Star’s Neighborhood

The thing about living in this city is that it doesn’t matter how vast it is, how many people it consumes, the speed it works in — it never seems to let me forget how many times I’ve loved and hurt and been broken, or where these things happened. It doesn’t matter how many new places, nooks, corners, high rises I discover, it doesn’t matter how many someones you surround yourself with — seeing that one flower shop, sitting in that park, watching that fountain flow, passing that church tower, running around like kids in the biggest known toy store in the city will never erase the memories you spent with the one you thought you’d spend something like forever with. And even if these places disappear, fall down, crash, or are rebuilt — you come to realize that the memories don’t go that easily, and they will stay, for however long they can, in the deepest corner of your heart, because at one time they meant the world and sometimes you’ll miss it, want to relive it, but someday somebody will change your mind and in time, the city will look anew again, ready for more adventures in love.

I've been such a bad blogger, for there have been lots and lots of occasions and incidents lately - good and bad - yet still I can't make myself write about it. I do have pictures, which are on my multiply account though (from the special occasions that is). Will try to get myself together and upload some here/flickr.

Hopefully, I'll get out of the early winter blues, as I call it, soon. sooner. soonest.

Who are you dying to see in concert?

I think I'm flodding VOX, but hell, I have a lot to catch up on. Mr. A-Z is the one I'm dying to see in concert. He was in town like last year and I was still unsure of going, bc I loath the hassle at concerts. People being rude, pushing and the like is something I started avoiding. Meh. 

But if ever he decides to come back, I'm sure to see Jason Mraz live <3.

The title makes me think of Sims 3 - I should play that again some time.

Life has been quite boring lately. Everyday is a Sunday now, if you know what I mean. Here are some random shots from last week:

So, a dream came true – there’s a point I can scratch off from my “Before-I-die-to-do-list”.

I visited Tokyo, Japan – even for a very short time – but I was there and that was probably one of my top highlights this year.

Everything started out so spontaneously. My girl, R., who works as a ground staff for an airline jokingly asked me to join her to Tokyo, since she is going to leave the company. Of course, she didn’t want to miss the chance to make use of her free tickets to wherever. I must admit, I was indeed quite excited even though I knew work would not allow me to leave. The next day, I was all daydreaming about being in Japan for the first time and tried everything I can to get at least 3 days off. All the hopeless trying and asking co-workers to change work days with me were devastating, because really – how often do you get a chance to visit the land of your dreams? I played my last card and asked the chiefs, who to my surprise allowed me to leave. It was weird, because I gave up hope as soon as I started having it. Then again, I knew something was going to happen in exchange of my luck.

I was super excited about the whole trip, that I even made a list at work of what to pack for that 3 day trip. The fact, that it was a very short period of time, didn’t make the packing easy though – on the contrary, it was even harder. The night before R.’s and my departure, we both couldn’t sleep. Instead, we were both being all excited online, chatting and trying to pack our stuffs together at the same time.

D. was happy for me, because he knew how I always wanted to go to Japan than anywhere else in the world. He was also sweet enough to get out of “work” earlier to pick R. and me up and to drive us to the airport. Our flight was at 2 pm, but we were at the airport quite early. Hence, we grabbed some late lunch at McD’s before saying good bye to D. and heading to the gate. R. and I spent quite a time at the gate while boarding the plane, because she was still chit-chatting with her co-workers and flying stand-by was also another reason. I was quite skeptical with flying stand-by, but I shoved that thought in the very back of my mind and covered it with the thought of being in Japan. No risk, no fun, right? (Or something like that.) So, we boarded the Boeing 777 – business class, mind you (because, who gets to fly in business class every so often?) – and we were full of amazement. The first time we stepped foot into business class for a long rage flight, we knew, the flight home in economy class would be hell.

Business and economy class are poles apart. It was more comfortable, even more so for a long range flight, you could even adjust your seat to make into a little bed. It was amazing. The whole flight to Tokyo Narita was a dream, for it was the most comfortable flight I ever had. There was even a flying cook on board, who made the best cherry muffin with vanilla sauce ever. It was frankly awesome.

After 11 hours flight, which flew by in an instant, we landed in Tokyo Narita Airport safely. The excitement immediately vanished, when we noticed that R.’s credit card wasn’t working anywhere. Greeeeeeaaat! Thank God, I got a hold on D. via mail through my phone, who was kind enough to look up something for us. In the end, we had to re-calculated our finance for our stay with the little cash we had with us, since R. and I both relied on her credit card. Silly, I know, but that’s what we both have always been – crazily spontaneous. Either way, we both made the best of it and even then we were having great laughs.

