海外旅行：タイから国帰った！

Chinese New Year just flew past, with all those house visits and celebrations! Not to mention, me and Mabel left Rena under the careful care of my in laws and went for our first overseas trip since 2007. Yes, almost 3 years since our last one, which was to Tokyo. It's been a long awaited trip, and although it was Thailand, it was the first time for the both of us, and it also marks the first large group event since we went with another 8 more friends. The good thing about travelling in a group was that I didn't really have to do any itinerary planning nor navigation, and there was always companions around you. Only thing was that I couldn't roam around as freely as I could in other countries. Though, it was more of a shopping trip for Mabel and her group of lady friends than anything else :)

Well, I did find something to buy. Can't let Mabel exhaust our vacation funds alone now, can I. Most of the stuff I bought were T-shirts. Lots of them. Some even came in couple designs so Mabel would be glad to wear them with me. No pics now but they're quite interesting so I'll definitely post pictures on Twitter soon. I also bought some other little stuff, like the iPod money and iPod puppy you see above. Also, some figures from Naruto Shippuden, namely Sasuke and Naruto. I already have some other figures back home, so I thought it was a good chance to add others since they were pretty cheap. Too bad I had to stop myself at 2, but they had a lot of other characters there as well.

Sadly, I realised that not everything was cheaper there in Thailand than Singapore. Take the Kamen Rider and Super Sentai toys for example. They sell for nearly 3 times the price than Singapore! Seriously. One of the SIC series for Kamen Rider Den-O went for nearly $200 there, and it costs only about $70 in Singapore. The Gundams there aren't cheap too, and the prices are nearly uncomprehensible to me. The Perfect Grade Double 00 Gundam which my guys gave to me as a present, it costs over $900 dollars there. Yes, crazy! Too bad, since I was planning on getting some stuff there. Turns out I'll have to import again.
    

  

Apart from shopping, the other highlight there would be the food. Sorry I could only show you a picture of my supper, since most of the meals were too cramped for me to take pics, or because the food was too good I didn't remember to whip out my camera. We visited a couple of steamboat restaurants, Japanese restaurants, and also chinese seafood restaurants for BBQ large prawns, curry crabs, etc. Eating was quite a joy there, really. Mainly due to the price :p

  

  

I also managed to get a new pair of running shoes there. The price wasn't really that far off from home, but since we have tax rebate I thought I'd might as well get it there. I also got a couple of running shirts there too, and a soccer jersey, since we visited the Adidas warehouse outlet there. It was a pain getting there so not getting anything would be silly. I realised that the stuff there was quite a bargain, so kudos to the guys who got us there.

  

     

My order for some of the new figures from Kamen Rider Decade and Double also arrived this week. Nothing spectacular this time, just 3 more figures in the rider heroes line since I've been collecting them for so long, and a large sized sofubi of Decade since he was on sale and costs way cheaper than the version of him I bought locally a few months back. I haven't been watching too much of Double, though I have the episodes lying around. Can't find the time to go through time, though I usually go through the action scenes on the day of the broadcast in Japan. Will be finding the time to catch up soon, and to see how the new rider Accel do, based on his whacky transformable bike form. Check out the video here (you can't see embedded stuff if you are reading this from Facebook):

The new season of Super Sentai has also just recently started. Tensou Sentai Goseiger (天装戦隊ゴセイジャー) is the title of Toei Company's thirty-fourth entry in its long-running Super Sentai Series of Japanese tokusatsu television series. It premiered the week following the finale of Samurai Sentai Shinkenger on February 14, 2010, it airs alongside Kamen Rider Double in the Super Hero Time programming block. I caught episode one, but I'm not really too much into it, not unlike Shinkenger. Too much a young cast, and already a pesky kid in the pilot episode. Will most likely give this series a few more weeks before deciding whether to keep watching. The OP/ED are pretty nice though. Here's the video for the ED:

Right! That's almost it for this entry. I've been procrastinating this for a while, but on the other hand my Twitter account reaches 3000 tweets this week. Been using it daily, and haven't been updating FB as much. Work seems to be piling up too, although I must say that 2010 looks to be the year of change for me. I'm pretty much determined to go for further studies this year, and there's also hope of finding what I desire to achieve, in terms of passion and goals. Hopefully everything will work out soon in the months to come. Until next time, ja!

国際ランチブッフエ、いただきます～！

We took Rena out with us today for a International buffet lunch over at Sheraton Hotel. It's her first time out for a buffet, and she was sure attracted by all the different varieties of good food there. Even the staff manning the different stores were kind enough to give her extra portions or food to play with. She broke quite a few biscuits already..... But it was a fun meal since she can now eat rice and some other stuff. The hard part is keeping her still, really.

Here you see Rena's expression after I tell her a not-so-funny joke. :(
  

We didn't bring her back home on Friday since Mabel declared that Friday was spring cleaning day. Yes, it can be murder, cleaning windows and helping to mop the floor on a weekday especially when I had a long day at work. But I'm thankful since Mabel did most of the other chores, which would have taken me an eternity. The weekends seem to be getting shorter lately, since I've been making an effort to join some other close friends for morning runs at ECP. We've signed up for the upcoming North East Run (16 km), and also the Adidas Sundown Marathon. It's a good way to keep fit, since I've been lazy lately and not trained much since the training back in December.

