Jay Chow? K?

Another peaceful day...? Well, I have been rotting at home anyway. Nothing much... Wait, I found something interesting the other day and I wanna share it here :D

I believe that by now there's few people who doesn't know about Jay Chow. Even the Malays adored him so I guess he's THAT popular LOL. K, no offense people... Anyway, have to admit though he isn't good looking, his songs re really good. I like talented artists, not only those who can sing but also compose their own songs. They are rare gems in the entertainment industry :D

But you know, the other day I was surfing the net with nothing to do. And then I decided to search for some lyrics... though the j-lyrics have most of the stuffs, they do tend to miss out some of it though which brought me to cherryblossom lyrics page. They are so complete that I wonder what they don't have. Anyway, thing is, I came across the gallery page in the site and just went in for fun. Then I saw that they have a gallery of the artist K and since I listen to his songs, I wonder how he looks like for curiosity sake.

Lo and behold! He looks like Jay Chow!!! I was so surprised when I saw the pix! Well, they are not exactly laike but hey, you can't say they don't! Perhaps from certain angle K looks more like him... Even so, K has softer features and *hem* more looking. Riiiiiiight, don't flame me for this. Merely stating my own opinion :D

Above: Jay Chow
Below: K

By the way, if you wonder who K is, he's actually a singer. I was shocked when I check his profile. You see, he's actually the artist who sang "Only Human" which was the ending song of [1 Litre of Tears]. Therefore it is only natural to assume he's a Japanese. But his profile shows otherwise. Here's what I found:

Real Name: Kang Yoon-Sung

Date of Birth: 16th November 1983 (1 year older than me!)

Birth Place: Goyang, South Korea

Facts: After the failure of his first album in Korea in 2004, K crossed over to Japan and made his name there. His first Japanese album, Beyond the Sea has achieved a sales of over 300 000 copies. K had released 2 Korean albums, one in 2004 and another in 2006. He had recorded 2 Japanese albums and 1 cover album. He had also released 9 Japanese Singles between year 2005 to 2007.

I like K's voice and now, definitely his features :D I like his determination... Even though he wasn't popular in Korea, he continued on with his dream of becoming an artist through a different route. It was good that the Japanese accepted him and his talent. He sang so well that I had no doubt he was a Japanese at first...

It might not be right to say that he's MINE but I don't really care at this point =3 He's really cuuuuuute and the cross culture with Korea and Japan had been a great discovery!

I'm K's FOREVER! ...or otherwise... I'm fine with it either way XD

Do you like SHOPPING?

I went out today... but before that, this afternoon I searched through my wardrobe for my beige khakis skirt but couldn't find it. My mum said it must be crushed between some of the folded clothes. My determination got the better of me and before I knew it, I took out all the clothes and wondered whether it's time to clear it. I have a lot of clothes and some of them I just wear once or twice. Funny how nice it looked when you tried it on in the store but loath it twice as much as before. When that happens, I can't just ignore them since I'd already bought it. So I tend to keep it till god knows how many years later... or sometimes I'd force myself to wear it once or twice to at least show my mum I "wore" it before to avoid her frequent nagging when I buy more clothes.

Harbour Town on a wet winter...

Well, GIRLS! We love shopping, especially without guilt. And I believe we live for that purpose LOL. Everytime I'm unhappy or depressed, no, I don't cook barley (though that was what my flatmate used to poke fun at me for), I'd go out for a shopping spreeeee! I really like Harbour Town (Perth) coz they have Nike, Adidas, Jeans West etc at reasonable price. It's a factory outlet anyway so it's all good. I don't think I dared to re-count how much I spend buying clothes throughout my 5 months there :D

But the good thing was that the clothes in Australia have a variety of sizes and fits easily for someone as chubby as I am. I tend to wear size 12, and sometimes size 10 for certain t-shirts. Shopping for clothes are so much at ease when you just simply need to follow your size. If you're a size 12, juz go by 12 in any boutique and you can hardly go wrong.

Back in Perth, I frequented Valley Girl, AWOL, Cotton On, Sports Girl and Supre. Though one of my friend doesn't like Supre, I find the store pretty OK. Price wise I wouldn't say that they are cheap (nothing's cheap in Australia), but their house-brand cosmetics are not so bad. I like the lip gloss I bought there, a double end gloss with two flavours--chocolate and vanilla in each separate end.

It's finishing soon... my lip gloss I mean. Liked it a lot and it doesn't cost me much... Might request my friend to buy it for me if it's possible. I have no idea who might be flying back to Malaysia this semester but I hope I'll be able to meet some of them, namely those I knew back then in college!

Oh, I myself was surprised that I wasn't excited at all by the SALES around Malaysia recently. Perhaps I was bored out of my wits. Those "sales" as they claimed to be, were not executed by all stores. Best of all, new clothes/ items were not on discount and these new tops or bottoms always looked much better than the discounted ones. So you'll most probably end up purchasing the "new" ones rather than the discounted version, and also might end up being broke while not getting the best deal at all.


Even so, many Malaysians are attracted by the SALES all round the country. Major shopping complex are full of people and that you wouldn't get parking even after going round and round for hours in the parking area. Shops and restaurants are flooded by people, especially lunch or dinner time. You wouldn't dream of stepping into Sushi King or Pizza Hut or even Kenny Rogers at such hour. The queue can be so long that you'll wonder whether it moved at all for the past hour. Such scenes are frequent in Midvalley, especially if you're there on a weekend or public holiday. Fast food outlet and cinemas will be full of people and you'll definitely cancel the plan of buying a popcorn before the show since the queue can be thrice as much as KFC handing out free chickens.

