Omurice (オムライス) or omelette rice, is one of the common dishes available in Japan, with a wide price range for the frugal to the rich. Classified as a western dish (洋食), each plate is made to order with many variations to boast, be it the way the egg is prepared or the desired flavour of the rice.

For once, I wished to be in Sasuke's position and be the receiver of that beautiful poke...

This week has been spent slogging away to create a tribute to my man Itachi, and I've decided to document and share the process to make up for the lack of figure photography.

Rather than buying anime posters (both official & fan-made), I've always preferred doing it myself, one to save molah, and I'd like to look at the wall and feel impressed by my skills lol-

You know that kick when someone praises and acknowledges your hard work-

Hand drawn just feels a ton more sincere, so if you can do it, why not?

And it's Itachi we're talking about, I can't be halfhearted about this!

...Besides, I desperately needed a channel to funnel my deep-seated admiration & adoration for this man... That is definitely my number 1 fuel for drawing.

Oh, what I would give to be poked and be the receiver of that affectionate smile...

Round #1:

As usual, I began with researching the perfect possible arrangement of wall collages on Pinterest, and after some serious moments of pulsing my lips and eroding my screen protector, I've settled on using this:

How To: IKEA Ribba Frame Gallery Wall, taken from Pinterest

Round #2:

Commerce idea cramming and instead of arranging random shots of his handsome existence (oh how tempting), I've decided to use the collages to tell a story, make it more meaningful 

From top, clockwise: 

• Various frames for some shots
• O <--- Y (Old <--- Young) Starting from his childhood, when his brother Sasuke was born
• Numbers denote the sizes of the 'canvas'

Round #3:

Random drawings in various stages of completion - starting with penciling, fine lining, filling, and line shading

Round #4:

The Death Valley of Errors & Tools Malfunction

This $15 masking fluid was the death of me when it not only failed to be peeled off...

...It went ahead and stained and broke my paper (red arrows)... Danzo, Shisui's already dead, cut him (AND ME) some slack!

As I attempted to savage this drawing, the water droplets from making the foliages dried up and had the nerve to stain the white spaces (blue arrows)... This despite using all self-proclaimed waterproof markers! After some serious investigation, the culprit turned out to be the black Copic markers zz

Round #5:

Repair & Last Minute Fixes

Of course this nonsense had to happen when I'm almost done with everything, and being the last piece, naturally I was compelled to redo... and redo it is.

Above: Spent a great deal of time taping the edges... This wouldn't have pissed me off so much if I didn't own the tool precisely to substitute these tapings

...Came across this cool way of creating realistic foliages on Pinterest (great space for inspiration!)  by dabbing black paint (top left, Pentel tube) on a damp sponge (bottom right), hence the tapings.

Can you spot the difference?

Round #6:

Canvas building

Since the whole point of doing it yourself is to save on cash, going out and buying pre-made canvas and frames would defeat the noble mission, so I've picked key drawings to pop up on the wall. I would love to elevate everything onto these canvas (above photo), but do you know the amount of paper I've used just to build these?!

Round #7:

Hanging up these without any guidelines (besides that scrap paper) was nerve-wrecking and fun

I teared as I was drawing the crying scene, how did the animator do it?

It was tough using eye power alone to gauge whether all frames are parallel...

Can you make out what's going on from this arrangement?

• For those who have watched Naruto, his favourite gesture of poking Sasuke's forehead shouldn't come off as a stranger, and I've used that as the common motif to represent his fondness and commitment to protect his brother across his lifespan on the wall.
• While Sasuke was the motivation behind many of his actions, many of those encompasses sacrifices - his clan, citizenship, reputation, acting very much like a double-edge sword. His brother's existence pulled him into the depth of hell and hence their scenes, no matter how blissful and genuine, were at the bottom (of the collage)
• His cousin Uchiha Shisui, on the other hand, was not only his one and only close friend, but his mentor, confidante, and someone he aspires to be (hence allocated at the top)
• The 3 biggest frames in the centre, from right to left, represents Hardwork, Suffering, and Decisions
• I picked two representative moments of Sasuke's 'interactions' with Itachi - his first encounter with him since he left the village (bottom, behind crying Itachi), and him visiting Itachi's grave (most left) to show the states of their relationship across his timeline

...And this is just the amount of space I have above my bed. How I would love to go on and cover more of his life in Akatsuki and edo tensei!