We went by public to our destination, though we both still didn’t decide where to stay. There was either the hotel she earlier booked, which costed us more than a capsule hotel, we tried to find when still in Europe. The difficulty with the capsule hotel was, that not all of them accepted women. Anyways, the train ride was a blast. Both of us were extremely tired, but experiencing a train ride in Tokyo was must. Thank God, the airport station was a final stop, so we had no problem getting a seat, because on our way to our final destination, more and more people got in and less people got out, which made the train super crowded. We couldn’t help but notice the great landscape with those neat little houses and the typical japanese roofs, along with a lot of people sleeping in the train, whether in sitting or standing position. Nippori was the station, we had to change the train to get to JR line, which should take us to the Shinjuku district, where our hotel was located at. It took like an hour to reach Nippori and another 45 min. to get to Shinjuku. Switching the trains was a hassle, because there were gazillion of people around – a situation we were not used to. Despite of the fact, that it was a hard time walking around with our small trollies through the crowd, we also found it difficult to stand on the left side, while being on an escalator, when all we knew, the correct way was standing on the right side at home.

After asking for directions (Japanese people are so damn friendly) we arrived in Shinjuku, got out of the train station in an instant and found ourselves in the middle of a shopping district full of people. All we were was “OMG, this is so awesome!” It was just how we imagined it, but better! We walked our way to the hotel, which seemed endless. There were so many, many people around and we couldn’t focus on our steps, because we were looking around and up those high buildings. We noticed, that you aren’t allowed to smoke while walking through the city, but instead they had smoking spots, which was challenge for us. After walking around and doing a bit of sight-seeing at the same time, we arrived at the designated hotel only to be told, that it was the wrong hotel we were at and that the correct hotel was exactly at the opposite direction. Another great moment. The receptionists were kind as to call up the other hotel to ask for our reservation, which she got confirmed. Washed with sweat, because it was way hotter than we both expected, we tramped back and made another stop at the smoking spot.

Finally, after probably another 2 hours – if not longer – we arrived at our hotel “Shinjuku Washington Hotel”, a big ass building at the sideline of the central. Checked in and got into our room, which was small, as in super small. They had even a tiny bath room with a toto toilet, which was another new thing for us. It was planned to refresh ourselves and to explore the city, but we ended up sleeping for like 3 hours first. It was already evening, when we were freshly shower and ready for Shinjuku. We walked around the city, taking shots of these extremely wide zebra crossing and those skyscrapers along with those big ass blinking and non blinking billboards. It was amazing. After getting to know the place a bit better before, we knew where to find the nearby McD.’s, where we settled for 2 quattro or something pounder burger menues. I was surprised to find Mc.D’s on the 1st floor of a building in probably 60m2. Stuffed and happy, we went on with our walk through the city, taking more shots and being in awe of young people dressing up in such a nicely, cute and different. A round of walk after another and finding another smoking spot, we decided to hit up “Kirin City”, a restaurant/cafe for a talk and a “Kirin Beer”. I believe we must have been quite tired for we then headed back to the hotel and got ready for our departure the next day. Little did we know, that another surprise after the credit card incident was awaiting us. Since, we managed to get along with such a small amount of money, we had some Yen left to pay for an airport shuttle from the hotel. Sleeping late and waking up early to get on our airport shuttle was getting at us, but we still had a great time. The bus ride took like forever. Again, we were spoiled with landscapes of those skyscrapers and a view of japanese cars.

Narita Airport was huge separated between the main building, a south wing and a north wing. We first grabbed breakfast at an airport café and then immediately hit up the check in counter and surprise, the flight was full with no chance of an upgrade. Greeeaaat! So, we were stuck in Tokyo without any money left for a hotel and with me having to work the next day. Greeeat! Greeeat! Greeeaat! To my surprise, we still were laughing it off at our luck. At first, we tried to think of an alternative plan by heading to Bangkok and taking the plane from Bangkok home, but that plan got crossed out too, because every plan possible was fully booked. On a greater note, our phones were both running out of battery, but thanks God, we got a chance to charge at the airport. While charging and and swinging between the Internet Access spot and the smoking spot, we also managed to watch “The Hangover” on my phone. It was hilarious. Since the smoking spot, which had an amazing view to the planes by the way, felt like home, we settled there for quite a period of time. Somewhere in between we explored a little bit more of Narita airport’s south wing and found ourselves having dinner from McD.’s again.

An old japanese man, who seemed to be working at the airport saw us getting a japanese drink from an automat in our “home” smoking spot. He was laughing at us, because the drink R. got, was gruesome and he saw us making that disgusting face. That’s when we started a conversation, where we talked about Japan’s political situation. We probably asked him the weirdest questions including: “How much do smokers have to pay, if they don’t smoke at the smoking spots in the city?” or “Where do the cars park in the city, because we haven’t seen any parking lots anywhere?” or “What’s up with the cherry blossoms?”. It was fun and he was so kind as to answer every of our ridiculous questions. Also, it was so nice to talk to someone, who could answer everything from a “non-tourist-guide” view, if you know what I mean. All the talking, laughing and being stupid made our stay at the airport a good time.

