Introducing Undergraph and Onmyouji Review
"TSUBASA" by UNDERGRAPH
When I kept monitoring Janne da Arc's Gekkoka on Oricon chart, I first thought that Gekkoka is the oldest single who still made it at the top 20 of Oricon, compared with the other singles.. until I realized that there is another older single released on 22 September 2004 and even still manage to be on Oricon's top 10 (according to today's ranking, it's on the 7th, while Gekkoka is on the 17th). It's TSUBASA by UNDERGRAPH. I've never heard about UNDERGRAPH before, so I went to it's official website to check.
UNDERGRAPH is a band consists of 4 people, if I'm not mistaken. TSUBASA is their first single. Curious about how good this band and this single, I searched for the sample at Songjapan.com. The first part of this song didn't attract me too much, until it reach the pre-reff.. then the reff made me addicted right away to this song at my first time with this song. It's very rare for me to like a song just from the low-resolution sample only, especially for singer I didn't know before. I even sometimes still can't like a song although I get the high-resolution sample until I watched the PV or concert. Janne da Arc and UNDERGRAPH are those in that rare case. I even didn't like V6 the first time I heard their songs until I watched the Change the World PV. As for Tsubasa, even I didn't understand the lyric, but it feels kinda sad. I'm not good in describing a song, but now I'm searching this song everywhere to download and hoping to get the PV.
Onmyouji
Last Sunday I found a discounted
Onmyouji movie on Gramedia. Onmyouji starred by Mansai Nomura and Hideaki Ito. At first I thought Hideaki Ito is the main character, aka the Abe no Seimei role, but it wasn't. The story alone is simple but the intrique is interesting. I always love stories related to onmyoudo.. IMO onmyoujitsu is the coolest ancient magic. While watching Onmyouji, my quick impression in this movie is: "Hideaki Ito is an ultimate uke!" *grin* Despite of his manly appeareance, he's very sweet and gentle. His roles are always sweet and cool at the same place. The way he (Minamoto no Hiromasa) called for Seimei when he was dying reminds me of many similar situations loved by BL fans. Plus when Seimei said to Morimasa, "You're the only one I don't want to lose!" while crying. Total satisfaction for a BL fans like me!!!! Nyahahaha!! I'm currently searching for Onmyouji's 2nd movie.
Ayyy!! My HSBC Visa Credit Card has arrived just now! Ureshii!!! The worse is with this credit card on my hand, I can't hold my wish to buy something online!! Before, I must first think about borrowing someone's credit card or using paycheck to buy something online. Now, it's only on my fingertips. Nooo, I must fight this evil wishes! But.. but.. I want the Making of Faiz Paradise Lost and Janne da Arc's concert DVD badly!!!!!!! *calm down.. calm down*
@ 08:18 a.m.
Ironna koto
Recently some of my friends went abroad to study/work. After BAKmie left for Germany to work, yesterday Benny also left for Beijing to study. Wow, sugoi.. many started to do more to gain more... I must not be left behind.. :) But I felt somehow lonely since I cannot chat with them that often again. Good luck you two!!
Anyway, I've finished translating Janne da Arc's Gekkouka. Somehow this song reminds me to V6's Yasei no Hana. Learning to live from a flower. The difference is while in Gekkouka the flower was almost dead but still living gracefully until the end and had sad love story, Yasei no Hana is about how a wild flower live strongly in his own way through the harshness of the world. I'm very weak to songs with this kind of theme.
@ 12:54 p.m.
Trip review
These few weeks I re-read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
and get to the 3rd habit, first things first. I suddenly realized
about how uneffective I became these few weeks and how I've wasted
my time uselessly. I let many things distract my concentration so
sometimes I even felt really lazy to get to office. It just that I
didn't work out all my ability and concentration. I was really
work-crazy these days, but unfortunately my hard principe makes me
really strict to my friends also. Sean Covey said that I must learn
to say 'no' since I cannot please all people who ask my help and at
the end trouble me to finish my own problem. Now I learn to abandon
useless talk and uneffective habits and sometimes push people
around me to try solving their own problem at first.. I only give
them hints so they at least can learn something on their own and
not rely on other people too much.. so don't mess with me during work hour.. ^_^
Anyway, below is what I've promised a long time ago.. I just
managed to finish writing it.
