coming home, far away as their vapor trails align
Where I've been tonight, you know I will not stay

Iron Maiden: part I

With the Iron Maiden concert in March approaching, and seeing as many people still don't know about the awesomeness that is Iron Maiden, myself having only gotten to know them 10 years ago... I decided to post a song every once in a while with some explanations or just the lyrics.

Not everyone likes Iron Maiden or metal in general, that's fine. It's ultimately a matter of taste. But you better show Respect (yes capital R, actually gonna go all out and quote Aretha Franklin: R-E-S-P-E-C-T!) to a band that has made 30 or so albums over a span of 30 years, sold over 85 million records with little radio and TV exposure (the church most probably helped a lot with their whole anti-devil-worshiping-music campaign, just as they did with The DaVinci Code... silly people won't learn that no publicity is bad publicity...), they've also played over 2000 live shows, and are still going strong! Their last album released last year peaked at number 1 in 30 countries. Lots of 30s there haha. Blame Wikipedia...

They even have their own plane! Ed Force One (Ed being the name of their mascot who appears on every single album cover). They use it to carry their crew and equipment all over for touring. The lead vocalist Bruce Dickinson (one of the most awesomest vocalists ever) pilots it lol.

Now which song to start with? Such a hard choice...

Zo without further ado! One of my favorite songs by them: Hallowed Be Thy Name.



This is a song from 1985 about a guy waiting in his cell for his hanging o.O very psychological and moving song. This is the live performance at the 2001 Rock in Rio concert. The sub-par YouTube quality ruins it a bit but it's nice to see 250,000 people going nuts over the wild performance! Yes 250,000...



Lyrics:

I'm waiting in my cold cell when the bell begins to chime
Reflecting on my past life and it doesn't have much time
Cos at 5 o'clock they take me to the Gallows Pole
The sands of time for me are running low

When the priest comes to read me the last rites
I take a look through the bars at the last sights
Of a world that has gone very wrong for me

Can it be there's some sort of error
Hard to stop the surmounting terror
Is it really the end not some crazy dream

Somebody please tell me that I'm dreaming
It's not so easy to stop from screaming
But words escape me when I try to speak
Tears they flow but why am I crying
After all I am not afraid of dying
Don't believe that there is never an end

As the guards march me out to the courtyard
Someone calls from a cell "God be with you"
If there's a God then why has he let me die?

As I walk all my life drifts before me
And though the end is near I'm not sorry
Catch my soul cos it's willing to fly away

Mark my words please believe my soul lives on
Please don't worry now that I have gone
I've gone beyond to see the truth

When you know that your time is close at hand
maybe then you'll begin to understand
Life down there is just a strange illusion.

A cold cold night...

Last post we left off at how tolerable walking out in -6 degrees is.
But is it the same when standing in -18 degrees? NO! But we'll get there.



Last week, Quijote (who lost his Don because he proved useless in Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles), Alejandro decided to have dinner at a place we like a lot. They got there before me and, realizing that the guy (sexy word incoming -> henceforth referred to as the dude) was in quite a bad mood and rather intoxicated, tried to warn me, but it was too late...

Arriving at the scene, I did not notice anything wrong. The dude explained that it was the memory of his mother passing away, that he was sad because he wasn't on good terms with her when it happened, and that instead of eating (since the kitchen was closed by then) we should drink some wine. Being oblivious to the fact that the dude was already quite drunk, I agreed and went and bought 3 bottles of wine from the nearby conbini (again convenience store).

Thus began the longest night any of us ever had in Sapporo. By the second glass, the dude had become quite violent, and The Eye of the Tiger had become annoying to say the least after the umpth time we heard it. Quijote being the heavy drinker he is (drinking a whopping 1 glass of wine!) made Alejandro and me gulp down our glasses to drink as much as we can, thus minimizing the alcohol intake of the dude...

That is when Jake arrived and I cursed myself for forgetting to warn him not to come either... And that is when the dude really became troublesome. More than once, we thought he'd start a fight over nothing, but Jake was calm and gracious, and eventually, like a master ninja, just got up and left without the dude being the wiser haha.



Next comes the part where we tried to get the dude back home. We got into the taxi and went 'approximately' in the direction of the dude's house. The first part of the taxi ride was when the dude started yelling at the poor old driver for taking a longer route than he needed, and Quijote and Alejandro calming him down. Eventually we reached what the dude initially thought to be his house, and turned out not to be... The second taxi ride was when the dude started yelling at the poor old driver (again) for not having children... and Quijote and Alejandro calming him down.
We finally got off at a conbini (slap yourself if you don't already know this word) near his house, and thankfully the guys working there knew him! So he calls his wife to pick him up, gets in a fight with her on the phone, and hangs up... *Super facepalm is in order* and we run after him trying to stop him from buying beer. We order another taxi and wait 15 minutes or so outside for it, and the following equation became apparent to me:
-6 °C + thin sox + sneakers + walking = OK!
-18 °C + thick sox + sneakers + standing = NOT OK! NOT AT FEKIN ALL!



