It’s September again, and my birthday is on the 16th. I guess it’s time for me to put out a shameless post and drop you some big hints on what I want when I turn 23 later this month.
Small Talk:
Busy days have left this blog stagnating for such a long, long time. For that, I apologise. Until I catch up with what’s been happening with me these past couple of weeks, here’s another story from my misadventures in Vietnam :D
It was the fourth day of our trip, and it was a pretty long one, too. We had spent the better part of the day exploring Ho Chi Minh city on foot. Trying out a sweet place for lunch, sightseeing and getting ourselves a fantastic full-body massage [no funky business, mind you].
So we went back to the hotel, and all we wanted was a nice shower and a good rest before our flight the next day. I went into the bathroom only to realise that there was no hot water from the shower. I didn’t mind it, since it’s been a rather hot day and I needed to cool off, anyway.
After I was done, I relayed the news to Yun Chuan, who was sharing the room with me. He insisted on a hot shower, so he made a call to the front desk about the matter.
During my trip to Vietnam, I visited the War Remnants Museum. As the name implies, it details the passage of the Vietnam War. Near the exit, there is a photo gallery dedicated to soldiers and victims of the war. Near the exit of the gallery is a guestbook where visitors can leave their comments and a signature.
Naturally, many of the visitors, after viewing the horrifying exhibits of weapons, bombs, mutilated corpses of war, have a lot to say about war-mongers and all their anti-war sentiments. Lengthy passages from foreign visitors are abundant in that thick guestbook. Malaysians, however, found a better way of saying things.
Guess that pretty much sums it all up, eh?
From Anime News Network:
Eri Kawai, the singer-songwriter for Aria, Utawarerumono, and several other anime and live-action series, passed away on Monday at 11:40 a.m. in Japan.[...]
Kawai had been in medical treatment since earlier this year and had to cancel a July 10 solo performance in Tokyo as a result. A wake will be held on Wednesday, and the funeral service will be held on Thursday.
[Also on her website, for those who can moonspeak]
I first heard of her name from the beautiful Madoromi no Rinne, the ED song of Utawarerumono. After that, I began to wonder if Eri Kawai was in any way related to the talented composer Kenji Kawai. I didn’t notice that she has also worked in various other songs for several anime, some of which I have even watched myself, such as Sketchbook and Bamboo Blade.
I didn’t get to hear much else of her works, but I feel that her passing is a great loss to the anime industry. She produces beautiful music and I would have definitely loved to hear more of her. My heart goes out to her family and her fans in Japan :(
May you find peace and happiness in a better place.
It’s been almost over a year since the last theme, and I’ve been using a white-on-black theme since the day I started blogging. I figured it’s about time to shed away the monochrome feel, bust open the windows, tear down the walls and go wide open. I hereby welcome you to The Silent Room’s new look: The Open Room.
As you can see, this layout is greatly inspired by the clarity of off-white paint and the neutrality of the Helvetica. I should mention that documentary on the typeface also played a big part in the inspiration of this design. As for the header and footer images, well, they come from the very beautiful film 5 Centimeters Per Second by Makoto Shinkai.
This layout lacks a sidebar, something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. A sidebar may be a convenient thing for a blog to have, but recently, I feel that it’s proving to be rather redundant. Besides, I kind of enjoy being able to write in large wide spaces. I used to have a theme with a fluid width, but it’s quite hard to do any formatting with that.
I must thank Ross for taking the time to code this layout [although he's been very busy]. So, I hope you like the new look, and routine blogging will continue as soon as I’m free from other commitments :)
