Nobody Does Cute Like They Do

There's this Ani-mate segment at Animax channel that left me gagging every time I saw it. The girls (Stephanie, Alodia... who else?) do try hard, but I'm sorry....

If you are not Japanese or Korean, you might look simply weird trying to act all cutesy. Even Raimie complained... and that's an 8 year old boy!

I don't know whether you guys agree with me but it is normal for me to watch Japanese/Korean girls (and guys too - especially Korean hunks; for that matter) act all cute and adorable. Korean hunks all seem to have the ability to act cute without being vomit inducing.

But for others to try... I get simply EEEWWWWWW....

p.s. to fans of the Ani-mates, don't shoot me!



On another note... I am sorely missing Channel 714 (Channel V) of Astro. Where can I get my fix of J-Pop and K-Pop now? Hmmph... have to download all the music videos instead of just enjoy them on the idiot box now. :(

This And That...

I've got panda eyes for the past weeks. I am sleeping less than 5 hours daily and it was worse on weekends because for two Friday nights in a row, I was totally awake and slept for a total of one/two hours the next morning. When I can't sleep, my house tend to be clean. It's something I used to do when I was an insomniac single twenty-something too; cleaning in the middle of the night. I can't vacuum because that would be too noisy but I clean-up the kitchen and the bathroom until they were sparkling clean last weekend!

Anyway, I'm not fretting much over my loss of sleep because I have my Korean dramas to keep me company. I used to draft posts to put in my three blogs when I can't sleep and sometimes I can draft a month's worth of post during one sleepless night but nowadays I really have not allocated any time to do much updating or much thinking for that matter.

Let's see... I watched the whole episodes of Coffee Prince four times already. Had a marathon watching another Gong Yoo's drama titled Hello, My Teacher - a drama that kinda reminiscent of Japanese's Gokusen; last weekend. Not a big fan of this though but I still watch it for Gong Yoo.

Am now finishing up another 16 episode Korean Drama, Personal Taste and I'm thinking of doing a re-run this weekend along with a revisit to Boys Over Flower (Korean version of Hana Yori Dango) that also has Lee Min Ho in it. And maybe watch one or two episodes of KimuTaku's drama - Hero.

While I was busy watching all these dramas obsessively, Zaini on the other hand was and is busy fine-tuning our itinerary for our September trip to Japan. Which reminded me - I really need to e-mail Kozue soon because by the look of it, we may postpone our trip to a week later than our original date. Kozue, gomen nasai. I haven't been in touch or commenting much for a while now.

We are still watching the promotional airfares offered by different airlines. JAL has yet to come up with a new promotion which kinda suck for us because we always, always prefer flying with JAL. But then, we have booked our JAL tickets at the last minute all these years anyway.

MAS has a promotion on-going now, with fares of RM900++ one-way.

SQ looks good too, simply because now SQ has flights to both Narita Airport and Haneda Airport. If we choose to fly in to Haneda instead of Narita, we can save money on transportation cost to get to Tokyo because getting to Tokyo from Haneda is so much cheaper than from Narita. For example, airport limo from Narita to Tokyo cost 2,900yen but it is only 900yen from Haneda. A big difference, right?

Money saved can be spent elsewhere! If only JAL has flights to both Narita and Haneda. We'll definitely choose JAL's flight to Haneda. But no news from JAL about it yet.

Postponing our trip a week later works to our advantage because the second week of our trip will coincide with Japan's public holiday that fall between September 21-23. Having a Toyoko-Inn International Club membership enable us to get 30% discount for our rooms on Sundays and Public Holidays. Right now, we are looking at three days of public holidays and one Sunday for a 30% discount for rooms and one Monday for a 20% discount for rooms. So much savings....

What are we going to do with the money saved? Zaini wants to visit Hanayashiki Amusement Park in Asakusa, the oldest amusement park in Japan. There's still an old roller coaster made in 1953 up and running there!

Zaini said that what's the use of me putting up my EC profile of Hanayshiki and yet I've never been inside it!

I Think I'm In Love Again....

With another Korean drama...

The Animax Channel on my cable, ASTRO put in a few Korean shows aside from the Japanese anime fares and one of the show currently being shown is Coffee Prince. It used to be shown on 8TV a couple of years back, but I wasn't too crazy about it back then because it was dubbed into Mandarin. I tell you... I really, really hate watching anything dubbed, be it into English, Malay, Mandarin or Cantonese.

Luckily, on Animax, I can watch it in its original language and OMG.... have I fallen hard for this show (not to mention fallen for the lead actor, Gong Yoo)! I've pulled an all-nighter for two weekends in a row watching all 17 episodes back to back. I spend a whole night just reading up all the episodes recaps. My eyes feel so heavy... I can only open them in slits today! LOL

The OST for this drama is another reason to watch. I love all the songs in there.

