i needed some 魔法少女 help!

Last week, mid-week, I played a killer game of table tennis with one of my colleagues and I have been feeling the aftermath of that game since then. A busy week at work and an even busier weekend, plus a pretty good late night Huang Jianxin movie called "Gimme Kudos" (求求你表扬我) all conspired to make me so tired at work today.

Hence, I decided to take Mahou Shoujo Nanoha to work today cuz I knew that Shinkansen Girl won't have enough magic to try and keep me awake at work. :)

I've been re-watching another Mahou Shoujo anime lately. That's Mai Hime, still my favourite Mahou Shoujo series to date. This plus Mahou Shoujo Madoka means that I really have too much Mahou Shoujo on my mind. :)

Still, I like my Mahou Shoujo anime whether it is the cutesy stuff like Card Captor Sakura or the very odd but excellent Revolutionary Girl Utena. And since I am determined to try and master the Japanese language the best I can, I have been trying to immerse myself with as much Japanese media as I can handle.

With that in mind, I went on a hunt of the Mai Hime drama cds since those were the only Mai Hime related audio that I have yet to listen to. I found out quite belatedly that there are quite a few drama cds out there and none of them are cheap. I did manage to get Mai Hime Drama Cd vol. 1 and listened to it at work today. I didn't understand most of it but enjoyed most of what I could understand due to how lively the script and cast is. And then there is the "lingerie rhapsody" chapter which can be understood without too much Japanese language skills, especially if you know the history between Kuga Natsuki and Fujino Shizuru. This chapter is very funny as long as you're not a stick-in-the-mud. :)

In the end, it took a combo of Nanoha, Mai, Mikoto, Natsuki and Shizuru to drag me from my comatose state long enough for me to finish a good amount of work today. Hahahaha... :)

So... thanks v much himes, I will probably need to call on your powers again. :) k... that's it for now... 待ったね。:)

Mahou Shoujo Madoka ep8 - short gushing post

I couldn't wait to watch ep 8 and so I rushed through lunch so that I could watch a streamed subtitled version. No spoilers for now. Just a quick gushing post before my lunch hour ends. :)

This is a fantastic ep. Not as shocking as some of the previous Eps, in particular Ep3, but it is perhaps a more powerful episode. Lots of powerful emotions are unleashed and lots of good character development. I think Sakura Kyoko is now firmly my number 2 favorite character in this series. And I really like Miki Sayaka lots too after this episode.

Lots of interesting information is revealed or hinted at as well in this episode. And we finally know more about Akemi Homura in this ep and she's very cool.

I am revisiting Mai Hime at the same time as I am watching this series and I just saw the ep where Natsuki and Shizuru fight (trying not to reveal too much here). At the end of that fight Natsuki asks Duran to do something which would affect both Natsuki and Shizuru. I remembered being incredibly moved by that scene and even now, I love that moment.

Two incredibly powerful reps in a day from 2 mahou shoujo series. Fantastic. I am in such a good mood now. :)

Fiction II - Kajiura Yuki

Kajiura Yuki will release her second solo album in March and the cover art for that release is out. It looks nice too. Needless to say, I have already made the pre-order. :)

Like Fiction, her first solo album, this will be a mostly English language release. I liked Fiction and I'm pretty sure I will enjoy Fiction II. I still prefer her Japanese songs though. And although the English vocalists she hires are good, I still rather listen to FictionJunction or Kalafina usually.

So although I look forward to this release with less anticipation then I did with Kalafina's Magia release and the soon to be released Kara no Kyoukai soundtrack and the Rekeshi Hiwa Historia II soundtrack, I still look forward to the release.:)

The next song I really want to listen to is Kalafina's yet to be released Symphonia, the ending theme for the NHK documentary, Rekishi Hiwa Historia. :)

Kajiura will hold a concert in June to promote this release. It is likely that FictionJunction will perform. I really wish I can be there cuz I would love to see them perform songs like Mezame, Everlasting Song, Kin no Hashi etc. Although, with the new release, I'm not sure how many of the old favourites would make it in.

Unfortunately, the concert would be right smack in the middle of june which would be in the middle of the school hols which would make it expensive for me. And it is also on a Wednesday which makes it hard for me cuz I only have a limited number of leave days. :(

K, I am going to sleep now. Oyasumi. :)

Mahou Shoujo Madoka - ep7

Mahou Shoujo Madoka ep8 will air in Japan tonight.  I've been wanting to write some random thoughts on ep7 for a while but have been too busy.  So I thought I'll try and squeeze in the post on ep7 before ep8 airs.  I've been very careful to avoid reading anything at all on this series as I want my own reactions to the series to be untainted.  This way, I can document my purest reaction to the series and it makes trying to figure this series out for myself to be kind of fun. :)



Anyway, let's get to ep7.  As usually here is my SPOILER WARNING.  Please do not read on if you hate spoilers.

