weekend III - bon odori 2008

wah~ finally the third and final part of weekend I - III has come to an end. this year's 32nd bon odori fell on 12 july 2008, let me recap: which was the same day i went to mum's company family day and then watched evangelion with EMINA and /as/. i end that fateful saturday with bon odori and a lot of ramblings. actually, too much ramblings to jot everything down here. (happy ramblings, mind you.)

unexpectedly, i met stardust and makie (among other /as/) at the NGE 1.0 movie screening! of course i wont ask a ride from integra (gacc08 pun tak nak tumpang) while kclee wasnt exactly headed to bon odori (i cant attempt to inconvenient people all the time); but i have to hitch a ride because i did not pre-register for the bus with emina (rm10!), so luckily stardust was willing to have me as passenger to the ktm from cineleisure.

by chance, as we entered the subang jaya ktm, stardust bumped into sm (SMercury) and that led me to bump into yori! well, guess who was yori's lover boy? XP together with them was one more guy (alvin? idk, forgot name; stardust's fault, read on.) so the five of us got off at shah alam station, and caught a free shuttle bus to the panasonic stadium (formerly matsushita stadium) before 6pm. (gates open at 5pm.)

bon odori volunteers (which i believe they are; not "staff") gave out a fan to every visitor at the gate of the stadium entrance. i walked pass all of them until i spotted one giving away a sakura design fan, and grabbed one for myself. XD yori went to change into her pink yukata, while stardust and i explored the food and drink stalls while muttering japanese (we so happen to have studied at ICLS unknowingly).

he also introduced a million people (more or less seven) within an hour's time. how was i to remember all of their names, and their bf/gf/children/friends' names? hes just lucky i still know his name: stardust, connman, loneraven.

after visiting kikyo and friend (apologies for names memory overload) at the backstage, practicing for the third dance performance, i parted ways with yori and the boys to join mizuiro, megami, amaterasu, manjix and err.. forgot-name yandere. gosh, bon odori started to turn into a name-memorizing exam.

the spy tower: where announcers and organisers keep an eye on us all.

bon odori, this being the first visit for me, was not as bad as some expectations. or maybe because i am already too used to any less than perfect? anyway, the weather was fine, the food was fine, the queue was bearably horrendous, some people should not have dressed up, and i met too many people to properly remember their names. (imagine a scene when i walk into someone whose name i forgot; do i say "o hai whats your name again" or ignore? lol.)

after two rounds of dancing the first dance with them, we left the dance circle as the food stalls came into sight. the queue was long, but i hardly noticed time pass as my phone was dead and i was not wearing a watch. also i met hitokiri and meamizumo (again i say, among others) while i was at the takoyaki queue (it was so long i could stand there like a people filter). i just know that we were hungry by the time we got the food to our stomaches. sadly there was no more unagi don, kare rice, and karaage (soft shell crab) as those stalls close while queueing up at other stalls.

after nomnom, we people-watched as none of us were gonna go back to the ood queue. it seems like i missed minori who stopped by (at the rezdenvous meet up point because megami and i were buying the food) while i was at the long queue. after that i shift group again, to meet up with mintos as her brand new racing goggle was with me. (i have a second one for simca~) she introduced me to yukina, fenix, raincloud, chocolime, jackee, kazeki.. gosh, who else? another round of agonizing name-memorizing. >____<

yes, running an event is hard work, but playtime also involves hard work! so many friends, so many things to do, yet so little time. btw, ywsmokona had better remember to tap me when you see me at bon odori ok? >__< stalk do not want lol.

