So I am here safely in Osaka, in front of the famous Glico Man billboard at Dotombori. The flight here was surprisingly good, Philippines Airlines so I wasn]t expecting much at first but there was lots of leg room and it was well spaced out, 3 hrs to Manila, an hr in transit before another 3 hrs to Osaka. The plane didnt crash obviously, even though we flew into Manila dark and gloomy in the wake of a typhoon.

My eyelids are getting heavy and my back aches from lugging the heavy backpack and its cold and I have got warm blankets waiting in my room, so I guess I will end here, Osaka Castle and Aquarium tomorrow then its off to see Silly Susan, she says there's a Udon party apparently so I better head off for some rest now! Take care everyone in Singapore! and Australia and Ithaca .

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Its the next morning and I was just about to go out to tour but before that I visit the hotel toilet and was suitably impressed to detour to the computers to blog about the toilet bowls here! The toilet seat is warmed! Just the right thing for winter, and there are so many controls at the side of the toilet bowl, you can direct jets of water at different intensities and at different angles up your arse, and vary the water temperature too. Having a warm jet of water shoot up your arse I assure you, is a very peculiar feeling.

In line with my current penchant for photography, I decided to make use of the high definition scanner my brother bought at the last computer fair to digitize old photos from my growing up years lest they fade away like all old photos do or get eaten by moths or silver fish. It takes forever just to scan one photo, here are my favorites from the handful today.

Remember him? Lai Zhixuan a.ka 'Peanut' (and his sidekick at his right hahaha). 

Soccer-mad brothers.

See, we started young.

After my visit to the money changer, with 75,000 yen in my wallet, I decided to shoot some photos, since it was nearby, at the quaint old church we stumbled upon, me and sarah, a month or so ago. Quite pleased with some of the photos.

Pray for Us

My personal favorite: Saints behind the Window.

Pray for Peace

Don't forsake us.

COALS Camp: Morning view from the teachers' quarters.

It has not been a good week for watching soccer. Man Utd were stunned last night by an early Nicolas Anelka goal as Bolton held on for their first ever win over the Red Devils at the Reebok Stadium with Fergie combusting and sent to the stands. Midweek, on early Thursday morning,  I sat dumbfounded at the coffee shop at Changi Village as Croatia scored a third and winning goal to send England crashing out of Euro 2008,  tearing to pieces the script of what would had been a dream return for Beckham after his perfect cross for Crouch to equalize.

It rained, stopped, rain, stop, rain, stop, rained and then stopped again, like a girl who can't decide whether she or not she's buying the dress with the purple polka dots. Everywhere you went, it was wet and squishy, you had to be careful not to step on the grass and get mud all over your feet. The good thing was the cool weather, it feels like christmas already with the decorations already up in many places.I finally got my Japan Rail Pass today. I still find it hard to imagine I will be in Japan next weekend!

Went for the Andy Warhol exhibition at Mohd Sultan today. How could we miss it? Famous for his silkscreen renderings of objects such as Coke bottles and Campbell's Soup Cans, Warhol was the leader of the Pop Art movement and is considered to be one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. 

 

It took us quite a bit of sweat and not a little while before we found the place, the huge "A"  sign catching our attention from across the road. And since we couldn't take photos of the exhibits, we satisfied our shutterlust posing with the same sign, all of us, not that it's my favorite sign of all time, if you get what I mean : P

Catherine Lim, well known author of books such as Following the Wrong God Home and Little Ironies: Stories of Singapore has written an open letter out to the Prime Minister of Singapore urging for more political openness and a greater tolerance of opposing viewpoints, which our local newspapers including the Straits Times, have declined to publish, read it here and make up your own mind.  In 1994,then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong publicly castigated her for writing an article, The PAP and the people - A Great Affective Divide in the Straits Times. The Prime Minister argued that if she wanted to voice her opinion on politics she should join a political party. 

I remember telling Abel a couple of months back, that Bloc Party is for when you grow up and graduate from listening to Coldplay. Here are the lyrics to Uniform from their latest album, an ode to todays disaffected, politically apathetic youth.    

There was a sense of disappointment as we left the mall
All the young people looked the same
Wearing their masks of cool and disinterest
Commerce dressed up as rebellion

Because we are so handsome and we are so bored
So entertain us, tell me a joke
Make it long, make it last forever
Make it cruel just make me laugh
We can't be hurt

Drink to forget your blues on the weekend
Think about more things to buy
The TV taught me how to sulk and to love nothing
And how to grow my hair long

So why do you go picking fights that you will lose?
(When u have entertainment, when give you things to pass the time)
So why do you have to go thinking thoughts that are above you?
(You can be happy, just play dumb x2)

Well I was brave
And unique,
Intelligent,
A snowflake
I could have been a hero
No-one can be trusted over the age of 14
Tattoo our arms
Converse shoes
Cynical
But we still do it
We tell ourselves that we're different
I've gotten so good at lying to myself
All, all my pain and honour is used up
All my guns are rusted
So when are you going to realise those are not your wrongs to right
Have another line, have another drink
(Pop songs won’t change the government)

I am a martyr I just need a motive
I am a martyr I just need a cause
I'm a believer I just need to a moment
I'm a believer I just need a cause
We're finding it hard to break the mould
We are finding it so hard to be alone
We're finding it hard to have time by ourselves
We have nothing at all to say

Uniform

There was a sense of disappointment as we sped away
All the teenagers looked the same

The King and I.

