Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
PIFF: Not just a response to something negative.
Wait- sorry. That's pfff. Anyway, it's actually the Pusan (Busan) International Film Festival and last weekend was the 13th annual. Advance tickets sold out in their typically rapid manner, so we decided to travel Sonja-style: wing it! We just hopped the cheap train to Busan, walked up to the main theater box-office, and bought tickets for 2 shows straight off the bat. At 4:30, we saw a pretty (if a bit boring) film about an English family called Shadows in the Sun. Then we headed up to Haeundae Beach for the 7:30 outdoor showing of Sky Crawlers, a Japanese animation which I thoroughly enjoyed. As it turned out, we got a bonus second screening of a movie named Gomorrah, about life in Italy's famous Neopolitan Camorra mafia. This was my bf's favorite, but I got a little sleepy. After all, it was the third movie, and it was about midnight. I liked it anyway, but my real favorite came the next morning.
After spending the night at a random downtown jjimjilbang (which caused me to resolve never to stay at a Busan jjimjilbang other than Song Jeong Beach) we had lunch and hit the box office once more. At 2PM, we took in the last of our PIFF films - Salt of This Sea. A woman raised in Brooklyn returns to her home country of Palestinian Israel. She finds someone as desperate to escape Palestine as she was to return "home" and she's continually forced to face her anger and frustration about her family's past. I LOVED it, my favorite of the four. =UPDATE: The director of Salt of This Sea was just featured on CNN= Check them out and download them if you're interested.
**Some sources gathered from the Toronto International Film Festival website**
After spending the night at a random downtown jjimjilbang (which caused me to resolve never to stay at a Busan jjimjilbang other than Song Jeong Beach) we had lunch and hit the box office once more. At 2PM, we took in the last of our PIFF films - Salt of This Sea. A woman raised in Brooklyn returns to her home country of Palestinian Israel. She finds someone as desperate to escape Palestine as she was to return "home" and she's continually forced to face her anger and frustration about her family's past. I LOVED it, my favorite of the four. =UPDATE: The director of Salt of This Sea was just featured on CNN= Check them out and download them if you're interested.
**Some sources gathered from the Toronto International Film Festival website**
Friday, October 3, 2008
Chuseok Belated
I really must apologize. I've been in a writing slump. It's not just that I'm busy - which I am. If I really wanted to, I would write in the few spare minutes before I sleep or go to work. But, no - I've not been feeling particularly motivated to write lately.
As you may have noticed from flickr, I have been to Japan. I was really hoping to have been able to go for a week but I couldn't have afforded it. September 13-15 was Chuseok, the Korean Thanksgiving holiday which only amounted to one day off for me. I took Tuesday to Friday as vacation days with the idea of leaving straight away Saturday. As it turned out, I'm glad I didn't stay away so long.
The weekend was fantastic! Being one of only 3 major holidays in Korea, and one of the long ones, people go all out. Usually this holiday is important for remembering and honoring ancestors, which involved visiting tombs and gravesites, performing formal ceremonies with bowing, and eating... a lot. Starting Saturday, I was full until Monday! My friend Steven (Sung Woo is his Korean name) invited my coworker Lexie and I to visit his father's family in Sangju (1.5 hrs), then his mother's side of the family in Wonju (3.5hrs). So 5 of us hopped in the car and road tripped north. Saturday evening was spent mostly sitting at the country house and eating dinner. We slept in the city in Steven's cousins nice new apartment. Then Sunday morning we woke early to perform/watch the ceremony for the ancestors, eat a big lunch, and visit the family tombs for more ceremonial bowing and eating.
We then drove up to Wonju to find another great dinner. His mother has 3 sisters who all have children our age so it was sure to be a fun time! In fact, after dinner, we decided to go out to a singing room for some drinks and karaoke. I had to get up early the next morning to catch a bus back to Daegu to have a 3rd Chuseok meal with my boyfriends family. Lexie and Steven also got up early to meet the family at the potato field to pick some sweet potatoes. She came back with a few pounds of them!
I got to spend Monday with Deuk Kyun's family and enjoy one more great dinner. His mom won - her meal was healthy and definitely the most delicious of the three! I slept at their house and headed off to Japan Tuesday morning...
----------------
Now playing: Mat Kearney - Girl America
via FoxyTunes
As you may have noticed from flickr, I have been to Japan. I was really hoping to have been able to go for a week but I couldn't have afforded it. September 13-15 was Chuseok, the Korean Thanksgiving holiday which only amounted to one day off for me. I took Tuesday to Friday as vacation days with the idea of leaving straight away Saturday. As it turned out, I'm glad I didn't stay away so long.
The weekend was fantastic! Being one of only 3 major holidays in Korea, and one of the long ones, people go all out. Usually this holiday is important for remembering and honoring ancestors, which involved visiting tombs and gravesites, performing formal ceremonies with bowing, and eating... a lot. Starting Saturday, I was full until Monday! My friend Steven (Sung Woo is his Korean name) invited my coworker Lexie and I to visit his father's family in Sangju (1.5 hrs), then his mother's side of the family in Wonju (3.5hrs). So 5 of us hopped in the car and road tripped north. Saturday evening was spent mostly sitting at the country house and eating dinner. We slept in the city in Steven's cousins nice new apartment. Then Sunday morning we woke early to perform/watch the ceremony for the ancestors, eat a big lunch, and visit the family tombs for more ceremonial bowing and eating.
We then drove up to Wonju to find another great dinner. His mother has 3 sisters who all have children our age so it was sure to be a fun time! In fact, after dinner, we decided to go out to a singing room for some drinks and karaoke. I had to get up early the next morning to catch a bus back to Daegu to have a 3rd Chuseok meal with my boyfriends family. Lexie and Steven also got up early to meet the family at the potato field to pick some sweet potatoes. She came back with a few pounds of them!
I got to spend Monday with Deuk Kyun's family and enjoy one more great dinner. His mom won - her meal was healthy and definitely the most delicious of the three! I slept at their house and headed off to Japan Tuesday morning...
----------------
Now playing: Mat Kearney - Girl America
via FoxyTunes
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