Last Life in the Universe

dakara bye-bye

2008-12-25T20:10:31Z

A Merry Christmas to whoever might still read this!

How's everything?

Yesterday I had x'mas dinner at the japanese restaurant where Kimi works. He was working, so he couldn't make me company, but I met this wonderful Spanish lady and her French husband, then I talked with a japanese girl and afterwards with another couple of japanese women, so the evening passed smoothly. Funny enough, the last two women work at the other branch of Matsuri, the restaurant where I work, so that gave us lots of complains to talk about, haha.

Back at home, me and Kimi exchanged christmas gifts after midnight. May I say how lucky I am? Kimi gave me a letter which read "got to the fridge and look behind the butter". There, I found another letter saying "now go to the bathroom". So I went and found another letter, "finally look in the storage downstairs". I was so exciting with all the treasure hunt he made, haha. So what did I find in the storage? A bag with a pair of Vivienne Westwood gloves plus a Vivienne t-shirt, my fav chanel perfume (that I had ask him for xmas) and one dress. I was beyond happy and surprised by all the gifts. All I gave him was a Ben Sherman jumper, calvin klein briefs and socks... LOL

Anyway, I think the time as come for me to say good-bye to Nanakiss and this livejournal account. Good days have gone by, but I cant relate to my past posts anymore. So many things have changed in my life and mind, and this blog cant keep up with it all. So... this is it, the time for a change, after almost 3 years. bye bye nanakiss. If I create a new account in livejournal, I will contact you guys again and say "hey, its me, lets be lj friends again", haha. In the meanwhile, thank you for having added me and reading my silly posts!! See u

メリー

2008-08-22T16:50:54Z

15 minutes of pure quality.
Beautiful. So beautiful.
The reason why Merry is one of the 2 or 3 visual kei bands that still exist and I like.
In a moment where all the vk bands look and sound the same, Merry blows you away with this masterpiece.
So fucking good.

nanakiss @ 2008-07-09T21:00:00

2008-07-09T20:35:51Z

My hair grows so fast! D:

On other news, guess what, it's still fucking raining! I know I'm always complaining about the weather and its boring to read, but geez. It's July and it rains all day long. Where's the summer, people?? If it rains on the 19th, it will be the first time it rains on my birthday. It sucks because we're having a BBQ! BBQ + rain = NO PARTY FOR ME DD:

I changed to a paid account and now my layout is kind of weird. Now the comments show down under the sidebar, leaving a huge space between the actual post and the comments. On the other hand, I now have loads of cool icons and Eun Hye mood theme.

I finally started watching Rookies and Hatachi no Koibito this week. Rookies its the same old story: weird teacher goes to a deliquents class and his mission is to become their saver. The dialogues are so lame. But its funny in a smashing head into the table kind of way. Btw, what the hell did they do to Ichihara's hair?? O_O It's the first time I see him without the frizzy hair and stupid smile. I was shocked. And against everyone else who's watching this drama because of the cute guys (that aren't that cute), I'm watching it because Sato Ryuta is fabulous (masta 4ever LOL). About Hatachi no Koibito, it's a funny and very light dorama. But who am I to talk, I'm a Masami Nagasawa biased, so of course I loved it. But they stopped subbing it after the 3 first episodes! OH NOOES! Now... do I have to watch it w/o subs? Because... I will.

Here's what made my day.

nanakiss @ 2008-07-07T00:44:00

2008-07-07T00:11:47Z

I was updating my tags, since the very firts post on this lj, and got so nostalgic. I'm surprised by how much I used to write, especially short stories. I wonder why I ever stopped. Maybe I should give it another go.

Today went shopping for pretty clothes on my favorite shopping place ever: Camden Town. If you ever come to London, go there! It's such a cool street, you can find anything and everything there, but mostly fashion related. Punk, goth, lolita, vintage, 80's, 70's, rockabilly, you name it. There's shops for everything there, new, second hand, market, whatever. All in all, bought 2 dresses, 1 t-shirt, 1 vest and socks. Cute socks like the ones suju wear, haha. I still need to buy nice shoes/sandals, underwear and necklaces. I've been so girlish lately. I desperatly want to change my hair, but I guess I'll wait until I get to Portugal because the hairdressers in here are way too expensive.

I hate the weather. It rains, then its sunny, then it rains again, then it gets sunny again... It changes a million times a day and gives me headaches.

Finally booked the flight to Portugal, 10 days of holiday, hopefully I'll go to the beach a lot! I'm not a beach person, last year I didn't even go to one, but being in London where there are no beaches and the weather is terrible makes me want to lay down on the golden sand, burn in the sun and dive into the sea. In Portugal I had the choice if I wanted to go to the beach or not. But here I don't have the choice, I simply can't go, so I want to go to one very badly. Now I understand why when english people take holidays they always go to sunny/beach places.

Week in the Life Day 7

2008-06-08T12:14:47Z

Rules:
1. You must take between 6 and 8 new photographs per day.
2. Your WITL must be consecutive. No skipping days.
3. You must post your photographs at the end of that day, sometime after the last picture is taken.
4. Each photograph must have the time taken beneath and a title, with no other explanation.

Day One | Day Two | Day Three | Day Four | Day Five | Day Six

15:06 - train to London Bridge -

15:12 - and there's a person inside that thing, no kidding -

15:22 - London Bridge -

15:29 - Southwark Market -

15:40 - on the way to the Tate Modern -

15:47 - St Paul's Cathedral -

15:53 - the Tate Modern outside -

15:54 - inside -

17:49 - red dress -

17:52 - look right -

17:57 - love triangle -

18:26 - they were shooting a Bollywood movie at St Pauls -
me: Excuse me, can I take your picture?
him: sure.
guy next to him: do you want me to take your picture with him?
me: ok...
(he had his arm around my waist, thus my face)

18:28 - korean girl -
me: excuse me, can i take your picture?
she: hahaha *shy* but why?
me: because you look so cute.
she: ok, haha.
(her friends were dying laughing)

18:36 - he's gonna shoot you -

18:39 - on the way back to the station -

18:50 - drunk -

I think I broke pretty much every rule. But it was the last day, so i guess i'm allowed.
So yesterday I went to the Tate Modern and did a bit of sight seeing along the way. The Tate wasn't as interesting as I thought it would be, but the Street & Studio photography exhibition was cool, totally worth the 10£. I got inspired by one of the photographers who simply asked people who harrassed her "can i take your picture".

I can't believe I saw the shooting of a Bollywood movie! LOL I couldn't take a decent picture of the young actor because they were filming him, but I got a picture with that bad ass pimp, hahaha. He looked so corny, god, that's probably the most wonderful blaser ever! Btw, remind me to runway from indian people whenever I see them on the street, because they were all eating me alive with their eyes... It was so uncomfortable. And this wasn't the first time, it always happens, they even try to pick me up. I wonder what is it that attracts them.