By the time the taxi arrived, the dude had sobered up and knew where his house was.



So a couple hours drinking wine, 2 taxi rides and a nice refreshing wait in the snow, we were back where we started, much, much, hungrier. So at nearly midnight, our choices of places to eat were limited (everything closes so early here) and so it was off to the yakitori place where the mascot is a chicken samurai(?) carrying a shish kebab instead of a sword... love that place! Cheap beer and fried chicken? Yes please! So not all was lost, and Pen2 even joined us so there was someone other than me drinking something other than water... useless Quijote and Alejandro...

Dinner? No thanks trying to lose weight...

After ending the last post on a food note (kinda sounds like foot note? meh beykha...), thought I'd ride that wave into this next one. So the second night after arriving and finding out about the gas (got the bill for that half a month and it's 120$ or so... ouchies! So visiting me now is not recommended coz I'm making up for it by not using the heater anymore so it's below 10 degrees inside most of the time lal which is fine by me with Jeddak's 3abayeh or robe), realized that 2 weeks outside Hokkaido makes you miss some things. And people maybe, but mostly things, mainly Soup Curry! Soup Curry is best eaten at Picante and Picante is the second home for someone called Ted, so I call Ted and naturally, he agrees to meet up. Jesse and James also come, Jake is stuck at work and arrives after we're done.



Now Soup Curry was a dish I was not particularly fond of, but it certainly does grow on you, especially when it starts getting cold! And cold it gets! But more on that later.

After finishing, went with Jake to Jacksonville's so that he could have dinner. Me having had dinner decided to just go with some chicken wings and a beer (bill was 1010 Yen tihi I love silly numbers).
Then we decided to look for an "apparently" good Russian restaurant in the neighborhood. We did a whole clockwise turn around the block and finally found it across the street from Jacksonville... so had we turned the opposite direction, it would be a 30 second walk lol. But it was not a loss! For while looking, Jake noticed a new Sushi place, and noticed that the prices were quite cheap. So he decided to go in and try it real quick. The bastardo, fully knowing that my favorite is salmon (he prolly didn't but I just wanna call him a bad name), ordered just that! And me being a good friend who doesn't like to let his friend eat alone (I'm not just wanted to taste it too), ordered some too. The plate comes with 2 pieces and costs 105 Yen which is quite cheap! Needless to say it was blissful, and I ended up ordering 3 other plates... flat fish (forgot the name in Japanese), crab and another salmon to wash em all down with! Bill was 777 Yen for me (again with the fun numbers heh).

The other realization of the night (other than Jake sux and Dal was right about me being a little piggy), was that -6 degrees is not a big deal at all, even with sneakers and ankle-high thin sox. The night after that however, was a totally different story, but that is for the next post...

Vacation and back

Too lazy to write about the vacation :) so only gonna say it was a blast! Not nearly enough time to see everyone I wanted to see, and more importantly (yes people FOOD > you in case you didn't know...) I didn't even get to eat a chicken sub at Mike! Nor was I able to go to CafeSho... what a waste of a vacation tbh heh.

Needless to say, 4 hours of sleep accompanied by lots of eating and going out means 2 things: some extra weight and eventual collapse and sickness. Thus begins the story of the trip back. Zo I was supposed to come back on Tuesday, but had high temperature and ended up postponing until Friday to get better. The idea of getting quarantined for fear of bird flu outbreak was not appealing...

So begins the long trip back.
The flight from Beirut to Dubai was awesome. I was sitting on the very last row in the plane, and the whole section was quite empty. The cabin crew was having a party in the back area and would take turns to eat on the seats next to me, so we all became buddies :)
--> Time taken: 3:20 ish (all times will be ish coz I'm too lazy to check mkay)
--> Total time: 3:20



During the stop in Dubai, met Ele, a very nice Aussie going back to Indonesia, and so I had someone to chat with from there on (I NEED TO TALK TO SOMEONE! OR SOMETHING! OR MYSELF IF NONE ARE AVAILABLE!). We stayed on board while they cleaned up and waited for the new passengers to embark, so I took a couple photos of the tarmac from the back door. Will post them when I get back home.
--> Time taken: 1:40 (while reading these parts, just imagine each letter getting written as you
--> Total time: 5:00 read along, kinda like in the movies with the typewriter sound effects)



