Update Update

Ohh, sooo busy. Sorry, don't have time to do my journal. I'm in the process of doing the single greatest drawback of traveling: packing. And of course, squeezing all the last sight-seeings, parties, and omiyage-buying in between. Tough work indeed. Wish me luck!!!

Soon I'll have to say goodbye to this bed...

Five days left in Japan! Waaaaaaaaa! It hasn't sunk in yet. >.<

omiyage - souvenir

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Cruisin'

Went on a Tokyo Bay cruise last Saturday with some friends that I met on the chat party a month back. I was shocked when we got to the port, because I was expecting that we would just be on one of those small sight-seeing boats, but I was wrong, it was really a ship! It wasn't especially big, but maybe 3 or 4 levels were in use. And, at the top deck, where we had a table, there was a dance floor. Yeah! I didn't expect to go to a disco, but there was one, so hell yeah! I'm not complaning!

It was really, really pretty. It would have been nice if it were a day and night cruise so that we would see the sights in broad daylight and then the lights at night, but since we were only on the ship for two hours from 7:30 only the lights could be seen. However, it was a good experience. It was my first time to be on a cruise ship, and it was really interesting. The combination of foreigners, Japanese girls in yukata, and drag queens some of whom were wearing skimpy clothes and swimsuits was something that I know will be memorable to me for a long time.

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And I live!

Just when I thought I was going to die: starving, bereft of entertainment on my last month here in Japan... I live! Hahaha. In other words, I am not broke anymore! By no means am I rich, but, I believe I now have enough money to pay my bills, buy food, and to some extent, enjoy my last two weeks in the land of the rising sun. Thank goodness for arubaito! Yatta!

This afternoon, I'm going to go to my friend Nica's house (she's Japanese, I met her on the Undernet #Japan/#Tokyochat party) and stay over for the night. I believe we're gonna be doing some really Japanese stuff. Yay for me!

With my Japanese friends, Nica and Carol

arubaito - part-time job (which in my case, was just scanning a book and labeling some text)
yatta - a Japanese expression that denotes happiness/victory

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Whew.

Busy, busy, busy! But thank God it's finally over now!

Annie and myself all dressed up for hanabi

My friends and I went to hanabi last Saturday. Hanabi is the summer fireworks festival in Japan. We went to the one that was held in the water near Yamashita Park. Oh my God, there were so many poeple in the Yamashita Park/Minato Mirai area. I have never seen so many people in my entire life! There's supposed to be almost 500,000 people who go to that affair every year. Now, just imagine that number!

As expected, the fireworks were amazing. However, there was this big-ass ship docked right in front of where we were staying, so we couldn't see the fireworks leave the ground. That's ok, though, we could still see them up in the sky. Nevertheless, we kept on wishing that ship would just sink. :P We all wore a yukata to the hanabi, by the way (quite a number of Japanese people do that). :)

Saturday was also when Annie's parents arrived from the States. Her mom is gonna stay for two weeks, her dad, a week. I went to Kamakura and Enoshima with them yesterday, and they are two of the nicest people I have ever met!

The Great Buddha of Kamakura

It was my first time to go to Kamakura, and it was beautiful (don't ask me, I just didn't get the chance to go in the past). For those of you who don't know, Kamakura lies about 30 minutes in the south-west of Yokohama and was an old capital of Japan. It's where a huge Bronze statue of Buddha that was built in the 13th century stands to this day, withstanding a tidal wave that destroyed a temple surrounding it in the 15th century, and the Great Kanto quake of 1923 that only destroyed its base (that has been fixed and is now designed to make the Buddha just sway in case of another strong quake). We also went to the Hase Temple in Kamukura. It was just so beautiful with its amazing gardens, and the altars were so majestic.

Kaikōzan Jishōin Hase-dera, one of the great Buddhist temples in Kamakura

The sunset from Enoshima

After that, we went to Enoshima, a tiny rock of an island that lies south-west of Kamakura. It's connected to the main land by a long bridge. There were no beaches, but up at the top of the island, there's a shrine, and an observatory where you can see all around you. They have this sunset deck, and since we went there in the afternoon, we were able to catch the sunset at that place. What was more, just a little to the side of the sun setting was Mount Fuji. It was amazing.