Sayaka depressed and hiding in bed.  Poor kid. :(

Okie dokies here we go.  In ep7, Sayaka has to face the truth of the bargain she has made with Kyubey and she takes it very hard.  Can anyone blame her?  After all, Sayaka is no longer human.  Her body is an empty case which is controlled by the Soul Gem that houses her soul.  And to top it off, she didn't even know that was going to happen when she made the decision to become a Mahou Shoujo.  It certainly is a pretty raw deal and Sayaka isn't quite as strong mentally as Sakura Kyouko or Akemi Homura are.  I actually think that Sayaka may not even be as mentally strong as Madoka.

Creepy Kyubey gives Sayaka a practical lesson
using her Soul Gem to control her.

What I think won't be surprising to most viewers is that Sayaka will regret her decision.  Most would have seen that coming a mile away since this is no ordinary Mahou Shoujo anime and from ep2 onwards, there have been ominous undertones even in the most ordinary of scenes.  Either Kajiura Yuki's music in the background, or the lighting or a combination of both would somehow give the viewer a sense of unease, a sense of anticipation and a sense that all isn't quite as innocent as Kyubey makes it out to be.

Sayaka completely losing it.

What I'm thinking is, will Sayaka turn into a witch?  I think that there is a very distinct posibility that Sayaka will turn towards the dark side.  After all, it seems like she will be the Magical Girl who will feel the most bitter about her situation.  And at the very end of ep7, she seems to have lost it completely and in an attempt to cope, she seems to want to numb all her emotions except for rage. I've been wondering if this would happen from the moment she entered into a contract with Kyubey.  The introduction of Sakura Kyoko and her retelling of her own bitter experience, coupled with Sayaka's false bravado and hollow insistence that she does not regret her decision seems to be trying to prepare us for a complete break of the facade Sayaka is finding increasingly difficult to upkeep.

Battle scene.  Note that the art style has changed again.
This time, it's not as wild and colourful as the first few battle scenes.

At this point in time, we don't know that much about the witches.  We've never actually seen them in human form.  They only appear as creepy and dangerous graphical designs in the battle scenes but it's not unreasonable to think that if there are young girls who will enter a contract to attain their wish, then there is no reason to believe that witches may not themselves have entered a contract to have their curses come true.  After all, a curse without any magic behind it is simply words and if a person really, really hates someone, then it is after all possible that they would sell their soul to see their curses fulfiled and the person they curse suffer.

Kamijo is back in school and trouble is aboiling.

Now if Sayaka does turn towards the dark side and becomes Madoka's main antagonist in the second half of this series, then what is likely to push her over the edge is the current situation she finds herself in with regards to Kamijo Kyosuke.  Sayaka entered into the contract with Kyubey for Kamijo's sake.  He was injured in an unspecified accident before the beginning of this tale and was unable to play the violin any more.  For a gifted violinist, this was like a living hell.  Sayaka harboured deep but unexpressed feelings for Kamijo and one day, after Kamijo loses his temper at Sayaka, accusing her of taunting him by continuing to bring him cds, she makes the decision to become a Mahou Shoujo.

Hitomi: Sayaka, you've got one day.
Note: Lots of over-head wide shots and
characters famed in fames in this series.

Now in ep7, Sayaka is deeply unhappy and bitter.  She feels that she can no longer be with Kamijo because she is no longer human.  Adding further pressure on her is Madoka's and Sayaka's good friend and classmate Hitomi.  On seeing Kamijo's return to school, Hitomi tells Sayaka that she knows that Sayaka is fond of Kamijo.  Hitomi further adds that she too is fond of Kamijo and so she gives Sayaka one day to confess her love for him before she herself approaches Kamijo.

What is definitely interesting about ep8 would be just exactly what Sayaka will do?  Will Sayaka confess her love for Kamijo, even though she feels that she is no longer suitable for him?  And if Hitomi does go through with it, what will Sayaka do?  There are also two ways to look at what Hitomi did.  One is that Hitomi really likes Kamijo and wants to give Sayaka a fair chance before she makes her move.  Or the other is that Hitomi is trying to help Sayaka by forcing her to say what she has so far been unable to say to Kamijo.  Either way, if Sayaka hurts Hitomi, then I think we'll have our antagonist for the next half of the series.  If the later is true and Hitomi was trying to help Sayaka, the only difference will be that the feelings of regret and guilt will be far more intense.   

If this was just another series, I think I would put bets on Sayaka becoming a witch.  But this series has been quite good at surprising us and spinning the Mahou Shoujo genre round and round till all bets are up.  I really don't know if they want to lead us down one direction and then abruptly turn the other way.  That to me was really the biggest advantage they gained with Tomoe Mami's death in ep3 and the revelation of what the true nature of this contract is in ep6.

And we have this screen cap here only because
I like Akemi Homura best. :D

Ep7 is also really interesting because of what Akemi Homura says about Kyubey.  When Madoka asks Homura why Kyubey would do such horrible things.  Homura says that Kyubey doesn't think they are horrible.  And Homura isn't wrong, Kyubey thinks that it's all very practical and logical to have the soul removed from the body as this makes the Mahou Shoujos much more efficient when they fight.

