The Top Five List of Top 10 Lists of 2008

Its that time of the year where top ten lists of 2008 start appearing in magazines, newspapers, on television yadayada. So I thought I'd do a lil' half spoof of it =)

Why 5? Because 10 would entail much mindless scrolling down.

Well as you can fathom from the title this is going to be one loooong and quite pointless post, but I'll just go ahead for the heck of it.

Note: All lists are purely of my personal opinion.

Top Ten Geeky Things That Happened to me

1) Deciding to take the plunge into Linux (Ubuntu) and discovering a brand new world
2) Trying to learn how to use the terminal to improve my Linux experience (and failing)
3) Zhnging my Compaq laptop so it dual-boots with Mac OS X and Ubuntu. Which is really Windows XP zhnged to look like Mac OS X.
4) Upgrading my Compaq laptop to 2 GB RAM with a cheaply bought used 1GB RAM module
5) Upgrading my monitor to a 22 inch LG one
6) Researching for days for a new printer and ended up buying one totally different from the initial selection
7) Starting this blog afresh
8) Ordering DVDs online from Amazon.jp and Yesasia.com
9) Printed T-shirts for an online forum
10) Eagerly devouring Digital Life (the newspaper add-on) every Wednesday
11) Surviving 2 weeks without touching a computer in India

Top Ten Green Things That Happened to me

1) Sleeping without air-conditioning since who-knows-when
2) Cycling at every possible opportunity as long as destination is within 5km.
3) Walking home from the MRT station in the wee hours of the morning just for fun
4) Turning of power socket switches at home with rabid obsession
5) Constantly adjusting office air-conditioning temperature higher, even as others turn it down
6) Recycling and sorting garbage if bins are in sight and trash is at hand
7) Declining plastic bags whenever possible. Even returning them
8) Tried to reduce toilet paper used when attempting bombing runs and found it to be near impossible
9) Starting this blog afresh
10) Watching "An Inconvenient Truth" at home instead of a movie theatre
11) Getting my license to drive

Top Ten Video Games that I've played

1) Far Cry 2
2) Fallout 3
3) Team Fortress 2
4) Portal
5) Red Alert 3
6) Crysis Warhead
7) Fifa 09
8) GTA San Andreas
9) The Frozen Throne (Battlenet)
10) Assassin's Creed
11) Sonic the Hedgehog 1, 2, 3

Top Ten Artistes (Albums/Singles) that I've heard
I've discovered lots of Japanese artistes this year, so lots of unfamiliar names =)

1) Chatmonchy (Miminari + Seimeiryoku + Somaru Yo)
2) Asian Kung-Fu Generation (World World World + Mada Minu Ashita Ni)
3) Tokyo Jihen (Kyouiku + Adult + Variety)
4) YUI (I Loved Yesterday + My Short Stories)
5) FREENOTE (Shuuden Master + Introducing the popline + Otonoha Triangle)
6) Mika Nakashima (Voice)
7) Ayumi Hamasaki (Guilty + Mirrorcle World + Days/Green)
8) Kimura Kaela (+1, SCRATCH)
9) Olivia Ong (A Girl Meets Bossanova + AGMB 2 + Fall in Love With)
10) Coldplay (Viva La Vida)
11) Money No Enough 2 Soundtrack

Top Ten Things That Happened that affected me in a big way

1) QUIS
2) Barack Obama = President
3) Overseas Exercise in India + Mumbai Bombings
4) The economic meltdown
5) Japan trip in April
6) Beijing Olympics 2008 (In particular, Team Singapore)
7) Manchester United being crowned Champions in England and Europe
8) Facebook
9) Passing my driving test
10) AHM
11) ORDDDD!!!

Goodbye 2008, a year of top tens

AHM (A "Hiong" Marathon)

And so I completed my first ever (and probably last) marathon. Oh all right it was a HALF marathon, if u wanna be picky. It was one hell of a marathon. And it wasn't because of the impeccable timing of the date (doors closing soon!).

I reached Padang on a wonderful Sunday morning with a lil' drizzle, around 5.30AM. Wonderful if you're still in bed, snug and comfortable with the blanket drawn over your heads. My first step into Padang was welcomed with a very satisfying *splat*.

