2007 in retrospect

2008 is about an hour away. As cliche as this sounds, it's startling how time seems to fly like an arrow (and fruit flies like a banana, eh Zen?). It's been a wonderful year, in fact, I consider it one of the best years of my life. So many defining moments, such as:

• Entering junior college
• Studying Economics and General Paper, and doing Project Work for the first time
• The creation of Zephy:)
• Mastering Paint Shop Pro
• Making MANY wonderful friends, more than I ever had before. Acquintance or bossom buddy, I'm very glad to have known you all.
• Becoming a lot more independent than before
• Discovering that I'm a people-person. I've always thought of myself as an introvert.
• Tried deejay-ing a couple of times and loved it!

In short, it was a year of DISCOVERY. 2008 is going to be crazy, what with all those tests and the 'A' Levels (gulp!), but I do hope it will turn out as great as 2007. Or even better, who knows?

I'm feeling so nostalgic about 2007. And about the December holidays too. If 2007 is one of the best years of my life, this Dec holiday is one of the best holiday of my life. Well, productive, more like it. I accomplished:

• Watching about 8 movies
• Watching 2 anime series
• Reading about 10 novels
• Drawing loads of fanart
• WENT TO JAPAN
• Revision of JC1 stuff
• Kickstarted Operation Save Econs

Here, my short summary of 2007 shall end. A new chapter of my life is about to begin and I look forward to it very much.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nihon wa suburashii desu! (Part 2)

Here’s Part 2 on other aspects of the Japan trip. See Part 1 for a few of the most memorable

places we visited.

Food
Japan was a brilliant experience, culturally, spiritually... and gastronomically. Not only did we get to eat authentic ramen, soba etc, we also got adventurous and tried unique Japanese street food. We had a great time doing so at Arashiyama, a small town near Kyoto. Japanese sweet potato, grilled and served piping hot, is excellent for keeping warm. Then there were the turnip patties and skewered rice balls dipped in sweet sauce. The most bizarre stuff we tried was some egg patty mixed with ginger, squid and spring onions. A really strong-tasting concoction, but good enough for my Dad and the many people queuing up for it.

Dad and I posing with the sweet potato cart at Arashiyama. I think Japanese sweet potatoes taste much better than the orange ones at home.

Whenever we were on a hurry and had no time to stop at a diner for lunch, my parents would buy some bento, or lunchboxes. A lunchbox meal is like any other cooked meal, except that it is never soup-based and always served cold.

This was the best bento I ever had. Not only was it delicious, it’s also aesthetically-pleasing, no?

Speaking of aesthetics, the Japanese care a lot about how food is presented. This saliva-inducing lightly toasted bread topped with ice cream and served with syrup was eaten at the Ginza Lion, at the Stellar Mall in Sapporo train station.

I think the sparkler was a great touch!




Language
My Japanese vocabulary expanded three-fold during the trip, yay! Thank you, okaasan, for buying me a Japanese grammar book at Sapporo. I’ve progressed from the few word and phrases picked up from watching anime to being able to form simple sentences on my own.

Otaru wa kirei desu! (Otaru is beautiful!)

I’ve certainly come a looooong way from the time when my Nihongo was limited to just ‘sushi’.

Snow and snowfall
It’s been about 10 years since I last experienced a snowfall, so you can imagine how exhilarated I was to see swirls of rapidly falling snowflakes when we visited the northern Island of Hokkaido. Ever noticed how snowflakes appear when they flutter before streetlights? You’d think Tinkerbell was going around sprinkling her golden fairy dust into the night.

The above photo was taken in a town called Kamikawa. I’ve never seen such thick, fluffy layers of snow in my life! Just look at the shrine and stone lantern!

This snowman was created by Yours Truly at Noboribetsu. He’s called Yish cos my Mum says he looks like my brother. In case you were wondering, Yish the snowman has leaves for the hair, trimmed short using Mum’s Swiss Army Knife.

