Ode's Top 10 Positive Stories From 2008

"Good news rarely makes the headlines... except in Ode. To celebrate 2008 - and anticipate more good news to come in 2009 - here are Ode's 10 most positive stories from the year that was."

To Do in LA

So I've been in LA since September now, but still haven't seen a lot of SoCal's amazing sights. Here are a few things I'm looking forward to doing in 2009. By the way, you know when you're getting older when High School Musical, Zac Efron and the Jonas Brothers does nothin' for ya...All I can say is...Why?!?!

In no particular order:
1. San Diego where one of my closest friends in LA may move to =(
2. Getty Center & Villa
3. UCLA men's and women's basketball games (yay there's an Asian on the women's team! Go Allison Taka!)
4. Movie @ Hollywood Forever Cemetary
5. LA Lakers game
6. MOCA
7. Griffith Park hike
8. UCLA gym ^c^
9. Santa Barbara
10. Santa Catalina
11. Int'l Surf Festival
12. Venice Art Walk

Call me if you wanna join. Have a Happy New Year! ^c^

50 Things To Do Before You Die

50 Things To Do Before You Die from The Traveler's Notebook

So far, I've checked off:
13. Surf.
14. SCUBA in the Great Barrier Reef.
15. Cross a glacier on foot.
47. Skydive.
49. Shake hands with someone who has truly changed a country. (For me, it was Al Gore when he campaigned for president at my university.)

Next up: Burning Man is tempting, since I'm in LA now. However, you apparently need to buy a ticket (???). And they cost $260(?!). I always thought it was a camp-style event...I guess nothing is free nowadays.

Missing the good 'ol days of being on the road...

Lilliput Revisited

Quote of the day:

My roommate (little did he know that I had woken up) to my other roommate, "Did you see [my name]'s sandals outside her room? They're like, baby sandals!"

^c^

The 25th Hour

I wish there were more hours in the day. Then I could fit in countless movie and tv watching into my schedule. And sleep for 12 hours without feeling like I wasted precious time.

Movies that I'm watching at AFI Fest '08 (3 of them in 1 day. I wonder if Ebert would ever watch 3 movies in one sitting...):


Two Lovers (starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Isabella Rossellini, Joaquin Phoenix, Elias Koteas) "...a taut, emotionally charged psychological love story."


Sugar (Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's follow-up to their Oscar-nominated HALF NELSON) "...a gifted 19-year-old pitcher, gets called up to the American minor leagues...But life on the road and under the glare of the lights carries more challenges than the young man imagined."


The Headless Woman (co-produced by Pedro Almodovar and his brother Augustin) "ingeniously depicts an upper-class matron in crisis."


Poundcake (stars Academy Award nominee Kathleen Quinlan and Jay O. Sanders) "pushes the family reunion film into a hysterical, emotional free-fall."


The Class (Palme d'Or Winner @ Cannes Film Festival) "powerfully presents one high school as a microcosm of contemporary France, with its sometimes explosive cultural and class differences."

Ones I'm hoping to get rush tickets for:


The Good, The Bad, The Weird "...director Kim Ji-Woon’s stunning $10 million homage to Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone a kimchi Western. The sixth film by the director of the cult favorite A TALE OF TWO SISTERS (2003) and A BITTERSWEET LIFE (2005), THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE WEIRD continues Kim's South Korean box-office winning streak."


Wendy and Lucy "presents an indelible, deliberately un-sensational picture of poverty in contemporary America. Michelle Williams (BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN) gives a superb performance as Wendy who, in spite of mounting difficulties, always maintains her quiet dignity. With WENDY AND LUCY, Reichardt, with a nod to the legendary Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, delivers an austere, meditative essay on America's have nots."

Movies still on my to-see list (backed up from me being in Hong Kong - too many great movies never make it there):
- The Secret Life of Bees
- Rachel Getting Married
- Mamma Mia
- Classic film school must-see movies...which is about 1MM+ movies long

Movies on my radar:
- Dim Sum Funeral
- The Reader
- Che
- Slumdog Millionaire
- Last Chance Harvey
- Australia
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
- The Brothers Bloom
- Skin
- Lion's Den
- Perfect Life
- Twilight

As a side note, I met someone who used to work for the agent that Ari Gold's character is based on in Entourage. Virtual and real worlds are colliding...

*Source of movie photos and descriptions: AFI

Back in the US of A

I knew I was back in the States when:

I asked a flight attendant to help me put my carry-on luggage in the overhead compartment. The attendant remarked, "You are too little. Are you still growing? I hope so!"

I was on campus waiting in line to get some food. The guy behind me inquired, "I don't mean to be rude, but can I ask you a question? How tall are you?"

Yes, I am officially back from Lilliput and in the land of giants, where I can get a handicapped driver's license in Jersey because I am under 5 feet tall. Hooray!

Actually, that last part isn't true, unfortunately.

Overheard while waiting for the bus in la la land...

"Yea, I got drunk with my mom that time...when she made me drink with her and that other time when I was naked with my friends."

More on La La Land to come...

Help! Help!!!!! Anyone?

I'm walking down the street to my apartment when I hear a woman screaming. At first I think its just some friends in the middle of an escalating argument. Her screams get progressively louder and more frantic. 

