Overnight at the hospital

Oosu, as true medical geeks, we did an overnight stay at the hospital night.. And following the universal laws of annoyance, there were no emergencies :( i mean sure.. Its not like we were hoping some kid became really ill.. But you know.. Break a leg or something at least :P)

Luckily we got to practice suturing at least at a tutorial for cardiac surgeons :P note, dropping needle holder with needle in it in front of head of cardio surgeons is never a good idea :P.. Oh well.. After stealing plenty of suture material we left.. Quietest place to sleep was some couches in the surg waiting room, but only catch was bright lights and a chair that squealed like crazy everytime you move in the slightest.

Anyway, finally got my foot into the ophthal department and will be bugging them.

Anyways, train ride gettin bumpy, cyas

Back from Hokkaido Minitrip

back from trip on tue night and was lotsa fun, drove around heaps ate lots of good food. Candie didnt bother us too much which was always nice :P Check out the photos on facebook... theres lots :)

oh and speaking of good food, last night we went to an all you can eat crab place. $36 and basically you have 90 minutes exactly (they literally tell you to leave) to eat as much crab as you want. the $36 package got you crab legs and a bit of body attached, for $60 you get body too (but that was a bit too expensive). But either way between 3 people we finished 12 half crabs, so i think we got our $36 worth of crab. and they give you scissors/nutcrackers so its quite efficient.
We went for the king crab/snow crab leg combo. The snow crabs were a bit sweeter i thought, but the king crabs were much more `meaty`.

Roads here are really really nice, but the speed limit system here is ridiculously stupid. A normal 80~100kmh road in Australia is sign posted here at about 40kmh. Which of course leads to everybody speeding, but the tricky thing is nobody really knows how much to
speed so everybody goes at different speeds which makes it kinda frustrating is you have to keep overtaking every second car. Havent actually seen any police on the road, but they do have occasional big overhead obvious speed cameras which again were not sure if they work,
as on a road signed at 40kmh everyone slows down from 100 to about 70 to drive through the speed camera.　　So ive decided my ultimate goal here is to Hire a GTR/some other nice sports car, get a radar detector (apparently legal here) and just go nuts :D only problem is that the
best car ive found so far is a s2000 which has a 100km limit... poo... oh well... on with the search :P

Back from minitrip around hokkaido

Got back from trip on tue night and was lotsa fun, drove around heaps
ate lots of good food. Candie didnt bother us too much which was
always nice :P Check out the photos on facebook... theres lots :)

oh and speaking of good food, last night we went to an all you can eat
crab place. $36 and basically you have 90 minutes exactly (they
literally tell you to leave) to eat as much crab as you want. the $36
package got you crab legs and a bit of body attached, for $60 you get
body too (but that was a bit too expensive). But either way between
3 people we finished 12 half crabs, so i think we got our $36 worth of
crab. and they give you scissors/nutcrackers so its quite efficient.
We went for the king crab/snow crab leg combo. The snow crabs were a
bit sweeter i thought, but the king crabs were much more `meaty`.

Roads here are really really nice, but the speed limit system here is
ridiculously stupid. A normal 80~100kmh road in Australia is sign
posted here at about 40kmh. Which of course leads to everybody
speeding, but the tricky thing is nobody really knows how much to
speed so everybody goes at different speeds which makes it kinda
frustrating is you have to keep overtaking every second car. Havent
actually seen any police on the road, but they do have occasional big
overhead obvious speed cameras which again were not sure if they work,
as on a road signed at 40kmh everyone slows down from 100 to about 70
to drive through the speed camera.　　So ive decided my ultimate goal
here is to Hire a GTR/some other nice sports car, get a radar detector
(apparently legal here) and just go nuts :D only problem is that the
best car ive found so far is a s2000 which has a 100km limit... poo...
oh well... on with the search :P

Back from minitrip around hokkaido

Got back from trip on tue night and was lotsa fun, drove around heaps
ate lots of good food. Candie didnt bother us too much which was
always nice :P Check out the photos on facebook... theres lots :)

oh and speaking of good food, last night we went to an all you can eat
crab place. $36 and basically you have 90 minutes exactly (they
literally tell you to leave) to eat as much crab as you want. the $36
package got you crab legs and a bit of body attached, for $60 you get
body too (but that was a bit too expensive). But either way between
3 people we finished 12 half crabs, so i think we got our $36 worth of
crab. and they give you scissors/nutcrackers so its quite efficient.
We went for the king crab/snow crab leg combo. The snow crabs were a
bit sweeter i thought, but the king crabs were much more `meaty`.