That's right, the Padang had turned into Pa-dung overnight. Great way to start a Sunday eh? It was pretty dark (it WAS 5.30am) so I wandered around like a lost child before I finally found a bunch of people wearing the same singlet as mine. Met Ben and JH, before we started to hunt for a place to dump our bags. Funnily enough, all the bag deposits refused to let us deposit our bags (even the paying ones!). After running around like a bunch of confused chickens, we found some familiar faces and put all our bags together.

Thereafter was the start of the 21km run, which yours truly took part in. The run itself wasn't that bad. Hmm. Typo. The run wasn't that bad until I crossed the halfway 10km point. Up till then I was still sane, listening to my mp3 player, mouthing lyrics, looking at all the interesting people running past me, overtaking the slackers who were walking even before the first water point, and in general feeling rather good.

Once I turned the 10km corner in ECP, my left ankle screamed out "dude! this is the furthest I'll go!". My brain failed to heed its warning and told my legs to keep running. After awhile the pain dissolved into plain numbness, as I tried to concentrate on the music. Then around the 12km mark civilisation turned into wilderness as we wound through the forested area that is Marina Bay. Suddenly marathon wasn't an approprate term for the run anymore, x-country more likely. Mud! Uneven tracks! More mud! Potholes! Everyone slowed down during this segment. I think I went crazy and just overtook as many people as I could. Maybe it was the fresh air coming from the forest.

After crossing the Marina Barrage (around 15km), my knees started to complain. 16km. Thump thump thump. 17km. First sign of cramping. Ok, slow down, chill, don't use the calf muscles. 18km. ARGHHAGFHG where the hell is 19. 19km. OMFG finally 2km more. CRAMP. Ouch wtf. Ok lets walk then. walk walk walk. damn everyone is overtaking me. 20km. oooh yeah. F*** it just run. Run run run. 20.9km. AHA I CAN SEE THE FINISH LINE! *drools rabidly*. Run run run. 20.98km. CRAMP CRAMP CRAMP. Why are my legs dragging? wtf not now. hobble hobble hobble. Beep. Hmm I crossed the line? cool. am I supposed to feel euphoric?

That sums up the run. And I'm still having chui legs, ankles and knees.

ping and pong.

I haven't been blogging a lot, have I? I've had to dust away several dead spiders and their webs before I could find the "NEW POST" button.

Ok suddenly global warming stopped for a second.

Anyway! Today our born-in-China-play-for-Singapore table tennis mercenaries will fight for their own personal glory, and ours, for the flag that goes up has white instead of yellow stars. If you ask me I'll say it'll be easier for the 3 of them since the burden of winning for the team and our first medal has been lifted.

People have been playing down the significance of the silver they won last Sunday mostly based on their birthplace. But hey, weren't we all from the same 'ol China (if you're Chinese, that is)? Sure, Chinese Chinese talk like machine guns (or rather, we're the ones who maul the language), but deep down inside, the blood, the DNA, the roots, the culture, its all the same. Its the same phenomenon that happened way back after a certain ang moh spoke cheem English to our Tunku, made him sign some dodgy documents and declared that Singapore was open. And in rushed all those kiasu (mostly Chinese) immigrants, our great great great grandparents, queueing up since the previous morning, wanting to grab the best bargains of the Singapore Dream.

Its the same thing, only faster (LOTS faster). We go where the money is. We're all Boba Fett at heart. Boss pays good, we do it. And if we do that something really well to make Boss really happy, why not?

So erase that niggling thought (yes I know you have it nestled in your brain cells somewhere) that the efforts of Li Jiawei, Wang Yuegu and Feng Tianwei (even Tao Li) will be lesser than if they were to be replaced by "pure" Singaporeans.

The medals are for all of us.

NDP weekend!

Singapore celebrated her 43rd birthday last Saturday (damn!)
somehow this year feels like the previous year's one, with all that water stunts, floating balloons and stuff.

Anyway, me and XJ celebrated our 3rd year together with Singapore. 3 years seems long huh? Time flies real quickly...

