Lilacmoon

With only less than a week left of 2005, I would like to present you my “Favorites of 2005″ lists. I know Matt and Richa made “Best of..” lists but I feel like that doesn’t really describe what I’d like to list here. “Best of” sounds so, oh I don’t know, not arbitrary, which clearly I am. So, here are my favorites of 2005. These are not meant to be a guide for anyone. It’s just for my memories sake.

Favorite Illustration Sites
1. Tadahiro Uesugi: I bow down before you.
2. Kirsten Ulve: new artworks up!
3. Yoko Tanji: Tell me your secrets.
4. Saelee Oh: Fun paper cut-outs.
5. Jen Corace

Favorite Flickr folks, excluding my friends
1. zonepress
2. tamjpn
3. candlemomo
4. mollychicken

Favorite Songs I listen to over and over again
1. Remioromen’s 3月９日: “March 9th.” How can you not like this song? It’s my theme song of the year. Hands down.
2. Mika Nakashima’s LEGEND: If it weren’t for the mesmirizing electronic background instrumentation, this song would win the award for the most boring melody. Ever.
3. Blue Hearts’s Linda Linda: Theme song for the movie I haven’t even seen yet.
4. Bi’s To You: A romantic song Matt probably hates.
5. Quruli’s 赤い電車: “Red Train.” Such a fun song to listen to.

Favorite Games
1. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GameCube): I was so into it that I took notes. I kid you not.
2. Katamari Damacy (PS2): Funk it up~ Roll it up~
3. Lumines (PSP): I am the Queen of Lumines. Bow down before me.
4. The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (Gameboy Advance): Zelda never fails me.

Favorite Movies. Not much to choose from since I’m just so darn picky about what I’ll watch.
1. Hana & Alice: Makes me want to watch more Iwai Shunji movies.
2. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit: Cheese~
3. 20:30:40: an unexpected favorite, thanks to George!

Favorite Japanese Dramas. I got sucked in recently.. And I blame Richa.
1. 1リットルの涙 (1 Litre of Tears): responsible for making me bawl like you’ve never seen before.
2. 僕だけのマドンナ: Kyon!! I’ll wait for Richa to finish the series to comment any further. But I will say this. Takizawa Hideaki is really cute.
3. 魔女の条件: I don’t really feel anything for the main characters but I thought the storytelling was well executed. Plenty of intense scenes and awesome theme song, Utada Hikaru’s First Love. Oh did I mention Takizawa Hideaki is also in this? *cough*
4. がんばっていきまっしょい: a healthy dose of drama about friendship and sports. My first time learning a Shikoku dialect. Cool~
5. 花より男子: I thought they edited the original quite well, except for that story about apples. Absolutely dumb. The actors did a good job of portraying the original characters, too, especially Domyoji. He did an excellent job of looking like an idiot.

Favorite Manga
1. 花より男子 (Hana Yori Dango): A classic. This sets standards for all.
2. 궁 (Goong): I can hear Richa saying, “What?” What can I say, I love the chemistry between Shin and Chegyung. Not to mention beautiful clothes.
3. Hot Gimmick: OMG.
4. Othello: awesome artwork.

And last but not least…

Favorite Tea Flavor:
Samovar: Silver Spring (oolong.. and I don’t usually like oolong).

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
皆さん、メリ-クリスマス〜
메리크리스마스~ 좋은 하루 되세요~

Here are my recent creations:

A pair of gloves and a snowflake. I love snowflakes. Can’t you tell?

This is FiFi looking up..It is done in the same Fabriano sketchbook as the previous one.

The day after the storm was such a beautiful day. Freezing cold but still very calm and sunny. Snow can be quite beautiful, you know.. Here are some pictures I took while taking a walk.

This is a branch of a tree with lots of fruits I don’t know the name of. I took this under the branch looking up at the sky.

Look! Somebody crossed this spotless snow field to go to the lake. Sad, they planted a tree to block the pathway. Apparently it doesn’t stop everyone. ^^

Heh.. I wonder who wrote this. It wasn’t me~

Yesterday was one of the toughest day I’ve ever had to endure in my life. Wow.. sounds really serious, doesn’t it. It was! My sister and I still can’t believe the misery we had go through, and I think we’ll need few more days to recover.

