My Happy and Lucky Key Chain

Today wake up at 12 noon, hehe , It is a Saturday !! I thought I want to blog for a short article so pick the topic about the key chain I bought last Sunday. You like my key chain ? :)

I bought this key chain from a shop called 'iiivko' which sells vintage jewelry, collectibles and scandinavian tableware in Kyoto. I would love to share more about my Kyoto shopping trip with 2 friends in Japan in my later blog.

I looked around in the shop , tried some earings also. After sometimes, this key chain caught my eyes. I was wondering if I should buy, not super expensive but then is not cheap for a key chain. May be this is the second special key chain I have. My brother gave me Coach key chain last year, he said using a Coach Key chain is more stylist than having a Coach handbag haha.

There is a a little influence of why I bought this key chain also. hehehe.. the shop owner told me Calvin Klein's ex wife came to her shop and bought the same key chain. haha famous designer is a person with superior taste, so his wife (in the past) should also be a high taste person of having a designer husband. hahaha.. So........ of course I like this key chain also, then I bought it.

I am using it everyday now for my house key . In the morning, I use it when I leave the house to work. I think the key chain makes me feel happy going to work. After work, I use it again to open the door back home. It has a very striking colour and design which I think it gives the happy visual effect and hence marks a start of a happy day for me !

I hope it brings happiness and good luck to me too. Honestly, I have been very happy ever since I am in Japan. Japan is such a fascinating country for me, place, people, food... everything is just wonderful ! I feel I am gaining more in my career doing a different role and now is picking up skills which I was lack of before. Although, I am not utilising much of my technical skill in application, but I am picking up coordinating, management skill ,learning from all the top bosses, all smart superiors around me. In fact, I have a wonderful boss whom I report to, a boss who values staff and easy to work with. May be I cannot be too greedy, learning different things at different point of time. May be next around I want to pick up my knowledge in new product release and further improve on my management skills. Life has been really great of having more Japanese friends nowadays I think this makes me feel like I wish to keep extending for some other tasks here hahahaha I wish to maintain this happiness !

Blogging helps in thinking flow ?

I did a presentation yesterday in an Executive meeting in my customer site. Before that, I felt a little tension of this presentation as this is a top executive meeting and I think I need to do well. I was in fact asked by my boss if I want to take this up to report progress. Later my customer also told me to do it. I told if they are comfortable then I shall be confident. Well, I am happy, all this while I prepared presentation material for the meetings , last month I get to join the meeting and this month I get to present. I appreciate the opportunities given and I gained the sense of achievement !

I had been very busy for the past few days with late late meetings, leaving office late, juggling a few tasks concurrently, I thought I should give it a thought to have a trial run myself. haha but no time. Boss said want to let me do a trial run but didnt' happen.The night before I left office 9 something and had dinner around 10. I just simply dropped in any place which still serve dinner at 10. I ordered a omelette rice as I was told this will be fast. While waiting for the food to be served, I wrote the speech for my next day presentation. haha after finishing, the food came.

Then I thought I will do a trial run myself back home but dind't happen. Why ? fainted on my bed heehhehe.......Next day finally came , I woke up very early and went to take train pretty early and waited for sometimes at train station for other colleague and bosses to go customer site.

Finally, now it was over. I think I did pretty ok for the presentation for the first time eheheh.. This is my thought.. ...but translator attended the meeting told me I must have prepared well, it flowed well. haha.. then I started to think. Errrr.... prepared during my dinner last night, considering it as very short time to come out with the speech and the flow.

Today on a second thought , I think blogging might have helped in enhance my thinking flow.... improve the logical flow.. and make it comes to me faster so it has helped I think.. may be ?

What do you think for those of you who blog ??

Here come Santa Clause from Tokyo!

Last Friday, I received purezento (present) from Hasegawa san( Chiaki) again! She is like my Santa Clause ! Not only a gift but she actually thought over what special gift to give me so that it is special enough which can't be found in Malaysia , and speacial for me to blog about !

Let me show you my purezento !!
First gift is a handmade post card called 'AWAGAMI' from Tokushima Prefacture.

Front of post card Back of the post card

Second gift is a portable mouth wash !! haha... This is the 'main dish', post card is the 'appertiser', let me explain to you what it is.

Okay it is written in English.. so I should understand heheh but when I saw this I was too excited, looks so interesting and so colourful, didnt' even see the English wording... I asked my next cubicle friend, what is this eheheh......

This portable mouth wash came with different flavours ! WOW ! different flavour for different purpose.

For relax : white peach and orange, for refresh :blueberry and pineapple, for wake up: green tea and cola, for date : rose and lavender, for afternoon: all flavours are suitable !! hmmmmm... May be I need a refresh flavour !!!

