Wicked: Part I

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Born green out of her mother’s infidelity, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) grows up an outcast but overprotective of her paraplegic sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode). Accompanying her sister to her first day of university at Shiz, Elphaba unexpectedly unleashes a telekinetic blast out of anger and is instantly noticed by headmistress and sorceress Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), who convinces her to enroll as well so she can harness her powers via private seminars with her. She is roomed with society gal Galinda (Ariana Grande-Butera) who is an aspiring sorceress herself, but not as gifted. The two roommates begin an unlikely friendship tested by the arrival of a troublemaker prince named Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) and in the midst of suppression of Animal rights in all of Oz. As Elphaba’s powers grow, she gets an official invitation to meet the Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum) at his castle in the Emerald City. However, Elphaba is in for a rude awakening as her lifetime idol doesn’t turn out to be who she expects him to be.

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

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A lot has happened before Dorothy dropped in. A child born green and with sharp teeth grows into adolescence and attends the prestigious Shiz University where she is roomed with Galinda, a blonde social climber who has lofty ambitions. Elphaba couldn’t care less about social standing and preoccupies herself mostly with concerns that have socio-political relevance. Take for example the recent edict from the wizard stripping Animals of their rights to function in society, a cause that Goat professor Doctor Dillamond is passionate about. The untimely death of Galinda’s chaperone means the arrival of Elphie’s nanny as replacement, and along comes Elphaba’s armless sister Nessarose. New student Fiyero, an Arjiki prince, also arrives, and a friendship is formed among the group. However, Elphaba will soon learn that she will be better off as an agent of change outside the university, and so she drops out and takes her chances as an antigovernmental rebel.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

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Country lass Dorothy Gale lives a rather simple life in Kansas with her pup Toto. She has been taken in by her Uncle Henry and Auntie Em and treated as their own. One thing of importance highlighted in the household is preparedness for tornadoes. The house is equipped with a basement bunker for such an event. When the dreaded tornado finally comes about, Dorothy does not make it underground in time and is blown away along with the house. Later on she is surprised to find out that the house has landed safely in an unknown land, specifically on a Munchkin called the Wicked Witch of the East who is killed instantly by the crash. Confused as to where she is and how to go back to Kansas, she is blessed by the Good Witch of the North and accompanied by a tin man, a scarecrow, and a cowardly lion on the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City where they believe the Wonderful Wizard of Oz could grant their wishes.

Emilia Pérez

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Born in the Dominican Republic and moving to Mexico for university studies where she eventually ends up as a lawyer, Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saldaña) laments how her latest case turns out, being ruled as a suicide despite clearly being a
murder after the key witness refuses to testify. On her way out of the courtroom she receives a lucrative offer via an anonymous phone call asking her to wait in front of a newsstand, which she obediently does before being kidnapped by two armed men. In an armored van she comes face to face with Juan “Manitas” del Monte (Karla Sofía Gascón), a notorious drug lord who promises her 2 million if she helps him fake his death so he can fully transition into a woman and live a peaceful life, flashing her his breasts as a sign that she already began hormone therapy. Doing what she is told, Rita gets his wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and his two sons to Lausanne as a safe haven before carrying out the rest of the plan. Four years later, Rita meets enigmatic philanthropist Emilia Pérez (Karla Sofía Gascón) at a party in London, realizing that her past has finally come back to haunt her.

Hello, Love, Again

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Joy (Kathryn Bernardo) follows through with her plan to move to Canada where she takes on several odd jobs to survive. Maintaining a long distance relationship with Ethan (Alden Richards) on the other side of the world is difficult, so he decides to apply for a Canadian visa and try his luck there with her by his side. Things go smoothly in the beginning until the COVID pandemic strikes. Not ready for menial jobs he finds to be beneath him, Ethan is distraught, and his anguish takes a turn for the worse when his father gets infected and passes away before he can make it back home to Hong Kong. The two call it quits and go their separate ways. Fast forward four years later, Ethan is back in Calgary. Having lost everything including his bar, he gives Canada another go not particularly to win Joy back but rather to fix his own life.

