This is a post powered by cornflakes, milk, and the traces of excess energy from a sip of free-taste coffee that I shared with my mom yesterday.

All of my bento have always been Lock and Lock (advertisement?) because it doesn't open easily, and thus doesn't spill the contents. That is the reason why my  two bento containers - lunch boxes, to be exact - are a rectangular Lock and Lock and a square Lock and Lock wannabe. (The wannabe works just as good.) I also have an oval bento - in a glossy red finish - that was only used one time, and that was for a velvet Bundt cake (that was not cooked in a Bundt pan, but was just as good as if it were cooked in a Bundt pan) that my haha-ue baked for me. I never used it for food again - I would starve (figure of speech only, since I'm now getting used to smaller portions) if I was doomed to eat that miniscule an amount of lunch every day. It was very cute, though. And it was in my favorite color.

Since the lunch would get all shaken up anyway when it was time to eat, lunch is a simple, delicious rice-and-ulam affair, nothing more, nothing less. The first and last time I had onigiri for lunch, when it was time to eat my lunchbox looked like a sea of rice with sheets of seaweed thrown in. Aesthetics aside, it tasted good nonetheless.

I still remember the lunch I had in my first day ever of whole-day high school life. It was a piece of drumstick, cooked in the curry sauce I love, with plump slices of potato and carrots. It was rich and flavorful, and I was still happy even though I ate it alone in the classroom (the canteen was too crowded for me).

Sigh. More than a post, this is becoming a rant about food. Now before I get overly hungry again, I shall end this post, and take a bath. Good day, minna.
NOTE: This post was, in a way, penned (umm... keyed?) when I saw a post about a contest with bento tools as a prize, here (http://www.kitchencow.com/2009/05/19/kitchen-cow-3rd-anniversary-bento-giveaway/). The bento this person makes are honto no kawaii!

As one of their advertisements said, "the third time's the charm". It's no wonder, then, that the Korean version of "Boys over Flowers" is the grandest, lightest, and most fast-paced among the three live-action shows that drew their inspiration from the number 1 best-selling shojo manga of all time.

I will go out on a limb here and say that this is the happiest, most light-hearted version of all, thus making it my favorite. Sorry Lei, but if only he doesn't fall for the girls he love at the wrong time (he fell for Jan Di when she found her OTP destiny with Jun Pyo), I'd go for Ji Hoo any day.

So, among the three, the Korean one is the best...? Well, they say there's gonna be a Chinese verison coming up soon. With three versions that already came first, let's see how they'll measure up. But I still like Kkot boda namja.

The original manga came from Japan, so naturally one would think that the live-action J-drama version of "Hana yori dango" would be superior to the Taiwanese version that came before it. They have the home advantage, afer all.

I have never seen the anime version, but I have read the manga, making HYD's anime the only version I've never seen or watched. Just a thought.

Well then, this version was closer to the manga original. Domyoji's extremely unflattering perm and constant usage of the pompous "ore-sama", Makino's hairstyle, the Miss Teen Japan contest at the end of season 1, can't remember any others at the moment, because, no offense to the Japanese version fangirls, this version did not convert me.

Ah. I could still remember it - the one touted as the the first Asianovela that hit this Southeast Asian archipelago by storm. The year was 2001, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a Filipino who didn't know San Chai and the F4.

Me and my family were bitten by the Meteor Garden bug as well. If we weren't, I wouldn't be posting here, would I? We attended what seemed to be every major concert of F4 in Manila, completely dependent on our binoculars and the huge projector screen to see them singing from our back seats.

Hua Zhi Lei was the one who caught my eye back then... hehh. Well then, let's just consider this post as "finished".

Let me start this off by saying that the second time I ever became a devoted fangirl of anything was when I was a first grader and got sucked into the F4 fever when it first hit the Philippines. (The first time was with Winnie the Pooh - a devotion which follows to this day.)

It was a time when pirated CDs were everything but cheap; when we were all forced to watch "Meteor Garden" in between ABS-CBN's commercials; when the F4 (now called JVKV) always seemed to frequent the Philippines and put a strain on our and my grandma's budgets - she was quite a fangirl herself. (But now she prefers Kkot boda namja. I think.)

To sum it up, this is a story of how I behaved like a fangirl before I discovered anime.

~~~

The year was 2001. I was a shy, timid crybaby first-grader.

We watched an episode. I don't know which ep was my first, but I definitely did not start from the beginning. I did not rember how we got hooked, but we got hooked.

His name was Hua Ze Lei. In real life he is Vic Zhou... my first crush, actually. It was half of the reason that we bought tickets to almost all of their concerts. (The other half was because my grandma had a crush on Dao Ming Si.) We braved hours in long lines, heavy rains, and far distances (need I mention there were seven of us, and concert tickets are expensive?) in order to catch glimpses of them. My mother's brother - my godfather - even became an "URSHER" at the first Philippine F4 concert. (I'm not lying - that's how it was spelled on his shirt.)

~~~

*to be continued later, as I have to take a bath first.*

~~~

Ok, now that I have taken a bath, let us continue.

My grandmother always had a VIP seat. I always refused her offers of buying me a VIP seat as well - the price made me despair for the unfairness of the world. We settled for the cheapest seats at the far back and bought some binoculars. My binoculars were silver plastic with metallic blue accents. It was the kind that, when coupled with the free headset, made you hear conversations far away. Unfortunately for me, all I heard were the ear-numbing screams of adoring fellow fangirls and fanboys.

During my first F4 concert, I had thought of throwing my stuffed bear, Mimi, to the stage in hopes that one of the F4 (preferably Vic, as Mimi also liked him) will pick her up and look for her owner. That idea was scrapped as soon as I thought of it - they might never return her, thinking she was a fan's gift!

After the concert (which was held outdoors), it rained. Very heavily. Why was the umbrella (seemingly) useless?

Our next concert tickets led us to an indoor concert hall. Obaa-san had a VIP seat in front, naturally. We settled for the back seats, over the stage.

I always thought that when time passes, I would end up still liking Vic-san, no matter how many other crush-able bishonen show up. It was also the reason why, unlike my other classmates, I didn't have any crushes on my guy acquaintances.

It was when I saw Li Syaoran's face that I decided to rethink my loyalty.

~

~~to be continued... part 2: Japan