In the next part of the trip, the cabin crew was less pleasant. One (guy) was hitting on me, or just being annoying by asking me to buy him the huge red teddy bear the silly girl 2 rows in front of me had... either way, he was annoying. And another (also guy) was encouraging me to chat with the first one and to give him my PSP meanwhile... aba2ash 7adan yest7eh?! L3ama... Walla for the first time I appreciated the famous quote captain Kanaan Jr. (the useless one) keeps using: STOP HIRING MALE CABIN CREW FFS! Other than that, they had gay ass movies. I had tears in my eyes by the time The Switch was over.
--> Time taken: 7 (a bit less actually but rounding makes addition easier so shush)
--> Time it SEEMED like it took: 12:23 (no addition here so more accurate figures)
--> Total time: 12:00

Supposedly, there are daily flights from Kuala Lumpur (all the cool people call it KL so from hereon that's how we'll refer to it) to Tokyo at 11:00 (AM)... except on weekends yay! And as by then it was already 6:00 AM Saturday, the next flight was at 23:00. This meant I had... 17 hours in KL! Awesome. The good thing is that there are faaaaar worse airports to be stuck in for 17 hours. KL airport is just awesome. Walked around duty free area for an hour or so lugging around the baklava and arak I bought from Beirut duty free (more on that later) until I reached the airport hotel. The cheapest room goes for about 50$ for 6 hours. But it was fully booked. They told me to come back at 10:00. But by that time I had found... the movie lounge!
Right next to Starbucks (not that I buy anything there but for those that do it's cool), the movie lounge is a bunch of couches around 4 TV screens, where there are plugs and free internet (there's actually free WiFi everywhere). There was Good Luck Chuck on (or a censored version of it at least hehe didn't watch so donno). I took over a couch and one 4th season of How Ah Met Yo Mama and two meals later, it was already boarding time.
--> Time taken: 17:00
--> Total time: 29:00

Final stretch of the journey. Lots of Japanese people (the best people to be in large groups with, as opposed to Mediterranean people...). Lucky as I am, I had an empty seat next to me in all 3 flights that day(s). And there was a very nice Saudi family behind me. The father works in Japan so they all live there. Good choice imo. Slept most of the flight.
--> Time taken: 7:00 (also 6:45ish but rounding up again)
--> Total time: 36:00 ish

That's ofc without the hour and a half+ it took to get to Beirut airport in taxi, the 50 minutes or so it took from Narita to Zoya's using the skyliner train. COOL ASS TRAIN! And what's even cooler? Me not getting lost! Oh yeah! Then there's the 40 minutes to get to Haneda and hour and a half from there to New Chitose airport, then the 40-minute train ride to Sapporo station, and finally the 25-minute walk home. Usually takes 15, but I underestimated lugging my luggage in the snow! Mountains of snow you have to navigate around! Next time I'm taking a taxi...



Before the long walk though, as I came out of the station, there was a group of volunteers raising awareness for... something... I think it was related to the police coz there was a big mascot in police clothes? But I still have no clue what the sweet old lady told me.
She walked up to me and was like: bla bla bla bla bla. Kyoo wa (today is) bla bla bla bla bla.
Me: soo des ka (is that so)...
Sweet old lady (with a shine in her eyes that not only did this foreigner understand what she just said, but he also seems interested): blablablablablablablablablabla. Kyoosekete kudasai (please take care).
Me: hai! Wakarimashita (OK! Understood).
She gives me some fliers and free tissue (for the people that always have a runny nose, allergies, or are just cheap, Japan is an awesome place for you! Everyone gives out free portable packs of tissue with ads on them!) and sent me on my way. When I attempt to read the fliers and have an idea what the hell that was all about, I'll let youz know :)

Finally back home, I open the door, (and this is why Mules (that's Nadim) and I always vie for the leadership of the Mules club) and am pleasantly surprised by the warmth of my place... until I realize it's because I forgot the heating on... two weeks ago... nice big fat gas bill incoming :( Opened the tap, and the water came out nice and... brown hehe. Good thing I switched to mineral water after starting to smell metal in the tap water lol. Took the obento (lunch box) I bought from the combini (convenience store) and went to sit down and eat, and bumped my elbow on the stupid handle on the side of the bed. And down went the chicken and noodles face first onto the carpet... sigh. First signs of frustration arose then! Dirtiness will not be tolerated! And I was hungry... Now being a scout for 20 years, grabbing what I could with my hands and putting that back in the lunch box for eating later was not problem. It's the cleaning that was a pain, especially since cleaning delayed the aforementioned eating!! Did I mention I was hungry? Did I mention I'm hungry now?

Vending machines

Using internet in my lab, and too lazy to upload photos, so will talk about something I've been itching to talk about for a while now: vending machines!

Seriously.

Wow.