I'm really curious now as to Kyubey's origins and if he has a master of his own and what are his true intentions.  I'm really curious about those witches.  We still don't know much about them at all and why they do what they do. For all you know the witches are fallen Mahou Shoujos that have turned to the dark side or even Mahou Shoujos that died in the battle field like Tomoe Mami.  I just keep thinking she's going to come back. :)  Hahaha... maybe I just can't let her go. :)  And I really want to know just why Akemi Homura knows so much and just exactly who did she enter into a contract with because even Kyubey doesn't seem to know for sure and all he does is refer to her as an "irregular". Lastly, just why is Madoka so important? Kyubey has tried several times to get Madoka to become a Mahou Shoujo. I think he sacrificed Tomoe Mami for that reason and he also tried to use Sayaka's relationship with Madoka to try and get Madoka to enter into a contract with him in order to save her friend. Akemi Homura's mission also seems to be to prevent Madoka from becoming a Mahou Shoujo, but why just Madoka?

Okay... time to take a break. :)  May write more about the visuals, which are still really interesting, in a later post tonight if I'm not too tired. :)

ps. I forgot I wanted to put this picture in:

Aside from the ring that houses the contracted Soul Gem,
Akemi Homura also has an additional symbol on her finger.
Interesting.

train rides

Last night I took the late train home, I think it was probably the last train from Jurong to Yishun. Usually the train is packed with a ton of people making their way home all around the northern end of Singapore. I hardly ever see the train this empty, quiet or peaceful. I enjoyed chilling so much on the train that all I did was listen to music and relax for the half hour ride. I did nothing, no japanese, no reading, no video games, no anime. Just music and just being happy. :) I didn't even think of taking a photo till I got off and took a photo of the bus interchange at night. :)

Each morning I take this very train line to work and I have learnt which cabin to enter and where to stand to try and make the transfer at Jurong less stressful. For the most part my strategy works and although I have to stand the entire way for the approximately 45 min journey, I am for the most part lost in my own world with Kajiura's music, FictionJunction, Kalafina and Utada Hikaru blasting in my ear as I try and revise my Japanese, read, surf the net or mobile blog. Sometimes, I would catch up on my anime viewing on my milestone too.

Those moments on the Yishun to Jurong stretch on my way to work are moments that I enjoy and even look forward to before the busy day begins. The transfer to the East-West line at Jurong can get stressful as people do idiotic things to try and either get on the train or get a seat. Yesterday morning I had one of those moments when some idiots pushed their way to the front of the line and the pushed pass people who were trying to get off the train. I was so annoyed. Grrrrrrrrr....

It made me forget that I actually like long train rides and that the biggest reason why I walk so fast from my home to the train station is because I am very impatient to get on the train to start my Monday to Friday me time. :)

Lots have been happening both at work and in my personal life and last night's peaceful train ride was very timely. It was nice to be able to just rest and enjoy the simple pleasures of life. Everyone needs rides like these from time to time I think. :)

p.s. Hmmmm... I think I will try and just do a short little thing on Mahou Shoujo Madoka tonight.  Ep7 was good.  I really don't know for sure where this anime is going to go and I like that. :)

my kajiura stash

Here is yet another early morning post written in bed right before I sleep. :)  I am happy cuz my Magia cds finally arrived in the mail no thanks to playasia. :) After last week's debacle, I cancelled by playasia order and placed an order with cdjapan and in just a couple of days, I have them. :) Now I can finally do my flac rips and place them in my portable music player.

I suppose, it is just as well I got them from cdjapan. :) While I know yesasia's sales count towards the oricon charts, and so does cdjapan's, I have no idea if playasia's count towards the charts. With this purchase from yesasia, I know that I was one of those who helped Kalafina to their best opening week for sales of their singles. The previous single that held that crown was Oblivious, I believe. I think the the Magia single peaked at no.4 on the oricon charts in the opening week. Awesome, results for kalafina and kajiura. I think there is hope for a kalafina concert in the next half of the year. :)



Here is a photo of my current Kajiura music stash. :) it is going to grow too cuz I already pre-ordered her second solo album, Fiction II and the soon to be release Kara no Kyoukai soundtrack, as well as the Rekishi 2 soundtrack album. :)

Good thing I am working again. :)

Kajiura Yuki also announced that there will be a Fiction II concert. I am thinking that it would most likely feature the FictionJunction girls and possibly a guest star or two. The concert is in june and if the FictionJunction utahimes are singing I would be super interested to try to go for that concert since there will be kalafina/FJ Keiko and FJ kaori who is my second favourite kajiura regular.

Anyway, gotta sleep. Have just started work on a pretty difficult shot. :( need to rest and store energy for later today. Hopefully will have time to write about mahou shoujo madoka ep 7 later tonight.

