cherry blossom season review

shouldn't be doing this right now

but I still am. Writing in this blog.

Now why am I prohibiting myself from updating this update-hungry blog? It's because I should be doing more important things. Like preparing the percussions that I'm gonna do this weekend at church. Or at least moving my butt and burning some calories outside jogging.

But no. I'm here stuck in front of my laptop, doing my website rounds going through gmail, twitter, facebook, friendster, multiply, yahoo mail, and just now -- just to add to things that could distract me -- plurk. Then there's one more. Because I still can't pull myself away from my computer, I decide to revisit this blog.

Hopefully, this will be the last of them websites -- at least for the next hour! I really need to get moving. At least eat dinner.

Good luck to me.

Snowboarding Sunday

Went snowboarding last Sunday with Just, Jocky, and Edsel at Hakuba Goryu in Nagano. The snow was fantastic--best snow ever! It snowed nonstop making even the bottomest slopes fluffy with fresh powder.

Justin and I tried out the different courses and in our adventure ended up at the other side of the mountain, in the neighboring Hakuba 47 resort. To return, we had to go through three slow lift rides and cross over from the very peak. And then from the top, we then had to go down using the grand prix course, which meant we had to literally step off a cliff and slide in near vertical terrain to reach the kinder slopes below. Talk about intimidating! Thankfully the steepness didn't continue for very long and soon I was back on gentle slopes again. Weee!

There's one bad thing about gentle slopes, though. The big crowd. The place was like an obstacle course of people. I had three collisions with other boarders (the first was my fault!)

Alas, all the snow also made the ride home so terribly slow. Even though the bus left the resort on schedule at 4:05PM, we were almost three hours delayed at 11:40PM when we stepped off at Shinjuku.

Good thing I can look back at this little trip and easily recall not the bad bus ride, but all the powdery snow! It made all the negative things worth the trip. It was a dream come true.

Awesome day.

Photos here.

Mogusaen park

Autumn is park visiting season. Here are pictures from Mogusaen, one park I visited with coworkers and friends. Thanks to its proximity, being just a few minutes away from where almost everyone lives, a pretty big group got to take part in this fun trip to the pretty park.

Almost everyone brought a camera, so more should be popping up!

Arlan's
Some of Justin's

a happy movie to end a happy day

After being at church the whole day playing percussions and meeting up with the Pinoys at the Filipino Christmas party, all I wanted was to crash into bed when I got home at around 7 PM last night. But last night also presented a rare opportunity for me and my roomies to do some in-house movie watching. (Roomie L actually still needed some convincing, but anyway...) so together, over potato chips and Boy Bawang, we watched Hairspray in my boom-box-connected laptop.

Loved loved Hairspray! Especially loved the music, the dancing, and the colors! Of course, can't help but compare it with the actual musical, which I watched here in Tokyo some months back. The movie was a few songs and scenes short, but it was still great.

princess mononoke

princess mononoke, originally uploaded by jemione.

I have been a fan of Ghibli movies ever since I chanced upon My Neighbor Totoro, which turned out to be my second Ghibli film, next to Graveyard of the Fireflies. Graveyard was too sad, and when I watched it I didn't know that it was from Studio Ghibli, so it didn't turn me into a fan. Anyway, thanks to my former roomie Tinats and her collector coworker, I was able to watch at least four more from the Ghibli camp. I loved all of them. So today, I decided to start my Ghibli film collection! My first purchase was Princess Mononoke. Bought it from Shinseido in Nagayama for around 4k yen. Got a 3-DVD set, with one DVD for the film and the other two as special add-ons!

seven from the eight floor

seven in the elevator, originally uploaded by jemione.

This elevator shot of me and six of my coworkers was taken at around 10PM earlier. My office had a hello-and-goodbye party for Berns and Reghz at Doma Doma resto in Seisekisakuragaoka. I think the party was not yet over when we left, but me and my project-mates Kelvs and M had to go because some work were still waiting at the office.