After debating between London (too expensive and the one-way 24-hour flight turned me off), Sydney (less expensive than London, but I’d still spend a heck of a time on the plane), Manila (nothing to do there since I am not a beach or a mall person), and Tokyo the last two months of where I should go travelling in October, I finally decided to just say hell with it and go with Tokyo since that’s the place I’d feel most comfortable going by myself! I originally was going to go with a friend, but that didn’t fall through.

Now that Tokyo’s finally decided, now’s the time to choose the hotel. And now I’m stuck. Here’s my little dilemma:

Hotel #1: Akasaka Excel Hotel Tokyu
* A 3.5 star hotel.
* Cost for 6 nights + flight = $1,100+
* In a central location, meaning it’s a few subway stop away from Shinjuku, Shibuya, Roppongi, and etcetera.
* Subway is right across the street from the hotel called Akasaka-Mitsuke Station.
* Has airport limousine and a shuttle bus to Disneyland.
* A clinic is right next door where the doctor speaks some English.
* This is where I stayed before.

Problem: The price. I mean because it’s expensive I was actually contemplating cutting down my travel day from 6 nights to 4 if I went with this hotel. Meaning I’d have less days in Tokyo, but it’s the only way to cut that hotel fee down!

Hotel #2: b ikebukuro
* A 2.5 star hotel.
* Cost for 6 nights + flight = $860+
* It’s all the way in Ikebukuro . . . which is about 30-40 minute subway ride from the central location of Akasaka.
* Subway is 3 minutes away at Ikebukuro Station.
* Has an airport limousine that drops you off at the nearby Sunshine City Prince Hotel.
* This area is where Otome Road is. AKA TC’s heaven of yaoi merchandise *_*.
* Oh. Apparently it’s a new hotel. O_O;; They just opened last month . . .

Problem: The hotel’s location is quite far from everything BUT Otome Road! Meaning I’m going to be spending a heck of a lot of time on the subway and paying for it as well. However, I do get two extra days in the city with this hotel. So that means, I can see more stuff than in four nights, right?

Conclusion
My question to you guys: would you rather spend the extra money for a hotel in a more centralised location or would you rather save that money and spend it on transportation since the hotel that’s far away is cheaper but . . . well location sort of sucks?!

See what kind of a pickle I’m in? Actually, no. Once I figure this part out, the most difficult part about this trip? Telling my mother that I’m going by myself. Even Dad said she’s going to flip out if I tell her that. Man.

Oh and spending money? Well, for a 6 nights trip, I was planning to take $2000 bucks . . . but if I do choose Akasaka as my hotel then I’d definitely cut my travels to four nights and only take $1500. Or maybe $2000 just in case.

I was evilly (just kidding :D) tagged by Ongaku to do this meme. I am supposed to list ten random facts about me that nobody else knows the general public does not know. It is time for me to dig into my subconscious and find all the inner most glorified secrets about me. Whoo hoo! Time for a struggle to come up with stuff! Good thing I don’t have to find a hundred of these. ~_~;; Oh and here’s the other similar meme where I had to list 25 facts . . . must not repeat myself!

1. I can memorise piano pieces, but instead of remembering the notes, guess what I memorise instead? My hand movements. Therefore, if I screw up while playing, I get lost since my flow’s been interrupted!

2. I cannot stand eating the same thing for more than two days. That’s why leftovers are a bad thing with me. Actually, I hate leftovers period. Reheating the meal the next day never tastes the same when it’s freshly made.

3. When I get a new game, I like to read the manual. I am utterly disappointed when the manual is crap and void of information.

4. I recently discovered that my body naturally prefers to sleep around 2am and wake up by 11am with no problems compared to sleeping at 10pm and waking up by 6am. This doesn’t bode well when and if I ever get a real full-time job that operates from 8 to 5 or 9 to 6. I am going to be one cranky worker.

5. I think I have speech dyslexia. When I talk, I switch the letters around. An example is “roat bacing”. I meant to say “boat racing”, and it came out wrong. I do that quite often!

