Daily Prompt: First Light

Remember when you wrote down the first thought you had this morning? Great. Now write a post about it.

– Daily Prompt –

My alarm clock alerted me at 5.00 am. At that time, my first thought was ‘I don’t want to get up, can I sleep more’. T_T

The National

Yesterday I was very happy to read this news that ‘The National’ is releasing a new album in May 2013. I was totally obsessed with their two latest albums which were Boxer (2007) and Violet (2010) when they were released. I think I listened to both of them uncountable times. I like their music and most of all the voice of the front man, Matt Berninger. His baritone voice really penetrates and soothes my mind at the same time. It was kind of strange that I could easily take a nap while listening to their music via earphone.

The song ‘Terrible Love’ from Violet really helped me get through some inconvenient times of my life. No, its lyrics wasn’t cheerful but they were dark and miserable. But that was the way the song could heal my wounded emotion.

It’s a terrible love and I’m walking with spiders
It’s a terrible love and I’m walking in
It’s a terrible love and I’m walking with spiders
It’s a terrible love and I’m walking in

I liked this version more than studio version. It was just much bitter.

Daily Prompt: Happily Ever After

“And they lived happily ever after.” Think about this line for a few minutes. Are you living happily ever after? If not, what will it take for you to get there?

Asked by Daily Post

No, I aren’t living happily ever after and I don’t want it either. That’s why I have no idea what will it take for me to get there. I’m not sure whether it’s related to my thinking preference (practical and based on facts)  as I’ve mentioned in this post or not. However, I just can’t believe in the fairy tale like ‘Happily Ever After’ because my life is still be there after that beautifully dreamy words, unless I die after that, right?

If I believe I’ve already been living happily ever after, that means I can let myself to carelessly live which I can’t let that happens. As I will never know what my future will be, even tomorrow. I think this idea just helps me to be a realistic person, not pessimistic one.

Nonetheless, I can say that I am content with my life at these moments. My family and best friends are still with me. I enjoy my work. I can find small happiness from reading good books, listening to amazing songs, and watching great films or TV shows. I can take leave to travel abroad once or twice per year.  So as far as I know, I’m satisfied with my current life but I will not live my life under carelessness because I always believe that Anything could happen even after the end of fairy tales.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Forward

The next train is coming.

Travel theme: Bridges

I have been there in 1999 for my 1st trip abroad. I didn’t have a chance to walk on that bridge because my mom and I were in a tour group. I didn’t think that I would have had an opportunity to go there again. Fortunately, I had a chance to visit this bridge again while I was on a business trip in USA for 1 month in 2012. It took 13 years for me to be able to stand on this unique bridge again, the Golden Gate Bridge.

Golden Gate Bridge | SFC | USA | 2012

My colleague and I took one Saturday during our weekend to go to San Francisco. We drove from where we were staying to San Bruno station for taking Caltrain to San Francisco. Then we took a bus that we thought it could take us to the bridge, but it didn’t. We therefore got out of that bus somewhere and started to walk by using our map. While we were walking, I didn’t think we went to the right way. We got lost somewhere and faced the construction site so we had to turn back and tried to find another way.

We walked until we found Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy where we could see the Golden Gate bridge. We were quite disappointed of the scene because there was cloud lingering around the bridge. We kept walking towards the bridge and prayed that the cloud would disappear soon, sadly it didn’t. The best photo that we could clearly see the bridge was as below one.

Golden Gate Bridge | SFC | USA | 2012

I, myself, really wanted to walk across the bridge, however I wasn’t sure about my colleague. Gladly, she agreed with this idea so we started to walk across the bridge. And I thought we got the reward from our decision because the cloud was lingering on our beginning side, whereas the sky was bright on the other side. We could see the nice blue sky for our destination. A little surprise for me along the walk, I was asked by 3 people to snap their photos on the bridge for them. I recalled that one of them was a guy who had an iPhone with severely cracked display, which it was still working!

Although it was so windy on the bridge , I was very happily walking along the path (Thanks to my Uniqlo jacket that kept me warm, otherwise I may not be able to finish the walk). Despite the fact that we didn’t walk to the end of bridge, I was sill content with this experience.

It was like one of my dreams came true (Another dream was walking on the great wall of China).

I truly enjoyed that moment.

Me on the bridge | thanks to Numfon for taking the photo!

Thanks to Where’s my backpack: Travel Theme for the post inspiration.

Oscar

I like watching movies since I was a kid although I didn’t have many chances to watch films in theaters. When I was a kid, I watch Thai films. I started to watch foreign movies when I was a teenage. Usually, I see them on rented videos. I also liked reading movie magazines which I bought with my week allowances. I changed to watch movies in theaters when I was in University. The activities that we used to do with our friends. I kept going to see movies in theaters until  DVDs started to get attention from me with their packages and box sets.

During that time, I also liked watching Oscar ceremonies lived in Thailand’s cable TV. Up to the point that I was so crazy about these events, and I just wanted to skip work for staying at home and watching it live because the shows would be held on Sunday night in USA which was Monday morning in Thailand. How crazy I was.

However, I finally stopped the infatuation. I’m not quite sure the reason why I could do that. But I think it’s from some moments that I thought this award result disappointed me so much.

• Moment that Gwyneth Paltrow won an Oscar for Best actress for Shakespere in Love instead of Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth (1998) (I was totally captivated by Cate’s performance in that film while I thought Gwyneth did a good job but she couldn’t make me feel like when I saw Cate as Elizabeth).
• The same year, when Shakespere in Love won Best film instead of Saving Private Ryan.

Actually, I still followed the Oscar for 2 or 3 years but not crazy as before though. However, there was one movie that made me realize something about this award. Its name was ‘Shawshank Redemption’. This film was released in the same year of Forest Gump (1994). I remembered that I wholeheartedly supported Forest Gump in that year’s Oscar nomination, and I had never seen Shawshank Redemption. I recalled that I was very pleased with the Best film’s result.