Today, I had my oral exam in Japanese. We had it here at the dorm because we planned to have lunch together with our teacher, Ito Sensei. It was great having lunch with sensei. She's very nice and I'm so greatful for all the things she's done to help us with our stay here. I made adobo, April made a kinda Japanese rice, and our other classmate, a Chinese girl we call Shu-san, made a Chinese dish with eggplants. It was all good. I was so full afterwards. ^^;

And now, two weeks to go till we go home. What's next? Cleaning and packing. Ugh.

adobo - a Filipino dish cooked with meat that has been marinated in soy sauce and vinegar

yukata - summery, Japanese kimono made of cotton

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Bull

If you're a foreigner in Japan, you'd most likely be stared at, looked down upon, considered stupid, talked about, and always considered an outsider. When you are another Asian (especially brown-skinned ones like me), or when you are black, then the intensity of those treatments I mentioned above gets doubled, tripled, quadrupled, quintupled!

Now, I am naturally oblivious to most things happening around me. In other words, unless they don't parade their racism in front of my face, I don't care. (In other, other words, I am a snob. :P) But if a compatriot tells me that they have been abused, misused, and all those other bad forms of the word use, then my blood will boil--which is why I am writing this entry. Because my friend, April, has been the recipient of very bad use indeed.

I have a feeling I'm starting to sound patriotic here (and that worries me, because I'm not patriotic), but then again, Filipinos do really get icky treatment here. Ever since we arrived, there have been many times when we just feel that we don't measure. But April's most recent experience was the really, erm, disappointing one. Why? Because this person is our friend, supposed to be very educated, and not even Japanese (but still Asian).

Here are the comments:
- When your senior came here [another exchange student in the past], I thought: this girl must be rich because she can afford to go to college.
- At first, I thought you couldn't speak English, too.
- [And then, upon finding out that we do speak fluent English...] Why do you always speak English? You should be proud of your language.

Frankly, people's ignorance can be disappointing. If they were the kind who hadn't gone even to elementary school, I would understand. But that's not the case. I'm tired of this language crap, too. Before I came here, I never knew English was such a big deal! In the Philippines, it's just there! We don't exactly think about it as a foreign language anymore. After all, why do Americans, Australians, New Zealanders, speak English? It's because of England's influence on these countries. Well, we have also been influenced by an English-speaking country (America, of course) for over a hundred years. Why does that not give us a right to be proud of our English (although admittedly, sometimes, we tend to speak Carabao English)? True, I'm not exactly proud of Tagalog, but I don't hide it in shame either. And I'm proud of my English because I have literally spent ages trying to perfect it.

Yes, the Philippines has a lot of faults, but just FYI, here are a few statistics:
Adult literacy rate, year 2000: Male - 95%, Female - 95%
College enrollment rate: 27% (4th in Asia, next to South Korea-55%, Taiwan-38%, Japan-29%)

So, there! We're not all completely uneducated fools.

There is a silver lining behind all these crap, though. 'Coz now I have acquired the experience and can surely tell you: If you hate your country, move to another place for a while. Then you'll love your country and be proud of it.

Carabao - a water buffalo in the Philippines
Carabao English - a term for English with a lot of grammatical errors

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U.S.-Philippine relations

Being in Japan, I don't know much of what happens in the Philippines nowadays, but another blogger's latest entry has woken me up to what's happening in Manila and in the Middle East.

The Chancery of the Manila American Embassy

So the latest hostage in Iraq is a Filipino. This still comes as quite a shock to me. I know that there are millions of Filipinos in the Middle East (my father included), but normally no one targets us. We are a peace-loving country, after all. We are accepting of foreigners, and we don't bother other people. Sometimes, terrorists from the southern part of the Philippines commit crimes to other nationalities and civilians inside the country, but they are the same kind of people working in the ranks of Osama bin Laden and his men, so pardon me if I don't consider them one of us.

I believe President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has now ordered the early return of the 51 humanitarian forces in Iraq. People all over the world are criticizing Arroyo's decision. And, what was the US Ambassador to the Philippines quoted as saying? I think it was something that goes: "Do not confuse your enemies or your friends." You have to admit, Arroyo's decision is a difficult one. I do understand why Arroyo would want to save even just one Filipino worker's life. Because even though we Filipinos have the crab mentality (i.e. if you're down, then pull the others down with you) among ourselves, I still believe that when other nationalities bug us, we stick together. And being a predominantly Catholic nation, even just one person's life is valued.

