JAPAN, Summer 2011 [part 2/8] - TOKYO (Traditional focus)

So.... I'm one year late in posting the rest of my Japan travel photos

And this is only the second part... =.= (still in Tokyo!)
I seriously cannot wait to upload the latter parts when I'm in the countryside, it really felt like I was travelling there and discovering new things, rather than wandering idly like I was in Tokyo. But here's the rest of my Tokyo pictures! It's quite strange because I remember going to loads of places, but only took these many pictures in Tokyo... I guess if I had a picture for every moment I had there, I probably won't have enough bandwidth haha (I have over 3000 pictures + videos..)

Continued from Part 1/8 - Modern Tokyo

I'll start with some of pictures from my Modern Tokyo file which I forgot to upload in the 1st part~

Takeshita Dori

Shibuya

Found some beloved TVXQ in the music store next to the Starbucks overlooking the Shibuya crossing

Tokyo Television Broadcasting Station in Shinbashi

I think this was Ohno's (Arashi) program.. there were SO MANY PEOPLE on the day!

Arashi's new show.. there was a room where people were queuing up to go inside.. I thought Arashi was going to be in there doing fansigns or something... but no such luck unfortunately, it only had lit up posters of them for people to take pictures with

 

Asakusa's Kannon Temple (Sensoji)

Incredible shop with all varieties of Maneki neko!

I regret not tasting these, but I was suffering in the sauna heat and needed to find kakigoori stands..

I had no idea how to use these, fortunately there was an elderly couple next to me and I asked them the steps. There was a hexagonal container with many sticks, each labeled with a number in kanji. You shake the container and retrieve one, match the number up with the one on the drawers and the sheet inside reads your fortune/predicts your future for that year. Mine said intermediate luck, which with hindsight I found was quite true. I had my lucky times and not so good times this year :)

If you aren't happy with your fortune, you can roll up your sheet and tie it on these stands, the idea is so that the bad luck can dissipate and the gods will help you.. or something

I decided to take a cruise on the Sumida river

The Asahi Beer Hall~ the building is designed to look like a jug of beer

The Asahi Flame, or the 'golden turd'. Someone told me it's also known as the 'golden sperm' lol

I passed this pretty billboard, and now the more I look at this picture, the more I think I've seen it on TV or in a music video or something..

Window cleaners~ this building was massive

Tokyo Tower

I got off at the Hamarikyu Gardens because I wanted to see the Canary Wharf of Tokyo

The garden was surprisingly tranquil, even though from all directions you could see grey skyscrapers towering above. You can't hear the traffic from inside at all.

Nakajima no ochaya. It's a little island in the middle of Shioiri Pond. It serves matcha tea and Japanese sweets in the tea ceremony style. I only tried Japanese tea ceremony once when I was studying Japanese in London and went to a short one day course. But I'd forgotten everything already so thank goodness there was an instruction sheet telling me what to do because I felt so rude and sweaty inside haha 

Iced matcha tea. It was amazing because my body cooled down instantly after I drank this and I stopped perspiring so much. It was amazing considering how scorching hot it was inside the gardens!

Really pretty field of flowers on the way out

And a couple preparing to take their wedding photos

Meiji jingu, this Shinto shrine was so close to the vibrant Harajuku it seemed really out of place. But once again when you were inside you couldn't hear the buzz of the traffic outside. Not many tourists went inside, visitors of this area were more drawn towards the better known Harajuku.

 

I'll end this post with some purikura I took with Yurina :) 

 I'll be back tomorrow with my travels in Kamakura! So determined to get these all uploaded =v=

Asian Skinny Syndrome: are Asian girls going a bit too far?

Look at the picture of this girl above. What's your first impression of her? Amazing figure? Too thin? Can you believe that some actually think she's fat? I bet most of you won't know that she's considered to have thunder thighs in Taiwan. 

No joke here's the proof. On a Taiwanese show called '女人我最大' (W Queen) which tries to teach girls how to be 'prettier' in the utmost futile fashion, a male 'teacher' tells her that her thighs are so thick she resembles an athletics athlete.

