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AWESOME.

// January 1st, 2010 // No Comments » // Blog

Sir Patrick.

A W E S O M E .

Clearly, this is awesome.

// December 8th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Blog

I don’t think any commentary is necessary.

Because it’s awesome.

// December 4th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Blog

For some reason, I was thinking about this the other day, but I couldn’t remember how it went down…. so I asked Nels. Luckily, she did.

So here it is again so I never forget.

Nels, Matty, Wouter and I were all watching some movie about a Mountain that had like, Nicole Kidman, and some other people in it. Cut to a scene where a very familiar actress comes on screen.

Wouter: Is that Natalie Portman?
Matty: What?
Wouter: Is that Natalie Portman?
Matty: What!?
Me & Nels: IS THAT NATALIE PORTMAN?
Matty: YES A GUN IS A LETHAL WEAPON.

we had good intentions

// August 30th, 2009 // No Comments » // Blog

To update and post about what we were up to while Kat was visiting here in Japan, but you know how it goes. Posting seems to take a lot of time and effort sometime, and then you have think about all the things you’ve seen and done…

Well, here’s a recap of the two weeks that have been missing (and Kat if I miss something, let me know, haha):

♪ Met up with Hitomi (shuuha on LJ), and since then have had a lot of fun hanging out on various occasions. Highlights include being in the park until nearly midnight (despite the dangers, haha), karaoke, buying tickets for a live next month, and wandering aimlessly. Dinner at LHK was pretty sweet, too.

♪ Went with Eri to 長久手 (Nagakute) which is just outside of the city to watch fireworks and wander around the celebrations that were going on. Got awesome candy apples, and the fireworks were really cool – especially the butterfly and Hello! Kitty shaped ones. Rode back to the station on the most crowded bus EVER, but the bus driver was hilarious, so it made it more tolerable.

♪ Following the fireworks in Nagakute, we headed to Sakae for some karaoke with Hitomi and Sean (so it was Sean, Hitomi, Eri, Kat and myself). Big Echo was ridiculously expensive, but hey, it was a Saturday night. So despite the price, we had a great time singing and a lot of double over in laughter moments.

♪ Kat and I were randomly approached by two guys on the way home. We exchanged e-mails. The one that I talked to seems like a decent fellow.

♪ Went to 白川郷 (Shirakawago), a ‘world heritage’ place with Toshi and Kyoko. It was pretty awesome, and really beautiful. It’s in the mountains, in Gifu prefecture… and well, you can’t go wrong with mountains. We went through an amazing number of tunnels, including one that was 11km long. I don’t know why I find that so fascinating, but I do. I love tunnels. Despite being stuck in traffic for a good three hours, it was a great day. On our way back, we stopped for okonomiyaki, and had a lot of laughs. Photos are finally uploaded: http://www.pink-spider.net/index.php/shirakawago/

♪　Went to 馬籠 (Magome) and an onsen with Eri and Miho. Awesomeness all around. We all had a lot of fun, and the onsen also had a pool that went from indoors to outdoors, a slide and a spa. We ended up renting a child’s floating… thing (because there were no adult ones left) and took turns trying to sit on it and whatnot. Pretty sure the pool boy thought we were some sort of crazy, and tried his best not to blatantly laugh at us. Magome is an old town, where a lot of Japanese style inns used to be, so the town is really interesting to walk through. Beautiful weather, too. Photos are posted: http://www.pink-spider.net/index.php/magome-onsen/

♪ Headed out for dinner with Eri and Hitomi, followed by some karaoke. We had a three hour singing session with quite the setlist — I’ll probably post it in my Japanese blog at a later date. The signs at karaoke are awesome.

♪ Went to LHK for Kat’s last night in Japan, with Eri. The staff there are so sweet; you just want to hug them all. They remembered us from the last time we went. Had the most amazing dessert EVER. French toast with ice cream, bananas and chocolate. I will marry it.

♪ While I was working, Kat set off on a few of her own adventures, including the botanical gardens and zoo, aquarium, and some of the heritage locations around Nagoya. She also got a random lady knocking at my door, for reasons we might never know, and had to buy some new luggage, which in itself sounded like an adventure.