It's my dream to marry build an ultimate Itachi shrine in my room
#monogamy

xoxo

Yesterday, my fellow countrymen and I were hit with an unexpected case of Internet breakdown.

What began as a mild suspicion that it was just my modem, soon turned into an island concern when our biggest tele provider could not deliver us data on a fine Saturday, of all days.

While it was entertaining to scroll through the rage comments under their Facebook's latest update, I was reminded of my Social Media Management module where my prof talked about the difficulty and importance of crisis communication, hinted by its 4000 level classification (a Honours year module). It dawned on me how shockingly poor and inefficient my telecommunication company has responded to their undoubtedly biggest crisis to date, because for starters, I was left guessing what was going on.

The imperative and logical procedure in cases of emergency, I figure, is not to fix the problem and be hopeful that it'll be settled in a few hours, which was what happened.

The first step should be to keep us informed.

Knowing my countrymen, it is a tall order and presumptuous to use the word "pacify," but given the sudden and rare nature of such incident, they could have made better use of Facebook's ubiquity and instantaneous ability to frequently update their customers. Some facet of predictability, like one update per hour would have been perfect, where bad news is better than no news.

Instead, we were left hanging with sporadic updates, as though they've suddenly remembered an island of baffled customers were still waiting for their response. That meant constant page checking and shaking of disappointed heads, both of which were fuel to an already raging wild fire.

Personally, the biggest letdown was not that this breakdown happened, or that it took them the entire day to fix it, but the capacity of such behemoth organisation to treat their customers as an afterthought. It was so numbing that it took them 4 hours to provide a backup plan (offering waived mobile data charges), when it could have been the first few actions to take. It felt anti-climatic, reluctant, and quite frankly half-assed.


Anyway, what was supposed to be an append to my AFA's post has evolved to deserve its own post, and shall be treated in accordance. As of 7AM this morning, "about 80% of [their] fibre broadband services have been restored, and [the] engineers estimate that [they] will achieve full service restoration in the next few hours."

To that, my good pal Paul concluded, "Wow they can do better than that man."


For me, I'm just glad that I do not have to shut down my modem moments after switching it on. That would spoil the thing rather quickly, according to my mother.

September 2016's kawaii & beauty subscription box

I stumbled upon this subscription box while being a good ol' spectator on YouTube, faithfully going through unboxings, and adding on to channels' 'views.' Friends ask me why I watch these sort of videos, and I usually get away with a, "It's fun," generic sort of answer. I can tell they aren't convinced, but that's because they don't understand the psychology of money spenders. Really, this is a shopaholic's cure for filling in the inactive days, though not a cure to stop shopping.

Because really, I'm just sniffing around the net for more things to shop.

Anyway back to today's agenda of more otaku goodness: Japan's box of treasures.

Even otaku and figure collectors need the occasional treats to motivate themselves, and since it's from the nation of our obsession, it's fitting to share it here. 

Usually these boxes are targeted at U.S. audience (hence the USD currency), so a desperate soul who wants a taste of Japan outside of America would have to fork out excess cash for shipping (worldwide No. 1 さいふ killer), tank the extra rate, and all in all pay more than the box's supposed worth. Not cool.

So when I found out WOWBOX offers free shipping worldwide, I grabbed my friend Paul's sleeves and told him, "We're getting this." Naturally, being a heavy snacker that I have observed of him, he seconded the plan.

After securing a co-investor, I jumped straight to WOWBOX's website, and allowed myself to be amazed by the funky and interactive layout.

Fig.1: Themes accessible via clicking the Subscribe button

Naturally, free shipping alone would not be enough to turn me into a WOWBOX convert, if it doesn't come with some cool themes to choice from (Fig.1). One glance and you know the marketing team did their research well, so no matter what gender, age, and location you're from, there's definitely something to suit everyone's taste buds.

For sotong (blur) people, they have this dandy tooglebar at the bottom that guides you through the actions doable and steps left to payment. I screenshot this to show the degree of customisation it affords, and this was how my first plan went with them. Basically, they're giving customers little reason to not subscribe.

