Hello and welcome to my blog. This blog is considered my haven when everything seems nuisances; urging me to assess and to share my thoughts and my own findings to the world, or at least to my fellow neighbours in the blog sphere.

Summary of this site

My blogging adventure started off back in 2009 with many factors influencing the decision. One of them was from my online friend called De-JaY who runs his personal blog called “Otaku Days“. De-JaY would mostly talk and share about his hobbies of collecting Figures and Anime related goodies which included massive loots of all sorts especially anything related to minori a Japanese visual novel company notable of creating one of my favorite titles Ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two. I was easily mesmerized due to the fact that we both are into the same hobbies and have similar taste. And because of that decided to start my story telling regarding my own various collections of anime merchandise of figures, blu-rays, cd’s etc.

Another influence I must say is of course Danny Choo who Im a great admirer of. A consummate professional Danny Choo is one of the most well-known and respected bloggers on Japanese pop-culture in the world and is living his dreams (through hard work and perseverance) working in Japan and constantly helping build a bridge to his fellow followers on sharing everything related to Japan. Myself im very fond of Japan, its history, traditional or contemporary culture such as food and anime and other various things that makes Japan a unique and interesting place. I have many dreams and one of them is to one day living there. That is why Danny Choo with similar fondness on Japan is seen as someone I look up.

This blog is intended to bring together all of his passions and hobbies: Anime, Travel, Japanese Pop Culture, Figures and many more. All contents on this site, when appropriate, is powered under WordPress otherwise noted. Further, this site layout design is greatly inspired by Danny Choo’s Mirai Gaia company who’s created dannychoo.com and figure.fm. The theme currently in use is called “BigFeaure” created by vfxdude. Copyrights to its respective owner.

More about my background

Currently, Im a university student on a student visa in Perth, Australia completing my Bachelor of Commerce. My background is pretty complicated or confusing at least, Im Eurasian, born from a French father (who is half Italian) and a Singaporean mother (with Chinese and Portuguese ancestry) in London, UK. I moved a lot in my life, living in a total of 7 countries which includes UK, Singapore, Mauritius, Brunei, Cyprus, Greece and Australia. Throughout my childhood I was thought a lot of my mother’s cultural values meaning that Singapore is very important to me. But in any case living in more than 7 countries gave me the chance to expand my cultural understanding and knowledge which I am grateful for. I hope to be able to add a few more in that list in the future ^^.

Now for my hobbies, Something that I like to mention first is that I love food especially my mothers or her family’s cooking. If Im back in Singapore, its a ritual to spend most of my time wandering around kopi tiams eating my portion of Chicken rice, Char kueh teow or Ho fan noodles (the list continues). Like mentioned Im into Japanese-pop-culture and enjoy my dose of Anime from time to time and I try my best to keep up with the current trend of what Is showing in Japan. My favorite series from the top of my head are: Clannad, Spice and Wolf, Bakemonogatari, Mawaru Penguindrum, Shuffle! and many more. I also started collecting figures since 2009 (when this blog was created) from only two companies: Good Smile Company and ALTER. My collection is rather small due to the fact that Im very fussy and its also expensive however If there is a figure I like, Ill definitely want to get it. Im also very much a big fan of music in general too, I try to expand my music catalog as much as possible, although I do like anime music I place a big emphasis on Visual Novel music such as Key Sound Label, ever since I played Air by Key I got hooked by their beautiful compositions which now I have collected all the game’s soundtrack CD’s. Other form of music outside Anime, Visual Novel is Lounge or House music particularly French House who has some of the biggest names and also known as being the best in the world. They include DJ’s like Daft Punk, Cassius, Bob Sinclair, Stephane Pompougnac, Claude Challe, Superman Lovers and more.
On another note, Im a absolute football (soccer) fanatic, Im a proud Arsenal fan since the early 90′s and follow them throughout every season, Its in my blood and you can easily strike up a conversation with me when you simply mention “Arsenal” or anything related to it. In 2012 I had the chance to visit the new Emirates stadium with Arsenal playing Blackburn Rovers in the Barclays Premier League. It was my first football match and the score ended up being 7-1 for Arsenal!
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A Grace Experience

