Rego is due next week. I hate paying rego. $340 to let me drive on the road for 6 months, pfft. Still, with the hours I’m getting, I’m hoping to also get another $200-ish exchanged for yen, then the following pay do another $300+ which will give me about $900 to get through one week. Then there’s the final pay one day before I leave. Bonus!

My parents are moving back tothe Sunshine Coast later today. They were down on the Gold Coast for a few months and the plan was to stay with them the night before I go to Osaka; it’s a morning flight I have. Now that’s fallen through and I’ll need to get to the airport about 7:30am. Basically I have to either spend a night down there and spend money I don’t want to, or I can hopefully get someone to drive me down, leaving here about 4:30am. Any volunteers? Didn’t think so.

Most of my trip is planned, with maps and attractions printed out, ordered in Day 1 to Day 7, and I’ve been playing around with Hiragana and Katakana from this “learn in 14 days” course. Sure enough, I’m just done Day 6 after 2 weeks. It gives me something to do on the night shift, so it’s not all bad.

Live Below The Line is over too. Finished the week on about $7.50, starving my self for a few of the days. It wasn’t my fault! Actually it was. I slept in on one of the days, waking just before work, and with no time to cook up a batch of 59c pasta. Thankfully I had some packets of Chicken Noodle Soup in my bag to get me through.

Day 1 of LBTL is over. The only “food” I had was two Continental Cup-A-Soups. At $1 for a pack of four, I’ve gone the day on 50c.

Just now, I’ve finished cooking some pasta with some homemade sauce. 59c for 500g of fettucine @ Woolworths (I used half a pack, say 30c worth), plus $1.49 for the cream, approx 50c worth of fresh parsley, a dash of oil, chilli, chives and garlic… in total, at most 50c worth, and I’ve made enough meals to get half through Wednesday for $2.80. All in all, I’ll have gotten half way through LBTL on $3.30.

Oh yeah, feel free to send $$$ to Cambodian children at https://www.livebelowtheline.com/me/tokyoskyscraper

Or you can do it tomorrow when pay goes in, because it was a public holiday today and the payroll office is closed

So the other day after a few beers I eBay’d iPhone lenses and came across this one auction where I’d get a fisheye lens, telephoto lens, 2 cases, screen cleaning cloths, and a tripod for $30. With the beers messing with my mind, and wallet, I bought it. And it arrived on Thursday, right in the middle of my stint of graveyard shifts at work. So I did what any normal person does when there is nothing to do for the last 6 hours of a graveyard shift. I played Real Racing 2! And um, tried out the new fisheye lens. Here’s some photos I took with Hipstamatic.

They’re looking pretty nice, and with the default iPhone Camera app, the photos aren’t too bad either. I’m pretty keen on this Hipstamatic setup too. I love the desaturation and the fat creamy borders. And before you ask, no, I’m not on Instagram.

It was about this time year that I restarted this blog and did the Live Below The Line (see link for posts). And this year I’m doing it again. If you’re unfamiliar with the LBTL concept, it’s a charity event where participants live on $2 worth of food and drink per day for 5 days, so $10 in total. I did last year on about $8.50.

At the moment, I’ve still got a bag of oats which was left over from last year – do oats expire? – and have also stocked up on rice, rice and more rice. I’m also playing around with homemade sauces and flavourings to add some flavour because plain rice is just too boring. I tried making satay sauce today with peanut butter, admittedly failing, because I used crunchy peanut butter and when mixed with rice, often mistake the crunch with half-cooked rice. Then there’s the thing about putting way too much soy sauce in it. Got the garlic, chilli and olive oil right, so that’s a good start.

I also have some pasta. Pasta is good, and tasty, and is heaps cheap. A 59c pack of Woolworths brand pasta can make about 8 meals, and a sauce made from herbs, garlic and oil is relatively cheap too.

Feel free to make a donation, even if it’s just a few bucks ( The link is at the bottom). Think of poor little old me, eating boring food and drinking boring water for five days while you’re out eating KFC and drinking voluminous amounts of beer.

Thankfully I don’t have the graveyard shift at work next week to bore me even more; instead, I’m doing as of tomorrow. I couldn’t handle sitting there at 3am, staring at the wall, and not having anything tasty to munch on. Fingers crossed I lose some weight, just like last year. While I didn’t starve, I did lose a few kilos, and at the moment, really want to lose about 6kg before I go away.

So yeah, that’s me for now. Should I take some Hipstamatic photos like last year and post them? Hmmm?

Donation link: https://www.livebelowtheline.com/me/tokyoskyscraper.

PS – 49 DAYS ‘TIL OSAKA!

