smeeta's Xanga

Rita and Sean in Nippon - Week 2

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:13:42 GMT

Karlex in Kyoto and other Kinds

Our second week was one full of music... I like. :) Here it is in photos...

Lito playing with his band at the Blarney Stone in Osaka. They were great and the crowd looooved them! We met Lito in Vancouver in July at Chris and Melissa's wedding. It's a good thing we did cuz he invited us to stay with him in his apartment in Osaka. :) Thanks Lito!!

Fuyuki rippin it up on the guitar.

Lito's living room/office/dining room/guest room

The street performers in Japan are all aspiring singers. They bring their whole set up of mic and amp and percussion, CD stand, and some even already have a loyal fan base. Apparently, lots of bands get started this way.

Kyoto!

Chopstick taboos. Which ones are you guilty of?!
I like to use mine to point. :)

Lanterns at a shrine in Kyoto. They're everywhere... tucked away in the shopping districts. Sometimes you see can see the salarymen make a quick stop into them and then bustle along on their merry ways.

The bar in Kyoto that Karlex was performing at.

We had the pleasure of meeting Karlex who hails from France. He was in Japan for the Kansai International Music Festival and Lito and some of his band were backing him up.

I wasn't sure what I thought about his music when I first heard it in Lito's apartment but as I listened more and heard it straight from the artist, I really liked it. Karlex has a great presence and he's just an all around genuine and nice guy. Great afro-beat music with an actual message.

We got to see Corteo compliments of my old high school friend who joined the circus!
Yuki, Lito, Sean and I under the big top.

geee neee usss
except for the fact that you have to make sure you don't get thet seat wet while washing your hands.

Saying our farewells to Karlex and Collette after his last show in Japan.

Frank jamming at Papillon!

The Elvis gang performs every Friday at Pappilon.
Sometimes we get to play too. :) Fun times! (I think Sean is hiding out on the drums)

more pics here: http://flickr.com/photos/smeeta

osaka days 5-7

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:43:59 GMT

Days 5 - 7 in short:

Day 5 - lots of lounging around laundry and lunch
Day 6 - Osaka Castle
Day 7 - Lunch with Jer, getting lost in Umeda, and then Elvis

words will not flow from me in proper paragraphs right now so here are some pictures with captions. it's almost 4pm! hahah, will write more about that later... enjoy! :D

butterfly in plum garden on the way to the castle

The sign is a warning to people that there are serious fines if you throw out an animal onto the street or if you're found abusing one. Apparently that happens all too often here. We saw a gang of cats hanging out in the park and one of them had no eyes. :(

Fortunately, this one has eyes...

Finally made it to Osaka Castle after a REALLY long trudge on a scorching hot day. Why is it so hot here?! We've been seeing temperatures in the area of 29 degrees every day this week.

It was reconstructed semi-recently and now holds a museum collection of the events surrounding the construction, destruction, and reconstruction of the castle.

View of the city from the castle gates

TORAYA!!!!
My first craft shop score for the trip. I was fully prepared to buy (and possibly have to ship back) tonnes of fabric for my crafting biz. This store did not dissapoint and I will definitely be back for more before we leave. :)

We met up with Jer for lunch! He's here touring with Cirque du Soleil
(which he got us tickets for this Wednesday! w00tw00t!)

And this is what we had... mmmm... our first sushi meal in Japan. The scallops were AMAZING. The set lunch came with a hearty miso soup with onions and fish and we also got a side of cold noodles (oops, I ate them before I took the picture!)

Sukiya! Here's what Japanese fast food looks like. Piping hot rice bowls served up in seconds with sides of soup and salade.

We moseyed our way down to a local restaurant/pub that hosts Elvis night every Friday.
We had an awesome time jammin with the locals and not so locals! They were so cute... Ryoji and Kimiko who own the bar like to dress up and slick their hair. :)

And of course, who should we meet on Elvis night other than the King himself!
lol. This dude isn't even part of the band, he just comes dressed up every week.

day 4 - suntory museum and kaiyukan aquarium

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:20:34 GMT

Suntory Museum and Kaiyukan Aquarium

We hopped onto a few trains to get to the Tempozan area which is right by the water. It was kind of a funny seemingly deserted port-town. Lots of shops but hardly any were open... around lunch though lots of older businessy looking gentlemen were out. We arrived at Suntory Museum after some tasty Japanese eats and found out that the current display was a collection of Studio Ghibli storyboards. Sweet! Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos inside, but fortunately you were able to purchase the entire museum collection in book form (I couldn't resist) I was really inspired by the drawings and now it's got me wanting to learn how to draw. As if my brain wasn't pulled in enough directions already. :P

train to Osakako station

We snuck in a picture at the museum! These little guys were in the stairwell.