Late in the evening, we asked ourselves, if it was even allowed to stay at the airport for the night. We asked the airport staff again and found out, that we had to stay at the arrival area – so, we moved. R. and I settled on a place near some drink automats. It was hilarious for so many reasons. While R. started unpacking the pillow and blanket, she took from the business class, a young woman called A. started chit-chatting with us after she got off the phone, while sitting near us. She was a nice and friendly girl and we were, at that moment, plain weird because of the nonstop laughing over whatever. She asked us, if we were going to stay at the airport and after affirmed, she offered us to sleep at her place. WTF right? How lovely? It was really so nice of here, we were quite astonished. You’d never meet a European being THAT kind to a stranger.

Moving on, we tried to sleep despite of the loud driller, which started working in the middle of nowhere, when security guy signed us to follow him after we told him, that we missed our plane and were forced to stay at the airport over night. He showed us to the so called “Meeting point”, where other passengers were already settled for the night. Again, we couldn’t stop laughing, because, really, shit like that could only happen to us. After the police and security noted down our datas, the light got off at 11pm. WTH? Right, we had no choice as to go sleep – and I was planning to make our over night stay at the Narita airport like in the movie “The Breakfast Club” by running around and doing some silly things. R. and I noticed that people from Germany, a guy from Taiwan, some Canadian, another Japanese people, some Finns and us were stuck there. Too bad, the security settled themselves in front of our “accommodation”. I was the last one to sleep after trying to read in the poor light.

Around 6 am or something I woke up to the relumined arrival area, where the busy airport staff were scurrying from a to b. R. was up already and told me that she befriended the 2 Finns, who were indeed lovely. We grabbed some sandwiches and headed to the check-in to try our luck again. This time it was indeed on our side. The check-in agent also printed out and gave out our boarding passes without hesitation. Relieved, but slightly sad, we strolled around the departure area again, looked around for small souvenirs and went through the security check. Walking to our Gate made me realize how neat and clean Narita airport indeed was. We stopped by at another souvenir shop and were quite saddened by the fact, that we didn’t have Yen left for some more remembrances, even after I exchanged my last 10 Euro to 1027 Yen.

On the plane, we were both making faces abound getting home in economy class, but at least we were heading home. I probably was so exhausted that I slept most of the time during the whole flight. “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” was the only movie I managed to see on the flight home (”The Proposal”, which was one of the movies they showed on our way to Tokyo was so, so, so cute btw). Also, I felt sick and got a stuff nose and a slight headache probably due to the lack of sleep. The flight was uncomfortable even though we had the whole row only for us two.

It was cloudy, windy and cold when we landed. We decided to feed our nicotine craving first before getting our trollies from the band. I think it was quite embarrassing when we saw both of our luggage on the band and we both ran out of the smoking spot immediately like crazy chickens. We had another laugh. D. picked us up and I despite of the fun R. and I had at Tokyo, it was so good to see him again. R.’s man followed after some minutes and we all decided to hit up their place first to take a look at the pictures we took on our adventure before I, myself, headed home.

Seeing the parentals was great and Mom seemed to be happy with the little doll, I got her.

All in all, our trip to Tokyo was an adventure in the truest sense of the word. There could have been probably no other ideal travel partner in this case than R. alone. We had our rows of misfortunes, but I doubt I’d trade it for anything else in the world.

Now, I have to cope with all the consequences at work and stuff, but that’s a whole other and probably boring story.

PS: I won’t re-read entry this and check for errors. Hope it was bearable.

I'm bringing my Vox back, or at least I will attempt to. I've been cheating on Vox with Tumblr  -- it's become an easier way to share my thoughts and I hate to say it, but I love the anonymity of it. Ever since blogging as become a phenomenon, it's been hard for me to publicly write anywhere unless there's some type of anonymity to it which is why Tumblr has been a savior in the past few months. But I want to come back here, at least for my personal/private thoughts. Otherwise, you can always find me on Flickr where I share both my art and photos on a semi-frequent basis.

I cleaned up my neighborhood here as well hoping that it will let me feel like I'm starting somewhat fresh again. *Crosses my fingers*. I really do miss this.

Art-making machine? Illustrating machine? I have no idea, but apparently I've been on a roll lately and I couldn't be happier! And I hope by saying that that I'm not jinxing myself.. heh.

In the lane, snow is glistening!

No, really it still is. 5 days after the big snowfall we had, there's still snow on the ground which is good because I get the White Christmas that I want every year, which in turn makes it even a happier holiday for me. :)

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday, too.

And in more good cheer, here are some illustrations I've made lately with inspiration from this beautiful winter.