Somehow I managed to get hold of cheap SG Flyer tickets, only to find out they could only be used before 6pm. There went the chance of catch the fireworks.
Once there (in some ulu part of marina bay, on a plot of land obscured by ECP), I was reminded of the purpose of the Flyer as a tourist magnet (money changer, check. expensive souvenier store, check. luxury stores, check). Nice atmosphere though, with live music and a tropical garden. The viewing deck was crowded with people waiting to watch the fireworks (it was only 6pm!).

We got into the same cabin as a bunch of tourists (Bangla, Japanese, Ang Moh, Indo, maybe Chinese). I felt like a tourist in my own country.



We could see the parachute segment, tiny dots spiralling down to the floating platform, the water performance segment, followed by the 25 pounder guns lined up below (the guns kept in my camp garage!) and the gunners from Charlie (the battery I'm attached to!). Never saw NDP upclose before until now (unless u count P5).

Then we headed off to Lau Pa Sat for some zhi char BBQ seafood! yum yum. Standard hotplate tofu, cereal prawns and pepper crabs!



not bad at all! though the crabs were kinda messy, my brand new shirt kena black splats. We missed the fireworks though, and had to make do with distorted reflections off the glass surfaced buildings and lots of booms.

Caught a late night movie after that. Our plan was to catch the 9pm Mummy show, but we missed it so we "sneaked" in at 9.40 with legit tickets (only wrong time LOL) to make the most of the 8 bucks. In the end had to settle for Money no enough 2 front row seats.

Good show! Cheesy laughs at the beginning, serious heartwarming and teary stuff near the end. Predictable plot, good acting (from the Ah Ma), usual jibes at the government, and issues close to our hearts.

Feeling rather lazy today. Bummed around the house sweating it out in this crazy hot weather (another sign of global warming!! al gore +1)

Just realised my last post was 2 weeks ago, which is quite pathetic. Since then I've done lots of stuff (which probably explains my neglected blog lol)

1) Watched the Dark Knight

Really good, dark movie. The Joker (I know, all that hype surrounding him) was portrayed really well, considering the skeptical view I took while watching the movie. Sadistic, insane, cunning, ugly. Now the phrase "Why so serious?" is popping up everywhere, even on my TF2 games. Looks like everyone feels the same way. Too bad Two-Face died though, I was expecting him to be the baddie in Batman 3 or something. I couldn't understand some parts probably due to the twisted storyline, involving Batman vs Mafia, then Joker vs Mafia, then Joker + Mafia vs Batman, then everyone vs Batman. The ferry scene was the best IMO, I would have been terrified to be in those people's shoes.

2) Stayed over in camp

Can't say much about it, except it involved a really cold night. Brrr. And some noisy rats/lizards.

3) Got burnt by ash

Friday was the first day of the Chinese Seventh Month and so we burnt some incense in camp for safety and protection. I had hot ash fall repeatedly on my finger while trying to stick the incense into the pot, which hurt like hell (pardon the pun). I hope it didn't mean anything else.

4) Ate Muthu's Curry for the second time + Bought a new pair of ear phones

Went with XJ to eat Muthu's at Suntec on Saturday. The naan and briyani were delicious, though the main courses were so-so. The mutton curry in particular didn't agree with my stomach, I felt uncomfortable the whole day. Pappadums! *crackle*

We both went to Creative and got a pair of in-ear earphones each. I've been wanting to get one for ages, and I aimed for Audio Technica, until I learnt of their prices. My Creative one cost only $45 (ok, 45 may seem abit expensive, but its the real deal). It works like a charm - I couldn't hear a thing outside while plugged in (except baby screeches which I don't think even the best ear plugs could block). I even fell asleep on the bus without noticing it. And it keeps sounding better and better the longer I use it. No wonder my recently failed Hyundai mp3 player earphones sound sooooo good despite being 4 years old. Quite sad to throw it away T.T

1 week to NDP! And boom (7% GST!) boom (so many ERP!) boom (Public transport fee increase!)

Whew.

After 1 and a half weeks of tinkering, configuration and troubleshooting, I've finally enabled a near-perfect Ubuntu cum Windows XP dual boot on my laptop. Lots of problems cropped up initially - No wireless, no sound (which was took the longest to solve), no youtube, no video, songs with screwed up ID tags.

