I got a Noriko-fever recently. I got over 400 Noriko plays within 5 days. I firstly was looping "cercueil blanc~shiro no hitsugi~", and I got spurred to drawing something fitting the ambience of the song. So I began to think. I wanted to draw only two characters, one sitting on the floor, and the other sitting on a coffin (from what the title says), but what I actually drew was very different. Two characters became three, and the arrangement was changed too – because the first character I drew was not what I thought, so I put it aside and tried to draw as what I thought. Yet when I finished the new draft, that was, two characters matched my thinking, I went back to my first draft. I liked that one, and thus I wanted to also use it and had to rearrange my initial idea. About each character, at the very beginning when there were only two staying in my mind, I wanted to use Kanau and Serena. But later, I realized I was always using them!! I needed to change! I thought about Eriko and Arietta for the two, but since there were three when I finished the draft, the idea to use the three angel sisters would be good. Thus, like what you see, I re-assigned the three angels: Luminora, Arietta and Fidelian in my drawing.
Until then, they gave me a sense of using a background of stairs – okay, so I began to search for a good background. There were lots of images of stairs, but I couldn't find one that was satisfying me. Maybe I should change the background, to other objects like a harpsichord or a piano. With such a bouncing mind, I grabbed a lot of pictures from google image.
Finally I started to draw my characters with Photoshop. That progress was just like what I did for my other drawings. Here, I'll just pick up some drawbacks: I am still bad on drawing hands; Arietta's hair was a bit longer (because firstly I assigned that character to be Eriko, orz); my way of differentiate characters was mainly to change the shape of eyes, but, I know, I also need to change other places, like the face shape, yet I just couldn't do it. It's still hard for me.
However, I spent more time on finding out a good background to fit the characters. Although I'd got several pictures before, none of them could really match my actual drawing. I tried a rather wide range of backgrounds, and when I eventually got one that was kind of satisfying me, three hours had passed…
I've mentioned in yesterday's post, which was I especially looped Noriko's mini-album "Phill". When I was dealing with my drawing yesterday, it has not been like what I thought first. From the darkish and gothic ambience of "cercueil blanc", I was shifting into a new environment, with more of serenity from my feeling of "Phill". So, the final version could probably be seen as a merged sense from several Noriko songs. At last, I gave the title "Schwarze Nacht" – the same title as one Noriko song – to my drawing, and this was also a kind of merge, no? ^^;
Just a little bit of fun here before I end my post, I firstly typed "Schwartze" instead of "Schwarze", and realized my typo an hour later. Using German isn't that easy at all… orz…
↑ the cover of KOKIA's 2010 concert DVD, the image was made based on the song "この地球がまるいお陰で / Because the earth is round"
It IS KOKIA's birthday!! I mean, it is July 22 in Japan time. It was a bit weird for me to say "happy birthday" to KOKIA even though the actual date in where I live was one day earlier than where KOKIA lives… ^^;
And today, July 21 in Canada time, was really my KOKIA day.
In the morning, I finally went into the last period of my 1000-KOKIA-plays-in-a-row task, which means, there were only about 100 plays to go. Still in the morning, my ordered KOKIA stuff – KOKIA best collection 2 (wasabi label) – was in the mailbox already! I was so excited that I brought the package to my lab. The balance 2CD-set and "Fairy Dance" were in this collection, and I didn't have them yet. I was so lucky because when I ordered it on amazon.fr, there were only three left. Also, the price was pretty good. The collection cost me about 26 euros, plus 10 euros of shipment, I got three albums, yet it was only a little higher than only one album if I buy via yesasia.com. The more important, one album from this collection, AKIKO-KOKIA-balance, can not be purchased even on amazon.co.jp! Although it is available on anco&co shop, they don't deliver items outside of Japan (most local Japanese online stores don't, which is a shame). However, the only drawback of this purchase was the albums are all in wasabi label, which means they are not the real original Japanese version. The booklets were very similar to the Japanese ones, but the lyrics were in romaji rather than Japanese… oh, no, I'm really bad at reading Japanese in romaji, and I like Japanese, I like to see the booklets were written in Japanese… well, I think I still shouldn't complain for this, since what I got was much more than the small drawback. :P
Regardless of that I found her new song "kotonoha" yesterday, I got the "otonami book" in this morning! I thought I couldn't be able to find it so I was going to find a way to buy it. But… it just showed up (thanks to the person who shared it, and sorry, KOKIA, I couldn't buy it due to the lack of money ^^;). This piano book gave me a very gentle feeling. There were liner notes of each song, and I think I would translate them someday. The thing I want to do most, is that I need to learn playing piano, even only for this book!!
