because you have six pack abs you walk around campus half-naked?

part of the 5,000 shrines in a temple in kyoto

nipon-land was crazy.

we moved around like nomads, tasting everything we could with our little tongues and puny shallow pockets. it was something that if my parents took me on, i would hate but because i was with five very ooishi friends it was very very brilliant.

we saw this and that and took pictures of every this and that with at least 2 different poses for each. my camera guzzled two memory sticks and two battery packs. everything was made with an incredible amount of detail down to the bellybuttons on finger-sized figurines. everything was wrapped in its own tiny plastic bag, no two products were allowed to touch each other, everything had plastic between them be it bread from the bakery, sake cups to souvenirs from tourist traps. recycle bins scattered sparingly around japan turned my bag into a pre-bin bag, which i found to be quite annoying because at the end of the day/mid-day my bag would be full of pure plastic. but somehow when the scarce recycle bin does pop up, i feel much less guilty for using so many plastic bags and opting for ‘gift-wrap’.

the people were like their products immaculately dressed. there is no such thing as a sloppyily-dressed japanese man or woman. hence we stood out like sore blistered thumbs. the train stations were perpetually crowded and the flood of high-heeled women and suited men rushing in all directions made me feel as if our/my presence (or consistent bumping into them) was fustrating their natural way of life. my fellow hostel-mate suggested i should just open my tiny eyes a wee bit bigger after having listened to my plight. the japanese are also very polite, when i bump into the very polite japanese i say sorry to them and they say sorry back to me. no wonder everybody wants to marry a japanese.

anyway, i have to go back go pack my bags, i just found out i’m leaving for singapore today, not sunday. damn, i have heaps of shit i have to do and now i can’t do them. pooper.