Adventure w RAMUNE (ラムネ) =^-^=

Yes, King Liang, it takes me 3 days to actually get this entry up.... Well, after bringing the UNSW ppl back to PGP on Sunday, Yew Mun, King Liang, Mun Keat, and I headed down to Raffles City... KL wanted to introduce me to ラムネ (pronounced as "ra-mu-ne") a pretty unique Japanese soft drink. Lunch at Subway, then the 4 of us trooped down to Market Place at the basement of Raffles City.... When we got to the Japanese produce section, I was getting pretty excited, especially since ラムネ turned out to be a drink I saw on either anime or J-drama before ^^ There were other flavors like orange and peach and stuff but only 3 of them were in the "authentic" glass bottle.... So the adventure begins after putting the drink in the fridge upon getting home ^^

Okie.... I ended up buying the original flavored ラムネ (pretty much tasteless to me... prob because loads of Singaporean soft drinks are very sweet). [1] shows the unopened bottle. Kinda looks like a normal soft drink in a glass bottle but looks can be deceiving, ya know! So upon closer inspection, there are interesting labels like in [2] and [3] as to how to open the bottle.... Basically there is a little plastic t-shaped thingie that you use to unseal the bottle by pushing the glass marble dn ^^

So ya, after removing the normal plastic seal thing at the top, the bottle ends up looking like [4], where the geen plastic bits at the top just sitting there, and come apart like in [5]. The smaller plastic bit on the left is the "t-shaped" thingie used to push the glass ball down...

Now comes the troublesome part..... the proper unsealing, so that I can get to my drink.... [6] shows how u shld place the plasatic bit, and u gotta use A LOT of strength to get the darn ball down!! I tried, didn't work.... Mom tried, didn't work... Went to get a flat pebble we had, I held on to the bottle, and Mom went "wham" on the pebble, and the glass ball *finally* went dn.... You can sorta see it fizzle-ling in [7]

Just in case that wasn't large enough, here are some close-ups of the bubbles forming ard the ball... other than those little bubbles, there wasn't much excitement *lol* And yea, Juan (along w sibs and mom) proceeded to finish the 200mL of drink there was.... Not really a lot, but I only understood how THICK the walls of the bottle are after we finished the drink!!

Well.... here's the emptied product... The bottle is contoured in such a way that the glass ball doesn't fall all the way down but instead stays some where in the middle.... Well, now Juan has a nice noisy, albeit heavy, rattle on my table ^^ One good thing that came out of this is that now I have something ready for Japanese 4 culture presentation (photos and bottle alike!! heehee... might even get another bottle just before the presentation so I can demo how to open it ^^)

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Trip to the airport....

Juan really needs to remember that it takes near to 2 hours to get to the airport from home.... Nice LOOOONNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGG train ride *sigh* To start the story from the beginning, a group of us from SPS are helping out with a Science Summer School Programme thing NUS has w UNSW, so some of (the group of) us were at the airport to greet them... We were supposed to meet at 1730h since their flight was to arrive at 1745 but silly me was an hour late. Thankfully none of them were out yet ^^ Oh well... Managed to get all 27 of them safely, and on to PGP we go.... Wei Wen JUST had to whip out his deck of cards to play bridge while we were on the bus ^^ Oh, apparently they have a similar game called "500" (?) back Down Under... Unfortunately, the 2 we were playing with weren't exactly sure of the rules for it...

Next "adventure" at PGP was with the cluster gates that were situated at each level... Spent a good 15 minutes trying to figure out how to actually open them (especially since I don't stay in a hall) *rofl* And then back down to the air-con canteen for a quick meeting and briefing for tmr, as well as the collection of their [rather nice] welcome pack.... There was also a short comment abt the pink guavas that are eaten in Australia and the whitish, "pear-ish" ones we eat in Singapore. Well, the commercial guava drinks (like the ones from Pokka) we get in Singapore are made from the pink guavas, and they are sweeter compared to the practically tasteless white ones.... Pink and white are referring to the flesh inside... All guava skins are green....

