Goodbye 2008…

'hen' (change) was voted the kanji that best symbolized the year 2008

2008 has finally come to an end.  This is an interesting year for me and I can summarize this whole year with the word ‘change’ or ‘new’. This year can be considered a changing point in my life (maybe for now). Will just compile some of the things/events into a list below.

• Went to Tokyo for the first time and also the first free and easy planned by myself
• Attended the Tokyo International Anime Fair for the first tme
• Pre-ordered figure for the first time (it was Nendoroid Pastel Ink)
• Changed job for the first time
• Bought my first laptop
• Started buying lots of figures online and at local shops
• Start blogging (still got lots to improve)
• Bought my first digital camera (Canon IXUS 80 IS)
• Saw Danny Choo in person for the first time ^^
• Took my first JLPT 4
• Bought my first external hard disk
• Friends celebrating my birthday with me for the first time

Maybe these things are just some minor things to many people, but this is considered a change to my 20+ years of boring and withdrawn life. 2008 is also the year where I spent the most money, mainly due to buying figures and other gadgets for myself (I normally don’t buy things for myself). This year is also the year where I spent the most time outside my home (thanks for my friends to pull me out of my home ^^;). I used to stay at home almost all the time besides going to work.

Photo taken from Daily Yomiuri Online.

Goodbye 2008…

The Season Of Gifts And Celebration

Gifts and card received recently

This December is a month of gifts and celebrations to me. Received gifts and attended celebrations more than any of my past Decembers. I even received a free gift (the Gundam) from Animax for doing a survey about AFA08. The key chain which looks like a rabbit have a ‘G2′ carved on it and I like it. ^^ But don’t dare to use it because I’m scare I will damage it. The wallet is also nice and it’s about time to change my old wallet.

Guess where am I

Not sure whether I had mentioned before, actually Christmas eve is my birthday. ^^ Had a few birthday celebrations with my colleagues, friends and family members. Thanks a lot. You can see more photos of the above celebration in my facebook.

First time eating a carrot cake (not the fried carrot cake)

Ate a few cakes within this 2 weeks and hope that I don’t get very fat after this month. ^^;

The cute Chopperman

Oh, today is also Chopper’s birthday. Wish him happy birthday. ^^ Photo was taken when my laptop is down. A very cute figure. Seems like I had been posting things happening around me. ^^; Will try to post more photos of my figures soon.

I will take this chance to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

Able To Come Online Again…

Hope that someone could help me before my laptop is down

My laptop had been down for the past one or two weeks. It showed the same sign that I had mentioned earlier, but in a worse condition. Nothing can be done this time as it couldn’t even boot my CD. I only bought this laptop for 6 months… =_=

I contacted Dell and they got one of their technician to come to my house to do repair work. I had to take a half day leave for this… The technician said that my laptop’s display card was faulty and he would replace the whole motherboard for me. Luckily it’s still under warranty period, so the replacement was free of charge.

During the period without my laptop, I had been playing Football Manager Handheld 2009. It’s an interesting  game if you are able to win matches. ^^; Otherwise, you will feel demotivated and stopped playing. I would like to recommend this site if you are playing this game. It helped me for my game by giving recommendations and tips.

Do miss dannychoo.com and many other websites. Finally, my laptop is now back to normal and I’m able to come online again…

BTW, picture is taken from Aniseach.

Tax Payable Loot From Japan

The 'Chun Li' box with no Chun Li inside

As I mentioned in my previous post, I received a box last Monday. It arrived while I’m still at work, so my brother who happened to be on leave that day helped me accepted it. While he was accepting the box, the deliveryman demanded a cash of $43 for 7% GST (Goods and Services Tax) and $5 handling fee (not sure what is this for). According to the deliveryman, if we purchased things  from oversea that the total cost more than S$300 and was delivered to Singapore, the things would be GST payable.

Now I need to pay some cash back to my brother... =_=

For this case,  the figures inside the box cost S$500 plus (didn’t notice it cost this much while purchasing online, need to control next time). Not all of the figures were mine, some were my brother’s. ^^; This is my first time paying tax for the figures I ordered oversea and it’s quite a surprise for me.

Finally got hold of MM and the other MM belonged to my brother

After this incident, I started to look for figures at Singapore. After looking through a few local shops’ website, I found out that actually I could pay lesser than those I ordered from Hobby Search after shipment fee was included. The main reason for this to happen was due to the conversion rate between Singapore dollar and Japanese yen. The yen seems to increase everyday like there’s no tomorrow. =_=

Since many people already know about those popular local shops such as ToyNToys and KKnM, I would like to take this chance to recommend another local shop. The shop is called Black Technology, which is located near Bedok bus interchange. The price of the figures sold here seems to be quite reasonable, only slightly higher than ToyNToys for some figures. They may not have as many stock and variety as those popular shops, but it can act as another alternative if the figures you want are out of stock at those popular shops. Currently, their shop do not require deposit for pre-ordering  figures which may consider an attraction to pre-order with them. They also sell parts for PCs and gadgets for military use.

I had cancelled most of my pre-orders with Hobby Search, including those I mentioned earlier. However, I will still pre-order from Hobby Search for those not available in Singapore and maybe more if the Japanese yen drops a lot.

My First JLPT

Went to Nanyang Girls’ High School (maybe my first and my last time going there) for my first japan language proficiency test yesterday afternoon. Didn’t study much because I fell sick and my laptop was down just a few days before the exam. But the main reason was still because of my laziness. ^^;

Examinees waiting outside the classrooms during the short break

Reached the school half an hour earlier and there were already many people in the school. The school is much more bigger and better than my secondary school in every ways. Following the crowd, I reached the place where they listed the rooms for the examinees. I’m taking  JLPT 4 and my seat was at the science block (if I didn’t remember wrongly) level 1 classroom. The test is divided into 3 sections – kanji & vocab, listening and reading comprehension & grammar. In between two sections, there’s a short break. All questions are in multiple choices, which is good news to me.  I’m good at the kanji and should be OK for the grammar & comprehension However, I’m very poor in conversation and I could only understand half of what they said during the listening. The result will be out next year around March. I went straight home after the test as I need to format my laptop. T_T

After receiving a box (will talk about it in my next post) last Monday, the whole week seems to be in a mess. I kept on vomiting and having diarrhea through the long Wednesday night. No appetite to eat even if I’m hungry. A sip of water can cause me to vomit out a mouthful of water. Due to this, I lost a few kg. After I gotten better, it’s my laptop’s turn (it’s just 2 days before the test).

I hate this...

My laptop started to show things that chilled me. First, it seems like there’s a problem with my graphic card or driver. But after experiencing a few blackouts and back to normal again, I started to suspect that it might be due to a virus attack. Thus, I decided to format my laptop after my test. In the end, I spent my long weekend formatting and reinstalling programs of my laptop. T_T

Now, my laptop seems to be fine and hope that nothing bad will happen. ^^