It's so hard to believe just what standards the Asians have for 'skinny'. In the west, a skinny figure includes a large range of sizes from borderline anorexic to a healthy weight. But in Asia, chances are that if you have at a healthy weight, you are likely to be 'chubby'. For example Korea's Goo Hye Sun is considered by Taiwanese people to be '肉肉的' or 'chubby' (in a less patronising way).

she is... chubby?!

I've always been fascinated by Asian girls' perception of the perfect body way back in secondary school, because of personal interests in Asian culture, but recently I'm beginning to wonder whether people are taking it too far. People on TV demonstrating the weirdest exercises for isolated fat areas, for example punching your arm flab to diminish it or rubbing your arms towards your shoulders so that the fat would travel to your boobs. And watching all these girls on the shows and in the video comments being genuinely intrigued by these cult like beliefs and trying them out for themselves, I think to myself: do they really have no sense of judgment? There must be something out there that brainwashes these people to believe that every 'secret to skinniness', no matter how absurd, is worth investing time and money into.

Being Asian myself and thus having a rough idea of the Asian standards of skinniness in the back of my mind, I've always controlled my weight so that I'm at least not 'fat' in their standards. Right now I'm definitely at a healthy weight according of the UK BMI charts and body mass tests by my gym, but in Asia, I would be considered 'chubby'. Why do I know this? Well in uni I have been constantly pestered by some Taiwanese girlfriends that I need to lose weight around my middle and face. My western friends who don't give two shits about my weight because they know I'm healthy keep telling me to ignore them because it's damaging my self esteem, but it's not easy to brush off one year's worth of constant remarks about my weight and body shape.

What I find very interesting is that someone like me, who never thought that I was ever 'fat' or had to change my body shape, actually began to contemplate whether I should be losing a lot of weight when I was constantly reminded by these people. The girls AND the guys do it, all the time, so I figured that this must be a fundamental part of them that defines who they are. They make these snide remarks out of friendship, or so they think, because they think it's a very honest and supportive thing to point out to their friends that they need to lose weight so that they all maintain their shapes. It's pretty obvious that they live their lives with this topic at the tip of their tongues and the top of their heads. The very first thing they'd say to me after sharing pleasantries on campus would be something along the lines of: 'Oh! You look so thin today!' or 'Omg! Your face is so round!', followed by coming forth to pinch my arms or standing back to observe my legs. I find that they do this with each other as well, but never to non-Asian people (but they'll definitely make lots of silent observations and share them with me privately at a later session).

I know that they do this out of courtesy, as if they care about you because they care about your body so that's why they speak about it all the time. But sometimes I wonder what influenced them to begin the whole judgment process in the first place? I began thinking a lot more about my body because of them, but what made them start? Surely it must be the culture and media since that's how they grew up. And a little more research into Taiwanese media definitely answered that question for me.

Long story short, the Taiwanese media openly available for Taiwanese girls like myself are the epitome of brainwashing. Some of the thinking is so backwards for females, and almost all real feminine qualities are played down to almost nothing. it's all hushed up and never talked about. Yet girls willingly take the ludicrous advice to heart. Summed up, around 80% of a woman's appeal in Taiwan is made up of her looks. Men openly admit that they choose girlfriends by looking at their makeup and figures than their personalities. Over here in the West, it would still be right to say that a guy is attracted to a girl by her appearance, but he would remain by her side when he find out that the girl has a great personality. In Taiwan, a guy would be attracted to a girl because of her appearance, but would stay on being her boyfriend because she has remained 'beautiful'. Once on a show a guy said that he doesn't judge a girl by her makeup and hair. I remember smiling to myself feeling that not all hope is lost for Taiwanese men and hoped that he would say something more sensible. But then he just proceeded to say that the first thing he looks at are whether the girls' legs are lean and long, and that things would go from there. Then all the girls present just 'oh'ed and nodded in acknowledgement when I was just sitting there thinking 'are you being serious right now'. would have stood up and punched the guy's face in.