K... oyasumi. :)

p.s. I'm really tempted to buy the Mahou Shoujo Madoka dvd/blu-ray limited edition 2 which contains ep 3 & 4 of the anime and most importantly the OST vol.1 but it's expensive and has no English subs. :(  Stefanie Sun is also going to be releasing her album in March... finally, but that means arrrrgggghhhhh.... I need a freelance gig outside of my main job. :)

tokyo's calling

I am going to go to bed soon. Am quite tired this week. Made all my deadlines at work so I am happy about that. :)

But before that I want to put up two photos I shot during the week at work.



This is titled: Shinkansen Girl is calling me to Tokyo.

Ok, technically, she's not a shinkansen girl, she's tetsutou musume but I like calling her the shinkansen girl. :) And yes, I am suffering from Japan withdrawal again. :) It's all Kajiura Yuki, Kalafina and Mahou Shoujo Madoka's fault. :D. Everytime I hear the Kalafina song Magia or watch the anime, it just reminds me of the Kalafina Spring concert in april which I am not going for. :(



This is titled: Totoro says,"You idiot, you missed the Ghibli Museum!! You better come to Japan again." :)

And yes, I have been to Tokyo twice and have never been to the Ghibli Museum. And why am I thinking of it again?!!? It's cuz Kalafina was singing the Totoro song on their weekly radio program and on hearing it, it made me think of the museum. Kalafina have a weekly radio program on BayFM which I rip quite religiously every week and save it on my hard drives. This week at work, I put all the files in my creative zen portable music player　[ and yes, I had to say that cuz I'm anti-apple remember? :D ] and listened to the three women banter while I work.

They are quite entertaining, especially in the later episodes, even though I don't understand a lot of it. I particularly like the one where they talked about Valentines Day in Japan and when they tried to say tongue twisters. Keiko is hilariously bad at them and Hikaru says them really well but in such a deadpan fashion, it is really quite funny too. And of course I like the one where they mentioned that Singaporean fans attended their lives at the Lemon CC Hall last year. :)

Their rendition of the line "Tonari no totoro, totoro. Totoro, totoro..." not only sounded lovely but has also been stuck in my head for days reminding me of my lastest failed attempt at going to the museum. When I first visited Japan, we just did not have enough time in Tokyo to go to the museum without feeling stress. Also, we were all so busy at work before we left, no one had anytime to do proper prep at all, so no one made arrangements to get the tickets.

Before my second trip last year, we had fixed the date and planned to go but in the end there was a misunderstanding as to who was suppose to get the tickets and so the tickets were never bought. Bummer. :(

Hence, even Totoro is telling me I am an idiot. Hahahaha... :)

I did these photos initially cuz I was bored but after shooting the second one, I have more ideas for others. So maybe I will shoot a few more goofy shots in the next couple of weeks, just for fun. :)

For now, oyasumi. :)

ouch!

This has not been a great day. First I busted my thumb and cannot apply any pressure on my right thumb at all. It makes mobile blogging kind of hard and slow for me. :( my colleague gave me a lift home and stupid me closed the car door on my thumb. It is still throbbing right now even after I placed an ice pack on it.

Then, my Magia cd pre-orders did not ship even though I pre-ordered in dec way before this huge mahou shoujo madoka buzz. This is the last time I pre-order kajiura and kalafina stuff through playasia. :( I don't even know when they will ship it now since they don't even have stock to fulfil pre-orders made in dec. :( I don't know if playasia has kajiura's upcoming fiction 2 cd but I am not taking chances and pre-ordered through cdjapan this time.

Am hoping tomorrow night's mahou shoujo madoka will cheer me up. Looks like we will be heading for something dramatic with the Walpurgisnacht. The night of the witches, that would be fun. :) if only I can type better, I might even have attempted a post on madoka. :(

Oh and that photo above was shot on the milestone using the vignette software and I have no real reason as to why it is accompanying this post except that I want it to. It makes me feel a little happpier. :)

mahou shoujo madoka manga - sold out :(

This sucks. I missed the pre-order of this manga so when it came out I tried to order it but after accepting my order, cdjapan had to cancel it. It is OOP for now and apparently pretty much sold out everywhere in Japan. I checked the Kinokuniya bookweb and it isn't available too.

Apparently vol. 2 is sold out too but I didn't pre-order it too since I can't get vol.1. I have seen some pages from the manga and the grammar looks manageable for me. The vocab will require frequent use of a dictionary and unfortunately there is no furigana. It also looks like vol.1 of the manga goes all the way till the intro of Sakura Kyoko but I'm not sure how far it goes yet since I only glanced at the last few pages.

I'm thinking that there will be a second printing so I will wait for that and get that at Kino with my discount card. I know I can hunt for scans but I really like books, I like the smell of paper and the weight of the book in my hand. Moreover, if I'm going to try and read this with a dictionary, I rather have a physical book to scribble notes in.