My sister and I decided to go shopping to Gurnee yesterday, since she had the day off. The day started out just fine, and I was very happy and excited about gettings lots of Christmas shopping done. When we got out of Off 5th, it’d already begun to snow. But it wasn’t that bad. Yet. We should’ve been listening to weather forecasts more closely.. Instead of going back home, we decided to go to Northbrook Court and get more things done there. We thought that by the time we were done, the snow would stop. It didn’t stop. It snowed even more at an alarming rate. Of course, we didn’t realize until we got out to the parking lot. And that’s when our trouble really began.

There was so much snow that we had a really tough time getting out of the parking lot. I think it took us about 1.5 hours. Many people tried to help us out.. An old gentleman who tried to push our car and a couple teenagers who gave us some advice on what to do with our tires. Finally, a snow car truck driver, whose attention I tried to get several times, got out of his truck and pushed our car onto the main road in the parking lot. That was the only road that was cleared in the parking lot. Boy was he strong. And he was wearing just a t-shirt. Meantime, I was trying to clear some path for my sister’s car and when I finally hopped in, all the snow that accumulated on top of my head melted and dripped down my face. Ugh. But that was nothing.. We got stuck right at the intersection as we tried to join all the traffic on Lake cook Road. It was so stressful.. some cars were patient but some couldn’t care less. We still don’t know how we managed it but somehow we completed the turn (after several lights) and continued westbound on Lake Cook. It was absolutely horrible. We basically crawled. The accelerator didn’t seem to work and the automatic warning sign kept blinking. By the way, our gas was low. All the cars passed us and we envied them. How could they handle the road so much better? SUVs couldn’t look any better at that time (there were lots of them).

The worst was yet to come. When we approached the 294 intersection, our car was no longer controllable. It didn’t want to go forward. There was just so much snow, and we had no choice but to stop. Right at the intersection where all the cars exiting and entering the highway met. It was unbelieveable. The two-lane left turn cars opposite us had to split as they turned, and we just prayed that no one would crash into us. My sister called State Farm, Mercedes-Benz, our parents, police.. The police said they couldn’t help us unless we were injured. Ugh. That was understandable but we were causing a lot of traffic. A LOT. State Farm gave us few numbers to towing truck places, and we managed to get a hold of one guy named John who said he would come fetch us as soon as he can. That was around 10 PM. 2 hours after we got out of the shopping mall. -_-;; Thank God for the power of cellphones. Charged cellphones. There was so much drama.. I had to convince my parents to go back home (they were already on their way) because there was no way they could do anything for us. And I almost had a nervous-breakdown while talking to Matt. Ugh.. we were so nervous.. we should’ve just stopped trying before we got to the intersection. One guy who was making a left turn actually stopped and asked us if we needed any help. That was so nice of him, and I, for few seconds, felt a little more cheered up, until the cars behind him honked and honked. Jerks.

Finally, a snow truck driver pulled up to us and yelled at us. I don’t think he meant any harm. I think he was trying to help us out in his own way. He asked us, “Why the hell aren’t you going? Step on it! You’re causing freakin’ traffic!” We told him that we tried but he didn’t understand and he forced us to try again. I could hear him yelling at the cars behind us to give us some room. Apparently he and another person pushed our car because when we finally moved and passed the intersection (OMG that was f_ckin’ nerve-wrecking), a driver pulled up to us and told us not to step on the gas too much and that she tried to push our car. *sigh* We know, we know not to step on the gas too much or to break too hard. What they didn’t know was that my sister’s car is rear-wheel drive with wrong kind of tires for this season.

Anyway, after we finally got out of that hellish intersection, we went forward a little until we found a spot we could safely rest at. Still on Lake Cook but at a long left-turn lane, so that we were out of other cars’ way. There was no way we could turn into a parking lot or anything like that. Thankfully, the traffic had thinned down by then, and it didn’t feel so unsafe anymore. Snow didn’t stop though, and in the dark, my sister and I waited and waited for John. We were extremely thirsty but we’d finished our only water bottle long before. We also began to feel cold because we had to turn the engine off to save gas. What a nightmare. Such pitiful lives. I just prayed and prayed that this John guy wouldn’t bail out on us.

