Japan (日本) Part 2

Click on the images to get more information about the place.


Japan.Lake Mt Fuji by =sabgian on deviantART


Japan.Wind Mill by =sabgian on deviantART


Japan.Shinsaibashi by =sabgian on deviantART

Tokyo (東京), Japan Part 1

Plushies @ Disneyland!
Live X'mas Music @ Disneyland



Japan.Shinjuku by =sabgian on deviantART
Shinjuku (ex-Red Light District)


Japan.Temple by =sabgian on deviantART
Temple


Japan.Trees by =sabgian on deviantART
Beautiful Scenery along shops outside Temple

Away in Japan (日本)

I'm finally going to the land of the rising sun!

About 14 hours away from touching down in Narita.

I've got loads more to squeeze into my bags.

Now, I must remember to remind myself to bring my passport.

LAZY as a PIG?

First, let's take a look my laziness. I've got tons of work to do. Oh man, what's new about that? Well, I'm here typing a new blog entry. Duh! Okay, let's look at how I've 'wasted' my time. I was at my R & R. [This time at hotel intercontinental with a double room upgrade to a Premier Room, Fantastic Services!] Even after I've checked out, I went out to look at mattresses. Tedious thing to do! Luckily, the Furniture Mall at Beach Road centralized all the brands and made it easier for me. However, that meant I didn't do a single thing today. *sob*

Sleep has always been one of the most important thing to me. Not that I choose sleep over other activities like most guys do. Rather, I dislike it being disturbed. Especially on days when I'm stressed, my 'spider senses' are on high alert. I will jerk awake easily to sounds. Also, I get super grouchy when I wake. Do avoid me like mad if you are ever near me when I'm in that insane state. And do forgive me if I ever bark or give you a deadly stare in future for that matter.

To somewhat reduce the grouchiness that I have, it's been decided it's essential to get back on a proper bed. My futon is now the cause of my backaches (coz I'm a side-sleeper) and likely my killer-vibes. It been on KIV for sometime now and it's been finalized today! Funnily, I didn't even get it from the furniture mall after stampeding through all floors. Instead, Seahorse Memory Top is my destined one. It was a closed deal even before the sales lady approached me. I even got myself a memory form pillow. Finally, I'm going to get a good sleep. Looking forward to it!!

As usually, a video feature, this time round a collection of clips of my favourite guitarist playing guitar in HD format.



Love his hair. BTW, mum commented my hair has achieved the Kimura Takuya look! haha...I seriously must thank the hairstylist who cut my hair (at the $10 shop!). haha..In case you're wondering..

Rock Music to Sooth My Soul

Kinda going through depression. First of all, haven't cried properly in a while. Then I did it non stop for 10 minutes or more. Now my eyes are kinda sore.

Something that calmed me a little...well one of the few that I watched anyway..


Edit:
The video I've watched got removed. So another video instead..
Trying to widen my music circle to include more bands with smaller followers.

Best Place to Buy CDs in Tokyo?

I've googled the above but can't find a decent answer regarding it. The closest I've got is the place to get anime soundtracks..which I know is in animate. (Source: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/japan/644208-best-places-buy-anime-soundtracks-tokyo.html)

Next best places? Tower Records or HMV in Shibuya. Well, those are the regular big names. Isn't there any cheap CD places? Like if you're a music lover who lives in Tokyo and you're on a tight budget, you would practically eat, sleep in that shop. What shop would that be?

I know a certain someone used to buy from those places and I think my sister's BF mentioned it as well. Is that really it? Towers & HMV?

I hope I will get lucky and some one who stays or stayed in Tokyo before will get to see my blog post. *cross fingers* *pray hard*

Not exactly good quality..but it does show shibuya & HMV haha ;)

NOT About Me

Think my sister has finally found the right man. He gets along well with the family and is most gentlemanly. That means I won't ever hear quarrels (if I'm right). He has such calming effects on the family and things have been going on pretty well. Pretty family-orientated guy who's already like part of the family. Rare to hear that from me neh.

Also, something from HYDE (Vamps) which I found is a rare item from jrockers.



Another, live of my favourite VAMPS song which I play along with guitar.

L'Arc-en-Ciel (HYDE)

This is a copy of my blog on MyAnimeList so if you have read that, you can ignore this. Only difference is that I've embedded more of Laruku's videos.

I've got a new interest recently. This name L'Arc-en-ciel appeared so many times when I was looking at some anime songs. So curious me went to listen to them. At first I found it okay only. Maybe the vocal sounded a little like Uverworld type (that half-nasal, sharp voice) but the music was average.

