They do not exist, and thus they are all that matters

Dum dum dum.

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:17:51 GMT

皆さんこんばんは。初めて日本語でブログを書きます。今日あたしは何も勉強しませんでした。 TT__TT 日本語のドラマ『薔薇のない花や』と『あたしんちいの男子』を見ました。

今、Kirin の午後の紅茶を飲みたい。でも、すごく高いですよ。残念ですね。

まあ、それじゃ。徐徐晩ご飯をたべます。

Amber!

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 12:52:06 GMT

I just had to post this. Amberrrrr ♥♥♥

So. Hot. TT__TT

Japan trip 2009 Part II

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 09:29:29 GMT

Extremely long overdue Part II of Japan trip. More words, more photos, and more time taken to post. WARNING: IMAGE HEAVY because I decided to add a lot of photographs in. Includes photographs of shrines, cats, food, whale sharks and other sea creatures :D

9 Jan Thursday Kyoto - Fushimi - Gion - Kyoto
We decided that today would be a free and easy day for us, so we split into two groups, with jia and gwen off early in the morning to walk around Kyoto. Fo, Momo and I woke up pretty late before deciding to head to the Fushimi-Inari shrines (伏見稲荷大社), the one which Sayuri ran through in Memoirs of a Geisha. We took a train to Inari Eki and it was just a three minute walk to the main shrine.

Main shrine

Where the torii begins at the bottom of the Inari hill.

Names of people or companies on the left side.

And the date and era on the right. Most of the torii we saw where during the Heisei era, and were made of wood.

The path splits into two! Note the two Kitsune (fox) statues at the sides.

A rare stone torii built in Meiji Era.

On the way up, we chanced upon two cats! And being the usual me, I went to play with them a bit. I wonder how they manage to survive the cold.

Notice how the cat crouches? Cats in Singapore never do that. Fwinny said it was due to the cold.

Does this not remind you of something?

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:D :D :D

We decided not to go all the way to the top, being lazy and tired, but we did manage to get to the halfway point. Momo was taking a picture of a product in a shop nearby but the owner was cranky and asked us to delete it :/ We then walked all the way back down and headed towards the station. Dropped by a convenience store and bought some snacks. I ate caramel corn! :D Fo decided to head somewhere else to explore, while Momo and I went back to the hostel before visiting Daiso, the 100 yen shop. Bought some souveniors there and then met up with Gwen, Jia and Fo for the Gion English walking tour. Momo and I took a bus there but we got off early so we walked the rest of the way >_> I felt that the tour was okay, but not worth the 1000 yen spent. We did manage to see A LOT of Maiko and Geiko though, which was considered lucky since some groups did not manage to see even one. We then walked all over Gion trying to find a place to eat before finally deciding on one.

Katsu-don for dinner!

We then walked all the way back to the hostel. I thought that i would be a short walk but it ended up taking around 30 or 40 minutes D: Can't really remember what happened after.

10 Jan Friday Kyoto - Osaka - Kyoto
Woke up at around 10ish. We then made our way to Osaka to explore. We ventured very far from the station before settling for lunch at some restaurant. We wanted to try okonomiyaki but we couldn't find a store where we could cook it ourselves D: In the end we shared 3 dishes among the 5 of us because we wanted to try different things.

焼きそば Yakisoba

Half eaten Okonomiyaki

Omusoba

After lunch we split up. I went alone to visit the Osaka Kaiyukan (海遊館), an aquarium while the rest were supposed to explore Osaka and visit places like Kiyomizu-dera. Took the train to Osakako, and found the aquarium right away. I've always wanted to visit an aquarium in Japan, so I was pretty happy even though I was alone

Osaka Kaiyukan building

Paid 2000 yen to get in. Most of the pictures were courtesy of Gwen because my camera was too lousy to capture Ninja! fish. Gwen chased me to get her wallet back which i accidently kept in my bag. The thing was, I discovered it on the train but I didn't have a handphone so I couldn't contact her. Was planning to pass it to her when we meet for the concert later but she found me when I was a quarter through the exhibits.

Needle fish?

Otters!

Kame! :D

A sloth. It didn't move a milimeter the entire time I was staring at it. And the green parts are actually green. I think it's algae ._.

And here is where my camera died on me. Why hadn't I brought my extra battery? D: And these are Gwen's photos~ If you've seen them before you can skip them because they are exactly the same.

Oh look it's a log!

And then you see what lurks underneath.

こわい! D:

But very pretty nonetheless.

Penguins that look normal on first glance. Then you go, "Where's the head?!?"

