Well I am still here, when i should be in Japan. A real traumatising 3 days for me. First of all was running around getting stuff ready for my trip to Japan, changing money for my brother, packing stuff to send to him, buying things i need, sorting out library books, clarifying some phd application process, meet colleagues for department dinner, movie, pick up my dad from airport, send dad and brother off at airport, pick up mountain bike, change spore dollars to yen, and pack pack pack.

Now... that was before i found out, a day before my planned departure, which incidentally is at 9.30pm tonight 4/12/02, that i require a visa to enter japan. Yes. Visa. Tricky four letter word. Before anyone throw any brickbats at me, i assert that i DID check about visa requirements when i went to buy air tickets. Unfortunately the girl who sold me the tickets at chan brothers told me I do not need a visa because i am a spore PR. Wow. So much for trusting your travel agent. A well known one at that. The worse thing is, when i called their hotline to confirm visa requirements again, another person actually told me the same thing, though with less conviction, probably because its one day prior my departure.

Which is why for the whole day, on the 4th of december 2002, i was running from japan embassy at nassim road to chan brothers in south bridge road and back to japan embassy again to get my documents and visa application done. And it was only until 1pm today that i realize fully i wasn't going to be up on that plane with him after all, but join him one week later. In any case, it was off to M1 office in compass point to pick up another phone to be used in japan. Just my luck that japan don't support GSM phones. After getting the phone, i realized that they don't support SMS either. I must say i have seen much better days than these. In any case, he took the phone with him to japan which i am sure should come in useful somehow now even if he can't SMS with it. Then it is back home to wait for the DHL guys to pick up the package i wanted to send to my brother in london. Except... the guys never came. Called up DHL, turned out that they will be late. I requested they come between 5 to 6.30pm but they said they would be late and perhaps come after 8pm which was going to be impossible because i would be at the airport sending him off then! Did i say i have seen better days than these? Perhaps on second thoughts it is not such a bad thing that i have to stay in spore since the DHL guys can only come tomorrow. If i were to fly off tonight, my brother might have to do without his package.

See how i ramble?

Anyway, i have tons to do this week and i better make full use of my time here before i fly to Japan. But i really hate flying on my own when i can fly with company. Not the mention all that emotional trauma we went through because of this silly farce. Ho ho ho.

I really should be quite numb from life's little jokes by now huh?