Happy New Year

Happy New Year! I still have a cold and still cough a lot, so yesterday we did not do much. Well, we did nothing at all to be more precise, just stayed at home, had a lovely M&S steak, some chocolate roll and mulled wine, and watched a bit of TV. I also spent some time updating my agenda for 2006, with lots of Sanrio stickers and all possible birthdays and engagements for next year. So far, so good.

Tonight, we were watching (well, Mark more or less - he was half-watching and half-playing a game on his Nintendo DS) "The Exorcist" on TV, the director's cut. It is quite a good film, very good acting, especially Ellen Burstyn. And I love the Mike Oldfield tracks. I must add it is not quite "appropriate" for this time of the year maybe (if I may say that?), but still a horror classic nonetheless, right?

On the bright side, we also watched part of my "Howl's Moving castle" DVD. Not the film itself though, because we just watched in the theatre, but the extra DVD with some Studio Ghibli short animations, a real gem for any Miyazaki fan. This DVD is a 4 disc edition that I got in CDJapan. I did not want to wait for DVD to be released in our region, so I bought it as soon as it was released in Japan. What I loved as well was the interview with Diana Wynne Jones, the lady who wrote the book on which Miyazaki based the script. Very interesting. I ordered the book last week, for I did not have it. Mrs Wynne Jones was Prof. Tolkien's pupil in Oxford, by the way. I did not know that before, so, I will probably love to read her books too! I got the "Art of Howl's Moving Castle" book as well some time ago, and it's brilliant. Beautiful hardcover editions with plenty of wonderful artwork, interviews with the staff, conceptual art and other tidbits. A joy to read and swoon about!

Well, these are the news so far. Not much I'm afraid! And no New Year resolutions for me either. Believe it or not, I did not think about it. Actually, I never do. The closest I get to something like that is organising my agenda, and that's done already, ha ha!

Well, enough for tonight. I'm too tired and need to rest now. Good night,

a.The above is the art poster for Studio Ghibli's next animation film, "Tales from Earthsea" (Gedo Senki) to be released in July in Japan! More information to be found in the Studio Ghibli website (in Japanese, though). The film is based on the Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea fantasy series - which I did not read yet! And must, of course.
(Would that count as a new Year resolution, by the bye?...)

Shiseido Forever...

We are just back from our Christmas holidays in Ballina. Actually, we came back on Tuesday the 27th. Unfortunately, I got (another) cold there and was quite bad since then. I did not come to the office this week, i.e., from Wednesday until today and stayed in bed most of this time. I have been having lots of colds lately, and this time it was quite bad. The worse for me is the cough. Besides that I managed to burn my tummy once again while preparing for the injections! It looks horrible and I need to change the dressing every so often. It doesn't seem to be healing very well this time and, if it's still bad next week, I will probably need to go to Dr. Kavanagh again.

Christmas, apart from the cold, was fine, and relaxing. I had the chance of starting my new Murakami book, "Wind-up Bird Chronicles" and, once again, it's a book that I cannot put down. What I love about him (Murakami and, of course, his translator) is the way he describes things so well. You can easily picture locations, characters, smells, everything. Sometimes when you are reading other books it is not so easy, but with his work it just flows and everything is pictured so vividly and perfectly. He doesn't cease to amaze me in this regard. I love this book now because it is funny, poetic and very surreal.

Mark gave me some wonderful gifts, as always. He is just great to get the right things for me! I got a fantastic Canon scanner that virtually does everything: scans negatives, can be used as a copier, is super-fast and comes with a great little software package. The model, in case you are interested is CanoScan Lide 500F. Perfect! I don't know how I survived for all these without a scanner, really...

And he also gave me the new Shiseido perfume, available in Japan only. Rose Rouge. It is pure parfum and comes in a very exquisite box and a lovely iridescent red bottle (32ml to be precise). Mark also got from the sales person a beautiful enameled purse atomiser, black metal with tiny roses, same design as the box. It came with a pipette to make decanting easier. The bottle as you may have guessed is not a spray one - which I prefer when it comes to pure parfum anyway.

The perfume itself is a joy: it's got great staying power and the main note (or should I say "theme") is the red Bulgarian rose. It is sparkly and comfortable, starting up with that lovely rose note and some other fruity accords, like blackberries and raspberries as far as I can tell. Then it settles into a subtly powdery heart of Moroccan rose, heliotropin and irises. In the end, I am left with the evanescent, faint aroma of a million roses, laying on a persistent base of velvety musk and sandalwood. It reminds me of the delectable Bulgarian rose jams, that I used to buy in Rio some years ago (and cannot find anymore). It had a lovely, very deep rose colour and you could see the transparent tiny petals of delicate roses floating on it. The Fauchon jam is quite good, but doesn't compare to that Bulgarian delicacy! Pity I cannot remember the brand now. Here is a picture of my Rose Rouge:

Christmas Time...

