Trawling YouTube and Current Favourites

'Sakuran' (2007)

Meaning in English 'derangement' or 'confusion', Sakuran is the story of a young and quite rebellious girl who had been sold into a red-light district under the care of a courtesan house which is the home of the oiran (the highest-ranked courtesan in the district). The story follows her career; including love, rivalries with the other courtesan and the oiran, and the world inside the Yoshiwara district. The film is an adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name written by Moyoco Anno. The lead character Kiyoha is played by Anna Tsuchiya, who made a marvelous performance. The rest of the cast (including Masanobu Ando, Hiroki Narimiya, and Yoshino Kimura) also play spectacularly. Between the beauty of the set design, costume design, and the soundtrack (by Shiina Ringo) while Sakuran is a period piece, it has an other-worldly feel.

'Gangnam Style' ~PSY (2012)

Currently YouTube's #1 video, K-Pop has hit western mainstream music charts! Upside it brings attention to K-Pop (and by extension J-Pop and Canto-Pop), but the downside is that the hipsters are eating it up!! While this song is being played to death on Australian airwaves (think Fastball's 'The Way' and Celine Dion's 'My Heart Will Go On' in 1997-1998), I still love its catchy beat, the catchy dance, and the fact that its taking the piss (well... I think it is anyways). Maybe instead of the Macaraena and the Nut Bush, my kids will be learning the Gangnam Style when the compulsory dance unit in PE comes around (anyone who went to a NSW Public School will get this!).

'Never Let Me Go' ~ Florence + The Machine (2012)

I admit that I'm slow to get in to things, and this wonderful songstress is one of them! This song struck a chord with me - as do many songs about the sea (and weirdly enough, drowning...), and it is beautifully composed, sung, and orchestrated.

And the arms of the ocean are carrying me, 

and all this devotion was rushing out of me, 

and questions I have for a sinner like me, 

but the arms of the ocean deliver me.

And its over and I'm going under

But I'm not giving up

I'm just giving in.

October begins!

Another jam-packed month busy at work, but as of late I've been 'forced' on a vacation. But first, a recap of my birthday etc.

I've been 24 for nearly 2 weeks now! Yew! So for something random the weekend after my birthday (which was on a Wednesday) the boyfriend and I headed to Merimbula. The night before we left I had my party, which was a bit of a double birthday with my friend Tim as he turned 24 that day. We had Turkish in Civic and decided to play a few rounds of pool at the Civic Pub in Braddon. After strolling around and with the Cinderella hour approaching and the shitty weather of gale-force winds and driving rain and frigid temps, we decided to call  it a night.

We left Canberra early Saturday (7:30am is early, isn't it?), and headed down the Monaro Highway to Cooma. From there, we followed the Snowy Mountains Highway to Bemboka and stopped in at a cafe for a morning snack/coffee break. By mid-morning we got to Tathra and decided to have a bit of a paddle... in the cold water! Well, the boyfriend paddled, I got my feet wet! We headed up to the Old Tathra Warf, but cuz of the weather there wasn't much to see.

In Merimbula, we checked in to the hotel - which had a 2 person spa!!! Woo! And we headed down to the beach to have fish and chips... well I had calamari rings and chips, but it still counts! We had dinner at the Merimbula Bowling Club which had some pretty nice meals for descent prices! Absoultely beautiful! The club was packed as it was Grand Final Weekend for both the NRL (Storm won) and the AFL (Swans won - ironic that a Victorian team wins the rugby (a NSW game) and a NSW team wins the AFL (a VIC game). After dinner we had Gelato by the lagoon and went back and had a few glasses of wine at the hotel.

Next day we headed down to Eden, where you can definitely tell that the Sapphire Coast gets its name from the colour of the water around there! After a quick stop for coffee and a snack, it was back on the road to Bega, then to Bemboka, and back to Canberra via Cooma. We detoured to the Cotter Dam via Tharwa before heading home. My lovely Lancer did approx 640km to one tank of fuel and she ran like a dream! I can only imagine how much more I could get on not-so-mountainous roads and using cruise control!

That night I had my 3rd ever gallbladder attack and went to A&E at the hospital, so instead of heading to work on Monday I had to have it off. Tuesday I headed to the doctors, and then back to work... where I stayed a whole 15mins before attack #4 saw me back in A&E. This time I was kept in for a few hours and given fluids as I was dehydrated, then sent home once it had settled. Wednesday I went to an ultrasound appointment to check my gallbladder - lucky I could get in when I did! Then that afternoon it was back in to A&E, this time for admission with fluids, another Ultrasound scan, and possibly taking it out. Thursday they made the decision that my gallbladder had to come out, and by Friday night it was all over! I stayed in hospital again on Friday night and then came home Saturday. Pretty eventful week!

So now I'm off work (on a forced holiday) for 3wks until everything is healed then its back to work for a week before heading off to NZ (woo annual leave!) - even if the whole week was Murphy's Law, there is a little glimmer of something positive! So far everything is going well with my recovery, except I can't stomach eggs at the moment... big shame cuz I love eggs! Hopefully once everything settles down and I get used to not having a gallbladder then I can start back having 'dippy eggs' for breakfast.