Recently I attended the birthday party of one of my friends. It wasn't actually her birthday, but I think she decided to have it early since her birthday is during the winter break. I was looking at the light fixtures in her house and thought, "Hmm, they look kind of Japanese."

The pattern is like the one in the above picture (which is a "shoji lamp", apparently) except the light was kind of a flat rectangle, and it was on the ceiling. I did see some pictures sort of like the lamp I'm trying to describe but nothing quite right.

And then there were other lights that looked sort of like what I saw when I was in Japan. I couldn't find the right picture for that either. But I saw those kinds of lamps in my hotel rooms when I was in Japan. Perhaps there are such lamps in people's homes too. I'm curious about it, but I doubt I will get the chance to return to Japan soon. (I wanted to go again so I can see Hokkaido, and the Sapporo Snow Festival, but it's in January and I have school. Ugh, school. A lot of good cruise ship routes are only during the months when I'm in school so I can never go)

Well, my friend does not have Japanese lineage, as far as I know of, but I believe her father had been in Japan for a while, so maybe he was fond of Japanese-style things and decided to buy a house that had such features in California. That's why my friend knows that if a few letters were taken out of her name, then her name would be the Japanese word for flower. Speaking of which, I didn't think my name really had a meaning (besides famous cities being named after me - though the truth is that I'm named after the city), but then I looked it up and apparently my name is from Old English and means "wide meadow". Hmm, not bad.

While I am on the topic of Japan...Sometimes I take a look at the bonus features on anime DVDs. I've watched an interview with Yui Makino and a day in the work on The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (that one featured Aya Hirano, who was Haruhi's voice and sang the opening and ending songs - note I am talking about the original anime and not the re-release). I thought that their singing sounded different from their normal speaking voices. Do people always sound different when they sing than when they are just talking? I've been curious about it ever since.

Speaking of music, I started watching an anime called Da Capo, and now I'm on the second season. (I think the name Da Capo is cool since it is a musical term) When I was watching the opening sequence I listened to the song and realized that it was strangely familiar to me. In fact, I discovered it was a song on my playlist. ("Sakurairo no Kisetsu", sung by Yozuca*, #37 on the playlist at the bottom of this page)

Also, Abba must be after me for some reason. My playlist is on shuffle and autostart so it automatically picks a random song on my playlist. Two times in a row, when seeing my playlist, I was given an Abba song. (Yes, I know, Abba is old and isn't even singing anymore nowadays, but I thought they were sort of catchy. I guess I really am an old person after all.)

I learned something about Harrison Ford recently. Harrison Ford played Han Solo in Star Wars and was Indiana in Indiana Jones. I had never known for all this time that he was an actor in Star Wars until my dad told me...I guess I'm not that knowledgeable about actors. (Refer to my post in June 2009, "definitely hunting season for drivers", there's a part about my lack of knowledge about Angelina Jolie there)

Labels: abba, cruise ship, da capo, harrison ford, haruhi suzumiya, hokkaido, indiana jones, japan, japanese, lamp, meaning, music, name, round, sapporo snow festival, shoji, star wars, sydney

Well, maybe middle-aged, and not quite old. But the actresses in the movie Mamma Mia don't seem too young, except for the person who plays the part of the main character's daughter (the main character is played by Meryl Streep. Sounds like a married sheep to me, no offense intended) who is probably pretty young. Her eyes look kind of buggish in a way. But anyhow, back to the old ladies. There's Meryl Streep who has wavy blonde hair. Then there's another lady with glasses, and then a lady with brown hair who just scares me. They all do, really. Here's a link to a picture. Kind of scary. Click here

The movie itself is just wacky...I saw the three old ladies sliding down the banister of a staircase. Then there was this guy swinging his guitar back and forth like he was trying to hit someone. And then three old guys and a young girl leaped off of a cliff. They're all beach bums, no doubt about it. o_O;;

Today, by the way, is the first day of the Cherry Blossom Festival in my town. Apparently, the city I live in is part of some sister city thing with a city somewhere in Japan (that's how come we have some cherry blossom trees around). The lame thing is, probably most of the cherry blossom trees are no longer in bloom. Due to our climate changing, spring starts a bit earlier than usual. But I guess it's still nice to see the festival is still going on. Last year I bought a necklace. It had a cherry blossom pattern, since cherry blossoms are one of my favorite trees (besides ginkgos, Japanese maples, and something else I already forgot). Actually, it was made of rice paper (the necklace pendant, not the trees XD) so that was interesting.

It seems like the Louvre museum in Paris, France is very popular. Louvre is an art museum and has things like paintings and statues. The statues are kind of creepy since they are often nude. -_-;; The Mona Lisa was on display at Louvre last time I went. (There was a story about how it got to be at Louvre, but as always, it's flown out of my mind. I think it used to belong to Italy.) Apparently 8.5 million people visited Louvre...Or so San Jose Mercury News says. Apparently the British Museum in London, England is also quite popular. I hope I get to see it. Even though I've been to London, we've just seen things like the Tower Bridge and a castle (there was a sign saying some queen got beheaded there. It was probably Anne Bolelyn or Catherine of Aragon or someone like that) and also Big Ben. We never got to see the museum. I want to go to the museums in London and see the Egyptian artifacts and stuff.

Whenever I walk by the hallway bathroom in the mornings, I always get hit by a waft of some foul, sourish sweet-smelling substance. My mom says it's my dad's shampoo. Maybe later, when the smell has worn off a little, I should go in and find out what it is. I don't think it's his mouthwash since he always used mouthwash (but who knows, maybe he changed brands or something, you can never be too sure). Anyhow, we have to get rid of that smell. It makes me grimace.

Labels: abba, beach bums, cherry blossom festival, foul smell, france, louvre, mamma mia, mona lisa, movie, necklace, paris

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