Now its complete! The only buggy thing left is the viewing of certain videos with dodgy encoding. I was surprised that I could almost do the same things I normally do in XP, from using MSN to viewing Guitar Pro tabs, even more. The only thing I haven't tried is installing the games which reside on the XP half of my hard drive. At the very least I'll boot XP if I ever feel the urge to play Sonic or Starcraft =)

On the downside, I think I lost many hours of gaming time while trying to solve the linux problems. Its time to catch up LOL.

In other news -

I've passed my driving practical test! Finally I've got that coveted license-to-pollute-and-contribute-to-global-warming. I'll stick to my personal preference of driving only when absolutely necessary. I still relish the feeling of sitting comfortably (if I get a seat) on a bus or MRT with my Zen plugged in and just dozing off, waking up just before I arrive at my stop.

Now do that in a car and I'll prolly wake up in CGH, or even Mandai Crematorium. Touchwood.

Ubuntu for fun!

Weekends fly by so quickly, they barely even registered on my calendar before they're gone. Well I suppose I can attribute this to a well-spent weekend?

Saturday was spent in usual fashion, playing soccer in the morning (albeit with still-aching legs from the weekly dose of 10km runs at East Coast). Then I came home, intending to chill in front of the computer when Kheng Yong popped up with an offer of free tickets to Hellboy II. Hell, who can resist an offer like that? So I headed down with Wenyang and KY to Suntec for the movie. Free popcorns and drinks to boot lol. The movie was average, not as much action as I would have expected, but it was compensated for by the free-ness of it all LOL.

Then we headed to Marina Sq food court for dinner where we saw the fireworks for the NDP rehearsals. With each explosion goes our higher ERP charges. When the actual day comes our transport fares will probably end up having the same fate, as well as any surplus from that 7% GST.

Milled around the place before I went to meet XJ at her Yoguru workplace in Raffles City. We had supper/dinner at Brewerkz in Kallang (nice ribs man! tender, juicy and bbqy!). Then we sat along the Kallang river and had a nice long chat. Really nice place to hang out, away from all the noise and crowds of the city.

And when I woke up late on Sunday morning, I suddenly had this urge to either fix up my spoilt PC or condemn it to the scrap heap. So I stripped it up, randomly plugged components in and out until I reached a conclusion - the motherboard's fried. Then I had another urge - to install Linux in the old 20gig hard drive!

So I slotted in the otherwise-condemned hard drive into my other not-so-old Compaq PC.

After several hours of backing up and research and configuration and troubleshooting and installation, here I am, typing this post on Ubuntu Linux!



Cool right? Only problem is, its not compatible with a whole host of (Windows) programmes. The font is also kinda woozy (they don't support any "commercial fonts" like Arial). Right now I'm contemplating converting my laptop to Ubuntu, which would be a drastic move. Maybe once I've gotten the hang of Linux.

But damn, its so cool! With this I have reached another level of geekdom. *cue Final Fantasy Fanfare*

I. Have. Hydraulic. Oil. In. My. Hair.

And I can't get it to wash off completely even after 5 shampoos. ARGH. Just another non-typical day at work.

Oh well, guess I'll have to make do with perma-wax for the next 2 days. Hey, at least my hair looks spiky now.

the fat green pipe is getting clogged

Torrent + TF2 + video streaming + peak hour

and you get this - 900ms ping on Team Fortress 2.

I die a second before I actually see it. Doors take 1 second to open. My screen flies everywhere during intense battles. I can actually miss a pointblank because the guy already moved when I clicked.

12mbps? more like 12microbytespersecond.

Too many greenies in my block man.

I've just ran 10km at East Coast today as part of AHM (army half marathon) training. In slightly more than an hour, which is not too bad considering I've never ran any distance more than 6km, much less 10km.

Strangely running at ECP seems to take away muscle fatigue or something, I felt as if I could just go on and on (yes, my pace was rather slow, so it could be that). Maybe its the wind, the fresh air, the change of scenery (compared to boring army camps), and maybe another kind of scenery for some LOL.

Anyways my legs feel like agar agar right now.