Talking about downplaying feminist qualities in China, I must mention here that some of the things men think and do on a daily basis in regards to treating their women is just unbelievable. First of all, a good looking girl would be called '正妹' or 'correct sister', as if being thinned down to the bone was the 'correct' way for a girl to be. When guys talk about bringing their girlfriends out on dates, they would say '把女朋友带出来' or '把女朋友领出来' which means 'bringing out my girlfriend' (the word '带' is used for objects or small kids) and 'leading my girlfriend out' (the word '领' is used for animals, normally dogs). Men use these phrases even in front of girls and one even said '把女朋友带出来一定要正，不能输给别人' which means 'if I take my girlfriend out, she has to be pretty ('correct'); she can't lose to anyone'.

And let me tell you something douchebag, if you bring your girlfriend out to dates just so that you can make sure she is prettier than all the girls out there, you'd be 110% better off without one.

Too often have I seen slimming/beauty products advertised with the slogan 'You'll get a man with the blink of an eye'. If you trim your hair, your face will look smaller and boys will be after you. If you consume this boob supplement, you will have '黄金比例' (golden proportions) and you will get a guy. If you wear this skirt with this top, you will show off your legs and get a man. Imagine if products like this were available in the west. Imagine if you switched on your TV and instead of idk Gok Wan or Weightwatchers you see a bunch of size 0-2 girls complaining about their weight and nodding like dumb sheep to guys saying they prefer body over brains.. it seems like a joke that will just never happen over here.

I personally think skinny is beautiful just as any other body weight. If you're not suffering from health problems due to your weight, then you are beautiful. End of story. However I have a problem saying to myself 'hey, skinny Chinese girls are beautiful too!' because a lot of the time, their skinniness look so artificial and unhealthy. Take Cindy Wang and Angela Zhang as classic examples. They just look like they've painfully starved themselves, even though I know they're already naturally thin. What I see is not a thin healthy body; I see a slightly tortured and unnatural body and it doesn't make me feel good knowing that they're role models for girls out there.

Let me give you just a tiny snippet from the huge deadpan well of info on the same old shit that is the Taiwanese beauty media. Last year, there was a new (and the most extreme) way to test out whether you need to lose weight around your middle.

You take an elastic sweatband, one you would put around your HEAD, but instead you put it around your WAIST.

That's right. And if that tight piece of elastic squeezes out some fat, it means you need to lose weight.

As absurd as it sounds, I'm not kidding you:

Now what do you guys think of this girl's figure below?

Normal and on the thin side right? Look at her waist!

Wrong! Actually if she turns around, you can see that the elastic squeezes out some 'fat' on the sides. 

I mean seriously Taiwan? Are you actually sane when you produced this program. Because let me tell you something you ought to know. If you put a piece of ELASTIC that was supposed to fit around your HEAD onto your WAIST, then it will DEFINITELY squeeze out some meat on normal people. If it doesn't you're either a skeleton, anorexic or SICK. 

And if you didn't think this was cruel enough on this poor girl as it is, one of the 'teachers' on the show (who solely teach girls how to be 'beautiful' on the outside) asks her to sit down so that the others can laugh a bit more at her 'fat'.

And as if calling that cute band of man made fat 'terrifying' was not bad enough, the MALE 'teacher' on the show bends over, and in his screeching-cat annoying voice calls out to the presenter to observe what he's about to do. He pulls the elastic band lower down her torso where there's supposed to be more body matter, and gasps at how 'petrifying' her lower waist is.

And lesson to be learnt here: if a guy says you are terrifyingly fat by putting an elastic band on the widest part of your body, making fun of you in front of your friends on live television, remove him from all aspects of your life and never venture to communicate with him ever again.

Then we have the female teacher pulling at her fat painfully and announcing to everyone that if you can pull out some fat like this, it means you have VERY high chances of getting '心血管疾病' or cardiovascular disease. Okay then.