Singapore Trip
Dec 24
This trip was started unpleasantly at Soekarno-Hatta airport. The
imigration officers were sucks. Since all tax were now payable at
banks, those corrupt officers gained nothing so they worked lazily.
My flight should depart at 8.05 but later at 8.20 the pilot
announced that this flight was delayed since 90 passengers were
still stuck at imigration. My flight was delayed for 1 hour.
Thankfully the flight was enjoyable. The food was delicious and the
weather was very clear (not to mention that 2 days later there was
a great tsunami). Changi was a beautiful and neat airport. Soon
after stepping out the plane, the air felt totally different from
Soekarno-Hatta. Clean, neat, and fresh were my first impression of
Singapore. I really love how Singaporeans work. No wasting of time
and really sharp. The Singapore Visitor Centre were really helpful
and they are very kind. I wish Indonesia can maintain the tourism
this good, since honestly speaking, Indonesia has lots of tourism
resources but not well-maintained.
Another problem arose at Hotel. The room with double bed we ordered
from Jakarta was not available and we have to add another S$70 for
the third person (times 4 days), but we got a room with 1 queen and
1 single bed. Well, this was far more better for us to have a good
night sleep actually, especially since I spent the whole 4 days at
Singapore with fever and influenza. Another problem was that
suddenly Dad's luggage could not be opened although the keys were
right. With these hard feelings we searched for food. Many said
that Takashimaya Food Court has good food, so we went there. I love
Singapore, I love the city, I love the traffic, I love their
diciplines and I'm addicted to MRT! I'm really amazed on how easy
and comfortable a public transportation here. I'm amazed with how
Singaporean can manage to keep their city clean and neat. I wish
Indonesian can have a little of this tidiness.
Takashimaya food court really distressed us since there were lots
of people wanted to eat but so little spaces to sit. The food I
chose were also disappointing. I guess I'm not very fond to
Singaporean taste and that time I really felt that my country is
the best (for some things). Well at least we already had something
to eat. We spent the whole day around Orchard. First I went to HMV,
one place I've targeted to find CDs. OMG! This place is really CD
heaven! There are lots of J-CDs I probably won't ever find in
Jakarta. Most of them are imported and the price is very expensive
!! OMG. I prefer buying online. From my CD wishlist, I only found
Pornograffiti's Best Blue. Not spending time too much there, we
went to OG and Hang Ten. My Dad really loves shopping!! He often
stopped to see stuffs, but I prefered walking, so at last we
separated. I went back to Takashimaya and he continued shopping.
Along the way I felt my head spinning and my vision was getting
blurred. Arrived at Kinokuniya, I only searched for new mangas and
found many of them!! Then I quickly rushed back to hotel because my
head was really dizzy. When I arrived, my Mom surprised to see how
pale my face was. My eyes were red due to the fever. I quickly took
a bath and slept. I missed the spectaculer Christmas Eve on
Orchard, but at least my parents saw it and told it to me the next
day
Dec 25:
I felt much better that morning, but the hotel breakfast was
disappointing. For the next 4 days we only had cereals, scrambled
egg, baked beans, bacon, plus a couple of daily menu. Then we
proceed to Clarke Quay by MRT, hoping that at least there was an
activity there, I have no idead it would be deadly quiet! So we
took a short walk to Chinatown and finally found a market there
near Chinatown MRT. Around 2 p.m. we went back to hotel by MRT
because my lower back ached so much and my fever was rising again,
although I knew my Dad still wanted to shop more. While I was
taking a nap, my parents bought me a jacket.. yatta, so happy,
because I've planned to buy jacket but never found a good one. In
the afternoon we proceeded to Suntec City to watch the largest
water fountain with laser performance. The laser was good, but I've
seen this kind of performance on V6 concert, so I was not impressed
too much. We then took a short walk to Esplanade, an opera house
which was said to take its model from durian. Esplanade is truly
beautiful outside and inside. Initally my Dad wanted to watch
Sleeping Beauty on Ice performance, but we didn't get the average-
price tickets. I wanted to proceed to Merlion, but my sisters said
that Merlion Park was beautiful at afternoon, so I decided to get
there next day. Later we found that there was an underpass shortcut
to MRT station at Raffles City.
Dec 26
I started to feel sick to see the baked bean and scrambled egg...