These past few days were spent discovering some great new (and not so new) funky music from Japan! After much delay I finally decided to listen to Tokyo Jihen and Kimura Kaela, 2 very different and talented artistes with distinct styles of music. Jazzfunkrock for TJ, quirkyrockpop for KK. Can't get TJ's "Ringo no uta" and "OSCA", and Kaela's "Yellow" out of my mind for the whole of today.

At the same time thanks to some good people at a chatmonchy forum I unearthed some pretty solid indie J-rock bands and other musicians who didn't make it commercially, but really sound good! Bugy Craxone, FREENOTE and lots lots more.

"get over myself, so get over myself, so get over myself, so 1, 2, 3, 4"

Been some time since I blogged eh?

Don't feel like doing a long post now, so...

In the past week I...

- went outfield for exercise for the second time
- slept in a tonner
- did flag marshalling for AHM training at ECP
- despaired when Germany beat Portugal
- played soccer until sunblack
- finally bought and downloaded Team Fortress 2
- played bowling and had highly fluctuating forms
- almost fainted when Holland lost to Russia
- went for combat shoot and had loads of IAs
- passed combat shoot despite the IAs thanks to my buddies
- had a niggling bad throat

That's it.

Lots of stuff happened this past week. Lets see which had most impact on me...

The 2 NSFs who died while training.

I can't say much about this piece of news, except that its sad that 2 guys my age died for no apparent reason. Especially when it could have been anyone, even me. That's the scary thing about this whole sudden cardiac arrest thingy. Already I'm a bit paranoid walking in open spaces when there's heavy rain =x I don't know how the SAF is gonna come up with a "solution" or whatnot, people are still gonna die of this, no matter how thorough the medical checkup is. Kinda reminds me of "Deathnote".

The PC Show 08.

The sole reason why I'm going to brave the crowd later on is to grab that LG 22 inch widescreen LCD monitor for $359. Hopefully, today being the last day, it'll cost even less.

Euro 08.

Its a great feeling when both your favourite teams, the Portugese and the Dutch (strange, weren't the 2 fighting for control over the colonisation of Southeast Asia?) are doing so well in the tournament. Finals - Portugal vs Holland!

An update of what I've been up to:

Playing Sonic the Hedgehog!



Remember this? My childhood was spent playing this great game! Feeling nostalgic all over again =) I even have Sonic 2, 3 and Sonic and Knuckles! Now if only I can find that aeroplane game...

And so it ends... But its just the beginning for us!

We didn't win anything yesterday, but at least we walked away with something much more valuable - experience and advice! Plus we had (or at least I had) a great time on stage.

By the time we got up on stage (we were the first band, quite stressed), I think most of us had the mentality "ah heck it, finals liao, just whack ah." And whack we did. I wouldn't say it was our best performance musically, but image wise I think we did our best to work on our showmanship (we were practically jumping around).

Seeing other bands play on stage was quite enlightening , and it really showed the many ways in which we have yet to improve and work on. The top band Xcalibur totally owned everyone with their technically sound skills and crazy showmanship. They had the real classic "rock band" vibe that you don't see much nowadays. Supernova were not spectacular, but what impressed me was that they looked good on stage, the so-called "tai fong" or stage presence. Although the songs they played were relatively simple, they were tight and in tune with each other. The 3rd band Hidama was the usual Tokyo Jihen funk style, unique and refreshing (though I still can't appreciate the vocals lol). To be fair she had that natural, "look-at-me!!" singing style.

The other band which didn't win, Xbred, was quite a surprise actually since I thought they'd at least get something. But their guitarist was quite right, without a vocalist they already had a disadvantage from the start. Still the stuff they did was crazy! I've still got a long way to go before I even touch the tip of their iceberg.

We were disappointed of course. But like Joe the soundman said, there are many opportunities out there for us. Really gotta thank him for all his advice and comments since the Jrock festival 2 weeks ago. Hopefully we'll get a chance to work with him again. And thanks to everyone who was there to support us!

For now I think let my Cort take a lil' break and give my accoustic some attention. Been ages since I touched it =.=

Something random, tagged by XJ =)

#1. If your lover betrayed you, what will your reaction be?
eh. be damn sad and move on. no guts to whack the other guy (maybe knock into him when he waiting for train, den drop onto the tracks LOL sadistic)

#2. If you can have a dream come true, what would it be?
for the earth to be clean, free of all pollutants, no global warming, all life living in perfect equilibrium. and the widespread adoption of green technology.

