Golden Week Gathering 2008 - Ice-Breaker Ceremony

"Every year, we have new people joining in"

Andrew,
referring to the new kohais

The annual PPKTJ's Golden Week Gathering this year is arguably one of the biggest gatherings for several years in terms of the number of participants as there were nearly eighty people who turned up for the event. Everyone were so supportive in offering helping hands to the organisers and joining with the rest in this gathering that it turned out to be a great success. More on the gathering later.

Taking up from where I left in the previous entry, we headed to the location of the main gathering was being held after we had meet-up and had a bowling game with everyone in my batch near Tokyo Dome. We stopped at the halfway the journey at a nearby supermarket to grab our cooking ingredients to be used during the barbecueing session that night. The bus we took was practically packed with the whole bunch of us, except for a few unlucky Japanese who had to bear our noise and craziness act for the whole journey. I think even the bus driver felt a sigh of relieve after all of us had got down from the bus. When we were paying up the bus fares, he kept on nodding his head so many times non-stop; indirectly telling us that we had paid the right amount and to get down from the bus as fast as possible. Pity him.

It was already dark by the time we arrived there and we were made to walk up a slope more than one kilometre from where the bus dropped us, with minimum street lights. Another downside of the place is that it doesn't have phone line; well, it was the case for Softbank users only though. We settled down as soon as we reached there and cooked our dinner together. That was after we bathed although there were not any shower rooms available there but only ofuro (Japanese public bath). It was the first time for most of us there, including me for entering the public bath and again, the jakun-ness act among us returned. Luckily there were not many Japanese that time or they would have wondered whether this bunch of jakun have never been to such place. I shall save the details on what happened inside the ofuro and end the story here.

The venue of the gathering this year took a significant change from the usual gathering before this, which are normally held in some parks or youth centre in the middle of Tokyo. This time around, it was held in Ootizawa Youth Centre, located in the outskirts of Tokyo. The area is surrounded by mountains and forests, which was one of the main reason why we couldn't receive phone signals there. Anyway, we were greeted with something which looked rather unusual at the main entrance of the centre.

Wan Ying said Doraemon went on a diet plan and got this kind of figure in the end.

When you have Doraemon around, that is why we got these kind of accommodations at night.

The spacious hall laid with tatami mat is for us to put our stuff and when we were going to sleep, everyone will hop into the square hole on the wall to sleep.

The place was so comfortable that it made us having a hard time waking up in the next morning. In fact, we were chatting through the night while playing cards and even computer games in the room until it was almost two in the morning. However, nobody was late for the activity the next day.

While the people in front didn't bother to look at the camera, it was the opposite for the people behind.

It was still early and while we people who had arrived a day earlier were waiting for the senpais to arrive, prepared our brunch at the BBQ site. The place was not a luxurious hotel where you can just warm your butt on the sofa and call for the food to be served anytime. Here, we had to cook to fill our stomach and that required us having to chop firewoods before going any further with our cooking.

So paiseh and tension as so many people were looking at me chopping the firewood.

At another corner, the other half started boiling water to cook their instant noodle.

Only two fella were working on the stove while the rest just became the spectators. A true reflection of Malaysians, no?

Our initial plan to have steamboat for lunch was cancelled due to the fact that most of us were lazy unsure of the availability of the utensils needed for steamboat at the BBQ site. In the end, we just settled with eating instant ramen and yakisoba. To add some extra ingredients to our instant noodles, some of us fried some eggs which was meant to become bull's eye egg to have it together with the noodles. However, it turned out to be something different. Something that was not very pretty, I must say.

We shall call them blind bull's eye eggs.

As for the rest who were not chopping firewoods or boiling water or frying blind eggs, they made themselves busy by playing with their toys.

How a golden kettle managed to attract the attention of these two guys.

After everything's done, it was time when one after another group of senpais arrived. From that moment onwards, it was talking, doing some catching ups, and talking and talking and continued talking with each other non-stop. That made the organisers climbed high onto the table whenever they wanted to make any announcement to the rest because all were too busy talking with their friends.

Some got overly excited that they even climbed onto the bench while talking.

With nothing much else to talk about already, the rest of this entry will be camwhoring pictures of the people there before the programme continued with the hiking up Mount Kusato, which I will blog on it in the next entry. Lets see who appeared the most at the end of this entry. Okay, now start counting how many times you appeared in the pictures and tell me.

From left: Elvin, Kenny, Teng Kang, Andrew, Shin Yean, Gani, senpai*.

From left: Senpai*, Andrew, Lee Wei, James, Loke Eng, Mingrong, Ghai Leong.

From left: Teng Kang, Mingrong, Li Jia, Fong Zyin, Chin Wooi.

From left (front row): Sii Lee, Michael, Alan; (back row): Chai Ei, Boon.

From left: Chai Ei, Boon, Bik Yee - all from Kisarazu Kosen.

From left: Bik Yee, Me, James, Yien San, Loke Eng, Michael, Jun Hui, Boon, Jia Hui, Elaine, Shin Wei, Mingrong, Jonathan.