Anyways, it was a nice day although I spent it alone. By the end of the day I was so tired, I had a huge headache and was dying of hunger. When I got home I watched the Portugal x Turkey game on TV and ate Yakisoba. Niiiice~ Portugal won!! wohoo! (being out of Portugal makes me so much more patriotic) LOL

If anyone's interested, I've uploaded all the photos I took that day on my new Flickr account. I bet no one will ever guess why I choose cd633 as my screen name, haha. Probably only Sara would if she gave it a really deep thought.

Week in the Life Day 6

2008-06-06T23:33:40Z

Week in the Life Day 5

2008-06-05T23:11:58Z

Week in the Life Day 4

2008-06-04T22:50:12Z

Week in the Life Day 3

2008-06-03T22:18:58Z

Week in the Life Day 2

2008-06-02T22:35:29Z

Rules:
1. You must take between 6 and 8 new photographs per day.
2. Your WITL must be consecutive. No skipping days.
3. You must post your photographs at the end of that day, sometime after the last picture is taken.
4. Each photograph must have the time taken beneath and a title, with no other explanation.

11:34 - getting confortable in the lounge -

15:10 - when it rains outside, you take care of the laundry inside -

17:06 - reading Crash! -

18:57 - dinner almost served -

21:26 - she never eats bananas -

22:46 - LOL -

22:49 - Kiyoharu *3* is such a camwhore you would never guess how many pictures he posts a day -

23:23 - PJ's -

Just a boring day as you can see, spent the day indoors.

This time I followed every rule.

The other day I was at Maya's room when a Ribon magazine caught my attention. I opened it and said to Maya "hey, these guys are cute" to which she replied "you can read it if you want". So now I'm reading this manga called "Crash!" that it's still on the second volume and coming out on Ribon magazine since last year. I'm loving the story, it makes me giggle and the art work is beautiful, all the characters are gorgeous. A shame that there aren't any scans out there, so I have to stick with reading japanese (which in my case means a lot of time around the dictionary) and watching the voice comic (which is pretty funny). This is the first time in 3 years that I'm actually reading a manga. The last one was Nana.

Basically Crash! is a story about Hana, the daughter of a idol company president, who has a special gift: she has incredibly huge nosebleeds whenever she sees someone with idol potencial. After some events, while looking for a new number 1 idol, she ends up running into 5 guys who got into some sort of fight, has a huge nosebleed because they're amazingly beautiful and after collapsing, she declares they will make a 5-person boyband. LOL Doesn't it sound good? xD I won't tell more because there would be spoilers.

Week in the Life Day 1

2008-06-02T16:25:41Z

stolen from winterspel

Rules:
1. You must take between 6 and 8 new photographs per day.
2. Your WITL must be consecutive. No skipping days.
3. You must post your photographs at the end of that day, sometime after the last picture is taken.
4. Each photograph must have the time taken beneath and a title, with no other explanation.

10:04 - waking up!

10:16 - Straight to the shower.

11:10 - Breakfast: oolong tea & 1 sultana scone.

11:12 - Checking email and lj friends list.

13:56 - Lunch: rice with noritama.

15:45 - Makeup & hair time!

17:23 - Train station.

18:07 - Picadilly: going to meet Setsu.

22:02 - On my way home.

So yeah, I cheated on rule 1 and 3 (these photos are from yesterday), but who cares? xD
I'll try to follow the rules starting today.

masta

2008-05-31T23:36:53Z

I'm so happy.

On wednesday I thought my laptop had died, I made a big effort not to panic, but the damn thing just didn't turn on no matter how many times I tried. And I tried everything. My first thought was that probably there was some problem with the plug, but there wasn't. I could just not believe I would lose all my files (well, only the photos and writing; the rest, music, videos, etc are all in the external hard drive, thank god!) and I would have to save money to buy a new one and I would have to spend the rest of my days in here without internet. But good god, Ken found out the problem was probably with the charger adapter, or whatever it is called. I ordered a new one on ebay on thursday and it arrived today!! My computer is not dead, I'm so happy that I hugged it and named it Masta ( = master). I just spent the 3 most boring days of my life, because on my spare time I had nothing else to do other than read or sleep. And luckly I have a iPod video that kept it me entertained for a while, which reminds me that I seriously need to change videos now, I watched them too many times during this 3 days.

Today I bought a magazine with Tony Leung on the cover. It was expensive. But it has Tony Leung dressed in Versace, how could I resist?

I'm loving a german woman called Anna who most of the times say 'ja' instead of yes and speaks italian, french, spanish, english and a bit of portuguese. She's so nice, I love talking with her. And there's also Mary, who invited me to stay over at her house if I ever come to London again after going back to Portugal. I've been meeting really nice people at saturdays and I wouldn't trade our couple of hours at Pret's for anything. Since during the week I don't talk with almost anyone other than the kids, it's wonderful to have someone else to talk with on weekends.

Tokyo Decadance has been postponed... And they didn't say what's the new date yet. I want to see Sisen!! ;__;

Oh and I might go back to Portugal in July afterall!! I miss Lisbon so much, everyone is so nice there. Here people just don't give a fuck about anyone.

A weeks ago a kid was stabbed near the station, in front of Somerfield (supermarket), after coming out of the pub. He was 18 years old and the one who stabbed him was 21 years old. His name was Rob Knox and he actually was one of the actors from a to be released Harry Potter film. Who would say a Harry Potter actor lived in shitcup, sorry, Sidcup? Well, it's scary, I pass through that pub several times a week and I had thought about going there, but never had the courage to go all by myself. Now I'm not going there for sure. But the scariest thing is that the guy who stabbed him carried two knives, I could believe it was just the result of a fight if he carried only one knife, but with two?! That's someone who really wanted to get somebody stabbed very desperatly. Now the front of Somerfield is always covered with flowers and messages "to" Rob. It's really sad. You can watch a short video about it on the sky news site (on the top right):
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-1317051,00.html

beth rowley

2008-05-23T19:53:09Z

I'm loving this woman. I wish there was a better quality video of her singing this song, cause I watched her performing today on the tv and it was amazing.

"nobody's fault but mine" it's an original from Nina Simone (also love).

update

2008-05-20T10:17:36Z

Two weeks ago I spent the weekend at Noeme's house, in Queen's Park. She's Liliana's friend, and although she was born in South Africa, she lived in Portugal for most of her life. She came to London to study, about one year ago, but eventually she ended up leaving uni and found a job. Noeme live's in a house with 4 other people, Richard, Iveta, David and António. David and António are brothers and they're also portuguese (alentejanos). Richard is the "landlord" so to speak, he's british and he's currently dating Noeme. Iveta is, I don't remember which country she's from anymore, but it's somewhere in eastern europe. Tania also spent the weekend with us, she's been living in England for 3 years now and she's the sister of one of Liliana's friends (meaning she's also portuguese).

