The Moon is a Balloon

This should've been posted last night, but I couldn't get onto blogger. >_<



It's the Mid-Autumn Festival today!
The day in the Lunar Calendar when the moon is at its fullest.

On this day, people eat mooncakes, drink tea, admire the round full moon, play with lanterns, guess riddles written on strips of paper attached to lanterns, and eat pomelos.

Some people call it the Mooncake Festival or the Lantern Festival.

There are two legends surrounding the Festival.
The first is of the Lady of the Moon, Chang'er. There are a few variations to the tale, but this is the one I knew best, and is probably the most pleasant one. I think it was in my textbook at school, which might explain why they chose the relatively happier version.

Once upon a time, the earth was plagued by the scorching heat of ten suns. The skilled archer, Houyi, shot down nine of the suns, thus freeing the earth and its inhabitants from the sweltering hell of excessive heat. As a reward, the Emperor bestowed him a pill that granted immortal life. Houyi, happily married to the beautiful Chang'er, had no need for it, and so stowed it away in his pillow. However, his evil apprentice got wind of the existence of the pill, and one day, while Houyi was out, broke into his room to get at the pill to god-dom. Chang'er, beautiful but not blessed with either brute force or kick-ass martial arts, could do nothing to fend off the evil apprentice, and so, all she could do was swallow the pill herself to prevent the birth of an evil god. Upon doing so, our lovely lady floated up into the sky, and to the moon, where she remains to this day.

I also just read that the jade rabbit on the moon was apparently commanded by Chang'er to pound herbs to make another immortality pill so that Houyi can join her on the moon (which would make her a little less gentle, would it? That's animal labour!)
In Japanese lore, the rabbit on the moon pounds mochi, doesn't it? Hmm. I should google to find out why.

The second legend surrounding the Mid-Autumn festival is a rather more nationalistic one. During the Yuan Dynasty, China was under Mongolian rule. In order to pass the message of a mass uprising against the foreign rulers, rebel leaders (somehow I thought of Star Wars when I typed that out. Haha) decided to hide and thus transmit the message in mooncakes. Wikipedia tells me that on Mid-Autumn's night in 1368, they actually succeeded in overthrowing the Yuan Dynasty and established the Ming Dynasty. Hmmm.
Yeah, this is a more nationalistic story than the other one, though that has more nationalistic versions too.

You can read more on wikipedia!

You can also read the Japanese legend associated with Mid-Autumn on wikipedia here. I'm feeling too lazy to type it out. Also, I don't think I ever properly read it before today. However, it does seem very, very familiar. I think I must have heard it before, on Kannou Mukashibanashi I think. Oops. >//<


But yes, reading and thinking and typing about these legends has lifted me a little out of my 'whine, boo hoo poor me, all alone on this festival, and I can't even see the bloody moon' mood.



I did manage to catch glimpses of the moon beneath fast-moving clouds last night, though. By right I should be able to see it tonight, as it's a rare clear day after the rains of the past few days. But I can't seem to see it from my window, and am too lazy to leave the building.



Also had some mooncake, which wasn't that fantastic, I have to say. Received a huge box of 12 mooncakes, but many of them were of new-fangled, dodgy flavours. Brought some to school and shared them with my classmates, but with the ulterior motive of preventing myself from succumbing to diabetes and/or cardiac arrest if I were to finish them by myself.
I want the 'snow' skin mooncakes we get back home, though. Ah well.

When Mid-Autumn comes around, I also think of the only piece of Chinese poetry that I can vaguely remember by heart. It's by one of the greatest Chinese poets of all time, Li Bai, of the Tang Dynasty (618-917).

《静夜思》 李白
床前明月光，疑是地上霜。
举头望明月，低头思故乡。

It's about the glimmering moonlight in front of the well taking on the appearance of frost on the ground. The dude looks up and sees its the shining moon, and lowers his head again as he thinks of his hometown.

