Blame Female Empowerment for your singlehood?

Getting ready to zzz after the typical shitty day, I decided to lurk at the other EDMW's site which highlighted this youtube clip (the voice sounds like that of a Sinkie male, doesn't it?). By the way, the youtuber is encouraging responses @ theNSFWview@gmail.com. 

 A few minutes in, I was wondering what happened to me. Because I wasn't even getting mad at what was said in the clip. I was doing this...

Should I be disappointed in myself for my level of indifference huh?

Maybe when I wake up, I will feel different enough to sign up that email address to "penis enlargement" adverts. After all, the intent behind this antagonistic rhetoric, is to sell a book *roll eyes*.

我的心情谁会懂

 

等你等到我心痛　等你等到没有梦
所有感觉已成空　就让一切都随风
等你等到我心痛　我的心情谁会懂
所有真情的感动　已消失无影踪
爱你爱你始终　恨你恨你不懂
我付出的心有多深重
反反覆覆的爱不能相拥
爱你爱你始终　恨你恨你不懂
我真的等你等到心痛
平平淡淡的爱怎么相容

How my teeth will forever be clean

thanks to Darlie and their excellent marketing campaigns.

First the Singapore Darlie had that massive mugs that came with two tubes of toothpaste.  Was great, I bought two sets (i.e 4 tubes of toothpaste), and broke one mug. *heart break*

[photo credit: MyFatPocket]

Then there was the mug where Hello Kitty is riding the great tube of white (less pretty, Darlie everywhere). 2 more tubes of toothpaste...

Then when I was in Hongkong with the girls last week, what happened? I came across Darlie in Wellcome.... and they came with Rilakkuma summer edition procelain bowls.

Yup you heard me, I lugged one set back (earning me massive eyerolls from the gals, especially since I was already lugging lots of weird shit back). Which brings to a wonderful total of 8 tubes of toothpaste to be used by my tiny household. Damn you Darlie.

There~! Proof that I am a victim of cartoon gimmicks. Thank god the plate didn't shatter during the flight. I might have committed seppuku if I only had the darlie. That's how I ended up with a Brown cup (exclusive to HongKong Airport, or so they say), the summer Rilakkuma plate with 2 freaking tubes, and some toy vehicles).

Going overseas with gals is sure different from going overseas with Bobo. Tripping with him, all running around capitalizing on time and making sure we catch every single sight (leaving us super exhausted. Though in the last 3 trips, I have started to set aside some relaxation, e.g. cycling around Lake Forggensee, admiring the clouds at ChingJing and spa in Busan). Tripping with the gals, small catfights, sleep-ins and lots of girl talk. Last year we didn't manage to kill one another in Ho Chi Minh, but this time around, we destroyed one another's wallets, 损友 style. At one point, it became like this:

Miss Bear: Do you think I should buy this luggage tag (which I totally don't need?)

Me: Why ask? Buy la.

She ended up with 3 luggage tags and 7 foldable shopping totes (as did I).

The other Miss Bear also insisted that we wipe out to the last Hongkong dollar we had, down to the Octopus card, which is how I ended up with the McDonald's cup and the Hello Kitty roller coaster toy.

The obligatory Omiyage. The yellow purse I bought simply because it is a long running joke between Bobo and I.

The gardening crap were stupid buys, in general, especially the hangers. Was a pain trying to pack them since they couldn't fit into my luggage or my bags. I had to go around Hongkong begging for cardboard. Fuck, you have no idea how big Hongkongers are on recycling. I literally had to almost fight with the cardboard collecting uncles and aunties. In the end, a super lovely cashier from Wing Wah took pity and emptied a box for me (which also led to me overspending at the shop in gratitude).

I endured some whines from the Misses Bears, who couldn't understand why I would wanna compete with the old people for cardboard, and told me to buy a 红白蓝, 损友 style. I would except that the only one I saw, sold for 65 Hongkong dollars (Perhaps they upped their prices after being copied by turn-cheap-into-expensive Balenciaga). Seriously go rob a bank or something. Almost S$13!!!!

