Slow routine

On the way to work today.

3 winters ago

I dug some old photos taken some 3 years ago, when I was still living in Yokohama, and school was a 2-hour commute. I wonder how Aobadai looks like nowadays.

Keep warm, everyone.

Hometown glory

Manila, Chirstmas 2012

There was a December, when I swam at my hometown's beach at midnight, that I saw a million stars, and I knew at that moment that it took me too long, or I have gone too far only to be consumed by a seizure of the most beautiful paralysis, droned by the salty waters of this place I grew up in.

(Or maybe it was just the beer, and the small hiss of pot).

The October that I did not exist

It's funny how a month has passed unnoticed because where was I last October.

There was also an illusion of the self, wanting to miss so many people, because a walk home at past 3 in the morning can be quite lonesome at times, especially with the growing smell of cold autumn finally surrounding.

Where was I, really?

Dear Tokyo,

Like the fading smell of a perfume, you put all these beautiful emotions on my wrists,
everyday that I walk around these semi-autumnal days, where clouds are light,
the breeze with the tiniest hint of a passing summer, I realize that I already will miss you,
for the specific reasons that only my heart can identify in the longer days of the eventual break-up.

Bon Iver plays, For Emma.

The hot air balloons

Sendai, 2011


Often times, I imagine being carried by a hot air balloon, alighting at any place the imagination can fabricate. I'd usually choose a quaint, little Japanese neighborhood with roughly a few dozen houses, and where an old izakaya defines the nightlife, or an old local train station concludes the very heart beat of the whole town. There is always a backstory in my head, mostly romantic in nature, typifying the beautiful complexities of a rustic Japanese life, where years are measured by how saltier the sea breeze becomes each passing summer.

I am sure the little towns along the coastline of Miyage would have been the perfect airports of my hot air balloon. Seeing how these towns were washed out to ruins just make me realize that some place remains beautiful even if they were completely scathed to utter mess.



Opus from Haruka Nakamura's Arne

Summer 11

I have not posted a single thing for the past months!
Anyway, turned a year older a couple of weeks ago, went out of town this week (but without the cam) and did lots of things that will keep my excitement rolling in the next months.

Some photos from a few weeks back. It's damn hot in Tokyo nowadays. I can't help but pant!

How to be alone

"Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself,
perhaps all those sappy slogans from preschool
over to high school's groaning
were tokens for holding the lonely at bay.
'Cos if you're happy in your head
then solitude is blessed and alone is okay."

"If your heart is bleeding make the best of it
There is heat in freezing, be a testament."

When everything felt like a good old bluesy guitar riff

If we're sitting in a cafe somewhere in Marseille and smoking French cigars, and you ask me what I did in Tokyo ten years ago, I'd tell you about these past weeks, when I did nothing but read and write and read, and how come the city was so unshaken with how tangible my thoughts were, and how I could almost touch all of them at one instance on my way home at 6 in the morning.

Beautiful secret

My most beautiful secrets come to life whenever I walk and think about my future. It involves a shy smile, a soft sigh of optimism, and a tweak of eyebrows that tells a great amount of anticipation. That's my secret: I feel happy when I think of my future, of things I have yet to figure out doing.



Your secret by Jean-Sebastien Monzani

Another sunny day

I nearly thought I would literally skip the sakura watching this year since I am mostly asleep in the day and working full time with my papers at night. But then this happened, and what a day.

I hope you all have a nice day. Tokyo and Japan in general is still reeling over the catastrophe of last month. So continue wishing everyone here good faith.

Playing is Belle and Sebastian's Another sunny day.

We all need saving, sometimes

On that fateful Friday morning, I was south of Tokyo, in the seaside resort town of Atami, sitting by the balcony of the hotel we were renting, watching, almost crying at how simple yet arresting it was to be swallowed by a beautiful sunrise. It was one of those soft mornings, so soft in fact that I feel I'm dense and drowning to its sublimities whenever I remember.

I took a shot, three times, thinking I won't find the use of that memory someday but only in little photographs for this blog. Little did I know, with the turn of events later that afternoon, that that sunrise is the only memory I want to remain and remember out of the many unforgettable things that happened that Friday.








