Remove Braces

2013 June I had my braces on

2016 March 13, I came to dental center for my usual checkup, the dentist agreed to remove it! I didn't expect to be today to be honest, I knew from the admin staff of the clinic doctor Lou is a perfectionist, I might need to come again before he agree to remove it. 

Lying on the dentist bed( I don't know what it is called) I was unprepared what to feel about it because this suddenly came to an end. this long term enhancement project is completed before 'top date' was even confirmed haha. I might have been missing out all the anticipation mood could be prelude to this event. It could be such a moment of the year yet it dissipate like a typical daily event. Lol

Then I was thinking what will change after I have that removed. Definitely the consultants at site will be amazed at me just like they amazed I'm putting makeup for site meeting.. Ok they are just as nonsense as usual. Maybe my boss will like me slightly better. I shouldn't cross this one out. Perhaps all the suppliers will like me even better, perhaps the aluminium subcon guy will contact me in private. Seriously I might have some suitors rite. All the pple I meet surely will have their comments, good or not good, I hope I'm not disappointed. It is such an endeavor invested with time and money and many efforts.

There goes my silly thinking. When dentist Lou is in action, I can hardly think about anything else. He grinded my teeth, make sure they are flat, I could do a perfect bite. He also polish my teeth  as if polishing a car but with a much smaller brush. Before I even realized all the metal things came off from my teeth. I look at mirror try to come to terms with my 'exposed' teeth. They are straight, big and shiny. I have not seen them for such a long time. I don't feel uncomfortable without the braces like everyone else had told me. It is a new comfort. My new smile. Much to my satisfactory.

Doctor Lou instructed me to take good care of them by using floss daily and brush the a near rotten tooth of mine with a special brush, and wear the retainer everyday. I will do it. I already worried that the my jaw will move, will come protrude again with my long tougue. I could feel about it when I wear the rubber bands. The rubber bands helped a lot on the jaw positioning, but without the braces, there is no way one could wear the rubber band right. As much as I wished I could wear the rubber bands at night I know I couldn't, I told myself I will try my best to stop it to move like keeping my tougue in all the time. Must clarify with dentist on Monday when I go back to take 'graduate photo', he even told me to put my makeup on lol.

I said thank you to doctor as well as the assistant who worked late because of me, I was the last patient. My dad was waiting for me at the waiting lobby. I was totally excited on the ride and took too many selfie.

See the side profile is totally changed, I hope this will last this will last. Overall I am very happy with my teeth. Recommend doctor Lou of Taman Sutera for his patience and effort. 

Tokyo 02

In case I have missed out, this is a company trip, it is supposed to be a four day trip, some of us extended to 6 days. In first three days I stayed at the Shinjuku Hyatt as the company pays for it, in the remaining days, Hannah and I shifted to the origami hostel at Asakusa.

Good morning shinjuku! We were lugging our luggage on our way to the nearest subway station from hotel and I insisted to take this cheesy picture. As we had realized soon after that, life without chartered bus, lugging the luggage navigate in the tokyo subway line is definitely not an easy task. 1)it is hard enough to do it without luggage 2) the transferring from one line to another sometimes involved walking out the station by stairs and walk another 500m..

We took nearly 2 hours to asakusa from shinjuku

Huge crowds headed out from the subway to office towers. The crowd is fast moving and robotic, no way we could get our way through among the fast moving crowds. We were quite deterred after we tried once.

after we reached asakusa station, we left our luggage in the lockers and intended to retrieve it when we came back from Nikko. These lockers are life saver for travelers. Around s$10 for a locker of this size.

We took the tobu line to nikko. A nikko pass prebooked online cost around sgd 30~40,including the return train ticket. However the bus to the Chuzenji lake, our destination,cost us another sgd20. 

On our way

On the bus climbing up to the lake up on the mountain. The one way drive way snaked up to the mountain top, the bus could climbed up the steep face of the mountain in few minutes.

We are quite late by the time we reached the mountain top. We managed to catch the rope way to the viewing platform just before it closed. With the snow mountain in the backdrop, little houses spread around the lake, and a waterfall flow into the valley, we marvelled at the scenery for a long time. Watching from the binocular, little details afar are interesting. 

Japanese certainly know how to choreograph a tourist experience. We began the tour by viewing the 'zoom out' scenery then we zoom into the big picture experience them one by one

Waiting for the bus at the ropeway station

We took a lift down to watch the waterfall

And then we ran out of time, when we finished the water fall, we had only half an hour to do the remaining sight seeing as we needed to catch the next bus to the train station, and the last train back tokyo. I wanted to see the lake. We ran to the lake marvelled at it. It is so beautiful. The most beautiful scenery I have ever seen.