Then, one day, as I was browsing the music shop, I don't know what the hell compelled me to buy the 'Theatre of Kiss' concert DVD. That was when I got hooked by Laruku (the nick/alternative name of L'Arc-en-ciel).

What happened next, you would ask? Well, I can say the rest is history. However, I can't help mentioning my journey towards this idiol-addiction. If you ever want to start being a fan, perhaps it may come in handy someday. Haha.. I'm kidding myself.

Since I was watching the DVD past 10pm, I couldn't rush to the music store or book store to buy all available items on Laruku. So the next best thing is to searched Wikipedia and google. Wiki is great! They have all the history listed down and in one shot, I knew everything I needed to know about them (well, almost).

Now, I need pictures because I'm so in love with HYDE, the vocalist. So I went to my usual art website DeviantArt to search for it. Another amazing thing happened. I found not only great photos and wallpapers but also many long-time fans who are so willing to help a new fan like me. They answered a lot of questions which I couldn't find online (okay, I admit I'm not that great with seach engines).

The final step to get all the DVDs and CDs available. Boy, was that the toughest thing to do. My first mistake was that I didn't realise that HMV is the greatest music shop in the world (pardon, in Singapore). A shop assistant (not from HMV) was wonderful enough to point it out to me and I'm forever thankful. Yes, HMV's stuffs are bloody expensive but it's the only place to get foreign music stuff which you can't find any where else. They even have a on-line shop where (really) everything on earth is available.

Okay back to the topic. I went crazy when I found all the old DVDs and albums (and also singles)! I would've grabbed everything if the Japan version didn't cost $79 per CD. Repeat CD for $79!!!! No matter how much I love HYDE, I wouldn't spend that amount! I mean I've not reached that stage yet.. (I fear that day may come soon when I would buy it). It's already burning a hole in my pocket as it is.

I worked backwards to the source that started it all. The animes. GTO (song, Driver's High) which I've watched long, long time ago but was never interested in anime songs yet.


Fullmetal Alchemist (song, Ready Steady Go).


Watched that already. Fullmetal Alchemist Movie (Songs, Link and Lost Heaven).


Going to try to watch that because it continues where the series left off. Next, Seirei no Moribito (song, Shine) I watched it and was blown away by it. It's so amazing that I wondered why did I not watch it? Must watch if you like epic animes.


Blood+ (song, Season's Call) has the song HYDE made when he went solo.


Now I'm left with DNA^2(song, Blurry eyes), Mobile Suit Gundam 00 (song, Daybreak's Bell) which I will watch eventually.




Well, I finally bought all the asian version and that concludes my walk towards being a HYDEist, HYDEness?? I don't know. I've seen so many versions of that hee.. yup. HYDE in Laruku. HYDE solo? yes. HYDE vamps? Not so sure yet. That is why I think no matter what HYDE does outside, he should never leave Laruku because the music made by the members is what I like. (HYDE is the lyricist)

Shoujo Manga Addict

It's official. I'm seriously addicted to Shoujo Manga aka girls' love comics. I've started off with the Canadian ShojoBeat magazine which had extracts of a few manga titles. That wasn't enough. Then I tried to buy a sampler of manga books (one book each of three series). I love one particular one so much that I bought the whole collection (well, not that many, about 6 books total).

I'm crazy about Vampire Knight in ShojoBeat. So I am eagerly waiting for the June issue to reach Singapore (heard it's already out in US). Therefore I went Kinokuniya to check, only to be disappointed. So out of desperation, I bravely ventured into the Japanese section of the book store. All these while I didn't dare to because that section is always filled with Japaneses and I was too shy to intrude on their territory. Also I was afraid that if I start looking someone would talk to me in Jap.

Anyway, I quickly looked at the Manga Magazines shelve and WOW! They have so many different types of colourful, beautifully drawn manga! *Drooling* *Slurps back saliva* Candy store - phenomenon again. I was awe-strucked by the volume of each magazine. It has the average thickness of 3cm and area of an A4 size paper. That's simply humongous! This addict was tempted to buy all the available love comics. Luckily my diminishing credit limit won the usual buying battle (my bank account is probably saluting that). I only bought one miserable magazine which happened to be the cheapest one.

This is an expensive hobby.

Live Concerts? NLB@esplanade

The amazing treasure that the National Library Board @ esplanade has been hidding from us. Or maybe it's just me. Actually, someone has revealed it to me before. Just that I wasn't interested back then. Let me list some of those things. DVDs, VCDs, CDs, CD-ROMs, music scores, film scripts and theatre/film related books. It's like the DVD rental shop except it's FREE!! Well, actually you have a pay $21 for it's premium membership to borrow up to 4 AV items. But then now you have increased your borrowing quota to 8! Not bad, right?

