Started working on my tax return at last. It’s boring, repetitive, time consuming. I took out a couple boxes of invoices, bills, notices, statements….that I collected for the entire year. Piles of papers of different sizes, and I had to go through every single piece of them. Spent about 5 hours today, I think I’ve completed about 60% of it and should be able to finish it up by tomorrow.

Looking at all the bills and invoices, I noticed a few things that I wasn’t really aware of:

• I spent almost $6500 CAD on my last trip to Japan/Korea (shit)
• There were over 100 invoices from the above trip
• I spent close to $6700 CAD on getting computer, camera and other hardware
• My Smart car took on average just $50 a month for gas
• I paid close to $9800 just for the interest on my mortgage (shit shit shit)

It was pretty crazy.

SCANDAL is a Japanese drama that was shown in Japan around August to December in 2008. I came across this drama out of nowhere really, I can’t even recall where I first saw it and why I downloaded it but I’m glad that I did. I have to say that THIS DRAMA IS AWESOME, and I haven’t been watching such a nice one for quite a while, maybe ever since Karei Nru Ichizoku / ??????. Well in fact, three out of four main characters from SCANDAL had performed in Karei Nru Ichizoku about two years ago - Suzuki Kyoka / ????, Kyoko Hsegawa / ?????, and Kazue Fukiishi / ????. I didn’t really know any of them except for Kazue Fukiishi whom I knew long time ago since her debut drama Tokimeki Memorial / ????????? in 1997. She was considered one of the best looking Japanese teen girl back then as I heard that the main character for Tokimeki Memorial was chosen from 1000 interviewees. Anyway, the 4th character Momoi Kaori / ?????, who is a 57 year-old mom in the story, was very well performed as well and I liked the way she is extremely laid back and funny at times.

I’m not sure how to start about talking about the story..lol. It’s really such a complex story with loads and loads of twists, mysteries, surprises, and comedies. I would say it is a mystery type of comedy. The story begins at the wedding of this girl where she’s invited four of her friends to the ceremony (these four ladies are the main characters of the story). After the ceremony 5 of them went to a bar and the girl asked her four friends to play a game of nanpa (dating guys) since it would be the last “chance” for her to date any guy once married. Each of them has to date a guy anywhere in town and bring him back to the bar, the ones that couldn’t do it will have to treat everyone else drinks. Oh by the way, these four girl friends of her are all married, ranging from age 28 to 5x. Most of them aren’t willing to play the game since they are all married but the newly wed girl forced them to. The four ladies basically haven’t seen each other before. So each of them began the search for a guy, and this was where the story began.

Each of them were able to find a guy except for one of the them. Eventually they returned to the bar but the newly wed girl did not return. She’s gone missing. The entire story is basically about how these four ladies try their best to find their missing girl friend, and how they got to know each other very well and became very very good friends. During the search, they have uncovered lots and lots of mysteries behind the real cause of the girl’s disappearance - mysteries involving each of their husbands, their friends, even themselves. I can’t even remember how many different miniature stories have been told in the plot. As the mysteries uncover, it gets very exciting and will definitely keep you watching. A character based mystery show with an excellent cast and writing. Everybody has some to hide, and it’s the revelations of these secrets which drives the plot, but at no time does it feel forced. The ending was a little anticlimactic, but satisfying. While watching it I actually learned a lot about relationships between housewives and husbands, and that between males and females.

Here is a short intro from dramaplot.com

Another story about family life, four married women from different generation. From their days of living, they seem so blissful, peace and so harmony with their family. But underneath that their days are strewn with betrayal, misery and deceit.

Takako is one of them, from outside she look like a perfect housewife. But her family life is a mess as she deals with a rebellious daughter and an unfaithful husband. At the wedding party she meets her co-friend worker Risako, and three other women with same trouble with her.

When Risako suggests they play a “game” to see who is the last to pick up a man at a bar, the women get caught up in an incident that brings them together as friends.

This is just too good to miss. You would just want more after watching each episode. I finished everything in about 3 days, lol. This is a MUST watch, highly recommended drama.

Went to Sears at Richmond Centre to return some of the clothes that I bought yesterday (they were all by Nevada) since they were a tad too big - 3 of them were M’s but should’ve gotten S’s. I ended up buying another four and ended up paying $1xx extra…lol. Well I haven’t been buying clothes for myself for quite a while, haven’t even got any of them during they stay in Japan and Korea (well I got some tees but they were more like souvenirs). Anyway I’m pretty happy with the purchase and I’ll keep my receipt in case I feel like returning any of them for no reason.

Had Mcdonald’s for lunch, got a junior chicken meal. Talking about Macdonald’s, I have this weird habbit of looking through the to-go paper bag for left over/dropped out fries after I finished all the fries. I would get this super grateful feeling when I can find one or two fries…would get happier when more fries are found..etc.

Spent the rest of the night uploading my travel pictures to Facebook. After something like 3 hours finally got all the pictures Wendy and I took in Shirahama and Nara uploaded, and descriptions typed~~ I can now go and grab some tasty food/drinks before going to bed.