#3. What will your dream wedding be like?
hmm. somewhere cozy without much hype, with a jazz band playing, no sharks fin!

#4. Are you confused as to what lies ahead of you?
not really. ORD!!!!!! that goal is very clear in my mind LOL. go uni, get that degree, work in some green company, save the environment, get married have kids, get a green house with a green car, live like a greenie (with the only sin of having a super ultimate powerful gaming machine). I'm green da ba dee da ba da...

5. What's your ideal lover like?
interesting, outgoing yet knows when to stop, smart dresser (not too outrageous), attentive and fun!

#6. Which is more blessed, loving someone or being loved by someone ?
the latter. the former is hard when that someone doesn't reciprocate.

#7. How long do you intend to wait for someone u really love?
not very long? dont wanna remain single for too long den become some 40yr old virgin.

#8. If the person you secretly like is already attached, what would you do?
find someone else to secretly like.

#9. Is there anything that has made you unhappy these days?
hmm. disappointed at not winning anything yesterday, but rather short-lived. camp politics.

#10. What do you want most in life?
personally, just have a comfortable life, nice family, rather normal. no need to be rich or famous or what. although I sometimes dream of being a rock star.

#11. Is being tagged fun?
well, sometimes. when the questions are interesting (and no need to spill too much brain juice to answer)

#12. How do you see yourself in ten years time?
married, possibly with children. with a comfortable career. godly guitar skills. (LOL) inventor of some radical new green technology.

#13. Who is the current most important person to you?
everyone who is close to me.

#14. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?
one heck of a girl =)

#15. Would you rather be single & rich or married but poor?
too extreme sia. married but average ok anot? i know everyone wants to be rich, but i don't. (too much) money is evil.

#16. If you could have any animal for a pet, what would it be?
parrot. den i can train it to answer my calls.

#17. What are one of those things which you would prefer not to do?
sai kang.

#18. What kind of person do u think u are?
normal, unassuming, slack, relaxed

#19. What do you define as a bad day?
when everything that can go wrong goes wrong.

20. If you have to choose between love (as in boy-girl relationships) and friendship, what would it be?
love. not that i'll throw my friends aside. its all relative.


The 8 lucky people to be tagged are
???????? i dunno who reads my blog so if u feel like doing this just do la

we're in.

FINALS @ PLAZA SINGAPURA, SUNDAY 7PM!!!!

whirlwind!

Pretty interesting weekend!

Met up with XJ at Central on Friday after work for a Japanese dinner :) The restaurant we wanted to go (Ma Maison) initially had a waiting list of 45mins, others like Waraku had uber long queues and the only choice left was this curry udon restaurant Wakashachiya, which was relatively "empty". Not surprising, considering that Japanese curry + udon makes a strange combination. I ordered the standard Tonkatsu curry udon while she had the salmon. It tasted pretty good at first, but after awhile the sourness of the curry overpowered everything. Looks like mee rubus too lol. Not bad, but for the price it wasn't that worth it. Went for a nice walk along Clarke Quay :)

Saturday was the big day (sort of). Went jamming in the afternoon before heading down to Orchard Cineleisure for the SSF WOW! band competition qualifying rounds. Just before we headed out to *scape youth park for the sound check it POURED. Had to chiong across 2 roads, getting totally soaked as a result. Luckily our instruments weren't affected by the rain, though I had to walk around in wet shoes ><. Thankfully the rain stopped which allowed us to grab a quick dinner before the actual competition. I was quite impressed with 2 bands, the first one which had a charismatic vocalist, and the one before us which did a wicked sick instrumental (the guitarists pwned all of us LOL). Hidama did a pretty good cover of Tokyo Jihen songs, though I can't appreciate the vocals. Then it was our turn. We did Big Machine by Goo Goo Dolls, followed by Stay Away. It was all over in a flash. I can't really remember what happened heh. Anyway the big news is - we got in!!!

Semi - finals @ Plaza Singapura, this Friday (6th June), 7pm!