We Live in Time

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Tobias Durand (Andrew Garfield) works as a representative for breakfast cereal Weetabix and is about to sign his divorce papers when his pen runs out of ink mid-signing. He heads to a convenience store in his bathrobe to purchase four pens and a box of cookies, dropping one on the way back, leaning over to pick it up, and getting run over by a car in the process. Former figure skater turned chef Almut Brühl (Florence Pugh) takes him to the hospital and apologizes for the mishap, offering a free dinner at the restaurant where she works, for him and his wife. After disclosing the truth about his divorce, the two hit it off, end up in a relationship, and eventually welcome a daughter. Everything seems happy until she is diagnosed with stage three ovarian cancer and given several options for treatment, none of which, unfortunately, guaranteeing a positive outcome.

Venom: The Last Dance

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Knull (Andy Serkis) the creator of symbiotes has been imprisoned in his own lair by the very creatures he spawned. Hell bent on revenge, he vows to slice worlds after killing his children, but first he has to break free. In order to escape, he needs the power of a codex which will serve as the key out of his prison. A codex is formed when a symbiote’s host dies and it fully bonds with him or her for revival. To date, only one symbiote/host tandem has achieved such a feat. Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is still on the run as a fugitive after his bloodbath against Carnage. Seeking refuge in Mexico, he gets the idea of sneaking into New York, where he knows a judge that he could blackmail so he can have his life back. As Venom takes over from time to time, Knull’s henchmen find it easier to locate him.

Anora

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Third generation immigrant Anora Mikheeva (Mikey Madison) resides in Brighton Bridge and relies on sex work to get by. She is popular at the club where she works, with a steady stream of clients that guarantee a stable income. Being the only girl who can speak Russian, she is assigned one night to Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), the spoiled brat son of a Russian oligarch who is in America to study, even though he spends most of his time and daddy’s money on drugs and sex. The two form a professional relationship where she is invited to his mansion to be a fixture at his parties, reserving late nights for a few rounds of sex. And then he proposes something that strikes her as life-changing: Marriage. Drunk and high, the couple flies to Vegas with friends and gets married there. And they lived happily ever after… NOT. When the parents find out, they fly in from Russia for damage control, and this is where the fun begins.

Romeo + Juliet (Broadway)

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Romeo (Kit Connor) is a Montague and Juliet (Rachel Zegler) is a Capulet. Those two families just do not mix, or else there will be conflict. And conflict there was, indeed. From the moment the two lovebirds set eyes on one another, it was love they felt, and they became inseparable since then, but in secret. Nobody could know about their budding relationship or else there will be trouble, but there is no hiding a secret for long. Juliet’s Nurse (Tommy Dorfman) can’t be supportive knowing the consequences. When the secret is revealed and people start getting wind of the situation, tensions run high leading to some deaths, like that of Mercutio (Gabby Beans) who is Romeo’s friend or Tybalt (Tommy Dorfman), Juliet’s cousin. In a world that is persistent in tearing them apart, will romance be enough of a deterrent for a happy relationship between star-crossed lovers of two feuding clans?

Cabaret (Broadway)

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The Emcee (Adam Lambert) of the Kit Kat Club welcomes us to Weimar era Berlin, where merrymaking and hedonism know no bounds. He introduces us to the girls and boys of the club but saves the best for last. Sally Bowles (Gabi Campo) is your stereotypical 20’s flapper, a cultural refugee from the British Isles who moves to Germany for a life of pleasure and penury. Soon to join the ranks is penniless American writer Clifford Bradshaw (Calvin Leon Smith) with whom she forms a platonic bond. Eventually they all end up under the roof of Fraulein Schneider (Bebe Neuwirth), a German spinster who relies on rent money for subsistence. Clifford makes ends meet by offering English lessons as well as doing errands for his friend Ernst (Henry Gottfried), a political upstart quickly rising within the ranks of the emerging Nazi party. As Hitler ascends into power, dynamics change and loyalties shift. Will it be a quickly passing tide or are they soon going to drown in a sea of prejudice?

Sunset Boulevard (Broadway)

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A dead man emerges from a body bag and takes us back to 1949. Armed with lofty Hollywood ambitions, Joe Gillis (Tom Francis) finds out the hard way that the entertainment industry is not for the faint of heart. Even so, he makes a pact with fellow writer Betty Schaefer (Sydney Jones) to write a screenplay together. Living in penury, he evades the agents trying to repossess his car due to late payments by driving into the garage of a dilapidated mansion along Sunset Boulevard which turns out to be the residence of washed-out has-been Norma Desmond (Nicole Scherzinger). The aging film star lives in solitude and is served unconditionally by her protective butler Max Von Meyerling (David Thaxton) whose unwavering support includes writing fake fan mail to her to make her feel that she is still relevant. When she finds out that Joe is a writer, her eyes light up and she takes him under her wing, asking him to edit a script she wrote for her comeback film.

