(polo-watching)

Er, I went... to watch polo. All the way to Windsor.


Polo and horse-racing are two horse-related sporting activities that are infused with glamour. I missed out on getting a good ticket to Royal Ascot, so polo seemed to be an appropriate alternative. Horses and WAGs aside, two things separate polo from its more popular cousin: dogs and better-looking players (note the order in which they were mentioned...)


Just before heading off, the sky was cloudy - luckily the day turned out to be sunny and gorgeous. Fresh air, a rarity in London, was abundant. Wearing polo-like stacked heel boots makes sense, as getting stuck in mud while teetering on stiletto is no pleasant business. Spectators were invited to 'turn the ground' at half time to render it more playable in the second half, but several men were employed to turn the ground at the end of each chukka anyway. The competitions yesterday were for the Golden Jubilee Cup and the Coronation Cup.

From what I watched, polo is a dynamic and highly aggressive sport. Eight mounted men (approx half a tonne of flesh plus four tonnes of horses) trying to hit a baseball-sized ball with their own mallets is more physical than twenty-two chasing after a soccer ball. To everyone's horror, a player actually fell off along with his horse on one of the games - he was lucky to be able to resume playing right away!

At the end of day, polo seems to be... interesting, enticing and energetic rolled into one ^__^ I'll probably go watch polo some other time... or go for a picnic in the countryside while summer weather is here :D

(sweet cakes and bitter tea)

Yesterday I went to see a chado demonstration at the British Museum out of curiosity. I have read a lot about how subtleties and prescribed mannerisms create a complex system of 'having tea' (even more so than the English afternoon tea with its hordes of china and silvers), so I was feeling quite confident that this would only be a real-life enactment.

How wrong could I be.


Before I knew it... I was participating: shoes off, name and nationality declared to the public. Probably the audience did wonder whether I was set as a decoy to ensure audience participation (dark hair, pale skin and all.) Every move was courteous, graceful and calculated... I couldn't help feeling like the clumsy duckling in the group. Moreover, I had 'kimono envy' too, as the practitioners were wearing kimono made out of summer's silk gauze - kimono of this type are hard to come across.

An interesting thing to note is higashi cakes were served to sweeten the palate before the bitter green tea is taken. It does make me wonder whether this gesture stems from an apologetic culture, praising and asking for understanding before divulging a perceived bad news. Reasons aside, I like higashi I would love to keep a canister of them in my room ^__^

A tea ceremony could run for hours; yesterday's demonstration ran for thirty minutes. I tried to sit 'the proper way' throughout the ceremony, and was unsurprisingly rewarded with red and stiff ankles. Now I understand why being a chado practitioner is a highly venerable achievement - sitting so still takes so much self-control! ^.^;

Come Fly With Me

I would love to join this adventure just prior to starting my final year project. I initially thought of travelling to North Korea, but Sail Indonesia seems to sound equally fun to me! ^__^

Also, I am going to Cartier International this Sunday. Other than men on horses and the ubiquitous polo shirt, I'm quite clueless on what the game involves, or whether it's a male-only sports. Oh well, there are still a couple of days left to study the game...

Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away
If you can use some exotic booze
Theres a bar in far Bombay
Come fly with me, we'll fly, we'll fly away

Come fly with me, let's float down to Peru
In llama land, theres a one-man band
And he'll toot his flute for you
Come fly with me, we'll float down in the blue

(mugicha)

I might have mentioned somewhere that my preferences for food tend to sway according to the seasons. I first came across mugicha at Abeno Too (possibly the only proper okonomiyaki place in London.) The drink can be served hot or cold, and it surprisingly tastes like... coffee. For a former coffee addict, mugicha is a welcome dairy-free alternative to the beloved iced coffee.


I could only find the sachet version in central London - it's definitely sold at Japan Centre on Piccadilly and a Japanese grocery store off Putney Bridge, and I bet I have seen these in a Korean grocery in Chinatown. The loose roasted barley version should yield a stronger flavour, but unfortunately I haven't come across them >__<

Why I like it:
- tastes like coffee without the caffeine
- unnecessary to add sugar or milk
- doesn't stain teeth as badly as coffee or tea
- can be prepared with hot or cold water (options, options! ^__^ )

Why I don't like it:
- costs more than tea and instant coffee
- mugicha pitcher takes up my 'liquid drinks' fridge space (normally reserved for milk and juice)

I was somehow craving for rozen syrup too (that notorious deep rose-coloured sugar concentrate in green glass bottles), but since sweet soya sauce is somewhat non-existent... I shouldn't expect to come across rozen syrup easily. I guess I'll stick to mugicha for now...

Any ideas for cold summer drinks? :D

(WHAT?!)

I didn't even know I won a competition. Geez, thank God!

