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Wednesday, June 11, 2003

 
This blog is taking a break, as we are traveling to Sydney tomorrow. If all goes well in terms of getting online, you should be able to follow our trip on nackentravel.blogspot.com.

Why Sydney? Well, it is relatively close, so airfare is pretty reasonable. While in Fiji it is a good place to do some shopping, satisfy those Sushi cravings and explore a new and exciting place (I have been there before, for Ritsu it will be the first time.) We are also planning on celebrating our first wedding anniversary there in style.

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Over the last 2 days I managed to waste 103 minutes of my life watching The Touch, Michelle Yeoh's movie after Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. While ambitious in many ways, it does not really succeed in any category:

  • It tries hard to cater to both, western and asian audiences and fails miserably: The bad guy is your stereotypical blonde caucasian with some semi british accent, surrounded by dumb henchmen (mixed crowd) ... his motivations (going after some artifact) are never explained, though "immortality" is mentioned once
  • the "love story" (to please the chick audience) is laughable and has no credibility. It is also an utter waste of time.
  • the action is wanna-be up to date and totally destroyed in the final fight scene, which is, while setup quite nicely with lots of candles and fire, overshadowed by campy CGI effects, a set that looks just like a big soundstage, a totally wasted "sacrifice" (they let a cute female character we never even started to feel anything for die, last minute, no real reason, just so the audience can say "Awwwwwwww") and again, we just keep wondering WHY the characters are doing what they are doing ...
  • Hmm. Nice landscape shots, always a good idea ... especially when you have something as beautiful as the chinese desert .. looks a bit like a cheap version on Monument Valley :) Those shots are again totally wasted, don't do anything for story or setup .. and scream "it could have been better!
  • Why there is this family of acrobats and what is their point is never really used / explained. Or why they take in that western kid, who just stole stuff. (Why is this kid there anyway?)
  • The very set-up comedic moments make you squirm. Bad bad writing!

Well .. i could go on .. but I already spent enough time on that chunk of doodoo ... just wanted to safe everybody else some time ...

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3 AM and it is 22C / 71F ... I never thought I would consider that "cold" ... but as I sit here in my winter PJ's and type, I am thinking about a fireplace, hot cocoa and cookies (well .. late night munchies I guess :)

Last night we thought about giving a new/old restaurant another chance: What once was called "Cardos" has been renamed to "Metal Ox" ... not sure if that refers to the amount of lead in the steaks or indicates that some 3 year old was active part of the name giving process.


Anyways, we haven't been there since last year November and I think main reason was that we just liked the steak at Aberdeen Grill better.

Well, but sure that ad in the papers about "Metal Ox, formally known as Cardos -> Oyster special / smoked salmon..." got our attention, though Ritsu is allergic to oysters.

The place has indeed a big new sign outside saying "Metal Ox" and it looked actually quite crowded. But our first surprise was that the menu still said "Cardos" and has not changed a bit. Once we confused the waitress with many questions, she sent someone else to read us the 3 specials (Oysters, Salmon and Sashimi) ... I ordered a small seafood platter (which is only and appetizer) and Ritsu went for the Filet of Fish. It was admittedly crowded, but our 2 easy dishes took just way too long. Mine turned out to be more like a salad, with 2 shrimps, 2 pieces of fish and 2 strips of chewy squid. Actually quite nice (well, the squid not really). Ritsu liked her fish too. That with 2 beer and 2 people had a nice dinner for 33F$ (17US$) .. no complaints there ... But in the end I think it will either take some more drastic change or at least another half year before we return again.

After paying we also had to wait quite some time to get our change ...

Weather wise it was gloomy all day and rainy/wet. The cleaning lady was a no-show, but surprisingly the gardener showed up .. and even better, the Telecom people! Un-announced and disrupting the phone service without warning. But it seems they were able to fix everything.



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Monday, June 09, 2003

 
Weekend was nice and quite ... cat did not bring any more mice ..

Below are two shot taken from the Suva "beach" over to the Lami side where one can see 2 landmark formations: the first is known as Joske's thumb ... the second is Mt. Korobaba .. which we scaled back in January (and I felt i'd be not making it)





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