Japan trip 6 - day 6

Today, we made our way back to Sapporo from Asahikawa. The plan was to break up the trip by stopping at Hokuryu to checkout the sunflower fields before heading to Sapporo.

The GPS navigator in the car wasn't being very cooperative and we got really lost trying to find this place. In the end it was Google maps that came to the rescue and after about half an hour or so we managed to find Himawari no Sato. It was worth the effort though. It was very cool to see an almost endless field of sunflowers.



After that, we headed to Sapporo where we did a quick check in, dropped off our bags and did a quick onigiri snack break before we sped off for Otaru again. We had been looking for a reasonably good sushi restaurant to try Hokkaido's uni because we heard that the uni in Hokkaido is famous.

It was a tiring 45 min drive for SY who had already just driven us back from Asahikawa but the end was quite worth it. While i felt that overall I still prefer my favorite sushi place in Meguro, the sushi in Otaru is still quite spectacular. The uni was really good and I don't generally like uni. The kani was also amazing. All of it was very tasty and we were glad we made the trip to Otaru again.







We made our first trip to Otaru via train previously and it was a very ride during parts of the trip. We also tried to find a beach then but failed. This time, we had a car and the GPS and eventually we managed to find the Otaru Dream Beach. The beach had a hippy feel to it but we couldn't stay long because we had to return the car by the end of the day. So we breathed in the sea air, walked a little on the beach and snapped a couple photos before returning to our rental car and heading back to Sapporo.

As we ate a really late lunch, both SY and I was so full we abandoned the idea to eat Gengis Khan and returned to our hotel to rest. We picked up some beer and some snacks and did not eat a proper mean after that.

It was a pretty good day....I am sleepy now, going to sleep in a bit. :)

By the way....Kalafina has finally announced their new song for the Mahou Shoujo Madoka movie. :) It's on twitter and all but I can't remember the title of the song and it is a little inconvenient to check it when I mobile blog. Will edit it when I get back to Singapore. :)

K.... night y'all. :)

p.s almost forgot a photo of the beach. :)

Japan trip 6 - day 5

We rented a car for two days starting from today. You kind of need one to get round to the different flower farms in the Biei and Furano area in Hokkaido.

We went to several farms today. Our first stop was at the Shikisai Hill farm. It was really beautiful and I was busy snapping away. We are too late for the Lavender flowers. :( But there were still many flowers for us to go gaga over. :)

We also made a few other stops in Biei but I need to get the names from SY because I didn't plan the portion of the trip in Hokkaido.

We had curry rice for lunch at one of the farms but I can't remember the name of that farm. Will fill it in when I get back. The curry rice was quite tasty. :)



After Biei, we headed towards Furano where we made one stop and were rewarded with a small field of flowers and some sunflowers.



We also made a very memorable stop at the Rokugo Observatory. It was actually windy and cool at this location which was really nice. It was very hot in Tokyo and is still pretty hot in Hokkaido. I think I got a tan. :)





After the Rokugo Observatory, we made our way to Lake Kagoyama (need to check that name). It was pleasant and peaceful and cool.... a nice change from the heat and the flowers.



After that we went to Ikutora Station for dinner. While there we found out that the station served as a backdrop for the Japanese film Poppoya. Kind of neat. :) The only reason why we picked that station was because it was the closest to where we were and we wanted to eat before we made our 2 1/2 hour drive back to Asahikawa.





After we returned to Asahikawa, we went to the 7-11 (edit: it's actually a Lawsons, not 7-11) nearby and found out that they were running a Evangelion campaign and I bought an Ichiban kuji ticket and won a tiny figure. I actually wanted the small towel... maybe I will try again tomorrow. :)





K.... that's it for today.... time for bed. :)

Japan trip 6 - day 4

Today, we travelled to Sapporo from Asahikawa where we had lunch before heading out to Nakafurano to see the flowers.