~_~ This day plan was to visit Jurong Bird Park. Yessss, another
MRT trip.. but this time I felt really bored since Jurong was about
1,5 hours MRT trip from Sommerset station. There was nothing
special about this bird park, actually, but the air was really
fresh, unlike parks in Indonesia. We visited the largest lory park,
Lori Lori, where we could feed lories there. We had our lunch at
McDonald's. Way too expensive compared with Indonesia's McD. We
then thinked about go back to hotel, but my Dad wanted to see
Chinese Garden, so we stopped at that station. This garden is
beautiful but a little abandoned. Next to Chinese garden should be
Japanese garden, but it was under construction. My Dad who loved
Chinese culture so much was very happy so he even climbed to a
tower, while my Mom and I were extremely exhausted. The air was
hell so hot. We then quickly proceed to Merlion park. Hoo.. this
was the first time I see the real Merlion. After some photo-ing
session, I asked Dad whether to eat at Lao Pa Sat or Clarke Quay.
We thought Lao Pa Sat would be as crowd as Chinatown, so proceed to
Clarke Quay by walking along the riverside. It was very quite since
almost no one there, but we felt really save. This is what I love
very much from Singapore.
Anyway, I'd never had any ideas that Clarke Quay was not consists
of food stalls but resturants and cafe, which were expensive for
me. The Satay and Seafood stalls were crowded as hell, so we
decided to go back to hotel and bought food at hawkers next to
hotel. In my opinion, Indonesia has richer taste in food than
Singapore, altough Singapore foods are also delicious.
Dec 27
I started to feel sick to see baked bean and scrambled egg, and
even got totally bored with the sausage and bacon. Today our plan
was to visit Hawpar Villa and Sentosa Island.. yess, save the best
for the last. Unfortunately, at Hawpar Villa, my camera battery
dropped and nearly dead so we went back to hotel to recharge my
battery and bought a replacement for it. My Dad actually loved
Hawpar Villa so much. It was beautiful, but we didn't get to take
more pictures. Well, I guess this is why now he decides to buy his
own camera so he can take pictures as he wants and as a spare
camera to mine.. :D
We proceeded to Sentosa by Cable Car and bought a package ticketing
including the skytower, Fort Siloso, and the Merlion. Dad said that
Dolphin Lagoon and Underwater World would be no different with
Ancol's Seaworld, so we skipped these places. After Skytower and
Merlion, we searched for food and it was started to raining. After
that we took pictures at the fountain garden and proceed to Fort
Siloso by monorail train. We spent times on the monorail queue and
got to Fort Siloso near 6.00 p.m. and that place had closed. We
quickly proceeded to the Magical Fountain (since this was our main
destination at Sentosa) to get a good seat. The show was splendid
!!! The combination of fountain and laser shows was extremely
beautiful!!!! No regret at all!! Well, the mess and the top of my
frustation at Singapore began afterwards. We didn't have any ideas
about how to get back to cable car. My opinions, thousands of tour
visitors were about to get back to their hotels by bus and monorail
queue would be extremely long and we could not make it to get back
to cable car, so I decided to follow the sign boards to get to
cable car, which at last led us to a dark and quiet place and made
me and my Dad quarreled again.. ^^;; My Dad opinions was to follow
the mass wherever they were going because he was afraid cable car
was the only connection between Sentosa island and the main island.
Finally we got back to monorail train and THANK GOD we got the last
train to cable car. We were some of the last to get to cable car,
and my whole body was trembling after releasing my whole tension.
At least that kind of experience was what I can call the top
experience of the whole trip.. ^_^
Dec 28
The last day. It was the shopping day. Dad/Mom and I were splitted
in shopping. I was going to miss the MRT, so this time, I took MRT
from Sommerset to Orchard and proceeded to Kinokuniya at
Takashimaya. I got Faiz book and more manga. I bought takoyaki
there... DELICOUSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!! LOVE IT!!!!! Then I got to HMV
again and this time set my intention fully to buy one CD, although
it was quite expensive. I was doubted whether to choose Janne da
Arc's Another Story or Best of Sharan Q. Finally I decided to take
Janne da Arc, and had no regret at all since this concept album is
very beautiful!!! Next I went to Visitor Centre to try Singapore
internet connection and re-confirmed my ticket. I got back to hotel
at 2 p.m. and rushed to airport. We left Singapore at 5.00 p.m. and
planning to get back there, that time really for good and with a
clearer intention.
Aah, finally I've paid my promise to write this journal. I really
want to get back there!! ^_^ Someday I will...
@ 10:56 a.m.