This handsome fella next to me is Lis King my colleague and best buddy in school; a contract teacher like me, but he's doing PE. He runs really fast! The girls say we are brothers because we hang out together so often in school. I have also recruited him into my Sunday League team. He will make a real good teacher, I am sure of that.

Budding Photographer

.

@The National Museum

I love my D40x!!

While his sister is busy cracking her head at math problems, I entertain myself interacting with this little darling. Crystal duh!

The Ghost that carried us away.

The breeze before the rain creeps in through the window, light and lulling; bringing with it sleep, on a grey cloudy sunless sunday morning. 

Just love the 70s feel.

cali! says: Shakespeare hates your emo poems.

A gem of an emo tune. You are guaranteed at least one of these in every one of his albums. 

"Give me 2 more minutes, so I can freeze this moment in my memory...."  He may be mumbling, but sure as hell it's heartbreaking. 

I have finally finished Portrait in Sephia and once again I am amazed at how Allende manages to weave such a vivid and wonderful story, blending history with fiction,  bringing together the characters from her other books, The Daughter of Fortune and the incomparable epic, The House of Spirits. 

Epilogue

_____

If it weren't for my grandmother Eliza, who came from far away to light the dark corners of my past, and for the thousands of photographs that have collected in my house, how could I tell this story? I would have to create it from my imagination, with no material but the elusive threads of the lives of many others and a few illusory recollections. Memory is fiction. We select the brightest and the darkest, ignoring what we are ashamed of, and so embroider the broad tapestry of out lives. Through photography and the written word I try desperately to conquer the transitory nature of my existence, to trap moments before they evanesce, to untangle the confusion of my past; reality is ephemeral and changing, pure longing. With these photographs and these pages I keep memories alive; they are my grasp on a truth that is fleeting, but the truth nonetheless; they proved that these events happened and that these people passed through my destiny. Thanks to them I can revive my mother, who died at my birth, my stalwart grandmothers, and my wise Chinese grandfather, my poor father, and other links in the long chain of my family, all of mixed and ardent blood. I write to elucidate the ancient secrets of my childhood, to define my identity, to create my own legend. In the end, the only thing we have in abundance is the memory we have woven. Each of us chooses the tone for telling his or her own story; I would like to choose the durable clarity of a platinum print, but nothing in my destiny possesses that luminosity. I live among diffuse shadings, veiled mysteries, uncertainties; the tone for telling my life is closer to that of a portrait in sepia.

Steve Jobs is right, you'll never know when something you have learnt turns out to be useful. If I didn't take that ICM class back in year 2 nus, I would never have been exposed to Citizen Kane and I probably wouldn't have understood and chuckled at the peanuts comic strip I was just reading. The peanuts gang are queuing for a movie, the first kid says, "One please" the 2nd in queue, a black kid asks, "What's this movie about?" Marcie replies, " Some hockey players try to take over the world..." Peppermint Pattie adds, "They use curved sticks...", on to Linus who says, "But then the sticks are declared illegal.." Charlie Brown continues,  "And the world is saved."  Woodstock is behind charlie brown and she is speaking to snoopy in bird language, " | | | | | ?"

And Snoopy replies, "No Rosebud was his sled."

You either get it or you don't. Don't bother thinking too hard over it.  

Chijmes is frightfully expensive, after you factor in the service charge, a whopping 17%, for the 3 of us , a jug of Heineken and a seafood platter set us back $71.90, I don't know about you, but that to me is a lot to pay to watch a soccer match, even with the atmosphere and nice courtyard architecture. At $23 per person, it's almost enough to pay for the SCV subscription at home. The next time round, I told everyone, they can come over to my place, just bring the beer and snacks. It would have been worth it, had the Red Devils won, but Gallas at the dead, lucky Arse, meant it ended all square at 2-2.

                                                      From Wednesday Night  - Trick or Treat?

Before proceeding to nus to play for katong, running till cramps set in, I took a slight detour, pass the Turf Club,  the railway tracks and across the Dam with its view of Johor, onwards to Sungei Buloh, where I caught this little fella 'running on water', literally, on the water hyacinths floating on the big pond in front of the visitors centre. Nothing as therapeutic as nature.