6. The only thing I liked about Geometry was SOHCAHTOA and the Pythagorean theorem. Otherwise, this subject made me want to throw my protractor at someone. In other words, I’ll take Algebra over “Gee I’m a tree”.

7. Actually, scratch the last sentence. I’ll take Algebra minus imaginary numbers. See, I never covered it in high school Algebra. College Algebra was where I learned about the bloody thing. My take on those imaginary numbers was this: If they are imaginary then why the hell do I have to calculate them?! For what purpose? Do I even use these on a daily basis?!

8. I respect other animals (well, minus mosquitoes and other bugs that are a pest) so much to the point that I could become vegetarian. Only problem is that I love spam, hot dogs, chicken, and ground beef a lot to give it up entirely. Spam and hot dogs with rice and kimchi is heaven. :D Chicken tenders are my second love, and ground beef is just . . . nom, nom, nom!

9. Of all the accents in the world, I can imitate the United States’ southern accent the best. I actually am proud and not so proud of that feat! I’d rather be able to successfully imitate any of the United Kingdom accents instead!

10. When I’m doing stuff on the computer, and if I remember to have music on, I usually just choose one song at a time and have that loop on forever. Sometimes, I just have the same song on loop for two hours before I remember I should change a song. Maintaining a playlist is a bit of a chore for me. Then again, with almost 9000 music files . . . yeah. Going through my collections to choose the songs I want to listen to at the moment is not fun.

There. Done. That took about forty minutes to do. :D

Years ago, I found myself drawn by the story of The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. My first exposure was the 2002 film. From there, I understood the basic storyline that dealt with revenge, and it fascinated me. Several years later, I saw that they made an anime adaptation of the story, and I decided that I had to watch it. Lo and behold, though, my procrastination skills interfered, so after having the series for over two years, I finally watched it. And now I present my review.

The Goods
* With the exceptions of Baron Danglars and Madame Danglars, Mr and Mrs de Villefort, and Edouard de Villefort, the characters of this series were all interesting and likeable to a certain extent.
* I found myself liking a lot of the female characters here such as Valentine de Villefort, Eugénie de Danglars, and Haydée Tebelin. This fact is quite unusual since most female characters aggravate me.
* The music the series used — the classical pieces and the operatic pieces — all contributed well to the atmosphere of the story.
* The unique art style really grew on me, as well as its vibrant colours. For an anime that’s pretty dark in nature, the colours are quite a contrast.
* Le Baron Franz d’Epinay *LOVES LOVES*
* The pacing was excellent. After each episode, I wanted to watch more — especially if it ended in a cliffhanger! But the overall pacing for the series was excellent. Not a single episode was a filler! WOO HOO!
* Since the pacing was good, the story was well delivered, too! The story here is drastically different in certain areas from the book, but it works since the main theme is kept the same.
* The voice acting were great! And yes, I watched it in Japanese, so of course it’s great!

The Bads
* The anime style might take some time to get used to, but luckily the zooey-ness of the crazy style tones down after about the third episode.
* I’m still trying to figure out why a lot of guys went after Madame Danglars. I mean . . . she’s not even pretty and her personality was quite uninteresting, SO WHY?!
* I don’t know about Albert and the residents of Paris, but I am still scratching my head trying to figure out how the Count won them over since honestly? He would have freaked me out more than being charismatic.
* Okay, okay. The anime takes place in 5053? In a futuristic world where there are space travels, holographic computers, cars, and other technology that are advanced, but NO CELLPHONES?! There were several times in the series where I was thinking that having a cellphone would have solved the problems . . .
* The . . . random mecha scenes just made me go huh. Not only that, but they were ugly machines and it was kind of hard to differentiate who was who.

