Show tunes have turned into a daily musical fix for me. All thanks to this lovely show called Glee, which took this year's Golden Globe for Best Television Series (Comedy/Musical). The classics, like "Don't Stop Believing" and "Somebody to Love," are, in my opinion, the best covers of the show so far, but the show restarts in April so there's still room for some surprises before the season ends.

Although 2010 could have started off on slightly better footing, Glee was something of a musical bang that kicked off the new year for me personally, and that reassures me that there is hope~

January so far hasn't been horrible at all, truthfully, although I did get a few scares that turned out to be false alarms. So far, 2010, so good. But then, I've never really been a fan of sectioning time off into those neat little compartments created by numbered years. Just because you write a 10 instead of an 09 at the beginning of a day's worth of lecture notes doesn't make it magically different from last year. Change--or rather, progress requires more effort than just a change in numbers.

But enough of that.

The seven pictures from this post were all taken from the weekend before last, between Saturday the 9th and Monday the 11th. They're all from quite a few weeks ago, but hey, what can I say? School caught up to me, as it always does =[

Anyway, some of them are the usual edited photos, with minor changes in brightness and color intensity. But this time I decided to try playing with different color tones, so there are quite a few experiments in sepia and a couple washed in shades of blue using the multiply layer on photoshop.



2010.01.09 My host family's German hot dog (I say hot dog because I can never remember, for the life of me, how to spell the proper name...I think it's daschaund? No, that's not right...nevermind already). I think I've introduced him before, but in case I haven't, his name is Cartier, but that's pronounced Ka-ru-che in Japanese. So if a French person called him by the "correct" French pronunciation of his name, they'd probably 無視されちゃう. He usually sleeps on the carpet beside me while I do homework/play on Facebook, and he looked so cute and sleepy on this day that I figured I capture a moment AND experiment with my camera's color settings in one go. Talk about multi-tasking~



2010.01.09 A long, long time ago, in the entry before this, I mentioned I managed to by 3 albums for only $40 in an cute little town outside of Shinjuku called Shimokitazawa. Well, here are said albums, incorporated into a little exercise in sepia tones and linear composition. My only concern for these babies is how I'll manage to pack them into my suitcase in August without cracking the cases or, God forbid, the discs... D=



2010.01.09 This is Shimokitazawa! It's a quiet, colorful little town with all these crazy private-owned stores selling clothes of every style imaginable (which is saying a lot considering it's in Tokyo) teeny, over-crowded bakeries, mind-bogglingly cheap random retail stores, and of course a fair share of second-hand music and book stores. Needless to say, the music and book stores are my favorites. I have every intention of going back there and buying a couple more albums, time and money allowing.



2010.01.11 Another experimental shot on the sepia color setting. This was taken at one of the stalls in the Ramen Museum in Yokohama. It is absolutely AMAZING in there. I had no idea what to expect, so I was pretty much mind-blown when I walked into the basement. There, all the different regions of Japan that are known for their ramen have their own little ramen shops and you can try as many different one as you want. I tried two: Kumamoto and Wakayama. This picture is of the empty bowl after I downed the Wakayama-style ramen--plus the ubiquitous waribashi (wooden chopsticks) that can be found pretty much anywhere in this country.



2010.01.11 After feasting on ramen at the museum in Shin Yokohama, my friends and I hit up the famous Chinatown in Yokohama, also the largest Chinatown in Japan (not exactly sure where the other ones might be). I was impressed with a lot of things about this Chinatown---not only is it a lot cleaner and prettier than the ones in Hawaii, Seattle, and San Francisco (the only other ones I've been to) but also the buildings there are really something else. A bit cliche and stereotypically Chinese, but then what else does one expect from a Chinatown? Also, this picture is one of the shots mentioned about where I tried out the blue-toned multiply layer on Photoshop~



2010.01.11 Yet another sepia capture! Coffee and tea are probably my favorite subjects for stock, just because they're also my favorite drinks. But then, they do make for pretty compositions, in my opinion. This particular mug of tea is from the Doutor at the station nearest to the Yokohama Chinatown, where we chilled for a couple hours after walking around Chinatown.



2010.01.11 My favorite, favorite shot of the weekend by far! On my way home from spending the day in Yokohama, I was walking over the bridge that crosses the Sumidagawa to my apartment complex and the water was totally still. The reflection of the illuminated windows of the apartments in the water was absolutely stunning. This is the only time I've seen it like this---I know for sure because if I had before, I would have taken a picture, haha. Actually, I must have taken 20 frames of this scene, but this was the one that turned out the best. It's also the other picture that's been adjusted with a multiply layer in a darker shade of blue.

* * *


ジャ、また今度ね～ I will definitely update again soon!