Many thanks to Chiaki again ! right present at the right time ! I need to refresh, relax . etc ! :P

Special coffee

You might think what special coffee that I have tried in Japan ...... Oh No you might be wrong ! Not what special Japanese coffee, not blue mountain coffeee neither Ipoh famous white coffee nor Penang 'Kopi Oh' hehe.

Yesterday , I drank a very special coffee as in it is ' special' to me. As you know I am a non alcohol, non caffeine drinker but I drank a litte coffee yesterday because it was a special coffee. How special ? haha

My customer served me coffee in my office yesterday hehehe.. I was surprised and also felt a little touched. hehe. I had a very long meeting yesterday from morning 9 till it finished at 9 at night. 12 hours with about 20 min lunch in between. This type of meeting was not first time but second time. I dislike this type of long meeting which I felt was not productive and it just drained me after that.

At around 7 something, I already felt so hungry but our discussion was still going on about next week Executive meeting. I started lossing my focus. I was listening to my colleague who tried to translate customer request to me. Then while we were talking, my customers said they were going to get coffee. My office has a free drink machine. They then came back with 4 cups of coffee. One for me and one for my colleague. I was so impressed hahaha ! I told my customer , thank you very much and the fact that you are our guest and I am the host. He said something but in Japanese , I didn't really understand but I could guess he felt it was nothing about guess or host. haha.

If it happened in other place, may be not special to me. But in Japan, customer is everything. Customer is very much respected and well honoured. I felt so honoured for the coffee being served. I am thinking may be a good relationship has been built and mutual respect has been gained. May be something I have achieved during this current project in Japan, so definately is worth to note this as part of my good memories.

Happy meal on Happy day

Today (May 14th) is a happy day for me. Not my birthday though ! hehe may be some of you might know why or I will be telling you in person later. Since is a happy day, therefore, I had my happy meal, my favourite shabu shabu !!!

This time I requested less fat pork. I realised they gave me extra vegetables , less quantity of pork and also less fat meat. hehe but I realised this request came with extra charge

This is a new dish I thought of trying. I didnt' know it turned out to be like this. Green pea soup with Man ( Man tou in chinese ) Inside the man there is buta niku (minched pork). The chef came to explain to me, the man is made from some root then inside got minched pork. I still coudn't imagine. I just asked , is that Oiishi ( delicious ) ? hehe he said yes then i ordered. Come to think of it, may be silly question ahahah. but then sometimes, I was told may be you might not like it as a foreigner so I will not order or may be I still do when I feel like I want to be adventurous.


After dinner, I walked passed Dojima bakery. Most of the time,I sure drop by to see. I love bread ! I can tell you Nihon Pan (Japanese bread) is the best !! Each time I see bakery I sure will step in to see. I noticed this cake last time as its outlook caught my attention and I think it is telling me to eat it haha but I never eat. Today, I felt I should order. It is covered with white chocolate outside, inside is some strawberry mouse, coconut base.


Side way to let you see the inner layers ! I couldnt' finish as I was very full. I took away the other half. I met a young girl who speaks English well, in fact she asked me if I want to eat inside the cafe. Otherwise, I would have packed it straight away. Learnt a new word 'Omochi kaeri' = take away ! This is the spelling the guy in the cafe gave me. My japanese friends, please correct me if my pronunciation is not right. haha another thing I would like to find out, why Omochi kaeri followed by Onegaisimas but not kudasai ?

Today dinner seems heavy, tomorrow night I will eat simple and healthy organic dinner haha ! Need to balance my diet !!

Sai -Ji- Ki Organic Restaurant in Namba Park

On Saturday 10th of May, I went to Namba Park to have dinner. This day, I woke up at 1 pm. hehe after woke up, I was wondering around ,checking mail, tidy up things. Then I started to exercise. I left my apartment around 4 pm. I went to buy green tea in Takashimaya for mum and brother as they love this green tea. I didn't plan to go Namba Park but after buying green tea, I decided to proceed to Namba Park. This is a new place I found 2 weeks ago. I have been to Namba many many times but only 2 weeks ago I realised I never walked this far till Namba Park. Then I recalled, there is this Organic buffet restaurant I saw before. I also told my friend of this restaurant. Restaurant is called ' Sai -Ji- Ki'. It is located at 6th floor of Namba Park. The buffet costs 2097 Yen (after tax), the buffet allow you to eat for 90 min.

Food sample in front of the restaurant.

Restaurant Menu

First round of food, I took the above hehe all types of vegetables, potato, onion. All ingredients are organic food, natural and healthy. The food taste healthy too, not too sweet, not too salty.