Ani-com Cosplay 2008

[link to my photobucket gallery]

on the last 13 july 2008, i decided to stop at ani-com cosplay competition day1 as makeup artist again. XD i managed two pairs of dark blue eyebrows (three in fact, because there was a mistake on the left-right brow coordination for waninoko) and got myself into a random crossplay again (the cute kid with short brown/strawberry blonde hair).


the first contestant was mskgod as luffy, who paired with neji (satan666) for their sketch. neji stumbles into a loudly snoring stranger to ask if he's seen the person on the wanted poster. unfortunately for him, luffy took neji on a wild goose chase before realising luffy himself was on the poster!


second contestant saw roxanne as lelouch being pestered by CC (by mintos) for a pizza treat. after a satisfactory pizza meal, lelouch has to come up with an alternate idea to pay off the bill as the geass (temporarily or not, i cannot confirm but) has ceased power!


the third contestant has one comment from me: teh cake ish a lie. randomly, leon (RE4) wanted to read the itcha itcha paradise book from naruto, and suddenly confronted by tomodachi (20th century boys) with an axe!


here comes the fourth contestant: captain hitsugaya! luffy was playing the bleach game with hitsugaya as his character of choice, when the screen starts to lag and hitsugaya starts doing weird poses and releasing bankai on and off; and so he complaints to neji for purchasing pirated games.


i wish he did not call off his performance midway. fifth contestant plays cloud strife from FF:AC and though he was not equiped with the glorious sword of his, he managed several poses before... all of a sudden, there was a very strongly felt emotional aura when his poses changed from cool to lost. why i liked about him is that i could not tell if he was terribly good at acting as cloud (because he emits an aura!) or he flopped his act.


next, skypegasus did a musical rendition as sakura from tsubasa chronicles. just as sakura was about to tell shaoran something personal, there was an ear-splitting sound then boom! they were separated by an invisible wall; sakura fails to recognise shaoran when he wakes her up; and then, sakura wakes up and told shaoran that she had a bad dream. aww~


notably the best action-packed sketch among the contestants on day1. from samurai champloo, jin and mugen were unconscious and tied up behind their backs when fuu (meamizumo) was passing by the area. thinking this is her chance to get a couple samurai to help her problem out, she agreed to released them in return of a favour. things dont go as her plan, and trouble ensues as jin and mugen meet sword to sword!


last but not least, waninoko as akito&agito in this air gear sketch with ikki (yuancross) and kazu (rayray). akito was absent-mindedly cuddling teddy bear when ikki carefully snatched away akito's soft toy! a fight is promised when agito is unconsiously awaken. unfortunately for kazu who came to ikki's rescue, he became the bully target of agito and ikki!

lets have around of applause for the grand prize winner:

skypegasus walks away with rm1000, while the samurai champloo team received rm500 as runner-up winner!

clicky for larger cosplayers group photo:

there were also cosplayers who attended ani-com as spectators~

thats me on the right, signing off now!

weekend II - cineleisure exclusive eva 1.0 invasion

after the family day, i have to be at cineleisure. so, at 11.30am (by the power of improvisation) mum dropped me off at the LRT so i could tumpang kclee's ride~ i believe some of you must have been expecting this review to publish (or not ;_;) since i did pre-post it here last month. (familiar title? it was also my displayed pm on my msn messenger for a while now.)

the EMINA ticket collection booth~

we arrived there just in time to meet up with /as/ (two-fifth of evangelion 1.0 you are (not) alone movie attendance) at the kopitiam on lower ground of cineleisure. linkin asked me where's flame13. TAT then i fled. XD no, i just went to the opposite mall, the curve, to post the letter (i mentioned earlier in weekend I) to USA - why the heck do i have to mention the destination too? @_@

some cute things spotted at the EMINA booth~

when i came back to the cinema on level2, they were already queuing up to redeem tickets from EMINA's booth. (EMINA members and miscellaneous people make up the remaining two-fifth and one-fifth respectively of the hall screening evangelion. darn, i left my ticket stub with kclee. TAT)

some promotional NGE stickers on the cathay floor..

yosh~ while waiting for the movie to start at 1.10pm, i met anna sagara, connman, makie and a few recognizable /as/ members. since i dont know how to get the EMINA bus trip (RM10) to bon odori at 4pm, i asked around to carpool. (girl friends, better not learn from me to ask around a ride from random guys - but since the majority was male and i only know anna sagara going with her *ahem*..)