Mcneal (Broadway)

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Jacob McNeal (Robert Downey Jr.) has had an enviable career publishing several novels and even winning a Pulitzer. The only award missing now is a Nobel prize for Literature. Arguing with his family doctor Sahra (Ruthie Ann Miles) about his alcohol intake and how this can lead to incurable stage 4 liver failure in three months if not controlled, he goes on a tirade about life, death, and being a writer when his phone suddenly rings with a call from a Swedish number. Confirming his win, he is confronted by his guilt, or lack thereof, of passing off his wife’s unpublished manuscript as his own as well as using the AI he has openly lashed out against to write his latest work. Add some drama from his estranged son Harlan (Rafi Gavron) as well as pressures from his agent Stephie (Andrea Martin), McNeal is on the brink of a nervous breakdown, but AI just won’t write a plausible death, a human concept it does not fully understand.

The Notebook (Broadway)

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Old man Noah (Dorian Harewood) checks into a care center facility but instead of undergoing physical therapy for his knees, he spends most of his time reading the contents of a notebook to Allie (Maryann Plunkett), an elderly woman with Alzheimer's who struggles to remember anything about her past. What the notebook contains is a love story between two teenagers Noah (Benji Santiago) and Allie (Anna Zavelson) who fall in love at first sight one summer but are kept apart by her parents who have a more viable prospect of marriage for her, not to mention plans for her future that does not involve a lumberjack’s son. Flash forward a decade later, Allie (Aisha Jackson) is engaged to be married to a wealthy lawyer while Noah (Ryan Vasquez) ends up in the newspaper in a feature of a house he built from the ground up, the house that he promised he would build for her.

Titanique (Broadway)

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A group of visitors arrive at the Titanic Museum and are welcomed by a guide who explains each item that they come across from the sunken ship. Their tour is suddenly interrupted by the arrival of a hooded figure who, upon removing her hood of trash bags, is revealed to be none other than Céline Dion (Dee Roscioli). Everybody is quick to recognize the My Heart Will Go On singer but nobody is ready for her claims that she was actually onboard the Titanic in 1776 when it sank to the bottom of the Atlantic. Her recollection, belted out through her string of Billboard Hits, introduces us to the love story of Jack Dawson (Michael Williams) and Rose Dewitt Bukater (Tess Marshall), whose mother Ruth (Sara Gallo) is hell bent on marrying her off to wealthy first class passenger Cal (Terrence Williams Jr.). As drama unfolds, an Iceberg (Marcus Antonio) hops onboard to test the unsinkable ship.

Yellow Face (Broadway)

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Asian-American playwright David Henry Hwang (Daniel Dae Kim) causes a ruckus when he openly criticizes the casting of Jonathan Pryce, a white actor of Welsh descent, for the role of the Engineer in Miss Saigon which is set to transfer to New York after a successful run at London’s West End. The media attention opens up an avenue for discussion regarding the place of Asian-Americans on Broadway. As the controversy dies down, DHH prepares to cast an actor for his theater comeback, years after winning the Tony for his magnum opus M. Butterfly. He eventually selects Marcus (Ryan Eggold) after a successful audition. There is one problem, though: Marcus is not really Asian. He only claimed to be part Asian and banked on his ambiguous looks to be cast in the role. As DHH deals with the backlash and accusations of hypocrisy, his Father (Francis Jue) becomes the target of an ongoing espionage investigation, accused of furthering mainland Chinese interests in the US political landscape through his bank.

Little Shop of Horrors (Broadway)

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1960’s. A trio of sea urchins takes us to a flower shop in an urban skid row where an orphan by the name of Seymour (Nicholas Christopher) has been making a living. Abandoned by his parents when he was young, he was taken in by the owner of the flower shop, Mr. Mushnik (Stephen DeRosa). Mr. Mushnik is strict and rather distant, not just to Seymour but also to his co-worker Audrey (Sherie Rene Scott) on whom he harbors a crush. Despite being friendly toward one another, Seymour and Audrey maintain a platonic relationship because she is currently seeing psychotic dentist Orin (Johnny Newcomb) who regularly subjects her to emotional and physical abuse. Just as Mr. Mushnik announces that he will be closing shop soon due to poor sales, meaning he is letting them go, Seymour introduces them to a strange plant hybrid he found not so long ago, which he discovers later on to be thirsty for human blood and flesh.