So cool! In the lobby there were little tables set up where you could draw your own little dust/ash creatures from Spirited Away on round stickers. Then you got to stick them on these two gynormous walls. Fun. :)

We also took in an IMAX 3D movie called Under the Sea 3... triptastic. The only thing was that since it was in Japanese we had to use headphones for the English narration. The headphones were wonky... they only worked if you tilted your head in a certain direction! Lol. Super crick in the neck.

After the museum it was just a hop skip and a jump away to the Kaiyukan Aquarium famous for its whale sharks (they're so cute! and huge!) We could have just sat and watched the fish in that huge tanks for hours on end. Such fascinating creatures.

Another kind of fascinating creature are the Japanese. As we walked throughout the exhibits in the aquarium we could hear no end of squeals of delight! "OoooOOOH!" "OHHHHHHH!" Hehehe. It was awesome and so distinctly "Japanese". Reckless abandon when it comes to squealing from both genders.

penguin floating around...

hello mr. toitle

yum!

WHALE SHARK! OMNOMNOM.
check out the little fish below him... how do they do that?
It attached itself somehow to the whale shark and went for a free ride.

yum again!

There was a tank full of sting rays and little sharks and you could touch them. The rays had a jello like texture and the sharks were rough like sandpaper.

You can see more pics on my FB page.

To be continued...

rita and sean in nippon (day 3)

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:30:06 GMT

Minami Area

I can't seem to remember what we did during the day... but in the afternoon we ended up going to the Minami area. This consisted of traipsing our way through an area called America Mura and then we went across and hit the Shinsaibashi covered shopping arcade. Holy long shopping arcade Batman! This was nuts. I've never seen such a long arcade in my life. Just store after store after store in this area... it was packed with ppl and went on for blocks on end. As soon as we thought it had ended (we reached a large main street), there it was starting again on the other side!

A mural/graffiti in America Mura

Some of the crazy outfits we saw for sale...

Shinsaibashi shopping arcade

women make the world go round...

Aaahaha, in the Sanrio shop we found Luchador Hello Kitty.
Or as some people like to refer to it, S&M Hello Kitty.

Oh right... some time before Minami we dropped by Daiso and found these super cute sponges!
They sure like to put things in outfits in Asia...

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:41:51 GMT

i'm really hating this theme thing on xanga.

smeeta and sean in nippon (day 1 - 3)

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:33:16 GMT

day 1

- most of the plane ride was OK until about an hour before landing. HORRIBLE turbulence for almost an hour. Felt like I was going to puke and I finally did when we arrived at the airport. To top it all off, I had the beginnings of a sty which did NOT react happily... I think it had to do with the change in air pressure. the thing went from being big to HUGE. On a scale of 1-10 with 1 being a totally normal eye, I'd say it was a 6 or 7.... I mean, at least I could still see! I could imagine it getting so big that I couldn't even open my eye but thank God it didn't get to that point!

this picture makes my eye look GOOD.
you can imagine what it really looked like in person. ugh.

- getting to Lito's place from the train was a bit harder than expected... it was pouring rain and we thought it was super close, but when we asked the tourist info desk about how to get there.. they were like... umm... it's kind of far! hahaha. Oh well. We made it. Wet and tired, but we made it! Then we slept. From 6pm to 6am. Oh yes, we were TIRED.

day 2

this "point and speak" book lent to us by my co-worker sure came in hand!

- 4 hours of exploring the neighbourhood around Lito's apartment including: finding a place with picture menus for breakfast, admiring all the tiny cars, grocery shopping, hanging out in a wal-mart type department store, roaming back and forth through the subway underground mall, and having mcD's for lunch - (the ebi filet-o had sean intrigued and apparently it was pretty tasty!)

sean was drooling over all the cool teeny tiny cars

gaggles of school girls swarming the train station

ebi filet-o

- we ended the day by taking a trip to Yodobashi Camera which is a gynormous department store full of electronic goods and fashion and eateries. I almost passed out as we perused the laptop bags cuz by that time it would've been 4am PST.

obligatory vending machine photo

obligatory mochi photo

crazy like a unicorn barfed rainbows and it morphed into shoes

Lito, Sean, me.

to be continued...

dr. choy’s 8000% fun

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:47:24 GMT

I know this guy.
His name is Dr. Choy.
He’s actually an artist.
And not a doctor.
But he does prescribe 8000% bok choy as your daily intake.

Fun times were had at this photo shoot! Noah (AKA Dr.Choy) just released his second line of t-shirts and I had the great pleasure of being a part of it.

Look at them guns!

He’s got an Etsy shop as well, so please, do take a looksee!

drchoy.etsy.com

enjoy choy!

photography by Adam Luk

Congrats to Renu and Dan!