wish the poster was not screwed to the display.. *grin*

as far as the movie goes, i enjoyed it as it was the first of any evangelion i have ever watched. (okay, other than anime tributes to misato on youtube.) the mecha and angels, particularly the sixth one, were.. wah! also, it kinda felt like watching a movie in your friend's (very big and darkened) living hall coz everyone laughed at the ads, cheered once in a while; but they kindly left the booing (for cutting two solid so called speshul rei scenes) to after the movie. in case you were wondering: no, there wasnt any preview spoiler for the next NGE movie, after the credits rolled. T__T but yes, we stayed until the end of the screening.


then kclee and i tagged the /as/ to McD on the ground floor of cineleisure, but there wasnt enough space for all of us (i'll estimate half of the 50 members who attended the movie). so we went all the way to the McD next to tesco. (its only a short walk, cut through a couple malls since at that one location has these within walkable distance: courts mammoth, courts megastore, the curve, cineleisure, ikea, ikano power store, and tesco.)

next destination: bon odori!

weekend I - family day~

early saturday morning, i was preparing for a busy day ahead; you'd guess nothing could top my schedule since i was so busy right? XD wrong. DX

all of a sudden, mum asked if i'd like to join her at the company's family day. i was okay; so i asked when? 9.am leaving. omigosh; i was like already booked for the day! nevertheless we improvised and mum took mizuiro and i (dad - men: i guess need kaki to lepak at social events?) to GAB and had a fun time visiting the brewery (second time went into the brewery), sealed up an envelope at mum's office, drank lotsa milo and malta in mini paper cups (lolwut), decent buffet lunch, and then mizuiro and i went look-see at the rest of the family day activities.

they set up a "floating castle" (its what i call those large inflated "playground" for children to jump and jump and threaten to burst if you step on it with a high heel - swtz), outdoor playground set (those colourful slides+swing things for 4years and below?), balance-whack game (inflated battle ground where you balance on a pole and whack your opponent off with a long staff - pfft), various fun fair-styled mini games (ever classic electric rod through a wire, basketball hoop, whack-a-chalk like neopets' whack-a-sloth, etc), stick-on tattoo booth (i got myself a purple glitter heart tattoo on my neck XD) and also a clown giving away twisted ballons for kids (providing they did not run away from the cute guy behind the face paint first). >///<

gosh, i cant believe i can write so much fillers for only a couple hours that i was there. >__< photographs up later when stick the camera in the usb port. @_@

music for the soul~

yay~ its been too long with the cheesy club hits playlist now. supposed-hit songs were inspired by hitz.fm when i last changed the playlist. have a look at the list that i took down from club playlist (darn, the list has nine instead of ten songs):

Estelle Ft. Kanye West - American Boy
Rihanna - Dont Stop The Music
Ashley Simpson - Outta My Head(Ay Ya Ya)
Miley Cyrus - See You Again
Chris Brown - Superstar
Snoop Dogg - Sensual Seduction
Usher Ft. Young Jeezy - Love In This Club
Will.I.Am - Heart Breaker
Flo Rida Ft. T-Pain - Low

im supposed to change the playlist much earlier than tonight, but things got in the way. first, which genre next to upload? second, i found a local music magazine called junk and i really want to upload the poptopus playlist with much more interesting songs than your average radio station replays. third, now that i took so long to think, i've found a whole new list of popular songs that i need not the aid of the radio hit list to tell me what to like. look forward to tonight's new playlist.

btw, i also added a fab item on my second blog, and its the cbox! ta-dah. hahar. why upload it there when nobody reads my 365-days blog? because i already cluttered my current sidebar with too much deco. therefore if you do find the need to comment briefly, you are allowed to drop me a few chatlines (knowing you'd treat it like a spam box).

thus, the really HEAVY image food post!

yum yum yum! (dedicating this post to cook-block victim motr and birthday girl melc!) food post, with loads of courtesy from kilmenyanne (whom with much regret to have me borrow her camera phone everytime i makan in her proximity). XD (but i have to say motr and his kenneth, not kilmenyanne's kenneth, is from a different level of camwhores from me. scary.)