In Sapporo (and Tokyo), you will be hard pressed to find a vending machine that isn't at most 5 minutes by foot away from another vending machine. That is only in areas very few people go, in more populated areas you find them in pairs or more every 10 meters or so... All of them have drinks in them: from black tea to green tea (many many kinds of tea) to different soft drinks, fizzy drinks, juices and water.

You pay for the same drink quite a bit more from vending machines, they're something like one and a half times as expensive as from the スーパー　(suupaa: supermarket lol I love how the words are compacted), or from the コンビニ　(conbini: convenience store hehe again). A lot of them even have specific garbage cans for the bottles and cans you get from the machine, which is pretty cool.

I found it so interesting that each one had different kinds of drinks, so I started making a point of checking each one I walked past out. Not only does the variety differ from one to the other, but so do the prices sometimes. A small example from Akihabara (heaven for all geeks and otakus in Tokyo): one machine had 330ml cans of Mountain Dew for 120 yen (something like 1.2ish doodoos). Then less than 5 minutes away, while looking for a used vacuum cleaner, ended up in an Indian repair shop (I think? They also sell traditional-looking Indian clothes, found many interesting places but that is a tale for later) and I found a machine there that had the 500ml can for 100 yen! Strange me thinks. Nearly as strange as there being someone keeping tabs of all this world-altering stuff!

So while talking about this, I found out from a reliable source (which means there are no references for any of this :D ) that these vending machines are usually owned by mobsters, and that there are a lot of disagreements about who gets to put which machine where, since very populated intersections or areas are highly sought after, and really make lots and lots of monays!

And now onto some plagiarism, the following is copy-pasted from Wikipedia:

Japan has the highest number of vending machines per capita, with about one machine for every twenty-three people. Japan's high population density, relatively high cost of labor, limited space, preference for shopping on foot or by bicycle, and low rates of vandalism and petty crime, provide a fertile environment for vending machines. While the majority of machines in Japan are stocked with drinks, snacks, and cigarettes, one occasionally finds vending machines selling items such as bottles of liquor, cans of beer, fried food, underwear ^^, iPods, porn magazines, sexual lubricants, live lobsters, fresh meat, eggs and potted plants.

In 1999, the estimated 5.6 million coin- and card-operated Japanese vending machines generated $53.28 billion in sales.

And that is the end of today's lesson boys and girls, hope you all learned something new about the world we live in. A bientot.

Guess who's back? Back again?

Tah is back. Tell a friend. Guess who's back? Guess who's back? Guess who's back...
TADADAM TAM TAM TAM.

Well after a long but amazing 10-day-trip to Tokyo (more on that in other posts), I'm back to Sapporo! I was surprised by how good it felt to be back to familiar grounds, kind of how I felt driving back home, after a long day at work in ugly Beirut, when I reach the Monsef highway. If it feels like this to come back to Sapporo after 10 days away and only 6 months living here, I wonder how it'll feel to go back to Monsef after 8 months away and a couple decades living there haha. Will find out at Christmas :)

Finally got my modem on Wednesday, plugged it in and no connection (unknown network blabla). So called the internet company customer service and the woman speaks impeccable English yay! It seems however, that customer service is customer service no matter where you are... After 30 minutes on the phone trying different stuff (eh Joujou ana noob khales shimmo):

Me: do you have an IP I can ping to see if I'm even connected to you somehow?
Her: no you get an IP automatically
Me: yes, not mine, yours
Her: we may have connected your phone box to another broadband internet provider, I need to send you some engineers to check it out then come over to your place and test it
Me: ...
Her: oh and we can't send them before the 8th
Me: ...
...

The return continued

... And so I open the bag and find a BigMac! So somehow my McFlurry was understood as BigMac... Guess I shouldve said MaccuFurari.

Other than that back to the gym. With a vengeance! And I'm sore all over to prove it lol. In other news, donno if I mentioned it, but a while back was having dinner with some friends, and while leaving we saw a festival across the streets. We got a couple beers and proceeded to listen to an old man doing karaoke hehe. Old traditional song. Basically there was this Japanese dude looking at us so I did a cheers jesture, and he came over and introduced himself as a DJ in a tiny local radio station. And each Tuesday he has interviews some foreign student. Questions about the country and food etc.

Finally went last week. It was lots of fun. After introductions, we were flooded by thousands of questions on the show's twitter! Questions from the millions of listeners on a Tuesday at 22:00 lol. No but there were many more questions than I could answer in an hour. So he asked me to go one more time this last tuesday, and bring a friend. So went with the an equally annoying Spaniard and it was loads of fun again. The "studio" though is as big as my bedroom back home haha. Ah the good old days of having bedrooms...

Speaking of which. Time to put the phone aside and get some shuteye.

