Sharing how things went down when my friends and I visited the Cafe & Bar Arasick in Osaka. :)

Follow this link to "Spinning Rainbows at cafe & bar Arasick".



Just a note: I keep receiving PMs about memberships. I'm not in charge of that and there are rules in place that must be followed, so please be guided accordingly.

Peeps are also adding me as friends, THANK YOU. I, unfortunately, could not add you back since I am no longer really active on LJ, except for the updates that come only once in a blue moon. But I can be reached more readily at my (other) travel blog, Jeffer's Odyssey. See ya there!

This LJ is not dead. It's in hibernation... I hope.

Meanwhile, I have set up a travel-blog-of-sorts, so you can head over here:

I just made two blog posts about the three cons I went to when I was in Nagoya on the first week of December 2014.

ARASHI LIVE TOUR 2014: THE DIGITALIAN... IN NAGOYA



CNBLUE 2014 Arena Tour: WAVE… in Nagoya

I looked at today's paper, and saw one of the headlines go, "Ma, Just Let Go...Save Yourself".You know that feeling as if there's something blocking your throat. making it hard to swallow, and then you have to blink repeatedly because you're feeling suddenly weepy? And all from a news article title.

(Warning: this is some serious shite Imma lay down here. So be warned.)
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I love going back to my folders containing travel photos, because they bring me back to that time I was checking out new sights, away from work, from home, and from 'real life', so to speak. These short 'respites', as I call them, remind me that all work and no fun is no way to live a life at all. In fact, if I could spend my whole life traveling and seeing new places, experiencing new things, I would. Alas, that's not the case, so I take whatever 'respite', albeit short, that comes my way.

These photos are taken on day 2 of the quick trip I took with my friend and a group of new friends at the end of summer this year. I blogged about that in this post. After a restful night of sleeping under the stars, we woke up early for a morning dip at the sea, had breakfast, packed up the camp, and headed via boat to Capones Island, then to another secluded island for some last dip in the sea, before heading back to the main island for lunch, then home. Here are some photos of that memorable day.

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Let's pretend for a moment that i have a lot of time to read, in between my 8-to-5 and my after-hours freelance writing and blogging projects, and I can actually squeeze in a lot of reading time. (I think I mentioned somewhere before that I download e-books FASTER than I can actually read them. And I have 1.02GB worth of ebooks waiting to be read.)

Now I wouldn't say that YA (Young Adult) is a genre I am enamored with. Maybe it's because I felt like I was too old to read about people who are in college or early 20s. Or maybe the plotlines never really did appeal to me. I didn't even get halfway through Book 2 of Twilight. I practically skimmed through 80% of the entire 50 Shades series, flipping through the pages mindlessly, and didn't think it was anything special. But there are some books that manage to slip through my discriminate ebook downloading spree that I actually like.

And this week, I stumbled upon Jessica Sorensen's "The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden". It was in my ereader for about a couple of months. I started the prologue back then, then stopped, because it was written in the 1st person POV, which I'm not really a fan of (unless it's written by someone like Anne Rice, who is SO DARN GOOD at writing in that voice). Then last week, I ran out of things to read because I forgot to update my e-reader library.

I'm glad that happened.


photo taken from Merryways

I really liked the story. It was angsty (what did you expect? It's YA, after all.), but the characters were dealing with real issues. And they're compelling and likable. Or, at least, I thought they were. In no time at all, I finished Book 1 - MAJOR CLIFFHANGER - then freaked out looking for the second book, "The Redemption of Callie & Kayden". Couldn't find it, so I put in a request at my source, and voila, got it!

I only think Jessica Sorensen needs a better editor. Especially with Book 2, which is out only in ebook format. There are so many typographical errors and some grammar mistakes that every editor should spot. Plus, she could actually have compressed the 2 books into 1 long novel. (But hey, if her intention was to make readers freak out to look for the second book, then she accomplished that with me! Still, I find her to be a very good storyteller.

So. I'm coming to the point of this post. Any recs for good YA books? I only have the following criteria.

* NO VAMPIRES. NO WEREWOLVES. NO IMMORTALS.
* 75% of the books SHOULD NOT BE sex scenes.
* Angst should be justifiable. Not because the characters feel they are entitled to it because they're in a YA novel. (LOL!)

So.... recs please?