Do I believe in New Year’s resolutions? Probably.

January 2, 2013 in Everyday | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Comments closed

My New Year’s resolution?  Well it’s quite simple, you see.  It involves a bit of traveling.  Well, that’s my personal resolution for 2013.  I am hoping to do a little more traveling before really settling down.  This year, I am trying to plan at least one big trip (a final hurrah, if you will), possibly to one of these places:

old english bus toy wallpaper1. LONDON!  Yes, yes.  I would indeed love to visit this rich city, one which I have never visited before.  I have very much professed my longing desire to visit this city to my husband, but he has always been hesitant to travel to London.  Instead, he prefers to travel to Asia (i.e. China &/or Japan) mostly to visit close friends & relatives.  I think this year may be the right time for us…

rio beach wallpaper2. RIO DE JANEIRO… For a number of years, I have been contemplating the idea of visiting this bright city, the foundation of my passion for Bossa Nova music.  What solidified my lust to travel to Rio?  Why, the animated movie RIO of course!  That movie really painted an irresistible panoramic view of the city I long to visit someday… Maybe I could lay on the beach & pretend that I am that girl from Ipanema.

shibuya night wallpaper3. My husband & I have been toying with the possibility of traveling back to Japan again.  However, this time, we would like to visit other cities besides Tokyo.  I’ve visited Kyoto once before & would love to visit there again with my husband.  Oh the possibilities!  2013, we’ll just have to wait & see.

hoily at tiffany's wallpaper4. Insert obligatory Breakfast at Tiffany’s photo here.  Yep.  It’s New York City.  My husband’s best friend, Peter, shares a birthday with me.  (His birthday is the day before mine.)  We had some grand scheme to go to New York for our birthday(s) this year as a group until Peter & his newly wedded bride recently bought their first home & won’t be able to go.  But…the show must go on, & I am currently trying to convince my husband to take me back to his old neighborhood in Manhattan.  (I felt so cheated when I got severely ill on my first trip to NYC & was holed up in the hotel room for 3 days straight.)

2013 is a new year…a time to start fresh.  Unfortunately, things have already gotten off to a rocky start.  We will be moving out of our apartment at the end of this month (due to an insane rent hike & some specific family matters), & we will be moving into my parents’ house.  We are not looking at this as a setback, but more like a step forward.  Think positively.  I guess you can say that’s one New Year’s resolution/goal that’s already been met.  Cheers!

(All photos courtesy of: Wallbase.cc)

Best X-X-X-mas!

December 5, 2012 in Everyday | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Comments closed

Hello there!  It’s been a while since my last posted entry, & I offer my apologies.  As it turns out, since the Thanksgiving festivities, my niece passed on her sick germs to me, & I got sick (yet again).  I ended up getting an ear infection coupled with a nice little sinus infection (wrapped up with a pretty bow).  It’s been over a week & I still have some lingering symptoms of my sinus infection.

HOWEVER………The show must go on!  I shall soldier on & continue my blog entry.

Xmas is fast approaching, & I must say that it is one of my most favorite holidays of the year.  Well, to clarify, I’d like to say that December is probably my favorite month of the year…since it’s the Winter season, Xmas festivities are celebrated all month long, AND…my nephew’s birthday is also in December.  So, for me, there’s lots of activities this month.  There’s also a few recent traditions that I’ve been keeping up with over the past few years.

Every year, around Nov/Dec, I like to stock up on new calendars for the next year.  (You’ve already seen my planner diary in my previous entries.)  Here are my new calendars for 2013:

This is the calendar for my spare bedroom at my parents’ house…
home calendar

This one is for my apartment.
Fun Fact: 赤塚不二夫 (Fujio Akatsuka) is the artist of popular comic 天才バカボン (Tensai Bakabon).
apartment calendar

This is the calendar I’ve been using for this year:
2012 calendar

I love festive decorations for any occasion…especially Xmas!!  I finally got my first Advent calendar.
Believe it or not, I actually got this at a Starbucks coffee shop in Tokyo.
I wasn’t able to find this at any U.S. Starbucks retailer (or at any China Starbucks), so I believe I got myself a good deal here.
advent calendar

