Den-effing-tsu.

YELL FOR JAPAN and, JAPAN TO THE WORLD.

Two days of Japanese music festival to commemorate and celebrate the final days of Tokyo's National Olympic Stadium before it gets demolished and rebuild for Tokyo Olympics 2020 (it was ready in 1963 or -4).

The invitation came along with us (my editor and I of Animonstar Magazine in Indonesia) being smacked for 3 days in the heart of Tokyo. So much things to do, what can I really do? Too overwhelming to have been given an amazing direct return flights, a lucky room that's abuzz in Time Out Japan edition that it's only for hotel residents with room numbers -01 at the end to get the full panoramic view of Tokyo through Shibuya. If you've seen it on my Instagram, that very Shibuya scramble basically justifies the amazement upon my check-in:

This was possible because of the swift response and mailing of visa requirement letters, and who knew it was from Den-effing-tsu behind the JAPANNIGHT project - which without doubt, we'll only receive the best from the rest in terms of service. It was my dream/one of those places I wished to intern!

Being really glum on that particular Monday, and post-travel that left me in such disappointing mood (I was extremely in the down side of everything, which I'm telling you after the break), I finally am able to literally scream and yell out that it was a great trip - I can now focus on the happiest and laughable things I did within the 3 nights I was there.

Here's the lowdown on the first day...

Kings.

HELLO WITH A BANG!

Some huge more than 3 meters vehicle must have passed this and scraped their top. Hmmm.

Toilors and Silk. ROFLMAO

To think that we thought we'll never go to Bangkok... 2 minutes left for departure... literally two and doors are closed...


Let's not go there.


Day 1 in Bangkok proves that the place is just like Indonesia with a easy feasibility of travel in Singapore (read: on foot and train) and that I, who have officially graduated from my Bachelors and is properly labeled a Degree holder, has a very first trip on her own in the wild, wild shopping heaven of the City of Angels.

While doing an impersonate Pornsak Sukhumvit of Channel 5 The Noose on repeat and getting my accent right to be a localize tourist, there are things that certainly is only and applicable to Thailand.

No, not tuk tuks, I didn't ride any for H and I was still in flu and cough (and yet we still share the same utensils) way before when we did Music Matters, Song Joong Ki, and now apparently trying to get in T-ARA Lovey Dovey Bangkok fanmeeting, but some certain social rules that took to my surprise.

Theatre watching: Apart from the recommendation that I was suppose to watch the 4D show (now showing The Avengers, H has watched twice, we opt for normal movie instead) for about 400 Baht (100 Baht is S$4), I went to finally watched MIB 3 which pulled my tears at the end for James, aka Agent J. Spoiler no, it was the part where advertisements ran for about half an hour where we dashed from the streets to go scurry back to Paragon and be in time for the show at 9PM, and where afterwards, had to stand up to give salute to the King's video and national anthem (? Correct me if I'm wrong). That was new for me. After that bit of impromptu stand up I sojourn to my comfy seat for 120 Baht which can auto-incline and my Hello Kitty popcorn tub and drink. Sanrio-certified products (hologram sticker attached) minus the Yen pricing. Serious love.

Food:
First thing we ate after we land: DUNKIN' DONUTS, I had Men in Black 3 donut and it was DELICIOUS I regretted taking the two glazed peanut donuts as I wanted this kind. Oh oh oh.

Dinner: FUJI Japanese Resto (recommended by Champ, again) and ordered huge sashimi bento for like 220 Baht. CRAZY CHEAP QUALITY TOP NOTCH. Makes me want to return but quickly H reminded me that we have other places to try out

And oogling at street foods of sate (so familiar) but confused if the meat is really the meat we want... (too much watching Indonesian news channels)

BREAK TIME.

Trains: Instead of Taxis, I opted for train (I'm listening to Champ 24/7 here) and yes, their trains look exactly like MRT. So I felt like I've arrived in Changi Airport again after 2 hours. The officers were so very helpful, both inside the control station (if they call it that way) and the special way for luggages. They tried their best to accomodate our answers after we arrived at SIAM station which we were suppose to alight at NATIONAL STADIUM. Meh we turned around and walked with my huge luggage with me (empty) and bumped into local stars doing their interview in one mall. Then we were out and lost.

