One Day

PHOTO CREDIT: Giles Keyte 
(http://focusfeatures.com/one_day)

At the strong recommendation of Jeremy, I went to watch the show, definitely helped by having Anne Hathaway in the movie, along with Jim Sturgess (from Across the Universe). Good thing B decided to catch it too, or else I would have watched it alone.

Based on the novel by David Nicholls, the movie is about Emma (Anne Hathaway) and Dexter (Jim Sturgess), whom I would call soul mates. The 20-year story is told through the happenings revolving around the two of them on 15 July each year, the anniversary of their first (proper) meeting. You can read more about the movie here.

What shall I say of the movie? My first take was that it was funny, yet sadly lovely. It was a love story waiting to happen, and although it did finally happen, it tragically didn't last. What if they had started earlier? What if...what if. And as B said, with how things went, many people would have gotten hurt along the way. But there was a good amount of humour too, mainly by Emma's wittiness.

I felt that the 'blundering' Dexter somehow knew he didn't deserve her and never seemed ready for her. And he is somehow 'inarticulate' around her. You can tell there was a certain spark for her in him. And she was the only one he would turn to for anything. And she would always be there for him, making him steady. Maybe as Ian said "She made you decent and in return you made her so happy”. How strange and contradictory it is to know you love each other, yet for each other not to know it at the same time.

At the end of that first year scene, I was pretty curious as to how their 1st encounter led to them being such close friends. It was left hanging and only addressed somewhat at the end.
And when they repeated the 15 July 2006 scene, I knew that something bad was going to happen, but it didn't stop me from exclaiming an "Ah" when the tragedy happened, along with many others in the theatre. Although it wasn't super graphic, one could just imagine the gruesome accident when a truck crashed into her as she cycled out of the alley. Everything was so carefree and peaceful and then "bang". Strangely, I didn't really cry as I saw Emma lying there, but only when I watched Dexter listening to a message she left earlier, happily waiting for her to arrive at their meeting place, oblivious to what had happened. Why is it so fateful to let it happen on this day? Ah, the dramatic storyline.

Some of the other more memorable scenes include the funny & infuriating scene when they took a holiday together. The stupid things he said at the pool and the hilarious theft of his clothes. Then there was the regretful year when Dexter visits his dying mother and couldn't reach Emma after, as he desperately tries to talk to her in his pain. She paused a few times on her way out, knowing it was him calling (it was their day), but decided to go ahead for her date. She must have purposely planned her date on this day right?

And who can forget the father and son scene near the end. I think that was really beautiful; so subtle yet so powerful. I couldn't help but want to start crying again when I recounted it. Dexter had just picked a fight and ended up all beaten up. His ex-wife sends him off to his father's place. They have a rare heart-to-heart moment:

Steven: You have to learn to live as if Emma were still around.
Dexter: I don't know if I can.
Steven: What do you think I've been doing for the past 10 years?

Just a few simple words spoken by the father and I guess everything just came together at the right time as well. It was the only moment when Dexter started to connect with the father as both share a common ground now, the death of their wives. *sniff*

Ok, this post is getting too long. To end off, I'll just say that the thing I found lacking though, was the chemistry between the 2 leads. Maybe it's the nature of their relationship and characters. Not that they didn't have any, but if I could have felt just a little more of "them" it would have been better.

(PS: What kind of a stupid game is "Are You There, Moriarty?")

The National 'Live' in Singapore, 6 November 2011

I am so high now after the concert that I just needed to post this, before I forget about it. Ok, not till fever high but the natural buzz after a concert.

After the long wait since last year since the announcement they were coming for Mosaic Fest this year (which got postponed till tonight), I don't regret the $111 I paid (I felt that no point saving $20 that will only get me a seat upstairs behind) for my stall ticket in row Q, seat 15 to watch The National. The close-to-2-hours-long concert was awesome. (I think could take photos lah, since everyone was taking and no one stopped us) We were their 1st stop in Asia. :)

You know they are huge when it's a sell-out at Esplanade Theatre (all tiers), and by the queue before (and after) the concert trying to purchase their merchandise (t-shirts, selected CDs and limited edition poster). And there were obviously people who flew in to watch them. I wasn't a hardcore fan, but given 15 minutes to the show, I decided to start queuing too, but the queue hardly moved (inefficiency?) and with less than 10 minutes left, I decided against queuing and went to take my seat inside. And thankfully there didn't seem to be an autograph session (that I knew of) after the concert, or else I'll be very "dui". The moment I was in the venue, I couldn't help but feel the excitement and anticipation of the concert. Maybe it's contagious! And as I said I'm not a hardcore fan. So far, I've only bought their albums digitally. What I love about The National is the great sound, lyrics and of course, the swoon-worthy baritone deep rich voice of their frontman, Matt Berninger.

