"How Am I Going To Explain That?"

This was the first things that came out of my mouth when I left the cinema. The film in question was 'From Vegas To Macau' (also apparently knoqn as 'The Man From Macau')

I still, several months later, don't really know how to explain this film! It was the most bizarre, hilarious and at times completely confusing but all in the most fabulous of ways. The plot line was deeply, deeply questionable. It started as one thing, then ended as another, no reasoning in between. At times it was gritty and dramatic and at others it was a slapstick comedy. To be honest, I still don't know how to explain what I saw... but I liked it. 

I am having a huge love affair with Asian cinema at the moment, and it's very very different to much of the Cinema in the the West. It's sometimes darker and gritter and often far more "over-acted" than I'm used to, but just go with it! It's fun! Vegas To Macau had to be seen, I live here after all and it's always fun seeing places you've been on the big screen, and I was interested to see Chow Yun Fat in something that wasn't Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. (I'm still in denial that Pirates Of The Caribbean 3 happened - my friend swears I've seen it but I don't remember a thing. If I did see it, I appear to have erased it from my memory!!) He is an excellent actor for sure.

If you're in the mood for some crazy, off the wall Chinese cinema, then do watch this. It's just SO. MUCH. FUN. Though I can't guarantee that you'll be able to explain it afterwards...

When Imagination Meets Reality

So it's not like I've been doing nothing for the best part of five months (five months of no blogging...oh the shame) I have been doing so much stuff, some of which is still on-going, finger majorly crossed, but the high point was the visitor I had over Chinese New Year! The best-friend-from-home-not-seen-in-two-plus-years.

We are just too cool!

Whilst the major downside of living abroad is that you can't take your friends and family with you, these are the very same people who give you the greatest joy when they visit you and you can proudly show them around the place you call home. The Best Friend and I have had our ups and downs, but even now she is back in the old U of K, it feels as if she's just the same old bus ride away (and I do still miss a good old Glasgow - Edinburgh bus journey). Some things really do never change! 

Her introduction to Asia was a crazy one. It just so happened that SHINee had their concert tour in Hong Kong the same day she arrived. I posed the option of going to a concert to her, without telling her who we'd be going to see, and with her (half) consent, I got us tickets: 

It was brilliant. We didn't know what was going on half the time, she was jet-lagged and we had a double language barrier (Korean and Cantonese and yet we still managed to answer half the questions - we got skillz...), but blimey are these boys good live and my K-Pop love was nicely indulged! This is an excellent representation of how we felt: 

Credit to the genius who made this!

What followed was two weeks of awesomeness, including a mosy to the Big Buddah, playing Guidebook or Ritz in Ozone (highest bar in Asia, dontcha know!) and enjoying the sun of Chinese New Year (which descended into a bitterly cold February but that's by-the-by). One of the most amazing things we did was go to Tai O. I'd been meaning to go for Yonks and just not done it however I'm so glad I waited to go with Le Pal. No one else could suitably understand just how inspirational of a place it was. For us, it was perhaps one of the closest realities we'll get to out imaginings of our brain child. We have spent hours on end picking apart what certain places look like, and wandering around Tai O, land and water, suddenly one of those places was physically in front of me.

 Picture SPAAAAAAAAAM! I'm now off to go and battle with a plot and try and find a way of fitting everything I want/need into the epic. Somehow I will find a way of getting it all in there... somehow!