K, it is almost time to change trains. Later. :)

killer pasta sauce

This is a photo of my mum's killer pasta sauce. It doesn't look like much, maybe even a little messy and plain. But it's a killer cuz it's really spicy and very tasty. The pasta itself is already spicy but that sauce is truly spicier but not the hole-in-stomach kind. It even has a slight taste of Chilli Crab in it, at least it did to me.

I loved it so much I had it for dinner last Thursday night and then asked if I could have it for lunch on Friday before having it again for supper on Sunday. :)

Unfortunately, I probably will never be able to taste this sauce again as my mum has no idea how she made it. Hahahaha... it's true, she doesn't know which bag of chill she used and can't remember what brand she bought so she can't replicate or refine this sauce she whipped up in a hurry that day.

Aiyah... 残念ですね！! :)

Mahou Shoujo Madoka - ep6

So I finally found time to watch Mahou Shoujo Madoka Ep6 and it's again a very good Ep.  Ep4 and Ep5 weren't bad either but as they came immediately after the climatic Ep3, it was necessary to use those two eps to bring the intensity down in order to build up to the next high.

Anyway, there will be SPOILERS in this post and if you are like me and you hate spoilers, please stop reading NOW.

I'm not really going to go into too much detail since I really need to try and sleep before 1am.  I can feel myself falling ill again and I don't want to, hence, I will need to sleep as soon as I finish this post.

Ep6 isn't quite as impactful as Ep3 but no less important as Kyubey reveals that the contract that the girls enter into with him is really not simple at all.  A new character called Sakura Kyoko was introduced in Ep5 and even she didn't know the significance of the Soul Gems.  Interestingly enough, Akemi Homura seems to know much, much more than the other characters.

Sakura Kyoko in action

I like her already cuz she's into Pocky like snacks, like me. :D

Sayaka became a Mahou Shoujo in either Ep4 or 5, I can't quite remember and am too lazy to check right now.  :)  Anyway, she isn't quite as powerful, experienced or as skilled as Akemi Homura and Sakura Kyoko.  Sakura Kyoko is after Sayaka because she's really ticked that Sayaka took Mami Tomoe's place before she was able to come to town to take over this prime piece of turf.  So in order to try and protect Sayaka and prevent her from getting into a fight with Sakura Kyoko, Madoka takes Sayaka's Soul Gem before she can became a Mahou Shoujo and flings it off the bridge.

The Soul Gems take on a much bigger significance

 in Ep6

Sayaka promptly collapses, Sakura Kyoko is left completely bewildered and Madoka is besides herself in panic.  Homura, however, has immediately gone after Sayaka's Soul Gem.  And the reason for this is revealed by Kyubey himself.  Apparently, when the girls make a contract with Kyubey, Kyubey magically transforms their souls into the Soul Gem and their physical bodies become just empty vessels.  Kyubey says that this is so as they can fight more efficiently.  So when Madoka throws Sayaka's Soul Gem off the bridge, she is actually throwing Sayaka's soul away.  The Soul Gem needs to be within 100m of their body for the Mahou Shoujo's to control their bodies and as long as the Soul Gem isn't broken, the magical girls are virtually invincible.  WOW... now that's some revelation!!! :)

The other things that struck me as interesting is that the landscape seems to be getting quite industrial.  I noticed that in Ep4 and 5 too.  I'm not sure if the landscape was quite as industrial looking in Ep1-3, I don't remember it being so but that may be because the dominant, or at the very least the one you'll remember best, visual style used was the collage and cut-out styled backdrops used in the battle scenes.



Note how industrial the background is.  Also, very interesting use of space again.  The same visual motif where the character is made to be very small within is surrounds has so far been quite consistently used in all episodes.

Visual Motif - enclosed space

More strange shadows.

Mahou Shoujo Madoka is still a strikingly visual series and I like that very much.  But I have no time to go into it as it's 5 mins to 1am. :)

Let me leave you with this.

Hello... :D

Akemi Homura is by far my favourite character in this series and has been so from Ep1.  She has the Kuga Natsuki feel from Mai Hime and Natsuki was my favourite character then.  Also, a weird thought always pops into my head each time I see her... if I had to cast the Kalafina girls in a live action Mahou Shoujo Madoka series, I would definitely give Akemi Homura to Keiko.  :)  I don't know why, it's not the long hair, it's the whole feel of this character. :)

Lastly, I really like Madoka's relationship with her very cool mother and I'm beginning to wonder when Madoka decides to make a contract to became a Mahou Shoujo, will it have a lot to do with her mother and/or her family?

Okay.. that's it.. off to bed... oyasumi. :)

Food!!! 食べ物が大好きです。 （１）

Hi hi... this is my promised post on food.  I'm going to keep it pretty simple actually.  I'll just post photos of food I like, have tried or have eaten.  It's just for fun.  I try and shoot photos of almost everything I eat and they just sit in my hard drives, cameras and phones and do nothing.  After awhile, I can't even remember the names of the dishes and places I ate them at.  So I thought... why not, why don't I just post "nothing" posts of photos of food, after all I love eating and my blog has always been about random stuff I love to do and matter to me and food REALLY matters to me. :)

So here you go guys.... Food, Glorious Food.  Itadakimasu!!!! :)

Bakerzin - salads

I love salads and one of my favourite salads are the two you see above from Bakerzin.  On the left is the Vermicilli Prawn Salad and on the right is the Fruit Salad.


