And so begins the last day of the decade...
Didn't mean to be up until 3am again, but I've been literally inhaling the Nodame Cantabile dorama. Seriously, hooking my laptop up to my TV was both the best and worst thing I've ever done in my entire life! I just finished episode 8...
Right, so today I met up with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
februaryfour and doubt72 to hang out in Ikebukuro. Ai and I were going to see the Nodame Cantabile movie at 5:45pm, but I met up with her and Doug at 1pm and we went to Wendy's for the last time ever, since Wendy's is basically closing all of their restaurants in Japan as of... tomorrow. How messed up is that? I actually don't really regret losing Wendy's for the food per se, but it really had become one of the better places in Ikebukuro to either meet up with people, or to just go and sit down and waste time for a bit. So for my last Wendy's lunch, I had a BBQ Bacon burger set with chili cheese fries. Doug says that they don't have chili cheese fries at Wendy's in the US, but in all honesty I barely remember Wendy's in the US -- the only time in my life I seriously went to it often was in high school with Ben and Aiton.
After lunch, we headed to karaoke. Ai has so many points on her Big Echo card that 2 hours for the 3 of us ended up costing 90 yen after using points. Wheeeeee. I actually deviated pretty far from my normal fare of stuff I sing at karaoke and kind of did free association, putting in songs that the current songs reminded me of.
We went to Tokyu Hands after that so Doug could look for a watch and I could look for art supplies. Tokyu Hands is dangerous though. I did mostly kinda find what I wanted, at least.
Then, movie! I don't really know if I'm qualified to properly talk about it being as I never read the manga, saw the anime, nor have I even finished the dorama -- and when I watched the movie I'd only seen the first 3 episodes, although I had briefly read a wikipedia entry about the characters so I'd vaguely know what to expect. Apparently I missed out on a few references to the show anyway -- as I have now seen Kuroki's oboe solo in the TV show, now I recognize it as the piece he played in the movie to audition with. (Also I think I decided he's my favorite character.)
What I can say about the movie is:
1) it's TWO PARTS so what we saw today was the first two hours of it. The second movie comes out on April 17th.
2) it didn't really involve the characters from the first part of the TV show much, only Nodame and Chiaki. Apparently the rest of the S-Oke gang will be in the second movie more. It more involved Kuroki, and "Frank" and "Tanya", who are "European" music students conveniently played by the half-Japanese actors Eiji Wentz and Becky.
3) though it was filmed in Europe and takes place in Europe, they did some ridiculous dubbing so all the white people speak Japanese. I actually thought it kinda sucked and would have preferred subtitles, but I guess this is easier for Japanese audiences. They also had some Japanese people with prosthetic noses and whatnot who were supposed to be "foreign". Still, I was looking forward to hearing some Japanese actors speaking German or French or English, that's always amusing. Tamaki Hiroshi spoke German in the TV show...
4) lots of good classical music! Except for one horrible (on purpose) rendition of Bolero...
5) overall it was entertaining, still. Even after 2 hours I was like "WTF it's over already?"
Ai and I grabbed kaitensushi for dinner after that...
...and then I came home and spent like 6 more hours watching the Nodame dorama. Wheeeeeee.
So, there are now... oh, geez. 20 hours left in 2009 for me. I'm going to go sleep for some of them, and then... eh. I have no plan, so am going to spend New Year's alone at home watching Kohaku Uta Gassen, I think. I could go to the Tokyo Gaijins party, but I somehow think that might actually be worse for me (mostly being as I don't like alcohol).
I find it kind of funny actually -- I've had something to do on every new year's eve for the last 10 years, but I also spent 1999->2000 pretty much alone, and actually slept through New Year's turning over itself. Is that an appropriate way to bookend a decade? Maybe. It's kind of sad, really, but...
Right, so today I met up with
februaryfour and doubt72 to hang out in Ikebukuro. Ai and I were going to see the Nodame Cantabile movie at 5:45pm, but I met up with her and Doug at 1pm and we went to Wendy's for the last time ever, since Wendy's is basically closing all of their restaurants in Japan as of... tomorrow. How messed up is that? I actually don't really regret losing Wendy's for the food per se, but it really had become one of the better places in Ikebukuro to either meet up with people, or to just go and sit down and waste time for a bit. So for my last Wendy's lunch, I had a BBQ Bacon burger set with chili cheese fries. Doug says that they don't have chili cheese fries at Wendy's in the US, but in all honesty I barely remember Wendy's in the US -- the only time in my life I seriously went to it often was in high school with Ben and Aiton.After lunch, we headed to karaoke. Ai has so many points on her Big Echo card that 2 hours for the 3 of us ended up costing 90 yen after using points. Wheeeeee. I actually deviated pretty far from my normal fare of stuff I sing at karaoke and kind of did free association, putting in songs that the current songs reminded me of.
We went to Tokyu Hands after that so Doug could look for a watch and I could look for art supplies. Tokyu Hands is dangerous though. I did mostly kinda find what I wanted, at least.
Then, movie! I don't really know if I'm qualified to properly talk about it being as I never read the manga, saw the anime, nor have I even finished the dorama -- and when I watched the movie I'd only seen the first 3 episodes, although I had briefly read a wikipedia entry about the characters so I'd vaguely know what to expect. Apparently I missed out on a few references to the show anyway -- as I have now seen Kuroki's oboe solo in the TV show, now I recognize it as the piece he played in the movie to audition with. (Also I think I decided he's my favorite character.)
What I can say about the movie is:
1) it's TWO PARTS so what we saw today was the first two hours of it. The second movie comes out on April 17th.
2) it didn't really involve the characters from the first part of the TV show much, only Nodame and Chiaki. Apparently the rest of the S-Oke gang will be in the second movie more. It more involved Kuroki, and "Frank" and "Tanya", who are "European" music students conveniently played by the half-Japanese actors Eiji Wentz and Becky.
3) though it was filmed in Europe and takes place in Europe, they did some ridiculous dubbing so all the white people speak Japanese. I actually thought it kinda sucked and would have preferred subtitles, but I guess this is easier for Japanese audiences. They also had some Japanese people with prosthetic noses and whatnot who were supposed to be "foreign". Still, I was looking forward to hearing some Japanese actors speaking German or French or English, that's always amusing. Tamaki Hiroshi spoke German in the TV show...
4) lots of good classical music! Except for one horrible (on purpose) rendition of Bolero...
5) overall it was entertaining, still. Even after 2 hours I was like "WTF it's over already?"
Ai and I grabbed kaitensushi for dinner after that...
...and then I came home and spent like 6 more hours watching the Nodame dorama. Wheeeeeee.
So, there are now... oh, geez. 20 hours left in 2009 for me. I'm going to go sleep for some of them, and then... eh. I have no plan, so am going to spend New Year's alone at home watching Kohaku Uta Gassen, I think. I could go to the Tokyo Gaijins party, but I somehow think that might actually be worse for me (mostly being as I don't like alcohol).
I find it kind of funny actually -- I've had something to do on every new year's eve for the last 10 years, but I also spent 1999->2000 pretty much alone, and actually slept through New Year's turning over itself. Is that an appropriate way to bookend a decade? Maybe. It's kind of sad, really, but...
no subject