Christmas Trees In Seoul: Millennium Seoul Hilton

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Following my posts on the light show at the Shinsegae Department Store and those dazzling Christmas lights of Lotte Department Store, let's take a detour and get indoors this time.

Last week, after grabbing a meal at Seoul Square, the location of the Korean drama, Misaeng, my friend Andy and I walked up towards Namsan. I earlier told him that I needed to take photographs of Millennium Seoul Hilton's Christmas decorations to add to my Christmas posts.

After our lunch, we grabbed coffee from the Twosome Place coffee shop at the ground floor, and headed out to the freezing -4'C degrees outdoors. We had to walk past the garden at the back of Seoul Square to get to the hotel, but when we got there, we were greeted by a giant Christmas tree that's filled up with lights straight up to its top. This 10-meter tree looked majestic right in the middle of the hotel lobby, bathing in everyone's attention and thousands of little lights.

But what was more fun to watch were the toy trains running around the lower lobby of the hotel. These trains are actually a hit with kids during the weekends when there's a Santa Claus at the corner with whom they can have photos.

On each train and on the miniature buildings were names of the companies who may have sponsored this installation. When I was a kid, I also had a toy train but whose tracks were just about a foot in diameter. This one had tracks that meandered around the four corners of the floor and with several trains running on it. Decorated white to resemble snow, the slopes on which the tracks run even had skiers!

                          (A Santa doll from the Philippines)

I wonder what chaos there is during weekends when this place is full of kids mesmerized by these toy trains. But I guess, with Santa Claus around to compete for their attention, it's all about fun. And of course, Christmas.  

Have a fun weekend around the tree, everyone!

Excellence In Flight, My Nuts!

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You must have read this piece of news by now.

The first time I read it, I thought it was like a scene from the American drama series, Dynasty, where Alexis Carrington Colby Dexter, with all her wealth, power and diamonds, kicks out someone lower than her out of a plane. I guess high drama on high altitude would make high TV ratings.

Although I understand that the airline executive just wanted to make sure the in-flight manual was observed on how the macadamia nuts should be served to first class passengers, I don't exactly agree on her kicking out the chief flight attendant from the plane when it had already left the gate. Wasn't there any other way to teach the flight staff a lesson? The news said that she also made those flight attendants kneel before her. I had a feeling those flight attendants regretted having been assigned to the first class section. To quote Judi Dench in Philomena, "Just because you're in first class doesn't make you a first-class person." Ouch!

Although I have met some snooty flight attendants all these years of travelling, I found most of them helpful and friendly. Years ago, on my first flight to Korea, I flew on Korean Air, and the pretty flight attendant (I flew coach by the way!) even gave me a list of tourist attractions I needed to visit after I told her it was my first visit to South Korea. She wrote on a small piece of paper some attractions which included Gyeongbuk Palace. And now, what do you know? I have visited Gyeongbukgung several times already! 

As I said, flight attendants are friendly and helpful, but one female attendant on the business class of a Philippine Airlines flight I took from Incheon Airport to Manila described one of her unresponsive passengers as 'stupid!'. I clearly heard her blurt out that word as she walked away from that passenger; she must have been exasperated after asking him several times. But I wondered why you would call your Business Class passenger 'stupid' when he was supposed to be your customer. Minutes later, the female passenger on the next seat helped her communicate with him. It turned out, that male passenger had a hearing problem.

Oh, well. The things you experience on the plane.

And as I am about to ride a plane next weekend, I wonder what story is waiting for me...in the economy section. Ha-ha-ha! But one thing for sure, on my way back to Seoul from Manila, I will again enjoy the best in-flight meal on board the plane, the ones I will bring myself. Sapin-sapin, turon, ube halaya, and maybe a few other desserts. 

In the meantime, as I wait for the next weekend, I'm enjoying peanuts served on a cap of a jar. But nobody's complaining and no plane's going back to the gate.Ha-ha-ha!

A Pinoy At The Movie: EXODUS: Gods and Kings

I could hear the song When You Believe playing in my mind when I was entering the cinema to watch Exodus: Gods and Kings. That song was in the animated movie Prince of Egypt, and was sung by Mariah Carey, when she was still skinny, and Whitney Houston, when she was still alive.

Both movies, Prince of Egypt and Exodus were based on the story of Moses and how he lead the Chosen People out of Egypt. In Prince of Egypt, Moses was a cartoon; in Exodus: Gods and Kings, he was Christian Bale.  And since the year was 1300 BCE, the Batman didn't have his bat mobile yet, nor was he in Gotham City. He was in Memphis, not in Tennessee, but Memphis, an ancient city in Egypt. 