So trains here, like SMRT and SBS (brands) have different lines like to what Singapore have presently, navigate around the town. First the airport link, then we change to the city green link. Tickets are priced affordable for 45 Baht from Airport, and another 20 for city of 2 stops. More or less, we arrived at the 'Dhoby Ghaut Interchange' of Bangkok, but imagine it being open air.

I forgot what else but boy, were we faded out and crashed in right after a wondrous shower with peppermint shower gel and shampoo which is ultra-refreshing and cooling to my head!, oogling our cute room and going rather gaga of what should our bubble speeches be filled with (as seen down below). 

OUR MOST LOVELY LUB'D HOSTEL - BEST IN THE WORLD! JUST DOOOOWN THEEEER.

there's more but this is long overdue I have forgotten what else did we discover that day. Just a thought down below...

Is it... oh no. Just checking. It's a legit skin-only clinic and no tucking in things of 'things.'

Illustrators Inspired.

From model Coco Rocha's,


found in my LJ mynameisbritta,

blogger Paper Fashion,

Igor+Andre,


renown French illustrator Coco,

and many more, still in the works and me scourging for more.
These are the new artists I've just discovered today; my database has again expanded and needs more memory!
I'm a sucker for illustrators esp. watercolor... OH. <3

Fright Call and a City Hall Walkabout.

Woke up at 11AM today, officially slept at 1AM, a total of 10 hours hibernation. Gah, holidays really make me love my bed up to the notch. I had this weird dream, something like myself in a game and I have to save this dinosaur or whale or something that looks like a dinosaur but it's dying in the sea and I had to retrieve some power gem for it to be alive again (it was dying) then not far away it was the nemesis' castle but somehow after me riding the car I ended up on a boat then gave my grandma who became like the queen or even the evil person behind or hell dunno a leg massage. YES A FOOT REFLEXOLOGY THING. -,-"

weirdness...

Yesterday I had the i.drawwws... meeting, a collaboration with the SDEA to create an interactive and a drama-like situation like what we do everyday IN SINGAPORE (not at home). The theme is 'communication' and thus what we do everyday by communicating, and in Singapore, is thru the approx. 10 million colors thru this 13 inch window screen (aka the white macbook of mine) is how we communicate: seeing and typing, not seeing and talking. Facebook, MSN, YM, blogs, and a whole lot of variety of platforms where we can share our thoughts candidly and anyone can see and comment on it.

The meeting was at 1PM and I planned to go around 12+ a bit. BUT THEN MY WALLET WENT MISSING (this reminds me of Vanessa's hilarious post! heeheehee) and I frantically tried to search my shipwreck room; I do remember last night after coming back from grocery shopping I took out some cards that made my wallet too thick, then I do remember putting it above my pile when I went in and left it at the bed...
...
......
.........

GYAAAARHH WHERE IS IT! Clock was ticking after eating lunch at 12PM and I was ready to go and filled my bottle and it's gone missing! Not inside the bed, drawers, in the plastic bags, in the pile, anywhere! I don't remember putting it anywhere! OH DEAR... what if what if what if what if what if what if whatif what if what if... I checked my drawers a couple times but it's not there. Clock ticking to 1PM! Anyone who's going to the i.drawwws thing I had to call since V needed me to pass her note because she cannot come and she wanted a space - pass it on to Dahlia.

So in the end after calling Debra but then she was also not feeling well thus not going, Derrick was the only candidate who would go there. And yep, he is going and I forwarded the note.

It was close to 1.

Few minutes after,

I FOUND MY WALLET.
In the 2nd drawer I already tried looking. I think my eyes are an eyesore already how can my eyes missed the wallet just there onthe right side on top of my PSP and I just saw it after 1PM...
2(@#*%Y@#LKFH:DSJ; KJ(P*#L#P@(*Y(*P@HIOHLKJF*JFP(*@#@(P#*Y%(@#*YL

ANNOYED!