At last, I'd like to write down a more exciting event happened today. I found a guy who is selling KOKIA's "REAL WORLD photobook"!! Oh, MY GOD!! Due to they don't deliver items overseas, I couldn't have the chance to buy it. I thought I would never be able to have it, but the chance has just come. There were only two copies available… I have to order it soon!! I can't do it now because of some technical issues, I can only do it one week later… so… I WISH NO BODY FOUND IT AND THUS I CAN BUY IT!!
But… if I buy this, I would not have enough money to order her 2010 concert DVD, the one that is the best and the most concert-like DVD, according to KOKIA. Hmmm… I think I will still choose the photobook first, because, THIS PHOTOBOOK IS SO RARE!!!
I finally dug out the pretty Tanabata (star festival) gift from KOKIA and Masumi Itou this morning – well, I didn't dig out all of it. What I got was only the first song – but this was already enough for me. Because – this song was sung by KOKIA, you see.
The new mini-album of "Bungaku Shoujo (Literature Girl)" is entitled "KOTONOHA", which means "words" in Japanese. A beautiful title, indeed.
The song is introduced by piano, KOKIA's clean voice inserts in soon after the piano, followed by the warm and smooth strings' harmony. Drums and triangle join in later, in a slow pace and echo pleasantly. The entire song was played by the simple combination of instruments, thus made it being a good fit to the world of "Bungaku Shoujo", which is very relaxing. I can find some influence of classical music from the music, and what I imagined in my mind when I listened to it was that the gentle sunlight goes through the green leaves, the room is dipped in light golden colour, the wind is sweet, and the birds are singing outside – what a pretty scene from a summer morning. ^^
Here, I have to say that it is hard to believe the combination – KOKIA plus Masumi Itou – also worked on the song "Karma", "Fate", etc. I doubt that I would know Hikaru Nanase and Masumi Itou are actually the same person under two names if I knew nothing and just listened to some tracks by each of the names (in fact I DIDN'T know, really) Or… is it true that she has multiple personality?! (jk jk… ^^;) Each of them (them, yeah, I mean the two names she is using) has obvious style that you may recognise, but there is little similarity between the two! Comparing to Hikaru Nanase's grandeur in arrangement, Masumi Ito's style is more gentle and softer… you see what I mean?
Before, I just liked KOKIA and Masumi's music, but since this song, I think I'm going into the world of "Bungaku Shoujo". I will read the novel and listen to its drama when I have time!
I hope I will like it. Well, why not? I've already liked so much from it!
KOKIA is releasing so many new works in this year! Another mini-album, "Road to Glory 〜long journey〜", will be out on August 18, 2010.
As you might have already known, song "Road to Glory" is the theme song of online game "Dragon Nest". In this album, besides it, there is another song "Daybreak", which can be seen as a kind of image based on the Dragon-Nest world. KOKIA mentioned in her blog, that this song is featured by multiple recording tracks, and the whole feeling of it will be as grand as "Road to Glory". Also, KOKIA wrote the image song as well!