It's all Balenciaga's fault

I have to say, this is the first trip I spent so much money without blinking. When I told お母さん, she said, "Good!" (alluding to the fact that I am a skinflint and seldom spent money on myself, other than food).

ユーリ!!! on Ice

I am late to the fangirl party, seeing that this anime ended in Dec 2016 already. I have developed an unhealthy thirst for variety shows where people complain about their relationships these days. So I usually rely on Bobo, who of course, filtered this anime because it contains Yaoi.

I don't have a preference for Yaoi themes, though one of my favorite anime of all time is Gravitation.  My preferences for anime run along these lines, specific theme + excellent OST +  biantai relationship. Which is why I loved 2015's Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso.

But Yuri on Ice!!! It's really вкусно!!! An excellent combi of men's single ice skating and self-inflicted stress + wonderful music (i.e. compositions by my new favorite 松司馬拓, though I love "La Parfum de Fleurs" as much as I hate  "Shall We Skate") + the will-they-wont-they-are-they-gay relationship between Yuri Katsuri and his ice-skating-rival-turned-coach, Vitya Nikiforov.

I had to admit that when I saw Vitya's eyes narrowed as he watched the viral video of Yuri emulating his own freestyle program, I thought he was a twisted individual who was going to fuck Yuri over after he steals his heart. Nope, the only twisted individual was me. It was pure BL at its best. He saw the video and recalled the poor drunk sap who clung to him like a desperate leech and beseeched him to "be my coach" if he won a dance-off with other Grand Prix finalists.Of course it might also have been because he was also in the doldrums after winning the championship 5x. You know it has become the "this is nothing, it is to be expected"?

There are plenty of guffaws that sensual yet flawed Vitya made as a first-time coach, to one sad, yet poignant point that he made Yuri cry and then the latter even had to console him. Like Yakov his former coach, said, he thinks only of himself, so suddenly he has to start putting the introverted, self-deprecating Yuri first, must have been tougher than teaching him any of the jumps he knows. Yuri's low self-esteem is quite unbelievable, he says a few times in the anime that he is a dime-a-dozen JSF skater (when he was the top Japanese representative for 2 years *I felt like smacking his head with a slipper everytime he said that, what a diss to the rest of the JSF*). Kein wunder why he received a nice burn from his coach.

There is a lot of obsession online about whether Vitya actually kissed Yuri during Cup of China. IMHO, this is the power of suggestion at its best. The fact I don't see it makes it even more powerful and magical a scene :D And then at Episode 10, we find out that the whole relationship was Yuri X Vitya and not Vitya X Yuri? It just made everything make sense.

Anyway during the same weekend wannacry was wrecking havoc all over the world, I was immersed in fangirling the **** out of the anime. From finding the songs (I discovered that Soundcloud has nicer versions than Youtube *no diss to the covers* - just own preference), hunting the doujinshis and rewatching favorite scenes in the anime like 100+ times. My favorite scene is the first episode where they sliced in Vitya's performance with Yuri's one of "Stand by me", as if they were skating as one.

I also liked the screenshots of the skaters' instagram (very realistic and engaging). I bet every girl who watched the anime tried to set up v_nikiforov (only to discover that there is a real-life Victor Nikiforov from Novosibirsk, who has already taken the handle) 

I am very intrigued by the recent Japanese animators' including real-life locations into anime. Say for example, Udon no Kuni no Kiniro Kemari which hard-sold Kagawa and Shodoshima Island in 12 episodes (I have to say that this "product placement" worked for me, watch this space for details later). I now have a burning desire to visit Saga, Kyunshu prefecture lol.

Interesting quips from 涂磊

Our fav youtube show before we got netflix was 爱情保卫战, though it is slowly being replaced by another favorite 一转成双, which I was reassured by Mr Bear that would deliver violence on top of the volatile relationships ( I had to watch like 20+ blurry episodes before someone finally got slapped).

But of course 一转成双 does not have the erudite 涂磊, whom we cheekily nicknamed a nice foul word courtesy of the Canton dialect. He can toss 4 worded, 8 worded chinese idioms 蒺藜火毬-style at warring couples. Sounds very bombastic, but I cannot really understand them (possibly because my Mandarin is pretty shite).

Here's a great sample: