English subbed music video of “Rainisim”, second MV from Korean pop star Rain’s latest (same title) album. Although another MV “Love Story” was released earlier, it seems like Rainisim is the major promotional track instead…
Hallyu stars are dominating the Japanese Oricon singles chart for the past two weeks. The Koreans claimed the top three spots at the singles’ sales chart last week, and keeping their momentum with three of the top four spots this week.
Pop group TVXQ (known as Tōhōshinki in Japan) tops the singles’ sales chart for two consecutive weeks with their 24th Japanese single “Jumon-Mirotic”. This is their 4th chart topping Japanese single in 2008.
Actor turn singer Lee Byung-hun claims the 2nd spot also for two weeks in a role with his debut single, “Itsuka”; while Ryu Si-won dropping from 3rd to 4th with his 8th single “Kimito Boku”.
To be frank, I’m quite puzzled how the songs managed to lead the charts. I can understand that Mirotic is appealing to some audiences (although not to my liking), but the other two are just so average. Anyhow, sharing all three music videos below…
Sharing a Thai music video, “Pain” (ความเจ็บปวด – Kwarm jeb puad) by popular Thai-Belgian singer Palmy, from her third album “Beautiful Ride” which was released in June 2006. The song is about recovering from the pain of a broken relationship.
Love the chorus and Palmy’s voice…
The floating village is a cultural heritage and tourist attraction in Halong Bay, Vietnam. People have been living in these houses for hundred of years with fishing as the main income activity. Some photos below, taken during my trip in July 2008…
A total of 918 saxophone players performed simultaneously at the Taichung City Plaza in the city of Taichung, Taiwan, on October 18 in a bid to break the world record for the largest saxophone ensemble.
The attempt was held in conjunction with the 6th annual Taichung Jazz Festival. The oldest saxophonists involved was 72 of age, while the youngest just three; Taichung deputy mayor Hsiao Jia Qi also took part in the event.
The current world record for the largest saxophone ensemble was set by Toronto in 2004 with 900 players.
WWF-France, in celebration of its 35th anniversary, is running a campaign to raise awareness for natural environment preservation by parading 1,600 paper made panda models across the country.
The parade started in July 2008 at Paris City Hall; followed by a few other locations across France; the most recent exhibition was at Paris’ Trocadero Esplanade on October 15… while the next stop would be at Grenoble on October 25.
The panda (giant panda to be precise) is the symbol of the World Wildlife Fund; it’s estimated that there’s 1,600 pandas in the wild according to a 2004 statistic.
The Chinese folks in Dongguan city, Guangdong province, were trying to emulate the famous Spanish La Tomatina festival by creating a tomato festival of their own.
The festival was organised by Dongguan Tourism Bureau. An estimated 10,000 crowd took part in the food fight at Dongguan’s South China Mall on Sunday (Oct 19), with 15 tonnes of softened fresh tomatoes being used for the ‘war’.
The tomato battle has drawn quite some criticism online though; lots of Chinese netizens are critical about the food wastage, while some are questioning the logic to mimic a western festival when their own culture is not being fully promoted.
The 21st Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) kicked off Saturday (Oct 18) with Japanese prime minister Taro Aso among the ~300 guests that graced the opening event at Roppongi Hills [via Japantoday]
The theme of TIFF 2008 is “Ecology = Preservation of Earth’s Environment”, and the organiser replaced the usual red carpet with a green carpet made from recycled plastic bottles to exemplify the theme, which I doubt could bring any meaningful effect.
A total of 315 films from around the world will be shown during the nine-day event. Chinese movie “Red Cliff”, directed by Hong Kong director John Woo, was selected to kick start the screening; would be cute if the stars wore some green outfit during the green carpet to echo the theme lol.
The main cast of Red Cliff at TIFF 2008… (L-R) Vicki Zhao, Chang Chen, Takeshi Kaneshiro, director John Woo, Tony Leung, Zhang Fengyi and Lin Chi Ling (Image from Udn)