She also talked about another song before in her blog. The ghost(?)-song, "Sabiatta / for little tail", which was the theme song of game "for little tail", will also be in this mini album. This song was firstly out 13 years ago, and finally they found the original recording and going to release it officially! You may read more from KOKIA's blog about this story, but briefly, the reason for them to put those songs from two games together is simple: the staff of both games were the same. The song was written in 1997, and KOKIA's debut was in 1998, so this is a song came beyond the time, and it was also a reunion of the staff members~
↑ Bass: Izumi; Percussion: Mizawa; KOKIA; Suo
↑ the original recording's hard copy!!!
*all pictures are taken from KOKIA blog~*
They got a newly recorded version of "sabiatte / for little tail", and the original version will also be included in the album. "It's so embarrassing when I listen to the old version... I was so inexperienced... I really like the new version, everything feels so good, and more mature." that KOKIA mentioned in her blog.
By the way, KOKIA also tried the online game, and she named her character "Kokio", which is more fitting for a boy -- and his birthday is... July 22, of course!
*★*――――*★**★*――――*★**★*――――*★**★*――――*★*
P.S. school life is so busy recently. I need to find enough time to finish the translation of her 2009 Europe interview... ^^;
It was 7:25 already in the morning when I woke up. "Oh, god, we're going to Banff today!" I finished all "morning tasks" in an amazingly quick speed. We were going at 8 or around, you see!
However, every thing was going following our schedule. We – Dina, Harue, and me, as well as Max, our golden retriever – went to Banff for an one-day trip yesterday, that was, July 10. Now, I'll simply describe what we visited in the order of time.
#1.Lac des Arcs
This lake was our first stop. The weather was very good – not too hot, and not cold. It was just partly sunny, and was mostly cloudy. The lake looked so peaceful. Max was so excited for being outside.
↑ Max was drinking!
#2.another lake
↑ Another lake on our way. I don't know its name though ^^;
#3.Lake Louise
Finally, we arrived at Lake Louise. There were so many people! It also took some time to find a place to park! There were rather a large number of huge vehicles. What I thought at that time was Top Gear! I now kinda understood how they hate those caravans! (lol)
Anyway, the scenery was superb! The water was in a blue-green colour. The farther mountain still has snow accumulated on. We walked a little along the lake, and the lake was just that nice from every aspect. However, I remembered that someone has been here after a long time of hiking. Then, I was so lucky! To be honest, I don't like most kinds of exercise; hiking sounds so exhausting… ^^;
↑ Lake Louise. Beautiful scenery, the colour of water, snow, and boating people.
#4.Moraine Lake
Although a bunch of people think Lake Louise is very nice and famous – it is actually – I think Moraine Lake was even better! I just love the whole feeling the lake gave me: the absolute pure and blue water, the breeze, the colder weather, the high and straight pine trees, and a closer view of the snow. Really, it was much colder than Lake Louise. I wonder how high the lake is (and I am lazy to search for it…).
↑ Moraine Lake. The weather was cold~ XD
#5.Bow River Fall
Later, we came to the Banff Town. After a brief scrolling in the town, we arrived at the Bow River Fall. It was not a big fall, to be honest, but it was still nice – I saw a rainbow raising upon the water!
I walked along the river, enjoyed the scenery and the sound. Then I suddenly got an idea: why not take a video on my way back? Thus I switched my camera into movie mode, and started to record. Yet, I failed to hold the camera evenly, so what I got looked like in an earthquake… I was also trying not to get any others in my video, but that was not easy either. Sometimes, I even got my finger recorded because I was trying to adjust the camera… my first long time (7 min only though) video was such a big fail… ^^;
↑ A rainbow hovering upon the bow river~
#6.Hot Spring Pleiades
There are several hot springs. We visited Pleiades because it was not too far away. But, what I saw was more like a public swimming pool… ^^; The water temperature was 40-degree-ish. If let me to make a decision, I'd rather to go to a real swimming pool in summer than the hot spring in summer days. Well… people have their own decisions…
↑ Can you see it doesn't look like a swimming pool? :P
#7.Banff Gondola
I enjoyed this part very much! We were in Sulphur Mountain at that time, and there was an aerial lift – a gondola lift, if saying more exactly. At the very beginning, I was even wondering why it was called "gondola", the boat's name from Venice!
