Rally Day Movies

I finally got the movies from rally day. It was tons of fun, although the movies may not look like it. What really surprised and impressed me was the car ... The Dacia Logan Cup is an amazing little slugger. I've had the real pleasure of sitting in the passenger seat with G. Grigorescu driving. In the hands of a professional it turns into a true breathtaking rally machine.

I'm not the rally legend and I was throwing the car around way too much at some points so please indulge me :). So, without further blah blah, here are the movies:














I think I'll start up a donation plan to start my rally career :P.

Hollywood meets Prince of Persia

I'm having trouble even asking this question, BUT ... can it be possible that after decades of producing one humongous pile of pooh after another, Hollywood has finally produced a movie based on a video game that is not a complete waste of time and money? Could it be?




Well wrap me in tar and feathers and call me chicken, but I can sense a tiny possibility here ...

Cristina Vicky Barcelona

I got to see Vicky Cristina Barcelona the other day, and I really enjoyed it, and not only because it has Penélope Cruz in it. Uhm, what I meant is that it's not so great just because Penélope Cruz makes out with Scarlett Johansson somewhere along the line. Hmm, I think I'm thouroughly failing at making my point. It's because of the funny threesome relationship between them two and that painter guy played by Javier Bardem ... and the fourth girl played by Rebecca Hall...

Oh, darn it ... there I did it again ... It's a comedy, darn it, A COMEDY! And it's quite a good one. I particularly loved the ending... talk about falling out of love ..

Must see from me.

Big Budha, LOTS of Deer

Our trip to Nara was full of surprises. We've heard that there is a deer reservation there, but we thought it's just like a small zoo with a couple of deer. So, first time it was something like this ...

Whoa? What was that?

Oh ... how cuuute ...

She likes you ...

And skipping a few steps in the process ...

They ALL like you!!(Yes, that's another group of "may I speak to you?" children)

Soon enough it was SWARMING with deer. They were going up to people with food, even stealing from picnics. It was quite funny...

But, this is not why we came here ... we came here for this:

Not dor the temple itself, but for what is inside it ... and because you can't really see from the inside pictures just how humongous it is, look at how big the temple is, and that's just how BIG this is:

This very impressive Budha statue was going all the way up to the ceiling, flanked by two other smaller golden guys.

It was quite shocking going inside the temple to see the statue is really this big. Japan didn't seem to want to stop with it's amazing moments ...

This was our final pitstop before heading back to Tokyo ... and there, into chaos, we shall go next ...

This is Amazing

I went last night to see THIS IS IT, and I must say from the start that I was very deeply impressed. I am not Michael's number 1 fan, but I respected and admired him as an artist. Starting from last night I can't really think of him as just an artist any more ... the man was a genius ... the connection he had with the music and the rhythm is something that nobody else has ... had ... or will ever have.  I also liked the movie in itself a lot, mostly because it doesn't try to do anything else except show you the footage. There is no emotional effort involved in the film making. All the emotion comes from what really actually happenned there. Michael's performance is simply jaw-dropping and all this while he was not pushing for it... I don't really care what the stupid press says, he was in amazing shape for a fifty years old. His moves and his voice are at the same level as they were twenty or thirty years ago, and I think we all know just how good those were back then.

I was blown away by this man ... he had so much more to give ... go watch this movie and see what I mean.

Walking on the Moon

Giant steps are what you take,

 Walking on the moon.

I hope my legs don't break,

 

Walking on the moon.

We could walk for ever...

Walking on the moon.

We could live together,

Walking on...

walking

 

on the Moon.

The Black Sea was just beautiful this weekend...

A Thousand Orange Gates

Another very intereting place you shouldn't miss near Kyoto is the Fushimi Inari Shrine. Travelling through the gates corridor is indeed impressive.The smartsy japs even made it so that they look different depending on where you are looking from, with some black writing which appears only on side. Smart...

Left or right? Well, actually they both get you to the same place ... I wonder if there is any philosophical  teaching we should learn from this ...

I can see ... something ... impressive apparently ...

Yes, Andreea is jumping for joy again ... it was that fun ...

We were on our way to Nara, a place where we saw something which really made our day ... coming up next ...

THE Rocky Zen(?) Garden

While you can find many Zen gardens in Kyoto, rocky, mossy, etc. as I've posted before, apparently there is this one garden that is the best of them all. It is the most abstract garden, made with stone, and the interpretation of the garden layout's is entirely up to ... you.

Apparently by analizing the layout of the rocks through a complex virtual model some scientists discovered that the layout is similar to that of a branching tree ... uhm mkay ...

I've tried and tried, although not very hard, and basically ... I'm still trying ...

I've come to the conclusion that actually it's just a matter of watching, not getting it, and relaxing your mind ... 

It was so nice and quiet and relaxing and  ... ZEN tranquility ... oh, really? Well, actually not quite, because the place is crawling with Japanese students, which, besides being very noisy, want to talk to you and take pictures with you as if you were the tourist attraction there ... The children are nice and funny, and they gave us some very lovely hand made postcards, but I must admit, by the fourth group that was coming towards us, I was beginning to start wanting to avoid them.

Here's a pic with us and group number three, cheers!

Rally Day

I'm going to take just a small tiny break from the Japan series to tease you about an upcoming post...

 

And the teasing continues ...

Zen Gardens, Great Food

On one day we went to the Daitokuji Temple Complex, which is indeed very Zen. There are many temples there and quite a few Zen Gardens which must be seen.

You have the rock gardens ...

A combination of moss and rock, which is very interesting...

And moss only gardens for the full menu...

We also saw the Daisen-in Zen Garden, but you can't take pictures ... darn. Ah well, what followed after visiting the temple complex was a real delight ... After a few days of not so quite great food, we had a real treat.

The food was amazing, the place is called Cafe du Mon and here is a pic so you don't miss it if you're in the area (it's right outside the temple complex). And check out those Kymonos ... nice eh?

 Just a few more posts until crazy Tokyo ... let's proceed...