A note from afar

Greetings from the land of the rising sun! Took a 7 hours night flight over with a time difference of an hour ahead over here. Been so long since an overnight flight that somehow, didn't manage to catch that good a sleep. Then another 2 hour plus train ride from Narita Airport to Yokohama. Would have been great if this was a holiday trip, but work cum semi holiday is also ok for me. Honestly though, looking at the schedules, not much free time except for full day Sunday and of course this afternoon since I arrived at the Training Centre about 10:30am Yokohama time. Incidentally, the trains are quite packed, with many commuting quite a distance by rail just to get to work.

So far, adjusting to the environment here and will probably blog more once I get back home. One thing I noticed immediately though, the streets seem kind of quiet barring the rat-tat noise of the various construction projects going on. Don't see as many people walking around, I guess probably due to the heat. But once you enter the malls, it is another matter. The interlinking malls may seem like a maze, but keeping some key points as bearings, can find my way back. I guess the current summer heat is keeping many indoors. Will probably not explore much more today, and might just get a quick nap later to recuperate from all the travelling. The sales people appear very friendly, and as I was exploring a shop displaying some decorative cloth pieces, the sales lady initially spoke to me in Japanese, but after saying that I am from Malaysia and excused myself for being unable to converse in Japanese, her eyes lit up, and she has indeed heard of Malaysia. She was regaling as best as she could in English, saying her son and cousin have visited Malaysia and thought well of the place, especially the snorkelling and the food. Incidentally, I enquired about the price of the beautiful piece of cloth, hand sewn with light coloured threads depicting an olden Japanese village against a snowy mountain backdrop! Breathtaking scene with an equally hefty price, all for a cool 819,000 Yen!!! The sales lady did admit that it was quite expensive, but I guess for such an exquisite piece of work, and with all the various markups charged in, there may be willing buyers out there. Alas, unfortunately, I am not one of them. I liked it heaps and had wanted to buy it for my empty wall back home, but couldn't afford the hefty price.

Yep, things are not cheap here. 1,000 Yen can get you a proper meal (which costs about RM30). But I had my first bite at the local McD's and went for the McPork! I only had one McPork burger and some fries, but it cost me 330 Yen, which is slightly over RM10! Initially, I didn't see many food outlets and thought that I might have to frequent McD during my stay here, but once I started exploring a bit more, especially in the malls, there are just so many choices around for food depending upon one's fancy, and of course, budget.

Oh! One other thing, apparently, my yellow DIGI man didn't follow me over, so no internatinal roaming on my handphone! Bummer! Till the next post then, Sayonara!

Something fishy this way comes

After the morning run throughs for the charity do thingy, my acapella group had some time to spare before the actual session in the afternoon. We headed to The Pavillion opposite Westin Hotel (which was where the event took place), had our breakfast cum lunch, and headed off in various directions. Two went shopping, two went back to the Hotel (we were given a free room to rest, put our stuffs, etc), and Cheryl (one of the Sopranos) and myself, went to check out the Fish Spa!

It was just for the novelty of it all, since it is all the rage nowadays in KL, with various outlets of fish spas being set up. It was relatively early, so there weren't that many people. It costs about RM38 for a half hour session for adults, and since we were told we could sit anywhere, I plonked down on a spot which looked fairly comfy, and when I put my feet in, you could see so many of the HUNGRY FISHES rushing over to nibble. Apparently, the more fishes nibbling, the more dead skin you have. It was initially quite ticklish and I wanted to laugh, and it was a new sensation indeed, like a constant nibbling of the skin. No, the fishes had no teeth but the constant nibbling is quite hard to describe.

And you know what? We didn't realise that there was a difference between big fishes and small fishes! Normally, people would start with the small fishes for about 10 minutes or so, to get used to it at least, and move position to the bigger fishes to nibble. However, I started immediately at the big fish area so it was indeed quite a jolt! The ladies at the fish spa were quite surprised when we got talking, and I told them it was my first time trying this out. They did say that the nibbling sensation is intensified by the bigger fishes and true enough, when I tried the smaller fishes, it wasn't as great a feeling. Of course I moved back to the bigger fishes! :P

One of the sales lady kept pestering to sign up for a package, which kind of put me off, but I hedged by repeatedly saying that I will think about it. However, the staff were friendly enough, and even volunteered to help me take pictures!

After the half hour session, I was told that my legs would feel very smooth and I would have a lighter feeling. I joked that I don't feel any lighter (especially after the breakfast cum lunch earlier on), but my legs were really smooth, and as they say, "as smooth as a baby's bottom"!

And you know what? They have the Full Body Fish Spa treatment (wearing swimming trunks of course!), but I didn't try! Will probably squirm quite a bit as the fishes come nibbling at various parts of the body, especially at the initial submersion part! Just thinking about it would make me want to laugh out loud!

Dare you try it? :P

Charitable Deeds

When one of my acapella group member asked if I would be available to sing for a time-and-fund raising charity do to raise awareness for Breast Cancer (notice the logo, I think the helpers got the ribbon the wrong way around, the fold should be right over left, but still, not obvious from afar) via a Bachelor Auction thingy jointly organised by the Soroptimist International Club of Petaling Jaya and the UK Women's Alumni Network, I was initially apprehensive in terms of time. And no! I was not one of the "charitable bachelors" as they put it, and my group was asked if we could just do one song "Man In The Mirror" at 3pm, and because it was just ONE song, most of us kind of agreed to it, after all, it was for charity!

Imagine the horror!, when we were told that sound check was at 8am!!! on a Sunday some more!!! and a run through with the 15 bachelors at 8:30am while we sing, and they parade in.

However, they didn't do our sound check until 9:15am, by which time, we were getting grouchy, as we could have slept in longer, AND they only had three mics available for sound check for six of us! What the !#&@*!#!!! But it was ok, we reminded that this was after all, for CHARITY!!! But still, would have liked things to go according to schedule. Noticed that other people rehearsing their various "duties" were also starting to get a bit high strung.

When the time arrived (and we started about 15 minutes later than expected, which was a fairly respectable time delay - I have had other events starting well over an hour or two delay!!!), we sang the specially arranged music by Deke Sharon just for this occasion (which was very well arranged I might add, one of the tighter versions I have heard whilst researching online), and my oh my, the women there literally got excited and screamed aloud when the various bachelors strutted in and did various poses!

Our music gave the beat for the bachelors as they entered for the women's very first glimpse. We joked about adding in an extra beat here and there to trip the bachelors, but that was rather mean! The good thing about live music then is that we could time the beginning and the end, and do a repetition of phrases to suit the duration of the catwalk so to say, and the whole thing lasted just over 3 minutes!

At the end, after all the "happenings" in the morning, it was kind of enjoyable. Despite the various headaches of rehearsals (and we had minimal at that because of time constraints of members), we did fairly well. We sang, we grooved, and it was a joy to see the bachelors enjoying themselves to the beat and the women screaming their heads off, cheering them on, all in the name of charity.

However, I didn't stay for the actual auction, as I had to go off for something else, but think that it would have been great as during the rehearsals, we saw the various bachelors doing "their thing" to get the women to bid and raise funds (their thing being singing, dancing, etc...nothing "fishy" although I heard stories of last year's event when the guys were asked to remove their shirts during the auction itself, etc).

In case you are wondering, the bachelor auction thing is an auction for time and funds. Obviously funds for charity, but also, more importantly, TIME with the bachelors as they do community work. Worthwhile cause I reckon.