After leaving my things at Noeme's, Tania, Noeme and me went to have lunch at a pub. Richard later joined us. We passed by another pub called Paradise that apparently now is so famous that it even has doorman's at night and you have to dress like if you were going to a club. Where have you ever seen a pub like that?? It's ridiculous, LOL. All because Kate Moss and Blur's vocalist decided to show up there one night and it came on the newspapers. So now everyone wants to go to Paradise hoping to see some celebrities...

After lunch we headed to Portobello market (minus Richard). It was a cool market, but I like Bricklane's better. I bought some new sunglasses and nothing else because I was short of money.

Noeme and me. I make that face when I'm trying not to laugh...

Noeme and Tânia.

me and my new glasses, kind of blurry though.

Is my bag that big??
No, Noeme, please don't eat me! lol

Tânia and Noeme. I wanted to catch that Portobello sign.

When Portobello market ends, Nottinghill starts. We went to this pub where they have a beer called Frülli, a belgium beer that tastes like strawberry. It was really good, I could get drunk without even noticing if I drunk 3 of those.

Yup, all the way down! haha

After that we went to Sainsburry's shopping for dinner. We made a mexican dish that I can't remember the name, but it was delicious!!

She's hiding another beer can under her left arm, what an alcoholic!! ok ok, it was Richard's can...

Me, Noeme and Richard. We're at the subway station btw, which is outdoors.

No, I wasn't drunk, haha. Although it was the 4th beer I had that day.

We went out to Bricklane, but it was SO full of people (imagine Bairro Alto but with even more people) that we decided not to go to any club. We just stayed on the street drinking beer. After a while we caught the subway again to go meet some of Richard's friends.

Weird xD

See, I told you she's an alcoholic, LOL.
btw, it was a really warm night, because it was midnight and I was still wearing only my t-shirt.

After meeting Richard's friend in a place whose name I don't remember, I think it was near King's Cross though, we went to another pub, full of glam beyonce look a likes. We were supposed to go with Richard to a club called "Fabric". Tânia wasn't very excited to go there after hearing about how Richard needed his drugs. In the end, the three of us decided we were too tired to go and went back home. It was about 2 am, I think. Richard was very sweet and walked about 10 minutes with us until we found a taxi. The next day he got home when I woke up, 9:30 am. Me in my pijama going to the bathroom and he getting home, lol.

So on sunday it was even hotter than on saturday. Everyone was so surprised because it isn't usual to get such a hot weather in England. We were so sleepy, but we went to Sainsburry's again to buy breakfast. On that morning I finally met David and António.

Yeah, people like to drink in that house!

This is the little garden on the back of the house. Tânia was trying to sleep.

It was too sunny outside for me to be able to relax, so I went to the living room to cool down. They have this panel on the wall, I found it pretty cool.

At 2pm we finally decided to stop being lazy and go enjoy the beautiful day that it was. Noeme, Tânia, António and me headed to Hampstead. David was going to meet us there.

We were hunting down for a pub with a TV to watch Manchester's match, because David and António wanted to watch it (men...), but apparently none had a TV. After seeing so many people laying down in bikinis on the grass, we finally decided to give up and rest a bit. It was so hot.

We were eating icecreams too. Can you notice the amount of people behind me sun bathing??

This is António. I had the brilliant idea to start singing Toy's song Chama o António and we ended up with the damn song in our heads for the whole day and sing all the time. Poor António, I was feeling sorry for him, haha.

LOL what was he doing??

I was taking this picture. I wasn't trying to comit suicide.

LOL don't we look cute?? xD

Tânia you were supposed to be in the photo too ^^;

Look, it's me!

What's wrong with my neck? o_O
Do I look fat? I look fat. But I don't eat that much and I walk about 1 hour every day. How did I get fat?

I really wanted to take a pic of that people on the grass. It's so weird for us to see something like that. But I guess it's kind of understandable since there's no beaches in London and it takes more that 1 hour to get to Brighton (and they say the beach sucks there, the sands is just rocks).

Since we didn't find any pub with a TV and the game was about to start, we went to meet David in Australian pub near the station.

Chips & beer, how more brittish could we get? xD
Noeme and I pretended to be Cristiano Ronaldo's fangirls (although we find him disgusting) just because he's portuguese. It was fun, we couldn't care less about the game and we actually were to busy eating and drinking to pay attention to what was going on, but we managed to imitate Cristiano's expressions whenever there was a close up. Apparently it was raining in Manchester while we were being burned by the sun in London. Manchester won the match we spent 5 minutes screaming "Cristiano! Cristiano!" like fools.

Too much sun, António!

He decided to be creative...

Aww, don't they look adorable??
After the picture being taken, António burned Tânia's nose with his cigarrette, LOL.

Time to go back home D:

I think this was probably the best weekend I had since I came to London. Everyone was so nice. The way they live looked like so bohemian, it was so cool, haha. Hopefully I'll meet them again.

This weekend, on Sunday, I went to a Taizé meeting. It was so cool, it had been 3 years since the last time I sang those songs, I felt to nostalgic. I luckily passed by the church one day and found a paper about the meetings. Taizé is something that unites all christians (catholics, protestants, orthodoxs) and it's something that I find closer to my ideals, rather than just to go to church and listen to the priest. It isn't a new religion or anything like that, far from it, it's just a community in a french village called Taizé, therefor the name. Anyways, check the link above if you are curious about it. I met some nice people there (Gerald, Caroline, Mary and some others whose name I don't remember), we all went for a cup a of coffee in Nero afterwards to talk. I found out that there's a meeting every saturday on Notre Dame's church and I'll probably go there next weekend. I felt so good after the chanting, I was feeling kind of depressed this weekend, and going there helped me a lot. There's an harmony about Taizé that I can't explain and I feel really lucky to have met such a great man like brother Roger, the founder of the community, one year before he was murdered.

On the way to the station, Caroline and Mary took me to meet this street's reggae singer. He was a funny character and he played some Bob Marley's songs for us.

bentooooo

2008-05-20T09:25:54Z

I have so many things to update about the past couple of weekends. But here's just a couple of things I want to point out that aren't really connected to anything.

I am the proud owner of a t-shirt saying "Johnny". LOL for the obvious reasons.

Yesterday I made bento! Not that I needed packed lunch or anything, I just ate it at home, haha. There was a special issue on bento's on Non-no magazine and they looked to cute that I felt a deep need to try it. It was so delicious. Contains:

- sticky rice w/ noritama
- a piece of lettuce to separate the rest from the rice
- little hamburger
- tamagoyaki
- cucumber
- red pepper
- cherry tomato

I wish I had sausages at home and I could try those octopus hot dogs, they look so cute!