I'm not too sure whether I have blogged about my trip to the graduate fashion show back in June, or about the colour-matching competition I did. I am fussy about colours (there are too many solid reds and blacks to mention), hence doing the competition seemed to be a good option for queue time-killing. SDC did send me an email about this competition, but as far as I could remember I didn't see much of it... or I wasn't too aware of what I was reading. It was only when I Googled my name did the article come up.

Anyway, I'm glad I have another title under my belt ^__^

(grinagog)

Just to make it brief: I'm having a PV orgy! This post is going to be splattered with a lot of music videos. No, I'm not gonna blame it on cr (yes, because of youu...) but Nodame Cantabile is one good lot of entertainment. The classical music reference alone is worth listening too, along with alien-sounding sound and visual effects. Hopefully my dad buys into this...


Allegro Cantabile - if there was one song that got me hooked to Suemitsu & the Suemith, this was the one. It's like refreshing tonic for the soul... I see this one as a pick-me-up music and the MP3 stays in the mobile phone. Anne thinks the PV is murder on white piano.


Konna ni Chikaku de - last post's title. The blame goes to some cr guy and wikipedia, but the singer's voice is appealing. Her ethnicity is interesting, too: she's half African American, half Korean... and sings in Japanese with no trace of engrish (extra brownie points for her ^^ ) She vaguely reminds me of Kurara Chibana.


Sagittarius - a newcomer, having first heard of it within the past 48 hours. It comes from [what I see as] an 'approved of' artist/musician. I haven't got a file, but I reckon my housemate (who is bound to return by the end of the month) would be able to get me the CD... there should be no major problem.

(I'm trying to work out some illustrations out of these musics...)

By the way, it seems like grinagog (sans derogative sense) is quite illustrative a description of my mood right now...

Lastly, which one of these three songs do you enjoy the most? Take care! ^__^

Sagittarius

Humans are transient, yet the works of their hands are a legacy that lasts longer than their mortal existence.

With the death of Taufik Savalas, the Indonesian blogging community went into mourning. Many were saddened by his sudden departure, some more critical on how how his death overshadowed another transport disaster. As for myself, I am affected by his loss but at the same time I'm unfortunate enough to have not watched much of his now-infamous impersonations of public personalities (hence the lack of overpowering grief.) I hope his surviving family would have enough support to see through the future... somewhere along the way the Irwins have done after their loss of Steve, a.k.a. the Croc Hunter.

On a deeper note, I went to the Heart Exhibition in Euston. I was a bit surprised to find my visual studies tutor gazing at an exhibit case... finding your ex-tutor outside school premises and during vacation counts in as a nice surprise. The exhibit ranges from the cute, the religous to the scientific and the gruesome. It's an exhibition I wished Anne could see, for all the things she finds interesting.

I steeled myself to watch a heart transplant operation recording, casting a glance with my right eye when the scenes got a bit too stomach-churning. Why I used my right eye to have a peek is because the right eye is linked to the brain's left side, which handles logical work... my nerves would be too squeamish to hook up the gory images into my brain's right side. An opened-up chest cavity does have that beef rib layer look, and putting in the donor organ turned out to involve more work than removing the failing organ. I was somehow amused to learn how surgeons tack the inner chest cavity and blind stitch the skin... there are so much similarity shared with my current line of study. I simply have the luxury of being able to undo a faulty stitch with relative ease and little damage to the fabric structure; these surgeons can't do a wrong stitch at all!

All those tubes, machines and liquids were so needed to sustain the existence of a person. The human body is an amazing piece of living machinery in its own right. Medics devote so much time to learn about bodily functions that seem to happen as simple and assuring as how the sun rises from the east. Attempted mistreatement to the body is simply unthinkable o__o

I took down so much notes last night.

Finally, on the issue of how the heart is perceived as the centre of humanity. We have those moments when our hearts seem to have skipped a bit when that important, much-treasured name is mentioned (the other possibility is when the heart seems to calm down when that name is mentioned.) This diagram largely outlines my train of thought...


How do you think we relate to each other in a social setting?

It does make me think that the physical body is a vessel for our consciousness. The consciousness creates humanity, and in turn the humanity it creates gets passed down to the following generation. We are more than just DNA coding and bits of stardust floating around the universe; we are surely more complex and fine-tuned than that ^__^

Humans don't just exist because of a blip or due to some divine whim... there is a greater purpose in our existence, and it has much to do with sharing our lives with others around us.

I really get carried away with this post... I'm really satisfied ^__^ Also, I managed to get the MP3 file for this song - yippee! :D The song is important not only because it's freshly procured or it's in Japanese, but because the lyrics share a lot with the rambles I have in mind.

