Workshop @ Lim Kok Wing University

Originally uploaded by malfrinko

We waited for the bus which took an eternity to arrive.

Although it was compulsory for all of us Form Fours to attend, about 1/4 of the form went. Better than staying at home, at least.

We had this little music recording workshop and a peek into games production. It’s completely free of charge, too. I took my D40 + 18-200mm with me, but I didn’t get to take plenty of pictures because most of us were busy engaging in the activites.

Anyway, the moment we got down from our buses, there were people standing in two straight lines and they clapped upon our arrival. It’s THAT grand.

My first impression when I saw the university was: Huge. Really huge.

Methinks that this is only the first half of the whole campus. It looked a lot like a shopping mall, seriously.

Our first stop was the Analog Studio. That was where we had a shot recording session. We learnt how to  make jingles for advertisments, mix and split recorded soundclips (although I knew how to do so many months ago), and make voice-overs.

So many dials, so little time. This mixer costs about RM25,000 and one of the staff said that his trombone costs around RM30,000. Looks like music can be an expensive hobby.

Recording session #1: Jingles [involves singing]
Which is why I am behind the camera.

Recording session #2: Voice-over I
Featuring Diyana and Mr Perumal [my class teacher who teaches Add. Maths]

Recording session #3: Voice-over II
Featuring Wei-Jun, Daniel Saw and Jessica

Seriousplz. Seconds before I get to split the soundwaves
(My visual appearances on this blog are so rare)

Next, we moved on to the Digital Studio, where we had more recording sessions. It is said that recording music in a digital studio is much easier, and rather than recording on a tape, it involves that 010010011 sort of thing. Binary numeral system. Binary solo

Admiring the drumset on the other side of the Digital Studio.
Zildjian cymbals, man. And for once, I saw a double-bass pedal.

The songs we sang were Here In My Home and our infamous school song. While singing the latter, Wei-Jun was “one smart guy” because he stood directly infront of one of the side microphones and his voice can be heard clearly during the playback. His low voice dominated the girls’ voices and he even added extra notes at the end of the song. (Sorry Wei-Jun, I’m not talking bad about you but it’s just one heck of a funny occurence, HAHAHA)

The equalizers used were probably the most colourful ones we have ever seen.

In order to record one full song, the musicians will have to record the parts for their respective instruments individually and in the end, all of the recorded parts of separate instruments are then merged together. I’ve done this before at home, but it never sounds good because I don’t have a sound-proof room

Once we were done with our musical workshop, we got down to the multimedia lab to learn a little about game designing and development. As we all should know, the gaming industry produces big bucks (excluding piracy heh)

If one wishes to study game designing and development, games will be your textbooks. You’ll have to play plenty and plenty of games and analyse them. At that point, everybody had the urge to be hardworking. Heh.

Some of the games made by the students of Lim Kok Wing

An arsenal of games in a campus. You don’t see THAT very often.
Or not at all. Just about every well-known gaming platform is available there.
Nintendo Wii, PlayStaion 3 and XBOX 360. [Did you notice that they all rhyme?]

Right after all of that, we were free to roam.
For a short while.

Fashion show. I guess that this place must be very happening.
Since it’s more of an art university, lots of people had wicked hairstyles.

Could birds actually handle spicy food? Nyeh, maybe they have no tastebuds.

Psychedelic, don’t you think?

We got back to school, feeling all weary. Some people still have energy to spar.

Yeaaaah. Games in reality. I know, I know..I’m very free.

The big red dot on a white canvas

Hello folks! Here I am, blogging, while I’m taking a day off school. I just returned from Japan yesterday, and it was the third time in my life I’ve been there. The first time was when I was a baby, and the second was when I was five years old (I lived and studied there for a year, actually)

In the tour, there were about eight families altogether. My mom’s friend tagged along too, and so did her kids. YOUNG kids. Not very easy to survive with, sometimes..and they were not the only kids who came along (do not forget my brother)..Oh yes there were more than just three. Other than just kids, there was a guy of the same age as me, but we weren’t even friends at the end of the trip. Hohoho. I don’t open my mouth much.

My brother and his friends; The girl on the right is his classmate

Now, hear me ramble about my visit to Japan..

Day 1
I arrived at the Kansai International Airport, Osaka, in the morning. Japan was experiencing the autumn season. The temperature of the area was about 18°C, so it was rather cooling and nice. The said airport was surrounded by water, in other words — located in the middle of the sea.

It was also an industrial area..full of factories

Work, work.

We took a bus ride to our first stop, the Osaka Castle. There wasn’t really much to look at except for historical architectures. Other than that, I was easily attracted to vending machines that dispenses drinks. Really, the drink designs fascinates me.

This lady was really patient. She stood there all day, without moving..And she’s holding a bowl for donations.

School children are extremely friendly too. Every group greeted us tourists with a couple waves accompanied with their friendly “Harro!”