Headless penguin D: Actually it was just twisting its head backwards. It still has a head.

A sea anemone fish :D

Ninja dolphins.

Octopus hidden in a corner.

This group of fish were just hanging there staring at the top corner of the aquarium. They weren't even swimming around.

It was around here when we heard someone say "Oishii!. It's true that Japanese people would say that in an aquarium ._. And the highlight of the aquarium: the WHALE SHARKS.

One of the sharks.

The sharks were kept in a mammoth tank in which there were also many other fishes, two manta rays and many sting rays and other sharks. When I first saw the whale sharks, I was seriously stunned. They were really huge! Around 5 to 6 metres in length. I could only stand and watch in awe as they swam past me.

We moved along to see the sunfish. It is seriously one ugly fish.

"The sunfish looks like an eraser with two fins and no tail" - David, whom we met the previous night at our hostel and who in currently in Melbourne Uni

Ginormous octopus in the same tank as the sunfish.

Squid in a corner floating about. And schools of fish swimming around the rock next to it.

Really pretty green turtle! Just like the one you see in Finding Nemo.

Then it was feeding time! All the fishes started eating the food put into the tank via buckets. The whale sharks on the other hand, inhaled all their food from near the surface. Gwen has video! Other sea creatures in the whale shark tank:

Weird fishes which swam with their mouths open all the time.

We moved along to see other sea creatures like:

Crabbbbb.

Jellyfish.

Minuscule jellyfish. Compare it to my finger.

Jellyfish with super long tentacles.

Jellyfish that lights up.

Spotted jellyfish

And very pretty jellyfish.

Moving on to another section...

Sea worms! D: It was a bit disgusting to look at, popping in and out of the sand.

Otters! They were a really cute and active bunch. There are videos but I am lazy to post.
After the aquarium, Gwen and I rushed to Kyocera Dome to watch the NEWS concert. Being kiasu people, we rushed onto the first train at the station only to realise in dismay that it was an express train, so it missed the stop we where supposed to go to. After getting off from the right stop, we followed the massive trail of fangirls to the Dome. Seriously, no one can get lost. All you've got to do is follow the crowd. Gwen joined the loooooong line of fangirls to get whatever goods she wanted to, then we headed in. Since I am not a NEWS fan, it wasn't really that spectacular to me. However, it was indeed an experience. They were too far away to really see them though :/ I must say, after the concert, most of their songs got stuck in my head. Including Mola. xD

After the concert, we headed back to the hostel.

-End of Part II-

I'll be surprised if you got this far. Now only Part III is left! I want to go back to Japan again someday! :D

Part I here.

Threesome!

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 01:50:07 GMT

TO EVERYONE WHO WAS IN THREESOME:

GWEN/CLAIRE: It's really a dream come true isn't it? :D

CAST: You guys were awesome <333 I really, really enjoyed watching even from backstage ♥

CREW/LIGHTS/SOUNDS: We screwed up a little, but it was okay anyway <3. Maybe the nervous feeling was what made us so grumpy a few hours before the play! But I am glad everyone helped out. And I am sorry for being unable to come for all the rehearsals prior to the actual performance!

FOH/TICKETING/PUBLICITY/PROPS: Thank you everyone for helping out! <333

Okay I am running late and am due at justine's house like soon.

みんな、ありがとう
(Thank you, everyone)

Japan trip 2009 Part I

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 15:43:03 GMT

As you all know, I went to Japan recently (okay, not THAT recent anymore) with hackney_ed(Jia), renovak(Fwinny), htenywg(Gwen) and as_seth(Sicko).

Everytime I go on trips, there are always things that I can never remember unless I write them down, and my memories for this trip are already fading away. Let's hope it's all in here. Pardon the rather detailed details; the entire post is actually rather long. Like, really, really long. And the photos are mostly food, shrines and nature.

Also, please do actually try read the words and not skip the paragraphs because the words are so small xD

5 Jan Monday Singapore - Bangkok - Narita
We took the night flight at 840pm to transit at Bangkok before reaching Japan. I tried to sleep on the plane but crying baby + good sleep do not go together. Sicko(I keep thinking of Jia's pants wwwwww) said that the Bangkok airport looked old mainly because of the dusty windows. On the plane ride to Japan, we saw a really beautiful sky which my lousy digital camera did no justice to.