Well then, just got a call from my friends, so I better meet them and go watch Harry Potter... that is, if I can procure tickets for tonight's session :))

Zutto mabushii koe de
Kitto eien ni aru
Furueteta mune wo tomeru
Natsu no kizumi tsuzuite

Sotto kimi wo kanjiteru
Fuu to nagareru gensou wa
Nami mo kamo koko kara
Saratteku yoyuu de shizuka ni

Kasanari atte tojita me mitsumeru kokoro wo
Wasurenai de, wasurenai de

Aoi namida no kazu, hoshi no kazu
Musunda sora ni
Nowhere, nowhere, nowhere
Itsuka kiete yuku
Tsukamu hikari hitotsu, hitotsu dake
Egaita yume wo
Somewhere, somewhere, somewhere
Nagamete iru

Motto hohaba otoshite
Yatto yoko naranda rizumu
Mayonaka no odayaka na
Nami ni osare tabi suru

Ima kasanari atte tojita me ga mitsumeru kokoro wo
Wasurenai de, wasurenai de

Hajimete no sekai ni kono basho ni
Kinou no kage wa
Nowhere, nowhere, nowhere
Katachi ushinatta
Mimimoto de sasayaita ima tsubuyaita
Kimi no kotoba wa
Somewhere, somewhere, somewhere
Asu ni nageta

Wasurenai sa, wasurenai sa

Aoi namida no kazu hoshi no kazu
Musunda sora ni
Nowhere, nowhere, nowhere
Itsuka kiete yuku
Tsukamu hikari hitotsu, hitotsu dake
Egaita yume wo
Somewhere, somewhere, somewhere
Nagameru futari
Somewhere, somewhere, somewhere
Kono kimochi goto
Somewhere, somewhere, somewhere
Wasurenai de...

Konna Ni Chikaku De

I have decided to learn and master more languages, as previously mentioned... and I'm committing myself to it. I'm taking on Japanese since last weekend. The romantic idea of doing compulsory work experience in Japan (and extending it over summer holiday) is appealing. Visa-wise, I only have a faint idea of the necessary evil that is to come. I believe things will work out somehow... let's see how they turn out.

The main hurdle why I hadn't started earlier (with learning Japanese) is that there are four writing systems that are used interchangeably... sounds like linguistic torture to me. I'm tackling down hiragana and katakana, extending on kanji as my vocab grows. Nevermind the unglorious time register of this post, I did my part of writing J-pop song lyrics from latin alphabet to hiragana. I shall repeat this exercise tomorrow morning...


This is... my fifth attempt to write Konna Ni Chikaku De in hiragana. I tried not to consult to the characters' list, and wrote characters that I were not even planning to write! Such are silly mistakes I tend to make when my brain is half-alive.

(Just to be trivial, the hiragana/katakana/kanji writing system the fourth one I attempt to master, numbers 2 and 3 being Greek and Cyrillic... which honestly are not very different to Latin letters IMO.)

On the lighter side, I wonder how diplomats dream. They are [supposed to be] fluently multilingual, and with an average of three languages mastered, ..........in what languages do they think and speak in their dreams? Do people in their dreams talk back in languages they understand? Would it get spooky or nerve-racking?

Still a long way to go... =^.^= ♥

Koi ga setsunai to sugu soba de kizuita ano yoru
Datte hoka no dare yori anata no koto wo shiiteru kara
Itsumo no karigenai yasashisa sae
Kono mune wo shimetsuketeku

Konna ni, konna ni, chikaku de mitsumete mo
Doushite, doushite, tada no komodachi na no
Donna ni, donna ni, tsuyoku omotteitemo
Tsutae rarenai
You don't understand, I'm so in love with you

Aishiteru to tsugetai ii to
Mou nido to egao ni ha modorenai kamashirenai
Keredo tomodachi no mama tsugeri wa nai wo koi ijou
Watashi dekinai kara

Hontou wa, hontou wa, zutto suki datta no
Itsutemo, itsutemo, aishitsuzugete ta mo
Anata ni, anata ni, todoketai kimochi wo
Aoi sora e to sasayaku
I'm so in love with you!

(foggy weather?)

Yesterday I went to this exhibition with Mag and KY before they leave London for summer. A 27-ton tilting stack of hollow metal boxes (assembled Lego-style with nuts and bolts) was one of the main attractions, but the top one was a fog-filled glass box visitors could walk into. I couldn't see objects that were half a metre away inside that box; that was how thick the fog was.

It turned out Mag was mildly athsmatic due to the humidity (the fog was generated from water), and KY was claustrophobic due to fear of bumping into another person (he did bump into two ladies). Here's a little scene a mischievous me created...
KY: "Where are you?"
Me: "Here..." (takes two steps forward)
KY: "I can't find you..."
Me: "Here!" (takes three steps to the right)
KY: "Gosh, stop moving around!"
Me: "Haha, I'm here!!" (run past the source of KY's voice)
KY: *bumps into two ladies*


The catch of going to art galleries is not being allowed to take photographs during visits, but we managed to snap some pictures anyway... thanks for the thick fog inside the box. We also took a picture of the man who stood next to the entrance with health and safety warnings, his hair covered with beads of water. Visit my flickr site for more pictures.

I wish I had one of these rooms at home...

Less than three months to go till school starts.