mid valley's uppermost floor food court "food street" has a desert stall that made this 'honeydew sago ice' (sorry, i forgot the actual name) since i did not want ice kacang (ew, kidney beans - pity kilmenyanne if she had to watch me had that). the sample photo was colourful, but when i got my order *gasp* it was not only not colourful, it was filled with santan milk. *__* coconut! nooo! but at least there wasnt any desiccated coconut.

all i was thinking was GTO, when onizuka was punished to clean the swimming pool and scooped a generous serving of 'sago lolo' down some other boy's pants.

decent (enjoyed the fine residue coconut in the santan milk, the same way i enjoy guava residue in guava juice) but poor presentation. 6/10

on 29may, big apple donuts and coffee opened a new outlet in lowyat plaza and the first 168 in queue with a cut-out coupon (from The Star) will redeem free half dozen donuts! i dragged kilmenyanne up early (since we had no morning class) and queued from 10am. we were only 79th and 80th in line! i was right, its great to get free stuff at places where parents/kids dont throng.

the queue behind me began to form with average of two three person joining the line every minute. one or two staff was photographing the procession (but probably disappointed the ticket number hasnt been filled up). just before 11am, there were two brilliantly red lions dancing to welcome the opening of the store. the queue began to move (and fast) before the lion dance end.

finally, the queue had to come to an end. we (the spotty-faced food critics) got to the queue and received two boxes of half dozen donuts.. saw a very determined (either starved or kiasu) aunty took home six or eight boxes to herself - that's three or four dozen! we left for college with a dozen big apple donuts, and stuffed ourselves silly that i had brought home half.

not being biased but i prefer j.co donuts to big apple's (but i enjoyed the cream puff ones). 7/10

pretzel time! auntie anne's pretzel was having free pretzel day on 19june throughout all their outlets in malaysia, except for penang queensbay mall which was on 20june, redemption from 11am until 2pm for original- and cinnamon-flavoured pretzels only. due to some travelling time allowance we did not get to the klcc outlet by 10am, but like i told them, dont worry coz the queue cannot possibly be longer than 79 or 80 in line before us. i queued up with kilmenyanne and psycho at 11am and the queue was just charming dahling. all the way in front.

the queue was already moving the moment we got in line and i was not too surprised that the queue was short since it was a weekday when many are working, not shopping at klcc. we three ordered the cinnamon pretzel and went to sit at Dome to eat our pretzels. as usual, they slapped generous amount of sugar on the pretzel, that once we were done with eating, there was a large tbspful of cinnamon sugar left at the bottom of the wrapper. only i licked up mine. ohh~~diabetes.

after that, i suggested we leave for BTS (berjaya time square) auntie anne's outlet for another round of pretzel since we still had time before 2pm, but we just sat at Dome for free, too (coz starbucks will kick freeloaders for keeping their chairs warm). also coz i thought since BTS was such a common place, their outlet qould generate a longer fussier queue. then psycho was headed to 1Utama for a movie, so kilmenyanne suggested he get another round of free pretzel at AA's outlet there, but he decided against it. (did the epic freeloader fail to guest18? pass on the crown, psycho.) instead, i went back to klcc AA to get my second pretzel.

auntie anne's pretzel is unbeatable (but i miss churros a lot - will review it when i know where to get some again). want moar~ 9/10

scones! just kidding, i was only being random. no scones available, sorry. this time, i'll review food at the clubhouse cafeteria at college. it used to be run by a malay/chinese caterer (whose cooks takes forever to get to your order), but now it has becomed your average mamak hangout since it is now run by an indian caterer. (am not being racists). what i usually order with a bunch of hooligan members are: limau ais, teh o ais, teh o limau ais, maggie goreng/sup, mee goreng biasa/mamak, nasi briyani, all sort of ayam and kambing side dishes. XD

i dont want to say i enjoy this place (not because to prove "campus food sux" but) because they feed everyone too much sugar and salt and MSG and oil. the drinks we order are still sweet even when kurang manis and the food is generously greasy. (like i said, your average mamak hangout.) no matter, we still eat there 5-6 times a day or just sit there talk about one another's interesting or uninteresting sex life while drinking teh o ais and teh o limau ais (only i order limau ais - sometimes the hooligans spike my drink with tea, if left to my own we usually water down our drinks).

