Going Underground

Last night, I went to my second Japan Underground event, a launch party for an album by the GazettE, held in a bowling alley. Japanese music, bowling and karaoke!

Fairly unrelated since I didn't bring my camera - something I drew while waiting for things to kick off properly. Shinji's jizz-splattered hand was not my doing, but an unholy collaboration between Anders and Matt. :c

 Unfortunately, upon creation of a new character with race Asian, there is apparently 50% chance that they will be afflicted with a terrible curse known as Asian Flush. This means that instead of the fun buzz of drinking alcohol, you get an immediate hangover and, to add insult to injury, end up with your skin glowing bright red.

I have a fix for this (it involves taking a pill beforehand) but I discovered when I got there that I didn't have any, so I had to trek all the way back to a midnight pharmacy before I could drink anything. My bad!

Karaoke machine was in action from 11:30 on, so naturally people were belting out Queen and various Japanese songs for the later hours. I chose Candy Pop by Heartsdales ft. SOUL'D OUT, with Matt for the male part, because Japanese hip-hop from 2003 is hilarious. My voice was giving out under the strain of drinking and shouting over loud music, on top of having a sore throat due to terrible diseases. My lines also occasionally gave out under the strain of... lack of practice. But it was pretty good fun! I hope never, ever to see any footage.

In hair experimentation, I gave twin-tails a spin for the second time ever. This was fun, but proved to be somewhat of a social mistake - over the course of the night, my dear, dear friends variously attempted to strangle me with them, use them as horse reins, pull them and fling them about above my head in the hope of imitating helicopter blades. ;w; I can't fly with them, guys...

Great fun though, annoying detour excepted - got to talk to some new people, met up with some friends from uni days and it was generally pretty cool! I have unfortunately extended my sickness as a result - I should be sleeping at the moment but the cough, and annoying daylight, is keeping me up. So I'm just tiring myself out by doing other things until I get to the point where I will sleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.

Adventures in Japanese: The descent

More travels in the Japanese dictionary. (These are probably not super-common, but I just found them interesting!)

下る (kudaru)
To descend. 
But also used in 腹下し, literally 'descending stomach' - suffering from everyone's favourite ailment after a rather too ambitious curry. I suppose things start moving downwards at an alarming rate...

穴 (ana/ketsu)
A hole, space, or vacancy. 
穴があったら入りたい (ana ga attara hairitai) - After something embarrassing, you may wish to sink into a hole in the floor... 
When adding the word for child or little, 'ko', to it, you get 穴子, 'anago' - apparently a type of eel.
穴兄弟 (anakyoudai) - 'Hole brothers', two guys who have slept with the same girl!
When pronounced 'ketsu', however, it can mean the ass. So, moving further into the murky realms of adult dialogue, there is also the derivative 'ketsumanko' (穴マンコ) for 'ass pussy'. Oh my. :'D

夜 (yoru)
Night.
夜目遠目 (yometoome) - 'Night eye, far eye', seeing something in the dark or at a distance. Also apparently, the unfortunate case where a woman really looked better in those conditions.

The Secret Garden

Kensington Roof Gardens

There is a hidden place in High St. Kensington. 6 floors up from an unmarked entrance, and you emerge not onto a boring grey roof, but a garden!

Flamingoes!

A bridge. And no flamingoes.

There was a club and a restaurant as well, neither of which we visited. There was also an area with tables under a big parasol, probably meant for entertaining.

The nice thing is, this place is completely free and open to the public some weekdays (others, it gets booked up for wedding receptions/parties/corporate events, so you have to call ahead and check). It's just not very known about, so it was quiet when we went. Worth a visit!

Adventures in Japanese: 'An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest tuna I ever laid eyes on.'

 In a stroke of luck on my eBay wanderings, I have now received a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in Japanese, for only about £7! Reading should at least fix up some of the bizarre listening mistakes I get from the audiobook, the most persistent of which is that I consistently hear 'Muggle' (マグル)　as 'Maguro' (マグロ), for tuna.

It sort of seems like they got a five-year old with a crayon to do the illustrations inside (a wizard is generally denoted by a stick figure with a pointy hat) but they are somewhat charming nonetheless. 

As you can very clearly see, this is Hermione fighting a troll. Yes.

