Wednesday, October 29, 2008

college fest- live peformances

live performances this year was really great, at least from the 4 tht i watched.leading off is niko-niko(i think) band. cute lead singer and they really mix everything from quitars to sax and other blowing instruments. pretty cool.the lead, sorta. more like a guest appearance.
such a natural smile.
trumpet
and sax
now on the 2nd day, i went to see 3 other performances. this first one was unique. can u tell? i mean besides the fact that they're dressing as girls(the characters are from some anime anyways.)

bassist
lead singer
getting heated up
now, i want u to pay close attention to this guy. doesn't he seem similar? that's cause he's the sax guy from the previous day and so was everyone else. they're sorta like a band with mpd, 2 names,etc...
while waiting for another performance, i managed to see 4D's 3 person band's performance. it had slow tunes which was a nice change and they do do it really well.

the band 'Gold Blend'.Initially i think they wanted to call it Jack Daniels after their favourite drink but i think it never passed regulations :P Minuora(classmate and researchmate ) and Mikata (research) were in this. i must say i was impressed. the only band(that i've watched) to sand English songs. Yes, their English aren't that good but singing is a whole different ball game and it's more like screaming with songs from Avenged Sevenfold.But they did perform Mr Big's 'to be with you' really well.

this has got to be my favourite pic.
mikata, u don't see tht many left handed guitarists. notice how it's turned upside down?
the bassist, satou.him,mikata and the drummer were exceptional.
drums
minoura,lead singer. i think most of his frens couldnt believe tht he was actually the lead.





the end of the performances.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

College Festival Day 1

My last year to take part in the college festival. It has always been sorta a tradition for the 5th yr mech's to make a udon restaurant and did it again. but we had another stall outside continuing our own 味通屋 tradition selling Lamune (japanese pop soda drink) and fried stuff.the restaurant itself,pretty simple but the udon was pretty good
kitchen
dish washers
hall members/waiters
the outside stall selling fried stuff. the deep fried tako yaki in my opinion was amazing.
the 4th year's display show. this is the mechanical group. the concentrated on robots this year. while tech wise is so so, the did a good job of presenting it(better than my year anyways)
more robots
and robots
the controls group. their main theme was sound but half the time i didn't really get what they were trying to present. this photo is a small band tht moves when music is played
E&E side. definitely my favourite. the concentrated and how the living home and how electronics could improve it from sensored windows n doors for extra security to automatic lights n handphone to house command(send a mail to your comp at home and it'll do sth like say send out the clothes to dry). what i really liked was the lcd screen fridge. concept was simple but to be able to input what goes in and from there calculates what you can make from a selection of recipes. it even tells you how many persons u can make it for.
environmental/civil. the usual detailed presentation, this time about pollution but nothing special.
live performances in the hall. i really liked the ones this year.
Gal performer, she has a really cute smile, will post more pics of her later. and more of this band of course. this band is somewhat weird and has multiple personality disorders.
the outside stage where variety shows happen
quizzes
two teachers helping the event run smoothly!

more to come when i finish updating.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Eli Stone

This drama which is on its 2nd season has really gotten me to like it. unlike most other shows which promotes violence,sex or greed, this one promotes faith, belief and all the goody good things. story is about Eli,a lawyer who has anuerysm which is something in his head that might blow up and kill him at any moment. As a side effect, he sees visions, visions of George Michael singing and so on. But these visions are also messages from a higher power(God if you believe there's one) and sends him to take own pro-bono cases.the fact that this is a somewhat law drama makes it even more interesting cause law dictates rationale and faith should have no place in it. i would reccommend this to anyone! it makes your heart all warm and fuzzy and maybe to think that the world just ain't so bad...

Pic of d day: Hoppers!

took this just now around the college compound.worked with limited light, mainly just my flash. im surprised it turned out this well considering it was on ISO1600. not alot of noise but its abit noticeable at the flower.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Suzuka Hot Air Balloon Competition 2008

One of my very last minute trips. had a 3 day weekend this week and decided to go somewhere. at first i wanted to see gifu's ukai(comomarant ? fishing) but then i found this! lots n lots of hot air balloons!(HAB) it was in suzuka though and the event started pretty early ( 620am) i decided to take the last train there and find an internet/manga cafe to bump around for the night. i checked google maps for one and they said there was one pretty near...how wrong they were... i couldnt even find it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! walked like aimlessly for an hour and a half. then i decided to give up. at first i thought of sleeping at one of the many benches at bus stops but they were patrol cars coming now n then(unlike malaysia) and i wouldn't want to talk to them, they're slightly discriminatory against foreigners i reckon..once i was stopped to verify whether the bicycle i was riding on was mine and i took them ages ago ( my japanese friend said they don't do that to japanese....) deciding i would rather spare myself to long conversation i would have with them if i slept there i decided to head for the venue itself, which was by the river. it was abt 1.30/2am when i got there and pretty quiet. there were quiet abit of stars too, and since i had time i decided to experiment a lil on long exposure photography(will post it up if i have time) i dozed off for abt 30 mins before it got reallyreally ff*ing cold! luckily i brought a thin jacket but it wasn't enough and i din have gloves!i just couldnt sleep anymore, so i packed up and headed for a convenient store 5 mins away(they're really godsent, 24 hours with incredible service) bought a cup noodle and some kara age (fried chicken). it was almost as nice as the hot coffee i had on top of mount fuji :P then read some mangas they had there and by then it was almost 5. went back to the venue, played a lil DS, then by 530, ppl starting coming!people prepping up their balloons!
the queue was for free breakfast, it was only bt 6 but already they were a couple hundred of people! this event has been one of the better ones..not many events have free stuff :P

being inflated

Asimo,Honda's flagship robot says Hi!
2 balloons are up!
Asimo takes flight
other balloons on the horizon. they were alot of balloons and they all couldnt launch from the same place..in fact only 2 were launched from my place.. in fact my place was used as some sort of checkpoint.
asimo does the superman pose
one of my fav pics, burning fuel!
a diagonal line?
a crude traingle?

an empty carriage?
big circle,small circle, kind looks like gears!
more balloons launching from afar
balloons up in the air!there were quite a few more behind me
2 balloons
honda's other balloon ( honda has a very big presence here just as how toyota is based in toyota)
blue balloon drops of checkpoint marker
flying really low!
looks like sth from a wallpaper eh
spectators enjoying the view
photographers capturing the moment
wannabe red hot chilli peppers band...
tv crew on board.. these were test flights for the public.. the queue started at 6am and the announcer said by 8, the queue was a couple hundred long

flying tako(octopus)!!!it really looks cool when it's being inflated, the tentacles seems to move, just like an octopus!
4 balloons for public use
kelly,kamarull,3rd yr junior and kelly's friend, Rie from suzuka kousen joined me at about 9 am. they're posing with the SDF ground forces, who are looking for recruits!
Armored up!they even did this for free, how cool is that!
group pic!

i then headed with them to Rie's town(nearby) as there was some celebration going on. will post pics if i feel like it.

hopefully,there will be more photos like this from now on. current schedule is

a. college fest
b.gujo hachimon(one of gifu's top tourist spots) with the photography club
c.kobe luminarie
d.winter hols (ski and most likely osaka/amanohasidate)

would love to squeeze abit in for autumn photos.

till then!

this has been one damn long post eh :P