The main reason I wanted to see the movie was to see the special effects. Just like any Catholic, I also read and studied the Bible when I was still in school. As in the case of good books, everyone always wanted to see them made into movies. And this Book of Exodus definitely made everyone look forward to watching it in film.

Although there have been movies based on the stories in the Bible, this one interests me a lot because of its events that were, as they say, of biblical proportions. 

I especially enjoyed the scenes of the ten plagues, not that I have a sudden schadenfreude for the ancient Egyptians, but who doesn't want to see huge Nile River crocodiles with an appetite of a pharaoh eat those fishermen on the Nile, or those frogs croaking up into the pharaoh's bedroom? And those flies and boils! Eeew! The special effects team of this movie made sure those plagues really looked the way I imagined them to be when I first read this scene in the Bible during my grade school days.

And who doesn't look forward to see the parting of the Red Sea? With the troops of Rameses on chariots and horses chasing Moses and his people, it was interesting to see how the sea dried up like it does before a tsunami. But I wondered how they were able to cross it on the wet and sandy sea bed, which seemed bereft of any aquatic life form.

Other than the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea, I also looked forward on how the director would show the scenes between Moses and God, from whom he was taking orders. It turned out, God was in a form of a boy with a strong British accent. It would have been more interesting if they just did away with the boy and instead showed God as a burning bush or some booming voice from above, which only Moses could hear.

As to the other cast, John Turturro, from Transformers' Sector 7, played Seti I and didn't exactly sound and move like a pharaoh. His wife Queen Tuya was played by Sigourney Weaver who had limited spoken lines, but whose eyes were heavily lined just like Elizabeth Taylor's Cleopatra. Of course, we can't compare the two. Elizabeth Taylor had 65 costume changes as Cleopatra. Weaver, here, seemed just to have worn the same white toga in all her scenes, which I think were about three. Or four. I didn't count. 

The biggest letdown was Joel Edgerton, playing Rameses II, the nemesis of Moses. From the first scene, he seemed lost, not in Moses' shadow, but in this role. He didn't look like he wanted to chase Moses through the desert, the mountains and finally, across the dried up sea. Colin Farrell could have played this character better. 

I would recommend this film if only for the special effects of the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea, and also the chase scene on the mountains where Rameses's chariots were snaking through the edge of a cliff. If you also read the Book of Exodus during your grade school days like I did, watching this film would definitely bring back those days. Come to think of it, I couldn't think of any book from the Bible that had more action scenes than the Exodus. 

So, what Bible story will they turn into a movie next? 

#Exodus #exodusmovie #christianbale #sigourneyweaver #Bible #Biblestories #Egypt #TenPlagues #movie #moviereview

'Sana Dati' And 'Ilo Ilo' At The 2014 ASEAN Film Festival

I have never been to the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art next to the Gyeongbuk Palace in Seoul.  And this 2014 ASEAN Film Festival was a good excuse to visit the museum.

Thanks to the organizers of the festival, and to Miss Youngmi Kim, who helped book me tickets for two films, I was able to spring out of my Sunday bed and head to the palatial neighborhood of the Museum. The last time I was in this area  was last summer when my friends and I decided to walk from the Tong-in Market, where we had our lunch. 

                               (My ASEFF tickets!)

Luckily, the film from the Philippines, Sana Dati (Only If), was screened on a weekend. And even luckier, Ilo Ilo, the film from Singapore and the recipient of Camera d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival would be screened on the same day. I had to watch both films!

(Director Jerrold Tarog talking to the audience of 'Sana Dati')

I can't remember the last time I watched a Filipino film inside a theater, and 'Sana Dati', being the first Filipino I would have watched in Korea, deserved to be so. Though it was 100 minutes long, I hardly felt that I missed lunch while watching the film; it started at 12 noon.

This film was about a girl who was getting married but ended up asking herself whether she should marry her groom or this stranger who was there to videotape her wedding. I liked the way the director, Jerrold Tarog, told the 'present' and slowly presented the audience with the 'past' through conversations of the bride and the videographer, and the way the fourth character (a dead boyfriend) was introduced into the movie was brilliant; he was first part of the conversation and slowly appeared in scenes with the bride, consequently explaining why the girl was undecided in the first place. This dead boyfriend by the way, almost stole the movie. And if he did, he had the right to. After all, he was the reason why she couldn't move on to marry the present guy.