My heart goes out to Nihon.  I can't help but cry a bit inside every time I see the raging waters surging quaint little towns up north. It kills me like a thousand heart break every time. It wrenches me but at the same time strengthens my love for this country even more, and in the hope that it would stand back stronger after all of this.

If you are following this blog, take a minute of silence, whisper a short prayer to your God, to whatever is bigger than you, and ask for relief over this country we all love. What Japan needs now is our comfort.

In a more practical level, if you cannot find anyway to give your donations, I encourage you to buy something made in Japan one of these days, even something as little as Japanese toys or t-shirts or manga magazine which are being sold in your country. It may not serve any direct purpose or may sound silly amids all of this, but in the long run, may take a little burden to the adverse effects of this disaster.

Thank you for your well wishes. I felt all of them across our oceans.

PS. We all need saving by Jon Mclaughlin was playing on my earphones while I took the photos of that sunrise. I know, it was heartbreakingly coincidental.

Better together

Jack Johnson is making me feel swell, ya'll. Have a nice weekend.


Better Together, from the album In Between Dreams.

By the way, thank you Ms. HangSee Lee of Nylon Korea for a small feature of my blog. Got your package on a rainy morning. Nice! 감사합니다.

Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time - Jean Luis Borges

Lately, Tokyo is beginning to get warm. I can't help but look at the sky all the time and be pensive of the coming change. Kinda reminds me of one of my favorite lines above, and a Train's song I was being mawkish about some years back when I was still a teenager.





Photos of my skies last week. There was a day when I thought my apartment will fall down to pieces because of the strong wind blowing over the city, but when I went out to check if there was a typhoon, the clouds were like balloons that little kids forgot to tighten and flew to the sky. I know I had to take a shot.

Graduation

Two of my closest friends from the lab just finished grad school today. I feel that the past two years I have spent with them are entirely an era in itself, and that the coming graduation next month will take my life, in general, into a whole new spin. I feel a bit anxious for myself, but at the same time, I share the success that they now enjoy. I look forward to the new lives they will take on this coming spring, content at the the thought that they generously filled mine ever since Tokyo took me into her arms.
ありがとう!

The consolation of the days I have enjoyed much is that I cannot pick a single one that can summarize all the wonders of a thankful heart. But if I have to, it would be this one day when they drove me out of Tokyo to their hometown, because we were all clueless of what to do with me during the days of my depression. That proved to be one morning that I can remember now in full clarity a streak of carbon-blue in my sky.

These are the photos from the black car, towing along, wafting the growing smell of pine trees of Ibaraki at the break of autumn last year.

おめでとうございます Gunji-chan and Koma-chan! すばらしい~\(^_^)/






New Black Car by the July for Kings. (I remember the radio was on.)

January in my mind

Some things I saw while walking around my area the other day. I miss walking, not that I can't but because it's become less frequent than before due to the freezing temperature. My walking buddy is also busy finishing school and would be leaving soon, so I'm kinda feelings sick walking alone.

Anyway, cheers for February! It snowed a little yesterday. I hope it will this month of the heart, just like! last! year!

Keep warm, folks!

Busy nights

The past hours of the week has been purely a thing of the mind. Was in the zone of utter oblivion, I cannot think of anything less ordinary. Still a lot of things to decipher from the graphs, behavior of conjugate displacements I haven't found, I wish I can clearly articulate all these moments in technical innuendos.

Listening to Kissing the Lipless by The Shins for a thousand times I can carve the song in my skin.

The holidays

What I like about the past winter break was how my day to day events were ran by impulse. There were a few days when I was simply over wrought by the things I like doing at the moment. You bet I was always in the zone.

For instance, I never resisted the lure of a simple walk. Thoughtless, zero-worry walk around the neighborhood. The only trouble I can think of was if my ipod will pick up my secret favorite songs when I turn on the shuffle. I took photos, of course, as random as the feelings of my moment.





Well, the other thing I like about the past winter break was the ridiculous, guiltless hours I spent snuggled inside my apartment, and thinking about 1960s, recording my funny guitar cover of a Black-eyed Peas song ten awful times, reducing my data points into a few hundreds from a few thousands, planning my future and ex-foliating my winter-dried face.






Most of all, those were the last days of the year, the rare ones, when I wasn't the usual bated breath and never really needed anyone for my little joys. The natural highs, I should say.