On the left, Wu Xiang.  My mum really loves Wu Xiang but it's really hard to get good ones these days and she can't eat so much fried food or prawns any more. :(  In the middle, Pohpiah which my entire family is crazy about.  My mum used to prepare Pohpiah ingredients at home for us to make our own Pohpiahs and I LOVED THEM but it's a lot of work so she hardly does them any more.  On the right, my and Sunsetrose's favourite Claypot Frog.  I am crazy about them.  It goes really well with the Claypot porridge but the photo I shoot of it was soft so the next time we have them, I'll have to shot photos of it again.  This meal was at a coffeeshop in Yishun Central.


This is Shui Jiao noodles from Crystal Jade Restaurant.  I like them.  I actually really love dumplings and wontons and I could eat them virtually everyday.  My mum makes some killer deep fried Shui Jiaos and I could eat just Shui Jiaos for an entire meal. :)  If I remember correctly, this particular dish of Shui Jiao noodles was eaten at the Holland Village branch when I met up with some of my classmates and schoolmates from the school I studied 3D and VFX at.  We were celebrating my birthday then. :)


I drank my first cup of Earl Grey Gong Cha in Hong Kong last year and it was love at first sip.  I was super excited when Gong Cha opened several branches in Singapore and when I can, I almost always will get myself a cup of Earl Grey Gong Cha at lowest level of sweetness with pearls.  I know some will say that Koi's tea is better.  I've drunk Koi's tea twice and have photos of them somewhere in some hard drive or memory card, but for me, Gong Cha's Earl Grey is still the best. :)


Yummy Singapore styled Western food from cheap but good Western food chain Astons.  On the left is the Double Chicken dish.  I'm not sure if that's the official name of the dish, I've forgotten already.  But it comes with two pieces of chicken fillets done in two different styles, I think one is BBQ and the other is Teriyaki.  If you spot a piece of salmon on that dish... heh heh... it doesn't really belong there, my mum cut off a slice of her salmon fillet and placed it on my dad's chicken dish, so don't go to Astons and demand for your slice of salmon on that dish. :)  On the right is the Wagyu Burger.  It's really huge and yummy.  I love it and have eaten it twice.  I think this is the second time I've had it.

Okay, that's it for today... I'm going to bed now.  I was hoping to sleep by midnight as I didn't have much sleep throughout last week and I'm really feeling it today.  So... hope you enjoy my food photos.  I've got tons more and I will put them up slowly. :)

Good night y'all. :)

good morning

Good morning everyone. This is kind of a nothing post. I just wanted to share this photo which I shot the other day. I liked the reflections of the HDB flats in the windshields of the vehicles. :)

One of the things I wanted to try and do this year is blog more. I wanted to do it because it keeps me in touch with photography, critical thinking and the English language because i believe that if you don't use it, you lose it. :) So even if I don't have much to say at this point in time, I hope you enjoy the photo. This was shot on my SE cybershot phone, transferred via bluetooth to my milestone, treated in Photoshop Express for android phones and uploaded to the blog via Blogger-droid.

I have my Japanese language class this afternoon and immediately after class I will usually plunk myself down in a cafe and try and get a headstart on my homework which I actually enjoy doing. :) If time permits, I hope to write a post on food later tonight after I return home. Writing about food is more relaxing then writing about anime, series and movies and I shoot A LOT of photos of food. They usually just sit in my phone or in my harddrives doing nothing, so I thought it is about time some of them get a second lease of life. I also know one of my friends who reads my blog loves the food photos the most, so I'm sure she'll enjoy the planned upcoming post.

For now, 行ってきます。:)

busy busy

Snacks to keep me
going at work.:)

Wow, this has been a pretty tiring week. I finally finished that horrid shot at work and it has been sent off for approval. So for now, I don't have to stress over it. Yay. :)

Still, I managed to watch Ep 4 and 5 of Mahou Shoujo Madoka and also finished the 7th movie in the Kara no Kyoukai series. I have Ep 6 of Madoka in my phone now, will hopefully get to it over the weekend and may just write a combined post on all 3 eps, we'll see.

Kara no Kyoukai (空の境界) was wonderful. At the heart of all that supernatural mumbo jumbo and, psychological and philosophical musings is a love story of epic Shakespearean proportions. Kajiura Yuki's at her best here.  Her music will leave you with a lingering sense of longing and hope.  The underlying sense of pathos is not just heightened by her masterfully composed score, but also by the achingly beautiful lyrics of the end themes, and the hauntingly evocative vocals of the Kalafina girls.