It's about an hour away via the JR Furano line towards Furano. We were on the same train as a large group of elementary school kids out on an excursion. They were quite lively but their teachers were all very cheerful and jolly which must have been quite a feat since it was also rather hot and usually tempers run a little shorter when it is so hot.

We got to Nakafurano at 2 plus and it was still very hot as we took a half hour walk to Tomita Farm. It was worth it though. Although we were too late for the large Lavender fields we were still able to see Sun Flowers, some Lavenders and several other types of flowers. Very beautiful!!

We also had a very refreshing melon slushy type drink, melon and milk softserve, lavender softserve and a slice of melon. A lot of food. :p





After our visit to Nakafurano, we returned to Asahikawa and went to an izakaya and ate a ton of food again. Am so full now... I think we'll need to eat less tomorrow. :)

Japan trip 6 - day 3 p2

We spent the day in Otaru City pretty much stuffing our faces and by about 4pm we decided to leave and try and find the beach, just to check it out.

I went online to see if i could find one and one website recommended the Otaru Dream Beach which is a half hour walk from hoshioki.

by the time we arrived at the station, it was a little dark but we still tried to find the beach. After walking for some time, getting lost and checking the GPS several times... we decided to give up because it was too dark to go to the beach.

We decided to head back to Sapporo and have a full course crab meal at this restaurant we found by chance in the morning. i will add the name of the restaurant here if i remember in Singapore.

The crab meal was incredible. Really really good. :)







Awesome!!! Both SY and I were in Seventh Heaven. :)

k.... time ro sleep.... can't sleep in tomorrow. nite!!! :)

Japan trip 6 -day 3

We walked a little around the main shopping area in Sapporo today before we headed out to Otaru.

Otaru wad fun.... we ate and ate and ate... :p

There isnt much to say beyond that actually... Hahaha...

Japan trip 6 - Day 2

It has been a very eventful two days. At times, it was a little hectic too but it has all been pretty fun. :)

In the last two days, we have travelled from Singapore to Tokyo and now we am in Hokkaido and we have travelled more than 6000 km. :)

We'll also had an awesome sushi dinner in Meguro, watched the really funny Japanese anime After School Midnighters, gone to Ghibli Museum and the Swallowtail butler Cafe in Ikebukuro. Manami also cam along for the sushi dinner, movie and Ghibli. We ate lot and laughed a lot. :)

We're now in Hokkaido chilling out in our hotel after an awesome Ramen dinner.



and really delicious Sapporo beer. :)



Now I am just chilling in our hotel room... ahhhh .... shiawase!! :)

Japan trip 6 - day 1 p1

Holiday! Celebrate! I am on my way on my 6th trip to Japan. :)

Yay!!!! It has been a tiring few weeks. A lot had happened both at work and in my personal life so I am happy for this little break.

This time I am off to Japan with SY, my Japan travel companion on my first two trips there. She's a long time friend and I am totally looking forward to it. :)

I will attempt to mobile blog on this trip too. For now.... it is time to eat the chicken nuggets that my awesome mum prepared for me for breakfast. :)

Kalafina Live "To the Beginning" commemorative t-shirt boxset

This notification popped up in my email earlier today.  Got home about an hour ago and had dinner and feel refresh enough to write a short post. :)

It looks like CDJapan have also begun to offer this commemorative t-shirt boxset.  Here is the direct product link to size M... look at the bottom of the page for the other shirt sizes.

Previously, this special box-set was only available at HMV Japan, Lawsons, Tower Records Japan and Animate.  I ordered one from HMV Japan and receied the HMV t-shirt charm.  It looks like the CDJapan boxsets will not have any accompanying t-shirt charms.

Note to all potential buyers... please check the t-shirt sizes carefully.  I actually ordered one size smaller than the size I usually get at the FictionJunction and Kalafina Lives in Japan.

If anyone is interested in my un-boxing... here is the link to that post.