its the atmosphere that we stay in (not away from) the cafe all day and warm the seats and ask for "teh o ais une" over and over again. (teh o limau ais is slighty bitter if you prod the limau too much with your straw.) i recommend you add a hard-boiled quail egg as side dish; more cholesterol than chicken egg. 6/10

there's a new place in town! not. it was only last weekend that i was reading a review about Amuleto by crystal jade at mid valley boulevard, but like all other review, i dont read the words and looked at the photos only.

what made me want to drop by for a visit was the interior. tres chic. according to The Star review (as much that i had read), it was a fusion of spanish and asian food. some may say it is a risky attempt. kilmenyanne's just said it has been open for two months. imagine my surprise when i got there...

as you can see, i straight away jumped to the photos instead of telling you what was my surprise. but no, it wasnt that they served complimentary drinks! perhaps because it was almost 3pm on a weekday and not many businessman would take their clients to a chic-themed boutique restaurant for their third lunch of the day, but that's no reason to have only three customers at one point of the evening! yes, i meant the three of us, kilmenyanne, visha and i. (oops, i have split opinion now that im not biased to promote this place.)

we had iced cappucino, amuleto punch (me!), coke (visha's idea), cheesy baked rice with seafood, and rosti with mushroom gravy. the cappucino was not at great as the price, says kilmenyanne (someone who does not enjoy starbucks) 5/10. sorry, i paraphrased that line. as for amuleto punch, i enjoyed picking out my fruit slices, but it does not compare to halo cafe's mocktails, 6/10. cheesy baked rice was filling and cheesy (that even now my mouth is salivating) but the seafood was not as great as far as fresh can go, 8/10. my rosti had a tasty mushroom gravy, but you have to like soggy potatoes to eat the center of the rosti that was exposed most to the gravy, 8/10. (biased rating for cheese and potatoes.)

so you see, i went there again on last friday with motr and his kenneth for lunch. *palmface* was it them or was it amuleto's fault? there was a lot not to like about amuleto that day. (i dont have photos for this second review as the boys kept it to themselves.) kenneth ordered tomato juice. @_@ and then he ordered spagetti-something that had loads of tomato. motr ordered.. gah, memory loss - cant remember but he had a choice to have it with rice or spagetti. i ordered cordon bleu - and THAT was IT.

now, motr has a food blog, so he may be critical but i'll agree with him this time. CORDON BLEU 2/10 (markah kesian for presentation). it failed because the worst bit was THERE WAS NO SIGHT OF CHEESE. i told him i dont mind my cordon bleu serving was small but when i cut it in half to watch the cheese flow onto the plate...its just plain disappointing. as for both his and kenneth's order, they rated 8/10 but changed his mind to 7/10. i dont understand how amuleto can be so generous with cheese on the cheesy baked rice, but totally failed cordon bleu. (i think the chef sucked out the excess cheese coz i noticed a tiny hole at one end of the cordon bleu.) whyyy? i liked that place.. (no average rating for this - they vary too much.)

next and finally, i shall review the food at college's student restaurant this semester. (culinary and hospitality students in charge.) i was there with kilmenyanne and visha to try the lasagne but it was not on current week's menu (currently western). so we ordered appetizers, desserts and drinks; and waited for a while, drinking free-flow iced sky juice. (visha said she saw our assigned waiteress spilled so much cappucino on the tray that she returned to the kitchen, thus delayed, without informing us.)

