Kuching comes alive!

My holidays have become "busier" these few days, thanks to the very welcome presence of cousin and friends! Kuching's population has momentarily expanded because of the influx of overseas students, which means lots of activities to take part in - gastronomic, physical, or social.

As usual, this spice for my life seems to come in clumps (which isn't not good, just tricky to juggle) - not only long-unseen friends, but visitors from KL for the Rainforest World Music Festival (and other activities), the RWMF itself for great music and learning experiences, and a trip to Perth and its surroundings! Not counting Wimbledon finals, and World Cup finals! All in the month of July. I certainly look forward to seeing people that I'll probably not see much of (or at all) starting this September. Especially my childhood friends who are back here. Revisiting haunts in Kuching, refreshing old ties, doing things together - life can't be any better. I'm glad, and will be glad, all July.

Yet, listening to all the accumulated experiences friends relate about being in new places and doing new things (and reading them too!), just adds to the want to go out there and experience them myself. Therefore a glad-der Grace in end-August will be a likely possibility. (After all the packing and repacking, of course.) I shall, for now, just live for the moment as it comes, and enjoy the busy-ness that has infused my holidays.

For now, short notes of movies I've watched recently:
1. Superman Returns - Interesting movie, good choice for a cinema movie, though a bit slow-moving at parts. Clark Kent (without glasses) looks better than Superman (too coiffed :P). And it's funny that 2 Jons I know are absolutely fascinated about this superhero - there's something in a name perhaps?

2. Paradise Now - Arabic movie, chronicling two young Palestinian friends picked to be suicide bombers. If you listen close enough you can pick up words that Bahasa Malaysia borrowed from Arabic, eg. 'hayat'. It was quite an insightful look into the minds of those who were suicide bombers - their lives before and after they knew their "calling" and the rituals and procedures they had to go through, their motivation and their doubts, their families and fellow comrades, the crude-ness of their operations and their land compared to the tanks and army and towering buildings of Israel. You could sympathise with these oppressed people, denied normal lives as we all know it to be. Yet another message, that of peaceful deliberations, is brought up near the end of the movie, revealing a community divided by the two modes of action, with the jihad-minded ones going ahead and doing whatever they think is right, and the peace-minded ones helpless to do anything to change the minds of the most of their opponents. And so, the saga of the Israel-Palestine controversy continues.

3. Stand by Me (1986) - I downloaded a lot of old movies lately, and am starting to go through them now, Stand by Me being one of them. The movie has absolutely nothing to do with the famous song, but the storyline is appealing anyway. There should be no surprise there, seeing that the plot is based on the book "The Body" by Stephen King. A non-horror novel by the horror king that I'd probably like. (E - you have it?)

4. Alfred Hitchcock's Dial "M" for Murder - Alfred Hitchcock movies have also been on my download list. The first I watched was "Jamaica Inn", which paled in comparison to "Dial M for Murder", yet appealing in a rather crude way. "Dial M for Murder" was more refined (the quality was also better), with a plot furnished with many twists and simple yet effective cinematography. I must say, I'm getting quite hooked on black-and-white movies, helped on also by "Intermezzo" starring Ingrid Bergman, about a violin soloist's life (no wonder I picked this movie out, huh? :> ).

Up next: Breakfast at Tiffany's, etc.