Just to show you how VULGAR the male 'teacher' is, he calls a very thin girl on to put the band around her waist and mocks her that 'the band will not be stuck around her boobs', basically laughing at how her boobs are small.

I mean what this actual FUCK is wrong with you? What does the size of her boobs have anything to do with you?

Then Shao Ting, the ultra skinny super model is called on for the test, and even though she passed her waist test easily, she still doesn't escape nasty comments about her thighs being fat from the oh-so-knowledgeable male 'teacher'. He proceeds to put the band around her thighs and dramatically acts out a 'breath of relief' upon seeing that there is some space between the band and her leg muscle.

I mean, for goodness sake. Can you even believe it??

In Taiwan, THIS girl is considered to have FAT LEGS

What I find hilarious is that it is only after she passes her waist test does everyone present claim that she is skinny, as if they couldn't tell whether she was skinny or not beforehand just by looking at her. And tbh what right have you all got to say she's fat? Does that make you a better person? At the end of the day she's a beautiful girl with a beautiful heart, and that's all that matters. 

And from another episode, the presenter claims that these two girls are the 'fatty team', saying that if they were to drown in the sea, three grown men would be needed to carry each of them to safety because they're so heavy. I was expecting  some real obese women but to my 'surprise', these size 8 girls walked out:

Come onnn, I could carry BOTH of them by myself from sea to land and not even break a sweat.

So you get an idea of what Taiwanese girls are exposed to everyday. Asking stupid things of themselves so that they can get guys or keep their boyfriends happy. I want my readers to know that this is absolutely NOT what beauty is about. Beauty comes of being healthy, and that comes from being at a healthy weight, with a healthy state of mind. You have to set realistic goals for yourselves, and make time for some other more worthy things in your life. If a guy sets out a visual framework for what he thinks his girl should be like, I beg you just leave him, because he's 100% not ready to be in a real relationship. Why are you even with a guy if you don't feel comfortable being yourself with him most of the time? Think girls. The person you want to be is NOT what the TV, internet or magazines tell you to be. As cliche as it may seem, everyone is born unique and it is the best asset you can hold true to only yourself. So why change that?

And to the guys, please understand that not all girls are born as slim and perfect visually as you want them to be. We work hard on keeping up with our appearances already so please show some respect for our efforts. If, at the end of the day you still do not like how we look, then please leave us because chances are someone else out there will overlook these things and love us for the inner person that we are. Even if you cannot bear to look at us don't make us change according to your standards if there was nothing wrong with us to begin with. And remember that when we try to look good it's mostly for ourselves to feel good on the inside and not to show off to you. So if you want to compliment a girl, beginning with the thickness of her legs is NOT a good way to start.

I'll end with an interesting video a similar problem in S. Korea:

Money vs. Mozart

Early start today and I thought I'd update this barren land as a brain warm up session.

It's already half way through the summer and I've had both fun and regrets. The month straight after exams had just been a total nightmare with having to sort out accommodation for next year. Aside from literally removing the whole of my room from halls back home (believe me it was like an evacuation mission), I've painfully endured roughly 30 days of 8am mornings trying to get an early start on the letting agency lines. Flats around London go like hot potatoes, and unless you're an aristocrat that can pay up to £300 a week, no hope for you unless you torment yourself a bit.

So finally I've settled on one, frustration finally effaced and out of my system, and it was time to decide on a summer for myself. Unfortunately this year I had no plans on beach trips abroad with my friends/family, so I had to find a way to busy myself until a possible holiday later on. I was initially planning on China or Japan again in August, but it's already 8 days in and I don't even know where my suitcase is. Seems quite unlikely now which is a massive downer for me since I hadn't made plans earlier. In the humdrum of waiting for exam results, I went out excessively around London with no purpose in mind, often adhering my mind to exercise rather than extensive shopping. Not very fancy for a holiday, but it at least obsoleted my original plan of staying at home and watching my weight plummet. Late June/early July saw me touring some fine attractions in London in the okay weather. Strolling around South Kensington/Knightsbridge had become the norm and a late night drink catch up with uni friends was I think time well invested.