according to the two girls who ordered cappuccino each, it was too bitter but after they added sugar, (and i unfortunately tasted it) too sweet! these girls are sending me to diabetes ward too soon. (they also suspected it was not ground but instant powder coffee.) then came kilmenyanne's mushroom soup which was o-m-g. can you imagine cooking 'socks soup' where you boil dirty socks and stir until thick? mind you, the (mushroom) soup was tasty but we think it was over-flavoured! it does taste like they dumped a big packet of black mushrooms (instead of button mushrooms!) into boiling water and cooked so long that the soup tastes of nothing but mushroom (coz i thought it tasted like 'chinese mushroom soup'). they couldnt even fake the colour (the photo is accurate.)

the chicken pie was also too flavourful. the crust was not all safe-crumbly but salty crust-chunk. and they used frozen vege - which was forgivable but they were dry and uncooked bits! the whole thing tastes like chicken (crust and fillings) but thats not the point of a chicken pie, and visha did not want to finish it. (i bet the chef got a telling from the face of the waitress who reported to the manager.)

then came my apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. it has a presentation if not for the shivering waitress who made the ice-cream topple off the slice sponge cake (which acts as a sponge when the ice cream melts). *chomp* over-flavoured! the whole thing tastes like apple, sweet and sour (from raisins). honestly, the student chef do not know how to control how much flavour that should be in a dish. in the end, the ice-cream spread all over my plate as it was not melting directly on top of the sponge slice (which was too small a slice yet was not invisible - it is supposed to be invisible or at least not a sore eye).

finally, the long-awaited tiramisu cake. umm, no comment. we did order a second helping four minutes before they were scheduled to close. heres the second slice.
we believe cakes have been rumoured to be made by the lecturers themselves, but i cannot say it tastes like real tiramisu. its just cocoa powder, cream, ice cream layer(?!), cream again and coffee bottom crust. its weird. nothing wrong, the flavour was moderately spread on both tasting, but odd.

because it was a 'learning process' for them students, i'll comment on the service as well. our waitress, lets call her Alis, was too polite (thanking us every step of the way), forgetful and not alert. Alis took too long to write down our orders; forgot to take away the menu after taking our orders; when she did clear away the fourth person plates et all she left behind the drinking glass; shivered too much as she served our orders and as she cleared our plates. (ouch.) we simply give them 5/10 (passing mark, coz we dint die of food flavour poisoning).

oh and, one last stop was at wendy's in ioi mall. kilmenyanne and i went there yesterday and we vowed to never return. at first she wanted to try wendy's because it was really good at philippines when she first ate at wendy's, but did not think it would be so boring to have it in malaysia. (just a selection of chicken, beef, and fish.) i ordered chicken-something burger with cheese (its not the premium chicken i remember; the chicken was elasticly chewy, the edges was slightly overdone and hard instead of crunchy, and the cheese was ridiculous) while she got the 1/4 quarter pound burger (which she commented was just edible, "all sauce, not much flavour on the beef" and omg-even-the-vege-drowned-in-the-sauce).

thus, not worthy of a photo because it could easily be mistaken as any other fast food burger, since they werent very creative. other choices was like "baked potato with ----- and cheese," "baked potato with cheese and cheese," "baked potato with sour cream and -----," "baked potato with sour cream," and "chilli" (omg, they resort to sell "chilli" and it contains beef).

maybe it was just this outlet, but it was a horrible atmosphere: it was a weekend (human galore), wendy's has kiddy meals that come with a free toy (children clutter), but no playground (mobile sirens running about), the place was almost fully carpeted (its the only restaurant i see is carpeted and is not a fancy chinese restaurant - i mean, food+children+carpet?). the whole place was scary, to think that at burger king the ratio was thin-thin-thin-fat people ratio, here was thin-thin-fat-fat ratio. the whole experience just felt like i visited a mass production factory. (we much prefer carl's jr. thank you very much.) 2/10

okay, time to go back to your own food blog, motr. i speed up my post to early of the week instead of end of the week, coz im not sure i can handle three assignments and one bottle of smirnoff vodka together in a week.