DJ OZMA Hide Memorial Summit video

2008-05-09T22:01:50Z

SKIP THE FIRST 3 MINUTES AND ENJOY THE AWESOMENESS PLEASE

finally we get performances!! the guys on the back can get pretty annoying at some point, but i wouldn't like it any other way, haha, it's just too hilarious. and did i see Hide's cosplayers doing the age age dance? xD

i love love love love this man. why can't i marry him? i would cook for him everyday, prepare his bath, cut his toe nails and clean his ears. i would. and i would be so happy.

short story

2008-05-08T10:44:09Z

I wrote this short story about 2 years ago, when I first started this LJ and originally posted it in Portuguese. I recently translated it to English, as a request from a friend, so here it is again. Sorry for my poor english writing skills, it's hard to translate some things that don't have a direct translation.

A Place Perhaps Less Unfair

I would rather never ever had found out the way our nauseating world works. I would have liked to continue believing I was happy, able to love and to be loved, without forcing someone to renounce to what we don’t want to let escape. I would like to go back thinking that every smile, every nice action that we do is for free, casual and without reason.

But it’s not like that. There are rules. Conditions. Maybe we will never get to understand them through our entire lives. They are unbreakable rules, I would say they are from the same nature as physics. And, because of that, they are conformations to the principal of action and reaction, conservation of the matter-energy and the casualty in space and/or time.

This, which could seem complex, is, once discovered, of stunning evidence. I don’t know of what happiness or the other multiple states that simulate it are made of, but what its clear to me is that, in the end, it’s nothing more than matter. Matter or energy, it’s the same.

One night, like any other, you go to the parking place where you have your car. As always, you can’t remember where exactly you have left it. Thanks to the skies it’s an appealing metal blue colour. When you put the key in you realize that you have left it unlocked. And the first thing that crosses your mind is if someone else knows it too. You look around… Everything’s normal. There doesn’t seem to be missing anything. But what’s surprising isn’t that something’s missing… There’s something more!

You gaze at the small thing that is coming out from underneath the windshields. It looks like a camera. What’s a camera doing in my car? Wait. It’s too dirty. Too uncared. Maybe this isn’t my car?

When you realize it, to avoid suspicions, you run away from that parking space; who knows if someone had stole it. You, obviously don’t want to get involved. Now, from the tranquillity that distance gives you, you can see that the license plate of that car is almost the same as yours. Weird coincidences.

But only after a long time you realize you still have that camera that doesn’t belong to you in your hands. You’re too far already, too relaxed to go back to that place again. That would be even more suspicious. But you’re not a bad person, you respect the private property. It’s just not the moment. You will think about how to return the camera, to give it back to its owner.

In the mean time, on that same night, in the happy solitude of your apartment, curiosity invited you to inquire those photos of a life that, for sure, has nothing to do with yours. You believe in that, naïve. But when you start seeing them you feel as if your neck is shrinking, and your comfortable house of 200m² converted into a tiny prison, asphyxiating.

The person who took those photos is you. Ok, not exactly you. Someone who looks like you. Too similar to have been another one. But it’s not a pleasant image. They don’t seem seem like photos of someone who enjoys life, they’re rather from someone suicidal.

And you can recognize instants of your life in those photos, that it’s not your life, but very similar to the extreme. You notice the missing people, and the ones you manage to recognize look weird to you, as if life had passed been snatched right through them. The absences worry you. Where have they gone?

You see her. But she reveals herself as sad and far away. Unhappy. She doesn’t have a look on her eyes that you can recognize in her. Never before you have seen her like that.

All that gallery of sadness, disgrace, not exaggerated but anguishing. You can’t give the camera back. You need to dissect those lives, to touch them. And you’re ready to understand the mechanism that holds that paradox.

You didn’t have enough value to face your alter ego, so your first step is to take her. You don’t even know if she’s called the same or if she shares the same tone of voice and way of walking. It’s easy to imagine that person’s attitude in life, and the voice will sound arrogant and insolent, the same way it’s safe to say her clothes would appear kinky.

Although you didn’t make a big effort in disguising as him, she wasn’t able to recognize you. You allow yourself to invite her to spend a night in a five star hotel. How admired she was when paintings covered the walls instead of wall paper of her golden cage! It wasn’t difficult for you to seduce her again. Anyone could see she was in need of love and sex. That the person who had to offer her both things, had his mind in other stuff (perhaps simply trying to survive). You were sure she had recognized you for a couple of times. Although nature had given you both the same physical appearance, the time was on your side. And you were sure your sexual strength was devastating when compared with your other you.

In the beginning, only her body was there. While kissing her, while undressing her and helping her to undress you, the woman, the flesh invaded by blood looked at you like a corps looking at his closed ones. But when she noticed the heat of your face searching in places where something was missing for so long, her pupils contracted, her muscles got hard, and that woman that nothing expected of life began to breathe again. You felt her fingers, reborn, were seeking to give you pleasure. And it came to a moment where you didn’t even think of making happy the other, your one, but this one. And while you invaded her with your semen and offered her your tongue, you knew you had started a change. Irreversible.

After the sex you manage to get some details from her. You didn’t care that she could suspect anymore. What’s more, it would have been weird for you, almost offensive, that she didn’t know the truth yet, or an interpretation of that truth. You asked yourself how she would react when she got back to him, I mean, with you. And it was tremendously exciting to be cheating on yourself.

This way, reuniting with her, you built the moment of meeting with yourself in your imagination. You already had enough information about their lives to make a simple theory: it existed between that man that looked like you and you, a link, a balance, like communicative vases, that obstructed that both surpassed a certain amount of happiness. There was no law that ruled which mode the fortune or tragedy would get to each one. To your luck. Well, all the years in your life had been magnificent: a family who loved you, parents and grandparents who’re still alive, everyone in good health, full of optimism, of vital fury. You enjoyed a childhood full of light. You have great friends that never betrayed you, and as far as you know, the ones that you can’t call friends, share an excellent image of you. You always had success with women, and with all of them you still maintain a good relationship. It’s hard to remember when it was the last time you were sick or suffered physical pain.

So that your theory had a base, the life of those people must have been a living hell. One of the parents suffered a terrible death during the childhood. Families called foster families, but that never accepted that that small weird human being, full of anger, could get in their lives to stay. Scholar failure and incomprehension. Bad behaviour and runaways in raining nights. Solitude and scabies dogs that bite you.

The evening you suspended all your plans, hiding to everyone you knew what you intended to do or where you were going, you almost couldn’t keep in your excitement. You would show up there in his home. You took her keys during one of your dates. Or maybe it was her who, with discretion, left them for you.

His home, your home, was how it would be expected, in a neighbourhood known by the quality of heroine. With delicacy, you go up the stairs that lead you to the 10th floor. It stinks something worst than humidity. In every floor of that building live people. You hear them breathe, scream at each other, and ignore themselves with noisy TVs. Does each one of them another one wandering in the happy extreme of the world? Do they know by any chance that they’re the unhappy member of the equation? And that all the intention, all the hope to escape this situation is useless, so they ignore the meaning of their lives?

