Friday, May 05, 2006

hajimete okane

We finally got our first “salary” last Friday. The scholarship money comes in a little late the first month because of the fiscal year and admin involved to cater for the new batch of students. I have so far only shopped for necessities because I only brought enough money from Malaysia to last me for a month.

Alden, Konan, Philipp (our new Swiss friend) and I went for dinner at the ramen shop nearest to our apartment. I sometimes don’t know whether to call our lodging a room, apartment or house. It’s so small it looks more like a room, but it comes with attached kitchen and bathroom it looks more like an mini apartment.

So anyways, we had late dinner and decided to treat ourselves to some Japanese alcohol. Nothing fancy, just a bottle of cheap-tasting wine which the four of us shared. Maklumlah, we have been spending so much the first month, and I have yet to pay for April & May’s room rental.



The next day, Farhana and I went shopping. Our initial plans to go down Tokyo during the Golden Week (a stretch of holidays starting from the Memorial Day to Japan’s Children’s Day) next week were dashed when we found out that bus tickets were sold out. Oh well, might as well save the money. The total estimated expenditure of Y30,000 on a 3 day trip such as this is really quite an exorbitant amount.

While looking around for some shoes, we found out that the Japanese have really small feet. And I thought mine were small. In Malaysia, a size 5 would be considered quite average but in Japan, the average equivalent of size 24 is categorized as Large! I suddenly feel like a giant not because of my size but because of my shoe size.



At the end of it all, we managed to treat ourselves to some nice but affordable clothes at UniQlo, and shoes from Shoe Plaza. I don’t have to keep wearing the same clothes every 2 days or look like I have a uniform for each day of the week. It must’ve looked like that coz a Malaysian senior borrowed me his wife’s jacket so that I could vary my choice of clothes!

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