6 Jan Tuesday Narita - Kuramae - Hiroo - Kuramae
Arrived in Japan in the morning! Bought the train ticket to Kuramae in Tokyo. Apparently we were rather lucky and there just happened to be a special train on that day that went straight to Ueno and then Kuramae so we didn't need to navigate our way through train stations and various railway lines. Unfortunately the never-ending train journey that took approximately one and a half hours wasn't exactly good news for me because I needed to go to the toilet halfway. In the end I went to the toilet at McDonalds just next to the station. We got semi-lost finding our way to the hostel because the map provided wasn't very accurate, but we found it in the end. We shared a 5 person room in K's House Tokyo, which was a backpacker's hostel.

I must say, the first impression of the hostel wasn't that spectacular. Maybe it's because the main branch was in Kyoto, and in Tokyo space is so limited. The lounge, kitchen and Japanese style room was all in one room on the ground floor, so it seemed rather small. The lift was also very small; a maximum of 3 people could enter it at a time. I thought the walls were made of wood because of the colour but it turns out to be the wallpaper covering the metal walls.

After we dumped our luggage, Sicko, Fwinny and I went to check out the 7 eleven store just a mere 10 seconds walk away (which is relatively short as compared to our walk to the convenience store when we stayed at K's House Kyoto later on). Convenience stores are called "conbi" in Japanese, and there are so many different companies like 7 eleven, Lawson's, Family Mart, Mini Mart, etc. I guess supermarkets aren't that common in Japan, and many people actually do visit these convenience stores to purchase stuff. I found the final fantasy potion in a can! xD I remember seeing an advertisement for it on youtube and how it could only be found in Japan.

Then we took the train down to Hiroo to meet with Fwinny's friends which turned out to be just one friend as the rest were studying for their entrace exams into university. Ate lunch at a ramen place (which I forgot to take a photo of completely D:) and walked around a park, which I found out from Jia's post that it was the Arisugawa-no-Miya memorial park. The park was really scenic and relaxing. Hiroo is where a lot of foreign embassies are located, so we saw many ang mohs and their families around the area.

After lunch, when we were just walking around.

People fishing in the park.

Really pretty maple leaves.

We then walked to Roppongi to take the subway back to Kuramae. We were laughing about how Ropponji directly translates into 6 original wood/trees (六本木,) xD Then we met Gwen at the hostel, and then went to the nearby soba shop to eat dinner. In the end we ordered 4 bowls of plain hot soba before Fwinny reminded Gwen that she was supposed to collect tickets for the NEWS concert. In the end Gwen left, and Fwinny followed her Shibuya to collect the tickets. I was supposed to share a bowl of soba with Sicko but Gwen didn't even touch her meal so I ate an entire bowl instead. :/ Then we went back to the hostel and I collapsed on the bed from sheer tiredness.

Semi awe-inspiring Roppongi Hills. *nfu*六本木*nfu*

7 Jan Wednesday Kuramae - Asakusa - Tokyo - Kita-kamakura - Kamakura - Ikekuburo - Shibuya - Kuramae
Went to many places today. We got up rather early, bought breakfast and walked to Senso-ji in Asakusa. I had melon bread~ :D I paid 100 yen to get the fortune thing but i smartly didn't shake the container to get a stick with a number on it. >_> Oh well. As it was rather early in the morning, most of the shops weren't open yet, but the atmosphere was really peaceful and relaxing.

Senso-ji

Melon bread! I forgot to take a photo without the cover.

Shops along the street. I love the decorations.

Next, we headed to Tokyo station to activate our rail passes and book the Shinkansen tickets to Kyoto and back. At first glance, Tokyo station seemed like a really complicated maze. However, once you get the basic idea of the structure of the station, it actually was easy to navigate through. We stopped at a bagel shop to eat brunch after we booked the tickets. Gwen and I got semi lost trying to find the toilets which were like 3 floors up from where we originally were. It was at this time when we found out what you liao and 無料 means. Basically it's like you pay for the you liao one and the 無料 one is free. ^_^

We then decided to visit the shrines in Kamakura, getting off at the Kita-Kamakura station and slowly make our way to Kamakura. We went to Engaku-ji which was just next to the station. It was there where I saw 1. Cute boy! 2. Heron! 3. Mail man! Sicko kept making me sound like a pedophile, but Japanese kids are so cute! :3

Part of Engaku-ji and small bright blob that is Gwen.

Heron/鷺(Sagi)

Mailman who attempted to ninja away but failed 8D

Jia and Fwinny

In between Kita-Kamakura and Kamakura, we discovered that some roads we walked on were very narrow and that any mode of transportation was allowed on the narrow roads when suddenly a car loomed behind us as we were walking to Kamakura. The road was just wide enough to squeeze the car in though. As we walked along, there were many school boys coming from the opposite direction, so we were thinking that there might have been a school nearby.