When I turn around, I see a man sprinting towards me with a bag clutched against his chest. Behind him is a woman screaming, "My passport is in there! My passport!!" Accompanying the woman is a male friend who continues to chase the robber when he turns a corner. I instinctively reach into my bag to call the police but realize that I left it at home. I ask two onlookers to call the police. I get empty stares in response. Thinking that they don't understand Mandarin Chinese, I then approach another bystander and ask him to call the police. He takes out his earpiece when I say, "Excuse me?" but then puts it back in and keeps walking down the street after he hears my request. I then ask my doorman to call the police. He asks me, "Yea, but where is the robber?" Hello?! He's running down some alley - I don't know where he is! Apparently, if you don't see the criminal, there is no point in calling the police. How is this mentality helpful?

Is it that hard to help a fellow human being when he or she is in need? Apparently, yes. There were about 15 bystanders who were staring at the robber and its two victims. No one bothered to lift a finger to call the cops. 

Trucker Hats

One of my friends, John, was visiting Hong Kong back in April when he asked me about the trucker hat phenomenon. Young teeny boppers in Hong Kong indeed are sporting bulky trucker hats - not on their heads - but on top of their heads. I thought it was an amusing trend and started to take photos of kids with these trucker hats. They look quite funny with these gigundo hats protruding out from the top of their heads. I think its a hip hop trend...the more I see it, the more I like it. I guess thats how mainstream mags brainwash you with trends and get you to make wild purchases!

Top 15 Reasons Why I Will Miss Hong Kong

 

In no particular order...

1. Fantastic food

2. Clothes and shoes that fit perfectly for petite Asians

3. First-world city with third-world prices for certain services (spas, massages, laundry) and food; you don't have to be a millionaire to be pampered 

4. People from all over the world live in Hong Kong

5. Beaches and numerous hiking trails are just a bus ride away

6. Shopping, shopping and more shopping

7. The subway system - the cars are meticulously clean and run quietly; you get cellphone service inside the cars; the subway station is air conditioned; there are glass doors that open and close when the trains come to prevent accidents (like London's Jubilee line) 

8. The airport - runs efficiently; there is a cheap and fast train to get into Hong Kong's CBD; you can check in your bags in Central before boarding the train to get to the airport

9. Built-in closets and bedframes in the apartments

10. Taxi fares are cheap because the city is so small

11. You can live in a Soho / Village-esque area in Hong Kong and pay Battery Park / Brooklyn-

esque rent

12. Hong Kong's location is great for traveling around the Asia-Pacific area; Bali and a host of other cities are just a few hours away which is great for weekend trips

13. Nightlife is very accessible and in a concentrated area, making bar- and club-hopping extremely easy

14. Salespeople in stores are generally very polite compared to London or New York

15. Last but not least, my newfound girl friends who have made Hong Kong fun, exciting, memorable and fabulous ^c^ 

Coinslots here, there, everywhere

Nope, not in Vegas. I mean that one... Yep, the one down there. You know, the kind that peeks out when someone sits down and oops! Butt crack alert.  

On a recent trip to Australia, I must say, I've seen my fair share of coinslots. While sailing through the Whitsunday Islands, I must have seen about 100. Ok, I exaggerate. 

The sailboat crew consisted of three people - the skipper and two helpers. They had a full boat with 26 rowdy passengers on board. Their duties ranged from cleaning the deck to cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner. As you can imagine, it isn't easy taking care of so many people in a cramped space. 

Board shorts are commonplace in Oz, and are almost an unwritten uniform on the east coast. The two helpers, who I'll call Jack and Jill, were both wearing board shorts. Whenever Jill moved around to hoist the sail or do whatever she was doing...bam! Coinslot alert! When she was operating the motorboat to haul us back from Whitsunday Island, it was literally in your face. Hard to miss. Jack's boardies stayed on the most of the time, except for one or two slips from what I could see.

I mentioned the coinslot sightings to a fellow traveler who had lived in Australia for some time and she didn't think anything of it. She pointed out that most Aussies were pretty laid back so they can't be bothered with coinslots, or covering them up for that matter. It is precisely this type of attitude that I fell in love with while in the land down under. After living in New York and Hong Kong where people are considerably more uptight, Oz was like a breath of fresh air. Well, maybe not the coinslots.  

Its 10pm. Do you know where your children are?

After skydiving in Queenstown, NZ, which was amazing and I will write more on that later, I sent my parents an email with my photos. I expected a long and winding email from my dad, who is probably the most risk-averse person that I know. Here is what my parents wrote back:

Erin:

The pics looks cool. :)

Have a nice and safe trip.

Mom and Dad

Cute Hong Kong Sayings

Having lived about a year in Hong Kong, I still cannot understand Cantonese, except for the occasional word/phrase that sounds almost exactly like Mandarin, i.e. dun ee dun (wait a minute). (I won't be using proper pinyin spelling in this entry.) One of my friends reassured me that one day everything will just make sense. I hope that day comes soon. I DO know how to say the following in Canto: my address, hi, bye, good morning, have you eaten yet?, yes, no, over there, here, please, thank you (used when someone provides a service to you), thank you (used for all other situations), etc.

Because of its unique history, Cantonese in Hong Kong has adopted many English words. Even written Chinese in Hong Kong is different, because some words use characters for phonetic translation. My Chinese teacher, originally from Beijing, said that she couldn't understand the newspapers in Hong Kong because some of the characters didn't make sense. It took her awhile to be able to comprehend the mix of traditional Chinese + phonetic characters that sounded out English pronunciations. 

Some of my fave Cantonenglish words include:

BB (baby - my absolute fave)
Dik-sieee (taxi)

Haa-Lo (hello)

Baah-see (bus)

Buh-bai (bye - I still can't get used to grown men saying this since in the US its usually kids who say bye bye ^c^)

Aircon (air conditioning)

-La (phrase added to the end of sentences to add emphasis - I just love it!)