Met up with atheon from Malaysia on Sunday with some Singaporean YLs for lunch at Ma Maison (this time the waiting was 15mins lol).



Yup that's the fabled "It's happy line" single! Finally got a chance to see it (thanks to Danny).

The food was good, although rather expensive considering the portions were quite little. I ordered the beef stroganoff omurice set. Man the omelette covering the rice was damn good! I think I finished the plate in 10mins. benzwong had the strangest item on the menu, squid ink spaghetti! It tasted like char kway tiao haha. Although not exactly Japanese food, I think 80% of the customers (and even the staff) are Japanese, which definitely says something about its fame.

After that we started our guitar shop tour, first to Peninsular shopping centre, followed by Swee Lee at Bras Basah complex. I didn't realise there was a new guitar shop called Blackwood Guitars, they sell rare guitars! Imagine the entire shop selling stuff you can find only in the special room in Swee Lee! It also sells stomp boxes (besides the usual BOSS) and amps of never-seen-before brands.

I was pretty tired after walking around the whole day. Sigh. Lately I've been feeling rather sleepy when I wake up in the morning, I probably need to start sleeping early again zzz. Its tough especially since you wanna make the most of your time out of camp.

Tokyo! (part 8) - END

About time I concluded my Japan trip lol.

Headed out to Harajuku station for the 2nd time on Saturday morning, to show my sis around the place. Since it was still rather early, we decided to visit the Meiji-jingu shrine just behind the station! It took a good 15mins before we finally reached the shrine. Along the way we ran into a large group of elderly Japanese tourists who were excitedly making their way to the shrine. Quite an amusing sight =)



The huge torii gates! The wood for the 2 pillars came from a tree on a mountain in Taiwan. The largest torii in Tokyo I think?

And... we were in luck! I counted at least 2 couples getting married in traditional ceremonies!





The first couple!



A pair of huge, beautiful trees connected by a rope.



The actual shrine itself, built in memory of Emperor Meiji.





The 2nd couple!

It was my first time seeing this so it was quite exciting for me, and for the other tourists that were busy snapping away. I suppose the bride and groom felt as if they were celebrities or something. And those kimonos! They looked so exquisite and elaborate! If I were a Japanese girl I'd probably want to wear one of those XD

After that we walked a short distance to take a picture of the Yoyogi National Stadium, where Ayumi Hamasaki always holds her finale and countdown concerts =) I could hear a street band performing in nearby Yoyogi Park but unfortunately we didn't have enough time to investigate.



Shibuya AX is located behind the stadium, where the likes of YUI and AKFG have performed before ^^.



Harajuku's Meiji-dori street. Not many of those gothic dressers walking around, probably because it was still early in the morning. I could spot several groups of normally dressed youths pulling luggages <- filled with their extravagant clothings!



The crepes! This time I ate a simple one - vanilla and blueberry. Delicious! And cooling too, on a sunny day despite the time of the year.

We walked all the way to Shibuya from Harajuku , where we headed back to the hotel to get ready to visit my dad's old colleague and friend from Hitachi, Fujita-san!

We took a long train ride all the way to Mobara station in Chiba (about 2 hours, even on an express), where Fujita-san met us with his nephew-in-law, Yuichi-san. Really nice to see them again after 5 years, with that same wide smile. Unlike the last time we had some time to spare before dinner so they showed us around their quiet hometown.



Fujita-san and us.



Yuichi-san (don't you think he looks like the guy who acted in the Trick series?)

We followed them around Mobara park, where we walked to a Buddhist temple surrounded by cemeteries (contrary to the obvious it was quite tranquil instead of scary). Then they brought us to Fujita-san's sister's house/salon for a drink and some snacks. Small and cozy place! Exactly the same as I remembered 5 years ago. I didn't get a haircut though XD. Met a couple of high school boys getting their hair styled in the salon. Yuichi-san then brought us to the old Hitachi factory where my dad used to work at.

Once it was time we headed off to this cozy little Italian restaurant for dinner, where the entire extended family turned up!



