Kobe Hanabi 2008

20080802 The afternoon Dio and I went to Kobe to watch the Hanabi. We started walking from the Sannomiya station. It was a gruelling 45min walk and the air was saturated and hot.
I felt like all the grease were in my hair and all over my body by the time we arrived at Kobe Port. We met Idel and Kay there. It was a waste that Mars couldn't join us. The only thing that made the fireworks acceptable to me (I was never that enamored about fireworks!) was the presence of music that was choreographed together with the fireworks. It was funny and it made the event a little memorable. On this same day I got a new phone. I bought a Nokia N95 from Yodobashi Camera's Softbank. It cost me roughly 45K++ and although I'm poor right now, I'm happily poor. hehehe :)

I still have a lot of stuff to setup for my new phone like the address book as well as some applications. I'm pretty excited about it.

Chinatown!

July 30, 2008, Sagami-san, Imoto-san and Lu came to Addtech office in Sannomiya to talk
about the new project with Minamino-san. I really couldn't contain my happiness knowing that Lu will come back to work here with me. I was slowly dying because I had no one to talk to. I didn't have any friends. I felt that if I were to die in this office nobody would know it until
days later when my body would start to stink.
That afternoon I went out of the office early. Sagami-san suggested we head out to Chinatown to celebrate Lu's birthday in advance. We eat at a simple Chinese restaurant since Sagami-san didn't bring a lot of money that day, we calculated our orders so that he will not fall short. (The restaurant doesn't allow credit card. Both Lu and I didn't have money either, OsakaPinoys are always poor a few days before salary day)

He even joked that we both will have to wash dishes if he can't pay. The dishes there were not remarkable in taste but it was for free so I didn't care and just ate as much as I could. Sagami-san didn't eat much that night. His excuse was that looking at us happily eating makes him full. Sagami-san is a very sweet otosan, don't you think so? :) On the way home, he also bought "butaman" for our housemates. We parted at the station. He went alone to visit his friend's place while both Lu and I headed home.

Major Snow in Osaka

The morning of February 9, 2008 (Saturday) was characterized with a really cold air. I spent the night in Dio and Mars' apartment since we went drinking that night and I didn't trust myself to ride my bike and go home under the influence of alcohol. :pThat day the snow started falling around 8am.The ironic thing was that my cellphone's battery ran out the night before so I couldn't take pictures with it.But I was still very excited to see the think flakes of snow falling so I begged Mars to go out with me so that he could take my picture in his cellphone. He was a little reluctant at first since there weren't plenty of snow yet but he did it anyway. ;P hehehehe

After breakfast/brunch the snow still hadn't stopped so I urged him for another picture session outside. This time he was excited also since there were now more than an inch thick of snow on the road side and the highway.

I actually don't know whose house this is but it looks so wintery with the front bushes and plants all covered with snow so we decided to take our designated poses here.

This is the third session of picture taking that day. Before I head home we had these pictures. Sho-sensei and Dio joined us in this one. (I headed home walking since I was too chicken to ride my bike with all that snow).

This was my first major snow in Osaka. I've been living here for almost 2 years but this was the only time I experienced a major snowfall. Well, better late than never, right?

Sorakoen

To make ourselves feel a little autumn we (Dio, Mars and I) decided to go to Sorakoen last November 24, 2007. We walked for about 20 minutes from the Sannomiya station to get there.

Walay Lingaw...

Kagz abnoy faces....
Gamiton pa bitaw ang webcam....hala sige padayon sa gibati!
1. F--k you!

2. Bleh! Mayra gaba...

3. Too ko nimo, butbuton man ka!

4. Day?...Tinuod ka!? (Hunahuna: Ninduta!)

5. Namutbot nasad ay!

6. Bout ka kung kitkiton nako akong dila!

7. O (with the nuance of O lagi bah!)

8. I'm high...(brain dead!)

9. Naunsa ka?!

10. Pure ABNOY!

11. Bwahahahaha

12. Bite me!

Osaka Castle

In the morning of June 5, 2007 I went with my manager Sagami-san to Osaka Immigration office to file for an extension of my VISA and on the way back to the office we stopped by Osaka Castle. When told Sagami-san that I haven't been to Osaka Castle yet he agreed to come with me. It was like an early morning date. hahahaha.