I've been searching around the shops like mad for Japanese live concerts as mentioned before in my previous post. Like I said, not many available and they're either not the ones I want or they're too expensive (no lah, I'm too stingy to spend the $$$). So when I searched the NLB catalog and found some, I was so excited. So I went today & managed to find a few to borrow!

Sadly, I realised not all the singers give good live performances (not like Ken Hirai's anway). Got this Tackey & Tsubasa 2004 Spring Concert and was so disappointed. First of all, they're teen pop stars (maybe not so teeny anymore). I was hoping to see solid rocking performance, yet turned out they're so lacking in energy. Since they're singing those super fast pop songs, I guess it must be tiring. Cause majority of their songs are not sung live! Well, Tsubasa has the kind of voice I like but he's like so uninterested in performing. When they did sing live, it's nothing impressive at all. Maybe they're just lacking in confidence.

Then I watched BoA's Live tour 2004 Love & Honesty and it gave me a bit more hope that there are some good ones out there. She was full of confidence and gave her best. Smiles and stares unwavering at the audience. Guess the eye contact makes a lot of difference. At least, I enjoyed it much more than the Tackey & Tsubasa's one. Again, guess it's due to the energy-sucking dance steps, quite a number of songs were lip-sync. However, those live songs were done rather well, cause she has good control of her voice and it's powerful enough to be projected well.

So now, I'm left with the Ayumi Hamasaki's one. Will update again. Since she's a really experienced performer, I except it to be better than the previous two. But I've seen her live performance of 'Dream' on 'Music Station' before and she went off key on the high notes. Erm.. well maybe I should just lower down my standard.

I'm sure however, I can count on a few Japanese artists to do well. The MTV unplugged one by Utada Hikaru will definitely be good (even though her voice a bit soft at times). Also, Namie Amuro's Live is good because of her dance steps (though she's another cool faced performer) and she's singing live majority of the times. Amazing stamina for a singer! Then I can always trust Ken Hirai to give the best of best live songs!

Yup all those borrowed from the NLB@esplanade. I think I've borrowed enough today to make up for that $21 premium membership fee :)

Japanese Music, Manga & Anime

I was shopping one day and entered a CD shop that sold all sorts of disc items. With my recent interest in animes, I searched the Japanese section and chanced upon an old DVD of Ken Hirai that marked his 10th year in the music industry in 2005. Since it was cheap and I liked some of his songs, I bought it. Actually I've seen his performance in 'Music Station', the Japanese music variety show and was impressed with his live performance.

It is so darn great! His voice control is good and had great showmanship. It's enjoyable to watch him perform. I actually felt as if I was there in audience itself. WOW, it's so moving and his singing is so mesmerising. The Japanese are really into music cause their song production is so great and the audience is always so supportive and raving all the way through til the end.

Now I think I'm addicted to Japanese Live performances. It's a matter of finding them. I tried a few shops but they all had the same boring old titles. Nothing much to choose from. I wonder if there is any place in Singapore where I can have a better selection.

Anyway, I've watched quite a few animes. I'm going to list those I've watched here:

Bleach

Naruto

D.Gray Man

Fullmetal Alchemist

Those are the 'Shonen' (manga for boys). As the first 3 animes listed are still on going in Japan, I've no choice but to wait. However, I'm the kind of person who hates waiting. So I bought the manga magazines, hoping to catch the latest chapter.

Sadly, the English verion (made in Canada) is always way behind the Japanese ones. So instead of satisfying my urge to find out the latest, I've gotten myself addicted to some more manga/animes. Well, maybe cause I also bought the 'Shojo' manga which is manga for girls.

Now I'm into the 'neoromance' manga, Shojo manga created by female, usually about a heroine surrounded by loads of handsome looking males. Wah.. reminds me of 'Meteor Garden' which I've watched back in 2000 on cable. That's an old neoromance manga which was made into anime. Then later on the Taiwan's drama version and then the Japanese one much later on. Some of the Shojo animes which are currently aired on the 'Animax' channel on our Starhub cable are 'Honey & Clover' and 'La Corda'.

Haiz, I'm still not desperate enough to want to read the Chinese manga of those animes I'm following. (Those are more up to date.) So I'm trying to keep myself busy with learning how to draw manga now. Only drawing the handsome, cool male characters. I'm not good, only can copy existing pictures. However, I am picking up the basic of manga drawing from doing those. Samples of my copied manga: (The first two are from a manga drawing book and the 3rd one is my first attempt on copying from an actual manga.)


As usual, work is busy. I'm still preoccupied with marking and planning things. Nothing much to say about that. Not in blogs anyway. :)