Well..these were the school children who were not in their uniform

After that, we went to the attraction of the day, Universal Studios Japan (more like USJ, my housing area). The first thing we went for was Terminator 2 in 3D. The whole thing was basically in Japanese, so the only thing we could enjoy was the 3D effects. My brother was busy crying and shutting his ears.

He was even afraid of the Japanese-speaking Sesame Street Gang

A strange man who was advertising the Back To The Future ride..note that he has four watches, and that was a cool vehicle

During lunch, a simple-looking yet never-seen-before margarine amazed me. I mean, I’ve never experienced such a different way to apply margarine onto bread.

Later, there was this show about Dorothy and her friends (which was also completely in Japanese) and it was really suitable for kids.

NOOOO! I wanted a solo picture with the tin-can man!

Lots of well-trained animals appeared out of nowhere in the show, too. There was even this eagle or something that glided over my mom’s head, nearly touching her. I thought of going to some wicked rides such as The Amazing Spider-Man but I didn’t manage to because nobody dared to go on it with me. At that point, I wished I had brought a friend along. To cover up the sad feeling, I went to watch the Universal Monsters Live Rock and Roll Show.

It. Was. Too. Good. The only problem is that there was a Japanese-speaking Beetlejuice. Everyone else such as Dracula, Werewolf, Frankenstein, and The Bride sang in English. Each of them had their own solo. They sang very familiar songs such as Smooth, Livin’ Da Vida Loca and I Will Survive. Yet I had expected them to sing The Time Warp and This Is Halloween..

I may not have a recording or photo of the performance (go search ‘em on YouTube), but I must say: Frankie was the best because he had a deep singing voice and he played his cardboard guitar while doing some dance (not like Mr. Bean’s dance, ya know)

Ernie: I gots your kid! Then! I kidnaps kid! Hoo-hahaha!

UNIVERS
..and the little kid refused to stay off the camera view

After half the day at USJ, we bit some churritos and left for our “pit-stop”, which is at Hotel New Hankyu, the smallest hotel I’ve been to.

Day 2
We left Osaka for Kyoto. The first stop was at a temple, which was said to be built during the 7th century. The structure of the temple was well-protected after a long time..or maybe it was renovated before, I’m not very sure.

Don’t ask why I even bothered to take a photo of a large boulder

After that, we went to a mini-shopping complex to watch a Kimono show and did some shopping as well.

Nothing very exciting on the second day, but I was about to laugh when I found out that McPork exists in Japan’s McDonald’s. Whatever happened to McCarthy, eh?

We stopped at a temple not to pray (well I’m not Buddhist), but we shopped for various stuff.

At the end of the day, we checked in at Nippon Hotel International.

Day 3
For the whole day, I’m not sure which state I was in. Anyway, I travelled to some place using one of the fastest land transports ever. An experience of a lifetime.

I’m talking about Shinkansen, the bullet train! It passes by so fast, I was laughing in amazement. If I used my old digital camera, I don’t think I would be able to capture a clear shot of the Shinkansen..it’s shutter speed is really slow.

We took a bus (and a little ship ride) to some smoky mountain tops, and one of the few attractions there is the Great Boiling Valley, where there are hot springs and eggs turn black on the outside and safe to eat on the inside. It is said that the eggs could make one live longer. I don’t know whether to believe it or not, but heck, I ate two eggs.

There’s some slight reflection in the picture and the colour was a bit odd due to the tinted window

On top of old smokey, not covered with snow

Black eggs and no ham

Hours later, we went to another temple. I even felt like I lost count of how many temples we’ve visited.

Note: I didn’t use any tripods, nor did I bring one to Japan

We arrived at our pit-stop, Route Inn Hotel, without our baggages (which were all in the bus)

Day 4
Challenge of the day: Survive the climate at Mt. Fuji!

We stopped at the 5th station which was about 2300′ above sea level. The temperature was around 6°C-12°C and the surrounding was very misty. You’d freeze if you were there. My camera even felt like ice. My three layers of topwear kept me warm but my pants didn’t. Thankfully, there was a heater in the souvenir shop. There was also an interesting product which I found:

No, I didn’t purchase it

And I’m pretty sure that I saw a shop that sold ice-cream up there. I kid you not, seriously.

Once we got back into the bus, the mist mysteriously vanished. A man in front of me said like a happy kid, “Wah, clear already! Can we go down again?”

He wasn’t the only clown in the bus. The other clowns were sitting at the back of the bus. But not that it matters much..

We moved on to the next stop: Ginza, Tokyo!

Lots to look around, but so little time given to us. I decided to finish off my souvenir list at a toy store. From there, I got my black Sony PSP (slim and lite edition) and it was cheaper compared to the ones sold in Malaysia. There’s a lot of good deal there but be warned..there are no English-version games sold there. I returned to the bus without any games, obviously.

