bbg - life in Kobe

千八百五十一：　鹿児島

sunrise this morning

Woke up at 5am to fly to Kagoshima (鹿児島）this morning for Tomoko's wedding this weekend. SJ also went for the wedding so he rented a car and we had decided to go Kagoshima, Sakurajima to see the volcano then drive up to Miyazaki, where Tomoko lives. However, after we went to the aquarium at Kagoshima, we realised that the volcano was obscured by i think volcanic ash clouds/smoke, so couldn't see the volcano clearly at all.

when the sky finally cleared to see Sakurajima a little -桜島

However, there was this weird fish at the aquarium which ate sand and spat it out. It also filtered the sand out from its gills. (notice the sand piling up below it's gill area in the video) very weird.

　

since we scrapped the Sakurajima plan, had to find places to see this afternoon. so went to a famous temple 霧島神宮 (Kirijima Jingu) which was tooo spacious and had too many steps then headed to a 吊橋 at the town of Aya - 綾の照葉大吊橋. Pretty cool, but it was really tedious to get there, drove for nearly 3 hours on a very narrow and winded mountain road and I never ever get car sick but this route almost pushed me there. I was starting to feel pukish when there was about 10km left, and my head was starting to hurt so forced myself to close my eyes and doze off instead. When we finally reached there, there was only 30 min left to closing time :( but. best thing was I saw a rainbow even though there was no rain.

a tiny bit of rainbow in the middle of the sky above the clouds

it was another hour drive to Miyazaki City, finally reached the hotel. Super tired!! Tomoko is going to take us to 日南海岸 area tomorrow finally no more mountains, can see the sea!!

千八百五十：　Blah!!!!

not very happy with work lately. so many redundancies, so many people who don't know they are wasting other people's time, so many irresponsible people. what's wrong with them? what are they making other pple's work difficult?

supposed to be packing for miyazaki trip tonight but totally don't feel any mood for packing. am very tired, have been finding it very hard to get out of bed for the past few days. I don't know if it's because my back hurts or because I went to the gym or because i've been consistently getting up at 6am to make breakfast.

discovered how to properly steam fish with the steam over microwave just now. (don't follow the guidebook, don't use the tray provided) I haven't drank coke for nearly a month. don't know how I survived; feel the craving for coke every day every meal actually.

been trying to run every time I go to the gym, so far 2 times a week, either before yoga or after yoga. but weight still hovering at 49kg. :S trying to go back to 48.. but the back injuries are worse than i thought. can't tilt my head back properly anymore, and i can't turn my body when i lie down to sleep. the moment i turn, i wake up in pain.

feeling very tired.... where is my first pay check...

千八百四十九：　招财鸭

Finally managed to break the 500K barrier in bejeweled! was going to puke or go blind from the attempt to break 400k this week.

ok this ad about an insurance company is damn funny - about the manekineko （招き猫） + manekinekoduck （招き猫ダック）

The dancing cat is so lifelike & the tune is so catchy that i hear Ryo singing the song in the shower. hahaha ..

Was supposed to go gym today but felt very lethargic so just did some yoga at home, went to the supermarket & watched MR Brain at home. A pity it's only 8 episodes, because i really liked such shows like Hero where Kimura showed all those 推理 skills.

Lazy to go out, decided to just wear whatever i have to Tomoko-san's wedding party. trying to read the Nintendo book but am stuck in dragonquest DS. not very happy at work, too many 黒暗 happenings and people trying to be stupid. thinking what I should do..

千八百四十八：　Halloween

Even the starbucks bear has been dressed up for halloween here. I think i'm going to get it tomorrow. :D

Finally end of 1st week. I realised that it's xinhuan's first week too :) well we survived. the only motivation is the upcoming paycheck.. I want to get a haircut, maybe colour my hair (but ryo's against this so we shall see).

feeling a little lost at work after almost 2 weeks of break, also very bad back pains due to gymming & muscle aches all over but I feel that i'm sleeping better (because i'm too tired) but i'm also back to the schedule of having to wake up at 6.30am to make breakfast so i'm not really getting enough sleep even when i sleep at midnight or 11 plus pm.

got 2 new Kimura CMs (commercials are known as CMs in Japan) on TV here, this one for a developer named TamaHome named after the CEO named Tamaki & built homes in Beverly Hills which I totally don't get..

And the New Toyota CM (look out for the kid at the last scene; he is the 店長 of a toyota showroom in all the ads, very cute):

千八百四十七：　Gym

I made the effort to go to the gym today. Partly wanted to do some exercises to help my back ache. still aching quite badly every night, when I lie down then it really affects my sleep, and I hoped that working out might help stretch the muscles on the back as well and also because I'm getting fat. - jeans all became very tight..

Managed to run for about 4km continuously about 30min, abit slow but just wanted to ease into exercising after a >2month hiatus and also not sure if my back would break on me. I think running tires my arms out more than the legs, now my arms are kinda aching. Joined a yoga class also, realised the fats on my waist are blocking me from twisting backwards besides being inflexible.

Ok.. new role (but same job) starts tmr, hope everything gets better from now. missing some people alot. :(

千八百四十六：　秋

finally things are more back to normal.

Honeymoon is over, Xinhuan has gone home, new contract for job has been 98% settled - 2% being I haven't received the hardcopy to sign yet.

We went to Waikiki & Big Island in Hawaii for the honeymoon, the weather was pretty good. I didn't really like Waikiki though, reason being it's like Phuket, everything is so touristy & expensive, especially the food. I had visualised lounging by the beach all day, but then my time of the month came, it wasn't so fun anymore, i was grouchy and crampy, and we ended up going shopping alot. As long as there are shops, you would feel like going shopping or to look around. But, the beach / sea is really blue, and there are so many people. The best thing is you can go to the higher end restaurants wearing slips & shorts, no one will say anything haha.

Waikiki beachfront

We went to Big Island via Hawaiian Airlines on the 5th day, the flight was about 50 min including take off/landing time, shortest flight I've ever taken. Big Island is like almost all black (because of continuous lava flow, there isn't much greenery along the roads.

We stayed at Fairmont Orchid - they were having a 50% off special for their 50th anniversary which was great value because it was too expensive to stay there otherwise. They upgraded us to a executive suite room, (similar layout to the room I had for my wedding in Ritz Carlton, with the bedroom & living & bathroom & shower separate and 2 sinks) with Champagne. :) We went on the Volcano tour, the view was breathtaking. Caught 2 rainbows as well at the crater, Akaka falls, and saw a black sand beach. Lounged at the beach the whole morning only on the last day there, it was what I had wanted the whole trip.

Highway in Big Island - notice that both sides of the road has black soil

the tour guide said lying on the magma ground has healing/detoxifying effects

Akaka falls (442ft/134 metres tall)

Double rainbow at the crater rim trail

crater - the picture really doesn't do justice to the breathtaking & magnificence of this view in real life

black sand beach

Sea turtle up close - only after I took the picture did I realise I was supposed to be at least 4.5m away from it. oops...

Xinhuan came to visit but her kids were sick so she kinda rushed back by the 3rd day. :( was nice to have someone to talk to and shop around with & to catch up with her. I hope she enjoyed her stay, because I didn't feel like I was a very good hostess, mainly being tired from the honeymoon still.

Ryo bought me a pair of shoes yesterday:

Vans half sneakers

pretty cute :) I walked around in boots & my feet almost died - blisters on 4th toe of both feet after just one day. hmm. we watched カイジ　(Kaiji) and it turned out to be a really exciting movie. It's adapted from a comic, you can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiji_%28manga%29

Public Holiday on monday, can clean up the house & rest abit more.