After the film, the director, who flew to Seoul to attend this film festival, talked with the audience and answered a few questions. He shared the idea of 'singularity' in his movie, where the past, present and future meet in one spot. During the film, there were already mentions of 'physics' and scenes that brilliantly contributed to the idea of singularity. (By the way, a few days before I watched this film, I saw Interstellar, which also featured singularity, not in a wedding, but in space).

It was my first time to see Lovi Poe (the bride), Paulo Avelino (the videographer), Benjamin Alves (the dead boyfriend) and TJ Trinidad (the groom) in a film. The first three clearly delivered and carried the whole film. Although I wouldn't know much about the current Philippine actors, these three made it look like there was no one else who could play their respective parts.  

              (A scone and an iced cafe mocha to tie me 
                            up for the next movie)

                    (The crowd outside the festival theater)

After Sana Dati, I rushed to the food court of the Museum and grabbed a scone and iced cafe mocha to tie up my tummy until the next movie, Ilo Ilo.

While I had a few minutes to spare, I tried to roam around the  main building of the Museum, which was disappointingly uninteresting. This place was huge and spacious, but I wonder why there weren't much visitors on a Sunday. I wonder if it would have been more interesting if they built indoor tennis or badminton courts instead. I would definitely be in this area almost every other weekend! Ha-ha-ha!

Ilo Ilo, the film from Singapore, was also very good and interesting. The story was about a Singaporean family, who hired a Filipina maid as the mom was pregnant and could not keep up with the household chores and her mischievous son. As the film was set during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the family struggled with money, relationships and mutual trust, and it seemd that Terry, the Filipina maid, was the only one truthful in the movie, except for some moments when she 'borrowed' her mistress lipstick. 

Terry, in the movie, spoke Ilonggo, the dialect spoken in the Iloilo Province in the Visayan region of the Philippines. Even if there were no subtitles, I was able to understand Terry when she was talking in Ilonggo to her family on the phone. 

Unfortunately, the director, Anthony Chen, wasn't around to discuss his film with the Ilo Ilo audience. It would have been interesting if he were around. Although there were a couple of so-called film critics who sat down with the audience, I didn't bother to listen. 

I read in the news that Anthony Chen's former nanny when he was a kid was from the province of Iloilo in the Philppines. He obviously named Terry after his own nanny, Teresita Sajonia, with whom he had lost contact for 16 years, but he finally found her in Iloilo and he made her his guest of honor when this film premiered in Singapore.

Here is a touching story from the Inquirer on how he found her after all those years:

http://entertainment.inquirer.net/111665/nanny-beloved-from-iloilo-now-nanny-the-movie

Almost every year, I visit my cousins in the Jaro District of Iloilo City, which, by the way, has the best bingka in the Philippines, and about an hour from Iloilo City is the incredibly beautiful Miag-ao Church. 

And when I cross the Iloilo Strait from Bacolod City this month, I will definitely remember this film.

Thanks to Jerrold Tarog and Anthony Chen for bringing their films to the 2014 ASEAN Film Festival. Being a movie fan, I was happy I was able to watch and enjoy both films!

I'm now looking forward to next year's selections.

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Christmas Lights In Seoul: Myeongdong's Lotte Department Store!

Last week, I took photographs of the Christmas light-show from the street across the Shinsegae Department Store near  Myeong-dong. This week, it was time to take photographs of its rival department store's Christmas display.

I was passing through Myeong-dong the other night when I happened to be at the intersection across Lotte Department Store, which was ablaze with the best decorative lights, not only on the whole block, but probably on the whole northern side of Seoul.

Lotte Department Store's building seemed to have run out of space for more twinkling lights as worrying about the electric bill this Christmas was probably not in the store's to-do list. It's only worry, I guess, was how to increase its Christmas sales this season!

At the space on the store's corner, the trees wrapped in lights and the silhouette of a reindeer encouraged tourists and locals to pose with these Christmas attractions. I wonder how many thousands of lights there were there. These might have outnumbered the 20,000 LED lights currently on display at the Grass Hill area of the Dongdaemun Design Plaza.

After I crossed the street to get to my bus going home, I took more photographs from that side. The whole lane lined with luminous trees next to the department store even looked more impressive. This must be the only Christmas display in the whole city that boasts of the most number of lights on the trees, on the walls and everywhere else. The display even extended to the next Lotte Young Plaza building!