In the end, I arrived, exhausted, to the 10^th floor. I put the key in the lock.

The next thing I remember is his and her image, I mean, me, looking from a certain height. I’m sitting. With the hands and feet tided up to a chair. My head hurts. Why do I feel pain? On my left there’s a mirror, where I gaze my crane full of dry blood. Never had I seen the colour of my insides. When I see them there, whispering, I understand I can’t hope for more fortune.

Since then they keep me locked in the attic. To avoid me from screaming, they cut my tongue. To avoid that I’ll make noises or hit the walls, they covered the room with mattresses and blankets, that my nails, which they regularly amputate, are unable to drill a hole. They have to keep me alive for everything to work. Alive, but endlessly unhappy. The bigger my disgrace is, the bigger is their luck. I don’t keep bitterness for them. I enjoyed unconsciously from that benefit for years and didn’t know how to defend it.

Now I’m happy when they open the door. I can breathe again, see the sun shine or the full moon, the scents from far away.

They changed. Seem happy. I was so naïve to believe I was the one discovering them. If I had everything, why did I have to keep looking? But I feel proud, because I’m me, my other me, safely the only one in this worlds that knows its functioning and inverted it, for once, the big dream machine round.

Korean street fashion: ganji

2008-05-04T23:56:58Z

Let's talk about Korean street fashion. There's a lot of Japanese and American influences going around, but there's also things that you can only recognize as being Korean, and they're awesome.

It's been a while since I got interested into ganji, not really a kind of style, but something like that. I absolutely love it. For those who aren't familiar with the term, think Big Bang. Ganji it's a korean word to say someone is stylish, but nowadays is commonly associated to the hiphop/80's look (em português é basicamente aquilo a que nós chamamos ser do "yo", mas mais fixe e com influências dos anos 80). Lots of beautiful colors, cool sneakers and glasses and some bling. For the past few months I came across quite interesting fashion related websites, all of them in korean, of course. I found it difficult to find something on the subject in english. Of course there's FeetManSeoul, but imo that's a horrible source of both information and photos. The man seems to have a terrible taste in fashion and many times he falls for the poor Japanese copies walking around Seoul. He calls people in ganji "fashionistas", so he obviously never heard of the term ganji before. It's really rare for me to see something I like in there.

Hyun Min, 24 years old. I immediatly liked his style, the bright colours and his cute little dog are love. I found him on hiphoper, which is by far one of the coolest websites I've seen and the best one I found on korean street fashion. It has photos since the year 2000! Back to Hyun Min, he's such an interesting person, photographer for the hiphoper, vocalist of a band and model for specimen's online shopping store. I was impressed by his photos, they were quite good.

This is the coolest girl ever. Yes, it's a girl. I actually thought it was a boy when I first saw her photo, haha. Her name is Ju Yeon (i'm not very good at romanizing korean names, but i did my best). She's 23 years old. I love the golden jacket and the lenseless glasses. And I know the last two pics are more fob than ganji, but I felt like posting it too.

I think his name is Jaewon and he's only 19 years old. Awww, such a baby *3* Ok, he's not ganji at all, but he's the cutest thing ever, so adorable. He's japanese influenced, with the creepers and everything else, but the hair and glasses are so korean.

Hyun Hee, 20 years old. I don't know why she covers up her face, she's so damn cute. You can't really tell on the second pic, but she has shorter hair and totally looks like a little boy now. Like in Hyun Min, I really like the bright colours. cubaza seems to be another pretty good street fashion website. I've been trying for days, but I can't see it yet, it always says "page not found", which is weird because I'm totally sure the address is correct and I even followed links from cyworld... well w/e. Does cubaza work for anyone?

Taek Hyun, 24 years old. The parental advisory is <3. I don't know much about him, exccept that he used to have half of his hair shaved and now he has dreadlocks. Those photos are from the period inbetween xD

Seul Bora, 20 years old. She's really cute, one of those big eyed girls, I think she uses those contacts that make the eye bigger.

Kim. 20 years old. He works on the coolest sneakers shop I've seen.

Gweon. 20 years old.

Choe Minhu (again i might have romanized it wrong). 18 years old. Colors. Beutiful colors *__*

All pictures were taken from their respective cyworlds. If you would like the link to any of them, just ask.

Other street fashion pics:

Credits to Take My Hand.

You might also want to check MC Mong's Circus mv, it shows the ganji style quite well, in which I presume he only wears clothes from his own brand. There's also this soompi thread on ganji. There are lots of name brands, quite expensive though, like Sakun, BAPE, Supreme, Schwipe, 10 Deep, etc... (Big Bang wear all of those btw). But I prefer non-label-brands websites like Poorchic, it's so cool and has a small street fashion section too. But it's mostly Japanese fashion oriented. I love how on the fashion stars section they put So Hyuk and Joe Odagiri. Hell yeah, that's what I'm talking about!! The Cracker website also has a preview on its magazines that I like to check out, plus it also has street fashion from many cities around the world.

I tell you, if I wasn't so into gyaru-o fashion, I would most definitely follow ganji.
My goodness, this post took too long to make. I must go eat now~

nanakiss @ 2008-05-03T14:16:00

2008-05-03T13:32:43Z

Yesterday, after trying to style my new haircut for the first time, I took some pics.

I don't have hairspray, only Gatsby wax, so after a while, the hair eventually lost its shape. I need to buy one very badly, but I think I'll wait for the VO5 to arrive (its the one all hosts use), which could mean a month or more of waiting.

I'm enjoying this hairstyle a lot btw.

edit//

omg look how messy my room was xD
and thats my arashi "poster" (it's actually 2 ripped pages matched together) and a drawing Katrina made for me when we went to her house.

memes

2008-05-02T20:18:27Z

Stolen from seni_hime & eolo
Comment and I'll...
1. Tell you why I friended you.
2. Associate you with something - fandom, a song, a colour, a photo, etc.
3. Tell you something I like about you.
4. Tell you a memory I have of you.
5. Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
6. Tell you my favorite user pic of yours.
7. In return, you must post this in your LJ.

Stolen from fuji_sempai</lj>

So, here’s how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
-------------------
01 - OPENING CREDITS:
Scandal - Kangta & Vanness
[it could not possibly start any better, haha]

02 - WAKING UP:
You Only Love - DBSK
[well, ok...]

03 - FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL:
Last Song ~ Saigo no Uta - Kiyoharu
[haha, what kind of kid was I? lol]

04 - FALLING IN LOVE:
Shutting from the Sky - L'arc~en~Ciel

05 - FIGHT SONG:
Seishun Amigo - Shuji to Akira
[LOLOLOL]

06 - BREAKING UP:
Soul Edge Boy - AAA
[yeah, never give up xD]

07 - PROM:
In My Dream - Luna Sea
[actually, i wish they had played this song on my prom, lol]

09 - MENTAL BREAKDOWN:
Cherish - NEWS
[what? should i treasure a mental breakdown??]