The Great Gatsby (Broadway)

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Young World War I veteran Nick Carraway (Noah J. Ricketts) scores a relatively cheap cabin in New York as he ventures into a new trade, that of being a bond salesman. His new residence is located right next to a huge mansion overlooking the bay owned by a mysterious man everyone calls Gatsby (Jeremy Jordan) who regularly hosts parties at his estate. The two are acquainted and Gatsby immediately asks his new neighbor a favor, that of orchestrating a chance meeting between him and his cousin Daisy (Eva Noblezada), a socialite married to former football star Tom Buchanan (John Zdrojeski). The husband and wife share a daughter but he is unfaithful, engaged in an extra marital affair with Myrtle (Ryah Nixon), who happens to be the wife of George Wilson (Paul Whitty), a poor gas station owner who doubles as a middle man for Gatsby’s illicit businesses. Nick also gets to meet Jordan Baker (Samantha Pauly), Daisy’s golfer friend who takes pride in being free from the pressures of marriage.

The Roommate (Broadway)

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Sharon (Mia Farrow) has been living a rather quiet life in her big house in Iowa. Divorced from her husband and with her son residing somewhere far away, her life tends to revolve around the daily mundane routine she keeps as a person living solo. Enter Robyn (Patti Lupone), the new roommate who responds to her call for a room to lease. Unlike Sharon, Robyn is mysterious and edgy, hailing from The Bronx and moving to Iowa City for reasons that she does not seem to want to share with her new landlord. Soon, Robyn encourages Sharon to get out of her shell, convincing her to go out and date guys, smoke marijuana she herself has cultivated, etc. A friendship develops, even though they don’t want to admit it. When Robyn finally lets Sharon in on her dirty little secret, she thinks she would be shunned and chased out of the house. Surprisingly, her landlord appears too eager to try it out herself.

Sybil

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Sybil Isabel Dorsett has not been herself for as long as she could remember, experiencing blackouts in which she could not recall anything until she “comes to” or regains consciousness. She is also perplexed by the social network she has developed without her knowledge, meeting people who say they know her and claim to be her friend even though she hadn’t really met them before. Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, a psychoanalyst, comes to her aid and discovers something psychologically perplexing as she sits with her patient during sessions. Sybil does not always come to these sessions as herself, or sometimes she does, before she suddenly has a momentarily blank expression and then claims to be Vicky, Peggy Ann, Peggy Lou, etc. The psychiatrist observes the differences in nuances, behaviors, and attitudes of her patient’s various selves, counting up to sixteen of them all living in one body through the extent of their decades-long battle for integration.

[PRACHUAP KHIRI KHAN] Budget and Itinerary

SATURDAY: October 19, 2024

Ora Hostel Bangkok (1 Night) - 355.00

THB355.00

[SAM ROI YOT] Phraya Nakhon Cave

The first time I came across the name Hua Hin was when I booked a Bell Travel Services bus from Suvarnabhumi to Pattaya. I noticed that they also had a bus headed to the other side of the Gulf of Thailand. If you look at a map of the country, you will notice that there is some sort of a huge cove south of Bangkok. Pattaya and Hua Hin share that opening into the sea with the capital, to the east and to the west respectively. And so I decided then that a future trip to the kingdom will include Hua Hin. We are all about convenient transport links, you know.

[CHIANG MAI] Budget and Itinerary

TUESDAY: October 15, 2024

Cebu Pacific (Manila - Don Mueang) - 1,050.00

Space Station Hostel (1 Night) - 450.00

THB1,500.00

The Handmaid's Tale

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In what used to be the United States of America rises a totalitarian state named Gilead, where women garbed in red known as Handmaids are assigned in rotation as birth vessels to men of power known as Commanders. Their role is simple: to serve the biological purpose of reproduction, after an unmentioned phenomenon leaves much of the country with fatal levels of infertility. One such Handmaid only referred to as Offred, based on a genitive naming system after the names of their Commanders who serve as their owners, tells the story of her everyday life and routine, how she discovers an underground resistance group known as Mayday, and how both her Commander and his Wife make her complicit in their various secret schemes that neither must be aware of. In a new world order where the only purpose of a fertile woman is to give birth, Offred tries to reconcile her current situation with fleeting memories of the past, her partner and daughter, and hopes that she might be reunited with them again one day.