Anyway, there wld be some of us bringing them to Clementi to get hp Sim cards, EZlink cards and wateva else they need... Prob til lunch time I guess, since a number of them DO have exams on Monday.... The poor things had to fly over in the middle of their exams, so they are doing papers in between some of the modules for the next week or so... And one of her has a pretty bad cough but still needs to study for her paper on Monday... Do hope she can get enough rest tonight... I prob can only join them for lunch at Clementi after YM tho'

Well... 27 more names to learn and match to faces (doesn't help that there are 2 Emilys) Wld prob have fun with that, tho' I think they wld have more fun trying to remember our names since none of the 9 of us have English names ^^ with mine being a little of a tongue-twister (I mean, even my TEACHERS can pronounce it wrongly, and they are Singaporeans!!!), and I like to sign off us "Juan" which wld be synonomous to "euan" a GUY's name... (yea, most of my netpals think that I am a guy, at least until they realise that I am NOT) Been telling them to call me "Ju-en" or "Jen"...... Here's to fun times ahead, and to a good rest in bed!! 皆さん、おやすみなさい！！またね！！

Oh, as a side note, I managed to get tix for the NDP preview... Now to figure out where Far East Square is, so that I can go collect them... Plus need to know WHEN the preview is.... Only know that it is at the Padang (since this year's NDP wld be at the Padang)

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After some shut eye....

Hmmm.... Managed to get *some* sleep after all, but I think I am NOT meant to last multiple nights in SPS.... So much for a full fledged marathon... Guess we wld just finish up by watching segments of the the features discs (as recommended by Ifty), then I can actually get back to my bed tonight! And then I can enjoy my extended vcds at a more leisurely pace ^^ AND I get a chance to actually pack my rm as well... Tho's I prob wld be back on Friday, to *hopefully* settle some UROPS and module stuff, especially since the UNSW students coming for the science summer school programme wld be arriving on Saturday, and the 10 of us wld be meeting them on Monday during the welcome tea =^-^= PLUS, there's the semestral cleaning of SPS rm on Monday as well.... *hefty yawn* Kinda a good thing that I wld be occupied with helping the summer programme, otherwise I *might* feel a tad bit lonely since Nam is gg back to HK tmr, and wld only be back a week later.... Guess I kinda need to start on Minna no Nihongo for Japanese 4 as well, dun wanna be forever getting a B for jap.... Which reminds me, there's still that humongous ambition of mine to translated some of the Kino no Tabi stories into english too... [Not to mention the vectoring and walling I am supposed to be finishing up.... No, I haven't forgotten abt the hikaru no go wall or the inuyasha vector....]

Yes, going home tonight seems more and more appealing with each passing moment *nods head* I definitely DON'T wanna shower in science again... at least not until the upgrading(s) are all done... the shower head was pretty old, and more of getting a jet of water than anything else, but I think the freakiest part was how the noise/sounds from the upgrading that was going on a few rooms away just carried.... Half the time I wasn't sure if the noise was from there or if one of the workers actually came in to use the toilet... Pretty nerve wrecking if you just had a couple hours of sleep somewhere far from your bed, more so due to severe myopia... But that was the nearest shower ard, so.... *shudder* What i wld give for a nice warm shower at the moment....

Present wallpaper: Nice dark wall of Vincent from Final Fantasy - Advent Children that I managed to get off MT ^^ Matches the black of my IBM thinkpad wonderfully! The CGI is done so nicely, but when is squaresoft gonna put us out of agony and release the DVD?!? The release date has already been pushed back a number of times....

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Sleepless in NUS....

Well, we started our own private LOTR extended DVD full marathon (meaning we are watching EVERYTHING on the DVDs) Managed to finish all of Fellowship in ard 12 hours, supposed to be catching some winks now.... but I can't seem to fall asleep O_o Crap!! Well, so since I have *kinda* nothing better to do, here I am updating my blog ^^ Still can't believe that I am in sch for something as trivial as being a LOTR geek!! *ROFL* Really wonder if I can survive thru another 20-24 hours of LOTR.... Haha... But the behind-the-scenes peeks and the great scenery really makes it all worthwhile, and just seeing Tolkien's Middle-Earth brought to life is just so nice! *sigh* Wanna retire to Rivendell, and live in Lothlorien...

