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| 60% of my flatmates are either studying medicine or nursery. And here's what happened.
I always defrost my meat on the kitchen table before cooking.
One fine day, I got a "lovely" message on the table
' Please defrost your meat in the fridge as it stinks. This is the reason why the kitchen has cockroaches'.
I think I had smoke coming out from my head after reading it.
My reply:
' The invention of the fridge/ freezer is useless then since a cold piece of meat can stink. Anyways, I will defrost my meat in the fridge next time if that pleases u. P/s: clear the rubbish bin if you want a cockroach-free kitchen (my kitchen has 2 big bags of rubbish waiting to be taken out)'
Future DOCTOR thinks frozen/cold piece of meat stinks!!!
Please don't go and look for them if you are sick. They are unsure whether organism can be active in low temperature.
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| p/s: I don't know how to edit the audio >_<!! Thus the audio flow isnt very smooth. Sorry.
Anyways, I have put part 3 into a short clip. Enjoy
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| I was lucky enough in Nagasaki. One of Kota's friends, volunteered to fetch me from Nagasaki to Shimabara (2.5 hours car ride). I saved alot of time and money there. Thanks ya~
My initial plan was to just visit Nagasaki and Fukuoka. What made me went to Shimabara was that I have 2 very very very very VERY VerY good friends there. One of them is even regarded as our family member in my family--> That would be Sayo. To make things better, Sayo's grandpa was the former City Mayor of Shimabara. I remember the first day i arrived, Sayo's dad offered to bring me to the hot spring. I went "What?! Now?! How?! With whO??!! ( In Japanese)"
That's when I found that Shimabara is best known for hot springs. I think there are more hot spring water than running water in this city. The nearest hot spring is just 3 minutes walk away from Sayo's house!!! How cool is that!! So I went with her dad.. He took me to the place, went up to the reception and said "Kanegae (his surname)desu." WAHHHhhh.. The reception's attitude changed dramatically. We talked about it while enjoying the hot pool of water and he told me about the influential is the family in Shimabara. The Kanegae family is featured in the museums!!!
My next friend is Mai. When I met her in Shimabara, wow... I couldn't remember that she has such a loud voice. The whole train station could hear her.. HAha... Cheerful as usual..
Mai and Sayo didn't know each other before this. So I took both of them and had dinner together. Did you ever have the experience of seeing 2 total strangers sitting together but having the perfect to talk about? I couldnt stop laughing watching them both.
(From left to right) Sayo, Mai, Sachiko
The last major earthquake in Shimabara happened few weeks after Sayo was borned if I remembered correctly. I went to the Earthquake Memorial Museum with Sayo's parents. I guess you already know what happened, Sayo's mom had alot to say about her experiences at that time with an infant in the family. Outside of the Memorial Museum we could see the volcano that caused the earthquake:
YEAP!!! The volcano is RIGHT BEHIND the city!!! But no worries. Look at the landscape of the volcano: it looks like a "river" ain't it. The lava is going to flow through that "river" to the ocean when the next volcano eruption occurs. They called it "Mizu nashi" which means Waterless River.
The next interesting place in Shimabara is "The Hell". Why hell? That's because there is steam constantly bubbling out from the ground, together with hot spring water.
The resorts around the region connect paips from "The Hell" to their 5 star hot spring resorts. Guess what. The Kanegae owns one of these resorts!!!! I got the chance to went there to enjoy the luxuries for a few hours. Wow... I am a lucky boy. 
Another popular thing about Shimabara--> Koi fish.
Where do you think this picture is taken from?
Pond? No
River? No
The answer is DRAIN!!!!!!!! You can find Koi fish randomly in drains!!!
The Japanese are good at preserving their historical spots. In the past the layout of an empire was that the emperor lives in the castle, and the samurais live very closely to it. In Shimabara, the "Samurai Village" is so well preserved that I felt like I returned to the past.
Along this path are the low ranked Samurai house. Some of the houses are for display purposes, but most of them are occupied by families. What does that mean? It means that in those houses are the younger generations of those samurais in the past~  ! The water running through in the middle was the main water source for them.
Here are some interesting picture before I end part 2:
"Let's bring back our dog shit"
"Hard boiled eggs at the hotprings are DAMN nice"
Sayo's dad and aunt playing the Japanese guitar
Sayo's grandparents
[End of part 2]
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| The Summer vacation was too short: 2 months of internship had taken a big portion of my holiday. I was left with 3 weeks. I thought I had to do something to fully utilise the time that I had before another year of books, lectures, workshops, numbers, share prices, financial crisis.. bla bla bla...