Alrighty... that's it for now... have been crazy busy at work and have a ton of things I need to take care of before I leave for my trip.  :)

busy busy busy

Yeah.... it has been tiring lately... have been forced to take some afternoon naps on the weekend too..... and i am the sort of person who sleeps only because they need to.... so afternoon naps not are not good.

Learning prep has been fun and very interesting and I really like it but it is really quite energy sapping and sadly... as usual... the first thing that i had to give up was blogging. :(

Yeah.... so I have two half written entries and several planned ones and I no longer have any idea when i will get to it. :(

I've also been busy planning the up coming trip as SY is probably super busy. I used to work where she works now so I know. Since I didn't get Day 2 and Day 3 tickets for Kajiura Yuki's vol.9 3 Day Special... it has suddenly left me with so much time to fill.... how to fill.... i think we'll just make it up. :)

There is a late draw for some very limited number of seats for members of the fan club. They are releasing some seats that were meant for camera equipment. I am hoping that doesn't mean that they won't be recording these concerts cuz I would love to purchse these dvds or blu-rays if there is a recording since I am not holding my breath on getting anymore tix. Even if Itsuko won any, it'll go to her first.

Anyway.... I am going on a trip with a very good friend.... am going to meet my good friends in Japan.... am going to at least one day of the concert and its one of the days with FictionJunction too which mean Yay more Keiko for me. :) I am blessed. :)

k.... need sleep..... the next few days will b v busy.... oyasumi. :)

凯旋归来 - congrats Team Singapore!

Yesterday the Singapore Table Tennis team held their victory parade in Singapore. They made several stops throughout the day and one of the stops was at Khatib.

Singapore achieved their best ever result at the Olympics this year. Two bronzes both courtesy of the table tennis team. Feng Tianwei won us a women's individual bronze medal, ending a 52 year wait for an individual Olympics medal of any colour. The first since Tan How Liang's silver in weight lifting and the first individual medal since Singapore became an independent nation and an actual country. Feng then teamed up with Wang Yuegu and Li Jiawei to win us the women's team bronze medal as well.

This is the first time Singapore has won two medals at the Olympics and it's the perfect birthday present they could have presented to Singapore for her birthday on the 9th August. It was cool to see our flag fly up high. :)

My mum and I went to Khatib to support them. Jing Junhong was also present which was cool for me. Before she retired, she was one of my favourite sportswomen in Singapore. Then Li Jiawei came and took over the reins and I began to support Jiawei. It was really cool to see all their smiling faces. Reserved player Sun BeiBei was also present and so was the men's team of Gao Ning, Yang Zi and Zhang Jian who were really unlucky to meet the Chinese team in the second round.

There were a lot of people at Khatib yesterday and they were of all ages and all races. Young people from the respective players' fan clubs were also there. Some had specially come to Khatib to meet them, like we did, and some were people who happened to be there and after finding out about the event, decided to hang around to greet and congratulate them. One lady I talked to just finished her night shift and instead of going home to rest, decided to stay to join in the fun as well. It was quite crazy, like we were meeting pop idols or something. :)

After they arrived in the hippo bus, they toured the area for a bit, shaking hands, signing autographs, taking photos with the fans. I wanted to shake all their hands but ended up only managing to shake Wang Yuegu's and Lee Bee Hua's hands. I managed to get some photos on my phone and will probably edit this post later to include them. Am mobile blogging now and while posting multiple photos is possible, it's a little painful. :)

They ended the tour of Khatib at the Nee Soon South community centre where they boarded the bus and waved to the crowd from the top of the hippo bus. It was cool. The MC tried to get people to sing Queen's "we will we will rock you" but I think most of the heartland folks didn't know the song at all and only those in my age group sang a long for a bit. The MC didn't try very hard anyway because I think they were running late and they were in a hurry to leave for the next destination.