★ To see Kat’s photos (many of which will appear on P-S.net at some point in time) make sure you check out her Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blissful_pics/

So, yes. I think that’s all I can remember for the big points right now. I’m working on adding more photos to the galleries, so if you’re interested, make sure you check them out! Even the older ones, like the Nagoya galleries and friends galleries will be updated.

It was awesome having Kat here, and I’m really glad she got a chance to come! Hopefully she’ll be able to visit again, and if Toshi, Tomoko and Kyoko’s wish comes true, she can find a job here, haha. (IN GIFU, THERE’S LOTS OF PLANTS THERE!).

Annnnd that’s it for now.

while watching Mozart’s turkish march

// August 20th, 2009 // No Comments » // Blog

Me: Someday, I’m gonna play as good as this guy!
Kat: But you already play good!
Me: But not as good as him!
Kat: Yeah, but he’s on YOUTUBE.

Beauty and Beast vol. 6

// August 16th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Blog

Although we haven’t quite gotten to days two and three of Tokyo, I thought it would be best to update about the live while it’s still fresh in our minds.

Honestly, I’m disgustingly horrible at live reports, so this won’t be much of one.

So, today (well, August 15th), Kat and I headed to HOLIDAY NAGOYA to see Beauty and Beast vol. 6 which was a twoman with Lycaon and Juliette, but also featuring MEZE and my favourite band, R指定.

MEZE was first, and their set was super short. They only played three songs. I had seen them a few weeks ago, and they’re okay. Their costumes are interesting to look at.

Next up, as anticipated, was R指定. Naturally, I was extremely excited because it’s R指定 and I love them. And I adore Mamo, who, might I add, is AWESOME. My adoration of him tripled after seeing them live; hard to believe, I know. Although my attention was focused mostly on Mamo throughout their set, the rest of the boys were great as well. Kaede and Nanahoshi sang along to everything, which was super cute. Ultra Z looks like a huggable teddy bear, and Hirotaka just seems so happy beating away on his drums. I really like their newest look… I wasn’t so sure after seeing photos on the OHP, but with the toned down makeup fit for a live, they looked really great.

I can’t remember all the songs they did, but I know they for sure played 「メンタル≠ヘルプ」 (Mental≠Help) which was just recently released. They also did 「盲目少女」 (Moumoku Shoujo). I was so excited to see them, and they didn’t disappoint. Mamo’s really great live too.At the end, I bought a photoset and a mirror. As expected, I chose the photoset where Mamo looked best, haha.

After R指定, Juliette was up! I have to admit that I’ve never really paid them much attention, but they were so much fun! I haven’t seen Ukiru in Juliette before, only in Teddy, but he’s just so energetic and … well, fun. For lack of a better word. Their music isn’t exactly my style, but I had such a good time watching them that I’d definitely go again.

Last but not least was Lycaon; the other band I went there to see. I was also super excited about them because I really like Rito, as he used to be Ichigo in Jaguar… and god knows how many times we saw them live. They were also completely awesome live. It also helped that the majority of the girls there were there to see them, so everyone really put their all into it.

Now, because it was Lycaon and Juliette’s twoman, both bands wore yukatas. They also had special cheki with the yukata wearing.

Yuuki from Lycaon was really cute, because he had his hair piled on his head. The other members referred to it as an ‘odango’ (dumpling). They also said he looked like a ghost, because his yukata was all white. He said that he was a bit embarrassed to be at the live like that. Rito looked… well, pretty. He’s a strange one because he’s not girly at all, and despite his girly yukata (which was purple with flowers), he’s still really masculine in some way. I don’t know how to explain it. Satoshi’s hair was weird, but his yukata looked nice; maybe his hair was too poofy in the back? Or something? Mio had black makeup in a line across his eyes, which he said was combat-like. The other members ended up agreeing that he looked like a post office box (you know, the mail drops). His makeup was also described as Marilyn Manson, and “american” at one point. Last but not least was Eve, who looked totally adorable. He had on a pearl (fake) necklace with his black and pink yukata.

