to be connected to anything.

to be disconnected from some.

to be eager to please ones you care.

to be selfish to ones that ignore.

to value what others consider useless.

to be affected by others' choices.

to dance till sunrise with anyone.

to drink till dawn alone.

to appreciate the upside in the downside.

to pretend i'm alright.

to be subtle.

but not too subtle.

that's the way i am and always will be.

second day in kyoto. woke up freezing and thirsty from the chilly wind sneaking in through the small gaps in the room and the stove thats been running all afternoon. we literally crashed as soon as we arrived at the guesthouse "Small World Guest House" in 西陣 at noon on the second day.

a guy with dreads showed us the rooms and we took one that was 5000 yen for two (which was still a bit pricey for my standards). the guesthouse was made of cheap wood with doors that wont completely shut and a neat stone garden in the middle of the structure, which actually meant that we were indoors but not too different from sleeping in the open in mid-winter. now 5000 yen was way over my standard.

since it was too cold to stick around at the guesthouse, we took a bus to the center of kyoto again and looked through some shops and again started to look for somewhere to eat and drink. decide to call up Yasuyo and met up with her by the bridge to 祇園. she took us to a nice restaurant on Kiyamachi Street where we at last got to have some Kyoto style dishes.

after drinking some glasses of shochu and a bottle of wine, went on a search for another place to chill out. 3 of Yasuyo's favorite bars turned out they were closed for a party so we ended up at a japanese style izakaya with hundreds of sake and shochu.

naturally we lost track of the time and lost count of how much shochu and sake we ordered. grandpa decided to close for the day but let us stay and keep drinking. real happy charming guy.

it was already morning (again) when we paid the check, said fairwell to Yasuyo promising to meet again someday, and headed for the guesthouse for the few hours of sleep before checking out.

Tomo left early for tokyo, i stayed behind to take a few walks before coming back home at night.

three days and two nights of taking refuge from the past and the future. fragments and moments of the present can be the tickets out of reality. ...i know, most of the time its the other way around.

i have no idea when i last posted an entry in my second tongue, but here goes.

i havent a clue how many visitors i have here either, but to those who have been checking in, i'm sorry i've been silent for the past few weeks. the past weeks' been, well restless would be a word close enough to describe them. i dont plan to bore you with every detail so i guess i'll just share the fun stuff:

2 weeks ago i just HAD to get away from wherever i was, and decide on taking a trip to kyoto with my friend Tomo. it didnt particularly have to be kyoto (we were actually thinking okinawa but couldnt book a flight), when all we planned to do was get wasted on alcohol overdose and hadnt cared at all about sightseeing.

first day at kyoto: arrived at around 4pm, got out on the wrong side of kyoto station, walked for half an hour towards 三十三間堂 only finding it closed for the day, walked another twenty minutes towards kamogawa river, strolled by the river up north towards 祇園. walked around 先斗町 peeking into restaurants too packed to enter and finding ourselves too famished to care for what to eat (still was kinda hoping to run into a nice kyotoish cuisine, but) ending up toasting in one that serves food that probably wont bring back memories of where we were; some chinese noodle izakaya.

wandered around for a while unable to find the club we were looking for so we chose a small bar to get warmed up for the night ahead (again). our plan was to get drunk in the first place so as long as we had alcohol near at hand i guess we were on track. hehehe. "collage" was the small club we sought for which was in some alley along with strange bars and cafes.

luckily the event of the night was KYOTO JAZZ MEETING featuring Shacho (Soil & "Pimp" Sessions) and Yoshihiro Okino (Kyoto Jazz Massive).

met a local named Yasuyo, who was a huge fan of Shacho, snook out together (leaving half dead Tomo behind) for a quieter hangout to chill out. called Tomo and found out he was actually sleeping by the river, without a clue to how he got there. damn lucky we could find him.

so the three of us (Tomo and me particularly drunk) took a stroll through 祇園 towards 八坂神社 at around 5 in the morning (i think) to pray for whatever we had in mind at the moment (Yasuyo threw here coins and actually missed!) and said our goodbyes.

we hadnt actually reserved a place to stay the night so we grabbed a cab and asked the driver to take us to a sauna thats open til 10 am for 1000yen. we slept on the floor. LOL.

bet youre thinking, "you could of done all of that in shibuya", right?
yup, i totally agree.

a bit more episodes and photos to come...
check out over there for more photos too.

▼以前から楽しみにしていた、"A History of Violence"を観てきました。

なんか映画館で、Viggo MortensenとMaria Belloの来日時の生写真をくれました。…いらんわ＾＾；

David Cronenbergの他の作品に比べたら描写はおとなしめな感じでしょうか。William Hurtは、悪人役は全然ピンときませんね。この役でアカデミー賞にノミネートされた理由が全くわかりません。善人顔ですからね、善人役に徹してください（笑）。

David Cronenbergはきっと人間的に歪んでるんでしょうね（笑）。彼の映画を観る度に同じ感想を抱いてしまうんですが。

…もうちょっと期待してたんだけどなぁ。

▼Okay, I saw this ad of a Japanese pop group today, right? Cracked me up.

