"Il Mare" & "the Love Letter"

I watched a Korean movie called "Il Mare" last night, and I was deeply touched.
This brings back memories of another great romantic drama, the Japanese "Love Letter". Both trailers I have found on YouTube, for you to enjoy!

Cherry Blossom Color - Sakurairo Maukoro

Incredibly sad yet beautiful .. makes me tear up inside... 　I think the Japanese characters for the title is 桜色　舞うころ.
someone once said to me that this is about "Eternal Love".　

Nakashima Mika (中島美嘉) Translated Song Lyrics [Index]

Sakurairo Maukoro Lyrics: Kawae Minako Music: Kawae Minako Sakurairo maukoro, watashi wa hitori Osae kirenu mune ni tachi tsuku shiteta Wakabairo moyureba omoi afurete Subete wo miushinai anata he nagareta Meguru kigi tachi dakega Futari wo miteita no Hito dokoro ni wa todomare nai to Sotto oshie nagara Karehairo someteku anata no tonari Utsurui yuku hibi ga ai he to kawaru no Douka kigi tachi dake wa Kono omoi wo mamotte Mou ichido dake futari no uede Sotto ha wo yurashite Yagate toki wa futari wo Doko he yakonde yuku no Tada hitotsu dake tashikana ima wo Sotto dakishimeteita Yuki keshou madoe wa omoi hagurete Ashiato mo keshiteku otonaki itazura Douka kigi tachi dake wa Kono omoi wo mamotte “Eien” no naka futari todomete Koko ni iki tsudukete Meguru kigi tachi dakega Futari wo miteita no Hito dokoro ni wa todomare nai to Sotto oshie nagara Sakurairo maukoro, watashi wa hitori Anata he no omoi wo kamishimeta mama [Go Back]

When the cherryblossom colors flutter Lyrics: Kawae Minako Translation: Jonathan Wu When the cherryblossom colors flutter, I’m alone Standing exhausted, I can’t cut off these feelings bottled up inside When the color of new leaves shake, feelings overflow I lost sight of everything and drifted towards you The trees around us told us in silence That we would both see: People don’t have to be limited to one place When the withering leaves change color, I am next to you And as the passing days fade, our love changes But please, let these trees Protect these feelings Silently rustling your leaves above us, Just one more time.. Before long, the seasons will pass And we will be taken somewhere else But right now, there’s only one thing I know Embrace me, silently Covered by the snow, the feelings get lost The footprints vanish, sounds disappear in vain But please, let these trees Protect these feelings So that, frozen in eternity We may live on here The trees around us told us in silence That we would both see: People don’t have to be limited to one place When the cherryblossom colors flutter, I’m alone Savoring my thoughts of you [Go Back]

"Stairway to Heaven"

"Stairway to Heaven" -- Led Zeppelin


There's a lady who's sure
All that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven.
When she gets there she knows
If the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for.
Ooh, ooh, and she's buying a stairway to heaven.

There's a sign on the wall
But she wants to be sure
'Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.
In a tree by the brook
There's a songbird who sings,
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it makes me wonder.

There's a feeling I get
When I look to the west,
And my spirit is crying for leaving.
In my thoughts I have seen
Rings of smoke through the trees,
And the voices of those who standing looking.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it really makes me wonder.

And it's whispered that soon
If we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason.
And a new day will dawn
For those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter.

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow
Don't be alarmed now,
It's just a spring clean for the May queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by
But in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on.
And it makes me wonder.

Your head is humming and it won't go
In case you don't know,
The piper's calling you to join him,
Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow,
And did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind.

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul.
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How ev'rything still turns to gold.
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last.
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll.

And she's buying a stairway to heaven.

Free summer concerts

According to Metro's summer concert report:


Santana Row Summer Jazz Series Every Tuesday, 6-9pm. Free.
Park Valencia, Santana Row, San Jose. 408.551.4611.

Mike Vax Sextet 5/23
Tony Lindsay 5/30
Barry Finnerty 6/6
Octobop 6/13
Kat Parra's Latin Jazz Quintet 6/20
San Jose Jazz Society 6/27
The Joint Chiefs Band 7/4
Kristen Strom 7/11
Jennifer Lee Quartet 7/18
Orquesta d'Soul 7/25
Primary Colors with Nate Pruitt 8/1
The Dave Gregoric Project 8/8
Le Boeuf Brothers Quintet 8/15
Wally Schnalle 8/22
Ed Johnson and Novo Tempo 8/29
Mark Russo and the Classy Cats 9/5
Jamie Davis 9/12
Soul Sauce 9/19
Jeff Massanari 9/26

"Did you feel the mountains tremble?" lyrics

Did you feel the mountains tremble?
Did you hear the oceans roar?
When the people rose to sing of Jesus Christ the risen one.