The return! Or is it?

Tam tam taaaaaaam.
So new apartment (read room).
New fridge (read used).
New washing machine (also used).
Computer table.
Computer chair.
All one needs to feel at home :)
At least for me. Some people would go with bed as priority, but then again they're not writing this blog so they can shush :)
There is one thing missing though. Internet. So I'm using my phone at the moment, which is a pain in the ass for typing for long.
So short(er) posts. No photos. For now.

Moving was a pain, but not that much. Knew I'd be moving so never bought lots of stuff, just vacuum cleaner. Speaking of which, rocks to be on the 8th floor, and away from Toyohira. Donno if it was that or being on the third floor, but it was DUSTY! Had to dust and vacuum every two days or I'd feel like I was in a western, only the tumbleweed rolling around was actually dust... Good thing my camera is dust proof heh. Whatever that means :/

Had to go to the district ward office and and change my address, then do the same at postal bank and I must say, times like these make you love Saporo. Try to do much much simpler stuff like that in Lebanon. It'll cost you a couple hours of your life, and a couple weeks worth of stress attached.
Here, there's a ward office for each district I think, so it's not very crowded, especially for the foreigners counters. So you get a number, wait in line, everyone's relaxed and quiet, you get there and it takes them 5 minutes to finish your stuff, and that's with my crappy Japanese and their worse English :) fun stuff.

One such mixup was at a McDonald's. Ya I hate that place with all my heart, and sadiki Hicham I know we shouldn't support the bastards ;) but I was passing in front of it in subway station and really wanted ice cream! And I love their McFlurry. So I ordered one to take out, still needed to give old apartment keys back. I give them ¥200 and they give me my bag. I grab it and am walking out when I touch the bottom of the bag and notice it's actually hot...
And I'll finish the story tomorrow.
*cliffhanger* ooh!

Starcraft II

First, a quick word about Starcraft and its expansion. Sadly, not everyone knows this game on the PC released by Blizzard TWELVE years ago. A game still played a lot until very recently. Until Starcraft II was released two days ago.

With that out of the way, I shall talk about the two tragedies that have befallen me.

The first, not very important, is that I actually knew of the release TWO WHOLE DAYS after!!! Unforgivable!

The second, more serious one, is my Battle.net account getting hacked...

The reason for this is that Blizzard also made another phenomenal game called World of Warcraft, a game I played for a long time. The thing is however, that you have one account managing all your Blizzard games.

I have not been playing World of Warcraft for a while now, but somehow, I did something stupid, and got a trojan virus. And so some jolly fellow stole my Battle.net account info AND my Hotmail account info that is linked to my Battle.net account.

They did this because World of Warcraft is such a huge success, that people actually sell the in-game currency (or gold) for actual real-life currency (or dollars).

The bastards proceeded to change my Hotmail password and secret question to something in Chinese, so that I could not login and reset my Battle.net password!

Thus began the long story of contacting Microsoft people to get my Hotmail account back, and from that get my Battle.net account back, and then change all info and passwords everywhere.

Then proceeded to check PC for viruses and adware and malware but found nothing...

So long story short, my Battle.net account is disabled until I send them an email from a new email account, but I don't want to do that until I find the root of the problem...

This however means I can't buy the new Starcraft game :'(

Raynor will have to wait (until I download the game on torrent for now, until I can actually buy it).

Bicycle business

So, it's really late, but I'm feeling quite generous tonight and as such will give the common people a quick update, basically about my bicycle lol. And of incoming changes!

Last week, I opened Google maps, and traced the route I take everyday from my dorms to the university, and learned that it's approximately 4km each way. Doing very simple maths (nijma3!), this amounts to a minimum of 8km a day, around 16ish on days I go to the gym (which hasn't been happening much though).

8km à pied, ça use, ça use.

8km à pied,ça use les souliers!

Only I'm not walking, but the concept remains unchanged, and so I use that fact to make myself feel less bad about the 3rd bicycle I've so far kinda broken or ruined...

First one was the old crappy one my very nice friend gave me (I'm really not being sarcastic here), didn't take me much effort to ruin the chain so that it came off every other block. Returned it and she actually was nice enough to give me another one.

Condition was better, but not much... it wasn't ME riding it when the chain actually broke, but I paved the way for it.

The last one, which I bought second hand from the Co-op, seemed more promising, in much better condition. It seems however, that it is a bit small for me. I should have realized this when my feet would brush the ground when I would be banking right or left lol, but I just assumed the road was uneven.

Last week, the main suspension (under the rear seat) actually broke... Seems it wasn't meant to carry me + my books + my laptop for a total of 80something kgs. Go figure.