This is what the apartment finally looks like after jazzing it up for the holidays.
I wanted to keep decorations to a minimum, since the apartment has very little storage space. (I don’t like clutter.)
Anyways, I will be spending the main parts of the Xmas holidays at my parents’ house…so…
I then got a small symbolic Xmas tree & added 2 Xmas edition LEGO sets from my growing LEGO collection.
apartment xmas

That’s pretty much it.  Not much else to report on our tiny home-front.  Oh wait!  I almost forgot…

I got a little trigger happy at the card shop (again) & got 3 new greeting cards to add to my ever-growing stash.

new greeting cards

I also got a storage case for  my decorative (Washi) paper tape.
My giant hobby box is just stuffed to the brim & couldn’t hold them all.
tape box

Travel to Tokyo: a photo wrap-up

November 9, 2012 in Everyday | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Comments closed

Well everyone, our short trip to Tokyo has come to an end.  We are now in Guangzhou, China visiting my companion’s relatives.  Since pretty much everything Internet-related is banned here in China (even Word Press), I’m not sure I’ll have much opportunities to post regular entries.  So, I’ve decided to just wrap up my series of Tokyo travel entries with a photo highlight reel of our last days in the land of the rising sun.

We got to experience a lot of different architecture, like this Hotel Gracer with it’s amazing striped façade.

Stopped by the Nissan showroom in Ginza & got to see this custom-made GTR designed specially for Olympic Track & Field gold medalist Usain Bolt.

I made a trip to my favorite clothing brand’s flagship store in Ginza. 12 floors of shopping heaven! For me, it’s UNIQLO all the way…

A common ritual whenever I visit Tokyo is to have an afternoon cake set. In this picture, I had a tiramisu cake with a drip coffee.

My must-have food while in Tokyo is the famous Mille Crêpe cake. I can never get enough of this cake, & I never miss an opportunity to have a slice (or two, or three).

Speaking of cake, I finally got to try the very famous HARBS cafe. What a delight!! This picture was taken at the Lumine 2 shopping mall in Ginza.

I tried their Crêpe a La Carte cake with layers of chocolate, custard & whipped cream filling. The slices were huge…just the way I like it.

My companion ate the Mille Crêpe cake, with banana, cantaloupe, kiwi & apple fruit filling. This was an interesting mix of fruits & custard.

Oh & speaking of cafes, we stopped by Akiba on our last full day in Tokyo & just happened to pass by the official AKB48 cafe. For those of you who don’t know, AKB48 is an extremely popular female singing group from Japan who sing mostly anime-genre songs. They are considered an idol group, as each band member is a pop idol among all of their super fans.

We also stopped by the Gundam cafe, which was right next door to the AKB48 cafe. In case you don’t know this one either, Gundam is a very popular, very legendary, very long-running robot anime series. (This is like the equivalent to Robotech.) Not only are the various anime cartoons/movies popular, but the DIY plastic model hobby kits are also extremely popular all around the world. I have also made a plastic Gundam model kit myself.

Also got to experience some extravagant architecture all around Tokyo. Here is the Bvlgari (Bulgari) store in Ginza. It has a diamond-like snake wrapping around the storefront like a diamond necklace. The snake is one of the animal symbols of the Eastern zodiac. In the Asian community, 2013 will mark the Year of the Snake.

We also got to experience a lot of Christmas decorations being displayed all around town, like at this Cartier shop (also in Ginza), which looks like a wrapped gift. It seemed a bit odd to us Americanized folks to see Christmas decorations so early on, but I guess since the locals in Japan don’t celebrate a Thanksgiving type holiday, right after the Halloween decorations are being put away, the Christmas stuff goes up immediately.

Well, that’s it for now.  I’ll try to post some pictures of my stay here in China.  So far, there hasn’t been much things of interest to see…unless you like pictures of mega shopping malls & high-rise apartments that look like they came from a cheesy 1990s movie set.  Otherwise, cheers!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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