Did you feel the people tremble?
Did you hear the singers roar?
When the lost began to sing of Jesus Christ the saving one.

And we can see that God you're moving
A mighty river through the nations
And young and old will turn to Jesus
Fling wide you heavenly gates
Prepare the way of the risen Lord

Open up the doors and let the music play
Let the streets resound with singing
Songs that bring your hope
Songs that bring your joy
Dancers who dance upon injustice.

Do you feel the darkness tremble?
When all the saints join in one song.
And all the streams flow as one river
To wash away our brokenness.

And here we see that God you're moving.
A time of jubilee is coming
When young and old return to Jesus
Fling wide you heavenly gates.
Prepare the way of the risen Lord

Bay Area public transportation

I must admit, though noisy and not very clean, the public transportation system in NYC, accessible via a less than $100 monthly pass, is relatively fast (compared to traffic), cheap, and very convenient.

I am thinking about making a trip up to Berkeley this weekend, because I will have to get there by myself, I have been debating about whether to make the full drive up, or drive halfway to Fremont and take the BART.... (if only there's a direct ride straight from Santa Clara! I'd take it even if it means a 2 hour ride each way, because I can sleep all the way!)...


So it will take me 30 min. just to drive to the Fremont BART station, then an addition 45 min. on the BART (negligible cost is ~$4). Compare that to the 50+ min. entire drive up to Berkeley/Emeryville, I am looking at the classic trade-off between time and effort. =)

Oh, and did I ever mention that the Caltrain and BART only overlap at the Millbrae SFO airport station? Urh.... I think this system doesn't work?! at least, not for my agenda.... why couldn't they just build an entire system that runs along the two sides of the bay, with a connection shuttle service across either 92 or 84 bridge? Whoever that laid out the initial transit map must not have taken the future population expansion of the region (the entire SF, Peninsula, South bay, East bay) into consideration. Then again, they may have designed the layout nearly 100 years ago, and different from the NYC/London/BJ/Tokyo systems, the lack of utilization has prevented the Caltrain/BART system from rapid development/expansion.

Sigh... if only ppl had the forethought to be willing to put in the initial investment for the convenience of future generations. This is a class example of how things should've been done Right but instead were done through stages along the "play it by ear" method. Don't you see? When the need arises (like the recent gas price hike, it's too late to upgrade a transportation system to meet the demand! very much unlike the rapid-morphing high-tech/software industry).

just my $0.02... venting due to frustration, still wondering how to get to Berkeley tomorrow... sigh...

"Better is One Day" -- Chris Tomlin

Better Is One Day Lyrics -- Chris Tomlin

Complimentary "Better Is One Day" Ringtone

How lovely is
Your dwelling place
Oh Lord Almighty,
For my soul longs
And even faints
For You
Oh, here my heart
Is satisfied (is satisfied)
Within Your presence
I sing beneath
The shadow of
Your wings

Better is one day in Your courts
Better is one day in Your house
Better is one day in Your courts
Than thousands elsewhere
Better is one day in Your courts
Better is one day in Your house
Better is one day in Your courts
Than thousands elsewhere
(Than thousands elsewhere)

One thing I ask,
And I would seek,
To see Your beauty
To find You in
The place Your glory dwells
(One thing I ask)
One thing I ask
And I would seek,
To see Your beauty
To find You in
The place Your glory dwells

Better is one day in Your courts
Better is one day in Your house
Better is one day in Your courts
Than thousands elsewhere
Better is one day in Your courts
Better is one day in Your house
Better is one day in Your courts
Than thousands elsewhere
(Better is one day)
Better is one day in Your courts
Better is one day in Your house
Better is one day in Your courts
Than thousands elsewhere
Better is one day in Your courts
Better is one day in Your house
Better is one day in Your courts
Than thousands elsewhere

(My heart and flesh cry out)
My heart and flesh cry out
For You, the Living God
Your Spirit's water for my soul
I've tasted, and I've seen
Come once again to me
I will draw near to You
I will draw near to You
To You

Better is one day
Better is one day
Better is one day
Than thousands elsewhere
(2x)
Better is one day in Your courts
Better is one day in Your house
Better is one day in Your courts
Than thousands elsewhere
(4X)
Yeah, than thousands elsewhere (Yeah)
Oh, than thousands elsewhere

Perseids Meteor Shower

Meteor showers occur when Earth moves through a meteor stream. The stream in this case is called the Perseid cloud and it stretches along the orbit of the Comet Swift-Tuttle. The cloud consists of particles ejected by the comet as it passed by the Sun. Most of the dust in the cloud today is approximately a thousand years old. However, there is also a relatively young filament of dust in the stream that boiled off the comet in 1862. The approximate rate of meteors originating from this filament is much higher than normal.