By the flow of this post, does it sound like I'm homesick?
Mm, I don't think I actually am. And I don't think I'm just being in denial about it. I think it's just that more than being simply homesick, I'm feeling nostalgic for my lost childhood and annoyed at myself for things in the present.

Today was a national holiday here, and I really was looking forward to flopping around the flat doing absolutely shit all, but as it turned out, I didn't get to feel too luxuriant in laziness.

I was going to write about some people I met, about astrology, and other random bits and blobs, but I think I'll leave that for another time or allow it all to get swallowed into the huge gaping and expanding black hole of Never-Blogged.

There's sushi for dinner tomorrow to look forward to.



P.S: Check out the Chang'er Google Doodle on www.google.com.hk/ !! ^~^

Update! With Fluffly Animals!!

So much I want to blog about, so little time!!!!

I do actually spend quite a lot of time with my digits attached to my laptop, but more often than not get distracted from blogging by the gazillion billion gamillion things out there on the internet.

Anyway, I guess a whirlwind chronology would go something like that:

-Went to the zoo to take my mind off housing woes (more on this in a bit!!)

-Finally had my cheap cheap massage. 68RMB (roughly £8 I guess?) for 90 minutes. Mmm.

-Acrobatic shows depress me. I don't see the need for young kids to abuse their bodies to unnatural extents so they burn out before their 30 and are left with no other way of life. Just to make people go 'Oh my god!'

-Solved mystery of 'not so friendly anymore black cat'!! There're actually TWO of them!!! I think they're siblings. Friendly black cat was still as friendly as ever when I last saw it.

-First day of class and meeting my new classmates. They seem pretty cool so far. It seems like I'll actually have to put in effort for this course, though. Haha!

-FINALLY moved!!! \(^o^)/ I love my new place!

-Went to see a jazzed up Chopin piano recital by this Japanese jazz pianist, Ozone Makoto. (No, it's not a strange 'asian' sort of English name as in 'Ozone layer', but his actual surname in Japanese - 'oh-zoh-neh' Haha! I have to admit I rolled my eyes when I first saw his name, assuming it was the former)
Anyway, it was brilliant! So much fun! I was squeeing inside when he played his version of Polonaise in A 'Military'. Ahhh, bliss!
The National Centre for the Performing Art here has got to be one of the most fucking impressive buildings in the world.
My jaw dropped in awe when I entered the dome. The effect from the inside is just stunning!! Too bad they didn't allow cameras to be brought in. Not that it stopped people. I have a few pictures from my crappy phone camera.
But yes, most definitely probably the most impressive piece of architecture I've been in!!!

-OMGOMGOMGOMG!!1 Joe Hisaishi will be conducting in Beijing in November!!!!!! Ahhhhhh!!!!!! And I got front row tickets!!!!! AHHHHH!!!!
Yes yes, not the prime seat in the house, but I want to be as close to the god as possible! Hahahaha. Was so hyped up!! Couldn't get tickets the day I found out about the concert, as the box office had already closed, but I legged it back to the theatre the next day and secured my butt and ears a spot in the presence of a god.
He's the composer for pretty much all the Miyazaki Hayao Studio Ghibli film scores, and has done a lot of other film scoring work as well as his own compositions. I have to admit I'm not well-acquainted with most of his non-Ghibli work, but this is the man I've worshiped since the age of 14, so seeing him conducting in the flesh will definitely be a dream come true! I really hope he plays the piano tooooo!

About the zoo, I'll just dump there videos here:





These long-legged elegant beauties are called Maned wolves. Have never seen them before!! They loped around so gracefully! They seem more like deer than canines.
In this video, they're not being so elegant and are being rather intimidated by the common wolves in the neighbouring enclosure. One of the Maned wolves actually walked into a bush. Smooth.





Shocking case of animal abuse by a zoo. Those poor chickens!! Musn't be very pleasant for the foxes too, having temptation so close and yet out of reach.