The elevation was 2451m (I just knew from wikipedia). The view from this height was much more exciting than that from Calgary Tower! I was just wishing they could make each cable car with a glass bottom (then I guess lots of people would not take it anymore… lol).
On the top, the first sense of us was "wow, it's utterly cold!". The distant mountains were a bit foggy, and I was in my own reverie again! I was linking this view to NGE… (*get shot*) Also, finally, we found some animals! There were several goats, yet I didn't understand why goats lived at that place.
Soon after, I saw a squirrel! Different from what I often see in Calgary, which was the black squirrel, this little guy I saw was brown. I had already seen one when we just arrived at Lake Louise, but I didn't have the time to take a shot. This time, since my camera was ready to use, I took a lot of shots of him (let's assume this was a "he"). There were a few chips on the ground, and thus it also gave me time to take pictures~ (it did run very quick ^^;)
↑ He's eating chips. So cute~~
If you go up, there was a panorama view deck – and there was even colder. A lot of country flags, together with city names and direction marks, were on the wall of the deck. Firstly I didn't fully know what they are. After a few seconds' guessing, I realised those meant the way of the city it indicates. After reading the information board, I knew I was correct, yay~~ did I look silly? :P
↑ Panorama deck, country flags & directions, foggy mountains.
#8-9.Administration Garden & Building
This garden was the most beautiful garden I've ever been in! It locates behind of the Banff Town administration building. Lots of flowers were blooming "insanely". My sight was full of rich colours. In one word, this garden was too beautiful to tell the feeling by pictures!
↑ Are they cosmoses? I'm not sure. XD
The administration building was also very nice. It was in an European style, which is my favourite.
#10.Banff Town
The final stop of the one day trip was the Banff Town. We didn't spend too much time because it was already very late. We walked in the street and visited a few shops. They were all nice and cute, even though the items they sell were similar to each other. The whole town was in a European-like style as well. I really liked the feeling of the town.
Then, as the last show of the trip, we went to a sushi restaurant for dinner. It was a "kaiten-zushi; aka 'sushi-go-round'" restaurant: a toy train led many carriages where dishes of sushi and other food were on. I've only ever seen such restaurant on TV, and this was my first time to be in a real one. It was yummy! :3
↑ Sushi-go-round!!
Another thing I have to mention. When I was going to stop recording the sushi-train, my camera's battery was dead. Oh, what a nice timing!! Now, the battery was dead, the space on my memory stick was limited, and the trip was going to the end. Everything was perfect!
We had a nice trip really. I love this kind of trip, you go here and there by car, take pictures, and enjoy the environment. You need not to hike or walk too long. You go to lots of places and enjoy a lot, and you're not too tired after the day.
So, lesson from the trip: I have to pass my driver's licence road test as early as possible. XDD
Additional notes:
- the public photo album I took during the trip was here.
- the private photo album, which means, I was in those photos, was located at here.
- the videos I recorded were included in this play list.
Fine, now, I confess here that I was saying nuts in that post in April. I have just done a really huge site reconstruction in the passed week: I moved all my non-useless posts into a new blog, hosted on blogger. I gave my photo blog and story writing blog (not being public yet), which were also hosted on blogger, similar blog templates, to make them similar on the look. I also linked my sites in the sidebar in the form of menu button. Now, my new blog address looks more like a personal site but just a blog. I thought up a new name for it too, which was derived from a Japanese seasonal word.
Yet you may wonder: why? Didn't you just do it in April for a new My Opera account name?