The famous Perseid meteor shower has been observed for about 2000 years, with the first known information on these meteors coming from the Far East. In early Europe, the Perseids came to be known as the "tears of St. Lawrence."

The Perseids will next be active from July 17 to August 24, 2008,^[2] with their peak on the morning of August 12, 2008.

Wikipedia link here.

Dave Barry on Relationships

This posting forwarded to me is just hilarious!! Reposting it here for my audience... enjoy! =)
Let me know what you guys think...
~~~~

Dave Barry on Relationships

As copied from some other website:

(This is actually from a great book, Dave Barry's guide to guys)
CONTRARY to what many women believe, it's fairly easy to develop a long-term, stable, intimate, and mutually fulfilling relationship with a guy. Of course this guy has to be a Labrador retriever. With human guys, it's extremely difficult. This is because guys don't really grasp what women mean by the term relationship.

Let's say a guy named Roger is attracted to a woman named Elaine. He asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a pretty good time. A few nights later he asks her out to dinner, and again they enjoy themselves. They continue to see each other regularly, and after a while neither one of them is seeing anybody else.

And then, one evening when they're driving home, a thought occurs to Elaine, and, without really thinking, she says it aloud: "Do you realize that, as of tonight, we've been seeing each other for exactly six months?"

And then there is silence in the car. To Elaine, it seems like a very loud silence. She thinks to herself: Geez, I wonder if it bothers him that I said that. Maybe he's been feeling confined by our relationship; maybe he thinks I'm trying to push him into some kind of obligation that he doesn't want, or isn't sure of. And Roger is thinking: Gosh. Six months. And Elaine is thinking: But, hey, I'm not so sure I want this kind of relationship, either. Sometimes I wish I had a little more space, so I'd have time to think about whether I really want us to keep going the way we are, moving steadily toward . . . I mean, where are we going? Are we just going to keep seeing each other at this level of intimacy? Are we heading toward marriage? Toward children? Toward a lifetime together? Am I ready for that level of commitment? Do I really even know this person? And Roger is thinking: . . . so that means it was . . . let's see . . .February when we started going out, which was right after I had the car at the dealer's, which means . . . lemme check the odometer . . . Whoa! I am way overdue for an oil change here.

And Elaine is thinking: He's upset. I can see it on his face. Maybe I'm reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more from our relationship, more intimacy, more commitment; maybe he has sensed -- even before I sensed it -- that I was feeling some reservations. Yes, I bet that's it. That's why he's so reluctant to say anything about his own feelings. He's afraid of being rejected. And Roger is thinking: And I'm gonna have them look at the transmission again. I don't care what those morons say, it's still not shifting right. And they better not try to blame it on the cold weather this time. What cold weather? It's 87 degrees out, and this thing is shifting like a garbage truck, and I paid those incompetent thieves $600.

COMMUNICATIONS GAP

And Elaine is thinking: He's angry. And I don't blame him. I'd be angry, too. God, I feel so guilty, putting him through this, but I can't help the way I feel. I'm just not sure. And Roger is thinking: They'll probably say it's only a 90-day warranty.That's exactly what they're gonna say, the scum balls. And Elaine is thinking: Maybe I'm just too idealistic, waiting for a knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I'm sitting right next to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy being with, a person I truly do care about, a person who seems to truly care about me. A person who is in pain because of my self-centered, schoolgirl romantic fantasy. And Roger is thinking: Warranty? They want a warranty? I'll take their warranty and ......................

"Roger," Elaine says aloud.

"What?" says Roger, startled. "Please don't torture yourself like this," she says, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. "Maybe I should never have . . . Oh, I feel so..." (She breaks down, sobbing.) "What?" says Roger. "I'm such a fool," Elaine sobs. "I mean, I know there's no knight. I really know that. It's silly. There's no knight, and there's no horse." "There's no horse?" says Roger. "You think I'm a fool, don't you?" Elaine says. "No!" says Roger, glad to finally know the correct answer. "It's just that . . . It's that I . . . I need some time," Elaine says. (There is a 15-second pause while Roger, thinking as fast as he can, tries to come up with a safe response. Finally he comes up with one that he thinks might work.) "Yes," he says.

A BEFUDDLED BEAU (Elaine, deeply moved, touches his hand.) "Oh, Roger, do you really feel that way?" she says. "What way?" says Roger. "That way about time," says Elaine. "Oh," says Roger. "Yes." (Elaine turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes, causing him to become very nervous about what she might say next, especially if it involves a horse. At last she speaks.) "Thank you, Roger," she says. "Thank you," says Roger. Then he takes her home, and she lies on her bed, a conflicted, tortured soul, and weeps until dawn, whereas when Roger gets back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV, and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a tennis match between two Czechoslovakians he never heard of. A tiny voice in the far recesses of his mind tells him that something major was going on back there in the car, but he is pretty sure there is no way he would ever understand what, and so he figures it's better if he doesn't think about it. (This is also Roger's policy regarding world hunger.)

IT'S ANALYSIS TIME

The next day Elaine will call her closest friend, or perhaps two of them, and they will talk about this situation for six straight hours. In painstaking detail, they will analyze everything she said and everything he said, going over it time and time again, exploring every word, expression, and gesture for nuances of meaning, considering every possible ramification. They will continue to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks, maybe months, never reaching any definite conclusions, but never getting bored with it, either. Meanwhile, Roger, while playing racquetball one day with a mutual friend of his and Elaine's, will pause just before serving, frown, and say: "Norm, did Elaine ever own a horse?"

map of China

courtesy of ryu2's Xanga...
~~~

