I was just walking in a mall the other day looking for Christmas gift for someone special. Then I saw an interesting store and found this CD. I did not care much of other songs, but because of this song, I felt like I had to purchase the CD.  This is a perfect music to hear when you are with someone you’d like to be with forever.

This Asian male singer is called Jason Chen from Southern California, the United States of America.  You might think he looks a typical ABC (Asian Born Chinese) that you might see in an Asian super market, but he had exceptional talents and passion for singing. He started posting his singing on Youtube like Marie Digby.  Today his original single, Best Friend has more than 1.5 million views.

I’ve  been checking this guy for years on youtube since when I first saw his singing of Katy Perry’s parody song I Went to Class on youtube.  I was also an Econ major and I was humming this song occasionally when I was on my way to class, stuck in library, or in the shower…pretty much all the time.  I am very pleased to see how people became successful chasing after their dream and passion.

Now he is releasing his first original CD album Gravity including flagship song, Best Friend.  Unfortunately you can only order within the States, but I’m sure it will be available soon internationally. You can order from his website www.jasonchen.bigcartel.com.

FYI, 3 years ago…

This past year seemed to be a big watershed in my life.   I switched my job from management position at Abercrombie and Fitch to an IT role in a IT support company.   Now I am happily working and step by step progressing toward my career goal.  Personal wise, there were many incidents that gave me so much pain and breakdowns, which I am not going to talk about because it’s too depressing.  But I think, because we feel the pain and sorrow, we grow stronger and appreciate what we have today.  On March 11, 2011,  M9 earthquake and big Tsunami hit northern east coast of Japan, which caused catastrophic damage.  Over 15,000 people passed away. About 9,500 people are still missing.  Due to that, Fukushima nuclear plants had explosion, which forced us to face the fear of radiation leaking.  Every country’s’ embassy advised its own nationality in Tokyo an emergent evacuation.  This incident made us realize that we were taking for granted what we have in our lives:  food, water, gas, electricity.  And also, there are people and nature on risk in order for us to have the unnecessary luxury in our lives.   We just turn on the Air Conditioner when we feel hot a little bit.  We turn on the car engine when we want to go to convenience store in walking distance.  When we don’t want to eat some dishes, we just throw away as garbage.  Now, we only can regret our stupid past behavior and pray for those who are suffering in north Japan.

But I hope we learn from this incident, and also do not forget that people from around the world helped those who lost houses and family regardless national boarder or human race.

I was watching this movie called Sweet Land, which depicts the story of one American man and German male-order back in war era.  Just like those days, we can help each other when someone is in suffer regardless language barrier or nationalities.

There were a couple of other amazing things happened to my personal life as well.  But that’s another story…

It was a couple of months ago that I made this website. Me and my ex-coworker, Masa (yes, we have same name) wanted to do something together while we both were working at Abercrombie. But eventually as both became quite busy, it didn’t really work out, and only blank website was remained for a while. Recently I got the urge to create something. It happens to me every one in a while. Sometimes, I feel we as salarymen are just working for companies, and we are not making anything and producing to the world although each individual is so unique.

My first contribution is about bringing useful information to people who are interested in life in Tokyo through the website. You can check my first article that I made with some help from my friend, Tyler providing me awesome pictures!

Anyways, pictures from the trip was uploaded to my picasaweb page. Please check it out!

Thailand

Tokyo also has a limited space as much as Hong Kong does. I used to live in an tiny studio apartment that had only 19 square meters, which included unit bathroom. After almost a year of attempts to make the room spacious yet well-functioning, I finally came into the solution: moving into bigger place.

But this guy transform a tiny limited space into amazingly-functioning and awesome space! It looks like a sci-fie movie about our future life.

However, with great respect, I still prefer to have a bed set up before I come home especially after tough working day or successful romantic date.

I apologize for no updates for the long time. Right now, I am writing this post from Thailand, which is an awesome travel destination.

I visited Wat Arun, Temple of the Dawn, a week ago and felt something is urging to be reborn inside me. Spending too much time working in Japan where it’s all about “wa,” sense of shared understanding between people, makes me forget the importance of getting outside of my comfort zone.

So, as my first step, I decided to track my life in this website. If I think the website is getting boring, so is my life.

It’s been a while since the last time I found a singer that makes me this excited. Owl City, consisting of one member, Adam Young first became popular through MySpace and received more than 5 million plays on tracks. Currently Owl City’s album ranks at 11th, but I am expecting it will soon go up higher, and stay in the chart for a while.

Masa