In the bus, the little kids and their parents needed my help to operate their purchased Nintendo DS (which, by default, was set to the Japanese language) Not that I was able to read everything that’s in Japanese, but I used my brother’s DS as a reference. I feel like a helpline, sometimes. But that’s alright.

After shopping for gizmos, we visited another gizmo-related place:

My, you have got to see the concept cars they have over there.

My brother’s dream car: Toyota POD
This car has different moods (determined by the headlights which had “eyelids” and colours that light up around the car) and I think that it is still a prototype

I even got the chance to sit in the driver’s seat of some other tiny car. I didn’t get to drive it, though. Either it was programmed, a smartcar or controlled by someone else, somewhere.

I got onto this Gran Turismo 4 Simulator and it was also another experience of a lifetime. We don’t really get to see these kind of things in Malaysia. Perhaps, none at all.

And look, my brother’s trying to fit in with the cool people.

Ooh abnormal growth!

To Grand Palace Hotel, we checked in.

Day 5
Our final day touring around Japan. The following day was our departure.

We visited a very green park for a short while. A portion of the place was closed for some reason. Got another interesting-looking drink for myself and got into our bus to head to the attraction of the day:

We didn’t have to queue for our tickets since they’re already booked. I didn’t even used my ticket for the whole day.

There are queues just about everywhere. It’s hard to believe that some people are really patient enough to line up for some strange flavoured popcorn (chocolate, they say)..even if it takes them at least half an hour to reach the stand. If I am not wrong, the line was much longer than two or three metres.

Their music called me..eventhough it was a band smaller than my school’s one, they played really loud. Look, the flutist far right can be heard from afar! Obviously, the number doesn’t matter, these guys are professionals. There was even a really cool middle-aged man playing the snare drums at the back.

I wanted to go for the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, but I withdrew when I saw the queue. I could say that it was probably more than two kilometres long (until the queue even turned into a crowd) Knowing that I was unable to wait that long, I went to a nearby souvenir shop where they told pirate-related goods. I hoped to find a Norrington-related object.

Well…no luck at all.

Instead, the effects of Norringtonism made me buy a toy pistol (which passed through the security scan in the airport the next day). Keep in mind that there were no bullets that can be used with it. It only makes a clickety sound.

Wild ducks are just about everywhere in the park

After that, I went to queue for the Grand Circuit Raceway. The queue took less than 15 minutes and it was not too bad. It’s kind of like real driving (according to my mom) but your side movement is limited. You can’t even crash into other people’s vehicle.

I took this ride twice in the day.

Another ride I got onto was the Mark Twain Riverboat.

The last time I got on this thing was ten years ago

That looks pointless

Of robotic red indians, sticks and tipees

With nothing left for us to do (rather than lining up for rides), I took candid photos.

What an unlucky spot to take photos..I see rear ends/south poles

Wendy: Hey, help me!
Ron: …

Wendy escaped with Peter Pan while Ron nearly got into the clutches of Captain Hook’s uh…hook?

My day at Disneyland ended with a cut on my upper lip. My brother was responsible for that injury.

A small portion of Disneyland by night

Overall, I think Universal Studios Japan is much better than Tokyo Disneyland.

Thank Frankenstein.

—-

All of the above photos are not Photoshopped.
To get a better view of these photos, visit my Flickr page.

Take me to Japan

I’ll be leaving for Japan tonight (well midnight actually), and the flight is going to last for about 6 hours long. Plus, I’m forced to sleep..unable to enjoy the view outside..Yet I still need to re-read a couple books which I haven’t continued since months ago!

Since I’m part of the touring group, there’s a lot of time management to do. So many places to visit, so many hotels to check in and out as well (there’ll be a different one everyday) All I hope is that I’ll catch enough ZZZ’s and eat sufficiently.

And there was the Eid/Hari Raya celebration lately. Thankfully my grandparents were visiting another state at that time, otherwise I’ll have to suffer the severe boredom at their house in Kuala Lumpur. During the previous years, I can’t do anything. The TV programmes weren’t entertaining, no comedy, see. The best thing I could do is to listen to whatever songs I have in my phone. This year is different. Everyone stayed at home and I was gaming for hours. Sometimes lifeless, I know.

At least I could eat as much as I want now..

“Fattening, but who cares?”

Ja, no matter how much I eat, my size and thickness never change.

Back at school, all the Form Three classes were locked up (NO! I really miss the atmosphere in my class), and without doubt, there aren’t any more lessons for us. Quite a number of couples have turned a little naughtier, I heard. I guess that’s why the classes were locked up. But, hey, I’m not involved.

The activities available were indoor games, outdoor games, folk art (this type of art doesn’t appeal to me), cross-stitching, films, and such. I picked indoor games, and after a long time of not playing chess, I must say that my skills have changed dramatically. Of course, there was once when I checkmated my opponent..

I’m the black player, by the way
 

Well, I better get moving now. I’ll be absent for a week and will return on Sunday. Adios for now!