China according to the Shanghainese

Got this forward from a friend. Sorry, don't have time to translate this now for non-Chinese readers, but trust me -- funny, irreverent at times, and yet so true... =)

Baking Powder?!

jmarron is over today helping me with the new JP mochi cake recipe... in fact, it is he who insisted on trying out the new recipe, and he wants to eat at least 3 pieces! =D

everything is set to go, i've got the eggs, jm's company supplied the rice flour, he's got the coconut milk cans, and boom, we set straight onto the task. half way through mixing the recipe and he goes like, "Winifred, do you know what's 'baking powder'?"

"Oh, you mean 'bacing soda', i think we have some in the fridge" (Urrh... not a good sign, baking soda in the fridge?!)

being the scientific person that we are, we decided to look up the reference of "baking powder" vs "baking soda", which are unfortunately two different things. See reference link here. One being more bitter tasting while the other contains neutralizing elements. ...

i know, geeks, we had to understand everything, and jm being who he is, insists on strictly following the recipes. but "viola!", we made it! not the best tasting yet, but it will only get better from now on...

(pat pat, adorable fuz! =)

~~~ because of jm's impatience, we ended up taking out the heart and flower shaped cakes 5 min. too early, and wanting to have immediate gratification, he chose to eat one while it's still steaming hot... haha... I hope he didn't burn his mouth too badly! you have to wait until it cools!! Aiya!!

200 calories worth of food

check out this link here, complete with nice pictures showing the quantities...
stay away from the OIL!

Chinese flash music/song 这个冬天来看你

Chinese flash music/song 这个冬天来看你

this that and other

awesome!! =D
I went to an XO related BBQ in Cupertino today, and learned about this neato...

"In the Mood for Love"

One of my favourite films, of all times!! And I love the music in this movie as well, Nat King Cole's "Perhaps ^3" and Yumeji's theme, as well as the Angkor Wat themes in cello.

• Wang Kai-Wei film reviews here.
• another great review of the Angkor Wat ending sequence, emphasis on close-ups.

One of my favourite segment of the movie, the Angkor Wat finale is posted below for your entertainment. Complete with the angled artistic shots, the melancholy cello music, all reminds us of a time long lost....

Quizás - Perhaps ^3

Even though I don't speak Spanish, but ever since I watched "In the Mood for Love", this song is ringing in my ear.... Arrh, music is such a wonderful thing, a universal language without boundaries. I put up an earlier post for the lyrics in Spanish, English, and adapted English versions. "Quizás Quizás Quizás" -- "Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps"

I especially love the Nat King Cole original version, while searching, I also found a clip adapted for the 2005 movie "Brokeback Mountain".

"Beauty and the Geek"

ok, this sounds silly, but I am seriously addicted to the show "Beauty and the Geek".
It's definitely a low cost production compared to some other reality shows, however, because of the diabolical nature of the characteristics of the participants, it's major drama nevertheless.

Both the sad and the funny part is that I definitely identify with the geeks *way* more than the girls. I guess years of hanging out with my college friends and living here in the SV does have its impact on me. But hey, I am not complaining and I think that being "geeky", ie. knowledgeable, is definitely a cool thing in the SV, at least.

On the show, the participants got to do really need things such as design their own super hero and play with neat science experiments. =)

My friend has been telling me about this show for some time, and it's only recently that I picked up on it, I think I will probably go find the DVD releases of earlier seasons.

:D btw, someone just sent me this YouTube link to a geek makeover, it's hilarious!!! I can't believe it!

Human Mirror

haha, I just read this site... #6 train, I totally know that route as I've taken it for 2 summers in a row myself... So this is the "human mirror" project, info here.