Everyone was quite delighted that we were there, including Fujita-san's daughter Aya-san and niece Soko-san who bombarded my sis and me with questions about life in Singapore and other random stuff. Quite amusing when trying to understand their English while at the same time phrasing the answers so that they'd understand. Tried my hand at speaking some Japanese (and failed, sadly) although Soko-san said I was very good XD. Then we had this lively discussion about kanji vs chinese characters and names. They were quite intrigued by our chinese names, and were very amused when we translated their Japanese names into (rather bad-sounding) Chinese ones. Too bad we had to leave relatively early to catch the last train going back to Tokyo.

The next morning on Sunday, me and my dad headed down to Akihabara to take a quick look around before we flew back to Singapore. It was drizzling slightly so there wasn't much activity outside the station (I missed the cosplayers and street performers! T.T).

It's really a geek heaven! Huge buildings filled to the brim with electronics, computers, consoles and games, anime, figurines and many other random (geeky) stuff. Too bad I didn't step into the famed Maid Cafes (I didn't know what to expect, especially with my dad around =x) and that 7 floor building filled with porn mentioned by depyon XD



And the ultimate geek nostalgia:



I haven't seen one of those in ages! Ever since I stopped playing my SEGA console I thought cartridge game consoles were dead (minus the Gameboy). Apparently someone resurrected the Nintendo 64 and its available for sale! If it wasn't for the high prices of the cartridges I'd have bought one for old time's sake =)

After that half-satisfactory visit to Akihabara we bade farewell to Japan, back to Singapore.

Somehow I get the feeling that I'll want to go back again. Someday, when I have the money XD

ROCKKKK!!!!

And so the day of reckoning finally arrived on Sunday, after weeks of practice and preparation.

We had a short run-thru before heading down to Suntec City, where all the action was. I was actually expecting the Cosplay and Jrock event to take up the entire atrium, so I was kinda disappointed when I saw the Sony exhibition area XD. Anyways, there was a crowd which grew slowly, including those in the upper levels, so it wasn't bad at all.

There were a few bands playing before us, one in particular obviously loved Shiina Ringo. Pretty impressive, especially since Tokyo Jihen songs aren't the easiest. Another had a female vocalist singing male vocals which was kinda weird. Couldn't make out the lyrics for most of Luna Sea's Rosier since the song was pretty low. LOTS of cosplayers walking around, decked out in maid costumes, frilly dresses, anime characters (I saw Naruto, Bleach, Ragnarok Online, Ryuk from Deathnote) and other fancy gothic outfits. I liked Ryuk the most heheh. Too bad he didn't have an apple on hand to much on.

Soon it was our turn to go onstage. A bit nervous while setting up, but after awhile during the sound check (Sweet child 'o mine, baby!) it sort of melted away. We started with Rewrite by Asian Kung-Fu Generation, then ALONES by Aqua Timez, Driver's High and Stay Away by Larc and finally Storm by Luna Sea. Quite hard to describe how I felt, it just felt so good to stand on stage and blast on my guitar. It was fun, despite dropping my pick and stepping on the wrong pedals ^^. A pity the audience wasn't that enthusiastic, although I could tell most of them enjoyed the more popular songs (ALONES, Driver's High and Storm). Somehow Luna Sea has a lot of fans in Singapore?

Some photos and videos, credits to Helixius from YL.com =)



ALONES
Driver's High

Really high after the whole thing. Hot and tired. Sweaty. Hungry. But satisfied.

confetti

Manchester United: Champions of England, Champions of Europe!


update: the performance timing for tomorrow has been changed to 6.45 instead of 6.15!

Hot right?

That's global warming for you. Go on, keep that air-conditioner turned on.

I'll be waiting for the rains to fall.




In another note, I've not read a serious book in a loooong time. Kite runner was probably the last one I read (which was a few months ago). My brains are rottinggggg.

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25th May.

Suntec City Tropics Atrium (outside MANGO).

3 - 9 p.m.

Singapore Street Festival D'J party.

Cosplay.

JROCK.

Samuel. Sean. Me. David. Wesley. QUIS.

6.15 - 7pm.

If u on that day really zhuo bo, or just happen to be at Suntec checking out bargains at MNG, check us out!

And friends of anyone of us, you have no excuse not to turn up. LOL just kidding XD

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