Asked the nearest repair shop, turns out it costs nearly as much to change it as it would to buy another second hand bike... So I fixed it myself. It's not a very good job, but it seems to be holding out for the time being. I just need to make sure everything's still in place every couple of days, and avoid carrying my laptop with me lol. And maybe stand up when there's a bump in the road. And maybe not jump off the sidewalk when there are many people there. That might help a little haha (no seriously wasn't doing that, maybe only once or twice. Now I just avoid streets with many people).

Good thing is however, that this long ride is amazing exercise. Especially since I'm always late in the morning! When I first started making the trip maybe 2 months ago, I'd get there tired, now I can very easily go full speed the whole way back and forth one go. So I started to find other ways to make it a challenge, like standing as much as I can (while avoiding straightening the knees of course), or not using my thighs and stuff like that.

There are days however, when all this is unnecessary. Days when the wind is more than enough challenge! Days like today.

Once the wind was so strong, it actually stopped me in my tracks, from nearly top speed! Had to walk my bike... but this only happens at the riverside for some reason. Maybe coz of lack of buildings that shield you.

Well anyway enough of silly and uninteresting stuff. Winter is coming (Song of Ice and Fire reference... if you don't know what that is, shame on you! But worry not, you do not need to read them, HBO is making a series based on the books! Books will be better of course, but I digress again). Therefore, bicycle riding will be somewhat hard. Add that to the million reasons living in these dorms (or any other dorms) sucks, and you get enough incentive to move to an apartment! I say apartment, but it's basically a bigger room lol...

Et voila! My new apartment. A couple minutes away from my lab (on foot!) and on the 8th floor (8 being my favorite number). I'll be missing out on the daily workout but I can think of many many more positive sides to the move. Like: hotel Tah is now open for visitors! Well not yet, but as of August 21st (or a week after that). Come one come all! I won't pay for your ticket :P but you'll have a place to stay, and a guide for the bestest foodz hehe.

Enough rambling for now, so much to write about, so little "jalad" to do so :)

Uploaded many pix on FB though so check them out.

Moo.

GAD DAMMIT I'M NAT FAT! >>.<< !

We got the results for the health examination we did a couple months ago, and it seems I'm fat! Lel. BMI (Boday Mass Index?) never really applied on me coz I'm quite dense. Physically people physically! So when I had myself checked at the gym and results came up less than 10% body fat percentage, at 72kgs (with clothes), I wasn't really fat :D

So now, haven't gotten taller (unfortunately), but have gotten 2 kgs lighter at 70 kgs, and my BMI is 25.2; the average here should be between 18.5 and 25.

So I got a comment that I'm a bit fat (or skinny.. stupid computer automated message) and that I should watch my diet lol. Getting quite hungry just thinking about it. And coz it's 2 AM and I haven't eaten anything in a while! Like 6 whole hours... weather got hot all of a sudden and I just woke up hot and sweaty, and not very sleepy. Thus the update. And the incoherence in sentence structuring...

And finally, not nice to have an entry with no photos! So! The school visit I spoke of last entry was not done yet and we had to write a thank you letter! Seeing as I'm quite lazy and couldn't come up with much to write, I decided to just go buy a brush and some ink and draw a big THANK YOU in kanji! Nice right? No. After getting the stuff, found out the letter's addressed to the kids (7-year-old don't know the kanji for thank you, don't think anyone uses it...) so we came up with another idea. Don't remember if it was Wulan, Pen Pen or Vangie that threw the idea out as a joke, a joke I found to be quite serious!

Et voila! Just drew a couple names and a quick thank you and it turned out quite nice.

Ehab, my palms (or palm to be more precise) still blacker HAH!

And I think I'll go back to sleep now. Peace.

Big ass bruise!

Since I'm on a roll and uploaded all the photos I've been too lazy to upload for the past month, I'll accompany them with a quick explanation here. Won't be uploading same pix though.

Yesterday's post was a short one and I'll not consider it as the "return", so since THIS is the new beginning, I decided to make it special, and kick off with a rather humorless and pretty rude pun. Thus the title.

Now we all know the best way to get someone to do something is to tell them NOT to do it.

"Don't look down!"

And you went and did. Obviously. So I'm sure my next few words will have the opposite effect but I'm just gonna say it: at the end of this post I am posting a photo of a big ass bruise I got a couple weeks ago... on my ass! Get it? Haha. Ehm ya SO you were warned! If you've known me for more than a month, chances are you've already seen my ass ;) but in case you aren't yet of the few [un] lucky people here's your chance. Basically I slipped and landed on a step and had to share the pretty pic hehe.

On to other news. Those that read my last post about my new earphones, will be delighted to know that I just found the ones I "lost" today... and now I feel a little less good about buying the 40$ ones, but am not gonna return them coz they're just too frikkin awesome.