After Lycaon’s set was done, the shacho came out and got Juliette back on stage. They did a bit of talking, and Lycaon joined them. It’s Oban and summer, so he also brought out a watermelon for them to do the whole blindfold, spin around, and try to smash it thing. After some intense rock, paper, sciossors, Rito was first up to try to hit it.

It took forever to blindfold him, partially because of his hair, and after twenty spins, they put a metal rod in his hands and set him loose! At one point, they had him completely turned around and coming back to hit Mio… but luckily, they didn’t go through with it, and he managed to smack the watermelon on his first try. Satoshi came second in rock, paper, scissors, but they decided that it was more fair for a member of Juliette to have a turn. They were going to do another round of rock, paper, scissors to decide, but all the girls started screaming for Masaumi, so the shacho went with that.

Poor Masaumi. Before he put the blindfold on, he had to move his glasses and set them on the top of his head. They blindfolded him, then for some reason the shacho handed him the metal rod they were using the smash the watermelon. Then, he told him to let go of the rod, and he did, sending it crashing down to the ground. Why? I am not sure. He apparently got a lot more dizzy than Rito, and was stumbling a bit. He first headed towards the drum set, but after many screams of ‘MIGI’ he avoided them. Then he was heading for Rito’s guitar… and had totally passed the watermelon. After much direction, he reached an approrpiate watermelon hitting location… and missed. Twice. And hurt his hand. Luckily, the third time was the charm.

When they took the blindfold off, and when he went to put his sunglasses back on, he realized they were stuck in his hair, which probably wasn’t even that funny, but he had both the shacho and Yumeru trying to pry them from his head.

After the whole watermelon thing was done, both bands stayed on stage for a song, which went on forever and was really fun, because everyone was jumping around, into each other, head banging and so on and so forth. Shouya was jumping into the audience, and Mio was spitting his water all over everyone. Kat and I got pretty wet thanks to him. It was delightful.

At the very end it was finally time to celebrate Ukiru’s birthday!! They brought out a cake, decorated with a few candles for him. As the shacho tried to light it, Yumeru totally blew out all the candles with his fan (by accident), causing the shacho to have to start again. We all sang happy birthday to Ukiru and he blew out his candles… shortly after, he also got the cake in his face. He was a great sport about it though, and they wouldn’t let him hold the mic until he was properly cleaned up. The poor boy couldn’t open his eyes for a while, due to all the icing though.

For the finale, each member said a few words of thanks and was asked (by the shacho) how the live was. Then we all joined hands, and jumped. Like you do.

So all in all, the live was really fun. The bands were great, and I was SO happy to FINALLY see R指定 (read: Mamo) live. I also never realized how much I liked Lycaon until tonight. I mean, I’ve been a fan since they started especially because of Rito, but after tonight I like them so much more.

One other random note, is the girl who had the bucket. Wtf.
She just brought a bucket to the live. They didn’t do anything with it.
It was just a bucket. Sitting on the floor.
At one point it was on her head, but not for the actual concert. e_e

We still don’t know the story behind the bucket, and it was a bit weird.

K & A’s Adventures in Japan – Pt. 2

// August 13th, 2009 // No Comments » // Blog

Tokyo – day one.

We arrived at the Shinjuku station in Tokyo at the lovely hour of 6:15am. Kim wasn’t keen on getting up any earlier than 8:00am, so we decided to head to the Starbucks in Shibuya for some breakfast while we waited.

We did some people watching, and caught a model and some photographers. It was pretty interesting, and it seemed like it was a shoe campaign. The model was wearing a ridiculous outfit, which made her look kind of like a prostitute. While they were shooting, she was propositioned by this one guy, who she completely ignored. A bunch of people walked through the shot, and they almost got hit by a few cars. That was our breakfast entertainment. The look on everyone’s face when they realized they were in the center of the Shibuya crosswalk when the walking lights were all red was priceless.