10 - DRIVING:
Sexy Sexy - Cascade
[yeah baby!]

11 - FLASHBACK:
Shounen - Kuroyume

12 - WEDDING:
Ai no Theme - Joe Hisaishi
[aww, am i going to have a sad wedding if I ever get married?]

13 - BIRTH OF CHILD:
Hesitate - Akanishi Jin
[uhh, yeah, I should had hesitate before having a child, that's why xD]

14 - FINAL BATTLE:
Hontou no Uso - Plastic Tree
[sounds perfect]

15 - DEATH SCENE:
Sleep Warm - Cornelius
[how apropriate, I won't be that warm though]

16 - FUNERAL SONG:
Happy Happy - Kangta
[wtf? wtf? its my freakin' funeral, not a party]

17 - END CREDITS:
Blue Tuesday - KAT-TUN
[well, it is a goodbye song, so it fits. baby wont you stay with me? lol. i hate blue btw]

I loved this soundtrack meme, I've been meaning to do it since ages ago. I think most of the songs are pretty good and I'm happy with the result. The funeral song still bugs me a little though.

9 end 2 outs

2008-04-30T22:52:11Z

I don't usually do reviews of dramas, I actually think this is the first time. But its worth it. No spoilers included btw.
A some info about this kdrama:

Alternative Title: 9회말 2아웃 / Bottom of the 9th (Inning), 2 Outs
Genre: Romance
Film Date: July, 2007
Total Videos: 16
Korea Casts:
Hwang Ji Hyun, Hwang Suk Jung, Im Yoon Ah, Jang Joon Hwi, Jo Eun Ji, Jung Da Hye, Kim Chang Sook, Lee Doo Il, Lee Hee Do, Lee Jung Jin, Lee Sang Woo, Lee Tae Sung, Park Hae Young, Son Jung Min, Soo Ae, Yoon Hye Jung, Yoon Ye Hee
Description:
The drama is about love of singles in their 30s. Hong Nan Hee is an ordinary worker at a publishing firm, she's a girl who always falls in and out of love since she was young until one day when she meets an old classmate, Byun Hyung Tae, who is a team leader of an advertising company again. Hyung Tae may seem to be a good catch in the eyes of many women but he's only a cowardly boy to Nan Hee whom he has grown up with. '9 End 2 Outs' is using the baseball theme to compare to the fates and lives of the people in love.

That short resume of the drama doesn't really tell you anything about the story itself. So, Nan Hee and Hyung Tae are best friends since school, they've always been in the same class and even went to the same university. For women in Korea getting to the 30's and still being single is a nightmare and everyone pushes them to get married soon or go to match making. Nan Hee is one of those. She's desperate to get married, but still she continues dating a young baseball player, 8 years younger than her, with whom she doesn't see any future. Hyung Tae is a bachelor, known for playing around and having a different woman every night. But all that only started after breaking up with his first love. He doesn't have any intention of getting married any time soon. After some events, Nan Hee ends up finding shelter in her best friend's, Hyung Tae, house and they start living together. This is where the story begins. They help each other on their love lives, they're there for each other in the up and downs of daily life, they fight, they have fun, they get drunk, etc. All this while hiding from everyone, family and close friends, that they're living together, because others would think they're more than just friends and wouldn't understand their situation.

This was so a worth watching drama. It's very funny and it isn't dramatic to the point that it doesn't make sense. It's quite realistic, reflecting different aspects of the 30's and all the troubles on the way. I actually enjoyed it more after episode 10, that's where I got really into it and couldn't stop watching. Although the actress playing Nan Hee isn't a gorgeous (you can see the foundation covering loads of pimples in her jaw), you can't help but to fall for her character and sympathize with her. I think the two leading actors had a great chemistry together, which I think its something that happens more in kdramas than in jdramas btw, and I would totally like to watch them work together again. The ending was good, not sentimental or over romantic, just good. Not the typical and they lived happy ever after 'the end' kind of thing, more like 'and they started living more happy'. They didn't left anything open or unfinished, but they don't resolve everything either, you can see the path each one of them chose, including their friends (which I loved, all the stories). And even so, I wouldn't mind watching this drama every night and see how their daily lives evolved and what happens next, its comforting.

In some aspects, this drama reminds me of Slow Dance (jdrama), in the sense that its all about their lives, thoughts on the future, jobs, love and problems. As I said before, it's very realistic. But then again, 9 end 2 outs, has a huge comedy side that makes it fun and enjoyable to watch. Some people thought it got bored towards the end, but i don't agree, the end was the best part.

I wonder why korean ost's always have more impact in me, rather than the japanese ones? Probably because we watch almost twice of the episodes? I don't know, the songs just grow in me and I find myself downloading the ost's, thing that I never do with the jdramas.

Well, I think that out of the misery that some kdramas are, in the middle of all the over dramatic/romantic/stupid/hilarious stories around there, this drama is a great found and a must watch. I wish I had made some screencaps now. I found some gifs though.
Here's the link to a fanmade mv:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS5qxS-GUdo

haha, this scene was great! xD

this was hilarious, I loved when they fought, lol

LOL

And thats it! :D

photo update

2008-04-29T12:36:02Z

I didn't post any pics for the past two weeks, so here's a quick update. (purea, I didn't forget about you!!)

Apparently its a very normal thing for them to play on our garden and sometimes even fight with Linda and Muta, the cats.
I was so excited to see them, haha. The other day there was one quietly sleeping behind our tree.

Two weeks ago, Nina, Katrina's mother (one of Maya's friends) invited me to go along with them for a walk in a park, near Bexley, I think. It was quite nice, very beautiful surroundings. I like Nina very much, she's Colombian, so we often talk in spanish. Well, there was a small river there, so Katrina and Maya played a bit on it. I mus add that it was so damn cold!

And this is what I mean when I say that my hair kind of looks like Ueda's. Me does not like that D: I'm thinking about going to the hairdresser tomorrow, because Maya has choir until 16:15, which gives me 7 hours to do what I want. I don't know which hairdresser I should go to though, there are so many nearby. I've found a pic of the haircut I would like to try, but I feel stupid about showing up there for the first time with a picture in my hand and say "i want something like this".

Now beware my lovely/cool new sneakers:

Bought them yesterday on Foot Locker. They weren't exacly what I wanted, but it seems that my feet are too small for men's sneakers! ;__;
I wish I had big feet and I could buy those white Nike ones I saw... So, yeah, I got this white Converse instead. I think they're made of some kind of leather? I don't know, but it isn't the normal converse cloth. They didn't have my size, so this is one size big, but who cares, I have inner soles. At least now I have shoes that don't kill my feet and they feel really comfy.

