Kyo wa Kyoto e ikimashita, baby!

Woo! We went to Kyoto today. We had a killer time. We saw 3 temples, including Kinkaku-ji, "The Temple of the Golden Pavillion", pictured at left. And yes, I took the picture. It was a shiny shiny temple. I went with Ailish, Yuko and Maki. It was a good thing Maki and Yuko were there: I almost didn't make it out of the Kyoto train station. It was so big. Right now is prime autumn leaf-viewing time in Japan, so we spent the start of the day at Tofuku-ji, amidst its 2,000 or so maples. I rang a big bell at another temple, which is supposed to raise your intelligence. I'll keep you posted on that story as it develops. And I also got my fortune told (by a machine) and my fortune reads VERY GOOD: "Winds blow hard, the waves are high, yet calm is our harbour." How do you like them apples!

5 more days!

As you should know, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire will be released in theatres across Japan on Nov. 26....... YEAH!!!!!!
My favourite character is of course Professor Snape. This is a cute picture I found on a livejournal called potterpuffs. Aww, look at Snape. So cute! So sullen! So sans eyebrows!

Hauru no ugoku shiro

Woot! I am the proud owner of "Howl's Moving Castle" on DVD. What an awesome movie. I liked it as much or more than the book (which admittedly, I was a little bit disappointed with). I loved the backgrounds- Miyazaki's films have these amazingly verdant landscapes. When I watch his movies I can almost smell the grass. His recent films have been veering further away from the whole wisdom-of-nature rhetoric that dominates some of his earlier films, most notably in "Princess Mononoke" and "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds". Not to say I am dismissing these films as environmentalist sermonizing, I enjoyed them quite a lot, but I really loved the bizarre premises of his last two films, which weren't constricted by a man-versus-nature debate. I also felt the heroes in some of his previous films were a little too flawless; purity is admirable in the abstract but freaking BORING in a work of fiction. But that's my opinion. I always root for the bad guys anyways :P

*** On a side note, I feel all my expensive university-educated brainpower has been slipping away from me in the last year. I need to use more big fancy words! Keep my synapses firing!

Forever Love, Forever Dream....

Hey, wow, like, it's X-Japan. Check out that attractive heavily-'shopped 5th bandmember. What a rock star! What an icon of style! She, I mean, HE totally outdoes Yoshiki and hide as the coolest member of the band. Nice job on the blush, guy. Oh, go on then, swoon!

Ye Olde Post-Halloween Post

Most mortals have a passing familiarity with the traditional monsters of Halloween lore: ghosts, demons, goblins, vampires, ogres, banshees, ghouls and werewolves. Yet few people know of a fiend so heinous, so terrifying, so soul-crushingly abhorrent that I am loathe to utter its name lest I permanently blacken my soul. This foul spirit hails from the darkest nether regions of deepest Hell, sired by the Archfiend himself, and its manifestation is an omen of certain DEATH. I speak of course of the notorious Halloween Daikon! Avert your eyes or you too shall become an empty soulless minion of Evil! AAAHHHHHH!!!!!!