But it was 1 already. What can do. I wanted to go but it was shining hot!
So I opened my laptop instead... then called Vanessa what time we want to meet in City Hall, and she's like "Uuuuhhh, I haven't shower and today's the day where the school calls us..."
"Why school calls? ... OH!"
Today was like the D day and the school was gonna ring us if we didn't get to get our first choice in what we want to major on. I was not fretting about it and definitely not making this as a hindrance.

But alas.

A few minutes after Vanessa told me about that, an unknown home line number called me.
"Hello?"
"Hi, is this Raisa Tanawi I'm speaking to?"
"Yes this is me"
"Oh yes, this is from LASALLE"

I THINK, I WAS SHOCKED and I got HEART ATTACK.
...
....
"Oh yes, why?"
"We would like to ask you about the volunteer for the opening night, on the 25th we're going to do some goodie bag packing. Can you help us on that day?"



SO, BASICALLY, THE FRIGGIN' FREAK FRIGHT CALL was about PACKING GOODIE BAGS.
(=,=)"

O|--|_

how doomed.

THAT, was over. Then I started to get ready to go when I told Derrick I found my wallet and are you guys gonna be still there I'll arrive in half hour something.

The Arts House was close by to City Hall, exactly in Parliament Rd. It is a nice private gallery with a jazzy cafe that would let me sit for hours and hours reading to my likes. The surrounding and environment is different compared to the buzzing city life, and in this place people could just escape the hectic life and get in touch with everything artsy. :)
When I came it was in the middle of a discussion in a circle. Yikes.

This is the cafe and the outside of it. Also said that they also publish books, so anyone wants to speak out and publish their stories, essays, poetry collection... Well here's one place you literature peeps so keep an eye! Another place is booksactually's mathpaper press but I think it's so exclusive they hand bound it. I think it's too pricey by then, no one wants to get it.

Continue! The rest of the spaces have been shown before in the first meeting of this project, so I didn't have to take images, besides, it's all up on the facebook group for i.drawwws...

Personally, I would like to do something traditional. Thinking that now we communicate not by talking anymore but only by looking and typing. My mind started whirling when I watched the morning show (why suddenly I have forgotten her name? Allen right?) where Zac Efron came as a guest, and when she asked "do you have facebook or myspace or, how do you keep in touch?"
He replied "I don't have them all. I prefer to call my friends."

Yep, that got me to think. Nowadays we never call our friends but 'wall our friends' or IM them. We just stare at the cold words that has appeared, emotionless.
No dramatic voices accompanying it or gestures that we can't see through the phone but somehow I still do that like I'm talking in front of them, those hand movements that are automatic.
Yes, things have changed in our way of communication. Peeps says that without a mobile, you're a total goner. If you're lost it's going to be very hard to contact and all. It's true, but then,

what happened to the peeps a hundred years back who still used snail mail that took weeks?
I think I could have died from waiting maybe, for an important news or something.
However, looking at the competitve world with over population we need to stand out and be fast and grab it while we have the chance, that fast pass tickets that finishes like hawt cakes. If we work slow, as in sending out mails rather than e-mails which could arrive any minute later, I think 100 people would have passed us day by day while we wait in front of our red mailbox for the news.

I'm actually sick of being fast. Everything with the computer. Why not handwritten? Why not snail mail? Even these days handwritten and traditional outcomes has been stamped as antique and more worthful (derrrrr...). Writing comes from the heart and our emotions can be felt, yes felt by the pressure of the pen. If we're mad, thick embossed letters would appear. If we were to write fast, super hopefully legible cursive writing, lightly, would be the outcome. It shows through handwriting, and the snail mail uniqueness is in the postage (who likes to collect) especially getting it from overseas pen pals.