On Saturday I went to the Japanese temple of the budhist religion, Shinnyo-en. I was surprised to see that it didn't look like a temple at all from the outside, it looked like a normal english house. Its always interesting to get to know a new religion. I did read a couple of books about bhudism when I was younger, because I was interested in the philosophy. I met people from such different nationalies there, and a couple of French who were very nice. In some parts, it reminded me of the Taizé meeting, which I loved so much. The chanting, the meditation and sharing of testimonials. In the end, they asked me if I would like to get connected and I replied "not yet". Get connected means to be able to join the meditation sessions and such, the point being to elevate and eventually achieve the Nirvana, which is very rare. I take this subject very seriously, considering that I was a catholic for so many years and only stopped practicing 3 years ago. I don't want to become a bhudist just like that. Although I share some of the believes and I do enjoy the meditation and chanting part, I need to read more about it, get more information about anything and everything, before making up my mind.

The temple:

weekend

2008-04-14T14:54:28Z

On Saturday I went to see a Renoir exhibition at the Somerset House. I planned the day all wrong and to make things worst it was raining, so after the art gallery I had no idea where to go. In the end, I spent one hour and a half at Starbucks until it was time to go meet Fumi at Picadilly Circus. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention. Fumi is a Japanese girl who is living in Portugal that I met through mixi. Well, we planned to meet in front of the Eros statue, but that place is full of asian tourists and I didn't know how Fumi looked like because she didn't have pics of herself on mixi. At some point I see two Japanese, a girl and a guy passing by. The guy was like one of those from a street fashion magazine, super tall, dressed in black, long hair and huge sun glasses. I was like "omg I hope it's them". And it was them!! LOL

So after introducing each other, me, Fumi and Tatsuya (I lol'ed so much to myself because of his name, ueda immediately popped into my mind) went to a have dinner at a Japanese restaurant neat Chinatown. I don't remember the name of the place anymore though. I ate a delicious Yakisoba. Fumi is a very special Japanese. She talks a lot, but not in a boring way like Yuuki, and is VERY direct, which I kind of liked. Maybe it's because she's from Osaka, I don't know. And she speaks Portuguese so good!! She doesn't know how to speak English, but she's awesome at Portuguese. We talked in Portuguese all the time, which I guess it was kind of boring to Tatsuya, because he didn't understand a thing. So while we were talking either she translated to him in Japanese or I translated it to him in English xD
During dinner the only topic that made me feel uncomfortable was when we were talking about Japanese music. I told them I like Kiyoharu, Koda Kumi, SMAP and I tried to remember what else I really liked, but my mind was blank. I couldn't remember anything else, so I said Shiina RIngo, although I'm not really a fan and only listen to her from time to time. But it's cool to like Shiina Ringo, so I said it. And yeah, apparently they liked her too and I said to Fumi that fishbite is a huge Shiina Ringo fan, but she thought it was a lie, because when she met her in Portugal, Sara only said she liked johnnys and koda kumi... I tried really hard to convince her I was telling the truth and Sara has everything Shiina Ringo related, but I don't know why she wasn't believing it o_O
Well, after dinner we went to the bar where Tatsuya works, I don't remember the name of the place either. He's living in London just to study English and he works at that bar 5 days a week. Fumi is very weak when it comes to alcohol, so she drank orange juice with a slight touch of vodka while me and Tatsuya drank beer. It seems the day before, on friday, she got herself drunk just by drinking a shot and a beer. So Tatsuya insisted that I should try the same shot, which I did after rejecting a couple of times. I don't know what it was any longer, but it was so strong that made my whole mouth become numb and it burned while going down. When I drank the beer after the shot, it felt like water, it didn't have taste at all. But it didn't make me drunk, just a bit "happier" and warmer. After a while, we had to go because the bar closed around 23:30 and my last train home was at midnight. It's amazing how british night life ends at midnight. At 11 pm everyone's already drunk. It's amazing. In Portugal 11 pm its when we go to the bars and it's still an early hour to go.
On my way home I saw a fox. A fox!! and it had something on her mouth. It was creepy. I arrived home at 00:30, which I think it was a bit too late for their taste. No one told me anything about yet, but I don't think they liked it that much.

I didn't take photos of Fumi and Tatsuya on Saturday. These are from before meeting them. Since somehow I deleted the Trafalgar Square photos from last weekend, I took some more this time.

It was a rainy day, it rained 5 minutes, then it stopped, then it rained again for 5 minutes than it stopped, and it was like that the whole day.

The National Gallery.

This man was playing tenis against National Gallery's wall o_o

On sunday we met up again at 10 am in Oxford Circus, because Fumi wanted to go to Spitalfields Market. This time Tatsuya wasn't able to come, apparently he teaches soccer to children. LOL
First we got to a street market that it looked bad and poor. It wasn't what we were expecting at all. But after walking more, we found an indoors market full of the most interesting and alternative things. It had all kinds of clothing, food from various countries, music, etc. It was so full of interesting people with the most different fashion styles. It was truly an amazing place. I ended up buying a imitation Alexander McQueen scarf, that everyone has, for £5 (about 6.30 euros). Now I feel sorry for not taking pics of the place, it was so cool. Sara, I'm sure you would have loved it and you would want to sell Aishiteru Honey's pieces there. The market was divided into 3 different places, which made it quite huge. We had lunch at wonderful street place too. And at 3 pm, to tired to discover more sight seeing places around, we went to wait for Tatsuya at McDonald's. The tea there sucks. After meeting him, we went to the Harrods, which was full of chinese people. I've never seen so many name brands in my life. Fumi bought some chocolates there as souvenirs, but for me everything looked too expensive, haha. We then went to another shopping mall, I don't remember the name or even where it was anymore. My memory is kind of bad, isn't it? Again, I didn't buy anything.
Afterwards I asked Tatusya to take us to a Korean restaurant for dinner, even though Fumi doesn't like hot food xD SO we headed up to Chinatown again and had ate korean food at a korean restaurant with a japanese name. LOL. Me and Fumi divided Bibimbap, which wasn't too hot because she doesn't like it. Poor Tatsuya couldn't help but sweat a lot, his food was so hot. I only tried a little bit and had to drink coke right after. During dinner we talked about the differences between chinese, korean and japanese people and how we distinguish them. After dinner, we went to a bar and drank some beer. British beer is so weak. We were all very tired, so I kept talking about dorama and actors to keep us awake. Tatsuya is a freakin' dorama encyclopedia, seriously! He knew every dorama I talked about and the name of every actor in it. I was amazed. He also knows a lot about johnnys. I told him he must like dorama a lot, because he knows so much, and he became shy, blushed and said no in a low voice. Hahaha. I wonder whats about Joe Odagiri and Japanese men. Why do all Japanese men idolize him? Yes, he's handsome and kakkoii, but I don't see why every single japanese man like him so much. There are other actors as good and cool as him, imo. Anyways, Fumi thinks Ronaldinho is sexy. WTF?? Who in the world thinks that guy is sexy? O_O I was so shocked. She prefers Ronaldinho to any japanese actor. And she likes Sporting because she thinks the players are handsome... I told her I think every soccer players are ugly, except some italian ones and she tells me the italians are ugly. O_o We totally have different tastes in men. Totally.
At 22:30 the bar closed and they walked me to the station. It was kind of sad to say goodbye to Fumi, although we only spent a weekend together, it was very intense and we did spent the whole sunday together. I felt like she was a close friend already. She's planning in coming to London again on summer vacation, that will be nice. As for Tatsuya, although we both live here, I doubt we'll meet each other again without Fumi. We didn't really make a connection since me and Fumi were always talking in Portuguese and almost didn't talk to him. He did add me on mixi and all, but I think we're both too shy to plan something again.