Finally got down to watching some of the TeniPuri musicals that I got from May Yi, and I think they are really amusing! Dancing, singing and tennis just doesn't go.... Really comical seeing live-action ver of all the Seigaku dudes ^^ Really like how Kaidoh turned out tho'. Pity those I got from her are raws, so I can't make out everything they were singing... Anyway, gonna make another attempt to sleep.... Minna-san, oyasuminasai!

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NUS High Camp - mission accomplished!!!

The second camp is now officially done ^^ Yay!! Compared to the P6s, the Sec 2s were much less energetic.... In other words, they didn't drain my "batteries" as badly ^^ Still, having a nice bath at the end of the day feels REAL good!!

[Juan dashes off for dinner at this point....]

Okies... Back from a nice dinner that included chili black pepper fish, and now on to more rambling abt the camp... heehee.... Guess u shld be able to tell that Juan has enough energy to be bouncing ard! Kinda glad that my team *finally* showed SOME enthusiasm at the eco-race of the last station. Tho' that may be partly due to Malcolm actually giving them a time to beat..... Well, since BOTH teams competing actually managed to beat the original best time of 18 min plus, all I can say is "Well done Orange!!" As the Orange mentors were saying, it truly is the "Return of the Jedi"! Great that Orange teams managed to get the best team for 3 stations, compared to the P6 camp where only one girl from Orange got a prize for the DuPont quiz..... It was a busy (and rather draining) week, and I definitely enjoy the rest of my hols ^^ (Just need to get off me bum and go do some active scouting for a UROPS prof....)

Guess the kids weren't the only ones who made new friends. I got to know more NUS pple too! I mean, I already know the SPS ones, but there were also a number of SPS-friends that were helping out. People like Aloysius were doubly great to know. (In his case, he's a nice fella, PLUS he's also a fellow ACSian!!)

Hmmmm..... On to other things.... Yea, CoolBlueX has done the updating at Oujisama.tk, so the anime episode summaries are slowly trudging along.... Gotta start watching those live musicals soon too...At least the TenuPuri stuff are making some headway, not like my Kino no Tabi translations... Translating REALLY is tougher than it looks :(

The AMC website has been moved to Leslie's SCCC hosting space, and well, things are still kinda messy at the moment while sections are being allocated to various pple... Grace and I are kinda the articles pple. I really wonder what I can write abt.... Plus whether my writing skills are really up-to-std.... I mean, other that blog entries (or diary style ramblings) or science-related reports, papers etc., I haven't really been doing anything similar to a proper article writing.... Oh dear, what to do abt this?

Dental appointment tmr... So NOT looking fwd to it..... Never really liked visiting either the doctor's nor the dentist's *hefty sigh*

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Guess I owe u guys this......

Yea.... sorry for the "downtime" and the lack of posts... been a little busy, plus internet connection at home is more than a little wonky....

Got back my results a week ago. Good news is that everything is above a C+... the bad news is that there weren't any As either *hefty sigh* Oh well, that's the last sem (I hope!) that I would be taking 6 modules. Back to a normal load of 5 ^^ Aside from Japanese 4, Microbiology and UROPS, I am still short of 2 modules to take... Probably gonna be more LSM modules I guess...

So what has Juan been busy with? No, not with FF7... If I was busy with that, you guys would definitely read more about escapades of how to catch the *stupid* chocobo etc.... Been helping out in the NUS High School camp (that's for this week) and one thing that I have DEFINITELY learnt from this is that Juan is NOT cut out to be a primary school teacher or work in a childcare centre... Batteries don't last long enough... Will be over after this week. Whoppee!! Then I have ard a week free before I need to help with the NUS summer exchange programme for the UNSW pple... Yes, that gives me ard one week to settle my UROPS project.... Guess I hafta select from the list of Bio Sciences projects...

Okie... wanna wrap this up so I can get back to fiddling ard with MSN messenger 7.0... Ciao for now....

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