He didn’t! Yay! He came to rescue us! That was around 11:30 PM.
He took a look at our tires and said, “You have wrong kind of tires!” -_-;;

This is a picture I took once I got into his truck. The back part of his truck tilts down so that the car being towed can be pulled onto it. Even he had tough time driving our car up to it, so he could haul it up. He told us, “Man, your car really sucks!” -_-;;

Finally, he got our car up and secured, and we headed home. Whew~ Here is a picture of my sister’s car:

Poor Mercedes-Benz. It ain’t gettin’ any love today.

I was so relieved when we got home around midnight. After good(?) four hours! We seriously doubted whether we could make it home but we did.. We came home in one piece. My parents were up worried sick, and FiFi was very nervous too, I could tell. A day later, I’m still shaken from the experience. I could almost feel the motion of the car when it skids.. Brr..

Lesson learned. Listen to weather forecasts, and know your car.
Or just move to California. Or buy an SUV. *shrug*

My birthday, as some of you may know, was about a week ago. It’s okay if you didn’t know or forgot.. I don’t really want to be reminded that I just turned 28. I know, I am practically ancient to some of you. ^_^;; Anyway, let me tell you a little about my surprise birthday party.

It happened on November 18th, well before my actual birthday, so I was unsuspecting of all the planning my friends were doing to make the surprise party possible. Matt casually mentioned to me that day that we’d go out for dinner. I just thought that he wanted me to take me out to dinner before I leave SF for the holidays. When Matt picked me up, I wasn’t completely ready.. I knew the reservation was at 8:30 PM.. I just didn’t know how much time I had, since Matt wouldn’t tell me where the restaurant was. When I finally got ready (I thought we were running late but Matt said it was okay. This should’ve been a sign), we ran into Austin. He asked us where we were going (so sly!), and after saying good-bye, we stepped out. I nearly had a heart attack because there Richa was, standing in the dark, waiting for us! What?! Matt was all smiles, and Austin soon joined us. He was in it too!! I was completely surprised. All I could think was, ‘This is so cool.. wow!’

So that’s how our birthday celebration started. We hopped in Richa’s car and went to this secret restaurant. I kept asking where we were going but they wouldn’t tell me.. They kept saying we were going to south to Mexico. Rrrright… Actually, Matt had arranged a reservation at an excellent sushi restaurant, Kiss, in Japantown. Hm.. I mentioned to Matt the other day that I would give that restaurant a rating of 5! No doubt that was a hint for him. We all ordered omakase, which had at least 5 courses.. It was all so good. My favorites were hirame and aji.. I knew I can count on Kiss for the freshest sushi. We kept ordering more sushi after our courses ended, and the waitress seemed very pleasantly surprised when we spoke Japanese to her (”以上です〜”）It was such a fun dinner.. we joked a lot and my facial muscles hurt from laughing so much.

Me and Richa, powered by Dunkin Donuts, having a good time.

Matt finished all those sake bottles! jk.

Austin knows best.. take it from the guy with the purple shirt. This was a joke only we’ll get.

This was a little dish for chawan mushi. Such a cute pottery piece!

When we got back, there was a cake waiting for us. It was Austin who set the cake up right before we left for dinner! I was clueless! Another happy surprise~ Here is the cake:

Supposedly, Matt bought this cake the day before on his way to work.. it is from miette and is super chocolately because it is made with Scharffen Berger chocolate. Mm.. everybody enjoyed its thick, rich flavor. Good thing nobody swalloed the little decoration thingies I sprinkled on top of the cake. I was so happy and excited about the cake (and all the presents!) that I didn’t think about taking them off the cake.

Well, there you have it! I had a blast and I thank Matt, Richa and Austin for going through all the trouble of planning and making the surprrise party a success! You got me~

One more: My birthday actually took place after I came here to Chicago. My family and I celebrated on the day before my birthday because that’s when my grandmother was visiting us. It was nice to be with my family after a long period of not seeing them.. Here is my birthday cake #2. I am such a lucky gal..

Isn’t it pretty??