Nobuyuki Tsujii: Cliburn Competition 2009 Winner

Yesterday, I saw on the news that the blind Japanese pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii shared first prize with Chinese pianist Zhang Haochen at the 13th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition on 6/7.


I'm not a pianist, so I can't comment on his talent, but I think his work touches the hearts of people. I always think that the true artist has the sense to convey a message and create some kind of impression on people. How amazing. His performance was impressive. Too beautiful for words.

I learned a lot from him!

I found his video at YouTube! I hope the page is accessible...
Also, I found one when he was 12 years old, playing Chopin! Amazing!

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6th Anniversary!

June 7th was the 6th anniversary since my boyfriend and I had met. Being blessed with fine weather, we had a really good time!

Early in the afternoon, I had a plan to go to an audition (for a talk show), so I went to hair salon to have my hair set. Then in the evening, I made plans with my boyfriend to have dinner.

He took me to the restaurant called "The Restaurant Sky" in Mitsui Garden Hotel Ginza.

The Restaurant Sky is an Italian restaurant offering cuisine created with fresh, seasonal organic vegetables. The restaurant is located on the 16th floor. We had a prix fixe dinner while enjoying the fantastic night view of Tokyo.

There are 7 appetizers, 5 pastas and 6 main dishes in which we may choose our 3 favorite dishes to compose our dinner. For a big eater, you may choose all 3 dishes from main dishes, which is cool! We selected 6 different dishes to share ;)

I will list what we had (from left to right, top to bottom):
- Mushroom Soup
- Homemade Bread
- Choice 1: Prawn & Avocado / Shrimp, avocado, asparagus and salsa verde
- Choice 2: Tuna Mille-Feuille / Tuna, eggplant and saffron mayonnaise
- Special Vegetable Plate
- Choice 3: "Hinai" Chicken / Roasted chicken stuffed with spring vegetables risotto, pommery mustard sauce
- Choice 4: Today's Pasta / Chicken cheese cream penne
- Choice 5: Today's Main Dish / Anago (conger eel) meuniere
- Choice 6: Lamb / Roasted lamb, chick peas and lentils soup

For dessert, my boyfriend ordered me a special dessert plate and gave me a rose :) I thought we cannot complete the dessert since we were full, but surprisingly, those sweets weren't that sweet, so we could eat them all at once!

I was worried about the bill, so I threw a quick look at it and found it wasn't that expensive! I asked my boyfriend why and he said he used a coupon! He is cool ;) I don't want him to spend way too much ;)

That's all for yesterday!

Fresh LOVE forever :)

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Does the Voice Age?!

This is something interesting.

Sometimes, I feel I'm old when I bubble over or talk with young people and realize my tone of voice is low... Haven't you ever experienced this?

I just searched the internet and found that our voice also age!!!

Atrophy of vocal muscles causes aging!
To keep your voice young, we need to talk a lot with different people, using the voice properly by avoiding apneic voice production. Which means we need to excersize our vocal cords like we exercise our body! Also, stretching around the neck will prevent the atrophy of vocal muscles.

I knew that we can excercise muscles of facial expression to keep our face young, but not the voice!!!

We're expecting rain here until Sunday morning... I hope it really clears up by then, since we are going out for a dinner to celebrate our anniversary. I will write about it later ;)

See you next week!!!

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