Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

北海道の雪祭り (Snow festivals in Hokkaido) : 札幌の大通

After checking at the hotel when I arrived in 札幌 I went directly to the main attraction in the city which was the 雪祭り on 大通。On the way, I met some igloo which could be visited, people were lighting up candles inside. I then reached 大通 and the first view was a huge street aquarium sculpture or more exactly a sculpture of the submarine life. It was illuminated and absolutely amazing. I then walked along the street to see the other snow sculptures. Several of them were in fact stage where people were playing games or singing. I had a ラーメン before continuing to すすきの。
Under the sea
Mickey Mouse
可愛い
Largest Ice sculpture
A snow building
Snow castle
Hippo in love
One piece
Happy penguin
Ice sculpture in 大通

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

北海道の雪祭り (Snow festivals in Hokkaido) : Introduction

It has been a long time since the last blog post in January. Sorry about the long silence. Hopefully I have something new and interesting to entertain you for the next few days. I wouldn't say my life was on the down side for the last month but it wasn't quite as entertaining as it used to. Hopefully it's on the way up and I have to say that I spend the last four days week-end traveling up North to go and see the 雪祭り(yuki matsuri) in 北海道 (Hokkaido)。
The 雪祭り is a festival with snow and ice sculpture and delicious street food as for any Japanese festival held in Hokkaido, the island in the North of Japan.
Normally when you tell people that you are going to see the 雪祭り they expect you to spend the day in 札幌 (Sapporo) the main city of 北海道 and to spend a  day or two in 大どり(Oodori) to see the snow sculptures and the show there and to visit the other few sites of festival in 札幌。Few months ago, that's what I intended to do but not quite what happened. Instead I took four days to go to three different cities : 札幌、旭川 (Asahikawa) and
 小樽 (Otaru), to discover three very different and equally entertaining 雪祭り。 The next few posts will be telling the tale of my travel in the "Grand Nord". Stay tunned.
I Love Hokkaido
Igloo
Asahikawa
Otaru






Sunday, January 15, 2012

Reading Challenge

I love books, when I was living in Belfast there was a shop where you could get second hands books for very cheap and it's the same in Japan so I collected a lot of books that I didn't really have time to properly read.
Several times while reading on internet I came across this idea (don't ask me from who it is) it says if you want to read many books get a empty shelve and make a pile with your books near it, then you are allowed to tidy the books by putting them on the shelve only when you are done reading them. I thought the idea was funny and he did turn a bit in my mind but the last time I saw it, I decided that I needed to give it a try. First because it is clearly bugging me to have all those unread books.
Second because you can never know if something will work before you try it for yourself (No it wouldn't work for me bullshit here).
Thirdly because it does make my room look kinda cool this way.
I emptied my closet (and I wonder how the books could fit in in the first place). I empty the shelve of the unread books and here we go.
Book corner front view
Book corner side view











































The books include, English classic, American classic, Homere and Virgil, scientific book (Mathematic, Physics, Chemistry, Paleontology... ), Japanese Manga, Harry Potter 3 in Japanese, one novel in German...

I have books from my "special collection" which will need to be read later as they involve the fact that I'm not fluent in their language and sometimes even don't have the basics.

Some more books will be added soon as I'm waiting for two package from Amazon, one containing American classical science fiction novels and one being "The Fault in Our Start" (more about it later).

I don't know how long it's going to take me to read all this, if I was still in middle school I would say two months but with my actual life, I have no idea. Stay tuned for the updates.

Friday, January 6, 2012

ジウ 警視庁特殊犯捜査係 (Jiu)

En français
Jiu

























ジウ 警視庁特殊犯捜査係 (Jiu) is a Japanese drama in 9 episodes from 2011 based on a novel suspense serie by Tetsuya Honda.