One of the turning points in my life and im grateful for learning it at a young age is to learn the whole concept of money and working for it. When I was young i always thought money use to come out of walls with a simple click of a button, Its so nice being in your young glory days ^^. Anyway my parents made sure that i keep my head on my shoulders and at the age of 16 my father sent both my sister and I (at the time we were living in Greece) to work for the company he works for called Grace Hotels. At that time in the summer of 2008, we were placed in the greek island of Santorini as part of the team for the new opening of the company’s hotels called Grace Santorini. It was really the beginning of something new, It certainly gave me a whole new perspective on life, that I cant always be dependent on my family and have to work my way to gain my own money. Further, we both lived in the hotels staff quarters and had to learn how to fend for ourselves without the luxury we had of mums cooking, comfortable bed, games and late nights etc.Grace Santorini is an exclusive boutique hotel and a member of the award winning Grace Hotels group. The hotel is included in Tatler’s 2011 list of the 101 Best Hotels in the World and also in the Conde Nast Traveller Gold List 2012 for Best Location in Europe.

My encounters with the Land of the Rising Sun

One of my dreams was to visit Japan and that dream became a reality thanks to working the first summer season at Grace Santorini, I managed to save just the right amount to be able to join my friend in the adventure we so longed wished. We traveled to Japan for 3 weeks between the months of July and August in 2008 visiting various places such as Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Tokyo and so on. Each day was exciting but you know the saying “time flies when your having fun”. I was so determined to go back because the place gives you this sense feeling that makes you want to stay forever.

It was not until the end of 2011 during the month of November that I returned, similar to the first trip I spend around 3 weeks with my sister and friend from Bali. Since it was their first time I decided to do a similar itinerary to the previous one however focusing more on Kyoto and Tokyo. It was yet again a wonderful experience and my love for Japan keeps on growing. I decided to document this trip and share with everyone the wonderful places ive visited, by doing so I was later convinced to share all of my visits a part from Japan. I realised that It would be a waste not to talk about other countries, all have something unique and so thats how my traveling posts started.

Creation of Project Holo

Several months ago, I purchased a cardboard cutout of Holo from Spice & Wolf out of curiosity. I was later Inspired by a little throw away scene from the famous anime series called Durarara! along with the quest of George Clooney given by his sister in the U.S blockbuster film “Up in the Air“. Decided that it was a waste to just display it in my room – so decided to create along with my friend and sister Project Holo with the intention of taking her as many places around the world if the opportunity rises and put together a photo album with different country landmarks and everyone that she has met.

Keep an eye here for new updates regarding her adventures!

How did the name Fateful Encounters come along?

What do you think of the word “fate”? do you believe that things happen for a reason?
To me I like the word “fate”. Not that I’m saying you can’t influence your future or that “trying” to do something is pointless. It’s just that there are some things we cannot change. There are some things that will happen no matter what we do. Of course, life is not all happy encounters. There are many painful, sad predicaments which is hard to accept that misfortunes beyond your control are fate. But I think there’s a meaning no matter how sad and painful it may be. Nothing in this world is pointless. Because.. I believe in fate and that is my I call this blog fateful encounters.

Where to find me elsewhere

You can see me in the following communities I participate in, feel free to connect!

• Twitter (update regularly)
• Flickr (where i upload most of my photos)
• Facebook – update Regularly
• MAL – Where I update my anime list.
• Tsukiboard – view current figure collection
• FriendFeed – On once in a while

If you have any inquiries or would like to message me in private, you can email me at: fabrice [at] requin [dot] biz. Ill try me best into answering all of them, Its not like get millions of mail compared to others so please go ahead!