A brief synopsis:

The life of Go Eun Chan (Yoon Eun Hye) is not easy; she works many jobs to pay off debts and even gave up her feminine image. Choi Han Kyul (Gong Yoo) is the heir of a big food company, but his grandmother wants him to settle down, so she arranged many dates for him. After Eun Chan bumped into Han Kyul and was mistaken for a boy, Han Kyul decided to hire Eun Chan to be his gay lover in order to avoid the arranged dates. Desperately in need of money, Eun Chan had no choice but to accept. Han Kyul's grandmother also made Han Kyul in charge of a filthy coffee shop in danger of being bankrupt. Eun Chan begged to work at the coffee shop, and not long after, feelings start to spark, except, how would Han Kyul accept his "homosexuality"?

Zaini asked me why I am so infatuated with Coffee Prince.

Well, this drama reminded me so much of the two of us before we became a couple, ages ago. And Zaini can be rather like Han Kyul sometimes. He can be so annoying that I don't want to talk to him one minute and he can be so thoughtful the next. Let's just say this drama made me feel I was back in my 20s again. :p

Zaini surprised me on Friday with a box DVD set of Coffee Prince because I was grumbling over the fact that it was so hard to watch all the episodes online and downloading it was such a pain in the ass with my broadband connection. I wanted to buy the DVD but it cost so much.... I guess I was whining far too much for over a week that Zaini went ahead and got it for me. I was happy and touched as well but 20 minutes later I was ready to strangle Zaini for something he did (or rather omitted to do). ^-^!

Another reason I love Coffee Prince is this man on the left. Total eye candy.

And oh! oh! oh! You should see the kissing scenes. It'll make you want to pounce on your partner and share a kiss. I swear! *^-^*

Now, if you excuse me... I'm going for a third round of drama marathon. I'll be neglecting my blogs, my Entrecard dropping and pretty much everything else for a couple more weekends, I think.

Family Vacation Photos - Are You In There?

I like browsing through our old photos. I got this idea of putting up several photos of my mug in my other blog, Lina's Backyard but can you believe it - there isn't much photo of myself in our whole collection of photos!

I asked a friend of mine who is an avid photographer about how many photos of himself in his vacation album and he told me that out of the few hundreds photos of his vacation in Beijing last December, he was in the photos for about 15 photos!

I didn't fare much better -  because we only use one camera between the three of us, and the camera is always being monopolised by me; there were so few photos of me but of course there were plenty of Raimie's. I do wish there were more photos of the three of us, like the one I posted here, but then, I don't really like asking for strangers to take photographs of me!

Traveling On A Full Stomach

Apart from getting a JR Pass for our long distance train travel in Japan, there is one more thing that is pretty convenient to be enjoyed while zipping around in the trains and shinkansens and that is the eki-ben (train station lunch boxes).

More information about these awesomely delicious and convenient packed lunches can be read here: Appreciating Japan Through Ekibens.

Some of the eki-bens we enjoyed during our previous trips: 

Our eki-ben bought at Shin-Osaka station, eaten on our journey from Shin-Osaka to Hakata in Kyushu taking the Hikari shinkansen.

Our eki-ben bought at Hiroshima station - with octopus and oysters. They sure don't skimp on the ingredients. There were so many oysters in my paddle-shaped bento. We bought these bento during our trip from Shin-Osaka to Kanazawa on the Thunderbird, and then jumping on the Noto night train from Kazanawa to Tokyo.

Our eki-ben bought in the train SL Ban Etsu Monogatari-Go, on our trip from Aizu-Wakamatsu to Niigata. Getting a ride on a steam locomotive was an awesome experience for us and eating lunch while the train were puffing along ravines and rivers, and eating good food while enjoying the scenery was an awesome experience. We even got a souvenir inside the bento box in the form of a paper train cut-out.

Our dinner bento bought at Niigata station. Fish roe is Zaini's favourite. We ate these on the on the Joetsu Shinkansen Max Toki to Ueno station.

Eki-ben in an earthenware bought in Karuizawa. Either this bento is really famous at the station or because there were no other choices, but when we were there, a long line was formed immediately when a stall was set-up offering this delicious meal. Most commuters bought no less than two and I think they bought it to bring back home.

A bento bought at Tazawako station before our onward journey to Nyuto Onsen.

We will look forward for more eki-ben adventures during our next trip. The eki-ben sold at the train stations change seasonally so it'll be fun to try out new eki-ben throughout the four changing seasons. Don't you agree?

Oishi Buffet on Legs At Midori?

Should we go to Oishi Buffet on Legs at Midori Japanese Restaurant, Putrajaya Marriott Hotel & Spa this weekend?

A friend who has been living in Japan for three years is coming back to Malaysia on June 5 and will be staying at the resort for a few days. I was hoping to meet up with her and family on Sunday, the day after her arrival before she head off to her hometown. Zaini mentioned that perhaps we can head to Midori  for their buffet and maybe we can go there after going to his cousin's wedding earlier in the day.

Midori is having this promotion every Sunday for patrons to enjoy a Japanese buffet experience with a range of food presented by service associates at your table. Featuring appetisers, sushi, sashimi, tempura, teppanyaki, robatayaki, nabemono, soba, udon, chef’s creations and desserts – the whole works and all market fresh. It is priced at RM55++ per adult and RM33++ per child for lunch and dinner. 

But of course, I don't think my friend would want to join us for dinner at Midori. She already ate so much Japanese food in Japan for three years!