Today, I went with some friends to Shimokitazawa, a cool little town just outside of Shinjuku, and there I unexpectedly accomplished a goal I'd set for myself during my brief trip home for the holidays. That is, I made a list of the CDs I really wanted to buy asap, but without any real intention of coughing up the cash required to actually purchase them. Said albums were:

1. (500) Days of Summer Original Soundtrack
2. In Between Dreams Jack Johnson
3. The Dark Side of the Moon Pink Floyd
4. These Things Move in Threes Mumm-ra

Whatever my previous intentions may have been, they flew out the window when I went to check out a record shop in Shimokitazawa called Dorama. Tempted first by the boxes of 100 yen CDs set at the entrance, my friend and I eventually wandered deeper into the shop and discovered a pretty respectable collection of both Western and Japanese artists' work. There I found first the Jack Johnson album, followed by the discovery of the Mumm-ra album. However, I was appalled that Pink Floyd didn't even have a tag in the Rock Pop section, until I discovered that this shop actually has a whole section devoted to Progressive Rock, where I laid my hands on a used by well-kept copy of The Dark Side of the Moon And without any hesitation whatsoever, I bought all three for a mere 3700 yen.

Score!!!

And so, the reason why Breathe is the chosen song for this post is because it was one of my first favorites from that amazing album, introduced to me by one of my study abroad friends. And also because it's a symbol of today's unexpected accomplishment.

But right---onto the photographs. I'll just backtrack a little bit from today's trip to Shimokitazawa back to the first two days of the new year, spent back in Hawaii.




2010.01.01 Mizuna, a Japanese vegetable, freshly washed and chopped on my mother's cutting board. Hawaii is really similar to Japan, as I've really come to appreciate now that I've lived in both places. One of their similarities is that even fourth generation Japanese-American families like mine make the traditional ozoni soup on New Year's Day for breakfast. However, the immigration patterns of my ancestors (my family is originally from the southern regions of Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Wakayama, and Kyushu) are apparent in the fact that, unlike my Tokyo-based host family, my mom and most other Japanese women in Hawaii usually put mizuna in their ozoni.



2010.01.01 If I had to title this, I would probably call it Bamboo and Bunny. Actually, maybe not, that sounds kind of stale. But those are the two main subjects here: my camera focused on the family room's bamboo mat in the foreground with my pet bunny, Hoku, a blur of white and gray fur caught in mid-hop in the background. Despite the brightness of the day, this shot was taken from under a chair, hence the darkened foreground and the bit of cloth caught in the upper half of the shot.



2010.01.01 For the third year in a row, I went to my friend's grandma's house for their annual New Year get-together potluck lunch in Honolulu. This year, however, we stopped off at my friend's apartment, where I got a chance to snap a few frames of her view of Honolulu. Not exactly spectular---it certainly doesn't compare to Tokyo--but this is what most of the city's landscape looks like. It may seem lackluster, but for me this shot captured Honolulu's essence on an everyday scale.



2010.01.01 In Manoa, near the University of Hawaii, these blue flowers were in full bloom. Growing along the two-lane Manoa Road, I thought they added a nice hint of color amongst the abundance of greenery that Manoa is known for.



2010.01.01 The first sunset of 2010, from a residential area called Moanalua Ridge. Most people probably think of the hibiscus flower when they think of Hawaii's flora, but for me I think the plumeria is a better representation. Probably because when I was in middle and high school we'd pick the plumerias that had bloomed on the trees on campus and stick them in our hair. Plumerias, rather than hibiscus, are preferred for that kind of hair decoration among local girls.



2010.01.02 Day 2 of the New Year: headed to Lanikai Beach with my family for the first time in a while. Kailua Beach is more popular with locals, since unlike its neighbor Lanikai it has showers and bathrooms and the essential parking lot. But I can say without any doubt it was worth being salty and wet and having to walk a distance back to the car. Lanikai is right along a long row of private homes, and my guess is that the canoes in this picture belongs to one of those wealthy homeowners.



This is one of the results of me playing around with my camera's macro focus feature. The sand at Lanikai is unreal. It's so impossibly fine and smooth. Make me wonder if people from spas go there to bag some of it and use it for facials?



Oh, the calm waves of Lanikai, which is Hawaiian from Heavenly Ocean I believe. The water is shallow for pretty far out, and once it starts to get deeper you hit reef, so it's not exactly ideal for floating around. But the lack of the heavy crowds that plague beaches like Waikiki and Ala Moana makes for lovely, clear water, and more frequent sighting of the local fish.



2010.01.02 Swimsuits hung out to dry on the clothesline after a relaxing morning spent at the beach. A recurring scene throughout the ten days I spent at home.


* * *

And so once again, until next time~ ♥