Asari the snowman was born in... Asari. To celebrate the occasion, I lent him my specs.

Anime and manga
Being the hardcore anime fan that I am, I was on the lookout for anime paraphernalia. Here’s a hot tip for anime fans visiting Tokyo: pop in at Akihabara, the mecca for otakus. There’re CDs, games, figurines, trading cards and other anime memorabilia. But do be careful of the occasional hentai trash in some shops.

At the end of the trip, I came home with the Appleseed OST, an Inoue Orihime key chain, a Kon keychain, a copy of the Weekly Shonen Jump and some Gundam 00 stuff (No, ykm, it’s neither a DVD nor OST). Not bad, really:)

The Japanese
The thing I admire about Japanese youths is their fashion sense. The outfits donned by some teenagers can be jaw-dropping, to say the least: frilly Lolitha dresses complete with lacy headbands or Goth attire paired with dark make-up. Then there’re those into the Harajuku style flaunting loud coloured clothes and bizarre hairdos. When it comes to dress, Japanese youths are certainly outstanding, but rarely tacky. Bubblegum pink hair with striped long socks is unconventional but somehow most girls I’ve seen manage to pull off the look fine and with confidence too. It’s this dare-to-be-square, take-me-as-I-am personality that I really admire.

Not everyone dresses flamboyantly, but rather, funkily. Boys and girls are often have ‘hip’ and ‘cool’ incorporated into their outfits . Women usually dress fashionably; this winter the trend seems to be knee-high leather boots and hair worn in a messy topknot. Old ladies are more modestly dressed, sometimes in a kimono, but they can be cool too. I spotted an old lady with hair dyed bright purple in Tokyo station.

If the French are the epitome of chic and elegance, then the Japanese are the epitome of the unconventional and hip.

***********************************

Japan, really, is a one-of-a-kind place. I like how a uniquely Japanese flavour is injected into the many foreign ideas and goods it has adopted over time. Best known would be the cartoons, which the Japanese have turned into the highly popular anime. As a strong believer in individualism, I greatly admire that. In retrospect, this unique country has given me one truly unique experience. Arigato gozaimasu!

Nihon wa suburashii desu! (Part 1)

I woke up at about 11am on the 26th of December, racked with jetlag but feeling exactly like Tracy Turnblad of the Hairspray movie did when she sang ‘Good Morning Baltimore’: extremely happy. Happy that I was back in good ‘ol Singapore. And happy that the Japan trip had been a marvellous one. I’ve always liked Japan, and this crazy but enriching trip has made me like the Land of the Rising Sun even more. If time were like a video clip, I’d hit the ‘restart ‘button.

This trip shall be recounted in 2 parts – Part 1 will be dedicated to the 6 most memorable cities and towns I’ve visited and Part 2 will be for miscellaneous but equally memorable stuff. And yes, there’re photos galore.

The big cities – Sapporo, Tokyo and Kyoto
These are a few of Japan’s biggest and busiest cities. Like any other mega city, they are concrete jungles with crowds of commuters on the go. However, one can still find little sites that retain an old world charm, such as shrines, traditional neighbourhoods etc. But I feel that these cities’ trump card would be the offer of great shopping. The good news for shopaholics is that there is a great variety of lovely, good quality stuff. The bad news is that to get your hands on them, you need a considerably fat wallet.

Kyoto: A bit of a disappointment. I thought it’d be a charming and idyllic city as portrayed in Memoirs of a Geisha but it turned out to be a rather cluttered sprawl of buildings. Speaking of geishas, the geisha district still exists but it’s tucked away somewhere in central Kyoto. My family mainly explored the Kyoto vicinity so I can’t say much on this city. Except that I agree with Insight Guides- Japan that the train station, while a good place to get souvenirs and lovely fruit tarts, is a bit of a monstrosity.



A Nozomi Shinkansen train at Kyoto station. These trains are exceed the speed of sound!