Slaughterhouse-Five

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All this happened, more or less. Billy Pilgrim is captured as a prisoner of war and is sent to Dresden with fellow American POWs to live in Schlachthof-fünf (Slaughterhouse-Five), which as the name suggests used to be a storehouse for meat. There they serve as contracted laborers and survive the Allied bombing of Dresden that kills tens of thousands and reduces the city into rubble. Pilgrim and company are saved by the underground bunker in their make-shift residence but only a few of them make it back to America alive. He rebuilds his life and finds wealth in optometry in his hometown of Ilium, marrying the daughter of the owner of the school he attends and having two children with her. And then he is abducted by extraterrestrials and taken to the planet Tralfamadore where he is housed in a zoo for observation and given another human being as his mate, a porn star named Montana Wildhack with whom he sires another child. Later on in life he claims to be capable of time travel, jumping to different moments of his life at will. So it goes.

Joker: Folie à Deux

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Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) goes on trial for the multiple murders he has committed prior to ending up in prison. Arkham State Hospital guard Jackie Sullivan (Brendan Gleeson) becomes his watcher and vouches for his good track record inside, taking him to Ward B from time to time where they witness a group session that utilizes music as therapy. There Arthur locks eyes with Harleen Quinzel (Lady Gaga), a patient who instantly develops an obsession with him and goes on to encourage him to unleash the Joker. His legal team led by Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener) is preparing an insanity plea, looking at the possibility of using a split personality diagnosis as his get-out-of-jail-free card. However, upstart prosecutor Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey) is hell bent on pursuing a guilty conviction for Fleck, revealing in a TV interview that he wants nothing less than the death penalty for him. As the trial begins, a group of Joker sympathizers come up with a drastic plan to rescue their idol.

The Time Machine

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An English gentleman referred to only by the term Time Traveler is entertaining his weekly guests, a group of men from different fields interested in a machine he has devised which he claims to have the capability to travel through time. A week later, the Time Traveler is late to his weekly party and uses time travel as an excuse, narrating how he has just returned from traveling forward hundreds of thousands of years in time to the year 802,701 where the world is no longer how it is at present. While the planet still exists and remains habitable, mankind has evolved into two distinct species: the pretty but seemingly naïve Eloi who inhabit the world above; and the primitive and brutal Morlocks who fear the light and thus have evolved to live underground. He is also introduced to a young Eloi named Weena, whom he takes along with him in his quest to get back his time machine which the Morlocks have hidden in The Sphinx.

Disclaimer

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Documentary filmmaker Catherine Ravenscroft has enjoyed a stellar career as a journalist despite having a long break to raise her son. Receiving one award after another, the last thing she expects to see on her desk is a novel she has no memory of buying and discovering upon reading it that it is all about her and a secret she has been harboring from that time two decades ago when the family went on vacation at a beach in Spain. Later on she finds out that she is not the sole recipient of the book. Her son Nicholas and, eventually, her supportive husband Robert also receive their respective copies. Soon the family is subjected to stalking by an old man named Stephen Brigstocke, who has an axe to grind with Catherine, blaming her for the doomed fate of his son Jonathan who met his death in an accident and figured in her past.

The Committed

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The Major is back as a second-time refugee, but in his fatherland this time around. After his 2-year reeducation with Bon in the hands of Vietnamese communists in their homeland, the duo make it out of the country alive and arrive by sea in their new host country, France, where the oft-mentioned Aunt in The Sympathizer is finally introduced and serves as their temporary host in their new home. There they adjust to a new life and mingle with thugs in Paris’ underbelly for survival. While Bon remains a hired gun, the Major segues to drug dealing where he has no choice but to get entangled in a complicated web of turf wars and the like. That is, however, only one of his many problems as figures from his past in the form of Man and Lana come over for a visit, with news that might just turn his life upside down.

[KANTO] Budget and Itinerary (2)

FRIDAY: September 13, 2024

Air Asia (Manila - Narita) - 8,245.00

Keisei/Shinjuku (T2/3 - Yawata - Shinjuku) - 1,210.00

7 Eleven (Groceries) - 120.00

JPY9,575.00

[KAWAGOE] Little Edo

I wouldn’t have visited Saitama if not for this new visit-all-of-Japan’s prefecture challenge. Whenever I hear the name of this prefecture, all I conjure in my head are images of Tokyo’s extended urban sprawl, where people who work there choose to reside to save up on expensive rental costs. Perhaps that’s what I would’ve ended up finding had I decided to just ride a train to Saitama station if ever there is one just to get it over with. Instead, we enlisted the help of Wikitravel and ended up with a viable alternative called Kawagoe which is said to house some preserved architecture from the days of Old Tokyo in an area named Little Edo.