We were walking across the crosswalk after breakfast to hail a cab, and there were two irritating guys behind us going, “Do you speak Japanese?”. They also saw that Kat’s backpack had ‘Canada’ on it, so they were like, “Canada!?”. We didn’t respond. That is not cool at 8:00am after you’ve been on the night bus and feel like complete and total ass. That is annoying.

So, we ended up meeting up with Kim and taking our much needed showers and a bit of relaxation before heading out. Kim went to work earlier, but we met up with him for lunch and had some awesome shabushabu. The guy at the restaurant was so sweet, and gave us some candy on the way out.

Next, Kat and I headed to the Meiji Shrine to check out what was going on there. While we were taking a photo, this random guy (who is now our BFF) came up to us and asked (in English) if we wanted him to take a photo of us together. That was awesome, so we said sure. I said thank you to him in Japanese, and he kind of freaked out. YOU SPEAK JAPANESE!? And he asked a bunch of questions like where we were from, and we talked for a bit. He had one question that was plaguing his mind — IS GINGERALE CANADIAN? I told him that I think it was just a brand name, but we do drink it in Canada. Then he asked if he could take a photo of us with his camera, so after deciding he wasn’t creepy, we agreed and went on our merry way.

The shrine was really beautiful, peaceful and we had some great weather. There weren’t that many people there, so it was nice. At another part of the shrine, shortly after Kat had said she wished our buddy was around so we could get a photo together, HE SHOWS UP. He asked again if he could take our photos, but separately and together. I asked him if he could take a photo of us with my camera, and he had no problem with that. So he did, and then we got our photos taken by him. He was nice, we felt like models. He was always looking for the right light, and would be like OKAY, MOVE UP! MOVE BACK! STEP HERE! He also referred to us as ‘Miss Canada’ over and over. It was cute, and he was nice so it was fun. He asked about what we didn’t like about Japan, but I told him there wasn’t anything really I disliked. It’s just different from Canada. He said he thought Canadians have a lot of freedom… and I said well, I’m a foreigner in Japan so I feel like I have a lot of freedom here anyways… he laughed. We said our goodbyes, and explored the shrine a bit more.

Afterwards we headed to Harajuku for some crazy fashion. We didn’t buy much; socks, hair bands. That’s about it. It was paced, like it always is, but it’s always interesting to look around. We were there for about three hours just window shopping mostly, and at the end were feeling pretty exhausted. So, we headed back to Shibuya where we hopped on the bus to come back to Kim’s.

On the way we stopped at the conbini where the cutest conbini boy ever was working. And blushing like crazy. He asked me if I wanted a straw which confused me, because they generally just give it to you and I’ve never been asked. I told him it wasn’t necessary.

Kat and I hung out at Kim’s for a couple hours; tried on our head bands, watched Glee, chatted… and Kim texted us saying he was ready to come home and head out to dinner. We went for some awesome gyouza.

The rest of the night was spent with the three of us on YouTube and just talking… Kat and I had a giggle fest just before we went to sleep and I honestly don’t remember what was so hilarious, but we couldn’t stop laughing. Poor Kim.

So that was yesterday! What adventures will today hold!?
We all woke up for a brief period to a lovely swaying due to the earthquake. Every time we have an earthquake (which have been two now… well, two that we felt), Kat thinks that someone is gently trying to rock her awake.

then I realized, I need it

// August 6th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Blog

I really should be asleep.

But there was one thing I wanted to post about before I went.

On Saturday, Eri and I went to Bic Camera to look at digital pianos. After nearly an hour of sitting down at various models, testing them out, and weighing all the options, I bought one.

It’s awesome.
I played it for a good twenty or so minutes, to get a good feel for it. The touch is nice, and the keys have a nice weight to them. There were a few that were really hard to press, and since my piano at home is pretty light, I didn’t want something that was going to be vastly different.

Naturally, it’s touch sensitive (wouldn’t have it any other way) and has all three pedals. The damper pedal is the most important for me, but it’s nice to have a fully functional digital piano. Some perks are that it has sixty demo songs and comes with a score book containing the music for a lot of them, a few different sound options, a duet option (so the keyboard is basically split into two, but at the same octave… pretty interesting), the ability to record, and a couple different sound settings (grand piano, electric piano… nothing out there).

