27th oct
went shopping with daeyoung around 11am at ikebukuro. he managed to get what he want within like an hour at uniqlo. (-_-`) that's how fast men shop huh?
we stopped at sunshine city for a while since there's so much time. and it seems like there's a music festival going on!

we went down to take a look.

the highlight was the little kid who strums the electric guitar. it seems that he has been featured in several bangumis before and is apparently quite famous.
i love this song they played


and the kid was really into it during the blues

after that we ate lunch at a random ramen place which looks pretty famous called kakumura kamakura

well it says kansai's no. 1 so we should try it right?

the inside was pretty big... could sit more than 30 persons i think

we ordered their 4th best ramen called oishii (delicious) ramen. their best ramen, incidentally, is the exact same ramen with an egg (-_-`)

well it's not particularly a flavour you won't forget but at least the ramen soup is NOT salty at all! so you can drink all the soup for once. they also gave this scratch card which is free toppings of up to 300yen on your next visit. not too bad. i think they could have given it as a regular voucher but the fact that they made it into a scratch card makes it seem more valuable and rare. smart.
daeyoung went off around 230pm after we slacked a bit at macdonald's and while waiting for stella to come, i passed by these 2 cute japanese girls singing (without music) and dancing at the same time. they were like surrounded by oogling ah-peks. i almost felt sorry for them.

in the video you can see this guy who is dancing to their tune happily by himself. it looks kinda sick almost.

after stella arrived, we went to matsuya to eat. stella had a craving for raw egg so this is what she ordered. japanese likes to eat raw eggs beaten into their rice/sukiyaki/nabe/shabushabu

after walking around sunshine for some time, we went home for dinner and cooked the meatballs we bought at IKEA. the cream sauce we bought says to mix water and cream with the powder, but i made do with milk and powder. it still turned out great anyway ;p

we used stella's blueberry/rasperry queen's blend jam for the toast. there's lots of little seeds inside.

25th oct
i was supposed to have lesson at 6pm with this guy called obi shunsuke who found me on findstudents. he told me that he would be late by half an hour so i said, fine, but just come asap cos i was meeting emily later at 815pm and have to go by 730pm latest. in the end he called around 7pm and said he would be coming even if i am charging him 1500yen for the very little time we had left for lesson. and he subsequently arrived at 725pm!! luckily i had stella to accompany me for the 1.5hours i spent waiting for this asshole. when he came he didn't even look like he wanted to let me leave eventhough i told him it's already 730pm and i have to go. we chatted only for a while (he said 20minutes but actually i think it's only <15mins) and he refused to pay me the lesson fee because the time was too short. what a bastard! i've already told him that i would charge the whole amount and he denied that i said that. he also said that i will be leaving japan soon and he was looking for a more permanent teacher, which i have already mentioned in my email so i wasn't cheating him. i think he's just using his pathetic english as a rude excuse to say that i didn't tell him anything and accuse me back. ASSHOLE. obi shunsuke / obiwan19781009@docomo.ne.jp / 09077097729. PLEASE SEND HIM SPAM MAILS for me. when you receive spam mails the phone company actually charges them so i hope he gets more than 1500yen worth of spams. if only i wasn't rushing to meet emily i would have stopped him from walking away. he's only looking to have fun with girls who speak english by the way, from the looks of it. he wears specs and i think he's shorter then me. looks like a chao pervert. even if i'm returning to singapore i'll make you regret for ever making me wait 1.5 hours and refusing to pay me and polluting my air with your stinky breath.
i think it's because of this that i might start hating japan.

anyhow, i managed to reach at 815pm and met up with emily at choufu station. we then started to search for jackson's hole. it's amazing how my weak memory managed to help us find the way. it's all a woman's instinct you know... xD this place is at choufu station (along the keio line) and it's in the direction of seiyu departmental store. it's actually somewhat easy to find.

we took lots of photos while waiting for our table


and then we finally got a vacancy after waiting for like half an hour

our drinks - emily's tasted like medicine... mine was some peach mango mix (not too bad) but stella's was the best. it's strawberry magarita with salt on the glass's brim.

and our burgers! the wonderful and must-try jackson's burger

emily's apo chicken burger

and my BLT jackson's burger (not recommended for people who takes out the fats in ham slices... like me)

we stayed there till about 11pm, by the time emily was already drunk after 1 cocktail. wow. by the way this place charges a sitting charge of 320yen and you have to order at least one drink since it's a bar.
outside, there's lots of gegege statues around. (i realised that plastic-bag man i took with frank was from gegege as well)

at the train station of ikebukuro, stella and i amused ourselves with how the japanese like to squeeze with each other on the train.

oh!! did you see the guy who looks like lee junki! poor thing, he got squeezed behind. the cabin next to this one was relatively emptier but maybe everyone is packing here cos of him. haha.

after reaching sakuradai, we headed to the 99yen shop and got some ice cream~ here's my wonderful crepe ice cream.

and that's how i get fat in japan. eeeeeeerksss.

24th oct
time to revisit IKEA for the last time! i came to talk to umpei-san a bit on the employment opportunities actually but it doesn't seem like the prospects are good cos only the IKEA food positions are available and i didn't want to get stuck washing dishes again... sighs. anyhow...


actually once you're inside you're not supposed to be taking photos of the interiors... but we managed to secretly take a few. (well it wasn't me!!)


toured a little of the showrooms before going for lunch since i wanted to find an IKEA family card corner. you get free flow of drinks on weekdays with the card!


then we headed to the restaurant

we had lunch at the bistro and there was the autumn plate with a mix of everything that day!

don't you think the autumn plate is awesome?

also had the vegetarian lasagna

too bad there wasn't the assortment of cakes so we only got the almondy


stella tried to take the princess cake displayed at the cafe

we then continued our tour of IKEA


and took lots of photos in their showrooms xp



i love this round bed


what the hell! i look awful


we fooled around IKEA till about 635pm since we had to wait for daeyoung to come then we headed to helen's house after buying lots of stuff from the swedish food market.
there was already a chinese cuisine feast in the making xo and here's the chef


and then there's the food! for appetizers... we have a vege mix cold dish

and the main dish - mabo tofu

and green pepper chicken

we also had this shark fin's soup lookalike

it was a super delicious dinner. thanks helen!! it kinda reminded me of all the chinese food my mom used to cook. well i'll be able to eat it in less than a week!