Today's my second cousin's birthday (in Chinese, we call her my niece, because she is the daughter of my cousin, who I call jie jie, which means sister). She is one of the most adorable little creatures on the face of this planet. Don't believe me? Here's proof.

For a three year old, she really knows how to pose. :) Definitely model material.

And apparently, flexible so maybe she can be a great dancer, too. Okay, but then again she is only three, and all kids are pretty flexible. But still.

Yay! Do you see the resemblance? :P

Building a "house" with legos.

Creativity. :)

I haven't updated in a while. Sometimes it's because I have no time. Sometimes it's because I don't feel like it. I apologize.

Anyway, I just wrote this really long, meaningful entry, but then decided to write something else altogether, since I really wanna focus on the solar eclipse (on July 22nd, 2009). Apparently there won't be a longer eclipse (it lasted about six minutes) until 21something! (that would be the year... so about a hundred some more years until the next eclipse about the same length.)

BTW, the DVD for "Confessions of a Shopaholic" is finally out--I just re-watched it today (I saw it in the theaters with a friend in Hong Kong this past spring)... and it was absolutely inspiring. And actually makes me even more excited to return to NY for school in the fall! ^_^ (Even though it will be NY state and not NYC... >.<)

(I realized I'm beginning to sound ditzier and ditzier on this blog, but then again, there's no point in writing all these philosophical entries when most of the time people just look at pictures anyway, right? :P Ok, that's my excuse, anyway. :P)

Alrighty, here's some pictures from the eclipse. Enjoy. :)

These buildings remind me of transformers. Don't ask.

Hey everybody! How's it going?

So the first stop after Japan was South Korea.

It was a lot of fun :) I went shopping with my friends.

The make up was inexpensive, and many products are famous, especially among Asian consumers, so I gave in to temptation. At the end of the day, I felt like I was buying the products like wholesale.

My friend had five guide books with her, so we went to this famous Korean chicken soup place recommended by her travel guides.

The Myeongdong Cathedral was also in the guide books, so we went by and checked it out.

We then made our way over to Insadong, where we passed by this guy selling Long Xu Tang (no idea how to say it in English... Dragon Beard Candy?), a candy that can often be found in China. When the vender heard my friend and I speaking in Chinese to each other, saying how the candy is common in China, he started speaking to us in Chinese, telling a lot of jokes. Surprisingly, his Chinese was so good that I thought he was a native Chinese speaker pretending to be Korean. (But he said he was Korean) My friends and I stayed at his stand for well over half an hour because he was so hilarious. I think his joke-telling is skilled enough to go on Chinese national television.

I ended up buying two boxes of the candy.

And we got to take a picture with him. :)

(However, due to the fact that my friend doesn't want her pictures posted on my blog, I can't upload the photo.)

Then we went to a cafe and had some awesome Korean desserts like Bingsu and Iced Persimmons.

Bingsu

Iced Persimmons

And my drink. (I think it was blood orange tea, but I don't really remember anymore. In any case, it was red, as you can see from the photo.)

Blood Orange Tea (I think.)

Alrighty, I am going to bed soon. It is 11:40 PM. G'nite! :)

And the last photo for today:

Working on some new songs in the studio (before leaving Japan).

Currently I am on the plane to Korea. Some tall guy just bumped his head into the overhead compartment in front of me. And the flight attendant definitely has above average language abilities, as I heard her speaking Korean, Japanese and English without noticeable accent (her name tag reads Korean, so I suppose she's native).

I've been preparing lately to leave Japan and go back to school, passing through Korea and China on the way. It's my first time to Korea, so I'm really excited.

As hard as I tried to suppress my tears, and as sure as I am about coming back to Japan, six months is a long time. And so I failed in trying to hold back my tears.

Both my executive producer and the president of my management company, as well as my manager and some of the other staff came to see me off. I've always thought that Japan was a lonely place for me, but today I realized I had a lot of friends--no, family--here.

My English is getting a bit rusty, hopefully I wouldn't have to edit this too much when I proofread it before uploading. LOL. (and no, I am not actually laughing, just like the description of that facebook group)

It's raining today in Tokyo. Maybe Japan will miss me too.

"The end of something marks a new beginning," a friend once said.

While we should continue to cherish our memories, we should never forget to keep looking forward.
　　　　　　
Let the journey begin.