Now, you might say that because the government has decided to pull out the troops, it will be more dangerous because the terrorists will think that we can easily be manipulated. Well, so what? You see, if the troops were pulled out, they wouldn't have anything to manipulate us with, right? In the first place, those troops shouldn't have been sent there! And so what if people are criticizing this move? I bet only those who are in favor of this war are doing that. What about France, Germany, and all those other nations that do not support this war? It might be a little late, but we can still move in that direction.

I know the Philippines has been an ally of the US ever since they rescued us from Spain. I can't believe I'm saying this, as I have been pro-US ever since, but now, I don't believe in the term "US ally" anymore. I've realized that we're actually just a "US puppy". We're practically at the beck and call of the US. I know, we put ourselves there, but I think it's high time to stand up for ourselves. True, if we were involved in a war, we would get our asses kicked if the US didn't help us. But if we just stayed out of everybody's business, then nobody would bother us and we wouldn't need defending. As a matter of fact, the only war we've been involved in has been WWII, and the only reason the Japanese bombed was because we were a colony of the US! If you really think about it, being a US puppy has done more harm than good to the Philippines. I'm not saying that we should make an enemy out of the US government (because that would be suicide). I'm just thinking, maybe it's time to distance ourselves a little.

I think it's getting very obvious that this war has become a lose-lose situation. Bush always says America has become a safer place. Ok, so maybe the US is safer now. But, hell, the rest of the world is not. Because before this war started, I didn't fear for my father's life in Saudi Arabia, and I didn't have a fellow Filipino pleading for his life on television!

Mr. Bush, I think it's time for you to realize that there are other people and other countries in the world!

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Ueno Zoo

I went to Ueno Zoo last Saturday. I figured, I just have to see the pandas before I leave. I just have to. So I went with my friend Japanese friend Sacchan, and we got to see the lazy bears. When we got there around lunch time, they were sleeping. There's two of them in Ueno now, Ling Ling (male) and Shuan Shuan (female) who they brought over from Mexico so that Ling Ling could impregnate her. Heheh. That hasn't happened yet though. Anyways, they had their own rooms (maybe they should try keeping them in the same room?), and I truly hope the air was controlled in there, because it is freakin' hot in Japan now.

Now, I would suggest to adults who have a conscience not to go to Ueno Zoo in the middle of summer. Zoos are only good for kids, I think. Because while I was there, I felt so sad for all those animals. They were going crazy with the heat! There was this polar bear--imagine, a polar bear in 30-degree weather--and he was surrounded with cement and he just kept on walking back and forth around his area, panting. There was water below, and another polar bear was swimming swimming, but that poor one looked as if it had gone crazy. There was another big, black bear and it was just lying there in the cement, looking beat, licking water that was dripping from a water hole above him. Those poor animals. >.<

I did get up-close and personal with a dozing tiger though, with just glass between us. Those big kitties are soo soo cute!

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Tropical is best.

The tropics and its inhabitants are often misunderstood. This is what I have recently realized.

Up until now, I have more or less thought that I live in the hottest place on earth (apart from the desert, of course). Surprise, surprise. I do not. I don't exactly know why I thought that way, but I do have a hunch as to why.

For one, people who live in places with four seasons think that you do live in the hottest place on earth. When you come into contact with them, then you begin to think that they might be right. After all, they do have winter, spring, summer, and fall (all you gotta do is call). It must be really better there! But, that frame of mind lasts only until you experience first-hand the scorching heat that comes after the oh-so-cold winter and the cool-and-breezy spring. That's when you come to know what it's really like. Yes, I've lived in the Philippines for my entire life, but I've never experienced heat as I experience it now here in Japan. The sad thing is, everybody thinks I'm A-okay even if in reality, the heat is driving me crazy.

