I would want to plug a song, titled Beautiful Word by Utada Hikaru (宇多田 ヒカル), before I start writing. It is also the official song for the film Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0, in case you’re wondering. I love the song because despite of the cheerful title, the lyrics of the song is rather sad and dark. It is used in the second official movie trailer for Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0, and since this is the case, no plans are made for an MTV of the song, which didn’t seem to go down very well with some of Hikki’s fan. The song is pretty huge though - 5.05mb, but it’s more than five minutes long. Play and them pause the song to allow it to buffer.
Anyway, I had lunch with my mom at Sushi King (a Japanese restaurant) yesterday, and I am so grateful that they’ve plugged this song in! 
my first reaction was, OMG, are they serious? Since the song is heavily related to anime, I initially thought that they won’t possibly be playing this song. And they did! No bull!
Title: Beautiful Word (in the album Beautiful World / Kiss & Cry)
Artist: Utada Hikaru (宇多田 ヒカル)
The lyrics to the song is available here (alongside with its English translation), but you’ll need to scroll down a little to the bottom of the page. Here are a few of my favourite lines:
言いたいことなんか無い
iitai koto nanka nai
I really have nothing I want to say to you,ただもう一度会いたい
tada mou ichido aitai
But I still want to see you one more time.言いたいこと言えない
iitai koto ienai
The things that I want to say – I cannot say.根性無しかもしれない
konjou nashi ka mo shirenai
Perhaps I am a coward,それでいいけど
sore de ii kedo
But it’s alright.
Back to the post, the reason why Beautiful World is selected as the title is not only because I’ve got a lovely song to plug, but also because I’ve got a couple of random photos to share, all depicting that we’re actually living in a beautiful world - you just need to be a little more adventurous, observant and appreciative to realise that.
Photos are shot using my faithful ol’ P&S, consumer-grade Pentax Optio S55 digital camera. Photos are modified for colour balance, saturation, contrast and exposure (with a certain degree of artificially widened dynamic range) using Photoshop CS2. Click on the images to view the larger ones in a lightbox. Photos in this post comes with their respective metadata as well as geolocation information (geographical coordinates are found using this neat webpage, and geotagging is part of my experiment with microformats).
Cityscape Silhouette
Taken on: 2nd of May 2008, 7:07pm
I rode to an adjacent neighbourhood one evening and discovered that there’s a huge lake tucked behind three colossus condiminium blocks. I’ve never found it even though I’ve been living a mere 3km away for 17 years!
The evening sun is directly behind the office blocks and so the camera is shielded from sun’s glare (to make sure that the sky is properly exposed). I’ve positioned the horizon exaclty at the dead middle because I was lazy to do cropping during post-shooting modifications.
EXIF data:
- Focal lengh: 6mm
- F-number: F/4.3
- Exposure time: 1/500 sec
- ISO speed: ISO-50
- Metering Mode: Pattern
- Geolocation: 3.079259, 101.601198
Bridge Silhouette
Taken on: 1st of May 2008, 5:56pm
On Labour’s Day, we went shopping to kill time and then headed home for dinner. As dad drove along the Federal Highway, a toll-free expressway that connects the suburb we live in with the downtown area, I noticed the late afternoon sun hidden behind a layer of clouds, thus creating the God’s rays (a.k.a. Crepuscular rays) in the sky. The bridge (it’s more like a viaduct because it’s parallel to the flyover underneath it) is special because it is on the third level above the highway.
EXIF data:
- Focal lengh: 6mm
- F-number: F/4.3
- Exposure time: 1/1500 sec
- ISO speed: ISO-50
- Metering Mode: Pattern
- Geolocation: 3.08410, 101.61407
Floating Water Lettuces
Taken on: 12th March 2008, 2:32pm
A macro shot of the water lettuce in my Aunt’s House garden. Sometimes it takes a little initiative on your behalf to get a nicer photo - I’ve dipped my hands into the mold-green water (of course I did wash my hands thoroughly after that) to sprinkle some water onto the waxy leaves to create a more dramatic effect.
I did a little cropping though - it was initially shot at landscape mode but the original photo had too much distracting details (flower pots, grass, bricks etc.) so I cropped away the left side.
EXIF data:
- Focal lengh: 10mm
- F-number: F/3.5
- Exposure time: 1/100 sec
- ISO speed: ISO-50
- Metering Mode: Pattern
- Geolocation: 3.03114, 101.57347
Tree-lined Avenue
Taken on: 5th of March 2007, 4:33pm
This photo is taken along the path that brings me from the bus stop to my boarding school in Singapore. The avenue where this photo is taken is called Namlee Avenue, and it isn’t really surprising to find a thousand more roads in Singapore with exactly the same scene - trees with thick canopy overhanging the road. Singapore emphasizes a lot on environmental protection, preservation and rehabilitation.
I love the way how light from the late afternoon sun bounched off the road and into my camera. Isn’t that lovely?
EXIF data:
- Focal lengh: 6mm
- F-number: F/2.6
- Exposure time: 1/50 sec
- ISO speed: ISO-100
- Metering Mode: Pattern
- Geolocation: 1.32889, 103.80172
Tree
Taken on: 3rd of March 2008, 10:32am
I went to a national forest reserve adjacent to the town I live in. I could still remember that we cycled quite a long way from the rental shop, and to find ourselves at the border of the forest reserve - what laid in front of us is a new housing scheme under construction, how sad. I was dying under the hot morning sun and the melting tarmac, and the only place for refuge is underneath the thin canopy of this tree. When I caught my breath and look up, I saw what is in this photo - a magnificent canopy against the blue morning sky!
EXIF data:
- Focal lengh: 6mm
- F-number: F/4.3
- Exposure time: 1/640 sec
- ISO speed: ISO-50
- Metering Mode: Pattern
- Geolocation: 3.10110, 101.49476
Comment love: jason . lix . Brandy . Destiny . SilverIsle . med . teddY . Wancing . Melissa .
when I get back to Singapore next time, I’ll haunt you!