And finally!! My beloved red foxes!!!! Spent ages staring at them the last time I went in December, and spent a long time staring again this time.
Ahhh, they're so incredibly lovely!!! <3333


The zoo was slightly depressing, though.
There was a lot of fist-whamming of glass, kicking of rails, chucking of sweets and other food into enclosures, poking and whacking (I kid you not) of animals when it proved possible, blinding flash photography, and general appalling behaviour from the creatures on this side of the glass.

And these acts were mostly committed by the adults. The kids didn't quite have enough brute strength to effectively slam the glass partitions with suitable force.

Sigh.

'Friendly Black Cat'

Hello hello, it's Shan who isn't very successful at being a Responsible and Independent Grown-Up in the Real World.

Haha. Not being effective at looking for a permanent place to stay and being my usual wishy-washy self and sucking so terribly at making decisions.

I fell in love at first sight with this loft apartment!! Don't think any property I've viewed has ever taken my breath away like this. And and and!! It has a bay window too!! Ffffffff! Want!!!





However, the problem is that it requires me to transfer lines on the subway to get me to school, which still isn't toooo bad, but to be honest, the location isn't anything to shout about. On one side is the roaring traffic of the 4th Ring Road, and it is a little distance from the subway station, with not thaaat many facilities like eateries and shops in between.
Also, it's not a given that the landlord would want to rent the unit, especially since I'll only be taking it for less than half a year.

The other option that I viewed is more conveniently located, on the same line as my uni, and closer to town. It's near a student area, which means more shops etc, and even a big shopping centre with stuff like Sephora, UniQlo, Zara, and a rather nice-looking two story Starbucks.
However, it's just a normal studio apartment. And the development it's in is a strange mix of commercial premises, offices and residential units. The entrance to the residential block is round the back of the building, which is pretty dark at night.
But the landlord seems more likely to be amicable towards a contract which has me just paying for 4 months, plus half the agent's fee.

I know it's probably better to stay somewhere where supermarkets and stuff are within easy reach, and the commute won't be too tedious.
But, but! This is probably the only chance I have to stay in a loft apartment!!! >_<>m< src="http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y269/rbjg/R0019014.jpg" height="350">





And and AND!!!!

There are CATS!!!!!!!!!!

Not just cats, but there's a particularly friendly furry black cat!!!!!!!







He (?) has ridiculously long limbs!!! =^.^=

The first time we met, he did strange impressively flexible flips (I think I've become to used to my black blob's bulk). You know how cats sometimes choose humans? It was like that for my previous cat and current one. This felt a bit like that. ^^;





He's so lithe and slight! Mmmmmrrrph! >A< Here's another of the feline residents of this little neighbourhood.




Neither of the flats I'm considering seems to have anywhere for leisurely, peaceful strolls, which will be a shame. However, when the freezing cold of winter descends, do I still want to take leisurely strolls in the open? Maybe the answer to that is yes, as I did make a few crazy treks through the snow in March that I enjoyed. ^^;

Oh vell.

I suppose if I end up not having my loft apartment, I can take comfort in the facts of not having to climb down a flight of stairs to use the loo and being only two stops away from the zoo (lol).

I think I'll go for a cheap cheap massage to take my mind off housing woes. Trying not to think about what'll happen if I can't find a place to stay before this weekend, when the hotel I'm holed up in won't have any more vacancies. Yargh.

Ramble Bramble

[This post was copied and pasted off my LJ]

Shuffling my V Kei songs on my new iPod nano on the bus. ^w^
'Togurou' is my favourite GazettE song!!

But anyway, to rewind a little, I'm back in Beijing.
The air is just as polluted as ever. But thank goodness the temperatures of 40 deg cel seem to have gone away. It's around 28-30 deg cel now, and it feels cooler than it was back in Singapore as there hasn't been any scorching sunlight (yet?) and there isn't that deathly humidity.


