Summer Holidays: 10-20 Aug 2006

Omatsuri Parade

Believe it or not, I did not go anywhere during the summer holidays. I spent most of the days lazing around at home and going to work at Hakuhodo. On the weekend, I went to visit Mom's friend, Auntie Kiku and her husband Uncle Hirao. They used to live in KL during the late 70's. But both are not doing so well now. Hirao-san just got out of the hospital after a year of hospitalisation and Auntie Kiku has cancer. So it was really kind of them to ask me over to their place. Usually, the Japanese rarely invite people to their home. Anyway, having arrived at their place, we had 'koroke' (fried potatoes) and looked at photos of me when I was a child. They still kept it! I think I was around 12 years old, and Auntie Kiku, kept insisting that the girl in the photo was Dezryn and not me! It took me awhile to convince her, but in the end I did. Apparently, she thought mom had only 5 kids. So I didn't exist. How sad huh... Anyway, let's rewind to the morning. Before I went to Auntie Kiku's house, I went to see the 'Omatsuri' with Baba-san (one of Auntie Kiku's friends who used to live in KL too). The Omatsuri is a festival/ parade, where the Japanese carry these floats ( with mini temples), supported on big long bamboo sticks. That was during the time of Obon, when dead ancestors come and visit this world and family members return to their hometown and give offerings. I think it is similar to the Chinese version of 'Hungry Ghosts'. After watching the parade, we went to the temple which was full of food stalls selling lots of yummy food. Surprisingly I didn't pig out, as I still had lunch to go to at Auntie Kiku's. At the temple, there were kids playing Kendo. I even considered joining but I don't think Im tough enough. One of my classmates, does Kendo near our school. And he is a tank. Ok, I won't waffle on anymore. Im glad I got to meet Auntie Kiku again and experience the Omatsuri. That sure was a nice day!

For more pictures: Click on the link 'Omatsuri' under links on the right column



Well, working at Hakuhodo was fun too. I was surprised at first when I arrived there, the creative staff all worked separately in cubicles. Only when they brainstormed, they get together in one of the rooms. Anyway, they put me to work immediately, and I was to sketch out ideas for one of the clients and present to the director and then of the week. Apart from the sketching, I met two international creative directors. They both are a duo from Italy, but Jonathan was originally from England. In fact they reminded me of Ming and Ton. Both have worked together for awhile now, and are each other's sounding boards. Jonathan and Annaritta work freelance at Hakuhodo, and surprisingly don't speak much Japanese at all! Both of them were kind enough to take me around to a little design studio called 'Cosmos' to meet some real Japanese designers. Some work usually gets outsourced to external design studios. These small studios then work directly under the Art Director at Hakuhodo. The studio I went to was really small. It had around 5 designers, similar to freeform. But the work they did, was pure corporate stuff you see in Advertising. Nothing too interesting. Anyway, the way they work is crazy though. They might come up with 20-30 sketches of a bottle packaging and even mock it all up! Because of confidentiality, I could not really see what they were working on, so I ended up showing them photos of Malaysia from my mac. They were all especially impressed with the photos of Redang and my Kampung house. All in all, I had a nice holiday and couldn't wait to return to school to hit the books again!