Wah! I can't believe I don't have any photos of Shinjuku and Kabukicho! How did this happen??!! T___T

Now I definitely need to go back to Japan to take photos of those places.

Asakusabashi and Bakurocho

This is the area I thought of as home while I was in Japan. Although I still don't know whether the Nihonbashi Villa Hotel was in Bakurocho, or Asakusabashi, or both. What is a -cho, anyway? Or a -bashi, for that matter? And while we're on the topic, what is a dori? Does it really mean "street", or is that just a general translation? :)

Asakusabashi and Bakurocho photos (annotated).

Harajuku

Harajuku is my most favorite place in Japan. Takeshita Dori is a (young) shopper's paradise. It's where you'll find clothes and shoes and accessories that are so difficult to find in the Philippines. Platform boots, gothic lolita attire and jrock paraphernalia mingle with the kawaii (Disney and Sanrio trinkets and ruffles) and affordable fashion (one-piece 60s-style dresses are all the rage when I was there). I spent more here than at all other shopping places I visited in Japan combined. XD

Harajuku photos (annotated).

Ginza

I only walked through Ginza for a couple of hours. I didn't visit any of the popular high-end shopping centers. I did most of my shopping at the stores right in front of the Ginza Station exit. I didn't enjoy myself much here, as most of the people are yuppie types. It's like being in Ayala Avenue.

Ginza photos (annotated).

Shibuya

Shibuya photos (annotated).

Yoyogi Park

Yoyogi Park photos (annotated).

Ueno Park

Ueno Park photos (annotated).

Day 6: Shibuya, Yoyogi, Harajuku

( Shibuya: Hachiko the dog, Shibuya crossing, 109, Mos Burger )

( Yoyogi: Yoyogi Park )

( Back to Harajuku: Takeshita Dori, Meiji Shrine )

Day 7: Akihabara, Ueno and Ginza

( Akihabara: Electric Town, Yukari Okonomiyaki )

( Ueno Park )

( Ginza )

Day 8: Ikebukuro, Harajuku, and Akihabara

( Sunshine City: Another dream fulfilled )

( Takeshita Dori (again!) )

( Akihabara with Yuffie )

Day 9: Kabukicho, Bakurocho and Goodbye, Japan

( One quick, final trip to Kabukicho )

( Bakurocho )

( To Narita Airport )

And then it was Goodbye, Japan! Thanks for the adventure; I had so much fun! I want to do this every year (at least).


Photos coming soon. :)

I'm back!

Went to dinner with my sisters, my mom and Tita Patty to celebrate Mothers' Day. I'm so full. Who's great idea was it to go to an all-you-can-eat buffet, anyway? -.-

( Takeshita Dori )

( Omotesando )

Today, I'm going to Shibuya, and then maybe Ikebukuro, or back to Harajuku to visit the park and the temple (I forgot about them after all the walking and shopping I did. LOL).

Warning: Ultra-fangirly Taglish post below.

( hide Memorial Summit Day 2 )

It is final. Flight and hotel have been booked and paid for. I guess it's safe to announce now without jinxing...

I'll be in Japan next Friday, hopefully to go to the 2-day hide Memorial Summit. (IF yuffchan can get me the tickets. *cross fingers* Thanks in advance, Yuff! I have a 2-day pass! Thanks so much yuffchan!!!)

I'm on the morning JAL flight to Narita on May 2, and will be in Tokyo until May 10. I will be staying at the Nihonbashi hotel, which is supposedly near the Ueno/Asakusa area. I have booked the Ghibli half-day tour on May 7, but other than this and the summit, I have no plans for the 9 days at all. So if anyone has any suggestions of places/food/activities I shouldn't dare miss, please let me know. ;D

Oh, and I have a few questions to all of the Japan experts out there:

1. What's the weather like in Tokyo now?
2. Is there anywhere I can get a full map of the Tokyo subway and train station routes?
3. Should I get a PASMO or JR Rail Pass?

Thanks!

Yep, I was at Bora during the weekend. Loved it, didn't want to leave, all that chorvah. I'll probably post more about the vacation later (don't hold your breath, though).

In the mean time, here are pics!

***

I've been super-busy this month, so I have a lot of catching up to do on the friends list front. I hope nothing extraordinary happened while I was busy and/or vacationing? Please update me if I missed anything major. :)

***

In other news. I'm planning another something big. I'll write about it when everything's definite (although some of you can probably already guess what it is). Hehe.