Soooo actually I find myself too lazy to write anything about Hokkudai sai (food festival at our uni), Yokasoi (dance festival in Sapporo), Maruyama zoo and mountain (with the breathtaking view of Sapporo), and Zenibako (beach), since the photos are more than enough info me thinks, and I'm quite lazy.

With that out of the way let us begin with the miscellaneous things:

Saw these guys while going to class lol. Stuck around till they finished thinking they'd climb up when done, which was pretty silly of me in retrospect, since they basically just went down a meter or so and were on the ground lol... ah well...

This is a gorgeous house right outside uni, with an old woman always gardening. Might have posted a photo of it before but it's definitely worth seeing again :)

Another gadget I wouldn't have thought I'd ever see: a USB fan... yes lol. Very cool :D

This is pure genius! Ever eaten ice cream or anything wrapped in paper and had to gradually tear the paper while you ate? Well this little baby is already ready to very easily tear in a spiral, conveniently uncovering the important stuff: the FOODZ!

Now on to less random stuff. A Shinto shrine: quite old.

Very gorgeous.

So you go to the altar throw some money and pray for something, then ring the bell so the gods can hear you. Then you can pay the equivalent of a dollar and get your fortune. If you don't like it, there's a place where you can tie it and it won't come true. So take someone who can read it with you. Don't know if you take it and have someone translate it, then don't like it and come back to tie it, if it will still come true since you took it out in the first place :P Not that I really think it will come true anyway.

Outside the shrine. You can see summer in its full effect. I'm pretty sure I have the same photo in the winter somewhere but I can't be bothered to find it and compare :)

Finally, was riding my bike back home, and had my earphones on full blast listening to something loud, however, I still heard something. Took off my earphones, and the sound was pretty low, surprising with the volume of the music (probably the silence between songs), so I went in the general direction of the music and found this:

Asked, and seems (correct me if I'm wrong) this is an Omikoshi (Mikoshi but the O is added for respect in Japanese), which is basically a vessel used to transport the deity from the nearby Shinto shrine around the neighborhood, so the deity can check it out. I felt very lucky to have wandered there by mistake. A very pleasant experience.

Of course can't keep the tone very serious! So this is me in flashing mini mouse ribbon yay!

And this is me posing for my new haircut yay!

And this the sheep dog again! I just love it!

Saw it down by the river and sprinted to take another photo of it. And it just walked up to me and started sniffing and licking me! So cute! And huge!

Finally, would like to talk about the school visit last week. Each year, in this intensive Japanese course we're taking, the teachers organize a trip to a nearby Japanese middle school. The aim is to see how the Japanese educational system works, and have a nice Japanese experience. The school benefits from an international exchange, since we all prepare presentations about our countries.

We can't post photos online because of Japanese regulations regarding the schools, regulations I'm surprisingly very comfortable following (!!!) I'm sure they have their reasons, but if anyone wants some, just let me know on FB or drop a comment (with a name or email address if your nickname is something vague!) and I'll email you some. Sharing photos with family is OK but not posting them publicly. And believe me it's worth it! I chose the youngest class, 6-7 year-olds and they were TOO. FRIKKIN. CUTE.

The whole class (both sections) sang "We Are The World".

That's us practicing the night before at one of the dormitories.

So we got there and were each greeted by a student and led by the hand to the gym, where all the students and parents (?) awaited our arrival. We entered to a Michael Jackson song lol (forgot which though) and after lots of talking (in Japanese of course), they started with the interviews. I naturally forgot to read up on the questions they would ask us, and messed up mine by answering something totally different but humorous (I think meh).

After that we sang, then they sang, then we all danced... the MACARENA lol!

Then it was off to the classes and the presentations we prepared (all in Japanese of course...) Mine was about famous places in Lebanon. Took me a while to prepare it, since I had to download a trial version of Office 2010 to get PowerPoint, and learn how to use it since the last version I've used was 2000. Add to that the fact that it was all in Japanese, and you have a recipe for hours and hours of work for 10 minutes of presentation lol. It was fun as hell though, and except for the last couple slides (where I became lazy), I mostly had the full attention of 7 year-old children. A feat in itself!

We then began playing games, none of which I fully understood, all of which I was running and screaming and being all-out-silly in though :D

We had lunch with the students. They have lunch in their classes. Carriages are left in front of the class, with food and milk cartons, and of course utensils. The students then wear the funniest looking hats and clothes and assorting table cloths on their desks, then make lines to have the ones on duty serve them food. Too cool. Very cute pix here :(

After lunch, more games, dancing, singing and lots and lots of fun! The extra attention is a bit annoying, especially for my class, where it's the first time for many of them to see a foreigner. And so they were all over me, touching me and trying to get my attention, and of course I couldn't understand 90% of what they were saying. It was even tougher for our African friends haha, since their skin is even stranger to the kids than mine! And were even asked many times why they were black.

