Binondo - Intramuros (Solo) Photowalk (part 1 of 2)

Exploring places one has never been to is fun and exciting. The thrills of getting lost and finding one's way back to familiar places is thrilling enough to keep the mind wandering and adrenaline pumping. When I was doing this photowalk of mine, it was my first time to go to Binondo alone. I arrived at Lawton at 2 PM, then walked to Escolta.

Tindera


Art Deco


Escolta Sidewalk


Eskinita sa Binondo


Jeepney


Buhay Kalesa


Pedicab


Prutas


Chinatown


Fort Santiago

JPOP Addiction (part 1)

It all started when I began watching animes, this was back when I was a little kid. It grew even more when I started watching Japanese Music Videos in MTV (back in the days when it was till free). Until the addiction was irreversible, I started buying cassettes of Utada Hikaru, then eventually CDs. When Angel bought me a desktop computer, I consistently downloaded a huge number of MP3 files as well as JPOP music videos. Until I started to self learn Nihongo, so I can watch animes in Animax without reading the subtitles.

Until this day, I still enjoy listening to JPOP. I don't just get the songs that we usually hear in the opening or closing credits of animes . I also get the usual songs that they play in Japanese airwaves, even whole albums of some the Japanese artists I like. I just have this fascination in anything Japanese, specially literature, music, and food; and Japan is my dream country to go to. There is something fascinatingly nice when I listen to their songs even if I don't understand what the singer is singing about, at all. As long as it sounds great, it's fine with me.

With the Kpop craze conquering the world, I still remain loyal to Jpop. I have listened to Kpop songs, and they are very "poppish" and some Kpop artists tend to overdo stuff, like men looking like "girly-boys". Although some are very mature and are a great listen, the language is not the same. I still want the usual Japanese words I hear. Generally, listening to songs one does not understand is crazy, but as I've said, as long as it sounds good, I'll listen to it, but I still prefer JPOP over Kpop. Even though I despise a lot of pop songs these days, Jpop is still the pop I love and will always be.

Here are some of Jpop videos I just want to share. The first video is one of the best Japanese ballads I've ever listened to, and it's 7 minutes long. The last two videos are the ones that I have been playing on loop since the first time I've discovered them and I can't help but to sing along to those songs, every time. They are just on repeat whenever I play them in my iTunes, in youtube or on my phone. The song by Juju (2nd video) has been playing non-stop for more than a day now (as of this writing). Enjoy watching the videos, I hope you'll like them too!

NOTE: I highly recommend the last 2 videos!

Everything - Misia


素直になれたら - Juju


Heart Station - 宇多田ヒカル


NOTE: The Heart Station video is the reason why I am constantly "salivatingly" craving for those white Audio Technica ATH-SQ5 headphones which were used in the video! Some electronic and Mac stores have it here, but it's so damn expensive. P7++k was its price last year, the last time I checked a Mac store in SM North this year, it's down to P5++k, still expensive! (sigh)

Goodbye Happiness

This was Utada's last single before she retired, just released this year.


Single version


Live version. I think this was from her final concert.



Translated Lyrics:
After the sweet candy has disappeared
A sad looking little boy
On a cloudless Summer Day

Sunburnt hands and feet
Careless if her white one piece gets dirty
An unconscious paradise

I waited after the dream, but nothing
Then one day, I learned of your name

So Goodbye Loneliness
Singing along to a love song
Reflected in your eyes, I’m laughing

So Goodbye Happiness
We can’t return to those times
When we were naive and energetic
But that’s okay
Love me

You can’t overthink it or get too desperate
Don’t fool yourself
It’s a tough world

When humans find themselves all alone
Is when they realize the meaning of love

These fading passing days
Let me hear a gentle song
Do you still remember, to this day
The way we felt around the time we met

So Goodbye Innocence
We can’t return to those times
When we were naive and energetic
It’s all your fault
Kiss me

Oh everything goes round and around
Oh Darling Darling I’m not going to move on to someone else
Only you

Wouldn’t it be great if we could just live the way we are?
At crucial moments, my other self blocks my way.

So Goodbye Happiness
I want to return to those times
When we were naive and energetic
Baby, just one more time
Kiss me

Lyrics courtesy of: peachai.wordpress.com lyric

Swallowed by Night

Scream and blow your mind

I find post hardcore music more pleasant to listen to than hardcore because the vocals tends to range from whispers to low and slow melodic singing to screaming. One can also hear well all the instruments used in a particular track or song by a post hardcore band. Not all instruments are played hard and loud but varies and compliments each other, adding to a more musical listening experience rather than listening to an all angst and noisy track. Some bands have two vocalists, one who does the smoother singing while the other does all the screaming. Some post hardcore bands screams so well that you can actually understand what they are screaming about, I call that clean screaming or clean noise; like the band Fighstar (which one album, The Grand Unification; was heavily inspired by the anime Evangelion). Lyrics are also well written and actually makes sense, not just about blood, sex and violence, or how they hate the world. Underoath, who makes good songs about God, is one example of how such "noisy" music (to most) can actually be filled with spiritual words. They're a Christian post hardcore band, or metalcore, whichever. Flyleaf is another Christian band that I like, and they don't sound like one.

Most people find loud, noisy music annoying. Those types are still music to my ears. All the heavy guitar and bass sounds somehow relieves the tension and stress brewing inside me, most specially the screaming. The varying vocal range of the singers of post hardcore bands are so nice (to my ears) that it seems they have more range and skill than the bands of other hardcore sub genres, plus they are more pleasant to listen to and I can actually understand what they are saying without knowing or reading the lyrics, its clean noise (as I've said earlier). All that energy coming out from the songs are the perfect workout music for me, so whenever I am working out at home or gone jogging, these types of music are the ones playing in loop. Also, I listen them when I want to relax with ice cold beer and cigarettes.