Anyway, just to chuck a few pictures out here.



The sunrise from my dining room back home. I practically never am up early enough to see the sun come out, but was seated rather dazedly clutching my cup of tea at a ridiculously early (for me) hour to leave for the airport.



I bought three macarons from the patisserie Canele the night before and got the air stewardess to bung it in the fridge for me.
My favourite Passion Fruit and Milk Chocolate, Coffee, and Violet. They actually managed to last about 24 hours in Beijing.



The Violet macaron is so pretty! ^^;



I thought Singapore changed rapidly enough when I went back after being away for 4 and a half months and found so many new shops and buildings that sprung out of no where.
It turns out this city is faaaar worse. Which isn't surprising.
In about a month and a half, there's been quite a lot of change!
Went to Zhong guan cun, an area with many office blocks and huge-ass malls. Found a Haagen-Daz and a branch of a Taiwanese restaurant that does the most amazing desserts, which made me happy.
One of the hulking developments had a lot of open public spaces, and people were skating, remote-controlled car racing, or just chilling. Was nice to see amongst all the concrete and steel and glass.




Went to register at the university. Then wandered around the campus. Which was monstrously huge.
My university in London was basically two buildings facing each other across a teeny square which is barely large enough for protests (haha) and another barren building that served as another 'campus' "a 17 minutes walk away" (according to a testy, just ever so slightly neurotic Swedish lecturer of mine).
University in Tokyo had more buildings (whee) but being smack in the middle of the city meant no rambling grounds either.

So. This is quite a change.



I walked around the South West section, which seemed to be a succession of secret garden after secret garden in various states of abandonment.
Then I started getting hungry and my legs started to hurt. I seem to have developed varicose veins or something. >_< Probably from walking waaaaay too much too fast. Eek.

Anyway, I did finally extricate myself from the tangled vegetation and buildings eventually. Last night I took the bus here for the 2nd time in my life. Haha. I usually rely on the subway, my legs, or taxis for moving around. The subway is the best, but requires a lot of cooperation from the legs and transfers between lines are ridiculously far apart, and things are often pretty far from existing stations.
The first time I took the bus was rather traumatising. Was going to one of the hills in the outskirts for a walk and picnic with friends on a Saturday in early summer, and the bus was absolutely packed and of course the roads jammed as well. Stood pretty much the whole way packed in like an unhappily dead fish in a can.

Last night the bus was empty-ish, but traffic wasn't that smooth for the really short distance that I use to walk in about 20-30 minutes.





I really like 176BIZ, but sadly only discovered them after they disbanded.
Love their sound. I like how it has quite a lot of groovy bass, and I like their vocalist's voice too.




Aaand, lastly, my silly kitty cat! (^ω^) Looking silly in my room. (^人^)

I took some videos of him with my iPod nano, which I will probably put up when I finally transfer them to the laptop. Along with the alpacas I mentioned in an earlier post! Haha!

Boo, I want my silly black blob!

Much About Munch

Soo, I'm back in the capital of Tweetless land, as I like to call it. Haha. I'm also doing it here as I've become just ever so slightly paranoid after spending about 4 months here and hearing stories of censorship and the like.

Anyway. Just to ramble somewhat incoherently about being back here.

I have to admit I wasn't entirely thrilled about the prospect of coming back. There were many many other places in the world I'd rather have been jetting off to.

That said, it's not like I despise this city and wish to stick voodoo pins into everything about it.

It's just that there are a number of things about living here that just really got me down.

One of the most fundamental 'Boooo'-inducing things about life here for me is the food. Perhaps it's a sign of age, or the seeping influence of the mother, but it bothers me a lot when I'm unable to procure proper food.

A lot of the food here makes my stomach turn when I think about it, and sometimes, I'd really just go without eating rather than put that stuff into my body. Even if it tastes good, I think it's probably not doing your health any wonders, what with the oozing oil and artificial tastes and textures. I swear some of the fruit actually taste chemical.
Horror stories that really seem true about how 10% of cooking oil in this country is recycled from sewage really do nothing to bolster my confidence in eating here.