For sure, Kara no Kyoukai will be an anime that you either love or hate but it is unlikely that you will not have a strong reaction to it. I loved it. :)

Unfortunately, my bus-stop is approaching. Later. :)

mahou shoujo madoka - t-shirts

Going to try and keep thiis short. I have a really troublesome shot to work on at work tomorrow so I want to sleep soon.

I have finally gotten around to watching Kara no Kyoukai movie 5 and Ep 4 & 5 of Mahou Shoujo Madoka. Interesting stuff but I will not talk about them today.

Today, I saw on cdjapan something I always have a hard time not buying. T-SHIRTS!!! I love them and my entire wardrobe consists of about 90% t-shirts.

I am really tempted to get the Homura Akemi t-shirt as she is my favourite character in the series right now. But I just ordered a few t-shirts and I would also like to get the Kokuhaku dvd as well as pre-order Kajiura Yuki's second solo album. Will have to sleep on this. :)

Okay, time for bed. Good night. :)
T-shirt links: (http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/goods/goods_detail.html?KEY=NEOGDS-36562
 http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/goods/goods_detail.html?KEY=NEOGDS-36559)

kalafina - keiko

I just watched Kalafina perform "Magia" live at Lisani Live on youtube and it was good. Hikaru does sound like Hikaru now, unlike the first time we heard the song in the first episode of Mahou Shoujo Madoka. Even Wakana had to go very deep, at least for her, for one of the lines and it probably is the limit for her as she looked as though she had to concentrate really hard for that line.

The three women sound so much better live these days. Of course, I thought they were already incredible when I saw them in the Lemon CC Hall last december. I also know there is a difference between watching them live and watching a recording of them live. Even so, some of their early lives were really kind of not great. At that time I thought FictionJunction sounded much better live then Kalafina did even though both Keiko and Wakana sing for both FJ and Kalafina.

However, Kalafina is a relatively young group and they do sing a brand of music which isn't easy to perform live and they rarely use In-Ear Mics so I cut them a certain amount of slack as I waited for them to mature as a group. I still remember watching Keiko and Wakana in the first FJ Live dvd and Keiko was staring so hard it was kind of creepy and Wakana looked terrified. They certainly have come a long way since then. :)

Anyway, back to "Magia". This is the second time I've heard the full version and watched the live version. The first time was at the Live in Dec where I remember liking it but not remembering much of it as I tried to digest the song in the midst of all the excitement. This time, it is on youtube, so it is much easier to catch all the bits and pieces and I must say the part I like best is Keiko's bridge which must have been hard for her to sing because it had a rather unusual melody.

The truth is, my favourite member of Kalafina and of the current FJ setup is Keiko. In the world of Japanese and Chinese pop music, possibly even pop music from the West, higher female voices are preferred with the notable exceptions of singers like Anita Mui, Alice Lau etc. I like Keiko's voice, I like its power and her control. I find her voice unusual and refreshing. I like it that Kajiura Yuki uses her and her voice so effectively to not only give the harmony a fuller sound but also as a sort of exclamation mark with her counter melodies, the odd line here and there, a verse or in "Magia", the bridge. Everytime Keiko gets a part where she breaks away from providing the harmony, it always makes me sit up and pay attention.

In someways, I feel a certain affinity for Keiko because of her role as the deepest voice in a vocal unit. It is inevitable that most of her work involves providing harmony and support for the alto and soprano. It may possibly be a little bit of a stretch but in some ways, i do feel that it is like what I do. I have almost always worked behind the scenes, whether it was as a producer, an editor or in vfx, most people who watch our work won't be thinking about us which should be the case. We provide the support and we provide the glue that makes the visuals and audio all come together to become a seamless audio visual treat called a movie or mtv or promo or advertisement or corporate video etc. But occasionally, an explosion or some breathe taking vfx or some slickly edited montage is used to make the viewer sit up, take note, go "wow" etc and it is then when most viewers will remember the audio engineer, the editor, the vfx guys etc.

So, yup, Keiko rocks cuz she's just like us post production guys. :D. Kidding. :) She is way more public than us. :) I do mean it though, I do like Keiko the best for all the reasons stated above. I just felt like writing about it now because I just heard her sing that bridge so beautifully. :)

I have yet to watch Ep 4 and Ep 5 of Mahou Shoujo Madoka. Been awfully busy with CNY celebrations and work lately. Hopefully I will get to it before the next ep airs but that may not work out as the coming week looks busy. :( I would still like to write about the visuals in the anime but am wondering now if I should just write short thoughts first, then write the more in-depth one after the anime is completed. Hmmmm... we'll see. For now, it is way pass bedtime :) ... oyasumi. :)

happy rabbit year :)

Happy Chinese New Year everyone. May the Year of the Rabbit be filled with happiness, peace, good health and wealth for all.

We had steamboat for our Reunion Dinner meal yesterday. It is a curious thing but steamboat is very popular in singapore even though we are right smack on the equator and it is rather hot here most of the time. Steamboat is also very popular type of meal during Reunion Dinners and throughout the 15 days of new year.