For this kawaii & beauty box, the smallest (regular) starts at $24.99/month, and as with all other sub boxes, the longer monthly plans you opt, the cheaper it gets (although the amount saved isn't all that significant).

What you can expect in a typical WOWBOX:

- Japan's mascot snacks
- D.I.Y. snacks
- Wa style snacks (think cherry blossoms, kimono girls, all the stereotypes you can think of)
- Beauty snacks (e.g.: collagen)
- Health[ier] snacks
- Drinks or products (only for Large box)

P.S.: You can cancel the subscriptions/ switch themes anytime before the next box's deadline (more on this later). All boxes are dispatched on the first week of the next month.

So this baby arrived 2 weeks later, but because my courier likes to deliver when I wasn't at home, I had to go down to my post office and collect the next day. Again shout out to the Marketing and Design team for the attention to details and faithfulness to theme. While the box was rather beaten up around the edges, it was safely cushioned by air packets within.

First glance inside the box and as expected, everything was pleasingly lay out... Fine the box was a mess when I peeked in, I mean, it's a blessing that it arrived, given it's free SAL shipping, so no complaints here.

As I'm typing this I realised this is actually our second box. In all honesty this was an unintentional purchase, because I forgot to terminate the subscription. If you opted for a 1 month plan, remember to sign in to your profile and CANCEL to prevent surprised billing notification (like me). And do so before the following box's deadline.

My opinions on the snack:
Unfortunately neither Paul nor I got to try them all... On the food testing day, we had overstuffed our silly stomachs with dessert (Fig.2) right after lunch and right before WOWBOX tasting. Out of spite, we decided to distribute the snacks among 2 other good friends.

Even more unfortunate? I don't even like sweets. However, I'm impressed by the Pure collagen beauty snack - it's mixed berry yogurt flavour gummy with sugar sprinkles, slightly sour and stimulating for the senses. Totally the go-to snack during office hours, or when you feel like giving up and fall asleep under the lecturer's nose.

Edit: Just tried the Maple Nuts Grandola... Hmm nobody told me grandola taste so good! Or was it just this Asahi one?

Love that it comes in two separate smaller packets (each containing 2 pieces of grandola), so I do not have to finish everything in one goal - I always prefer my breakfast a combo of solid and liquid diet~

Fig.2: This is the culprit - our first endeavour at a 4 tier waffle palace, topped with matcha and charcoal ice cream. In retrospect, it was amazing, but it wasn't such a brilliant call for 2 people who just had lunch to challenge this. Not good at all.

1 month later...

It's so easy to give people advice isn't it? Imagine the surprise when I received yet another billing notification from WOWBOX... Turns out I cancelled the plan after the following box's deadline, like right after the deadline. What has turned out to be a try-try matter has become a recurring experience, like figure collecting.

Once again, tragedy repeats itself - I wasn't home when the courier came.I was serious when I made the claim that my courier specifically picks my non-present hours. I felt really silly by how shocked I was by the change of box colours, even though it makes sense since this is a new theme.

So on top of this being the October's New and Limited Theme, it is also Halloween. That means the Marketing Team has less trouble fulfilling the Limited expectations of this box, good for you people.

As I have confessed earlier, I'm not a sweets person, so you can imagine my dropping enthusiasm as I took one gummy after another out and arranged them nicely for this blog. I can't imagine finishing all of these sugars, so again out of spite, I've gave the D.I.Y. vegetable gummy (2nd row, most left) to my good friend Zara. Trust me, after the (disappointing) first try & taste at these hands-on sweets, I won't be running to Japan's mart and picking up these any time soon.

Not wanting to end on such a negative note, here were some candid taken while my nonsense buddies were fooling around in public:

That's Paul, the one proudly planting his red shoe on H&M's pedestal while snacking away at Taiwan Chicken Chop

Kri at the back, never one to shy away from cameras, much to my peril (the second  I left my phone unattended, I'll be looking at 100 mug shots of him)

Busy customising their sushi and salad at Maki-san in Cineleisure

Should you give WOWBOX a try? Definitely - after all, most of these aren't available outside Japan and who knows, you might just find your next favourite snack, like I did with the collagen gummies.