I didn't have a proper kitchen last semester, and only owned a saucepan (which I set on fire one evening. Haha) so after a while I gave up on preparing my own meals and relied on eating out and take out food.

The good thing was that I lived in 'Little Korea', and so there was this wonderful little Korean diner that dished out yummy Korean food that received the stamp of approval from the Koreans too. I ate waaaay more Korean food in those few months than I did in my whole life up to that point!!

Took the bus to my old neighbourhood last night to be reunited with my old haunt. :p
Where I got off, the 'fish man' was there!!!
No, I'm not referring to those peddlers with carts of tanks crammed full of goldfish and poor bunnies in horrifically tiny cages and other inhumanely housed pets.

It's this fish!!


A lovely snack that here, is sold with a milk chocolate or white chocolate filling. I believe they originate from Japan where they're usually filled with red bean paste.
The 'fish guy' got his equipment from Korea, which is this round implement with many molds and a gas fire.


Yesterday's fish was nice and crispy. ^-^
I tried not to think about how the oil he coats the molds with is probably the dreaded sewage oil.

Maybe I'm just over-paranoid. Or maybe the problem isn't so much with the food in Tweetless land but lies with me instead. Hmm.

Anyway, for dinner I had a wonderful bowl of pollack soup, which was bean paste based and spicy (surprise surprise. Haha) Good stuff!


Right. Time to put an end to my whining about food here.

PS: Typing 'Tweetless land" is probably useless, given my tags. Dorh.

A Day or So in a Life

Feeling exceedingly drowsy and lazy. Think it's a combination of the weather, and a lack of sleep and exercise.

It's been raining loads here. We're being assaulted by flash thunderstorms. Our plane back to Beijing was delayed for 3 hours due to 'bad weather conditions'. When the plane was making its descent, there were flashes of lightning that made everything outside the windows flicker. And since I had the beginnings of a cold, my nasal passages were stuffed up and caused my ears to be put through agony before we finally made it to the ground.

Ever since being back in the capital, the skies have been gloomy and wont to open up and dump rain down upon us, creating disgusting pools of water in the streets and sending the scooter alarms ringing outside my window. There's quite a lot of flashes of lighting and rumbling thunder, as well as the occasional startling crack of thunder. Apparently all this is very uncharacteristic, as Beijing is usually skin-crackingly dry all the time. Well, I actually rather like it this way. I really quite like rainy days, and this is definitely way more pleasant than scorching sunshine and brain-numbing 40 deg cel heat.


Funny thing is that it's raining loads back home as well! So much so that the main shopping area flooded! I saw videos on FB and followed the buzz on twitter! We were actually trending for a good few hours because of that! Above the world cup hash tag as well! Was rather surprised and impressed by the number of tweeters and tweets we produced.
Anyway, it was pretty serious. Saw the Starbucks where people seem to like to lie in wait to ambush me (hahaha) with water up to the table-tops. Sleezy relic from the 80s shopping centre had a swimming pool of murky brown water in its basement. Swanky new shopping centre packed full of Omotesando/Selfridges-grade shops apparently had its basements filled with water as well.

Quite surreal, as I used to pass through the area practically everyday last year. It was also my most convenient and laziest hang-out spot. And to think I missed the monumental event of it being submerged. The relevant governmental department is 'still investigating the cause'. HahahaHAH!


Anyway, it was a public holiday here yesterday, for Duanwu Festival (端午节), the Dragon Boat Festival, or Dumpling Festival, depending on whether you wish to put more emphasis on tradition or your stomach.

I woke up at 5 something as had fallen asleep with the lights on. Couldn't go back to sleep, so I powered up the old, abused laptop to get my fix of internet.

