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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