Monday, April 1, 2013

Travel: Tokyo, Japan - Day 2 part 1

31st January 2011

We overslept (lah sangat~) on our 2nd day in Tokyo. We aimed to get going after Subuh prayer (lol), but our 'short nap'  turned out to be a long one afterwards. So at 9.00 am or so, we hurriedly get ourselves ready but was being told by Tshee that it was advisable to start sightseeing from 11.00 am. So what to do when you're all geared up so early in the morning? Jalan-jalan around the neighbourhood lah! :D

Twinkle Plaza

Tshee's Twinkle Plaza (her cute apartment plaza) is situated in Komone, Itabashi-ku. The neighbourhood was so quiet and serene in the morning. So we strolled for a few minutes until we arrived at the main road where a few rows of shops were visible. 7-Eleven, supermarket, Mazda Car Rental,   Fiat / Alpha Romeo showroom. We were pretty much clueless on where to head to and last thing we knew after a few moments of fooling around with our cameras, we were already in the neighbourhood supermarket.



We spotted some fresh strawberries, Meiji chocolates and Shin Chan's (lol) sweet potatoes so we decided to buy those. The funny thing is, we went around the floor trying to locate the cashier counter but we couldn't find one. We tried asking the person working there but the language barrier was taking its toll on us. We even had to suppressed our laughter when Ayu tried to pull her purse out from her jacket (which looks more like she's pulling out a gun out of it). We had to show her our money and it was later that she signaled that we should pay upstairs. Again, it was kinda awkward when we were paying because apparently we didn't came prepared with a shopping bag with us, while everyone else were stuffing their stuffs into their own shopping bag.

The strawberries are so good that I still miss them up to this day *_____*

 Anyway, after sightseeing around the neighbourhood, we were greeted with Tshee's delicious nasi goreng (yes!) once we got home. We owe Tshee and her housemates a lot since we had to worry less about finding halal food when we were there. Thank you girls <3 nbsp="" p="">
Tshee brought us to Ueno. We did a little of shopping and then head to Ueno Koen (Park).

Shops in the street somewhere in Ueno
Ueno Park
 Then we head to Asakusa, where Asakusa Temple and Nakamise shopping Arcade are situated. The place was lively and the shops, left and right are absolutely captivating. We decided to have ice-creams and it was rather my first experience to be told to eat the ice-cream in the shop and only after we threw away the cone-wrapping into the shop's dustbin that we get to leave. lol. Cleanliness is key, here! They simply don't want people to litter.
Nakamise Shopping Arcade

Ice-cream in winter sounds good to me
If you wish to buy souvenirs, I'd suggest to buy them here. There are a lot of souvenirs to be chosen here, varying from key-chains, fridge magnets to food, even. Oh, if you even get to this place, please never forget to have 'age-manju'. Those age-manju (deep friend manju) came with various fillings and I love the red bean filling the most. We ended up buying those age-manju twice (or was it thrice?) because it's simply delicious *___*


Food as souvenirs, hah
Age-Manju. My love. 
 ...to be continued. lmao

p/s: I can't believe it that this post was stored as 'draft' for more than a year already! D:

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Vanila Coklat - Short Short #2

Vanila Coklat
Short Short #2




"Ecah!"

"..."

"Hey Ecah! I know you're listening to me."

"I'm warning you, don't call me Ecah!"

"Ecah! Ecah~ Oh hoiii Ecah!"

An eight years old Amir chuckled to himself upon seeing Ecah directed her deadly stare to him and ran away from her once he regarded his mission as accomplished. He had no idea why he loved making her angry so much. He was easily amused whenever he saw Ecah became mad.

He has been accustomed to exchange banters and bickers with Ecah since he was in his tender years of age since they both grew up together due to their parents who were best friends of each other. They grew up together, yes but they were never best friends. They were more of foes because Amir loved to tease Ecah and Ecah hated him for that.

Just like Ecah, he would rush to finish his meal early during recess everyday due to different reasons. Ecah did so so she could self appoint herself as a prefect, guarding the disabled children from being teased, ridiculed and make fun of by the normal school children of her age, or older. As for Amir, he did so so he could follow and observe what Ecah would be doing.

Their primary school was kind of special since they have special classes for disabled children, too. By sharing the same school compound, it sparked the curiosity within the normal, curious young kids of their age that often lead to poking fun on the special children and Ecah totally hated that.

Although the normal children's and special children's recess time were different, that didn't stop the naughty students from visiting the block where special classes were situated and making fun of the innocent children from outside of their classes when their teachers were not around. Ecah would often ran after those good for nothing naughty students and gave them a lesson or two. She was fearless and fierce and Amir often found himself smiling upon seeing her fierce self from afar. She was fierce, but he knew her heart was actually soft, like velvet.

There was this one day when there was this one big bully in school came to the special classes' block and tried make fun of the children from outside of the classes. Ecah stopped him from doing so and a fight broke out between the two. As the kid was taller and bigger than her so Amir decided to meddle in.

It turned out that it was rather a bad decision since he was easily knocked off by the kid and was badly beaten instead. Ecah came to his rescue instead by putting into use the taekwondo lessons that she learned and in the end, the big bully fled from the scene, crying.

Ecah sighed upon seeing his wounds and started nagging at him on how he should not have tried to meddle in the fight earlier. He pouted and had his head hung low. Despite of the nagging, she surprisingly handed him a bar of chocolate that she fished out from the pocket of her pinafore to thank him. She suddenly chuckled at him and Amir's face went red due to the embarrassment.

It was a rare sight to see her laughter and her being kind towards him so he was rather delighted to receive that bar of chocolate from her.

They smiled sweetly at each other but after a moment of realisation that they were actually being in good terms for the first time, they quickly moved inches away from each other and pretended that it never happened.

"If you don't wish to have the whole school and our parents knew about the earlier incident, you better be good towards me and stop calling me 'Ecah', Amir"

Amir froze for a few seconds upon listening to the blackmail by Ecah but he just couldn't stop the urge to tease her, like always.

"Well too bad the big bully probably tell the teachers and schoolmates about it already by now. So in your dream, Zara...Ecah!"

"My name is Zara Aishah, you good for nothing Amir! It's Zara!"

He stuck out his tongue at her and ran away with the bar of chocolate that he received. He did stop calling her Ecah afterwards because she tattletale about the matter to their parents and he was later scolded about it. But he can never stop teasing her because it became one sort of entertainment in his life.

He never told anyone about this but he actually developed a soft spot for chocolates because of the one she gave him, and also secretly developed a soft spot for her ever since.


...


"What did you dream of, Amir? You were smiling throughout your nap and I find it rather weird."

Amir opened up her eyes and his sight was being greeted with a beautiful view that was his beautiful wife. He smiled, and took her hand and placed it on his chest.

"You."

She laughed over Amir's cliche and cheesy answer but smiled happily nevertheless. She never told anyone about this but she had once, albeit very briefly, developed a soft spot for Amir when he tried to fight with the bully on her behalf when they were kids.