Every time it's been really hot here and I complain about it, I always get: "Hey, you're from the Philippines, isn't it hotter over there?" or "Isn't it like this in your country?" In other words, they're thinking: "What are you complaining about? It's probably hotter where you're from." That is not necessarily true. Upon consulting the ever-reliable-and-accurate CNN.com/Weather, I've seen that places that have killer winters can also have killer summers. Now, in the back of our minds, I'm sure we all know that. But we really don't think much about it. It comes naturally to think that places which are hot all year round win the heat scale. Hmmm, not a very wise move. It's not as if we add the temperature for every day of the year and sum them all up. If we did that, we all know who'd win. Yes, the Bedouins in the desert will get the trophy!

A lot of people also think that they'll just die, or melt, if they go to the tropics. You should know that it's nice and breezy in the islands. I can surely tell you that it's not like the hot breeze of Tokyo that just seems to swallow and drown you in its hellish mugginess. At least, we still have (some) trees, and not every single patch of ground is covered with cement. Believe me, that matters a lot. If you're really scared of the
sunny, tropical sun, but have been to Tokyo in the summer and are now still alive, don't worry. I think it's safe to say that if you go to either the Philippines, Indonesia, the West Indies, or any other bright, tropical archipelago, you will not die, melt, or spontaneously combust just because of the heat. However, if you've lived in the South Pole your whole life and one day decide to get on a plane to Manila in the middle of April... well, that is another story.

A while back, one of my teachers here asked the class if we wanted to have the airconditioner on, and then turned to me and said: "Or maybe you're used to it." Hmmm. By this they mean: "These tropical folk like the heat." I dare say, we do not like the heat. We put up with it because it's there, but it doesn't mean that we don't want to use the airconditioner if it's available 'cause we are used to the heat anyway, and we might get cold if it's turned on. In fact, here, I'm always the one who turns on the airconditioning. I'm always the one who lowers the temperature on the thing. Come to think of it, among the people I know, I'm the only one who brings a fan almost regularly. Really, we don't like the heat! We're just plagued with the blasted thing.

I reckon this "used to the heat" stuff is a kind of racism, really. Or maybe it can be appropriately called meteocism (if you'd let me coin the word)?

While it is true that a lot of tropical countries are third-world (I have no idea why such is the case, what do you think?), and even if we are often underestimated and misunderstood, it's still all good! After all, where else can you: frolic in sandy beaches all year long? Or plant all those pineapples? Or never have to wear those bulky wool coats? Most of all, where do you live to get that year-round tan (that everybody seems to want nowadays, even though they look horrible in them)? Yes, from now on, I will never ever use whitening products anymore! I just realized that, tropical is best!

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Yeah

I finally finished reading Villette by Charlotte Bronte. Yeah, yeah, yeah! Why did that book have to be easy to put down? Took me ages, and heaps of other books in between to read it. Teehee.

Ok, what else. Hmmm. One more week of classes to go! Need to make two papers, and take one exam. Not so bad, huh? And then, over three weeks to go till we go home. Yeah! I already want to go home, by the way. My sentiments have changed. I cannot stand the heat here!

Love Actually
Starring: Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Emma Thompson, Keira Knightley
Ok, what's all the fuss about this movie? I expected so much, and got disappointed. It's amazing how so many people love this movie. I feel as if there's something wrong with me because I don't really like it. I couldn't help but compare it to Notting Hill (Hugh Grant, very British, romantic comedy), but it totally didn't measure. Hmmm. If you like this movie, please comment and tell me why you do. Maybe you can help me like it. I definitely need input on this.

Hero
Starring: Jet Li, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Maggie Cheung
Beautiful effects, amazing fight scenes, and a mind-boggling story. Very good indeed.

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The Wedding and Digital Fortress

I finished reading both books in the span of 24 hours.

What can I say? Well, I love The Wedding. It's so sweet. I was still crying all through-out the book, but this is Nicholas Sparks' first work where there's a delightful surprise at the end. I think that's the main reason why I love it. I was totally shocked about that!.

I think Digital Fortress is sort of pathetic. I say this mainly because at the end, the characters take ages to figure out something very easy. Duh. This book was released way before The Da Vinci Code, but I think nobody paid attention to it. So they re-released it, and now, it's just riding on The Code's fame.

Taken from someone's blog, please comment and answer:

.: If you could only watch one movie for the rest of your life, which movie would that be?
.: If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, which song would that be?
.: If you could only read one book for the rest of your life, which book would that be?
.: If you could only watch ONE episode from ONE tv show, which episode/tv show would that be?