They sang many familiar songs, mainly from their 2 newer albums High Violet and Boxer (not counting The Virginia EP). My fave album is Boxer, but High Violet is slowly growing on me. I won't say I knew all the songs they sang, but they sang some of my faves like "The Apartment Story", "Bloodbuzz Ohio", "Sorrow", "Conversation 16", and of course "Fake Empire", which as I expected, closed the main segment. Other songs included (if I got them right) "Afraid of Everyone", "Squalor Victoria", "Mistaken for Strangers", "Cardinal Song", "Anyone's Ghost" and "Runaway", among others.
And how can have no encore? With the audience chanting "we want more", they came back on and opened the encore segment with the rather apt "Lucky You" (another song I liked) from their Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers album that had lyrics like "you want me, there's nothing you can do". Ha!

The climax of the whole show came when Matt, in the midst of "Terrible Love" (I think that was the song he was singing at that point) came down the stage stepping on the seat tops (balancing as he came) and striding down the stalls all the way down to the last row!

 

And wow! I was just next to him as he strode past me and came down sitting in the row behind for a brief moment before heading back to stage (the "normal" way). That was totally cool! Woah, didn't know Esplanade would actually allow something like that. The angmoh guy next to me actually congratulated me on having this opportunity, probably thinking I was a huge fan. Too bad my photo turned out blurry coz he was moving too much. :( But just to show how close I was (note: no zoom):

They closed the concert with an unplugged version of "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks".

Hong Kong Oct 2011 - Day 4 Highlights

Finally! I'm at the Australian Dairy Company, the eatery I failed to try on the past 2 visits.
Wow, it was really bustling and order taking & turnover was fast fast fast! Think I was really getting a feel for the Hong Kong busyness here.
For convenience, we ordered 2 breakfast sets (which consisted of macaroni with ham, buttered toast, fried/scrambled eggs and coffee) and added on 1 more drink, the 炖奶 (doubled boiled milk) and 炖蛋 (double-boiled egg custard). And I must say that I preferred the 炖奶 here to Yee Shun Milk Company. The taste of the milk was more distinct and had that creamy fresh milk taste. The macaroni was pretty normal, but the bread was nice and soft and eggs just nice.

All that came up to about HKD107 (SGD 17), so that's about S$6 for each of us. The breakfast set costs HKD26 each.

It was back to shopping again as we stopped over at Yue Hwa on Nathan Road. That's where I bought my fave buy on the trip, a pair of navy blue leather Clarks heels at just HKD599 (a little less than S$100). One familiar with Clarks will know that their shoes usually cost more than S$100-200 at least, and this was probably an older model which was on sale. Good thing they had my size and it looked pretty good when I stepped into it. :)

The next highlight would be our Lei Garden (利苑) trip to eat dimsum. I must say the dimsum here was one of the best we've tried so far, pretty good quality and 精致. Think I will blog about this on my food blog.

Check out their huge lobsters and fish swimming in their tanks.

And well, since I was in the vicinity, I bought my Giallo bag which I had talked about earlier.

Well, I'm one who doesn't like crowds, but one will have to get an experience of the night crowds at Fa Yuen Street (花园街）, Ladies Street (女人街), etc. in the Mongkok area, which was a stone's throw from the hotel. Fa Yuen Street is where you can find lots of sports goods/shoes. Didn't really buy anything there as maybe the crowd got to me. Ha! There were also street food at shops like these:

Yes, that's 臭豆腐 (smelly beancurd) that you see and of course, got to try.

This one wasn't super smelly and I've come across smellier ones, not that I'm a big fan of these.We also tried the curry fishballs that Hong Kong is famous for (always see on TV) and ordered a fishball mix with curry and non-curry fishballs (which was almost the same) and some radish/white carrot.