Around mid July I wanted to do something actually worth my time so I looked around. Many of my friends landed jobs at the Olympics, which I was not so lucky on since I completely neglected the hiring process last year, so I thought I'd have to look for a part time job too. I have several CVs saved onto my computer, but all proved useless because in the end I never posted them out. A stroll to the huge music place in Brick Lane brought me to the the massive advertising wall at the back of the room, with masses of adverts posted by aspiring musicians wanting to form music groups. I had a good long read, and in the end sieved out two attractive projects. One was a 'The Xx' styled 2 man band needing a vocalist, which was not very experienced, the other a string trio with an on and off pianist, looking for another violinist. I contemplated on whether to sing or to play, and ended up choosing the string quartet. I've never done this sort of thing before, calling up strangers and going for a tryout, but it turned out pretty well.

Much more info in a future post about our amazing quartet, but we've achieved a lot in the last couple of weeks. I remember the first couple of sessions where we were breaking the ice were kinda awkward, so we chatted a lot on what we hope for and really got nothing much done. Now we're serious about this Mozart piece and also writing our own piece together. My early morning today is actually for this purpose. In the past weeks I've had to write a lot of music and since I haven't touched music theory for ages now I've had to devote a lot of my time and work really hard. Experimenting is easy, but writing it down isn't simple, partly because I only have the virtual piano on my iPad to work with and one violin when the music is for 4 people. And often the stuff we each come up with will clash and we'll argue about which bits to keep and which to shed. Honestly I've stressed out quite a lot but we're slowly but surely making progress and starting to sound pretty decent.

I'm happy, but there obviously comes the problem of Asian parents who complain that I'm having too much fun and need a proper job that pays a wage. Internship wise I managed to brag myself a short one with the help of my past mentor (won't disclose details due to security issues), so my parents are finallyyyy not nagging me about that, but now they want to see me working and making a contribution to my future rent. Sagacious thinking and all, but honestly? I'd rather stick to my music this summer. I chose maths over music for uni, so I at least deserve this bit of fun over the summer when I'm supposed to be NOT doing maths. I guess for my parents doing music does not produce tangible results like money so they think I'm wasting my time, but to me every note in that Mozart piece is worth more than a measly hourly wage. Writing and playing music, remixing tracks into dawn and going on Tumblr with a cup of tea for a break is to be a good investment of time and excellent substitute to a day of shopping in Milan for example. For one you learn more things than you'd ever imagine, be it mistakes or a breakthrough riff you randomly came up with. Even though your ears maybe buzzing by the end of the day, the satisfaction of loading your own produced track onto your iPod for a first round of sound checking is just indescribable. I try to balance it with going out too. It'd be a lie to say that that gives me inspiration at all, but at least an excursion will clear my mind and destress me for my next rehearsal. With the occasional Prom at the Royal Albert Hall, spot of shopping in Covent Garden, stroll along bankside and late night drink up with uni friends is a perfect way to spend this summer in London. I think. However secretly I know that my parents hoped that I'd land myself a job ASAP and pay for a holiday abroad. That would be nice but I'm farrrrrrrrr too lazy. But I've taken their suggestion and will actually send off some of those prewritten CVs sometime soon.

I've realised the lack of photography on the blog recently, but I'm sorry I just don't take pictures when I'm working. But I'll keep that in mind. For those of you curious on which Mozart piece, here's the 1st movt:

social networks, peer pressure and pride

Okay guys, I'm back with a rant.