[TOHOKU] Budget and Itinerary

SUNDAY: September 15, 2024

JR (Tohoku East Pass) - 30,000.00

Locker (Sendai Station) - 200.00

Yoshinoya (Gyudon Bowl) - 498.00

Bridge Fee (Fukuura) - 200.00

Burger King (Double Bacon Cheeseburger Meal) - 850.00

Lawson (Groceries) - 1,324.00

R&B Hotel Moriokaekimae (4 Nights) - 21,662.00

JPY54,734.00

[AKITA] Lake Tazawa Roundtrip

Akita must be the shortest and simplest itinerary in this Tohoku trip, all thanks to the availability of the roundtrip sightseeing bus, which is not really a sightseeing bus per se but rather one of the local buses that go around the lake in clockwise direction. I opted to put this trip on the last day of the itinerary, the same day heading back to Tokyo to take advantage of the rail pass. While I have already maximized the rail pass and spent more than double the amount I paid for it, this Tazawako - Tokyo route was the longest at 3 hours and most expensive at around JPY16,000 (~PHP6,140). I spent the entire trip standing up. More on that later.

[YAMAGATA] 1000 Steps to Yamadera

The decision to explore Tohoku with a rail pass meant exploring itineraries and prefectures, in this case the five northernmost ones on the island of Honshu. Neat. Day 4, Wednesday, was Yamagata prefecture day. Sometimes I get lazy with destination research and always just end up at the capital, in this case Yamagata the city which is farther inland. Searching for alternatives, I ended up with a suggestion from Google. YAMADERA. Yama means mountain and Dera means temple. Soon enough, it would be obvious as to why the place was named as such. Yamadera is also closer to Sendai by a few stations. Good deal. Ready to hike?

[HIROSAKI] Rice Field Art, Neputa Village, Hirosaki Castle

Aomori the city was supposed to be part of the itinerary but it ended up jam packed with Hirosaki tourist attractions that I just had to drop it in the end. From Morioka, the bullet trains heading north all stop at Shin-Aomori station, which is NOT in the city center. If you are going to Aomori, you can transfer to the local orange Ou line. If, like me, your destination is Hirosaki instead, then you hop on the same train line but going south. Both the local Ou line and the bullet train are included in the Tohoku East rail pass. Morioka to Aomori is just an hour on the shinkansen. Shin-Aomori to Hirosaki is around 45 minutes.

[IWATE] Ryusendo Caves Daytrip

By now I don’t really remember why I chose Morioka as my home base for this five day tour of Tohoku. I’m guessing I just looked at a map and picked a random point somewhere in the middle, in which case why didn’t I pick Sendai? Well, Morioka seems like the better option because it puts me directly in the middle of the bullet train routes to Aomori and Akita. And so I booked a cheap business hotel and then looked for day trip options within the prefecture itself. There are many suggestions on Wikitravel but one that struck me in terms of accessibility and looks was Ryusendo Cave.

[MIYAGI] Cloudy Day at Matsushima Bay

As for Miyagi, the choice was between Sendai and Matsushima. Sendai will always be a necessary stop anyway as it lies between Tokyo and Morioka which will serve as my home base for this Tohoku trip. Tokyo to Sendai on either the Tohoku or Akita bullet train will take an hour and 40 minutes, plus another 40 minutes onward to Morioka. Once in Sendai, you transfer to a local JR Senseki train to Matsushima-kaigan. There is another station named Matsushima but this is farther from the attractions you will be visiting. The local train takes 40 minutes and is totally included in the rail pass. Why did I opt for Matsushima instead of Sendai then?

[YOKOHAMA] A Day in Japan's Second Largest City

Yokohama is Japan’s second largest city, its population almost half of Tokyo’s. The two cities are also just right next to each other, so close that some of their subway systems are linked to one another. This is the reason why I really had to look for more info whether Yokohama’s Minatomirai line would be covered by the 24h/48h/72h Tokyo Metro Pass. Apparently not. There are alternatives on offer, some giving you a day pass of Yokohama’s Minatomirai line along with a return trip to a station in Tokyo. I ended up just paying for my fares separately.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking-Glass

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A young girl named Alice tours the river with her two sisters and lays bored along the riverbanks when she sees an oddity in the scenery, that of a white rabbit wearing a coat and staring at a pocket watch as if late for an appointment. Her curiosity brings her to a rabbit hole where she falls down and finds herself in front of a tiny door that her size wouldn’t allow her to enter. Taking advice from a bottle with a note that says “Drink Me” scribbled on it, she finally enters the door. What follows is a series of growing and shrinking by way of eating and drinking certain food and drinks in the strange new world she finds herself in. Along the way she meets a variety of weird creatures such as talking animals, insects, and a pack of humanoid cards led by a Queen of Hearts that has an obsession for beheading her constituents.