Janne Da Arc

I mean, COME ON!!
Apparently these guys meant "Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc)", right? I don't know why anyone would name a band after her in the first place, but guys, you really shoulda checked your spelling before going public man.

I don't want to make anyone(especially the fans) upset but, I'd say they could be one of the most pathetic pop band I know. There, I said it.

I wonder if anyone ever had the guts to go up to them and say,

"You misspelled your name, dude..."

So here it is ladies and gents. It's Christmas time!!

I hope my Christmas card have found you in good health and in high spirits. Those of you who haven't received my card, my apologies; either I don't have your address or it somehow slipped my mind. But that doesn't mean I don't think of you!!
Yes, you are the ones who made me get through this year (again), and words are never enough to express my gratitudes.

Thanks to you all.
I wish you all a season of joy and blessings.

For those of you who haven't noticed that little extra feature on my card, here it is folks!!

HOHOHO!!

i've been running my website for almost 3 years now (in which i've shifted to blogging few months ago.) many of my friends also either already had their sites running or opened one up as well. with the countless cheap/free hosting services and blog sites available, it's not at all unusual to come across people who runs their own blog or website these days. you go hang out with your friends at bars and clubs, and among the new people you meet there, there's always at least one guy or gal who gives you his/her url.

well anyways, the other day, one of my colleague at work asks me out of the blue, "you're otieno, aren't you!?" bam! there goes my cover! (yeah, like i had one) says she has no idea when and how she came across my blog but she has been checking it out from time to time. that's many months before i joined the company. well, i see her everyday at work and i even go out to lunch with her pretty often. she says, for a few days she's been having sort of a déjà vu when she was reading some of the entries and the stuff i put up on my blog (and yes, that photo with half of my face). no shit. then apparently it hit her one day who was actually behind this site.

this kind of encounter was of course my first time. i'm of course aware of the fact is that anyone online can read the stuff i write on this blog. and its not like i've been running my site totally anonymous, but damn, it was really kinda wierd when you run into someone in real life who's been tracking a part of your life and thoughts. a bit scary too when you come to think of it if it was on a different occasion.

so, to all of you out there (if any) who's been checking out my blog (my thanks to you), i know it's not something that happens often, but if you happen to run into me and happen to make out a connection between the real me and the character behind this site, tell me you've been checking in first before giving me the surprise attack (or giving me the creeps) on how you know things about me that i haven't told you yet;)

met up with Noz, Mas, Saki, & Naoko yesterday at Roppongi after work. i hadn't met Naoko before, but i use to hang out with the other 3 VERY often when i was in college. it's hard to believe i hadn't met Noz for over 3 years. our long awaited reunion first became a welcome-home-for-just-a-little-while party for Noz who's been working in N.Y. since February, then a petit celebration for Saki who had just acquired a job for a famous coffee franchise yesterday and will be working from Dec.
naturally, i had a little too much to drink. yeah, on a Monday night too.

a little souvenir from Noz.
Kaz Matsui swinging his head around like crazy. weeee.

full of names, tasks, and routines to memorize. many exchanges of name cards and bows. but every minute filled with excitement and a good level of tension.

guess i could say i started off work with another fine day=)

it's not anything new, as i had already done it sometimes in mindfield 1.0, but i'm thinking of posting some entries on my blog in english too. it's been on my mind for a while now. i'm pretty sure there aren't many english speaking visitors to my site, so i bet most of you (especially ones who's been visiting since my old site) are thinking: what's the point in the first place?

well, the point is totally for my own sake.

to keep it up.

ever since i returned to japan (which is a VERY long time ago...), i've been lazy at keeping up my english. i've always had the fear for the fact that, not only am i not improving it, but i'm LOSING it. really fast. and recently it's started to really scare me. i read and listen a lot, but never really devoted my time to write or to speak it for a long time.

needless to say, language is a tool. a tool to communicate and to express oneself. i'm not a very good person at expressing myself. but i admit that i'm pretty fond of doing so;)

as for this blog, i'm well aware that its a very un"'visitor'-friendly" blog to both english speakers and japanese visitors. the way i randomly use both languages is a bad habit and something i would probably have to start thinking about giving up seriously. but on the other hand, i also think: language is a tool, right? then why not use it in a way it suits you best?? i gotta admit, using both languages is still the most comfortable and efficient way of expressing myself. this goes with most returnees from abroad, i think=P

and, well, it is my blog isn't it? hehehe.

SO, here we go. mindfield will aim to become a "semi-bilingual" blog;) i hope you'll bear with me and my somewhat unfriendly expressing/communicating methods.