The Japanese S.I.T. (special investigation team) police organization have two women in the team. Misaki is very warm and feminine and turned toward negotiation. Motoko is more athletic and tend to solve the cases by force which end up with having her transfered to the S.A.T. the special intervention unit normally reserved to men. Both girls are trying to track down Jiu, the perpetrator of very brutal kidnapping crimes.
Cinema, Manga, Animation Content

Casting : 

黒木メイサ as Motoko Isaki
多部未華子 as Misaki Kadokura
城田優 as Takashi Amamiya
北村有起哉 as Hiroki Azuma
김명수(L) as Jiu (Jiu is the Chinese character played by a Korean guy in a Japanese drama... interesting)
飯田基祐 as Numaguchi
伊武雅刀 as Kensuke Asai


I like this drama because it is filled with suspense. Also my favorite charactere is Motoko she is more my type. I also like Jiu's personality even if he is the bad guy in the story.


Thursday, January 5, 2012

Rainbow catcher (JulNoWriMo part)

Last July I participated to JulNoWriMo and at the same time to Camp NaNo. This works on the same principle as NaNoWriMo you need to write a certain amount of words to win. I might have been really busy with other stuff at that time because I just realized few days ago that I didn't brag about winning... wait I was traveling in Ireland and France at that time. So I didn't have time to blog post about it !! Anyway the fact is that I actually won JulNoWriMo (and failed AugNoWriMo) with a partial novel called "Rainbow catcher".
The novel is about a boy who travel into a very desert country to catch the purple rainbow he needs for his younger sister's heart surgery. I know it sounds a little crazy but well you'll have to read it to make up your mind about it.
I'm uploading it now because I'm intending to finish this story this month while participating to JanNoWriMo 2012. During the summer it was really easy to write something which took place in a desert as it was really hot. Now that we are in the middle of winter, it seems a little bit more difficult. Anyway, we will see the outcome soon I believe.
All Novels Drafts 


Enlarge this document in a new window


Wednesday, January 4, 2012

NaNoWriMo 2011: Detective story Epilogue

Harajuku KissOnce upon a time or more exactly when I was kid there was this commercial on TV about dish washing product which went something like : "When there is no more, there is still some", meaning that you could do all your dishes still when the bottle was looking empty if you really tried to empty it more. In a way it was a very educational things somehow, against waste maybe, good for the environment as you didn't need to use a lot to be efficient or to tell you to finish what you start. Or maybe it's just me getting a little bit crazy about it tonight. What I actually want to say is of course I finished "Harajuku Kiss" few weeks ago but I wanted to add a little something about my characters so when you were thinking it was over, here you got a little more.
All Novels Drafts 

Enlarge this document in a new window
NaNoWriMo 2011: Detective story part 1
NaNoWriMo 2011: Detective story part 2
NaNoWriMo 2011: Detective story part 3
NaNoWriMo 2011: Detective story part 4
NaNoWriMo 2011: Detective story part 5
NaNoWriMo 2011: Detective story part 6
NaNoWriMo 2011: Detective story end

Monday, January 2, 2012

ゴンゾウ / 伝説の刑事

En français

ゴンゾウ / 伝説の刑事 is a Japanese drama in 10 episodes from 2008.
Gonzo


























Traumatized by a weird homicide case which happened three years ago and still gives him nightmare, one of the best investigator of the Tokyo Police forces is now Chief of the equipement section and named ゴンゾウ. He basically does nothing all day and him who was once a heavy smoker just eat candies. But as a violinist ask him to find her violin which was stolen in the train, the past catch up with him and he is once again plunged into the old unresolved murder case.
 Cinema, Manga, Animation Content

Casting : 

内野聖陽 as  ゴンゾウ
筒井道隆 as Seiichi Sakuma
本仮屋ユイカ as Endou
大塚寧々as Dr. Risa Matsuo
高橋一生 as Yuuji Hibino
内田朝陽 as Otobe Isao

I like how this drama starts really funny and then turns totally psychotic. This is one of the quality of the Japanese drama I have seen so far. I also like the recurrent questions without answers until the end.