This is Fumi drinking a hot chocolate.

Me and Fumi eating a huge hamburger and chips.

And here they are. It was so big, full of everything and delicious! For only £4.

Me in the rain xD

This is Diana and Dodi's memorial at the Harrods.

The Bibimbap.

And apparently this is the only photo I took of Tatsuya, it's a horrible and blurry pic because I didn't use flash, but you get an idea of how he looks like. After seeing the Joe Odagiri pic he has on his mixi, it's obvious he wants to look like him, the long hair, the facial hair, etc xD

On my way home I saw the fox again! It was even more creepy. I wonder if it was the same one or if there are several aorund here. I got home at 23:30, a bit earlier than saturday, but even so, I feel like I shouldn't have. Let's wait and see if Yoko comments anything about it this week.

london

2008-04-06T11:47:10Z

Yesterday I fought my laziness and went alone to central London to see all the famous land marks. I bought an all day travel ticket, which allows you to take trains, buses and underground but I walked all the time, so it was a waist of money. It's very easy to walk around in London, you don't actually need to catch a bus to go anywhere if you're just sightseeing, because in each corner there's something for you to see.

It's half an hour by train to get from Sidcup, where I'm living, to central London. But the train is so slow, it would take about 20 minutes if it went faster. On the other hand, the train is much more silent than the portuguese ones.

I arrived at Charing Cross station at 12:30 and went straight to Trafalgar Square, where you can find the National Gallery and Nelson's Column. The square was full of tourists! I went down Whitehall to the Household Cavalry Museum, where the guards ride horses, and followed to St Jame's Park to get to the Buckingham Palace. I took pictures during the whole way, but somehow I must have deleted them by mistake, because I can't find them anywhere T_T I wanted to show how full Trafalgar Square was and how beautiful St Jame's Park is, but now I can't. Well, the park had the most beautiful birds and ducks I have ever seen. And lots of squirrels, I had never seen so many squirrels so close! One passed right on my foot xD

The Queen Victoria Memorial and the Buckingham Palace.

The Queen Victoria Memorial. It's really pretty with the gold statue.

The Buckingham Palace. The gates have gold details, it looks really beautiful.

I thought there were going to be those guards that can't move, but there weren't.

Me next to the memorial xD

After the palace, I went up St Jame's Park again to look for the Houses of Parliament.

The first sight of Big Ben!
I was like OMG 8D

Westminster Abbey. This is where the Kings and Queens are crowned. Also, many famous writers are buried there, like Dickens.

Westminster Cathedral.

Big Ben yo!

I don't know if those buildings are something worth mentioning, but you can catch a glance of the London Eye behind them.
That park has statues of important people, like Churchill.

And here I am! 8D
When alone and in doubt about who should you ask to take your photo, please do ask the asian guy with the huge camera, because he will catch you and the background from the right angle LOL

This was some kind of manifest agains the Iraq war.

Oops, what a dangerous angle, but the side walk was so fool of people that this was the best I could manage xD

The London Eye on the other side of the Thames river.

The Houses of Parliament.

The Houses of Parliament along side with Thames river.
I always remember this place from movies. In american movies, they always cross this bridge LOL

After this I went back to Trafalgar Square, had lunch in a place called Union Burger. It was a nice place. I was proud of myself for choosing a place that wasn't full of tourist, haha. The guy who worked there was so cute! I felt embarrassed while trying to figure out where were the numbers in the coins to pay.
I'm not used to the money here at all. But I can do a pretty good head convertion in my head.

Chinatown!
Going to Chinatown is like entering a different world, although it isn't a very big place.

And this is the other gate on the end of that same street.

I found a korean restaurant and bakery, I so want to go there and try the food!
I bought soft morinaga sweets and a bottle of Oolong tea. God, how I love Oolong tea.
I only saw one shop where you can buy chinese cd's, dvd's, manga and magazines. I hoped to find some posters in there, but they only had anime poster :/
Anyways, I also went to a very small mall that had the most cute japanese things ever, hello kitty style, and on the second floor it had photo booths for purikura!! I want to take purikura there! But I felt so out of place, there were only chinese girls and boys there, and the very few western were with asian friends.
I need an asian friend to go take purikura there xD
Would I be crazy and brave enough to have a haircut in Chinatown?

The Queen's Theater.

And I didn't take more photos after that.

It started raining while I was in Chinatown. I went to Trafalgar Square again and decided to go see the National Gallery. OMG the place is HUGE. It was like remembering my art history classes all over again. I saw most of the painting I had studied there. It's such a different feeling to see them right in front of me than in a book. I felt great. And the entrance is free! It's great. There are some quite impressive paintings there from painters I don't remember studying. I was never a Van Gogh fan at all, I didn't find his painting anything special, but when I saw them I felt like crying, they have so many emotions. Paul Delaroche's The Execution of Lady Jane Grey was superb. I had never heard of Giovanni Battista Moroni, but his portraits were fantastic, I really liked his style. On the other hand, I was tired of so many Rubens and Rembrandt's...
In the end I was so tired of walking around National Gallery, I couldn't even pay attention to the paintings anymore, but I think I've seen everything or most of it. I just asked where the exit was and waked away.

When I walked out the gallery a guy come's up to me and says:
- Excuse me...
- Yes?
- Can you take me home with you?
- Hahaha! No.

By his accent I would say he was french. It was the second time someone hitted on me that day. I guess my poor looks are attractive to some people...

And that was my day. I spent a total of 18£, about 22 euros, all because I bought an all day ticket that cost 7£ (which I didn't need and wont buy ever again, a return ticket is just fine) and lunch was 8£. Next time I'll bring lunch from home or I'll buy something at somerfileds, haha.

Yoko is playing Ghibli ost songs on piano right now and it's just beautiful.

meme

2008-04-02T14:24:49Z

Stolen from pyro_o

Ask me to take pictures of any aspect of my life that you're interested in/curious about. Leave your requests as a comment to this entry, I'll snap the pictures and post them in the next post.