Before that, little update with my life. I'VE BEEN SICCCCKKKKK WITH THE DAMNED FLU. Haven't seen daylight for like 3 days now, I've been ill all week and now I'm getting these ghastly sores around my mouth just when that razor in my throat is beginning to diminish.... but anyways exam results are out and that lifted my mood by miles, so now I'm sitting on my bed looking like a lizard, but at least I'm a happy lizard :)

Actually today's rant is linked to results. Yesterday as soon as the clock hit 2pm, my Facebook inbox started to fill up with people asking me what my results were. Some of these people I haven't spoken to in years, and yet they're still so obsessive about knowing about my life lol. Even freakier, I logged onto Tumblr and 3 anons ask me about my results. I mean wtf that just freaks me out. You don't talk to me personally OR online and you expect me to tell you my results through Tumblr? Someone asked why I don't announce my results publicly if I think it's good. And my answer to you anon because I know you are reading is this: Why do you have to know? If I said I got a first, it'll make you feel bad about yourself. If I said I got a third, it induces unnecessary self pride. Most importantly, my result does not matter to you. My results, my achievements, my life. Knowing won't change anything about your life, because you cannot utilise my results for your benefit.

So right now I feel very skeptical about Facebook. Taking yesterday for example, looking at unfamiliar faces pop up on my friends list and uni acquaintances that I never speak to creeping up and liking VERY old statuses doesn't make me feel good. I think it's disgusting/freakish that you may have never have spoken to a person, but if you have their Facebook you may know up to an alarmingly large percentage of their life. Also, I think Facebook statuses in general is a prime case of peer pressure. Because let's face it. Most people only update when something good happens in their lives. When others read about things that people have done that they may never be able to do, it makes them feel awful about themselves. And it's a vicious cycle because everyone would start to only post those positive things online and create this false perfection as they lie to their friends and themselves. So really it's not really a place for friends. Because since when did friendship become as shallow as telling each other what good results they got, what expensive clothes they bought and what luxury holiday they booked themselves?
 
It is so much better if your friends find out how amazing of a person you are for themselves, and not for you to feed them with such information that effectively has nothing to do with them. Opportunities will come for you to wow people with your abilities, and if you don't reveal them idly beforehand it will be more amazing then. I don't know why I always attract all sorts of self proclaimed people telling me about all sorts of 'things' they've done, and it's often the case when the 'thing' they are announcing is super praise-worthy to them but quite a measly achievement for me, and all I felt is not envy but rather second hand embarrassment. My point is this: when you make an unnecessary self-praising status/statement about yourself, you create this false image for yourself in other people's minds that will be extra burden on your back because YOU will have to be the one who has to maintain your 'image'. And honestly, I have never in my life respected a person who has personally INFORMED me of what they have achieved WHEN I HAVE NOT ASKED THEM. It does not impress me, nor does it make me admire you. Rather, all I see is your revolting pride and it's the last thing on my wishlist that I would want to have.

There is a Chinese saying: '王婆卖瓜，自卖自夸', which is translated as 'Grandma Wang sells melons, praises herself as she sells'. It is used to describe a person with no special talents who tries to sell his skills by telling everyone himself how skillful he is, and is a mocking phrase used my people nowadays. In Asia and China especially, people take pride very seriously as a huge lack in personality. If you do not know how to draw the line between confidence and pride, do NOT provoke people by telling them how you've got soandso many A*s in your last exams out of context, ie when they did not ask you, ie they don't care, because chances are they did better than you, and it's certain that someone definitely did better than you. So this is why I keep my mouth SHUT, especially online when people I don't even know very well at uni can so easily stalk my page. In the words of an old friend J.M. (will not disclose name), 'life is just so much easier if you tell people you're stupid.' Save your breath for job interviews.

Peace people, if you hate this rant then click yourself out of this blog. And for goodness' sake, stay humble and keep your own info/curiosity to yourselves. Thanks.

Congratulations CERN for the discovery of the Higgs Boson!

I thought about whether I'd do a post on this, since 1. it's such big news and everyone probably knows about this already and 2. this post means that I am making a tribute to Physics before my own field which is Mathematics........

But it's such a life changing moment in history (probably not so significant for the field of particle physics itself but definitely for CERN at least), that I had to write a post on this blog with a celebratory note. So congratulations CERN, for proving the existence of the Higgs Boson on July 4th 2012!!!!!