This, like all other subscription boxes, is really a hit or miss. Don't expect too much, enter with an open and adventurous mind, and itadakimasu.

xoxo

Gosh to think I nearly missed the one anime event that I wouldn't pass for the world - until this morning I actually thought it was next week x.X So, it's finally Singapore's turn for Anime Festival Asia, and this year it's happening at the happening mall of Suntec City Convention Centre (just where I like it, since it's more convenient for me xD). So armed with $35 and my iPhone, I rode down town to join in the fun (N if things went out of hand I still have my VISA ;] ).

Mami unwrapping her towel like, "Welcome home, Mistress."

...And here's she dressed up for the festival! (Trying to gnore the price tag*)

Love Live gals in their training attire. Honestly I can't believe they actually started this line, because I don't find the outfit any special... Well, Love Live fans R just so lucky to enjoy such variations!

My favourite Miku so far, the mebae version! I have always assumed "mebae" is a form of tribal dance (based on the figure's pose), until a quick Google to reveal it's the name of the illustrator! Mike here's actually a ballerina... Goodness I can't tell!

The legendary Saber, wedding version, at a whooping price of $218. I watched Fate:Zero and although I enjoyed the show, I could not figure out the hype behind Saber. How come nobody is fantasising over Lancer and his love story? I once asked my close friend Hao and he told me it's because he died too early, but seriously? I still cannot accept that flimsy explanation! Oh Lancer...

A Pokemon Booth! The booth tender was very kind and allowed me to take some photos.

The Charizard is spot-on!

Enter: Danny Choo's Dollife section~

Boi ver. oO

Standard Mirai school attire~

Old school hype, what with the anniversary of Sailor Moon, revival of Digimon, and the never ending Dragon Ball mech

I only took this for one reason, can U guess it?

This is a really cool variation of the DB line - featuring the artist's rendering and supposedly a limited edition flown in from Japan for us!

Love such dynamism - makes for awesome figure photography!

Who says centre-parting is old fashion?

Not trying to ruin this masterpiece but from this position it looks like he's trying to scratch his butt

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After circling a while I realised I forgot to take an ambience shot. The place was packed, but not as crowded as I expected, so all as good!

Everyone's able to put their hearts at ease with the vigilant patrol unit summoned for this event

We even have Umi and Kotori giving live report, and here I am trying to distract them with my sneaky shots けけけ

When I saw this booth I immediately thought of the fireworks festival in Japan with those overpriced plastic masks, and had to snap it

Yui poster! Ah she's the cutest!

Another never ending anime - Detective Conan

 Finally something acceptable and pleasing to the eye (managed to snap this giant Naruto poster before the walkway was promptly flooded with passers-by)

...Good things just keep flashing by before my eyes. LOOK WHO'S BESIDE ME! And I didn't even have to look too hard! I made it a mission to hunt down all Naruto cosplayers just to snag a photo with them, because there just isn't enough love for them in Singapore!

And I totally ignored the other casts and just asked for a photo with him xD Sakura looked pretty pissed off (or was it just me) but I have no shame, it is do or die. Omg this is definitely the climax of my day at the festival... Then I had to go ahead and ruin the photo with my halfway smile. I NEVER smile that like. I was legit nervous and panicking internally. 

Bonus: He is male, not some girls cross-dressing and ruining my fantasy

Itachi <333

Look who I found as I was exiting the hall! I would be stroked to find a figure of my cosplay

...And another treasure found in this sea of swarming humans! This Sarada is so spot-on and cute I couldn't resist cuddling her close to me! She even noticed and commented about her parents on my phone case xD

Image source: http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Sarada_Uchiha 

See the resemblance? 幸せ~!

The cosplay palette wouldn't be complete without some Lelouch goodness

And C.C.! I totally recognised her from past conventions (as marked by her characteristic eye bags) and remembered her name on SGclub forum is Rinya. Not wanting to sound like a stalker, but when I first saw her in Cosfest, she was doing Sheryl Nome with a Ranka Lee, and I was awe-strucked. Looks like there's no rush to sell off your costume just after 1 cosplay!

Hooray, Maki spotted!