Hopefully I will have some personal time for some anime, some gaming, some reading, some modelling and some resting during this long break. :)

Meanwhile have a great new year's and eat lots everyone. :)

smartq v7

Lately I have been preoccupied with one of my geeky obsessions. About a year and a half ago, I got myself a Smartq v7 to aid me in my homework. It sounds like an excuse to get myself a new toy :) but it is mostly true. I needed a device to carry my ebooks, pdfs and scans with me as reference material. I was sleeping very little then and in order to meet all my deadlines, I was doing a lot of my homework in 24 hour fast food restaurants and cafes.

At that time, the only ebook readers available were thing like kindle which only displayed stuff in black and white. I needed things that also displayed color because of the artbooks etc. But I also needed it to be reasonably priced and didn't want it too big so a windows tablet was out of the question. There was no iPad then too and I would not have gotten it anyway as apple products are too restrictive for my liking.

I chanced upon a category of products called MID. And there was this product called the Smartq v7 which booted in 3 different OS, android, linux and windows ce. After some consideration I decided to spend some of my government sponsorship money on it.

Man, was it a learning experience. I had never used any of those operating systems then and the v7 used the chinese language versions of the OS. Now, my chinese language skills aren't bad but navigating chinese OSs was still a challenge. Still I managed to get it to a point where I was able to get it to do what I got it for which was cool.

Still, in the end I knew I was not using the gadget to its fullest potential. This device says that it is capable of playing HD video and it even has a HDMI port for playback to TV. The gadget's software was really buggy in the beginning which was it's major flaw. I believe that this is one of the biggest things holding back chinese gadget makers right now. Remember, this was before the iPad and the major wave of smart phones. The specs on this thing is nice and even now, none of the Western gadget makers (at least to my knowledge) have come close to offering the myriad of possibilities the Asian companies, in particular the Chinese ones, have been offering.

Anyway, after some time, I found that I did not need the ebook reading capabilities of the as urgently as before and my more pc based homework kept me at my desk at home or in school most of the time so the device took a well deserved rest.

Lately, while playing with my colleague's samsung galaxy tab, I got the urge to pay my old friend a visit. And I discovered that the OSs in the v7 have updated versions available including android 2.1. Previously the device used an older android version which never worked that well for me and I was mostly using unbutu to read stuff and surf the net.

To get android 2.1 on the v7 is by no means something for the faint hearted. It requires the flashing of the device's firmware and the reinstallation of the 3 operating systems in a very specific way. Let's just say it took me several days to finally get all 3 operating systems running properly on my v7. I started messing with it on Sunday and only accomplished it last night. So yes, it takes a certain amount of patience and the willingness to troubleshoot. The results are worth it though. :)

My v7 is awesome now. Previously, the device was always a little slow and unstable but it is a lot more stable and responsive. I love using android on this device and reading comics and books on it is a real treat now.

For those who may have problems with the firmware, here is what I found out while messing with my v7. Firstly, you must install in the order described in the Unofficial SmartQ MID Board. I'll update with links later when I'm off my milestone. BUT... you must do the following if not you will find, like I did, not only did you not change to the new launch screen, also only ubuntu works. After you follow all the steps on how to write over the nand, you will come to the step where you need to install linux.

After you press the + and menu buttons and the power on button, you will be asked in chinese if you want to rewrite the system settings. At this point, hit "-" to write over the system settings. If you don't, you won't get the new purple background launch page at startup. At least, I didn't till I did it.

After you have installed linux, proceed to install android. By the way, I installed the latest chinese android update from smartq because the latest english one has a problem with the marketplace and you could find yourself stuck at "start download" forever. After many tries with the english android, I searched for a solution and someone at the awesome unofficial smartq forums suggested the chinese android firmware which works like a charm. NOW HERE IS ANOTHER IMPORTANT PART, this I learnt after a gazzillion tries. It wasn't stated in smartq's english site, although it is in their chinese site. You MUST do this to get android to work.

After you install the new android os, make sure you leave the SD card with the new android firmware rom in it before you start the new android os for the first. If you removed it and go ahead to install windows CE or if you swap cards and then started android, android will NOT launch.

After you started android for the first time, you can shut down and install windows CE. Again, you must leave the roms inside when you start it for the first time. If you don't, win CE will not start. [add: Actually, you must leave the CE firmware rom in your SD card all the time for CE to start, not just for the first time unlike the Android firmware.]

As you can tell, I was so preoccupied with my geeky problem, I didn't even have time for anime. :( so Mahou Shoujo Madoka's ep4 will have to wait. Will probably end up watching that with ep5 and movie 5 of Kara no Kyoukai.

Meanwhile, I wil still need to mess around with the smartq but most of the kinks have been ironed out. After that it is anime time, in between feasting for chinese new year. :)

K, gotta go. Back to work, lunch is over. :)