I couldn’t pin point what year I had a chance to watch Shawshank Redemption but I though it was much later than 1994. I watched it on VCD player at my home and I was totally into it. This film went straight to the number one of my all-time favorite movies. In additions, I recommended it to my family and friends. And then I thought that why on Earth this film didn’t win Oscar in that year? It was nominated for 7 categories and not win any one of them!

If I was asked whether I still liked Forest Gump or not, I would have said ‘Yes, I still liked that film’. However, Shawshank redemption left a big impact on my personal thoughts. It changed my perspective on lives. While I am writing this blog, I can still rewind some scenes, dialogues, Andy’s facial expression (Tim Robbins totally deserved some recognition for his performance in this film), and the emotion that I got from watching this movie.

From those moments, I came to my sense that the Oscar is just an award ceremony that is held by some organization and it can’t represent my opinions on any films I’ve watched. Anyway, I still follow the Oscar by reading news or watching some footage on Youtube. But, I am not that eager to see it live or anything since I rarely go to movie theaters in this recent years. I mostly watch films on DVD so sometimes I don’t see any Oscar’s nominated films before the award ceremony day. For me, Oscar is just one of many awards in the World of entertainment.

 

Daily Prompt: Seconds!

Describe the most satisfying meal you’ve ever eaten in glorious detail. 

– Daily Prompt –

I like the topic of today’s daily prompt, and I could come up with three meals that I still remembered the taste and emotion from those moments.

The first one was back in 2008 when my family and I visited my brother in Nagoya, Japan. The trip’s goal was to bring my grandmother to travel in Japan. After taking my grandma to see Cherry blossom in Nagoya, pay respect to Daibutsu in Nara, and see Golden temple in Kyoto. We decided to let her take a rest in Nagoya while we were going to take a look at Takayama, a city located in Gifu prefecture. Takayama is famous for its old town area where many buildings are from the Edo period (1600-1868).

Another well-known thing in Takayama is Hida beef. Of all meat, my favorite choice is beef. Before that time, I had never heard of Hida beef before. I always thought that Kobe beef was the best beef I’d ever eaten. Nonetheless, just one bite from this dish has completely altered my idea forever.  The very tasty Hida beef was so tender like it  just melt in my mouth. Not only beef was so fantastic, but the side dishes also was delicious. That meal was superb and I like to talk about Hida beef to anyone who enjoy beef like me. Unforgettable meal for me.

The second one was still in the same trip in 2008. Before going to Japan, my mom did a research on famous food in Nagoya. This one was also in my mom’s to-eat-list. It was Yamachan‘s fried chicken wings. Despite the fact that I did like eating chicken, I don’t like its skin. But, this fried chicken wings were so tasty, not-oily, and crisp. Our family ate it at my brother’s home after being outside all-day for sightseeing. My dad bought cans of beer to sip whereas I drank a can of soda fruit juice while eating the wings. It was a relax dinner for our family.

Last but not least, this time was way back in 2010 with another time for me in Japan. In the past, I used to not like Sushi as well as wasabi. So I rarely ate Sushi when I visited my brother in Japan. However, my friend wanted to eat real sushi in Japan. We asked my brother to take us to the Sushi restaurant. We walked around 15 minutes to reach there from his accommodation. The restaurant was Sushi train style where we could choose sushi while it was served on a plate via conveyor belt. I was amazed by the variety of Sushi that we could find in that place compared to limitation back in Bangkok. The taste was also good and the price was not expensive. Unbelievably, I turned to like eating Sushi after that meal.

Me before you

I like myself that I’m so in love reading books. Usually, I like to read light and fun romantic stories or exciting suspense-thiller one, anything but not too serious. When I read books, I tend to build relationship between me and main characters. So it’s easy for me to cry over some story in books. That’s why I don’t like reading sad-prone stories. However, once in a while I would come across the touching stories that I must keep reading despite the fact that I knew I would cry. Like this time that I’ve just finished the book named ‘Me Before You‘ by Jojo Moyes.

This was my first time reading this author’s work. I thought it was really well written. The story has seamlessly flown. The characters seem to be real people around us. At the end of the last chapter, my tears was still on my face and my thought was still lingering over their stories until the morning when I was driving to work.

The main idea in the book impacted me more than I thought, and the word ‘Love’ could make me believe when I read it.

Daily Prompt: A Plot of Earth

You’re given a plot of land and have the financial resources to do what you please. What’s the plan?

Given by Daily Prompt

I would have my own coffee shop decorated with the things that I like. Customers would be able to choose where they want to sit; outside to be around with green environment or inside with the warm and pristine atmosphere. I would have chosen songs played as background giving the relax but not boring feeling. The shop would have books for free reading. Besides amazing cups of coffee, I would sell cake and bread which are so tasty.

I’m smiling by just thinking of this dream…

 

Anything could happen

I’d like to change my status on my company chat. It will mostly be the name of song or album that I like at the moment. My current one is ‘Anything could happen’, song by Ellie Goulding. Actually, I haven’t paid much attention on the lyrics. I just like the song itself and its name. The name reminds me of the fact that we can’t be sure in anything because ‘anything could happen‘.

I firstly listened to this song in the below version which I think it’s better than the album version. It intrigued me to listen to her other songs in the latest album and finally bought it (Before this, I only listened to ‘Your song’ that she covered). I think she really nailed her performance. The voice, the acoustic, the raw emotion were Awesome.

 

Yes since we found out
Since we found out
That anything could happen
Anything could happen
Anything could happen
Anything could happen
Anything could happen
Anything could happen
Anything could