Connected to this project, snail mailing from overseas (planning to do it while my summer holiday to Africa) to my Indonesian friends and them collecting it to make a collection would be nice although it isn't art at all.
I have a typewriter at home and I really love it, I hate computers and I hate typing to it because my eyes would hurt. That could be interesting if I were to type like in the lawyer's court where one (I've forgotten the original word for this) would record the whole talking through a typewriter. Speed typing!
For the sculpture I had the idea to make all the kinds of wires we have, from long internet lines, to those spiral telephone lines, and what else? Pouring out from the window, as the plan was to be, to show that our communication is not by the mouth and eyes anymore but through these objects we speak.

I guess that is what is on my mind. Whewh. The meeting finished at about 4PM where went directly to Raffles City, and it was (thank goodness) drizzling. I didn't bring my umbrella, shockingly. My two BFF in Singapore: umbrella, sunglass.
Waiting for Vanessa to come down went to see some stores. WOW!
Has the sale started yet? Everything's on sale already!
Have seen TOPSHOP, River Island, Miss Selfridge, Dorothy Perkins... but nothing came to my likes (AKA BUDGET... :P) there's this nice printed of a lion/leopard sketch on a white tee... $29.90
A black dress for any occasion left in my size... $79.90
Some other long drapey T's but too overpriced as usual for a TOPSHOP tag. That's why besides one black holey leggings with one thick grey leggings that I probably won't use unless I go for a vacation on a winter time, I have nothing from the store compared to my first roommate in Singapore that has almost a quarter from it.

Quite bored in looking at clothes for the past few days, we met up with Putra, and it's been a while since I last saw him, way when I still had long hair. Planned to cook dinner in his place, we headed to River Valley Rd. and it's the first time I went, and the first impression of the whole apartment is nice! Secluded and looks private, small, with a very exhibited swimming pool sandwiched between an even floor numbers, maybe floor 10? Made from glass, and at night it's gonna be a pretty full view for men looking up from below, or not a pretty sight at all when a whale swims but super keliatan at night most def... XD

(SORRY SORRY PUT, pis men! (^^)V)

Went to Cold Storage beforehand and bought that semi-instant carbonara pasta 3 packs, then a big bag of Cheetos curly swirly whatevs, and water. It's on the house today! Wheeheeheeheehee

Up to his little place, a huge rice cooker that looks more like another mini AC somehow and a large LCD TV, and a superbly messy dining table that now looks like where trash will go, with all those plastic bags lying (PUT GO GREEN DONG...), however not afraid with that stolid face of yours that only *glares*.

Teehee.

The TV was clicked on and Putra tried to search a good channel to watch. After watching Eminem (who?) 'rapped' like stupid shit I wonder why he became a singer, I said "Change."
So the channel was changed to E! Channel which was better, but slightly disturbing with Pamela Anderson's so-called Girl on the Loose reality show. Stoopid chick trying to be sexy but you're not. But I do respect her that she does something good, which in the episode we three watched was when she auctioned her car for PETA (organization that protects animals and would speak up when a celebrity like the Olsen twins wearing real fur or skin). But the rest was just back to her shabby image. Blah.

Blame me for being a bit querulous today.

The cooking didn't go smooth, FYI. I knew it. Should have used that sturdy and could be depended on rice cooker rather than cooking on pot, and I knew that it would start bubbling and spilling the water cream when Putra covered the pot with the lid. A hasty move. Less than a minute the pot was covered it was spilling its guts out of the lid.

So Vanessa took over and resolved the problem by not staring at the TV but concentrate on 'stirring continuously for 7 minutes' as the package says, while Putra and I still glance to the TV. I mean we all can't help stirring right, so basically we're waiting for the food to be done. After pasta check, we were ready to eat the pot (inside it of course!) till' it was finish! (maybe, most probably).

But alas, after about 3 refills I was stuffed. It WAS, pasta. Couldn't eat anymore. I think I was half ful after eating the big bag of Cheetos. In the end at 9PM Vanessa gtg, so I followed as well. I wanted to walk, but I think after looking at the map then went down the road I couldn't find Clemenceau Ave where I had to go then turn right, straight till' I found Dhoby Ghaut. So from the bus stop I was planning to walk straight on, somehow it felt OK but I guess to accompany Vanessa. And my feeling was right! Just straight on was back to the Church-SMU-Bugis St. way. Could've just walked, I ate too much and wanted the food to come down.. But next time. Now I know the way. But I do want to know the Dhoby way. So someone next time...!