In the course of my wanderings, I also came across the Japanese names for the Planets - a topic of interest to me since I'm currently practicing the Grand Cross course on DDR!

水星 (suisei) - Mercury. 'Water star'
金星 (kinsei) - Venus. 'Gold star'. 
火星 (kasei) - Mars. 'Fire star'.
木星 (mokusei) - Jupiter. 'Wood star'.
土星 (dosei) - Saturn. 'Earth star'.
天王星 (tennousei) - Uranus. 'Heaven-King star'.
海王星 (kaiousei) - Neptune. 'Sea-King star'. 

Left out Earth because that was boring. And not a planet anymore, but:
冥王星 (meiousei) - Pluto. 'Dark-King star'. 

Death by chocolate

This morning, in a fit of insanity and hunger, I ate three chocolates from a mysterious, nearly-empty box of them in my bedroom. I then found them to have expired in February. Oops! I read on, and found that it was actually February 2011. Double oops.

Fairly convinced I was about to die of horrible poisoning, I drew up plans to leave my stuff to Anders, with the exception of the leftover cat treats. These would go to Kenny and Mork, with strict instructions that Mork should not be allowed to eat them all. However, I have experienced no ill effects so far. Not even any super chocolate-mutant powers, which is disappointing. I can only assume that the liqueur in them preserved them.

I was back home to see my brother, before he heads off to Southampton to study medicine. Kinda weird to think about, since he's always been just my idiot kid brother, except now he's 18 and is going to learn how to treat illnesses! Very strange. Sure hope it goes well for him though!

Dim Sum cravings

 Uwaaaaaaa, I have such a dim sum craving! Just ate half a pack of frozen dumplings. Only half, because I guess I HAVE to share now Anders is back, pout pout pout - ah, um, I mean, I am a kind and generous soul who is fully willing to share half of her delicious foods. ;w; Yes.

That stuff is nice, and all. And I can keep it in the freezer and just jam it in the steamer when I want a tasty snack. But I'd like to go out to eat at a restaurant at some point with friends. Two things have stopped me though.

Firstly, dim sum is a lunch thing. Sadly, my uni friends are night creatures, and are thus usually asleep at lunchtime. Me included.

Secondly, I am downright terrified of going to Chinese restaurants in case someone sees through my unintentional Filipino/Malaysian disguise. Few Asians ever suspect that I am, in fact, Chinese, but if this ever happened, some staff member might actually attempt to converse with me in my mother tongue. Oh, the horror! In that situation, I might be able to stumble over 'I don't speak Chinese', then attempt to sink noiselessly into the floorboards.

Maybe one of these days. Maybe. In the meantime, I will stare at pics of my favourite stuff and wish I had it.

Har gao
A soft, white dumpling with thin, pleated pastry and a shrimp filling. These are ridiculously delicious and I could eat a lot of them, except that would probably look very rude.

Siu mai
Dumpling with yellow dough pastry and a filling of ground pork, with a little piece of carrot/pea on top to add colour. Goes hand in hand with the above. I prefer har gao, but these are nice too!

Har gao, siu mai ~ <3 (from flickr's Eugene Flores)

Char siu bao
Fluffy white bun filled with char siu (barbecue pork) in a sweet, reddish sauce. I always, ALWAYS burn my mouth on my first bite of these. It doesn't matter how long I wait, I will end up with a faceful of pain, tears and steam. But it's worth it.

Char siu bao! (from flickr's su-lin)

Cheung fun
Soft, translucent rice noodle rolls with some kind of tasty filling, usually served in a sweet soy sauce. I have had them with prawn and char siu filling, and both were delicious.

Cheung fun (from flickr's Kake Pugh)

Jin deui
Hollow, deep fried balls of pastry coated in sesame seeds, with a sweet filling. A dessert thing. I haven't had these for aaaages, but the texture is really interesting - kind of crispy-chewy?

Jin deui (from flickr's Kent Wang)

Adventures in Japanese: eating!

As part of my evil 'get it together and actually learn Japanese properly' scheme, I have been listening to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in Japanese audiobook.

Most of the words are beyond me at this point, but at the moment this is mainly meant to improve my listening speed. I've been noting the more interesting vocabulary down though, in a text file called 'horrible_mistakes.txt'. (After various 'wut' moments from misheard words.)

