Snack attack & Assorted Japanese offerings.

The Sister came back from Japan yesterday after frollicking there for an enviable three weeks in Hokkaido and various other parts of Japan. Which is still one place I very much would love to go and it looks like a trip is probably in the works at the end of this year. As expected she bought back a shit load of deliciously eccentric but yet wonderfully intricate and tasty food stuff, most of which were inevitably confectionaries and sweets. Which meant an afternoon of 'sampling' everything which she opened up : Royce's macha (green tea) cuboid dark chocs, the ever popular Tokyo Banana, soft sponge cake in the shape of a banana filled with flavoured custard and other assorted stuff which included a freeze dried strawberry coated with white chocolate.

The standard guilt attack that usually accompanies such wanton indulgences of the sweet tooth or after a particularly sinful repast was surprisingly mild; repressed firmly and ruthlessly explained away as 'Just a one off kind of affair' coupled with the standard 'I'm going to jog later anyway.' Yeah, well we all know that one. As they often say, there are those who eat to live and those who live to eat. I'm in the latter category in case you haven't noticed by now and while the years of wanton pigging out haven't (thankfully) wrecked noticeable havoc on the body, the Fight against Flab is never ending. Not least because I'm pretty sure once I hit my thirties, the metabolic rate will go downhill and all those years of hrm culinary enjoyment will suddenly materialise in all the wrong areas.


So the looming spectre of Gravitating gobs of fat towards the gut is about the one overwhelmingly motivating factor that spurs me on for the night jogs, inspite of the increasing inertia just to put on those track shoes and get out of the house sometimes. But I digress. This was supposed to be about all things Japanese anyway. Speaking of which, I'm continually amazed by the stuff they can come up with. On top of the usual kawaii notepad and pen my Sister bought for me, she purchased some 'safe' toiletries. 'Safe' as in your average neutral stuff which most people would use and not the highly subjective/sensitive kind of cosmetics (ie: Toner/facial cleanser/moisturizer etc).


Which consisted of some hair styling clay and some toothpaste-like breath freshener. Though I must say that the term 'Design Mud' doesn't sound really enticing for something you'd like to use for a hair styling product. I'm sure they meant to say Designer Clay or something like that but still the packaging was clean and appealing, the light grey content nicely scented without that cloying viscosity that characterizes Gatsby's hair wax products (ie: getting that wax out of one's hair involves a conditioning-shampoo-recondition regime that is much too time consuming). I haven't tried it yet but I'm sure any product by Shiseido will have decent standards.

As for the toothpaste-like Apple flavoured/scented 'Breath Palette', I haven't quite steeled myself to try it yet. I hate the taste of inadvertently swallowing some Colgate and a swalloable paste-like breath-freshener looks too much like that nasty colgate toothpaste sitting in the bathroom. Other than food, alcohol and various parts of the Boyfriend's anatomy, I'm rather picky about what goes in my mouth. Still, I'll probably get round to trying it sometime when I'm either starved/drunk or maybe after oral. Ha ha. Which should be well before the expiry date.

There is something about the english they use on those Japanese products though, so eccentrically mangled, it's funny to read (and decipher if possible) in a kawaii (cute) sort of way. Take the description of the Shiseido Geraid 'Design Mud' : Make your skin & hair beautiful. Claims of wild and beautiful. Can't stand being like other men. You get the drift more or less but the literal translation is so amusing. Or the description off that wrapper from the Tokyo Banana, which some might call a gourmet Twinkie (tho the Banana is a whole lot better), I just finished : 'People gather to TOKYO from here and there with memories of their home. And then Tokyo gets the everyone's home town'. But still the Banana was so nice, plus it's thoughtful of them to provide a little after-snack entertainment. Considering that was the third piece today out of a box of eight though, I think the Sister might have a fit later. Too bad.

More yaoi scanlations out this week to look forward to. As usual, the chinese scans are infinitely faster, which is fine for me despite my rather spotty command of Chinese. Reading Yaoi or any manga for that matter means not needing to worry about cheem complicated, mind-numbing where is my dictionary kind of chinese which is the kind you'd expect from your average chinese literary novel. After all, how complicated can the phrase "I want to fuck you." be? Not very.

Haru wo Daiteita (Embracing Love) Volume 12, which comprises Chapters 43-47 plus the sequel has been finished by the chinese group Friday, so you can get yours from the megaupload link provided if you understand Chinese or just wanna see the pics. Link provided courtesy of Yaoi Shares which I suggest you join if you want a huge huge fix of yaoi, they have a lot of hard-to-find titles nicely catalogued for free.

I've noticed a lot of hits on this blog for the various animes and yaoi scanlation titles, so when I've the time, I'll come up with a nice comprehensive post with links included (NOT downloads- go to the groups to get your files and thank them). For now it's back to the books, for that last min cram session before the Law and Soci for the family paper tomorrow.

I leave you with Tsuki no Curse (Curse of the Moon) by Okina Reika (first song on the playlist for now), that wonderful opening song from the anime Loveless. Lyrics may found here.