Chinese New Year just flew past, with all those house visits and celebrations! Not to mention, me and Mabel left Rena under the careful care of my in laws and went for our first overseas trip since 2007. Yes, almost 3 years since our last one, which was to Tokyo. It's been a long awaited trip, and although it was Thailand, it was the first time for the both of us, and it also marks the first large group event since we went with another 8 more friends. The good thing about travelling in a group was that I didn't really have to do any itinerary planning nor navigation, and there was always companions around you. Only thing was that I couldn't roam around as freely as I could in other countries. Though, it was more of a shopping trip for Mabel and her group of lady friends than anything else :)
Well, I did find something to buy. Can't let Mabel exhaust our vacation funds alone now, can I. Most of the stuff I bought were T-shirts. Lots of them. Some even came in couple designs so Mabel would be glad to wear them with me. No pics now but they're quite interesting so I'll definitely post pictures on Twitter soon. I also bought some other little stuff, like the iPod money and iPod puppy you see above. Also, some figures from Naruto Shippuden, namely Sasuke and Naruto. I already have some other figures back home, so I thought it was a good chance to add others since they were pretty cheap. Too bad I had to stop myself at 2, but they had a lot of other characters there as well.
Sadly, I realised that not everything was cheaper there in Thailand than Singapore. Take the Kamen Rider and Super Sentai toys for example. They sell for nearly 3 times the price than Singapore! Seriously. One of the SIC series for Kamen Rider Den-O went for nearly $200 there, and it costs only about $70 in Singapore. The Gundams there aren't cheap too, and the prices are nearly uncomprehensible to me. The Perfect Grade Double 00 Gundam which my guys gave to me as a present, it costs over $900 dollars there. Yes, crazy! Too bad, since I was planning on getting some stuff there. Turns out I'll have to import again.
Apart from shopping, the other highlight there would be the food. Sorry I could only show you a picture of my supper, since most of the meals were too cramped for me to take pics, or because the food was too good I didn't remember to whip out my camera. We visited a couple of steamboat restaurants, Japanese restaurants, and also chinese seafood restaurants for BBQ large prawns, curry crabs, etc. Eating was quite a joy there, really. Mainly due to the price :p
I also managed to get a new pair of running shoes there. The price wasn't really that far off from home, but since we have tax rebate I thought I'd might as well get it there. I also got a couple of running shirts there too, and a soccer jersey, since we visited the Adidas warehouse outlet there. It was a pain getting there so not getting anything would be silly. I realised that the stuff there was quite a bargain, so kudos to the guys who got us there.
My order for some of the new figures from Kamen Rider Decade and Double also arrived this week. Nothing spectacular this time, just 3 more figures in the rider heroes line since I've been collecting them for so long, and a large sized sofubi of Decade since he was on sale and costs way cheaper than the version of him I bought locally a few months back. I haven't been watching too much of Double, though I have the episodes lying around. Can't find the time to go through time, though I usually go through the action scenes on the day of the broadcast in Japan. Will be finding the time to catch up soon, and to see how the new rider Accel do, based on his whacky transformable bike form. Check out the video here (you can't see embedded stuff if you are reading this from Facebook): 
The new season of Super Sentai has also just recently started. Tensou Sentai Goseiger (天装戦隊ゴセイジャー) is the title of Toei Company's thirty-fourth entry in its long-running Super Sentai Series of Japanese tokusatsu television series. It premiered the week following the finale of Samurai Sentai Shinkenger on February 14, 2010, it airs alongside Kamen Rider Double in the Super Hero Time programming block. I caught episode one, but I'm not really too much into it, not unlike Shinkenger. Too much a young cast, and already a pesky kid in the pilot episode. Will most likely give this series a few more weeks before deciding whether to keep watching. The OP/ED are pretty nice though. Here's the video for the ED:
Right! That's almost it for this entry. I've been procrastinating this for a while, but on the other hand my Twitter account reaches 3000 tweets this week. Been using it daily, and haven't been updating FB as much. Work seems to be piling up too, although I must say that 2010 looks to be the year of change for me. I'm pretty much determined to go for further studies this year, and there's also hope of finding what I desire to achieve, in terms of passion and goals. Hopefully everything will work out soon in the months to come. Until next time, ja!