Finally we drew big notes of thanks to the kids and were on our way after a long and exhausting, but very very fun day.

Oh and nearly forgot the promised photo! Haha.

How to... : part I

Since it's been a while, let us begin with something simple, as the title suggests, a tutorial of sorts. Without further ado:

How to buy 40$ earphones without feeling any guilt:

1. Lose your old (perfectly fine, great and comfortable) earphones
2. Go scouting for new ones
3. Buy 29$ earphones that even have a mic in them (very cool since I listen to music on my iPhone and it helps to not have to hold it up to my mouth or remove the earphones altogether)
4. Try them out and realize they have absolutely rubbish bass! Can't even listen to stupid Lady Gaga and JayZ without base, let alone Metal or good Rap/HipHop...
5. Go back to the store and ask to replace them (they actually DO that here unlike in Lebanon where you'd be chased off at gunpoint hehe )
6. Get the 40$ smashing Philipps earphones you had noticed before, that openly advertise the something something air flow that gives real and deep bass
7. Forget about the previously paid money and convince yourself that you only paid 11$ for the new earphones
8. Enjoy the amazing sound on these babies! Had to really drop the volume though coz they pretty badass

They even come with their own elegant case, and are very short (guessing that helps for jogging?) but come with an extension cord to reach longer. I miss my sound system JUST A LITTLE bit less now...

Overview

So been kinda busy for a while.

And lazy! Let's not forget lazy...

Much easier to just upload photos on FB than to write here too :)

And the more I procrastinate updating the blog, the more depressing it is to think what to write next...

So since I have a midterm tomorrow that I have not started to study for, I'll just use that as an excuse to get away with only writing an overview of what will be discussed soon:

1. Summer! Yesterday was first day you can stand in the shade and still feel kinda warm.
2. Food festivals at Hokudai (my uni) last week: many many countries had tents in which they were selling their traditional foods. This was for 4 days (Thursday-Sunday) which meant we had a long weekend, and I had tentloads of food, and paid too much for it :D
3. Yokasoi which means "follow the night"? Forgot. Basically this weekend was also a 4 day festival for... DANCING! Ya 4 days of people dressed in costumes and dancing as teams all over Sapporo. Very cool.
4. Basketball. Football (not world cup of course).
5. Midterms!
6. Big ass bruise! Explicit material incoming...

As for the midterms, I had kanji exam today, finished it in half the time! Did great in it too. Studied for a hour or two yesterday for it yay.

I find myself very strangely really really enjoying kanji. What I thought was stupid (sorry I mean illogical and not quite efficient) and complicated, I now regard as very interesting and complicated hehe.

Still have the grammar exam tomorrow so I guess I'll go study for that now :'(

I even shaved so as to postpone studying... and those who know me can tell that means a lot!

Ah well off to study...

Shopping: part II

So much to write about! Every time I think about it it depresses me and I have no idea where to start haha.

Zerefore, I shall begin with the camera.

A week after I bought it, removed memory card to import pix and after putting it back, started getting the following error message when turning it on:

"Check that there is no foreign objects inside the battery cover and close cover tightly".

After much removing and returning of battery and memory card, was still getting the error.

So I went to the camera shop and told them what was happening, and that the message would randomly come and go.

After much more removing and returning of battery and memory cardS, this time by them, they concluded that there was a defect in the camera and that they would give me a new one.

Got my new camera, put the battery and memory card in, and turned it on, et voila! Same error message lol.

So after a couple minutes in the back of the store, the woman in charge came back and told me that this is in fact not an error, just a warning message. We were so focused on the first part of the sentence, that the second part escaped our notice haha. Since this is a waterproof camera, the lid should be closed "tightly"! And if it is in fact NOT closed tightly, this message pops up when you turn it on...

Awesome thing however is that, since I had already bought and stuck the protection sticker on my new camera touch screen, I got to keep the new one, even though the "old" one had nothing wrong with it. Yay!

The MULES strikes again: part I

As I said earlier, I forgot my bank card pin code, without having used it even once...

So the procedure goes as follows:

1. Apply to have it changed
2. Get registered mail with the old pin code a couple days later
3. Change pin code at ATM machine

Therefore, I started thinking of a suitable pin code that would not be easy, and as such rejected by the bank, but not too hard that I would forget it (although I was resolved to take it down this time :P).

I came up with the perfect pin code! (I'm not putting here for obvious reasons hehe)

Got the old pin code last night, and it turns out it's the "new" pin code I decided to use...

DOH!