That was true, but I still changed, in June 2010, and the reason was very simple: I want self-costumed stuff. What MyO lacks is not easy to add custom stuff. I know that you can not compare MyO to other professional blog services, and I really like its album service. Although you can not arrange your photos/albums as free as you can do on picasa, the overall rating for MyO for me is very high. I would like to say, My Opera is 90% perfect. I do love MyO, or I couldn't keep using it for years. MyO does not support for posting your blog to your own domain, but it is not a big deal for me, and not like wordpress, which allows you to use custom CSS only when you pay, MyO is free for CSS editing at the very beginning! Thanks to it, I learned a lot about CSS and html.
However, as I got more different services, I was trying to find a way to gather all of them into a single site. Firstly I tried to make a website – I do know some good host to do this, but I am not good at making an independent web template for it. I thought a blog service can do what I want, if only it allows you to do enough custom work. Also, I want to use a blog service that loads quickly, and allows you to post via code editor but html editor. I really do not like html editor: it always messes your stuff in pasteboard up with unwanted codes. A stable service would only be blogger – there are other kind of good services, like wordpress and livejournal, but the first one asks money from you, and the second one has annoying ads…
Because I had the experience to publish my blog to my own domain via blogger, I knew it should not be that hard to make a site-like blog via blogger. So, after a somewhat painful decision, I chose to move. At least, the result was not that depressing for me in front of the fact that I was leaving MyO. I will still use MyO to publish my drawing and cover works – I have said I love its album service!
When I was working on moving and designing a template for my new blog, I realized that it was very similar between my thoughts on "jetaudio v.s. foobar" and "MyO v.s. blogger". In both cases, the former ones are very good overall, but lacks some essential features; the latter ones are basically good though you might not think so at the very beginning, but you need to take some efforts to get them perfect to yourself.
After the somehow pain work, I would say, I will never change again (not probably, but NEVER).
*English version was translated from the Japanese version.
I tried to bake a castella first time today. The result was pretty well. After taking lots of experience, I finally got my cake well-baked, and with a rather flat surface.
I had never eaten a castella before, but I knew this kind of cake from the song "Kasutera" by Yuki Kajiura and Saeko Chiba. Maybe this was also one of the reasons for me to bake a castella for real. Actually, I was planning to bake a German chocolate cake again. But, the buttermilk I found in the food market came with a large volume, plus I don't like to drink buttermilk, and thus I didn't buy the large package. "Well, I think I'll probably have to bake a castella instead for this week." I thought.
Wasn't this an over-random decision? ^^;
.
.
.
Therefore, I challenged to bake a castella in the afternoon.
Because I didn't bake a sponge cake successfully before, I was worrying about if I could do it well this time. Yet, following the recipe, I did the mixing work in a water bath, and surprisingly, things were mixed so fine! "Maybe I can do it well." I got confidence like this. Since the temperature was good enough, the final volume of the mixture of eggs and sugar was increasing even out of my expectation. "If it increases a bit more, it's gonna flow out from the mixing bowl!"
As far as I knew from what I searched before, it is very important to beat the eggs and get a good batter. Later, after adding honey and milk and flour, the volume didn't go down. "I can do it well this time!" – my confidence was going up.
When I done all procedures, soon before I put the pan into the oven, I suddenly remembered that I needed to wrap around the pan with wet paper towel, or my cake would have a dome shape. I finished doing it before the real baking.
Then, I mixed a tablespoon of honey with three tablespoons of water to make some grease. But seemed I added too much of water, and it was not very think… fortunately, it was just for the grease but the cake itself… ^^;
Forty minutes later, I opened the oven. Oh, my, I really did it well! The cake's surface was flat!! It was well-baked, I made it!! I was so happy!!!
I wrapped the cake with plastic wrap, and put it into a refrigerator. I only needed to wait for several hours and now I was almost done. I was really enjoying baking a cake this time~
There is just one more thing I want to say here: it has been echoing for a long time already, the lyrics of the song "Kasutera" by Yuki Kajiura and Saeko Chiba – "Amai hachimitsu kasutera (sweet honey castella)". Castellalalala~~♪