The Uglies
* Franz, oh, FRANZ! You silly boy.
* ALBERT IS STUPID. Homg. This was my major complaint. I know he’s 15, but his stupidity stemming from being naive made me go bonkers at times. I’m glad he matured and grew some brains and balls at the end. This is a coming of the age anime after all. ~_~;;

Conclusion
My only regret is to not watching it sooner! After finishing the last episode, I decided that this was one of the best non-yaoi/shounen-ai anime series I’ve watched in years! The last anime that left such an impact on me like this was when I watched Generator Gawl and Tekuu no Escaflowne. This series is really great for its story and its representation of music, animation, and characters. If I had to rate it, it would definitely be 10/10, and I do not give those out easily. I give out 9/10 fairly often, but a 10/10? Very rare.

I, TC the video game and gadget fanatic, strike again! I’m now the owner of this smexy thing dubbed “Medea”. Actually, I was just going to buy the system, but the store only had this PSP bundle. ~_~;;

Now I can play PlayStation 1 games and watch animes on my backlogged list on the go. Whoo hoo! Now all I need is a case, a carrying case, and a plastic sticker for the screen, and I am good to go!

. . . And with Ubi the DS, my life will revolve around handheld systems! All I need now is a portable computer to complete my world domination. XD

I recently bought The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under on DVD. Over the years I have been trying to buy the DVD version of the films I liked as a kid, and of course I was into the whole Walt Disney Animated Classics shebang growing up! However, what I liked as a child and disliked as a child came with me into adulthood, and I’ve decided to only replace what I loved back then. These are the films I liked as a kid and want or will get on DVD or whatever one day.

• One Hundred and One Dalmatians — Never mind all those classics that came before this one, I’ll take this over them any day! Gotta love those dogs and Cruella De Vil. I was so happy to finally get this on DVD since I gave my VHS tape to my cousin who then gave it away . . . so I had no way of obtaining that back into my hands!
• Robin Hood — Come on. I still think Robin Hood had the sexiest voice ever — even if he wasn’t British, hahaha! And Prince John? He just cracks me up.
• The Rescuers — Miss Bianca and Bernard are made of many wins. Plus, the Rescue Aid Society’s song is just damn catchy!
• The Little Mermaid — I need to get the DVD for this one day. The film that began the Disney Renaissance collection :D The film that started to have those songs a lot of us are familiar with. The only thing I could never understand was — something I wondered when I got older — was why didn’t Ariel try to write her problem out to the prince or something.
• The Rescuers Down Under — Not as great as the first one, but still perhaps the only Disney sequel that turned out well. But did anybody notice how different Miss Bianca sounded in this one? I mean, yeah there was like a fifteen year difference since the first film, but still?
• Beauty and the Beast — Artistically and musically, this is my favourite Disney film of all. That beautiful opening scene still makes me go GUH. I love bookish Belle and all those characters at the castle. Plus, that library the Beast shows Belle? May I steal it?! Oh and let me bonk myself on the head for not getting the DVD when it first came out (actually, I didn’t even know it came out until two years ago ~_~;;). Now I have to either get it from a third-party seller or . . . wait until Disney releases it again.
• The Lion King — I love this one, too, but I hate how it is a rip-off of Tezuka-sama’s Kimba the White Lion series. However, if I can ignore that blatantly, obvious “theft”, I adore this film regardless. Don’t get me started on Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

The following films are honourable mentions — films I should like but . . . I will not buy the DVD or whatever for.

• Any of the classics like Pinocchio, The Sleeping Beauty, and etcetera — They just never made it special for me. Some of the films I watched a lot, but it still didn’t grab me like the ones above did! Oh well.
• Pocahontas — This film holds a special spot in my heart because it’s the first film I saw in a theatre. Plus, “Colours of the Wind” is probably my favourite Disney song of them all. But everything else is just blahhhh.
• Hercules — I liked it, I had fun watching it, but I HATED their portrayal of Hades. I know the film needed a villain, but if anybody had to be a villain, why couldn’t it be Hera? Hades is my favourite Greek deity, so to see that awful image of him in the film . . . I wanted to throw something at the screen and the writers!

Anyway, what are your favourite Walt Disney Animated Classics?