Although I've signed up for a Twitter account a few months back, I've never really used it till recently. Nowadays, I spend a lot more time on Twitter, compared to Facebook. Though, the latter is still better in sharing media, links, and also photos. However, Twitter reigns supreme when it comes to micro blogging. It's so much fun to tweet and get to know people around the world who share your common interests. It's also awesome following your fave stars too. I've been following ex-Morning Musume member Kago Ai (加護 亜依), and I've been pestering her in the hope that she'll make a reply. To my surprise, she started following me a few days ago! I couldn't believe it, since she has over 25,000 followers and follows around 20. Simply amazing. It's a great great way to pratice casual Japanese, which I've been neglecting since I've stopped classes. Hopefully I hope to keep this up, post more interesting photos and tweets, and get more followers. Do add me if you have an account, since I update it much much more often than Facebook now. :p

Really, I can't believe it's been 10 years since Morning Musume's since "I Wish" back in 2000. This just proves that I'm getting really old. Kago Ai's still young at 22, since she made her debut back then at just the young age of 12. She's recently seen in a few movies, and will be in a few more upcoming ones in Japan.

I've also managed to sync my blog updates to Twitter and Facebook, so if you're reading this from Facebook, you ought to check out the official site (http://www.seannosekai.blogspot.com/), since the FB can't really read the blogger feeds well and doesn't display the embedded videos. I've tried, but well at least the pictures show up correctly. Until then, I'll be Twittering and hope to see you there too. Ja!

レナ＆PG 1/60 ダブルオ－ライザー

This week, although a busy one which I didn't really spent a lot of time in my office, marked the end of my tour in my current appointment. It hasn't been awfully long since I took over, but I guess given the pace and tempo of our surroundings we can't really stop and appreciate the enviroment. At least not for too long. With the end of this tour, the guys in my company prepared a something as a form of a farewell gift for me. Though, technically I'm still in the same building with my new posting. Nevertheless, I really, really appreciate it very much and for those who are reading, thanks again. For those who still have no clue what I'm talking about, it's the model kit which you can see Rena happily holding on to, in the picture to the left. It's a 1/60 Perfect Grade Gundam 00 Raiser. I'm not sure how the guys got it, but it's not a cheap set if you check out the prices in the deparmental stores.

I used to be an avid Gundam collector, with my own airbrush kits and other modelling nessecities. I was passionate about it since the Seed series, and started airbrushing my kits after seeing how much different they look after the process. But as an impatient guy, I usually spend only 2 days to go up one 1/100 kit. I skip steps and do things chop chop, but I thought the results weren't too bad. In fact, I even wrote a dummies guide on it which you can check out here. It's a little dated though :)

But I've already sold my airbrush set to a friend lately, and there's no actual way for me to paint the kit. And for some one who's used to seeing his kits painted, it's hard to accept something which is not. Firstly, I'll need to rely on stickers which ruin the kit in my opinion, and secondly I don't like the original plastic feel of the pieces. Repainting them would get rid of the plastic effect and make the pieces look matte in comparison.

 As a friend on a forum suggested, the other alternative would be to get those matte sprays, and use it on the completed model. All I need to do is to remove the clear parts. It doesn't solve the sticker problem, but there's not much to worry as PG sets uses more optional decals than stickers. I'll be checking up on these sprays and see whether I can find more information on the net.

The box itself is massive, and it comprises of 3 separate packages within. One of it holds the main parts of the actual Gundam, while the other box holds the parts for the attachment, 00 Raiser.

The 3rd package is the GN drive. It's actually battery operated and has light effects when turned on, to emulate the effects found in the anime. Pretty neat, though I'm sure it will be under utilised.

The 2 main boxes has lots of stuff inside, namely the parts for the kits and also some other stuff such as the decals, rubber pieces, batteries, and screws. Lots of them. Seems it will be hard work just getting the pieces cut out and smoothened.

Over 400 pieces of individual parts. This will surely take up some time. For now I've no plans to get started, but I'll definitely go check up on the matte spray first. If I don't need to plan ahead for the spray, I might start doing a little everyday (if I can find time and Rena isn't there to hide the pieces). I can't promise though, since I'm really very hasty and can't stand seeing something uncompleted. All of my Gundams are assembled in one day, and air brushed the next day. This will surely be the first to break that tradition, but I see it as something good. I'll be documenting the process here too, hopefully. Even if I complete the whole thing, there is still a problem of where to display it.... And yeah the guys also threw in the official stand (another separate package), so that would help a lot. :)

I also picked up some other stuff earlier this week. They include 4 Kamen Rider candy toys, in the form of Hibiki, Kiva, DiEnd, and Decade. Can't really remember when I ordered those, since I've not been collecting my ordered items for a while now. Also received my Master Grade Son Goku, which I finished piecing in around 3 hours (see what I mean). It's big, and really posable, hence the MG tag. No painting required too, and it looks cool. I've already ordered the Super Saiyan version coming next month too. Well, lots of new things to display, and running out of space. Notice Rena carrying yet another famous figure in the left picture. Until the next week, this will be all I've been buying. Ja!