This is how Christmas in Rio looks like. The huge laser Christmas tree floating in the Lagoon, changing lights and patterns at every minute. I love it, and miss it so much!
We are heading to Ballina today, where we'll stay until Tuesday. Then back to Dun Laoghaire. I have lots of things to blog about, but not much time right now. So, I wish you a super lovely Christmas, full of light just like the tree on the Lagoon! And see you next week!
XXXX,
a.

Mark is back from Japan!

Last night Mark arrived from Japan! He was looking great, wearing his suit with a casual blue t-shirt. He was hoping to look like a young Yakuza fella, he said, but I'm afraid not... And he wasn't missing a little finger anyways.

He didn't seem too tired either, because he was up watching a gore Clive Barker film until past midnight.

He brought me lots of things. Lots of Minamoto Kitchoan sweets (my all-time favourites), a Kitty stash that he managed to get at Narita Airport and some wonderful perfumes, that can only be found in Asia, unfortunately.

Here's my boxes of sweets:


I could not resist to show the original package. The boxes come wrapped in that gorgeous green paper, tied with natural fiber cords instead of ribbons. The way the paper is folded is almost like origami. I couldn't possible work in that shop, since I am a disaster when it comes to gift-wrapping! Now the box itself (after unwrapped) is the one at the top. Sturdy carboard, and again, enveloped in white paper displaying a Japanese print and more fiber cords...

Now, these are the sweets...


The ones at the left are tsuya, adzuki bean paste inside mikasa yaki (pound cake)...
These at the right side, are a wonderful selection of their delicacies: a box containing a big yokan (solid bean jelly), 3 soft bean jellies with a chestnut inside, 3 soft white bean jellies with yuzu and green tea flavour and 4 fukuwatashi-senbei - crispy waffles stuffed with milky cream...

He also bought me some Pocky! These are very addictive... Mousse and White Chocolate:


And my Hello Kitty stuff...



As for the perfumes, they are simply gorgeous. But I will write about it in a separate post.

Today's CD: Composer Meets Director...

I got a new CD yesterday: Joe Hisaishi Meets Kitano Films. It is a selection of great music composed by Joe Hisaishi for some of the most memorable Takeshi Kitano's films.

It is a must-have for Kitano's fans, truly capturing the mood and atmosphere of those films. This is my very first Hisaishi's CD, whose work I really love: his soundtracks for Hayao Miyazaki's films are equally magnificent, real gems, and that's how I actually got acquainted to his work. Then, watching Kitano's films I thought: "Who is this composer, this music is so gorgeous..." And I saw it was Joe Hisaishi again. Not surprised though, he is just brilliant.

The music is perfect. If you see these films, you may feel how beautifully it flows through the story, and the sceneries, acting, everything. It can be jazzy in parts, traditional in others, sentimental, and violent when required. Just perfectly synchronised with the plot - be it a Kitano or a Miyazaki production.

Piano, Japanese drums, synthesizers and haunting vocals are sure to please not only die-hard Kitano's fans, but even people who are not familiar with his films. The tracks on this CD come from several films such as Hana-Bi (definitely one of my favourites, including the mesmerizing track "Thanks For Everything" ), Kikujiro, Sonatine, Brother and A Scene at the Sea.

Follows the CD cover... In case you are interested, it can be purchased at Amazon:

Portugal Pics Uploaded (Finally)

Hello:

We have organised the pictures we took in Portugal last September, in case you wish to take a look. Unfortunately we did not write any captions for them, but there are some nice pictures. All the people appearing in the pics, in case you wonder, are my relatives, brother and sisters, nephews, grand-nephews, in-laws and so on. The dogs and cat are Honey the Yorkshire , Rita the Whippet, Xaninho the Cat, Boy the Labrador, and one dog that I had the pleasure to make acquaintance in Sintra. Don't know his name though, but he was a very polite dog that much liked soft cheese, but no toasts!
:)

Here's the link:
http://www.irlbrl.com/images/2005-09_Lisbon/

Enjoy!

Latest News

I should have blogged as soon as I arrived from Lisbon, but things have been quite hectic since then.

We departed on the September 13th and came back on the 27th. It was wonderful, we took lots of pictures and I finally met my sisters, brother and nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews, in-laws etc... And even the "latest addition" to the family, a super-cute great-grand-nephew! Yes, amazing! It was cool... We stayed with Betinha, my sister and godmother, and were out with her and Jana, her daughter (and my niece, of course). Betinha has 2 lovely pets: Honey (or "Hunny"), the little yorkshire terrier, and Xaninho, a lovely gray cat with big yellow eyes and a chronic allergy - which makes him sneeze quite a lot! I fell in love with Xaninho! Aw, so cute...