But holy cold turkey! The internet was down!! After a few minutes of desperate CPR clicking, I gave up and decided to watch Ayabie's 2008 Spring Tour Live DVD instead.

Which finally brings us to the main picture of this post.

I absolutely love it when Intetsu goes berserk! ♥♥♥♥♥

He's got what they call the 'gap' aesthetic right down to a tee. (●´ω｀●)ゞ

Hikonyan-chan approves as well. I bought him from a kiosk in Kyoto Station after seeing Aoi waving a larger cousin of his around on stage at the end of the Kyoto gig. ^^;

Anyway, I sat around in my pajamas, mostly in front of the computer, following the flood on twitter, doing the random shit I usually get up to online, waiting for someone to wake up in London so I could wish them a happy birthday. That done, I felt obliged to go out.

And now, patient reader, for making it through being bored to numbness by all that's come before this, here're some pictures as a reward! Haha. :p


We went to this hutong that I'd never been to before. Hutongs (胡同) are streets, usually rather narrow, but they come in a variety of sizes, formed by lines of courtyard houses, siheyuan (四合院). They're the distinctive features of old Beijing, and hence are mostly found in within the Third Ring Road.
They're also what were being bulldozed by the hundreds (?) in the lead up to the Olympics, that had foreign and local conservationists up in arms, emotionally-attached how-many-th generation residents in tears, and, uh, me rather ignorantly bordered between being swayed by the indignation of the foreign press and impassivity, as I'd never been to a hutong then.

I'm not going to delve into the whole 'Redevelopment with progress and money and new, modern living for the residents' VS 'Conservation, retaining tradition and history' debate here, though. Don't really think I'm entitled to pass judgment, as I'm not a resident or even a Chinese citizen.


Whatever it is, the government has definitely caught on to the tourism potential of hutongs. There's one particular lane that is wonderfully done up with many chic and funky shops, bars, restaurants and cafes. My guidebook calls is 'bourgeois bohemian', and it really is a rather apt description. Where we went yesterday was in the process of being redeveloped.

I arrived early, and so snapped some pictures of the place, with a lovely menacing sky as a backdrop. The particular hutong we went to was near the Lama Temple:



I went there last spring. It was pretty cool and interesting. I rather like the architecture. Had lovely flowers when I went as well.

And this is the hutong




As you can see, a lot of not-so-traditional looking additions to the buildings.

And there're now a lot of new and quirky looking shops like these:



Nice naming-sense here:



Spotted a kitty staring at me. Hiiii!! Times like this when I wish the GR Digital had a zoom. >.<;

Really cool looking bar:




This is what it looks like from the entrance of a couryard residence:



At some point of history, a single household would occupy a single courtyard residence. Up to the point when the Qing Dynasty fell (1911 I think?). A huge number of households then crammed into a single residence, carving up the space and putting up flimsy dividing walls and such.
Now there's a trend back towards a single household in a single courtyard, with wealthy Chinese buying out entire courtyards and refurbishing them. This is really costly, as they have to buy out the many, many households living in there!

The signs of redevelopment were all around along the hutong yesterday:



You can't get more visual than this:




There were still quite a lot of locals living along the hutong, though. I can't imagine what it must be like for them, seeing these swanky shops, restaurants and bars sprouting up in their midst, while they go on subsisting on incomes that won't buy them a meal in one of those places even with a month's (or more??) work.

We were part of the invading army, I'm afraid, sipping on milkshakes in chic cafe.


Anyway, was pouring down after dinner, so took a cab back. The windows were misted up, and there was a point when the driver went down a really poorly-lit road that seemed to be lined with trees. Got me slightly worried for a while. But being driven through a rainy night with lightning and thunder was rather atmospheric.


Was really dark when I woke up this morning, and then it started to pour again. Was really tempted to go back to sleep, but I valiantly got out of bed and fed myself and put on some clothes and made it out the door. Whoo.




I miss London. Boo.

And my kitty cat. Triple boo.