Sapporo: As compared to Kyoto and Tokyo, I think the city of Sapporo is less claustrophobic. Sapporo is the fifth largest city in Japan (capital of the Hokkaido Prefecture) and one of the coldest too. Winter nights can be as cold as -2.8 degree Celsius so we had to wear about 4 layers of clothes. I have yet to figure out how some schoolgirls in woollen jackets and miniskirts actually manage to walk around without turning into human popsicles.



Nice, fluffy snow outside Sapporo train station

Tokyo: Tokyo has two extremes: the traditional, cultural-rich side and the ultra-modern, hip and funky side. The former is embodied by places such as the beautiful Meiji Shrine and the Thunder Gate at rustic Asakusa. If you want to immerse yourself in the latter, hit Ginza and Roppongi districts, the meccas for shopping and clubbing.


Dec 23 is the Emperor's birthday. Like many others, we visited the Imperial Palace where we got a glimpse of the Emperor!

Inari
The main attraction of this small town near Kyoto is the great many toriis, which are traditional gates usually found outside Shinto shrines. Inari has rows and rows of toriis snaking their way through forests and up the mountains. According to the guidebook, there’re altogether more than 10 000 toriis there! My Mum and I knew we just had to visit Inari. I’m very glad we did, because what started out as a quick look around the torii site turned out to be a memorable 4 mile hike via the passage of toriis. The mountain air was fresh and cool, the hike was a good exercise and the forest had a Zen feel to it. It was the perfect bonding session for my family too. In the end, we did not reach the mountain summit but that’s okay. After all, it’s the journey, not the destination that matters. I now appreciate better the poem ‘The Road to Ithaca’. It holds so true to the wonderful experience at Inari.


"Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches."




My brother, Yish, in front of a row of toriis.




Yish and I eating udon at a small diner up the mountains. The table's a traditional low one and we sat on bamboo mats. But not before removing our shoes.

Noboribetsu
What an experience! For one thing, we got to try a natural hot spring for the very first time in our lives. Soaking in a hot spring was very different from what I expected. First, we had to come down to the site dressed in our yukatas and slippers, and go to the changing room. Next, strip. I’m not kidding. At the hot springs, everyone bares their bums and boobs. This was totally new. The people featured in Japan Hour documentaries always wore towels wrapped around them into the hot springs. Anyway, it was a complete shock for me to find women blatantly going around nude at the changing rooms and I thought I’d faint when I learnt that this was expected and if I wanted a dip, I had to do it too. After a while, though, it wasn’t so bad cos all the women were in their birthday suits and were pretty nonchalant about it. I slipped into the warm, mineral-rich waters and let my self-consciousness wash away.

(Ummm, no pics of my family at the hot springs. What were you expecting?!)

Being a Geography student, it perked my interest to know that we’d be visiting a crater lake at Noboribetsu National Park. It’s one thing to read about craters, calderas and volcanoes, it’s another to actually see them for yourself. The crater lake is a large pool filled with hot turquoise-coloured water with patches of black here and there. It’s steaming and bubbling in some places, and reeks of sulphur dioxide. It does not possess the beauty of Lake O’Hara or Lake Atitlan, but it’s intriguing enough.




My family dressed in our yukatas. A yukata is a casual form of kimono often worn in summer and at hot springs. Yish is being emo again and I think I should have sat down like the others.




At the crater lake.


Nagasaki
I had assumed Nagasaki was a big city like Sapporo so when I finally got there I was surprised to see a relatively peaceful seaside town with steep hills in the horizon. The buildings, often a few stories tall, are an eclectic mix of Japanese and European style structures.
It was hard to believe that this pleasant city was once devastated by an atomic bomb during World War Two. Remnants of that terrible past can be seen at the Peace Park, such as the monolith that mark the spot where the bomb fell and the radiation-scarred remains of a church. At the Atomic Bomb Museum, there were many works of art made up of colourful paper cranes. These were created mainly by schools or visiting groups. Hope for world peace is strong, though whether we will ever achieve it, what with terrorism and all remains to be seen.