Then I'm back in my 7th heaven room typing this. *yawn*

A Cuppa Tea.

So on a Wednesday my cousin rang again in the morning only to find myself waking up from it.

"Sorry-sorry-sorry-sorry" (a SuJu ringtone)

Then she invited me for lunch, before the usual dimsum place she's crazy about then changed to so-called Tea Cafe behind NLB, Seah St.
So I thought it was going to rain, but then it turned out ultra sunny that I regretted wearing what I wore.
Since it's like a high-tea kind of menu, with a great variety of teas to choose (from the most common teas like darjeeling, chamomile to the more rarer interesting ones, which my cousin suggested white french rose tea and herself taking pear tea), and the food menu was more to finger foods it turned out to be interesting.

*my white french rose tea with delicious super slim-sliced biscuits and the piping glass teapot*

The tea is sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet. The aroma usually that is found in those rose-scented lotions from Marks & Spencer, I'm now drinking it~ <3
Then came the finger foods, which was cucumber sandwich. Quite a funny thing, but it is most tasty, fresh, and delicioussssss. I think the cucumbers aren't the normal ones, because when I tried at home to make it, it tasted different.

(haven't told you that the tea cafe owner is a Japan-graduate for tea things so I'm betting the cucumbers must be imported from Japan or somewhere else)

Cucumbers and those seeds for rice flavoring I think, creates the flavor, maybe something else, but visibly I only saw that two. The white bread has been pressed so the rectangle-cut sandwich is very thin. Cold served too, with Singkong chips that of course, originated from MY country.

One egg was then ordered after a little 'oh no I don't need-but you're a still a bit hungry right-oh fine then okay can order'. I thought it was just going to be a normal egg, I mean, like, when my cousin offered me, egg only? As in omelette or what? So I just agreed. One round of egg won't hurt right, I was picturing as a normal boiled egg. Surely they don't sell only like one boiled egg? That's weird.

But when it came... Gosh when I took my first bite... GAWD WHEN I ATE THE YOLK... it was utterly speechlessly (surprisingly because it's not just a boiled egg) succulent mouthwatering tongue twisting. Hey, that's a lot for just a japanese styled boiled egg, in brown liquid, I think the onsen style of boiling it, because the yolk tastes different and it looks shiny. You seriously have to try this egg, wow wow woweez. The next time I would go to an onsen I'll be surely to ask the person how to boil the egg onsen style, is it the same or not, but without the sauce thing. OOOH it's just over the top. Better than ice cream really. Protein over carbos! :D

The clouds still not compromising as I looked out and it was shining super bright, the owner came. She greeted lively and then went chatting to my cousin on their latest works and beyond; what they've been up to and all. Then my cousin moved it to me, introducing me in LASALLE and was going to Fash Comm... still a debate within me. A bit of more talks and all, she unveiled her interesting new project which was being a stylist; she had no background on it however on fashion, but her quirky sense of style (wearing a loose translucent black top with an inner tank, then just normal black slacks and amazingly has a small feet unproportioned to her whole body then something like a sarong as a skirt she wore and her persistent and concrete concept of the 3-day project in the museum - taking all traditional elements in the clothings of many Asian countries, blend it together, but the traditional feel has been erased by changing and designing it as the now style. Transfusion and transitions of change. It would be challenging but a definite fun and experience that I sadly have to miss it because I was not going to be around... T_T

With the privileges of being a friend of the owner (or did my cousin paid it all? =x) she said "I let you try..." several times, showing out her new creations. Yes she does and creates recipes herself and if she has this new recipe in mind mixing, for e.g. chocolate and ginger would actually taste exotic with orange (if I recall) and she would make it. If it suceeds, then in the menu it goes.