Roads here are really really nice, but the speed limit system here is
ridiculously stupid. A normal 80~100kmh road in Australia is sign
posted here at about 40kmh. Which of course leads to everybody
speeding, but the tricky thing is nobody really knows how much to
speed so everybody goes at different speeds which makes it kinda
frustrating is you have to keep overtaking every second car. Havent
actually seen any police on the road, but they do have occasional big
overhead obvious speed cameras which again were not sure if they work,
as on a road signed at 40kmh everyone slows down from 100 to about 70
to drive through the speed camera.　　So ive decided my ultimate goal
here is to Hire a GTR/some other nice sports car, get a radar detector
(apparently legal here) and just go nuts :D only problem is that the
best car ive found so far is a s2000 which has a 100km limit... poo...
oh well... on with the search :P

Well, its been a crummy rainy weekend... Sapporo's way of saying HAHA to our weekend plans of going to Furano (some sort of nice summery place). Originally the plan was to rent a car (known as... 'rentacar' shops... original hey) which costs about 40-50 for a teensy sized little cardbox looking 'car' (i mean its not like we're gonna cough up that extra 10 for a normal looking corolla which has a crumple zone you don't need a microscope to find.. we're cheap students ^^). But due to the crappy weather we instead stayed in, slept, shopped, slept, watched tv and cooked.

In order to be economical, and lazy we decided to cook the first week of lunches and box it, and as per usual, we planned on making pasta, 10 boxes of it... Everything was going great and the food tasted num nums... the problem only began when we realised that after filling our 10 boxes, we probably had enough pasta to fill another 7 boxes :S ... oops :P so uh.. we had a mega pasta lunch.. still have a huge bowl in the fridge of pasta, and 10 frozen pasta meals, ready to be defrosted and eaten at hospital tommorow.

Speaking of the hospital, we are still deciding what the best (i.e. cheapest) way of getting there is. On friday we decided to try biking it, and we made it there and back... only problem is that its about a 30km round trip... The train trip costs $5 each way... but in order to continue doing that cycle route, we definately need to invest in some bike shorts.. Testicular squishing becomes a serious issue after about 10kms, and its a problem that needs attention. So for the mean time, the plan is to cycle to the main station, saving us $4 a day, then training the other 10km.

Well anyways, i've gotta go do some stupid research work :( cya all soon...

Sapporo, Japan

Hey all, I'm currently in Sapporo Japan, waiting for Carlos to join ome on thursday. We're going to be here for a couple of months doing elective and travelling, so we found these cool apartments which is really cheap (13 each a night) for the 'deluxe' (i.e. can stand up inside) room. The place actually is pretty cool, but uh... its basically a lgihtly furnished apartment, so I've been spending most of the week buying bits and pieces (well mostly procrastinating about what to buy, but i've bought toilet paper so far, so i think i got the essentials down pat :P).

Also bought a second hand bike yesterday, and exploring the city on bike is so cool.. Bikes are actually pretty common here, so you don't get shood off the footpaths, and it lets me explore the city whilst sitting on my ass like a lazy bum :) I'm currently at Odori park, which is a strip of park in the middle of the city. they got gardens, fountains and beer gardens... I think its because of some summer festival, but theres more beer gardens than actual park... so either its a festival or they really really like their beer :P Weather is also really nice... like mid 20's and sunny...

Turns out my plan of watching lots and lots of anime to practice my japanese kinda paid off... I am able to converse... kinda, well enough so i don't have to look up my dictionary every second word which is always nice...

Spent most of today trying to get myself a mobile phone... first they said the SIM cards won't work in my phone, but there were these dudes in the street with ads giving away free candy for one of the mobile phone company... after getting my free candy, i asked if i could borrow a SIM card to try in my phone and low and behold, it worked >< ... so back to another store (their like maccas... can't go 3 blocks without a mobile phone store). Now their like oh yea, it does work.. but you need to buy a phone from us anyway >< ... oh well, maybe will pursue it more later...

Well, anyway i gotta get dinner somewhere (supermarkets are great here... $5 prepared meals :D) and go do some shopping... more exploring later, and more posts coming up... Photos are on facebook, so feel free to check em out :)

Chans