It came with the stand and the music stand, but the bench wasn’t included. I didn’t buy one yet, because I figure I can just use one of my kitchen chairs. But in the future, I might get one. We’ll see how it goes. I have enough points on my Bic Camera card to pay for the bench. But, I’m also thinking of getting headphones, so I can play at those ridiculous hours that I like to play at. Like 2am.

The problem came when we went to pay for it. We had the slowest man in history waiting on us (yes, he rivals the Deli boy). THEN he messed up the payment. I originally wanted to put 50000 yen on my Visa, and pay the rest cash. But he messed up, and it ended up that I wasn’t able to use my Visa for it. Luckily, I had extra cash and my MasterCard, so I did end up being able to pay for it… but omg it was ridiculous.

HE EVEN CLICKED THE PEN ‘ON’ SLOW. Eri does the funniest impression.
We were at that point where we couldn’t help but giggle, because he was just so ridiculously slow. Then when he messed up, he didn’t even sincerely apologize. He didn’t care. He just said the stanard, すみません。間違いました。 -_-

His supervisor ended up coming over and finishing it off.

And the kicker? It won’t be delievered until August 18th.
Apparently, it takes 5 business days for them to get it.
However, next week, they’re on vacation or something. So there are no deliveries.
Meaning that it won’t come until the 18th.

It’s not a big deal, because Kat is coming on Sunday, so it’s not like I’m going to want to sit at my piano and play while she’s here, haha. But it’s still a bit annoying.

Regardless, I’m so excited. My mum gathered a bunch of my books to send with Kat, and now that I have more free time than, well, ever, I can hopefully get back to the level I used to be at. Maybe even improve.

I’m even going to practice my technical stuff.
That’s right.

My mum told Bev that I got one, and she was happy. So, I’m excited to call her and tell her about it.

And on that note, I will conclude my piano post with a photo:

For some reason, it didn’t post my last post to my LJ. I wonder why. :/

Sweet.

// July 30th, 2009 // No Comments » // Blog

I got the go-ahead to use playdough in class with the little ones for our colours and shapes week, providing that no one has a flour allergy.

I AM STOKED.

Edit: I also forgot to mention that I added the photo gallery from our trip to the mountains.

Nails and peach desserts

// July 19th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Blog

So after work on Saturday, Eri and I went to get our nails done, and then we went out for dinner.

We were a bit late leaving work because we’re having this event on Tuesday, and we were preparing for it. It’s going to be really fun, so I’m totally looking forward to it.

But anyways, the nail place isn’t too far by taxi and we got there, and everything was good. There were a lot of styles and designs to choose from! But I definitely did not want all those like, chunky jewels and stuff on the top of my nails because I know it would drive me nuts and I’d want to pick it off. Not to mention that a lot of them look pretty tacky.

So, I ended up getting sort of a French manicure, with more sparkle, haha. It’s really cool too; it’s like gel nailpolish, so while it’s my own nails, the nail polish will last for about a month. I wanted to make sure I got something I liked because that’s kind of a long time. I felt bad, because what Eri chose didn’t take as long, so she ended up having to wait for me. It took about two hours in total, and the girl was really nice. In the end, this is what I got:

I don’t know if you can tell, but below the pink line it’s light pink sparkles. I’m happy with it, although I wish my nails were a bit longer for it. Two of my nails broke, so she filed the others down so they matched. Makes sense, and I’m glad she did it that way, but, yeah.

Anyways, after nails we went to a Korean restaurant. Food was great, and we were both starving… so you know how it goes, when you’re super hungry food tastes even better. We had bibinba, spare ribs in this amazing sauce, and of course, dessert. I was torn between the mango ice cream and the peach sherbert, but I went with the peach because I feel lik it’s been forever since I had anything peachy.

That was how they served it. Which I think is just pretty AWESOME. Haha. It just looks so cool, but my fingers went numb trying to eat it (because I had to hold the peach to keep it from slipping and it peach itself was frozen). Very tasty though.