The fishballs weren't great and tasted more like lumps of starch with no fish taste at all, but the radish was nice. Well, guess it's hard to find authentic curry fishballs around here, or are they really like that? I think I can get nicer fishballs in Singapore and just cook them in curry.

With just these light snacks, we still had to get dinner and decided to hunt for this roast meat place the local agent recommended. Wah! It started to drizzle and we had to walk really far to find this place 永合隆饭店, asking around when nobody seem to have heard of this place (casted some doubt on its popularity). Maybe it was late and so the cuts left weren't great, but we felt it wasn't worthed our long walk and money, not to mention the "ambience". The only redeeming factor was that it had the best 烧肉 skin we had on the trip, and I mean skin only. The meat was too fatty. Think we spent about HKD200-300 on these 2 plates of meat and a simple soup.

We had a much better experience the next day at 强记 which was also cheaper.

Well, at least the night was slightly redeemed by a bowl of herbal jelly (龟苓膏) on the way back and we found a MTR station nearby. Don't know how I managed to finish the big bowl of jelly, but probably because I didn't eat much of the above.

Hong Kong Oct 2011 - Day 3 Highlights

Day 3!

Well, I decided to bring my parents to this well-known dimsum shop that I came last time. It was actually very near my hotel (as opposed) to my last trip here earlier this year. The place is called 添好运点心专门店 (Tin Ho Wun). Even though the shop only opens at 10am, it's best to start queuing by 9am if you want to be in the 1st batch, or else you've got to wait for at least an hour or more. Well, that's what happened as we arrived around 9.30am. We missed the 1st batch (and 2nd batch by 1 queue in line) but were issued queue numbers. By the time we finally got in, it was already 11 plus. But anyway, in between, we walked around the area and found a small shop selling some traditional snacks like 白糖糕 and the elusive 砵仔糕. It looks something like chwee kueh, but is sweet and has red bean inside normally.

My parents also bought some dried Korean persimmons which were very much cheaper in Hong Kong (HKD15/S$2-3 for almost half kg) compared to Singapore ($1 for 2 persimmons).

Anyway, when we finally went into the Tin Ho Wun, I basically ordered most of the same thing from before. A bit less though since it was just 3 of us. The char siew bao seems to have shrunk though, but I think the 马拉糕 is still nice. Think the 桂花糕 is also a personal favourite, giving us refreshing palette after the end of the meal. We waited very long for the siew mai, which wasn't super though.

I believe this place is popular because of its affordable prices and it's supposed to be famous for its char siew bao. They do have outlets elsewhere which are bigger and open earlier, but I doubt I will visit here again. There are so many other places to try! And don't want to queue again. Waste time.

Well, this day's plan was to visit 南丫岛 (Lamma Island) which I told my parents before. However, we stopped by my cousin's Vietnamese restaurant first. I say my cousin, but he's actually around the age of my father already. My grandfather is his father's brother. I've never met him before, or so I thought, but it seems that he came for my brother's wedding a couple of years ago. Anyway, the hospitable him gave us a good meal (even though we were quite full) of beef pho (large bowl), some Vietnamese fried snacks and his homemade kamquat tea. We visited his apartment too, which was located in the street behind the eatery.

View from his apartment:

After the full meal, I was quite concerned about the ferry ride to Lamma Island, but fortunately, we got there safely. I couldn't resist taking a picture of the new HK Apple Store at IFC on our way to the ferry pier. It was bustling.

My mum was pretty onz about the trail through Lamma Island as compared to my father. That's why we were there as I felt safe to bring them there since I was before. She enjoyed herself pretty much while we tried to motivate my father by allowing him to order a can of beer at the end of trail. Haha!

Anyway, this time we were a little late as we took the 4 something ferry. Due to the time of the year, the sun was setting at 5 plus, so we were walking in darkness nearer the end of the trail. The trail took about 2 hours (from the speed we walked). It can be done in less.
Our destination, the Rainbow Seafood Restaurant at around 6pm:

15 minutes later:

Looking back:

If we were even later, it would have been a longer dark road for us.
So here's our well-deserved dinner.

The restaurant has its own ferry back to the main HK island and Kowloon. Good thing it was a bigger ferry, or else I might have gotten seasick. Here's a not very clear pic on the way back.

We alighted at Tsim Tsa Tsui, and I couldn't help but take photos of the changing coloured lights of the Space Museum.

 

Well, that's day 3. Hey! No shopping!