Therefore......
Shimabara Castle
Taadaa!!!!!
I went backpacking in Kiushiu, Japan.
It was a 10days trip (3 days--> Nagasaki, 3days--> Shimabara, 3days--> Fukuoka, 1 day flying)
As some of you might know, unless you go to the shopping malls or big multi national companies places, the Japanese do not accept credit card, generally. To make my trip more adventurous, I only brought RM1500 with me (I came back with coins left in my wallet  ).
My first stop was Nagasaki, the place that is famous for the atomic bombing during WWII. It was a 2.5 hours bus ride from Fukuoka International Airport. I didn't want to take the train because of the tight budget that I had. All I had was a travel book about Japan. I stunned for a few seconds when I arrived Nagasaki, before I regained my "consciousness" to get a city map from the information counter. Finding my hotel wasn't too hard with the help of the locals .
Long long time ago in Japan, the emperor had forbidden communication with the outside world, including trades. The only port which foreigners who wished to trade with Japan had to go to Nagasaki. If other parts of Japan is popular for its unique architecture, Nagasaki is famous for its Westernised-Japanese culture, buildings and history.
 
Foreign-Relations Officer Residence
Warehouses of Dejima Port then
The next highlight that I want to mention is of course the hot-spot of the atomic bomb.
That's the hot spot
You might be wondering that there's nothing to see in this photo.. Well, DUH!!! It's the hot spot~ Everything was destroyed completely and what is left was the pillar on the right side of the photo. It was a church entrance.
Walking along the hot-spot memorial park.....
Is the Peace Park.. It is to remind the people that Peace is everything
HHmmm... Where to next?
Because Nagasaki was the only Port where foreigners could trade, it is the only city in Japan with Chinese temples. I was lucky to have Kota with me to look around the temples. He brought 2 friends along ~
One of the oldest chinese temples in Nagasaki
Kota and.... I forgot her name
The Confucious Temple
So why did the emperor banned communication with the outside world COMPLETELY in Japan?
Apparently, when Christianity was introduced in Japan, there was a big Hoo-Haa in Japan such as civil wars and stuff like that. In the end the emperor got fed up and banned everything from outside Japan, including Christianity. All Christian were ordered to convert back to Shinto, Buddhism...whatever they originally were.
However, there were 26 saints who disobeyed the order. I guess you already figured out what would happen to them:
 
All of them got killed~~~
The one thing that I like Nagasaki the best is the nightview of the city. I would say it's a nice place to date your love ones here. Chilly, quiet, dark, beautiful :)
Such a beautiful view after a climb to the top of the hill 
After 3 days of touring in Nagasaki, I met up with Sayo and her granny
And together we went back to Sayo's house in Shimabara......
[end of part 1]
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| Everytime when I talked to my mom she keeps bugging me to update my blog~
LAZY ＬＡ！！ 咳呀！
Anyways, many things happened for the past few months. I don't know which one to talk about. Well, I guess you guys are more interested in why I left home early. It shall be the topic of the day then.
I came back early to Manchester because I was involved in my university orientation programme. 4 days of work for 250pounds, how good is that?
My group members
My group was in charged of Campus Tour, where we take the freshers to tour around the campus. You probably think of the size of a campus as the size of Nottingham University in Malaysia. NO NO NO NO NO..... the 2 ends of the university by a straight line is about 2km. Thats how much we had to WALK and TALK to explain to the freshers every single bits of the university.
That's the amount of people we handled PER HOUR for 4 days
Walking home with friends after work
Home?!
Wait a minute, I came back early, by right I shouldn't have had a place to stay since my accommodation contract starts when my term begins. Where did I stay???
Thanks to Daryl, he has a flat to himself, so I stayed at his place.
Having breakfast before a new day starts, and watching tv =)
Have you noticed that I always appear in purple, well, that's what they call us: THE PURPLE PEOPLE. Any questions? First person to look for--> The Purple People. Need directions to go to the city?--> Purple People... They even came to look for us when they had problems opening bank accounts... Go talk to the bank manager!! Not the purple people~ ISh....!
Anyways, I had really great fun working that week. I made alot of new friends, earned some money (I didnt get to see the money actually. The day I got my pay, the accommodation direct debit took the money away  )
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