Have been spending the whole week last week to organize the 100GB of pictures and videos that I took during the 3-week trip with Wendy. Since I was sick for almost the whole week (still coughing occasionally even now), I just managed to categorize the pictures by dates taken (There were 3 cameras being used, I was trying to put all the files together and re-group). Anyway, the trip to Japan was fun! Better than I thought. Needless to say, we saw/learnt/experienced a lot, and had loads of fun. Trip to Korea was just so so. Jeju island was great, there were lots to see, but Seoul was quite boring (we weren’t able to order any food at any restaurant just because they don’t speak any English). Luckily we had some guidiances there with my Korean friend Boom and Wendy’s friends Sun and Ha, who made our last day of Seoul pretty memoriable

Japan was a totally awesome country. We rented a 1.4L Toyota and driven it for 10 days all over Japan. It was the best decision made since otherwise we would’ve been taking trains and there would have been lots of places that trains wouldn’t go, and we also saved time transferring between trains…etc. (I scratched the rear bumper of the car on the first day when I was trying to park in one of those tiny parking lots in Osaka Luckily the car rental didn’t realize when we returned the car! ) We went to loads of places (scroll back a couple posts for the itinerary, or click here). Personally I love Shirakawa the most because of its really awesome countryside/picturistic feel and the place we stayed at was extremely nice (a house made out of grass/wood) and we had great service and meals there. Kobe city was great as well, very civilized and there were nice looking building everywhere (with great night views at Habourland). Kyoto was amazing. I love how it gave me a feeling of Japanese tradition whereever I went. You can see girls/ladies wearing kimono/yukata everywhere on the street, and the restaurants, gift shops…etc all give you a feeling of the more traditional side of Japan, and their attention to details on everything. Kyoto would probably be my first choices to live in if I get to choose a place. Oh by the way we went to the Fushimi Inari Shrine, which has the most number of Torii gates in Japan! I think they have a couple thousand gates there, some tiny some huge, pretty dramatic.

Koyasan…loads of temples or “Shukubo” (where you can stay overnight). This place is in the middle of nowhere, deeply hidden inside some huge mountain range south to Osaka. This place was exquisite! We got to stay overnight at two of the many temples, tried the monks’ foods (vegetarians), attended their morning ceremony, and wandered around inside the temples and their really nice backgardens (they were huge!) This experience was unforgettable. Shirahama was another place with nice views, seaviews. Nice beaches, nice onsen, nice “Adventureland” (an amusement park/zoo where we spent couple hours at), too bad we didnt get to try out the open air onsen (they were closed the night we were there and the next day we figured we wanted to goto the amusement park instead).

We also went to Nara, and we LOVE THE DEERS! We was at the Nara park which was a really huge park that is full of deers running around waiting for people to feed them. We bought some cookies (for deers) from a stand and we were literally chased by them! These deers were really used to humans and some of them just hit you with their head which is a signal for “I want your cookies!”. There were some less aggresive deers (tinier ones) that we got to pet and took pictures with. Also in Nara were some great/huge temples and one of them (Toudaiji) had the biggest budda statue in Japan. We didnt do much there other than wandering around the Nara park area since the tourist spots seem to be quite centralized there.

Takayama (one stop before Shirakawa) had some great finds too. It was basically a fairly tiny village with a couple streets that have been preserved since a hundred years ago so you could see traditionally built Japanese style houses everywhere. There was also a morning market which sells fresh produce, local speciality foods, and gifts. There was this mascot called “Sarubobo” that caught most of our attention (monkey plushed dolls with many choices of colors), and Wendy and I both bought a couple of them as sourveniers

Last but not least, Osaka! We didnt spent too much time there, bascially just during the first day we went to the Aquarium (biggest in Japan) and we felt rewarded since we saw all kinds of exquisite fishes and sealives that we haven’t seen before. Also went to the Floating Garden Observatory where we had an AWESOME night view of Osaka! The observatory was really nicely built and decorated with black lights and all kinds of arts on the floor, and the floor underneath the top level observatory was another observatory with nice 2-person seats all over the place for couples to make out and have a drink (there was a bar there). This one was enclosed so you can be sure your hair wouldn’t be messed by the strong winds. We were back to Osaka on the last day of the trip where we went to Dotonburi and Shinsaibashi, which was bascially the centre of Osaka. Dotonburi was a pedestrian only area that consists of countless restaurants and bars, where Shinsaibashi was purely for shoppers - endless blocks and blocks of botiques, gift shops, brandnames…etc. We went there fairly late and Wendy didn’t get to unleash her shopaholic power but I think we did scored something there.

That pretty much summarized our trip to Japan. Guess I’ll write about Korea/Jeju island tomorrow…

Oh, check out the amount of gift wraps, tickets, and pamphlets that we got during the trip!

Gift wraps and food wraps:

Pamphlets, stamp books, tickets…etc:

So busy packing up. Flight is 6am tomorrow, and I still haven’t gotten everything packed up. My first stop will be Hong Kong, will probably go to Macau with family, meet up with a couple friends, then off to Japan and Korea! So stoked can’t wait. Didn’t have a chance to plan it all out for Japan and Korea, guess I’ll rely on my trusty Frommer’s. So nervous, have a feeling that I’ll be forgetting to bring some stuff It’ll be fun to travel with my love love Wendy though

Went to Dunne & Rundle to get my travel camera backpack. There were lots of choices like Tamrac, Lowepro, M-Rock…etc. I didn’t want to get Lowepro since I already got a Lowepro Slingshot 100 camera bag, but this Primus AW bag turned out to be too good to be missed. It has an eight-point strap system, way more than what I would have thought of being used on a camera bag. It’s super comfortable, I can totally see myself wearing it for an extended period of time. It has a side opening so I can take my camera out without having to take off my bag. Also, huge compartment at the top level so it’d be great for travelling when I carry around shit like food, maps, drinks…etc. It even has an outer covering which can be used to hold say a jacket or something. For $110 I think this is a steal. I’m looking forward to using it so much for the trip to Japan next week!

Here’s a full review of the bag.