Atonement

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13-year-old Briony Tallis wants to be a writer and makes it a habit to write stories and plays that she asks her cousins to present, with her as director. This summer is no different as her cousins Lola and her twin brothers Jackson and Pierrot all spend time at the Tallis’ vast country estate in the midst of their parents’ divorce. Cecilia, Briony’s older sister, is bored after her stint at Cambridge and is annoyed at her childhood friend Robbie, who lives with his mother in a cabin that her father has gifted them in exchange for housework. Also coming back home are Leon, the sisters’ eldest sibling who is bringing his friend Paul Marshall along with him. At the end of a long day, the family dinner is marred by the disappearance of the twins and what is later concluded as sexual assault of their sister Lola by an unknown assailant, whom Briony swears she knows and saw, leading to an accusation that will ruin one too many lives.

Interview with the Vampire

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Louis de Pointe de Lac is 200 years old, but this is not because of a gluten-free diet. As a French migrant whose family had established a new life in Louisiana, he had been living a good life as an indigo plantation owner when a vampire named Lestat de Lioncourt decided to leave two bite marks on his neck. As Louis’ humanity died, he was introduced to a life of immortality as a blood sucker fatally allergic to the sun and spending most of his day asleep in a coffin. What follows is a rollercoaster ride with his new friend, their vampiric ways differing greatly as far as hunting and diet preferences are concerned. Soon, they turn an orphan girl named Claudia into one of them, which is not really a good idea considering she would be a woman trapped in a young girl’s body just decades later. All this Louis narrates via an interview with an eager journalist who wants to introduce him to the world.

The Silmarillion

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In the beginning was the creator named Iluvatar and he created a group of spirits called the Ainur. The Ainur referred to him as Eru and he bid them to create beautiful music for him, which they did, to perfection. The most powerful of them all, Melkor, decided to break the harmony of their music and composed his own, openly defying his creator. After their disagreement, Iluvatar offered them a vision of Arda, a new world that they could all descend upon to govern. There they became the Valar, basically gods, while their subordinates became demigods called the Maiar. Thus begins the battle between Melkor and his siblings for dominion over the new world they have been entrusted to oversee. As the first children of Iluvatar, the Elves, come into being, a tug-o-war of influence between Melkor and the other Valar ensues, causing confusion and sowing division that will persist until the coming of Iluvatar’s second children: Mankind.

The Sympathizer

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An anonymous narrator writes a confession about his time in exile in America. As a North Vietnamese mole embedded in the South Vietnamese military, he is there to experience the fall of Saigon himself before being airlifted to Guam and continuing his journey as a refugee to the United States. With him is his best friend Bon who has lost all will to live after his wife and son fail to make it out of Vietnam alive. The two become roommates in a tiny room, living the “American Dream” while maintaining a double life as immigrants and covert military men, carrying out assassinations of other refugees suspected as northern spies by whatever is left of the exiled South Vietnamese government. Being a son of a French priest and a Vietnamese mother, the narrator reflects on the duality of his existence, his job, as well as his relationship with the West and the East as a half-half who never seems to be ever given a chance to become whole.

The Merchant of Venice

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A young member of the Venetian nobility named Bassanio desires marriage to a young wealthy heiress called Portia who resides in Belmont. Not wise with his spending and with no ducats left to fund his courtship of her, he turns to his friend Antonio, a merchant, who agrees to become his guarantor should he manage to secure a loan from a willing party. Bassanio ends up borrowing the required amount from Shylock, a Jewish moneylender who is furious because his daughter Jessica has converted to Christianity and marries Lorenzo, a friend of Antonio and Bassanio. When Shylock fails to collect the amount he has lent to Bassanio due to Antonio’s ships where his wealth is locked in being stranded at sea, he brings the matter to the Venetian court and demands a pound of Antonio’s flesh in lieu of his monetary debt. Conniving to rescue their friends, Portia hatches a plan to outwit the Jew.

