Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival 2011 Day 1

Yesterday, I took a morning flight to Seoul to attend the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival. Ming Jin's new project THE FORGIVEN has been selected for this edition's NAFF (Network of Asian Fantastic Films). NAFF is a project market, like Hong Kong's HAF, which selects projects in development by filmmakers and allow them to pitch to possible co-producers and financiers in one-on-one meetings. I'm attached to the project as producer.

As usual, I didn't sleep the night before because it's a morning flight and I had to take a 5am train to the Tokyo City Air Terminal to catch a bus to Narita Airport. The journey to Narita, as usual, is always more soul-sapping than the flight.

The flight, however, was wondrous since I got bumped up to business class.

Japanese director Masahiro Kobayashi's live gig at Manda-la 2

Yesterday evening, I headed to Manda=la 2 at Kichijoji to catch Japanese director Masahiro Kobayashi's live gig.

Revisiting "The Downtown Star Festival" (Shitamachi Tanabata Matsuri) at Kappabashi-Hondori

Back on Thursday, I visited the Kappabashi-Hondori with a friend to check out the Downtown Star Festival (Shitamachi Tanabata Matsuri). We were both struck by how quiet it was, and wondered why people were actually still preparing the decorations in the evening.

Goodbye, Yao Ming

Aside from the Bersih Rally, another big news I got this morning that sort of sadden me a little was NBA Superstar Yao Ming's retirement. He's 30, went through some bad injuries 3 years ago, I kinda knew it was the end then.

BERSIH Rally

Most of my blog readers are not from Malaysia. Many are from Japan, or perhaps people interested in Japan. Unsurprising, considering that I'm in Tokyo.

Therefore, I find a need to create awareness of the Bersih ("clean" in Malay) Rally happening right now, yes, RIGHT NOW, in Malaysia.

And mass arrests are happening. Our ever-diligent police had set up road blocks, deployed trucks mounted with water cannons, seal off parts of the capital Kuala Lumpur, in an attempt to prevent this banned rally. (While I am writing this, a couple of people I know have tweeted that they've gotten tear gases in their eye)

You can read more about it here.

Quote a few paragraphs from the article to give you some context.

Breathing in a library

So, aside from writing in McDonald's at night, I have also been going to the library in Waseda University during daytimes to write. After all, what better place than a library where you won't be distracted by noises, or say, the Internet (main reason why I don't write in my room), right?

Have this ever happened to you? That in order to try your best to be silent, you become hypersensitive and paranoid to the sounds around you? This happened to me just now. For a while, I stopped from writing when I was mildly distracted by the sound of breathing. Was it the sound of my own breathing? I seemed to be wheezing, it sounded a little distracting.

Then I held my breath, and realized that the sound of breathing remained. So it really wasn't the sound of my own breathing after all, but the guy sitting opposite my desk. A wooden plank separates us, but I could totally hear him breathing. Perhaps he was nursing a cold, or maybe he was a heavy breather.

Here I am, in the library, supposedly writing a screenplay, yet I end up blogging about the mundane instead with my iPhone.

Location:１丁目,Shinjuku,Japan

"The Downtown Star Festival" (Shitamachi Tanabata Matsuri) at Kappabashi-Hondori.

Today is the 7th of July, which is the beginning of the Tanabata (七夕, meaning "Evening of the seventh"), the Japanese star festival that originates from the Chinese Qixi Festival.

You might have heard of it, the meeting between Orihime and Hikoboshi, the Weaving Princess and the Cowherder. The Milky Way separates these lovers, so they are only permitted to meet once a year, on the 7th of July. You can read more of it here.

Therefore, celebrations are supposed to begin today until the weekends.

I caught wind that a Tanabata Festival is usually held at the Kappabashi Street (official website here), which extends 1.2 km, from Ueno Station to the Tsukuba Express Station in Asakusa, the famed Shitamachi Tanabata Matsuri. So I headed there with a friend for a walk.