We chanced upon a shrine dedicated to the kings of hells (as I found out was called Ennoji from Jia's post), which we had to jaywalk and climb a flight of stairs to reach. It was indeed amazing to find small shrines like this in the nooks and crannies of the town. The statues were rather scary though, and reminded me of the Enma statue in Jigokudani (Hell's Valley) in Hokkaido which eyes would light up and the entire statue would move at specific times D:

At Kamakura, we visited the most famous shrine Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū. We could see a really long line of people queuing up along the stairs just to say a prayer. Gwen and Fwinny bought the wooden things that you wrote your wishes on and hung them up. After that, I bought a really small candied apple, and we decided to hunt for a place to eat lunch. After walking and walking and questioning the strange absence of food stalls around, we finally found a カレーライス (Curry rice) place to eat at. The shop owners were really friendly and asked where we came from, even giving us a map and sweets to snack on. :D OMG i didn't take a picture of the curry rice. Nooooooooooo.

Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu. The queue wasn't that long then.

We wandered around a bit before heading to Ikekuburo by train to hit Mandrake (doujin shop) and Animate. Bought a Domo-kun key chain for my brother and One Piece stuff for Zk. I suppose it was due to the recent lack of personal interest in anime that didn't make me that excited xD

Jia and Fwinny left to go back after that as Fwinny was dying. Gwen, Sicko and I tried to get into the arcades cos I wanted to see what it was like, but we kept getting chased out as Gwen didn't look 18 and her passport was with Jia so we couldn't proof our age. I think that in the arcades, as long as you look 18, they really wouldn't bother, because we saw a high school girl walking around in her uniform but she wasn't chased out D:

The three of us hit Shibuya after that, because Gwen said that that was one of the places we needed to see for ourselves. Surprisingly, the Shibuya crossing at the Hachiko exit didn't really amaze me. Somehow, it seemed that the number of people at the crossing wasn't that large. I wanted to go to Gain (Nagayan's store), but I didn't know the address and I think the store was closed already ): We wandered around a bit more then took the train to Asakusa and walked back to the 7 eleven near our hostel to get dinner. I bought the cheese pasta thing which I forgot to take photo of D:

8 Jan Thursday Kuramae - Tokyo - Utsunomiya - Nikko - Tokyo - Kyoto
Our last day in Tokyo before heading towards Kyoto. We checked out, dumped our luggage in the coin lockers at Tokyo Station and made our way towards Nikko for our day trip. We bought bento at Utsunomiya to eat but Gwen and I were contemplating on whether we should eat on the train since it's a side-scrolling train and not like the Shinkasen one. We saw another Japanese guy holding a bento and were waiting for him to start eating so we could eat as well, but he ran out of the train before the train left for Nikko D: In the end, we caved in and just ate on the train. The food was really salty though. Oh and this was when we found out that the seats for Shinkansen trains (since we took one from Tokyo to Ustunomiya) could actually be turned backwards! Unfortunately the cleaners who were doing so were so Ninja that I didn't manage to get a photo of it D:

We sat on the bottom floor of the train, which explained the weird angle.

Inside our compartment on the lower floor. If you look carefully you can spot what-exactly-is-below-the-platform outside the windows as well as Gwen's jacket.

Vending machine at Utsunomiya Eki.

Cleaner was too ninja to be caught on camera turning chairs.

My lunch which was very salty.

Nikko was mostly sightseeing, but when we wanted to get back to the Nikko station, we smartly waited at the opposite side of the road. When we found out, it was too late as we just missed that bus back. So we walked back to near the bridge to the other bus stop, where Sicko and I bought dango to eat♥ In the end we missed the train anyway and had to wait 1 hour for the next one D: Lucky we could rebook our Shinkansen tickets to Kyoto from the Nikko counter.

Police Station!

Beautiful view of the mountains.

Bridge over ~~troubled~~ crystal clear water~♫

Spider web glistening in the sun.

Mitarashi Dango~

While waiting for train, we walked to a nearby omiyage shop. I think at first the shopkeeper was rather hostile and gave off the 'if you're not going to buy anything then please leave ktnkzbai' vibe. Maybe it was just me who felt it. In the end Jia bought Castella for her mum, and we had a rather amusing time trying to ask her what was the expiry date in Japanese.