Second round of food. Did you notice the difference ? hahaha...... ! First plate looked so untidy heheheh.......When I looked around, other people organised their food so nicely on the plate, very Japanese style , very tidy. That is why the second plate looked so tidy now hehe, I must follow the good culture. Eveything I took one piece, haha more like sampling eating.

I like the cabbage, rice, tofu and tamago so repeated these on 3rd round.

Finally is dessert time !!! I had strawberries, tomato, plum sake jelly, red bean jelly, almond tofu, green tea tofu, green tea cake ( didnt' finish whole piece) , and lastly my favourite the jelly with some peanut flavour or brown rice flavour.

When I left that time, I saw people started to queue. I went in around 5:45 hehe so I avoided the long queue. If you like healthy food, you may try this, lots of vegetables to eat. Even one thing ate one piece I also felt so full ( "Pah kar siao" in hokkien). haha however, I felt so hungry at 12 midnight as I had early dinner, so I had biscuit before i went to bed.

I bought Yukata!

I finally bought a Yukata today. To celebrate my blog 's 2 months anniversary, I got myself a Yukata. Besides my blog, this Yukata is my souvenir from Japan !

What is Yukata ? (浴衣, Yukata) is a Japanese summer garment. People wearing yukata are a common sight at fireworks displays, bon-odori festivals, and other summer events. The yukata is a casual form of kimono that is also frequently worn after bathing at traditional Japanese inns. Though their use is not limited to after-bath wear, yukata literally means bath(ing) clothes.

Gigi asked me to quickly open the yukata when I showed her online. I have opened it hehe but I didn't know how to fold it back this way now hahaha....The cloth is very long and the sleeve got 2 holes , hehehe I wonder how to wear hehe..

I read the manual but I am not sure how to wear the yukata with the Obi( the belt tied into ribbon). I will spend some time to learn how to wear it and I might need my Japanese friend help to wear this properly :P

I don't think I can afford investing in a nice kimono, so Yukata is something I can afford and try wearing it for fun :P

This Yukata is a sales item. My Japanese friend told me there is a trend to wear yukata, the design or floral designs need to suit the season. So once it is off the season, it will be on sales. I will wear this in Malaysia so I don't care about the season as long as I like the colour and design. I have shopped for some times before I got this Yukata and Obi which matches the Yukata. I want a nice design with cheaper price since I don't even know if I know how to wear and when and where to wear it. Gigi said get a cheap one to try first, if I like then can buy more expensive one. haha we also joked that, may be I will only have a nice Kimono if I got myself a Japanese husband hahahaha...

2 Months Anniversary

Today is my blog 2 months anniversary. A fantastic opportunity to thank you all for your constant presence, encouragements and words! I hope you will share your comments on how I could further improve my blog and also welcome your thoughts to discuss topics I posted :)

I am behind many posts I would like to write about. However, I am more busy in my work nowsaday. I have been taking many photos which I want to blog about, I will continue to blog when I get back to Malaysia after leaving Japan based on all photos I am taking now. hehe so I am collecting information for topics to write later. That will keep me writing with many topcis for some times.

2 Months with 34 posts, I think I am making good progress. However, I need to improve my English, grammar and sentence structure. hehe.. need to do more editing.

Once again, thanks for your support ! ( mum, cousins, friends in Penang, KL, Australia, US, UK,Thailand, China and sure not to be left out , my Japanese friends who help to make my life more interesting here !!)

Learning Japanese

I wanted to learn some basic Japanese during my stay in Japan before I came here.However, I think I progress too slow. I bought a small booklet called' Japanese Phrasebook'. hehe , it did help me to point to certain words when I wanted to communicate to buy things.

During my second trip back to Malaysia , I bought another book ' Japanese in 30 days'. This book came with 2 CD. hehe I am at chapter seven now. Sometimes back, I was also at chapter seven.

Why is that so ? I tend to forget what I have read so I went back to the previous chapters. Lately, I started to write on some cards for the new words I learnt through my daily conversation and from customer meeting.

What should I do to progress faster ? :) busy in work and no full time focus is my own excuse for the slow progress :P

Robot Cafe

Today is a new topic, neither food nor sight seeing. This new topic marks the first post in May. One day, I saw this place called ' Robo Cafe' as I was walking to Lawson convenient store near my apartment. It closed but light was on. Out of curiousity, I crossed the street to take a look. I am still not sure whether it is a shop which sells robot or it is a cafe with robots as decoration. Anyway, this is an interesting shop to me and I took a few pictures to show you.

Here it goes ! :)