My dinner. Bought it under pressure because the auntie said this was the last one haha. Not so nice and caused me stomachache

Origami hostel-highly recommended. Hannah is counting her remaining cash.

Viewing out of the hostel

Tokyo 01

First ramen in tokyo, Tee led us to this underground ramen shop, dark and tiny, only an u-shaped bar counter of stainless steel finishes (give a kind of canteen feeling) in the middle, a big guy manned the shop behind the counter, it is not well-ventilated, the shop filled with the ramen smell. Few choices they have, either miso or tonkotsu.

It is likely to be the best ramen i had in the trip. And it cost only s$5-7.

Begun our aki tour at the apple store at omotesando. when japanese designing a glass box, it is in every sense a glass box, glass pieces are at full height, the jointing metals are their tiniest. A lot of works go into making something simple/the pure form, it is the apple principle manifested in architecture. 

it blurs the inside and outside

next stop is the prada shop. the site is rather secluded and the scale is smaller than i expected. the prada shop sitting at the site like a inflatable toy. the small scale of the store with the large piece of diamond shaped glass panels defies the notion of a building, it just seems like sth piece together easily. god knows how much engineering goes inside to make it work. no one going to miss the building out. just that it is not at a prominent location as i expecting.

with the neighbourhood

next stop at the nezu museum. the cafe sitting in the garden looks marvelous, but it seems so exclusive, the widely used reflective glass reflects the greenery and almost camouflage the box in the garden

 

at one glance you know this is not your usual space. it is kengo kuma, every corner is taken care of. yin said it must have gone through countless times of draw and change, draw and change. people see them as beautiful space. we see them as countless man hours on cadding and stacks of the drawings.

It was a gloomy day at the hakone the scenery was not marvelous. As it started drizzling just about the time we finished our lunch and headed to a boat tour, something magical happened. The snow flakes started to fall from the sky. The snow excites the bunch of us very much. We started to take a lot of photos. However there is actually a bigger snow awaiting for us!

One of the stops at the boat tour

When we arrived at the top of the hill by cable car it started to snow heavily. It is freaking cold but we are even more excited hahaha

Until we had fully experienced, I was flushing red and had to get warmed up again by the heater

WC managed to take this picture of me despite complaining his hands are freezing when holding the camera hahaha

after we returned to tokyo, initially i didnt want to come out as i was exhausted after the whole day. but half by luck half with research done on the phone, we went in to this XX水产at shinjuku. the food is good and the price is cheap. no wonder the restaurant//bar is so full of crowds. the crowds are chatting, drinking and eating the finger food goes with the alcohol. at one point of time, the crew came on stage to host a small game (winner prob can get a discount on their bill). the restaurant immediately turned into a classroom-like atmosphere. they responded to the host and laughed together as if they knew each other. so much of community spirit at once.

Crispy and flavorful. I must get it right next time.

this is the most missed meal in tokyo. it is the free breakfast at the shinjuku hyatt. I ate it three days straight during our stay, even though we have another option for western buffet breakfast. i can still vividly remember the taste of the fish. the rice come in a small pot cooked on its own on a small stove the grain is 粒粒分明. alas i love every bit of the set, the egg, the salad, the sashimi.

On our way to meiji shrine. One of the cute architecture i admired.

yin at his favourite building tokyo international forum. it's amazing but i'm not great fan of giant architecture. He said he has been admiring this building when he was still in school, that should be ages agoooo.. Haha

what is amazing to me is when i look out of the glass structure, the extent of the antique flea market spreaded on the plaza. I could find so much treasure if i have the time to take a close look at every stall, lug them back to singapore. such a pity i went with another two guys:(

After that i took my leave and rushed to aoyama again, there are just so much to see in that area. i like all the unique shop design and the goods they sell, it does not matter whether i can afford them or not. Above is the Found muji and their window display.

like this shop design of paul smith. A little bit of vintage.

the front yard of the shop

After went a round in shibuya and found the area is really not my thing, I turned to daikanyama. it is at the top of my to-do list. it is a precinct of 'atas'/expat community. there is alot of people, but people mingling with low voice, it is a peaceful atmosphere suitable for the  book store, cafe, shops, art gallery..strolling in the afternoon is an enjoyment.

little garden, little cafe, little bicycle shop..evrything is kawai

i would love to enjoy a whole day at the book shop. alas, i dont have the time.

alot of effort for the bar counter detail

the shop in that area.i marvel at every shops here are designed to be so tiny, developer doesn't seem to care about the plot ratio, useable/saleable floor area. they care about how well the space integrate with the surrounding, how much people will enjoy the space. I wonder how long later our client will be more educated than merely looking at the figure and efficiency.

a little mall quite adventurous in the design. albeit a bit run down in my opinion.