Unlike springtime, Osaka castle during that time was not so crowded. But the sakura trees were also not as pretty since there were no more flowers.

We didn't really went in the Osaka Castle but only at the tip of where it was located. But it was ok with me, the view was already great and besides, I was wearing high-heeled shoes that day so the soles of my feet were starting to hurt :P

Hanami in Kyoto

My feet still aches like hell!

Umeda Sky Building

After doing my laundry last Saturday (March 3) I headed out to Umeda to meet Idel and Mars. Idel invited us to eat at Baskin and Robbins in Umeda since there's a new ice cream flavor out. But I got there late and she was already done eating.

Anyway, I thought that ice cream wouldn't be enough for me since I haven't eaten anything since lunch time so I asked if we could go to a Ramen Shop instead. After the big meal we headed out to the Umeda Sky Building.

The building is composed of two main towers which are connected with each other by an observatory on the 39th floor.

When we got to the top the air was cold but the view near the river was spectacular!

A Night in Namba

The CMK women invited me to join them for dinner and other fun stuff last friday (February 23) at Namba.
We eat at a shabu-shabu resto near Dotonbori. It was a "tabehodai" or eat-all-you-can resto. At first I was pretty excited and I ate a lot. But as time went by the food didn't stop coming so I was getting a little hyped and I thought "How the heck do we eat all this?!". There was just too much food. It would've been great if I could take out some and cook it at home another time. hehehe, Fat chance! So finally time was up and we had to leave the resto (there's a time limit to tabehodai restos here). Then came another shock to me, the bill was huge! (Next time I'll definitely think twice before going to a tabehodai like this.)

After that meal by stomach was so full that I was having difficulty breathing. We then took a ride on the "kanransha" (Ferris Wheel) near there. There were only three of us inside the ferris wheel car(Yoshi-san, Hirata-san, Me).


It had a really great view of the city and the ride itself was awesome since it has an aura of being in a spaceship. I took a picture of the view from the top most point. Really cool.

After which we had our picture taken at a "pirikura" and then we head on for a one hour karaoke. Yoshi-san did a great song number in there. She sounded fantastic.
Eventhough I went broke after, the night was fun. I wouldn't mind doing it again if I have enough finances. hehehehe

The Long Walk to Nakatsu

February 3: It was a bright sunny afternoon. I asked Mars to show me where the public library was and decided to meet him in Juso. After applying for a membership in the library we decided to go Umeda and Shinsaibashi. Many of you may not know this: Mars has no sense of direction but then so do I! It's always an adventure when we go on "laag" together since there's always a possibility that we both could get lost. hehehe. We decided to do a long walk from Juso to Nakatsu, luckily we didn't get lost. The view was great but unfortunately, my picture wasn't. It was the damn wind that made my hair look like it belonged to Diana Ross. Oh well, next time I'll definitely tie my hair down before taking a picture on a windy day.

But Mar's picture turned out pretty good. Lucky guy!

Esaka Team Year-end Party

The party was held at Nishinakajima Minamigata and I was on a holiday that day (December 28). 45 minutes before the appointed time I started walking the familiar route heading towards Midosouji station. There was an accident that night, the subway train stopped and the train lights were turned off. I had wondered if my groupmates got there fine. A few moments later they called me and told me that they were already outside the station. And so I met them and we headed out to the "nomikai" place.
Fujii-san was already there waiting for us when we got there. (As usual, I don't remember the name of the place but I think I can still pinpoint it's location.) As their conversation went on, I continued eating and drinking. I couldn't understand much of what they were talking about anyway so I gave up and just went on munching all food that I could munch.

Farewell Esaka

December 28 I went to Esaka to have lunch with other women officemates. I was already on vacation that started the day before. I went there a little earlier to take pictures of the places we often go to eat.

This was the place Oya-san often calls "Salary Man's Set Meal Food Store". We often eat here for lunch. We even ate here with Kaneda-san before she resigned from work.

This is where I ate my first kitsune odon.

I ate in this Indian restaurant twice. The ambience was realistically Indian and the food was great too.


This was a great pasta place. The pasta was of homemade style so they were tasty and exotic.

But sadly we weren't able to eat at those places during lunch that day. Instead we ate at Mos Burger.