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 04:15:45 GMT

Here are some pics from the wedding I attended a couple of weekends ago..

The lovely bride and groom after their traditional Hindu ceremony
People tossed so much rice at them that it went up their noses! No joke,
I heard this straight from the bride's mouth.

Belly dancing entertainment during dinner

I love this photo so much. Yes, I know it's blurry.
But this captures her essence entirely- bright, sparkling, and a whirlwind of energy

Zan and I in our borrowed garb.
Let me tell you, putting on a sari is no easy task! I thought I had it down pretty good until I showed up at the wedding and a kind lady told me that I had the shirt on backwards. LOL!

Henna hands.
This is so beautiful I would consider it for a permanent tattoo... hmm...

A gaggle of gorgeous girls.

Aww. :)
*wishes she had a better camera and steadier hands*

I *only* participated in two nights of frivolity but their was about a whole week full of it! It was really nice to catch up with some old friends from way back (elementary school!) and to meet some new peeps. It's kind of crazy how these wedding parties work... they did two nights with about 450 people each... there were some family parties the nights before and also the henna party. Goodness! How does a bride even have time to sleep? :)

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 02:27:53 GMT

Sorry for the lack of posting... life has been busy! I'll be attending an Indian wedding this Friday and Saturday (festivities started this afternoon!) and will report back with lots of great pics I hope!

If you're in the Vancouver area do try and make the Car Free Fest on Sunday! I'll be heading over to the Main St. Fair but there will be others around the city with live music, lots of street vendors, and activities for the kiddoes. The first Bite Size Got Craft will also be happening at Little Mountain Studios.

If you happen to be in Richmond on Sunday afternoon and fancy picking up some limited edition super cute t-shirts, then head over to the Comet Strip...

Cheerio :)

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Thu, 21 May 2009 01:14:57 GMT

Viva le long weekends! :D

This weekend got off to a wonderful start. First it was a birthday BBQ at my sisters on Friday night, then it was Rangoli's for lunch on Saturday followed by a viewing of Les Miserables for our 9th anniversary!

I've seen Les Mis once before at Queen Elizabeth theatre a few years ago and it was *amazing*. This time Sean and I got tickets from his brother as a birthday present for an Arts Club Theatre production at the Stanley Theatre. I was wary of how good the quality of such a world-renowned musical would fare under the hands of a local community theatre group, but holy wow, I feel stupid now to have doubted them! Honestly, it was not far from the Broadway production I had seen before. The calibre of the actors was top notch and I spent the second half of the show crying at all the emotional bits!

It was easy choose my favourite actor this time 'round. I've seen Jonathan Winsby, who played Enjolras, in a couple of other shows before and I think we even passed each other in the halls in the School of Music at UBC when I was just a wee 1st year student. He was the *perfect* match for Enjolras. By far he was the most passionate singer of the bunch with infectious enthusiasm and his face and stature fit the bill to a T.

I spent the first half of the show debating whether or not I liked Kieran Martin Murphy's voice or not (Jean Valjean). There were times when it was so powerful and sincere, and other times I felt as if he was rushing and the notes were far too flat - although, I have a feeling that that may have been the product of the songs being sped up... maybe they were trying to keep the length of the show down? It's a long musical and actually, I think they cut out a few snippets of songs here and there from the original. Anyhow, after Jean Valjean uttered his first line of "Bring Him Home" I was sold. I cried the first time I heard this song performed live, and this time the tears came much quicker! It was *SO GOOD*! Way to go Jean Valjean!

And of course, Javert, had to be good since he's a key role in the whole story (why are so many musicals male dominated?!) I was a bit distracted though because I kept on thinking about how much Rejean Cournoyer who played Javert looked like Anthony Bourdain. lol. Where does Vancouver keep hiding these gems of talent? Another perfect fit.

Usually I find the supporting characters much more interesting than the leading roles (Mr. and Mrs. Thernardier for instance). However, I will give kudos for the actors who played Cosette and Marius for portraying their roles (however cliche they were) with a great deal of expertise. Their voices sounded lovely together along with Eponine at the end of "A Heart Full of Love". "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" was another one that gave me wet cheeks. It's such a haunting song and even more so with the Marius' dead friends lining up behind him in the shadows. Another round of kudos also to Joshua Ballard who played little Gavroche who gave a touching performance by someone who's itty bitty but has got some bite.

I guess I could say more about the rest of the cast, but I think I'll stop for now. :) If you haven't ever seen Les Miserables before and are in Vancouver, go do it now!! I think they're here until July or August and it's only about $40 a ticket. Totally worth it!

K, that's all for now.
smooches!

I think I need to re-align my eyes... :)