I will be returning to the Lotte Department Store in a couple of weeks to pick up some 'pasalubong' (presents) for home at its duty-free shop on the 10th floor. Even in this freezing evening temperatures, I intend to join the rest of the tourists and shoppers under those blinking lights again.

Now, before it snows heavily in Seoul, I need to visit more Christmas displays in the city. Otherwise, the next Christmas displays I'll see will be in the Philippines... 

As White As Snow...

Well, it wasn't a Snow White fairy tale that greeted everyone this morning in Seoul. Although it thinly snowed last Monday, which then melted away, today was the thickest snow so far.

For the record, I hate snowy days. Ha-ha-ha!  Yes, if you live in a place where there's winter, you know what I mean. As I always said, snow should only be in postcards.

(The ajussi is sweeping away fresh snow)

Snow is white and so fluffy to play with. But if it covers your foot path, it's slippery. And if you're not careful, you'd slip, fall and God forbid, have a selfie with one of your legs in a cast.

I hope tomorrow and in the next two weeks, there won't be any thick snow around. Well, at least while I am here. Ha-ha-ah!  I am flying out of the Korean peninsula soon for the warmer temperatures of the Philippines, and until then, please, no more thick snow!

(The road to freezing hell is paved with slippery intentions.)

A Pinoy At The Movies: Interstellar

                          (The crowd at CGV Yongsan)

My favorite authors happened to be Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking. I think I have read Carl Sagan's Cosmos a few times already over the years, and Hawking's Brief History of Time was just as enlightening. The science of our universe just fascinates me just like anyone who loves astronomy and those twinkle-twinkle little stars.

And came Interstellar.

With the news a few weeks back of Rosetta, as sent by the European Space Agency, landing on a comet, the astronomy world (pun intended!) was abuzz by human kind's latest achievement. The movie just came to Korea at the right space and time. And theater. Ha-ha-ha!

The word 'interstellar' is the space between stars, and this movie definitely showed me what it's like traveling through space between 'worlds' with all the slow aging and long sleep, just like in Charlize Theron's Prometheus. Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and the Endurance crew aged slower than the earthlings they left behind. Sandra Bullock showed us last year how it was like to space-walk above the Earth in Gravity, but Interstellar even took it further up millions of light-years away. They didn't only space-walk; they walked on other planets! 

I was glad Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking educated me on space-time continuum, black holes, point of singularity, event horizon and black holes. Understanding the science of Interstellar for me while watching the movie was easy and fun as I sipped my jumbo-sized caramel milk tea from Gong-Cha, one pearl (or sago!) at a time. Ha-ha-ha!

There was never much to learn about the solar system during my grade school science subjects, except for the names of the planets and everything else that's up there, which collectively, my science teacher called...'heavenly bodies'. I don't know where my science teacher is now, but I do want to tell her that, these days, when you use the term 'heavenly bodies', you're usually referring to the human species of the female gender wearing glitter, a pair of wings and a few square inches of flimsy fabric at the Victoria's Secret fashion show. Ha-ha-ha!

Matthew McConaughey didn't exactly impress me as an astronaut, but as a father in the movie, he totally fit right in. Anne Hathaway, on the other hand, was a biologist who still had time for full make-up and smart haircut, while working underground in a super-secret NASA base, and that while the Earth was dying.

I didn't look up the whole cast before I went to see this movie. So, I was surprised to see one of my favorite actors, Jessica Chastain, showing up as the aged daughter of McConaughey. Chastain was nominated for an Academy Award her supporting role as the clueless Celia Foote in The Help, and for her lead role as an agent in Zero Dark Thirty.

Also a surprise, Matt Damon showed up as another astronaut from another space ship that explored another planet. Here, he was not a good guy like Jason Bourne and didn't have amnesia. He was a bad guy and was killed in space. 

I guess what makes Interstellar a hit is our own fascination about the cosmos. Surely, it's not because we all want to see the end of the human race. It's the fascination that was fed by the film with spectacular scenes of a man-made space ship traveling through the rings of Saturn, and with the complicated voyage through the black hole Gargantua, and those scenes of out-of-this-world landscapes of other planets that could hopefully be a new home to the human species.

Just like Life of Pi, this film should be watched in a theater and not on a TV screen. The movie is set in space, and the dark surroundings of a theater will help re-create the experience of what it's like up there.

If I have a chance to watch this film again, I would. But in the mean time, it's your turn to. Enjoy!