I wish I could have gone to Tampines where they played table tennis with whoever wanted to play with them and where they also signed autographs for the fans. I had a dental appointment and by the time I was done, it was too late. :( Still it was really cool to meet them in Khatib. :)

Thanks for the medals!!! Table tennis rocks!!! Thank you Team Singapore for not just awesome results from the women's table team but also for the effort put in for Singapore's sake. Thank you men's team, thank you Tao Li, Joseph Schooling, Geraldine Lee, Colin Cheng, Elizabeth Yin, Helena Wong... thank you to all the athletes, coaches and officials. May the next Olympics be a good one for our country. :)

After all these years.... I guess I am a bigger sports fan then I realised. :)

FictionJunction - Distance / Eternal Blue Single - Larger Cover Art

I've just eaten and rested a little and feel like I could blog a bit.  Tomorrow is Singapore's National Day and hence, a public holiday.  Yay.... I could use a day off.  :)  Since I won't have to wake up too early and dash off to work, I thought I'll take this opportunity to blog a little and may read some tutorials or something after this.

First up, the JVC FictionJunction website has been updated to showcase the cover art for the soon to be released single Distance / Eternal Blue single.  Click this link.

Also, there is an announce on the website that the single will on sale at the Music Energy live on the 30th August, as well as at Kajiura Yuki Vol.9 3 Day Special Lives from the 31st August to 2 September.  Anyone who buys the album at the lives will receive a mini clear file as a free gift. :)

Cool.  I had intended to try and pick up the single when I attend the Day 1 Live. :)  Hopefully I will be able to get this freebie too. :)


JVC FictionJunction link

For those who wish to purchase this single online, here is the link to the site I usually go to.

I may make another blog post after this... but I'm not sure if I'll tire and not finish it... so if you don't see it... I didn't complete it. :)

cheers :)

silhouette

On my way home... another late night in the studio but it has been a pretty good week so far. :)

I managed to get my second prep shot approved by my supervisor and its gone up the pipeline for another level of approval. It was a pretty hard but I learnt tons and am really happy about that. :) I still have so much to learn... there are a few things I want to try out on some of my old footage at home... maybe I can use that as practice.

The other thing I have been really happy about is that I learnt how to paint in SilhouetteFX at work this week. I really suck at it right now. My first work in progress was AWFUL!!! And I later found out that I was going about it the wrong way. Today one of
my seniors showed me again how to do it properly and my second stab at it is kinda decent. I haven't finished the first pass yet. It is hard, hard work buy I am happy to do it. :)

I taught myself how to roto in SilhouetteFX but I still prefer my company's inhouse software. Still... SilhouetteFX is way better for roto than After Effects and Nuke. Paint in SilhouetteFX is new to me though. So exciting!!!

I really need to work on my paint skills. Need to work on painting in photoshop some more. I think it would be helpful.

The last cool thing about this week is that Singapore's table tennis team won two Olympic medals!!! It was awesome... it is the first time we won two medals at the Olympics. The games were really of a very high standard too. A real treat for table tennis fans. Thank you Feng Tianwei, Li Jiawei and Wang Yuegu!!!! otsukaresamadeshita!!! :)

k... gonna stop now.... tiring a little... maybe if i can get a seat on the next train... i might try and sleep a little. :)

FictionJunction - Distance CM

FlyingDogs have uploaded the CM for their August releases.  FJ's Distance is in there at approximate 1:45 mins.

For long time listeners of Kajiura Yuki's music.  There is a CM for Nanri Yuuka's Live On as well, right before FJ's Distance CM.

K... gotta go back to work.

Enjoy. :)

Moonfesta discount / FictionJunction Distance single cover

I'm going to write this really quickly.  I just got home and have tons to take care of but I thought I would alert anyone who is interested in the Kalafina Moonfesta single that CD Japan is holding a 24 hour 30% off sale of the Limited Edition w/DVD version of this single.

It's apparently in celebration of Japan's Gold Medal at the Olympics.  So if you've been wanting to get this album, now is probably a good time.  Here is the product link.