I went back to the Korean salon near our office to get my hair trimmed (I know I said I'll grow my hair out, but I just can't stand the wild state my hair was in the past couple of weeks).

While Miss Cindy was working on my hair, her staff sweet-talked me into trying their imported Korean food products. I wasn't into sweets, and I'm in the middle of my "no drinking my calories" diet, so I couldn't buy their pies, cookies and juices. I settled on the cup noodles (actually, more like bowl noodles, since each "cup" was gigantic). The pictures on them looked nice, and, at 40+ pesos each, they were relatively cheap for import noodles.

I will have one for breakfast tomorrow. I think it would be better if I had some vegetables and meat, though. Does anyone know if there is any place in Metro Manila that sells those super-thin slices of pork/beef (like the ones used for shabu-shabu)?

***

I wanted to post about my terrible day yesterday, too, but I suddenly feel tired. I'll just write about it some other time. Let me just say that near the end of my shitty day, I saw Claire, and she was wearing the cutest cutest watch I have ever seen. The watch itself was round and big (like the Pop Swatches from the days of yore), and the band was three rows of large hot pink beads. I want! I really, really want! I wonder where she got it from? And why do I end up lusting for envying going gaga over everything that's Claire's??!! Sana ako na lang siya! Kahit one day lang. I wonder, do people like her have shitty days, too?

I finally got into HK ticketing last night (after literally dozens of times trying) to get tickets for the L'Arc~en~Ciel live, but the system kept offering me the best seats at the time, which were in Block D, floor level seating. I'm not sure how high the stage will be, and I'm not flying all the way to Hong Kong to watch the backs of people's heads. So I thought I'd wait a day for all the Block D tickets to get sold.

Big mistake. Now, the only seats available are at the crappy back corner areas, where probably the only thing I'd get a good view of is the ceiling.

So, should I go ahead and grab it anyway? It's the cheapest I would spend on a L'Arc concert, unless they actually visit the Philippines. I have to decide tonight, because if I wait another day, there might not be any more tickets left.


PS

Okay, my decision is to leave the deciding to fate. Hehe. If there are still available tickets tomorrow, I'll go to the HK gig. If there aren't, I'll just spend my time and money on the hide memorial. L'Arc is an active band. There'd be other opportunities for me to see them perform live, right? (Besides, it's really no fun going without kkoorime, because who will I be excited with?)

Yoshinoya is my new favorite place to eat. And not just because of their delicious Gyudon beef. ^.^

Excerpts from the infamous speech by Oklahoma State Rep Sally Kern about the so-called Homosexual Agenda destroying her nation:

"[The homosexual lifestyle] has deadly consequences for those people involved in it. It has more suicides. They’re more discouraged. There’s more illness. Their lifespans are shorter. You know, it’s not a lifestyle that is good for this nation."

"Studies show that no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted more than, you know, a few decades. So it’s the death nail for this country."

"I honestly think it’s the biggest threat, even in our nation. Even more so than terrorists, or Islam."

"They’re going after, in schools, two year olds! You know why they’re trying to get early childhood education? They want to get our young children into the government schools so they can indoctrinate them."

"If you have cancer in your little toe, do you just say that I'm going to forget about it since the rest of you is fine? It spreads! This stuff is deadly and it is spreading. It will destroy our young people and it will destroy this nation."

So, based on her maths, evil has the following hierarchy:

homosexuality = cancer = death
homosexuality > terrorism
homosexuality > Islam

LOLOLOLOL!!!! I'm sorry, I know there's nothing funny about a religious zealot in office but the speech was just so stupid that it's hilarious.

The Catholic church released a new set of deadly sins, in addition to the original seven. They are the following:

1. taking or dealing in drugs,
2. excessive accumulation of wealth,
3. ruining the environment,
4. carrying out morally debatable scientific experiments,
5. allowing genetic manipulations which alter DNA or compromise embryos,
6. abortion, and
7. paedophilia.

I wouldn't mind seeing polluters and pedophiles go to hell. I wouldn't mind going to hell for #2 either.

But I'm guilty of 4 and 5. It was back when they haven't been added to the deadly sins list yet, though, so I might be safe. ;)

***

Here is a list of the original sins and their punishments (from The Picture Book of Devils, Demons and Witchcraft):

Pride - Broken on the wheel
Envy - Put in freezing water
Gluttony - Forced to eat rats, toads, and snakes
Lust - Smothered in fire and brimstone
Anger - Dismembered alive
Greed - Put in cauldrons of boiling oil
Sloth - Thrown in snake pits

My deadly sins are gluttony and sloth. So I imagine I'd be thrown in a pit with snakes, and will be forced to eat them. Yay.