I will tell more in the next few days and hopefully organise the photos. We came back as I said on the 27th. However... The day after my arrival to Lisbon I woke up with a very, very bad cold. To shorten the story a bit, I still have this cold - which has actually been upgraded to a chest infection, naturally accompanied by all those nasty symptoms: sore throat, fevers, awful coughs, headaches, runny nose etc etc... You name it. Meaning I was at home for almost 3 weeks, unable to go to the office (or anywhere else, needless to say).

I gave some of this lovely cold of mine to my Mother and Mark, of course, but they are more resistant, gladly. In my case, everything gets worse due to my MS, which sort of "amplifies" all symptoms, it seems. But that's boring. I mean, I don't want to talk about it, since I already need to live with it. Somedays I do want to talk, some other days, I just want to forget. And today, I want to forget!

During this time, what I mostly did was reading: manga and serious books, as well as watching great DVD's. But that's stuff for another post, since now I am way too tired!
Good Night!

Digressing...

Long time no blogging, it seems! Today I am back. First of all, a report of the weather here: just the way I like it. Rainy and fresh now. Lovely breeze coming through the windows... Relaxing...

My Mother is arriving to Dublin on Tuesday, so, I managed to clean the house to perfection today. And by myself, because Mark has a back ache. He normally helps me out. Actually he still did: since the kitchen is his territory, he scrubbed it so clean that it would make Aggie and Kim very proud! (Yeah, the ladies from the TV series "How Clean is Your House").

While I write this, I am listening to a wonderful Japanese singer. Her name is Shiina Ringo. She has a wonderful voice and sings not only in Japanese, but also French, English and even Portuguese, to my surprise! Her choice of a Brazilian song is "Manhã de Carnaval", an old Vinicius de Moraes' song from the classic Brazilian movie "Orfeu Negro". I love her singing in French, the accent is just perfect. She sings "Feuilles Mortes", alternating between French and English, and it is such an original, almost funky version. Just beautiful. Well, that lady simply rocks. The arrangements are superb, needless to say, and the album presentation is amazing, as only in Japan we can find. Check that out:


CD Title: Utaite Myouri, 2CD, Toshiba- EMI.

Finally, Mark has been to Washington DC some days ago and came back last weekend. He took lots of pictures, which are quite good. I hope he will be posting them soon. Anyway, he took one that I especially loved. It's from a shop that sells Japanese goods, called "Ginza" (what else???) He told me he could not go in because it was closed by the time he passed by, but look at that!



As you can see, all things I love are there (just click on the pic to see it bigger): Manekineko, Hello Kitty, nice ceramics and who knows what else! I really wish I was there, can you imagine? That would be paradise!

Now I need to go, we are starting to watch "Violent Cop" by the ever-so-wonderful Takeshi Kitano. Just love his films... They are, I know, very violent, and it's strange to see someone who so much loves "cute" things to appreciate this kind of films, but there we go. I love them. From soundtrack to acting, Kitano's films are something everybody should watch at least once. Meaning, you should not die before you do it! Ditto.

See you later then!

Bornéo 1834: Falling in Love...

Today, I have received a card from Les Salons Shiseido, in Paris. The usual lovely message from Amélie, directrice, and the announcement of their new fragrance, being released this coming September for their Eaux Anciennes series. The 1st, to be precise.

As usual, it included a card with the wax sample: Bornéo 1834. The wax smells gorgeous, I cannot wait to get the juice! Bornéo is pure magic, conjuring old memories of distant places - imaginary places, fairy tales, all dreamy and beautiful things under an autumnal, dusky light. A blast of camphor in the head notes, then patchouly, sweet cocoa accords and something mildly spicy - which I cannot quite identify. I detect dark woods starting to make an appearance in the middle notes and becoming quite prominent in the almost smoky, chocolate-ish drydown. But that chocolate, cocoa powder, whatever... It gives the composition smoothness and douceur. Bornéo 1834 is a forest out of a good dream, dark and comforting.

The initial camphor notes remind me of our ancient Chinese carved blanket boxes back home in Rio - which still nowadays let that delicious scent waft all over the place when we open them. I am wondering how it might smell like once layered with some Vétiver Oriental, which also contains patchouly and dark chocolate notes. But that experiment, only when I have the real concoction here!

Finally, here is what the card says about it:

"Bornéo 1834: on patchouly leaves, a dry and soothing perfume. The smoothness of a waltz, in a long forgotten Paris."

Nahéma, Guerlain (pure parfum)

Creamy, almost edible dark red roses enveloped by sheer, delicate lace, on a base of soft vanilla and precious sandalwood.
Use it sparingly. Light-handedly. Never too loud.
Just a whisper.