Anyway, I’ve spent the past two weeks doing some hardcore shopping on eBay. I was going to buy a new camera for Japan, then common sense kicked in and I’ve decided to use my current one  - Canon Powershot G9. Plus with eBay, I ended up getting a fisheye lens for my phone. Fingers crossed that turns out well.

I should really stop drinking, spesh with this so-called diet I’m meant to be on. I have lost a few kilos, but then I can’t resist temptation, so I sneak in a chocolate bar. Well, today is a new day, a new week, so I can always start again. There’s a whole heap of protein powder and Atkin’s shake mix in the cupboard which needs to be used. The Atkin’s stuff is weird. It gets stuck on the roof of my mouth and I spend a good hour trying to get rid of it.

And before I head off to bed, you may have noticed that I have a new theme here. I still like the other one, though this is a bit easier on the eyes. Not too sure how the background goes on screens larger than 13″, but for me it works fine.

And that’s all. Seeya!

Yes, this past month has flown, and I’ve another two more to go before heading off to Japanland. I don’t know how I’m going to kill time, as every spare moment I get is spent on looking for things to do and places to see. What really bums me is that I miss out on seeing Shonen Knife by four days. And Scandal by 2 weeks. I could try to extend my trip, but that means an extra 5 nights accommodation and a full price return flight, money which I don’t have.

Speaking of money, I kinda spent more than I planned on some yen. It’s not much, but more than I should’ve spent. Oh well. The main thing is I’m not wasting it on impulse shopping at Woolworths.

I’m also back on Optifast. I’m not fat, I just weigh a bit more than I should be. Back in 2005 I used it for 4 months and lost 20kg. Until last year I was going sweet, then I put on a few kilos. Then two months ago I gave up caffeine and sugar-free drinks because of health concerns and put on another 5. At the moment I’m on day four, and aren’t doing too bad. I must admit that I have had the odd slice of toast, but I’m not having cheese, bacon and/or aioli sauce on everything, nor am I eating a bag of chips before bed. I hope to lose about 8kg by June. Should be easy, 1kg a week, eating next to nothing, and drinking water with just a pinch of cordial.

Anyway, that’s me for now. Another week to kill before pay day, and I should be paid handsomely, so that prolly means more yen to buy. I know it’ll work out more expensive to buy in bits in pieces, but at the same time, I’m hopeless with money, so if I have $200 in my bank, I’ll spend it. If I have $200 worth of yen, I can’t. I can always exchange it, lose more, then change it back and lose even more, but that defeats the purpose.

Ooh ooh ooh, the Formula 1 is about to start, so I’m gonna go to bed. Plus it’s almost 2am and I really wanna get comfortable in bed before I see Rosberg claim pole. Yeah, I know the deal with qualifying, but it’s still awesome to watch.

Other than that, I’m super-busy searching for things to do in Osaka. I hear that it’s super-humid around the time I’m going, and also wet, so kinda like Queensland then. I’ll be fine. So can’t wait. 75 days to go.

Now anyway, I get into work and right away my manager shows me the Jetstar email from his phone. CHEAP FLIGHTS TO JAPAN.

Initially, I thought nothing of it; usually it’s cheap one way, then full price return. So I went to the Jetstar website to have a look. $417 RETURN TO OSAKA FROM THE GOLD COAST! Oops, I shouldn’t shout. That’s cheap, way cheap, and the boss says “Do it! You’ll regret it if you don’t!”. So I thought about it for a good ten minutes before going “Bugger it!”. I made my booking.

Come payment time, my housemate has my Visa debit card so I’m not tempted to use it. A quick call and some credit card number scribbling later, I’ve paid for my ticket. Including taxes, fees and the other miscellaneous charges, it totalled $513, less than half of the regular return flight to Japan, pre-extras.

So now I’m in possession of return tickets, little money, and a passport which expired four years ago. Yeah, the little things. I’m apparently able to cash out annual leave as well ( I was previously told they’d changed the rules about it, so I dunno if it’s a goer or not ). So if I can cash out, say, two weeks worth, that’s plenty enough to cover accommodation and some meals, maybe a rail pass. All that’s left then is to save about $2000-$3000 for spending money and I’m all good.

The only problem I have is that I thought I booked the flights for July, not June, which leaves me 2 less pays worth of saving. That pretty much means I’ll be living the next three months on rice. Nothing wrong with that! Coincidentally, I’m doing the Live Below The Line again, so I gotta go another 5 days on $2/day worth of food and drink. Did it easy last year, should be somewhat easy this year, except it’s gonna be 3 months on $2/day, not 5 days.

Oh God, I’m so excited. I haven’t had any caffeine in 5-6 weeks now and I feel like I’ve drank a keg of Red Bull. Totally buzzing. Now I have to somehow learn some basic Japanese. Fun times.