HydexTeruxTakuro Honey and Yuuwaku performance

(Thanks, dreamlessness and reiichiru!)

I wrote a long fangirl post about the performance, but deleted it at the last minute. I'll let the video speak for itself.

I have decided that instead of hate, I will think of bunny ears,



sleeping dogs,



and sunshine smiles. :D


I have also decided to let me hair grow out again. Please kick me if I get another pixie cut.

I have been confused with a lot of things lately, and I thought of doing a tarot reading for myself, but I can't quite figure out what the cards mean. Help? Here are my cards (Celtic Cross spread):

1. The Hanged Man
2. Knight of Cups
3. The Emperor
4. Queen of Disks
5. The Priestess
6. Wealth
7. Prince of Swords
8. Ace of Disks
9. The Devil
10. Ace of Swords

I haven't touched my deck for years, so I'm a bit rusty, but some of the cards seem to be in conflict, right? I would appreciate any help figuring out the meaning of the above layout.

I also tried the Osho Zen tarot reading. ( Here are the results. )

I wonder if the two readings agree with each other.

1. I got a haircut. Again. I don't think I'll ever be patient enough to grow my hair out, ever. I tried out the Korean salon near our office and just let the stylist do what she wants with my hair. I ended up with a cut that's sort of like the earlier T'Pol's. I think it's cool. Live long and prosper, kids. :)

2. I got a raise. I'm happy about it. Enough said.

3. I dreamt that a teammate announced his resignation. Two days later, he really does. Does this mean I'm clairvoyant?


I was going to watch The Prestige on cable tonight, but now I'd rather just sleep. Good night.

http://www.larc-en-ciel.com/overseas/ (Thanks defune_hime!)

They have a gig in Hong Kong, one of the very few countries we are allowed entry without a visa. Yahoooooo~~

Ticket prices range from HK$380 to HK$980 only (that's roughly the same price as local concerts, I think). And as if that weren't cool enough, tickets are available for sale online starting April. Meaning: no more desperate auction-bidding for outrageously-priced tickets!

Kaya let's gonads mga kapatid! (Meron pa yatang piso-fare ang Cebu Pac mwehehe.)

The HK concert is on May 24 (Saturday). There are also dates set for Taipei, Seoul and Shanghai, but I'm not sure how hard it is to get entry visas to those countries.

I was reading through Management for Dummies (don't ask!), and on the part about goals, I came across this excerpt from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, where Alice is seeking advice from the Cheshire Cat:

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.

"I don't much care where--" said Alice.

"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.

"--so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.

"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

Ouch. I've been walking for more than three decades and I realize I still don't know where I want to go. Not that I'm unhappy in this somewhere that I ended up in. I'm just not sure if this is where I really want to be, or if this is just where the easiest path led me to.

Jan. 5 - My best friend from Grade School to High School finally gets married, after 20ish(?) years of praying for Mr. Right.

The romantic in me can't help but feel gushy about their love story. Gail has gone through so many guys, and is in the brink of losing hope of ever finding the right man for her. But after her nth failed relationship, she realizes that she is falling in love with Jun, who she used to call 'kuya' and has been hanging with for years. Jun, a 40+ year-old guy, has sworn off love and women for more than ten years, after he caught his girlfriend cheating on him. But his hatred for women thawed when he falls in love with Gail. ♥

Photos from Gail's Multiply account

***

Jan. 25 - NTF belts it out at the Elbow Room.

Emil and the rest of our Ninja counterparts in LA treat us to a night at a Karaoke/Billiards place. They reserved a VIP room for us at the Elbow Room. Isn't that sweet? Medyo bitin nga lang. Dapat hanggang midnight ang reservation! :)

Eky's Flicker Photoset

Sige na nga, sagutan na itong meme. Tutal, centennial naman e.

( Go. )

Yesterday, I visited a new derma to get a second opinion about my recurring rashes, since my last derma kept forbidding me to eat almost all my favorite food (and everyone knows just how long I can say no to chicken and eggs).

Well, the new one didn't give me a list of not-to-eat food. She just told me that I had to "get rid of my dog."

Right.

Guess I won't be going back to that derma, either.