Also, this is a little late.  It's been up on the JVC FictionJunction page for sometime but I've been busy and a lot has been going on both at work and in my personal life which also explains the delay in posting up more of my planned un-boxing posts.



Anyway, here is the cover art for the soon to be release FictionJunction single.  This single contains the  ending theme song for Gundam Seed HD Remaster version of the anime series as well as Eternal Blue, the theme song for the video game, Senritsu no Stratus.

That's a really pretty cover, in my opinion. :)

Anyway, here is the product link for those who wish to purchase the single and this is the link to the JVC page with very short samples of both song.

Also, another listing has popped up on CD Japan for  the Gundam Seed series.  This single is set to be released in September and it's the re-tracks versions of Kajiura Yuki's Akatsuki no Kuruma and Mizu no Akashi performed by Nanri Yuuka during her FJ Yuuka days and Tanaka Rie.  No cover art yet... at least I didn't find any with a cursory search but here is the product link.

K... going to go now... will get to those other un-boxing posts another day. :)

EDIT:
3rd Aug 644pm
P.s. the 24hrs blitz sale is over.  Moonfesta is back at the usual price.

just me dreams of VFX

It is another late night at the office and I am a little tired. I wonder how Jiro in Jiro Dreams of Sushi does it. I just watched the film last night and rather like it. It is really beautifully shot and all the food, in particular the sushi, is shot with loving care. It made me really want to eat good sushi immediately after the movie

The movie itself did a really good job at showing who Jiro really is and his philosophy in life. While Jiro's ideas may seem old fashion, strangely enough, I kind of identified with him.

Jiro is luckier them me in one respect and that is that he found the one thing he wanted to devote his life to very early in his life. I only knew that I wanted to be in the film industry but it really did take me a long time and many different kinds of jobs in the industry before I finally found the kind of work I am willing to devote the rest of my life at perfecting.

What Jiro says is true, you must fall in love with your work. I love VFX. I have put in so much over-time since the beginning of the year that if you calculated it per hour, I would be seriously underpaid. But for me, it isnt about the money. Even with all that over-time, i was never unhappy about it. I really like what I do and sometimes I can feel so tired and perhaps a little frustrated but ultimately, in the end, the only thing I really want to do right now is VFX. :)

Today, I learnt a great deal at work. I spent a lot of time during the last two days cleaning up markers in my second prep shot this year. Sadly, during the late morning review of my work-in-progress, I was told that the method I was using was not the best. Hence, a lot of what I had already done, i have to re-do. :( But it is cool, my supervisor thought me a ton of things today and I spent the rest of the day fixing it. I am not finished with the fixes but I am really tired now... so it is off to home and some dinner first and then some rest and relax. :)

Maybe this is why I like Kajiura Yuki and Keiko so much. Yes, I can somehow turn even seemingly unrelated posts towards Kajiura Yuki or Kalafina or FictionJunction. :)

From what I can tell from interviews etc, Kajiura lives and breathes music. I bet you Kajiura dreams of music too. As for Keiko, it seems like she is the most hard-working of the three vocalists in Kalafina and from what I can tell from the Kalafina Record interviews, she is also the one who thinks the most for Kalafina as a group. I like that about Keiko. I like it that she is so passionate about her work. I like it that she is hard working and devoted to her work. I wonder if Keiko dreams of Kalafina lives? :)

As for me, I dream of VFX. I dream of dust busting, marker removal, rotoscoping, node graphs... Some people might think I am stressed out by it. But i don't see it that way. Jiro dreams of sushi. I dream of VFX. And i hope that I will always dream of VFX. :) Someday, like Jiro, I hope to be at the top of my field too. And I want to always love my work, no matter what I do and how much I earn, I want to always dream of VFX. :)

p.s. the photo above is of my awesome healthy lunch... made by my awesome mum... my tea flask, filled everyday by my awesome dad, isnt in the photo unfortunately but it is there... daily sustenance for this silly dreamer. :)