A
month since last update. Family trip continued into Ireland & London. Settling into Wilmslow Park bunking. Daily trips to library for wireless net access. Daily masses for spiritual rejunevation and future guidance. Joseph's gone back. Am staying in Phing's room now since she's gone Ibiza & Barca-ing. Addicted to the
Harman/Kardon speakers.
The trip turned out a whole lot
better after my last update. I am not going into details but an overview can be seen in
Onei-chan's blog. More pics at my
Friendster. Overall, it's just a solid family re-bonding and some much-needed support in the cold
discriminating country. Edinburgh was beautiful with the
castle on the hill. Dublin was superbly enjoyable. We were blessed with a bright sunny day in scenic Bath. To save 10 quid, we could only view
Stonehenge from 100m away. Back in London, I was chief navigator - meaning lotsa sight-seeing until the foot-bottoms
ache. Palaces, churches, gardens, shopping, museums, galleries & duck rice. Utter brilliance. And of course
Phantom of the Opera!
Commentary from top left to bottom right: (I'm
so obviously London-biased)
- meaningful graffiti in tense Belfast
- collection of
Barry Flanagan rabbit sculptures along Dublin's main road - O'Connell Street. This
O'Connell fellow led a very interesting life.
- Bath Abbey from some gardens below. Breathtakingly beautiful.
- some large rectangular rocks lined up in an unassuming position
- Buckingham Palace commemorates the days they used to monopolise our natural resources. They better be sorry or else
God save the Queen.
- superb shot of enchanting Westminster Cathedral
- amidst the jutting-out giant shoes, rocking chairs, flies and horseshoes at Camden's Sunday market, we were most taken aback by this store-sign. Murni sigh..
- there were schoolkids EVERYWHERE in the galleries and museums. What wonderful education these kids receive, yet a quarter of them turn out to be chavs and yobs. Pity.
- Big Ben from the London Eye. Or imagine youself as V from that vendetta movie.
- final meal before Heathrow - fish 'n chips, w/ salt 'n vinegar. Wholesome.
Job hunting is taking up ALOT of time. Every damn company has a customised CV AND cover. Despite the VERY long list of companies I hope to apply, I trust in God that my narrowed-down list would do just fine. Will hopefully know by
Christmas whether if I'm going to spend my next 3 yrs here in the UK. Since staying in
WP, I realise how much M'sian food one can actually eat here - roti canai w/ dhall, tong sui, Milo, Ribena, curry mee!! It's good that me good pals make me, this
'outsider', feel welcomed and thus a happy bunker.
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In movie news, I caught Scorsese's remake of
Infernal Affairs (無間道) -
The Departed. Highly lauded by critics and fans alike, I'm pretty sure
ANYBODY that has seen
IA would take a step back before saying anything good about
Departed. I thought the first 3 quarters of the movie a powerful one, strong acting and lotsa character development and plot buildup. Suddenly, the final quarter of the movie just falls apart, a rushed, forced, one-shot revelation that only unnecessarily reminds the viewer that it IS, after all, based on
IA. Dear ol'
Scorsese remains a sort of a fascination for me, since I absolutely
hated Goodfellas and
Raging Bull, but loved
Casino to death. I give a 5/10 for
Departed,
solely because it could have been a superb story on its own with the
IA premise, instead of using the EXACT same scenes and revelations as
IA.
To even out the score, I watched
Taxi Driver (1976) the day after, and it has now become one of my top 10 best movies of all time. It's about a NY cabbie who can't stand the shit he sees everyday on his job, the city scum, and decides to do something about it. My absolute favourite movie theme -
isolation in the city, is fully explored and almost exploited by De Niro's senile and unbelievable acting. The different relationships Travis have with the people he meets represent the insignificance of life that drives him to end it all. I never knew Cybill Shepard was a stunner and a 13-yr old Jodie Foster is a born actress. I had the chance of reading Paul Schrader's screenplay (in the DVD), and I must reserve special praise to Scorsese for his sublime transition to the big screen.
On a totally unrelated sidenote, it has been observed that my computer has no happy songs. And that I don't like happy movies. But I do know I'm a perfectly happy person. Right. Some gems from Travis Bickle:
"You're only as healthy as you feel. "
"Loneliness has followed me my whole life, everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man. "
"Hey, I'm not square, you're the one that's square...You call that bein' hip? What world are you from?" (to Iris)
"She appeared like an angel. Out of this filthy mess, she is alone. They... cannot... touch... her. " (first sight of Betsy)