A for effort for the skateboard, Killua 

Just when I was wondering where aren't there any Sebastians... Sebby <3

This year there's a lot of Kotoris, and everyone that I have seen are really pretty and on point, like this lovely Kotori here. She was really polite and her pose a satisfying one *thumbs up*

BlackWarGreymon here proved a great sport and gave the crowd a good laugh with his humorous monologue and "Terra force" (RE: garbage bag by his feet)

Heck, he even told off Angewomon when he noticed she was blocking the Female washroom and ordered her to "move away la!"

This is so pleasing to my eye, especially considering I've just ordered her figure~

And yep, she totally couldn't see through the face armour

I made it a point to only take photographs of characters I recognise and like, but her costume was simply too exquisite to miss!

Miku #333 Natsu Tsubaki ver. She was really gave me face and posed specially for me! This is probably my best shot today with that sick background and 1-1 eye (lens) contact

...And this was what happened 9/10 times I tried to beg for a photograph. After they had walked off twice on me and refusal to pose for me (too busy for my measly iPhone, I guess), I had to launch a sneak attack and ended with this half-hearted shot.

It was mostly for memory's sake.

Another amazing cosplay with amazing figures (re: flat tummy), couldn't miss this either.

Awakward Miku, not that it was her fault since this was capture during her mid-bow (re: see those lights on her costume!)

Something you don't always see, young Sasuke in Spiderman and Badman's company

My my, what do we have here? "The Last" squad woohoo

I didn't realise there's a Sky Garden next door and found this Love Live group getting ordered around by a male photographer. Love their costumes <3

Then there was this dude with his eye-catchy flag, also getting ordered around by his photographer. 

Here's the full picture. It was quite hilarious but then he started to complain about being tired and my heart immediately reached out to him.

...Back indoors, guess who I bumped into. My goodness, it's the whole squad from Diabolik Lovers! After my initial repulsion towards this anime, I saw it was available for viewing on my MioTV and decided to give it another chance... Let's just say I'm going to watch Season 2 after I'm done with Hakuoki.

Elsewhere, an epic showdown between apprentice Ichigo and Darth Varder was unfolding under the air-con

Looks like this battle has a winner - little Captain America once again saved the day!

Lucky me! Though this is making me think twice about pre-ordering Lucky Chloe from Kotobukiya, hmmm...

Yui! She's so cute~

Erza Scarlet, looking fierce in her armour

Wow, just...Wow! Miku in Harvest Moon version just blew my mind away. Besides the high I got from knowing it's inspired from the Nendoroid. this beautiful lady with her gorgeous fan and dress just, I had to stop her and captured this moment forever.

Personally, I'm not really a fan of Fate Stay Night but figured I should give this Archer a chance. Damn that intrusive arm!

Another kawaii Kotori. Love how their wigs are so true to the character

What's Ichigo doing getting into fights everywhere he goes? He's even raising his zanpakutou against his good pal Rukia?

In another dimension, all is well and the Captains and Ichigo are taking group pic

Notice Byakuya is dozing off from posing too long lol

This duo is sick! And that Spiderman has got a smokin' figure, just sayin'

This is too impressive to miss. Love Spider Gwen!

Had to shoot this for his reminiscence to Kotobukiya's recently released Kaneki. Can't stop thinking about figurines even among cosplayers TT

Found something interesting as I was trying some tops in the Adidas flagship store. I thought something was wrong with me when I saw the word "naruto."  Like did I love Naruto so much that I was hallucinating it in Adida's changing room?

Turns out, this dude's for real. I guess everyone needs to get a Konoha headband at some point, even athletes xD

Overall, I'm really pleased with this year's anime convention. There were tons of characters among the cosplayers that I recognised and love, and there were some decent Naruto merchandise this year (like the 3D Itachi keychain that I bought). However, it has been some time since I went about taking photographs of cosplayers this eagerly, and I have to say this - I've come to appreciate cosplayers who display a sense of courtesy and humility, who performs their best regardless of the lens in front. Just because I'm not carrying any fancy gear or DSLR does not make me less important than the other おじさんs, though some do gave me that vibe.

Through this experience, I've also come to love figure photography more, because unlike a live character, I can fiddle, adjust, and take as many close-up shots to my heart's content. In another words, I can "order" my figure to do whatever I want, without having to worry about it getting tired or walking off before I even hit the "shoot" button. Better to have people staring at you than ten cameras flashing off around you and hands cutting into my frame!

xoxo