[Mood: Great] [Mentally: Fine] [Physically: Aching] [State of Mind: Stable]
Friday - 10th FebruaryI woke up pretty late this day, and as I was rushing to prepare my lunch and go to work, Yaomin messaged me on MSN, telling me that it was Japan's National Day, so the whole place was empty. We were disappointed at the fact that it is a long weekend ahead, and we didn't have anything planned. Nevertheless, I went to work, and managed another big breakthrough. I managed to allow my script to automatically strip down 700MB of data into tables, and logging errors. Now, it was time to put it remotely on a server and test it.
Later at night, we wanted to go to the place where we usually have our dinner on Friday nights. Unfortunately, not enough bikes, but Sugi-san (my previous FYP supervisor) was there, so we called him along because he has a car. Then we went to Tsutaya again for more DVDs, borrowing out Final Fantasy: The Movie, The Perfect Storm and Jack The Ripper. After watching Final Fantasy and The Perfect Storm back to back, we decided we cannot continue to watch Jack The Ripper, so we left it for the next day.
Saturday - 11th FebruaryAnother breakthrough in work. Now my script can automatically download any data, unzip it, and strip it into tables. Unfortunately, the stupid server which I was given access through does not have its SQL server switched on. So I have to leave it until next time.
Yaomin and I went to the supermarket, as I need to get a couple of stuffs. When we returned to the hostel to put the groceries, and I was about to leave for the lab, I heard noises outside the door. So I opened the door, and I saw a guy and a lady knocking on Yaomin's door. I was like,
Gasp! And I thought door-to-door salespeople only exists in Singapore! They looked confued though, so I asked them what they wanted. Luckily the lady speaks English, so I managed to find out that she was actually staying in the hostel for some time, but didn't know which one was hers. So I helped her to find her place. There are 2 more hostels above ours, so since we know those were unoccupied, Yaomin went up with her. Both doors won't open to the key. I was having a bit of thought for a while, and asked Yaomin to throw down the key. And I tried it on HIS door. It fits perfectly. And Yaomin's eyes grew big and round. (You see, the lady was about in her 20's, a bit shorter than me, long hair, Japanese.)
I told the lady this can't be her hostel as there were already 2 guys living there, and that most probably the admin office made a mistake. So when I arrived at the building, I made an enquiry with Wada-san (admin counter) about the new lady. He checked his log books, and yes, somehow, the wrong key was given to her. Dotz. Yaomin and Chin Ho will be so disappointed to know this... Lolz...
At the lab, I told Gabor and Chin Ho the whole story, and they so dearly wanted to go to the hostel so they could get a look at her. And because we were having a "party" later that night, they wanted to call her down too, but she was out by the time the guys knocked at her door. The small "party" we had was like some big dinner. The preparation was fun. I don't really know what they were preparing, it was some kind of dumpling. But the content was pork. Yeah, I didn't eat it. I cooked my own food before going over. Below are some pictures.
Kanzi-san (the mountaineer) came down to join us. I will post up some videos of the guys trying to cook. During the dinner, Kanzi-san suggested going skiing the next day. What else, we agreed! That night, Gabor slept over at my place as the building where we work in (and also where Gabor always sleep) will be having a power failure from 7AM until 3PM. So he didn't want to be locked up inside.
Sunday - 13th FebruaryI got up quite early, lazed around in bed, before finally getting my butt out of the bed to shower at 9AM sharp. We were meeting up with Kanzi-san at 10AM. I opened the shower door, switched on the light, and sudddenly, the light just switched off! And the air-con was off. So was the heater.
It couldn't be, I thought. The power failure was only supposed to be in the main building. Then I realized they also said that power will be out in the hostel from 9AM to 10AM! ARRGH!!!
I panicked,and went back to bed to keep myself warm. I started wearing 3 layers of pants, and 2 layers of clothings. Just as I finished wearing them, the power came back on. Tested the water, yes! The heater's back on! Took a shower, and got myself ready for skiing.
Below are some pictures of our adventure there.
The rental equipment cost me 2000yen (S$32), so to make the money worth, I tried to learn the basics of skiing as quickly as possible. Kanzi-san commented that I am Number One, and Likai said I am a genius. Lolz... Mainly because I can ski after just half an hour's of training. Of course, I needed more adrenalin rush, so Likai called to me ride this seat elevator uphill, and ski down. Each ride up cost 200yen (S$3.20), but it was a comfortable ride up.
From up there, suddenly it wasn't as easy as I thought. He brought me to a beginner's course, but IT DOESN'T SEEM LIKE IT! The course has lots of turns, and path is only 3M wide, and beyond the 3 metres wide, is a cliff down to a forest. Try skiing down such an almost narrow path with a cliff on your left. Not very assuring. But I tried. And I got a near death experience.
I was navigating quite well through the turns, until I saw this turn a bit too late, and I was going quite fast. I couldn't turn in time, so I fell on my side, and slid across the path. I managed to stop sliding just as my skis was off the path and hanging from my feet, with the cliff below. After that, I skied very slowly the whole way, and only sped up when I reached a very broad slope.
All in all, I think it was an excellent first time for me. On the way back, Kanzi-san stopped at a place where there were lots of swans and ducks. We took a couple of pictures, and I got a video on it. Will post it up soon.
Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. How many people acually celebrate it? I have no idea. But I'll be celebrating mine with my laptop, all alone, in the hostel. Doing nothing special, but the usual stuff.
Yeah. It's gonna be bored.