This can lead to wonderful journeys through the Japanese dictionary. For example, after looking up a 'funny whelk' eaten by Aunt Marge (腐りかけた貝), I came across these delightful eating-related expressions.

マクる
To eat at McDonald's. They made a verb out of that?! Something similar exists for Denny's.

バイキング 
Literally, VIKING! But also, a buffet? I guess Vikings are big eaters...

鯨飲馬食 (げいいんばしょく)
Drink like a fish, eat like a horse! Sounds like a good motto to live life by.

食い込む (くいこむ)
To eat into, or erode. But also... a thong causing a wedgie?

Breaking floors and taking names

 Another fun LAN party at Isao's place, mostly spent drinking beer and working on my cosplay. Once again, my non-participation was guaranteed due to a PC which would probably lag and explode if I tried to load up Pong. Still, it was rather cosy, being nestled between two monitors, watching games.

CS:Source with Break Floor seemed to play like Minecraft with guns and knives. They also had a go with various L4D Mutations - one of which seemed to involve unlimited machine gun, and another unlimited chainsaw! Predictably, hilarious teamkilling (malicious and unintentional) ensued.

Look at these chainsaw maniacs.

 In other cosplay news, one sleeve lining is completed, and the other on the way! I also have received some purple stockings, which I need to add a green top to and convert into suspender-type ones. Exciting stuff!

Purple!

Seeing fishies, eating fishies, petting kitty cats!

Had a busy day the other day! Firstly, Anders and I took a trip to the London Aquarium. Saw lots of colourful fishies, and jellyfish, penguins, crabs, a tree frog (yeah, I dunno). And afterwards, a tasty Filet o' Fish from McDonalds. Not only are fish beautiful, they are tasty! 

After two rounds of DDR, we moved onto Matt's house, home of the most adorable little furry creatures.

Kenny!

Mork!

(Not pictured: Twinkle, who spent the entire time staring intensely at a wall in the hope of mice. That's dedication.)

I got the chance to feed them as well! It was amazing how quickly they'd show up once they smelt the food. Mork had a habit of sticking his head under the sachet as I squeezed the food out, in his haste. They were so very sweet - Kenny fell asleep on my hand while we were chilling out on the stairs, and I got a little face nuzzle from Mork when I was lying on the floor. >w< I hope I can see them again sometime!

Oh, and people played video games too. That was fun (I especially like Katamari Damacy!), but not as soft and warm as cats, heheh.

Cosplay Diary: Collar v.1

  My current project is making a cosplay of Evangelion Unit 01, except in a more human form. I have a concept art, but it's rather outdated, so I've been meaning to make a new one. Maybe next time!

First step: the neck piece, based this on the orange area which covers 01's throat.

グオオオオオオオォォ！！

  My first attempt at this used the basic idea of a neck corset - a rigid collar, more common in fetish stuff than anywhere else. But by god, in the process of researching plasticky materials I think I've seen every latex and PVC item in the world ever. Seriously, I think nothing could surprise me now. I've seen things.

o___o

o________o

  Anyway, I created a framework from Rigilene plastic boning (not steel boning, or it wouldn't bend!) and interfacing, and added a zip so that it could zip up at the front. I also added a comfy black fabric lining to the inside.

The framework underneath, with boning along the top and bottom edges as well as at intervals vertically.

Edges covered with black cloth, to avoid an ill-timed plastic bone to the jugular.

 I then sewed a covering of black cloth and orange PVC, and attached this to the framework. Results are as follows:

My verdict - it is passable. I can wear it, and I have learnt a lot from making it! The downside, I would say, is that it's fairly thick (required for that much reinforcement) and slightly loose - to have it perfectly form-fitting in a non-stretch material, and then to wear it around a con, would probably cause me to vomit spectacularly over a bunch of bootleg anime merchandise.

Perhaps if I have time, I will make a collar v.2, using stretch fabric for the lining and relying on friction and minimal boning to keep it up. That way I could make a more form-fitting collar, but I risk it falling down, whereas this one never would... I'm not sure which would be better. I guess experimentation will tell!

But I think I'll fix up other stuff first. Next stop, the bra!