red cliff

just came back from downtown east watching red cliff aka 赤壁

before i watched the show, i have heard that it was a big production and the usual hype about lin ziling & tony leung and their intimate scenes. but that was about it. i didn’t know that it was about war in ancient china. not until i heard FM933 a couple of days ago and one of the DJs gave a good review. i have enjoyed the various chinese war movies earlier (battle of wits, warlords, three kingdoms etc) so i thought i would enjoy red cliff as well.

i have this strange habit of not wanting to know anything about a movie that i am watching beforehand. i don’t want to have any expectations of it. i want to be able to be surprised by the movie. it is no different with red cliff. imagine my surprise when i realised that the movie was about three kingdoms – too (ya i know i sua-ku but i don’t read three kingdoms. u can ask me about cao cao and liu bei 3 days later and i will forget who is the bad guy!) i mean, three kingdoms by andy lau was just a recent movie. and red cliff is about this as well? hmm…

anyway, it was a great show. 2.5 hr long but not draggy (except for maybe the tiger part). and there are actually several scenes where it feels like a comedy! do you remember that takeshi didn’t speak a lot in warlords (大哥是对的) but in red cliff, he not only speaks a lot, his lines are humorous as well! i find his facial expressions pretty funny, not sure whether he was the perfect man for the role.

there were a few minor parts which i don’t understand because they were using such chim language and i don’t have the background knowledge of three kingdoms but i was truly enjoying the show. finally both sides gathered at red cliff and are planning for the big war…. *note: spoiler alert (if you do not already know it). highlight the next paragraph to read it otherwise skip it*

4 words flashed on the screen: 赤壁之战. in a split second after seeing these 4 words, i thought of 2 things. 1st, finally the main scene is here. 2nd, how come movie will flash words, like powerpoint presentation? then, within the next split second, another set of words flashed: to be continued. huh! i was like still waiting for something else to happen, thinking this was another gimmick or something. then the credits started rolling. dearest and i looked at each other in bewilderment. did we catch the right movie? isn’t the movie titled 赤壁? then how come it didn’t show the battle at red cliff? hahahaha…. we “huh?” at each other to and fro several times. so tell me, if anyone of you know, when is the sequel going to be shown? will there be one sequel or 2? so strange…

oh, and both dearest and i though this guy was handsome. he plays the role of 赵子龙 (andy lau’s role in three kingdom) and his real name is 胡军

he doesn’t really look that handsome in this poster. you have to see it for yourself in the movie.

of durians & farts

dearest and i are having this mini durian craze.

i have always loved durians but in recent years i have almost stopped eating them because they never fail to give me huge acne filled with pus a couple of days after consumption. on the day before fathers’ day, i offered my daddy some durian puff from goodwood park hotel. my dad scorned at them and said that he wouldn’t mind to eat if they were real durians. so i got my dearest to buy good quality durians for daddy on fathers’ day itself. so dearest spent close to $100 for 6 durians. how can my dad finish all 6 durians right? so dearest and i joined in the fun. oh… it was then that i realised i missed durians. why did i give up such good durians? and the best thing was, 2 days after fathers’ day, i was still pimple-free!

a couple of weeks ago, i chanced uopn this blog entry about durians and was pretty intrigued by the shop name and look. most durian stalls look the same – rows and rows of durians, bright lights, wooden tables and plastic chairs scattered messily – and they are mostly found along geylang. this featured shop is different. check out it’s name (not many durian stalls have a name!) “Four Seasons Durian Cafe”. wow… sounds like a hotel, and cafe sounds hip! and the signboard looks pro! classy, definitely not like the typical durian stall. in the blog, the different types and characteristics of different durians were described. from the blog itself, i was able to eliminate the types which i knew i will dislike!

so earlier this week, we made a trip down to this stall which is located at joo chiat place (off still road). there was no parking available so we parked in one of the lanes named after tropical fruits (rambutan, mangis, chiku etc) and walked there. i was amazed at the crowd. it was a weekday but the place is buzzing with customers. there are like more than 20 tables and almost all were occupied. the scale of the operations is so big, i bet they have at least 12 or 15 workers. the staff there are quite friendly and if the durians that they open do not suit your liking, you can always choose another one.

so anyway, we chose the XO D24 at first. $15 per kg. i tasted it and found it not bitter enough. so the guy opened mao shan wang instead. i dislike sweet and creamy durian. love bitter and watery ones instead. so i chose the first one. at the same time, dearest asked whether they have XO. turns out that it is all sold out already.

the durian was alright. would have been better if it was more bitter though.

and guess what? we went there again yesterday! this time, we asked for the XO straight away. there were only a few left. @ $20 per kg, it was really expensive but it was delightfully bitter! seeing that it was much smaller than XO D24 in size, i was greedy and we bought 2 XO. $40 in total. only when we started eating did we realise that unlike XO D24, XO has really tiny seeds, which means that there are a LOT of flesh! so we had quite a hard time finishing them.

XO durians are not for those who like sweet durians. XO are extremely bitter. and i believe they are the one which are most foul smelling. i love! the more bitter and smellier the better! dearest complained that it smelled bad while he was eating! hahaha… poor him… have to accomodate to my tastes.

the down side of eating durians (other than growing huge angry pimples) is the breath! strictly no kissing! haha… anyway, we were driving home after the durian session and i asked dearest: did you just fart? and dearest replied: nope. i burped. *faint* i have smelled many types of burps – the chicken rice burp, the bak chor mee burp, the brandy burp, and the durian burp! but it was the first time that i have smelled the supposed-to-be-durian-burp-but-turned-out-to-be-fart-burp! i swear it absolutely smells like fart! yup, that’s how smelly the durians were…

if you love durian, give this place a try. the service is not bad! but if you are not a hard-core durian lover, never buy the XO! try the mao shan wang instead ok…

i wan to eat XO again!

ok, better stop writing now, dearest is coming to fetch me to watch red cliff… ta…