Here are some tracks of my favorite songs from the genre many people find irritating and senseless to listen to. I highly suggest you give each song a try and listen to the lyrics, do at high volume if you dare. Lyrics of the selected songs are worth listening to.

I included a non-post hardcore song in the playlist. My most favorite Paramore song, My Heart.



Music Playlist at MixPod.com

50 Facts About Me

Three bloggers already made theirs, so I'm joining the bandwagon.

Here they are... 50 facts about me.

1.) I have a very bad hand writing. It's so bad I can't even read them sometimes.

2.) I day dream all the time, I get lost in my own thoughts at any time of the day.

3.) I have a very, very, short attention span, that's why I find it difficult to focus.

4.) I talk to myself most of the time.

5.) I like being alone.

6.) I love long walks.

7.) Singing is my frustration.

8.) I have extreme mood swings. Angry in a minute, sad the next, then I will laugh on my own at some random stuff, then I will stay quiet for a moment, or even longer.

9.) I hate going to malls.

10.) I love spicy foods.

11.) I love dark chocolates.

12.) I eat anything edible.

13.) There was this one Christmas when I was a little boy... We didn't have any spare money for Noche Buena, so I gave my earnings from doing Christmas Carols to my mom. She bought a piece of chicken leg and what we call corn-rice, that was our Noche Buena; it was my saddest Christmas.

14.) When I was a little boy, I used to peddle puto during the day and dried fish during the afternoon until early evening, in Cebu.

15.) MY zodiac sign is Scorpio.

16.) Vanilla is my favorite flavor, and smell.

17.) I am a chain smoker... Still fighting to quit.

18.) Incase you don't know until now, I have a terminal condition.

19.) I am at constant battle with my "yo-yo-ing" weight.

20.) I prefer boxers than briefs, but I do have both and those in between; boxer shorts.

21.) I don't take showers or brush my teeth during my rest days if I don't feel like it.

22.) Sometimes I just want to stop myself from thinking too much.

23.) Japan is my dream country to go to.

24.) I was born in Bicol, raised in Cebu.

25.) Yellow lights relaxes me a lot.

26.) Night is a refuge to my soul, I am a day sleeper.

27.) I am not careless nor carefree but I don't care to a lot of things around me.

28.) I can live without TV, radio or a cellphone, but not without a computer and an internet connection.

29.) I punched one kid when we were still living in Cebu. He lost a front tooth.

30.) I love bodies of water, specially the sea.

31.) I love the magic of the golden hour.

32.) I am a very social person, but a hermit inside my head.

33.) Sleeping on buses on my way home has been a daily habit.

34.) I don't know how to ride a bike.

35.) When I was still living with my mom and my younger, the post man would often get confused; because the three of us have different last names.

36.) Having two sets of parents are not really extraordinary and complicated, at all.

37.) I won a huge amount of money sometime in the 90s that was used for my college education, but it eventually ran out before I could even finish my first year.

38.) I was the Vice-President of our College student council. Population: 4000

39.) I collect MP3s, CDs, DVDs, books, magazines.

40.) I don't know how to draw that's why I got into photography.

41.) One more reason I got into photography... I want to let others see what I see.

42.) My left knee had a greenstick fracture due to an unknown cause. My left leg was in braces for half a year during highschool. I had retainers back then and I wore glasses for astigmatism.

43.) I bought my very own condo at age 24.

44.) If there are no more cigarettes at home, I lit the used ones with little remaining tobacco leaves.

45.) I skipped Nursery school, Kindergarten, Prep School, and Grade school. My first ever formal education was High School.

46.) At first during high school, I did not know the differences of... A 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1 whole sheet of paper, and between a quiz and an exam.

47.) Because my first formal education was High School, I did know what was a First Communion at that time, nor I had one.

48.) I left home when I was 18.

49.) My shaved head look had been around since 2004.

50.) I have a very unique real name, which I think I am the only Filipino with such a name.

City of the Setting Sun

You have seen a thousand setting suns
Since conquerers put feet with their rusting guns
And a war broke out that killed a million sons
Who were prayed for by a million nuns.

As the sun is swallowed by your seemingly lifeless sea
Your dark alleys began their twisted flows of secrecy
Where the lustful intentions of lovers merge
With their gyrating bodies filled with urge
Where blood spatters every once in a while
And never made it to the precinct files.

On your streets lies at night
Magic, fills the air where hearts take flight
Some with virgin wings, they wander, looking for delight
Others who are broken, looking for refuge...
Guided by the dreamy glitz of your city lights.

You witnessed lovers break
As they make their last take
On what seems to be, the inevitable...
Pulling of the break.

You heard promises whispered
To a soul's delight, they ponder and hold on...

You've became a refuge to the homeless
That abounds your dirty, busy streets
As dirty as one's secret, and as crumpled as one's used sheets
From a night of senseless turbulence, of drunken affairs.

Some lose, others get some
Many mourn by the shattered pieces
Of their broken hearts or broken lives
In your arms they find home.

As another night draws to a close
Another sleepless night, many will dream tight.

Another day, breaks the magic of the dark
Where many others will embark
On the sizzling heat of your tropical sun
Lives go on, people carry on.

Another setting sun, comes to your bay
Another cycle, another day
The city where many pray
Is the city where many lay
Who went to stay or go away.