Gokusen, anyone?

Right, its a good chance to start anew with this blog. Not everyone understands Japanese :D and so, with a simple explanation--"SAKURA" is the sakura flower which symbolizes Japan, the term "YUKI" here represents snow while "YUME" is dream. I believe you can piece the words together and interpret what I'm trying to say...

Ooooh I'm super hooked into Gokusen lately. I bought the DVD for quite some time and actually finished the 13-episodes anime last year. Funny enough, when I got back from Perth I have a sudden urge to watch it. I restrained myself because I had a whole stack of new J-drama and anime that I bought at S&M which I must finish in the same week (because customers are only given 1 week after the date of purchase to make any exchanges in case there's damages to the disc). In the end the whole thing dragged for about 1 month coz it's pretty impossible to finish all of them within 1 week (believe or not, i bought a whole stack), but I made them my first priority.

When thankfully, I finally managed to finish nearly all of them without any problem, Gokusen called for me from the shelve. I put the DVD on and that's it! I watched for about 6 hours (stopping here and there for meal and toilet breaks, not to mention to allow my mum to watch her 3pm Singaporean drama) and was utterly satisfied. I remember some of the scenes vividly so it was really enjoyable to watch it. But seriously, 13 episodes are such a killer! At the end of the day, it just makes you crave for more.

Below is the lyric to "Hontou no Kotoba" by Foot Stamp, the opening theme to Gokusen (the anime)...

Dore kurai tatta no darou

Deatta ano koro kara
Ikutsu mono yorokobi to
Kanashimi wo kurikaeshite

Katakoto bakari no kotoba ni
Kimi wa tomadou keredo
Hontou no kimochi nante
Kuchi ni dasenai mono sa

kono omoi tsutawaru kana

kono kimochi tsutawaru kana

shizen ni waraeru naka de

ikite yuketara ii ne

itsu no aida ni ka ochi tsuite

wadai mo amarinakute

konna ore wa kimi ni

ittai nani ga dekiru no darou?

yasashikushite moraitai

kimochi tashikametakute

kokoro ni monai koto wo

ore wa mata kii tarishite

Kono omoi tsutawaru kana

Kono kimochi tsutawaru kana
Shizen ni waraeru mamade ikiteyuketanara

Kono mamade tsuzuku no kana

Kono mamade yukeru no kana
Tatoe tooku hanarete mo
Kokoro tsuyoku kanjitai

Kanjitai

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

How long has it been since we met?

We have many happy things,and many sad things.

Faced with my faltering words,you are bewildered.

But one’s true feelings,are not easy to express.

Will my feeling get through to you?

Will my sentiment get through to you?
I’m happy if I can carry on with a natural smile.

Will it go on like that?
Can we go on like that?

Even if we are far apart, I hope to feel your heart close to me.

*Lyric & translation taken from http://fighto-oh.net/anime/opening-theme/

I prefer the ShinKumi relationship. Though Shinohara is not bad either, there had been very little scenes on him in the anime which I would say a rather neglected character. We don't know anything about him except that he's the Ooedo Clan's lawyer and that he cares for Kumiko, but even so was rather blind to the fact that she likes him.

Kumiko (top), Shin (below)
*picture courtesy of http://animejb.net/shinkumi/multimedia/manga/

I watched the action before and couldn't say it was very good. But yes, it was pretty well done and definitely humoured me. I find that Yukie Nakama is well-suited for the role. I had some reserves about her before catching the series because in several J-dramas I watched, she played roles that were not to my liking. Therefore you can't really blame me for being somewhat skeptical to have her as Yamaguchi Kumiko in Gokusen. Even so, I gave the series a try and sure enough, it was good. But another fact that disappointed me was that Matsumoto Jun played Sawada Shin. Right, I am no fan of Jun (sorry to all his fans out there) and wasn't really convinced to have him in the role. Can't say I was right, but you can't argue that I'm wrong too. It felt really weird to have him as Shin, which is *hem* well, supposed to be more good looking LOL. Perhaps due to his acting in this drama landed him the role of Doumyouji Tsukasa in Hana Yori Dango since there's some similiarity in both characters...

There's the opening theme (anime) in YouTube. Still figuring how to embed video LOL. Till then, juz bear with the link :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsNFqGOmsjU

One of my friend back in college didn't liked it. I mean, before she watch an anime her first round of qualification to meet is the ART. Can't say Gokusen have got nice art (and everyone looked so terrible except for Shin and Shinohara). Even Kumiko wasn't particularly a beauty but hey, watch it for its STORY! I know, I can be pretty fussy when it comes to the artwork of the particular anime /manga but this is definitely a must watch, especially for its humour! Sometimes I just wish that people will give it a try before judging it's really not worth watching. Heard of "Never Judge a Book by it's Cover"?

K, I guess there's nothing more to say... Might capture some shots from Gokusen and put it here. Depending on whether I'll be too lazy to do that or not haha. As for now, I'm going for another round of Gokusen since the disc is still inside the DVD player!!! Yes, I love it to this extent~!