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Waaa

In my previous entry, I wrote about the weird thing that happened at one of the stations here. So, someone really did jump from the platform onto the tracks. Waaaaaaaa! >.<

Sale season has come! Since our allowance had just come too, we (, April, and I) decided to take advantage of it. Quite a lot of shopping was done. Yesterday, I got a denim skirt from GAP which was half it's original price (YEY!), and today I got a Hard Rock shirt (been wanting one for a long time now), earrings (which were 50% off), a pair of beach shorts, and since I got a 1000 yen (about US$10) book certificate from the Networld + Interop exhibition the other day, I went to a book store and got Nicholas Sparks' The Wedding and Dan Brown's Digital Fortress. I'd have to be careful, though. I just paid almost 30,000 yen (about US$300) for the final half payment for my ticket going home. It looks like by the end of the month, I won't have any money again. >.<

Frida
Starring: Salma Hayek, Alfred Molina
This movie is about the life of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. It's very interesting--artistic, sexy, and full of emotion. Kahlo's life was sad and painful, but she was so vibrant and full of life, you can't help but be amazed by her. This movie is moving and inspirational, I like it very much.

What A Girl Wants
Starring: Amanda Bynes, Colin Firth, Kelly Preston
I never knew what this movie was about before I watched it. I didn't see any trailers nor any posters. The only reason I wanted to see it was because I read this article in one of my classes last semester. The movie was a surprise, though. I expected the worst, but it was actually quite entertaining. True, it's another modern-day Cinderella story, but I love how Amanda Bynes' character refuses to let people put her down. I think her acting needs more polishing, but that's okay, because Colin Firth makes watching the movie worthwhile!

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Networld + Interop and something strange...

I went to Chiba today with Uchida Sensei for the Networld + Interop 2004 Tokyo, an IT exhibition. For those who don't know, Chiba is another prefecture located directly beside Tokyo (this is where NARITA Int'l. Airport is), but on the opposite side of Yokohama. It took us almost 2 hours to get to Makuhari, the venue. Makuhari is near the sea, and is full of tall buildings with hotels and offices, and is teeming with suit-clad salary men. The exhibition itself was held at the Makuhari Messe and was totally... erm, remarkable. Apparently, over 300 companies had booths there to display enterprise solutions. It was definitely very well prepared. Almost all the exhibitions were about networking, I think the most popular being Security and VoIP. Big companies like Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Intel, Netmarks, NTT, Nokia, among others, had stuff on display and were giving seminars. Because of my meager Japanese skills and networking knowledge, though, I kept on wishing I could understand better. Anyhow, it was a great experience and I did get a lot of give-away stuff. Heheh. So I'm ureshii.

On another hand, while I was on the way to the exhibition today, a weird thing happened on the train I took to Yokohama (same one I use to school). It came to an abrupt halt at the middle of Mitsukyo station (one of the stations near our dorm, and one station away from Seya, where I got on the train) and we just stopped there for about 10 minutes. I wondered what happened, and it was kinda spooky, and I thought that maybe it was just normal train trouble, but it did cross my mind that someone might have jumped off the platform to commit suicide (don't be shocked, it's a normal thing here and happens often). I didn't hear any sirens or see any ambulance, so the thought just left my mind. When we left the station 10 minutes later, the train driver said something about being sorry for the delay, and even if I didn't get what he said very well, I did hear him say "jishin" which means earthquake, and "taihen" which means difficult. And every once in a while until two stations after that, a sound would go "beep beep beep" inside the train, and it would slow down. So, I really believed that it was an earthquake. However, Annie just got home and asked me if I "knew what happened at Mitsukyo this morning" to which I asked why she's asking, and she said someone told her "that someone jumped off the platform", to which I replied "I was on the train when it suddenly stopped and we got delayed". It was also the right time, about 9:45 am, and she was just leaving the dorm when she heard loud sirens. Now I really don't know what happened. What do you think? Maybe we'll hear about it on the news. Hmmm. Definitely spooky.

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Heee...

I was finally able to watch The Last Samurai last night, and, I only have one thing to say:

Tom Cruise, I love you!

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