Archives For musings

Ginger Here, Ginger There, Ginger Everywhere~

January 3, 2017 — Leave a comment

Happy new year~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

YO!

For the last couple of months, and ever since I started making my own chai at home, I’ve been obsessed over ginger. I’ve always been a fan of commercial ginger ale, but it was on my trip to Japan this past March when I had a cold bottle of Asahi Wilkinson Ginger Ale at Itasoba Kaoriya (板蕎麦 香り家) in Ebisu (Tokyo), a place for soba suggested by uzaigaijin. :P After that, I spent my whole trip having ginger ale in Japan, on top of bottled Kirin Milk Tea, lol

Since then, I’ve been having ginger tea, and now— my cousin has started making ginger ice-cream as per my request xD A couple of weeks ago, my mother came over with half a bottle of Fever-Tree Premium Ginger Beer, which is just carbonated ginger water with some sugar. They also offer a Ginger Ale, as well as a Light Ginger Beer, so maybe the spice flavor is more intense on this one. I loveeeeee it.

The only bad thing is that it’s imported, so it’s kinda expensive~ considering there’s tons of locally-grown ginger, but the food industry (as an industry, not small commerce) is so lacking. It pains me to see snacks, ice creams and sodas of the same flavors churned over and over again with a different name.

In English, Japanese, Products, Sharing, Spanish , , , ,
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Kamathova, Mamamoo and Cranston! Oh, My!

December 9, 2016 — Leave a comment

What do Mamamoo and Chulpan Khamatova have in common? They all came together in a weird dream I had last night— now, the details are getting murkier, but I was walking down the street of the house where I used to live, which magically turned (I’m supposing) into some street/random place in Russia where I met Chulpan. What makes it all the more weird is that I haven’t seen Chulpan-related movies or series lately.

Suddenly we were at some high building which feature, I suppose, an incredible view of the city. It felt like we talked a lot in English… and French. I don’t even think Khamatova speaks French xD Mamamoo comes up over the fact that I, for some reason, tell Chulpan about Mamamoo. LOL AND Bryan Cranston comes up because he somehow got mad over the fact that I was talking to Chulpan about them. Hahahahaha. The dream made so little sense that the moment I woke up, I did so laughing.

In Celebrity, English, French, Fun, Korean, Photographs, Russian, Sharing , , , , , ,
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Evan Rachel Wood Appreciation~

November 11, 2016 — Leave a comment

I had this picture stored for a couple of weeks already, and forgot to post. Over 13 years ago, I was a really REALLY big fan of Evan Rachel Wood xD It was probably during one of the seasons of Once & Again, I remember I’ve rented a whole bunch of her movies, so when I moved to Vancouver, I was ecstatic to be actually able to watch Thirteen on the big screen. During my time there, I probably watched all her movies at the cinema :P

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It was on and off after leaving Canada, I still managed to watch a whole bunch of her films, but there was a period when I didn’t know anything about her. I didn’t know I missed her until I caught Into the Forest, and I was super psyched to hear that she was gonna be in HBO’s Westworld. Usually, HBO and I are not that compatible, but I caught the first episode [and read that list of actors, phew!], and I liked it quite a bit, so I’ll definitely catch the whole season when it’s done.

In Celebrity, English, Films, Photoshoots, Sharing, Television , , , , , , , ,
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1000 Days of Xiami

October 10, 2016 — 1 Comment

I’m about to clock 1000 days on Xiami logins xD

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Sad for this excitement, I know. LOL But I get obsessive-compulsive over these things easily. I took a screen grab because I don’t know whether the count will reset to zero or continue. Back in March when I went to Japan, I told my friend to login for me, so I don’t lose my clocked days, and there was a weird bug that made the counter go back to zero, so we thought for a while that it was done. A couple of days later, it went back to normal :P

I’ve been using Xiami for a lot longer, of course. And gone are the days when you could find everything on the site for stream and download :P Though you can still find stuff and download, it’s often the case when albums are empty. Recently, Xiami has taken to just be able to stream music (which is better than having blank albums), without download capabilities— Faye Wong’s most recent track is only available for stream, so you gotta find it elsewhere if you want it. The site is still a great source for Chinese music, especially from the independent scene. However, now Xiami-approved artists are allowed to mark their music as only-Mi tracks, meaning that you have to have Xiami credit on your account and not download music from your VIP free-tracks perk or use your red envelopes (points).

Having said that~~~ I have like +500 points (you get points for single days and months counted, albums added and music shared, etc.) and haven’t used them in so long. What the heck~ What are the perks of the VIP account if you still gotta pay for the Chinese music that you download; at least make it so that you use twice or thrice the # of downloads for those.

I still haven’t figured out what the note reputation is (eg. Re*), but I’m just a few hundred away from reaching the other level. Increasing my stars is a little trickier because English reviews don’t get as many likes or comments. lol

Also~ OMO! 1000 days on the 10 of 10. xD

In Chinese, English, Music, Screencaps, Sharing , , , , , , , , ,
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The Pop Cultural Relevance of Shunji Iwai’s Love Letter

September 20, 2016 — Leave a comment

Shunji Iwai’s neo-classical romance, Love Letter, about the woman who wrote letters to her deceased lover and got responses back, is over 20 years old now since its release. However, its mark as a pop culture reference across Asia is undeniable. In its time, the film made actress Miho Nakayama a household name, and it launched Shunji Iwai’s filmmaking career (and hence has given us: Ayumi Ito and Yu Aoi).

The film’s style and cinematography, courtesy of Noboru Shinoda (RIP) has inspired countless of filmmakers across East Asia who have headed to Otaru (小樽市) or other similar snowy places to capture the essence of the film [cue: 张一白 Zhang Yibai’s segment in Run for Love (奔爱), which featured Eddie Peng and Zhang Ziyi], and the classic (though simple) quote of “o-genki desuka?” (お元気ですか？) [1] has been referenced in various places…

Just look at the members of -relatively new- Kpop group G-FRIEND, who played a round of movie quotes to decide who would be the host of that specific One Fine Day episode’s segment (10 months after their debut). The group is formed by 6 young women, all who were born post-95. In fact, eldest member (and leader of the group), Sowon, was born almost 8 months after the release of Love Letter. But it is member Yuju (’97) who first references the movie with the knowledge of all the group.

one-fine-day-ep3-gfriend-yerin-sinb-yuju-shunji-iwai-ogenki-desuka-love-letter

So if you put your hands close together to shout out the words “o-genki desuka?” and the person in front answers back the same way with a “atashi genki desu.” That’s a Shunji Iwai shout-out to ya~

In Celebrity, English, Films, Japanese, Korean, Screencaps, Sharing, Television , , , , , , , , ,
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