Finally, a huge group shot with excessive peace signs by almost everybody in the picture.

Because all wanted to look kawaii.

~ to be continued ~

P/S: Just in case I made any spelling errors on the names, it was fully unintended and please inform me and I will edit it. Thank you.

Pre-Golden Week Gathering 2008

"Are you sure you're choosing Hokkaido?"

my surprise reaction to two of my batchmates
when I got to know their choice of kosen

It felt like it was just yesterday that I threw both of them with the question.

The actual fact is, more than one year has passed since that day. The response on the PPKTJ Golden Week's Gathering this year has been so good; even Chang Yuan and Teong Rong came down all the way from Hokkaido to join the rest of us in Tokyo for this annual gathering. The main gathering was scheduled to be on Sunday, but most of us in my batch and my junior's batch have come down to Tokyo a day earlier. Each arrived on a different time, mostly due to the distance between the place they are currently studying and Tokyo. The people from Nagaoka were among the earliest to arrive in Shinjuku station, closely followed by the rest. By noon, almost everyone had reached and we decided to meet-up before moving to the site where the gathering with the rest of the senpai and kohai would be held. First place we meet-up with each toher was around Shinjuku Station and here are a few of us who were there already, waiting for the rest before proceeding to the next location. Despite the long-hours of journey throughout the night, everyone still looked energetic and ready to have fun, except for one person.

Aiyo Chan, why when people were taking photo, you busy sleeping? (pic by Cedric)

From Shinjuku station, we headed to another spot but still within the proximity of Tokyo.

Can you see the tiny figures in the centre of the picture? That was the whole bunch of us.

The weather didn't do us any much favour as it was raining since early of the morning and we decided to find some indoor place. Tokyo Dome was decided and the whole bunch of us took the train there only to find out that there were nothing much interesting to do there. Our initial plan of going into the amusement park in the proximity of Tokyo Dome was cancelled for some unknown reasons. So, we stopped in front of the dome like some lost tourist figuring out for the next destination.

Die die also must split into guy's group and girls group everytime.

However, that didn't stopped some to continue camwhoring around the area.

Feeling lost, but still must smile kao kao in front of the camera. (pic by Cedric)

In the end, we went for bowling. Basically, there were sixteen of us there and we split into three teams. We had a bet before the game went underway that the team who finishes last will treat the rest a bottle of juice. You see, we Malaysians sometimes are more kiasu than our counterpart and it was understandable that everyone was trying hard to make sure that they don't finish last. However, when there is someone bowled their balls into the drain (pun unintended), you will still get a lot of cheering.

Cheering that came from your opponents that is.

Actually it was not that tensed-up as everybody was having fun with each other.

At the same time, for the rest who were waiting for their turns felt so boring as if they had nothing to do. In the end, they took their time off to camwhore like mad. So long time didn't get to see each other already, sure will miss each other very much, right?

Paiseh hor Bao Cong and Mingrong for getting your face half-cut. Blame the I-don't-know-who-was-the-photographer.

Here is the redemption. This time both of their faces appeared clearly in the picture already. (pic by Cedric)

Back to serious talk on how the game went. My team comprising of Bao Cong, Chan, Joann, Mingrong, Wan Ying and me was trailing like mad in the beginning. Even the two other teams who have one player less managed to accumulate much higher score than us. How can something like this happen, right? One of the reasons is surely must be this. Even if I tried to bowl into the drain, I don't think it will continue for eight consecutive time.

Don't kill me for putting this up my dear ex-roommate. I still love you very much ^^

When you have someone in your team having such score, you know that you will only invite bad luck, isn't it? But I think luck was just not on his side. His spinning technique just didn't work out that day but when you see how the pins fell when he got an earlier strike, I can assure you that you will be impressed by the way the ball rolls so near to the drain, yet turning inside when it is going to hit the pins. Looked so damn professional. Wondering who was that? I had given a clue up there. Go figure out yourself.

Anyway, my team slowly picked up the pace and we managed to avoid ending up in the last place. This is the team who finished third. They said that "third place" is a better way of calling their placing rather than "last place". But I have one question to all the team members. Where are the juices that you guys were suppose to treat us?

Third place - From left: Yow Keong, Cedric, Tang Yi, Joyce, Teong Rong.

Our team didn't get the first place, so we posed with a peace sign to depict the second placing that we got. You know that I will never pose with a lala-ish peace sign and so, I opted with a sign which ended up looking more like a scissor instead.

Second place - From left: Bao Cong, Me, Wan Ying, Joann, Chan, Mingrong.

Here are the kings and queen bowlers of the day.

First place - From left: Wei Jian, Elvin, Joceline, Yan Kuang, Sii Lee.

Finally, the group shot we took at the end of the day.

I only realised that this is the first time for more than two years that we had such a huge group bowling together and for those who missed out on it, make sure you join the gang in the next gathering.

~ to be continued ~