The paper cranes were a riot of colour!


END OF PART 1

I'll be back!

Tune in after the 26th!

Ho-ho-ho hum?

Edit (7 Dec): The original post was unintentionally scathing so I edited it a little.



"Santa's reindeer must speed at 5800 km/s to make the trip on time and they would vaporise from the resistance of the presents." - Nic, as seen on his MSN message board




Another one of those reasons why you shouldn't believe in Santa. Over the years, I've came across loads:

1. If he existed, he'd turn up on the air force's radar every Christmas


2. Not all houses have chimneys he can climb down


3. Even if the house had a chimney, how the heck is he going to squeeze himself in?

etc,etc.

I guess the reason why we still hang up Santa ornaments, wear the Sanata hat and tell the kids about Santa is that Santa Claus embodies the spirit of Christmas: caring and sharing. I tell you, Christmas would not be the same without the jolly dude. Take the elfs, reindeers, Santa and Frosty the Snowman out of the equation and Christmas would not be as magical and beautiful. There's still a place for fantasy and imagination in this world.

Kirika(right) and Mireille from the anime Noir. For once, Noir lightens up and gets into the festival mood.

Image from www.animegalleries.net

From Samurai Champloo to Akira!

Samurai Champloo has officially entered my list of 'completed anime series':

• Blood+




• Ergo Proxy




• Samurai Champloo

It's pretty short, I know, but that's because I only started watching anime online last year *smooches Youtube and Veoh*. Samurai Champloo was brilliant. It's not my favourite (that'll be Ergo Proxy) but I really enjoyed watching it. Most of the time, the storyline meanders a lot but the comic moments, draw-dropping martial arts and highly watchable characters make up for it.


Samurai Champloo's "3 musketeers" (from left): Fuu, Jin and Mugen.

Okay, so I'm done watching Samurai Champloo. But being the hardcore anime addict I am, I crave for MORE ANIME. My good pal ykm burned the entire Ghost in the Shell 2nd GIG into a CD for me, which I can't wait to watch. But not before I'm done with the Akira movie.

I won't miss Akira for the world. This anime, which lead the way for the rise in popularity in anime in the West, has been lauded as one of the greatest animes ever created. It also happens to be a CYBERPUNK anime with some romance, my favourite type of anime.

Amidst all the excitement, I've this slight apprehension about watching Akira. According to the anime content rating system at Amazon, Akira's been rated 17+ for violence, gore and brief nudity. 17+ is one notch higher than 16+, which was the rating attached to Samurai Champloo. I wonder what 17+ violence is like? To me, the violence in Samurai Champloo was tolerable. The bloodiest Samurai Champloo ever got was featuring victims spurting great veils of blood. After 17+ is TV-MA, for animes with excessive graphic violence or soft-core sex. Elfen Lied is one example of a TV-MA anime. Considering what I know of TV-MA and 16+ animes, I speculate that in Akira, copious amounts of blood would be shed, limbs might fly but there shouldn't be bodies ripped apart in a brutal manner. Okay, I can handle that. If things get bloodier than I expected I'll just fast-forward those bits.

The Akira movie poster. Tagline: Neo-Tokyo is about to E.X.P.L.O.D.E.

Akira, here I come! If you are interested in watching the entire movie (and ykm, you SHOULD watch this. It's a CYBERPUNK CLASSIC), search for Akira at Google Videos. I love the netizen who uploaded the entire 2 1/2 hr film. Arigato gozaimasu!!!

P.S My family and I will be holidaying in Japan for most of Dec. We'll be leaving on the 8th and coming back on Christmas Day. Honestly, I wish I could fast-forward time, like I could for a Youtube clip.

Image from Google Images