[KANSAI] Budget and Itinerary (3)

THURSDAY: August 8, 2024

Cebu Pacific (Manila - Osaka - Manila) - 12,220.00

Kansai-Kuko (Kansai Airport - Namba) - 970.00

White Hostel Shinsaibashi (7 Nights) - 20,540.00

McDonalds (5 pcs Nuggets w/ Fries & Coke) - 550.00

Lawson (Groceries) - 400.00

JPY34,680.00

[SHIGA] Beach Day at Lake Biwa

Looking at my prefecture map of Japan yet again, I noticed another prefecture in Kansai that hasn’t been visited yet. What’s a bit interesting about Shiga is that the entire prefecture is almost made up by a land area embracing Lake Biwa, the largest freshwater lake in Japan, as if the prefecture’s sole purpose is to surround the lake on all sides. The lake is said to be 4 million years old and serves as the prefecture’s main tourist attraction. Lake, huh? Okay, we can beach there, after a good mix of mountain Buddhism, a castle, and deer. A big body of water should be the best way to wrap up our visit to Kansai. But where should we go?

[NARA] A Deer for Everyone and Everyone for a Deer

The plan was to diversify the kinds of attraction to visit for each prefecture. The obvious choice for Nara would have been temples since it did serve as the capital of the country during the Nara period between 710 and 794 AD and, thus, has its own fair share of worship places. But who are we kidding here? Nara is more popular nowadays for its deer population. Doe, a deer, a female deer. The male ones with big antlers. They are all here. Everywhere you go, actually. But first, how do we get here in the first place? Nara is part of the region of Kansai, often dwarfed by the grandeur of its more popular neighbors Osaka and Kyoto.

[HYOGO] Himeji Castle

Just how many Japanese castles do you need? When is enough enough? It’s NEVER enough. It was decided early on that Kobe will be the representative of Hyogo prefecture. A simple cityscape tour along the bay. I wasn’t aware that a train ride to Kobe from Osaka won’t even take an hour. And then I consulted Wikitravel and suddenly there was a contender. Himeji. It has a castle and it’s not that far from Kobe. After some serious deliberation, a compromise was reached to visit Himeji Castle in the morning and then go on a side trip to Kobe’s Nunobiki Falls on the way back. Only the castle trip materialized because I was out of time.

[WAKAYAMA] The Koyasan Daytrip

I looked at my prefecture map of Kansai and noticed that there are prefectures quite accessible to and from Osaka that haven’t been visited yet. I don’t blame myself, though, because this whole “visit every prefecture” is a new thing, fuelled by my intention to maximize my multiple entry Japan visa before it expires in March next year. One of those prefectures was Wakayama. I usually just visit the namesake city when there isn’t much to see, but Wakayama offered an alternative in the form of a Buddhist mountain retreat called Koyasan. Ok, then. Let’s go there instead for some soul searching and relaxation!

Things Fall Apart

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Ibo tribe leader Okonkwo is known in his clan of Umuofia as a ruthless warrior. His fame is brought about by one of his historic fights as the local wrestling champion, etching his strength and skill into the psyche of his tribesmen. Coming from nothing due to a deadbeat father, Okonkwo strives tirelessly and manages to establish a reputable life of his own, with a yam farm, three wives, and several children to succeed him. When an unfortunate incident tarnishes his honor, he and his family are forced to flee back to his motherland as dictated by local customs. There, they remain in exile for seven years, everybody yearning for the life they had back in Umuofia. Once they are done serving their sentence, Okonkwo aims for a big comeback, but his fatherland is no longer the home he left now that it has been subjected to the colonial rule of white men.

Klara and the Sun

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A solar powered artificial friend or AF, Klara boasts unusually impeccable observational skills that could trump even those which the newer B3 models are known to possess. Regularly moved everywhere from the window to the middle section of the store, she and another B2 AF called Rosa are spending more and more time at the back due to their impending obsolescence. As Rosa is purchased and finds a new home, Klara counts on the promise of a young girl named Josie who has come back a few times to take a look at her saying that she would buy her once she convinces her mother. When that day finally comes, Klara is introduced to a new household far from the city with wide fields and just one close neighbor nearby, Klara’s friend Rick and his mother. As Josie’s fragile health condition is revealed, Klara makes a bargain with the sun which she worships to improve the condition of her new owner, even if it means sacrificing something of hers in return.