Now for the science vs. religion rant. It's not the first time I facepalmed at how science is presented to people who bear no understanding of science, and describing the Higgs boson as the 'God Particle' is no exception. I understand that since the sheer existence of the particle is shrouded in abstractness and needs to be perceived from a totally theoretical viewpoint, for non-scientific people it may be a concept sensational enough for it to be relatable to God. From my atheist standpoint, I believe that God itself is a madeup being/transcendental medium that humans relate to when they cannot explain to themselves WHY things happen, or something they use to cover up things that science have not been able to explain. Yet.

One of the reasons why scientists dislike the label 'God particle' is because the boson itself is not in fact a mindblowing concept: It was already predicted decades ago alongside the rest of the Standard Model. The wow-factor is that it is the last fundamental particle to be discovered experimentally. We should therefore celebrate CERN's achievements but in fact nothing in scientific thinking has been changed. At all. I read articles and some of the comments I found are humiliatingly hilarious: people declaring that God has been proven because the 'God particle' has been proven. Where your brains at people? Rather ironically, Higgs himself is an atheist, and the discovery of the remaining particle that completes the Standard Model disapproves the existence of God. Because in some ways The Standard Model can be considered as a single mathematical equation that explains anything and everything in the observable universe (with some exceptions).

There's a short version, but I prefer the the Lagrangian form which offers more precision

Another reason why this boson might be linked to God is because to sum it up, the Higgs field is something that gives matter its mass, a bit like God's creations story. You might be thinking, why does something need to give matter mass? Isn't it an intrinsic thing that should exist naturally? In secondary school your teachers may have explained to you that if you were transported to the moon, you will still have the same mass, aka you still exist as you are on Earth even though you weigh differently due to different gravitational fields. However in particle physics this is not true, and this is where the abstractness hits in. For example why does a photon, which is essentially on a elementary level similar to an electron, NOT have mass when an electron does?  

The answer that physicists have provides is: the Higgs Field. 

Graphically, it can be interpreted as a transcendental, everywhere permeating field made of force carrier particles that extend at uniform density across the entire universe. And it's invisible too (obviously). Matter that does not have mass for example, will not interact with the field. Matter with small masses like electrons do a little, and the heaviest fundamental particle, the 'top' quark, will interact the most. There's a Youtube video somewhere that tries to visualise this phenomenon as an endless snow field, where massless matter are like skiers who skim the surface of the field at the speed of light, and the heavier matters are people who have snow boots and have to trudge their way slowly across the snow.  

The Higgs boson, is an excitation particle of the Higgs field. It is solitary particle relatively independent from the rest of the Standard Model, which implies the existence of the Higgs field, which then implies why matter has mass. When scientists get over their excitement and sit down to examine their results further, they will find out whether this boson fits in perfectly with our past predictions, therefore completing the Standard Model case closed there is no God, or whether it fits but leads to more truth about the universe, such as concepts such as Gravity that the Standard Model does not cover. 

So science stuff aside, we should take a moment to congratulate ourselves, as mere human beings, of trying for so many centuries to understand why nature and the universe works as it is, and being able to predict accurately the existence of such groundbreaking discoveries before they were even discovered. Even though life is so much easier lived by focusing on oneself and one's own feelings, so many people have devoted their lives to finding out about the unknown depths of science, paving a path for incredible technological potential in the future that lie latent in our hands. We should take a moment to thank those people, like the scientists at CERN for doing what they do because nothing we own ever would not have been possible if it were not for maths+science and all those discoveries made in the past. Being a mathematician myself, I find it incredible that such deep mysterious and complex aspect of life can be so accurately summed up in a simple mathematical formula... and to find out that the formula turns out to be correct, or at least it has very solid evidence to support it, makes me even more passionate about my field.

Most of my course friends know my obsession with number theory and the works of Riemann, and personally I hope that in my lifetime, I would be able to read with my own eyes the proof of the Riemann Hypothesis. But unlike the Higgs boson, that will definitely be something that will change our everyday lives forever.