We reached Tokyo station, and bought dinner to eat on the 3 hour ride to Kyoto. I wasn't that hungry then so I bought Baumkuchen cake and pudding to eat~ But my inner carnivore started surfacing when I was on the train ride itself, so I kept eyeing the meat in Gwen's bento xD On the 3 hour ride, we abused our newly discovered information about the seats and happily turned back and forth, even taking inspiration hand shots while the rest of the passengers were like wtf-are-you-doing. Oh well.

Inspirational hand shot.

The chairs that *gasp* turn!

Eventually we reached Kyoto station, and walked to our hostel. We meet Fake card tricks this night also know as Japanese guy who was looking for apartment in Kyoto to stay in and taught him how to play taiti. In the end we stayed up to 3am playing and talking, so we decided to sleep in the next day and postpone our Himeji trip.

-End of Part I-

I am finally done. I think I spent more time on this than Gwen did on hers. Hur hur.

[Fic] Unrequited? (Jongmin)

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:59:03 GMT

I just felt like writing a really short drabble due to the Chunji radio show. First fic in a few years, which is why it's so short. Don't read if you don't want to.

Title: Unrequited?
Length: 222 words
Rating: PG
Pairing: Jongmin

"Why did you do that?"

An awkward silence greeted Taemin's question, as his target stood stunned, finger still hovering over the button on the vending machine.

After a momentarily lapse, Jonghyun's facial features seemed to have regained it's mobility. He cracked into a smile and forced out a laugh, "Don't be silly! I just thought you were really cute at that moment! There's no special meaning to it! Really!"

"Ah, is that so?" You should have just said so earlier! I mean, you were acting really weird after that. But you really shouldn't do that next time! It really tickles!" Taemin replied before happily bouncing off to disturb the other members of the group.

Jonghyun swallowed hard. Truth to be told, he didn't really know why he extended his hand to stroke Taemin's head just now. It was more of an impulse than rational thinking. He just couldn't resist teasing that cute mushroom head, especially when...

Wait what on earth am i thinking about!Jonghyun thought. He shook his head repeatedly to clear his thoughts. There's nothing wrong with me! He's just a close friend after all!

The drink he ordered lay untouched in the open compartment at the bottom, rapidly losing its heat to the freezing air that did nothing to cool down the heat on Jonghyun's cheeks.

Unbeknownst to himself, a tiny smile surfaced on his lips as he slowly ambled back.

Icons 006 [6 icons+ 6 banners + 8 wallies]

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:53:51 GMT

1 week 2 days to BLOCKS TT__TT ihatemathandbioandurgheverything.

Icons:
[5] Key
[1] Jonghyun

Banners:
[6] Shinee

Wallpapers:
[8] Shinee

Icons

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Banners

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-please credit arkenxin if using any
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-icon credit post: here
-icon table generator: here
-pictures taken from sm_shinee

Icons 005 [36 icons+6 banners+3wallpapers]

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:40:39 GMT

Icons:
[12]Kitty Guys
[6] Haruma Miura
[18]SHINee

F.O. Banner:
[1]Haruma Miura
[3]SHINee

Profile Picture:
[2]SHINee

Wallpaper:
[3]SHINee

ICONS
KITTY GUYS

001	002	003


004	005	006


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HARUMA MIURA

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-comments are loved♥
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-icon credit post: here
-icon table generator: here
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icons 004

Wed, 14 May 2008 14:46:36 GMT

Finally searched around for photoshop, installed it, and played with it for a while. ahh i miss icon-making. even though i'm not very good at it ^__^

4 x Haruma
2 x Shirota
1 x Takuya
1 x Soubi

Please credit if taking! to arkenxin (:

Very bad haze

Sat, 07 Oct 2006 13:08:40 GMT

.__________. The PSI is at 150 now.

I can only hope it does not continue to increase and hit 200, which would be very very bad.

Icons 003

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 10:08:32 GMT

[ mood | accomplished ]

Icons, icons, icons ._.

Credit: Brushes, textures, bases - http://arkenxin.livejournal.com/11517.html
Images - Leah impressioniste, kooriyoukai for the kimeru scans, lilenvyness for the araki scans

Kimeru 4x
Kamakari 1x
Araki 3x
Tenipuri 10x

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
11. 12. 13. 14. 15.
16. 17. 18.

If used, please credit? :3

Icons 002

Sun, 26 Mar 2006 09:47:16 GMT

More icons!

13x Tenimyu
3x Tenipuri

1. 2. 3. 4.
5. 6. 7. 8.
9. 10. 11. 12.
13. 14. 15. 16.

Credits to hackney_ed for the topstage scans, tomomik for providing the hyouteimyu summer and winter backstage, and impressioniste for providing the opening and ending video. (:

Comment if you take please? I love to read comments (: