Archive for November, 2008
So many things that are made of metal in the photo below. This was taken outside the Osaka immigration office.
Two months have passed and the day has finally come. Gelai and I bid another sayonara to our colleagues. For some ignorable reasons, I am a bit relieved to leave. But as I have mentioned a few times, I thoroughly enjoyed the projects I did in that company. The team leads are kind and and [...]
A dollar store, as the name implies, is a retail establishment selling inexpensive items, mostly at one dollar or less. Here in Japan, we have the 100-yen (hyaku-en) and the 99 (kyu-kyu) stores. (100 yen is roughly equal to a dollar). Many things that you can find here in our apartment are bought from 100-yen [...]
Memorization has never been my forte. But at least when I was still in grade school and high school, I memorize things after going them over dozen of times. I didn’t like history classes because of the dates, names, places I had to memorize, but I somehow managed to get through them. In most cases, [...]
I’m actually employed by a staffing company, and I was sent to the current company almost a couple of months ago. So far, I like the people, the team leads, and the projects. When I got in together with other Filipinos, we were told that the contract would only be for two months, but [...]
My father had always loved electronics, especially audio and video electronics. When he first went to Saudi Arabia to work, he bought that what we called a “component”. That audio gadget, along with its two huge music boxes and about a dozen parts is still at home. He loved to sing, so when that [...]
Indeed, the cost of living here in Japan is very high. Clothes aren’t that much of a problem, if you only know when and where to buy. I’ve already learned to watch out for end of season sales when clothes are sold from 50-80% off the original price. But when it comes to food, of [...]
“Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I’m not there, I go to work.” – Robert Orben I had a hard time tearing myself off from the warmth of my comforter this morning. Since it is getting colder, it is getting harder each day [...]
In the Philippines, we start to prepare for and celebrate Christmas in September. When it’s “-ber” (September to December) already, then it’s Christmas! As early as September, you could already see Christmas decorations in the shopping malls, small stores, and houses. I’ve always thought early Christmas happens in the Philippines only. However, since October, I’ve [...]
There’s this game that we used to play during my grade school days. I don’t know what it’s called but it mainly involved a chant with this line: “I want to be a …”. As expected, the most common professions that we could think of were being a nurse, teacher, doctor, and lawyer. When asked [...]
Why went all the trouble of cleaning? Aside from wanting to do this for a long time, here’s another reason why: Meema came all the way from Tokyo to see Kansai’s autumn scenes. She stayed with me for two days. She’s living in Kanagawa but she’s been to more places here in Kansai than I [...]
For months, I’ve planned on doing a general cleaning in the apartment. By general, that would include removing all the kitchen grease, cleaning the air conditioning system, cleaning the toilet and doing a toilet makeover, scrubbing the bathroom tiles, wiping the whole apartment floor with cloth and finishing it up with wax, and throwing out [...]
