| Lost in Translation |
[Mar. 15th, 2007|08:54 am] |
| [ | .place |
| | Singapore | ] |
| [ | .feeling |
| | f**k it's hot in here | ] |
| [ | .np |
| | Demovibes 7 | ] |
... Well. Most of my LJ idleness (apart from a few comments and the one or other occasional LJ drama because I forgot that you simply don't expose vain and self-righteous US bitches as what they are.. seriously, don't. Still amusing tho how Ms. Eloquency Herself was suddenly down to "STFU" as her sole counter argument :) comes from the high "noteworthiness/laziness" ratio I apply every time the thought of updating this thing crosses my mind... and in most cases I simply just don't want to bore you with the details of my daily life, most of you seem to have one youself, so why bother :)
Still, sometimes something noteworthy happens - as in this case.
I'm back in Singapore. For those who wonder how i can be "back" when I haven't been there before, here's a short recap of my original plans for march: Fly to Singapore on March 6th to visit ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) sir_yoda for almost a week, then on March 12th off to Tokyo to visit sheitana for a week, then one week later back home with one day of Singapore in between just because two return flights are about half as cheap as three one-way ones. So far, so good.
Everything was quite well planned and prepared, holidays granted, all tickets bought, financial situation managed, people in the respective towns knew that I'd be coming for weeks...
... or so I thought.
Well, the fist Singapore part went pretty smooth actually. Except that I've seemingly forgot the charger for my laptop (which was solved by transplanting my HD into sir_yoda's old laptop) and that I've got probably the worst sunburn I"ve had since I turned all gawth, those days were pretty neat. Sun, a very nice town, palmtrees, beaches (full of the other things that are phonetically similar), lounging at the beach club pool, partying in those very modern/expensive clubs.
And then I've tried to take on the second part of the trip.
The first rather major issue I was encountering upon arriving at Narita Airport was entirely my own fault - I let my normal bank account hit Ground Zero in the last week and placed my trust into my credit card to get me through the rest of the month. Which would've worked, if either I still knew it"s PIN to withdraw some cash at an ATM, or if there'd been a single bank or change facility at the airport which would have allowed to do the same without the PIN - which is pretty much standard all over the world. Not so in Tokyo. So basically I was sitting there in the arrivals hall with the 5 Euros and 10 SG Dollars I still had in my wallet and there was no chance to go somewhere else.
But I had credit card payable internet access and so was able to find my bank's phone no., wait until it was 9AM in Germany and beg for some more credit on my account. After some careful pleas and the bank rep chuckling because she found it too funny imagining me sitting at that airport all alone and emo this was solved, I could withdraw some money and finally go into the city and find sheitana.
To put things short. I didn't. This time it was not exactly my fault because I even found the house that seemingly belonged to the address she's given me. There were only a few smaller issues left:
- she hasn't told me which of the 40 apartments in that house it was (no number, no name to look for, nothing)
- she refused to answer any phone calls
- same with emails, SMS (though those probably didn't work anyway), attempts tries to IM her etc.
So basically I was standing somewhere in the south west of central Tokyo with just me, my bag and some money and had absolutely no idea what to do next. Only thing I knew is that I somehow had to survive for a week because then my flight back would go.
The evening and night was then spent waiting in the neighborhood hoping I could somewhow catch her, calling her again and again and again, and then eventually giving up and calling everyone else I knew either lived in Tokyo or could know a cheap hotel I could sleep at for the next night(s). Eventually I got a hotel recommendation and after some cooperation with a taxi driver who neither knew any English nor could read the roman letters the hotel address was written in, I was able to check in and fall asleep. Or let's call that "asleep" because my heart frequency was WAY to high that night to really sleep.
That hotel was nice actually - everything down to the bare minimum but cheap, very friendly and at least you could get along in English without any problems :)
Next day, again with a little help from sir_yoda (who booked the SG<->JP flights for me, thanks by the way), I was able to change my flight back to an earlier day and thus decided to stay only for one day, sleep one night and then fly back. Of course a few minutes later after this was settled someone I knew (Mr Hill, ex Acorn scener and now working for nVidia in Tokyo) called and asked me if I still needed a place to stay for the week. Thank you very, VERY much, Murphy. But I still felt so disappointed and left alone that I figured one day here is enough now and I"ll give Tokyo a second chance at some later point, and this time without relying on anyone THAT known for being unreliable. Well, no risk, no fun - next time I know better.
Anyway. Met a nice couple from Germany and Switzerland at the hotel lobby and after some chat with _her_ about _realtime particle dynamics systems_ (i mean, seriously, WTF :) they told me a few places worth exploring, and so I set off on my own and had a quite nice day there. The evening was spent with Mr Hill and one of his coworkers dining in a french restaurant and then hitting some bars, so in the end of that day my mood was back to "happily drunk" again and hooray, I was even able to sleep :)
Well, then one day basically spent idling in the hotel lobby, on a train, at the airport, on a plane and then back in sir_yoda's home, and then today. Let's see what's up. :)
Edit because I forgot: Of course I haven't been able to reach sheitana yet - she'd better have a really good excuse. |
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sick
relaxed
bouncy
tired
exhausted
drunk