Somusing

This actually has nothing to do with the sex lives of cannibals, unless you count the chapter about dogs. It's an arresting title, though, isn't it? It's also very funny and entertaining, all about the author's adventures living on a pretty desolate island in Kiribati. Always irreverent, sometimes downright vulgar, it was a fun way to learn about Kiribati (which, by the way, is pronounced "Kiribas"--I don't know why). There's some history and background and lots of hilarious stories about learning to live in a place that's really different from America. I liked it.

The one redeeming element of Letters to Juliet was the travel. I liked that the English and American characters were in Italy, speaking Italian to the people they met (although, of course, switching to English pretty quickly for the sake of an American audience). Otherwise, I thought it was kind of dumb.

I usually like the movies that Luke Wilson is in, and this one is no exception. It's light-hearted and funny and pleasant. I really liked it (in spite of the too-high-pitched laugh of Denise Richards).

As of October 2, 2011, it is streaming on Netflix.

It has been a long time since I enjoyed a book as much as I enjoyed this one. I can't think of anything I didn't like about it. Thanks to Ivy for encouraging me to read it.

We had this DVD from Netflix for quite a while before we watched it. I can't remember why I moved it to the top of our queue, but after watching (and hating) Paper Heart, I had very little desire to see another movie with Michael Cera in it. Even before that, I suspected and feared that Scott Pilgrim vs. the World might be kind of like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow--I'd hear about how wonderful and innovative and amazing it was and then I'd see it and be kind of bored.

But I was wrong. I found it delightful, funny, strange, clever. My favorite ex-boyfriend was the vegan one. I wish it were cleaner, so I could show it to my kids. I'm sure they'll all see it eventually, but there's too much "adult" material in it for a family flick.

Friday morning I left on an overnight backpacking trip with Zed, Jacob, and Phin. We drove up Teton Canyon from the Idaho side and had our camera take a picture of us.

We hiked past the Devil's Stairs fork toward Alaska Basin, and stopped for lunch here.

We arrived in Alaska Basin having met only 2 or 3 other hikers.

We had made good time, so unlike the last time we hiked up to Alaska Basin 3 years ago, we decided we'd hike all the way to the east side of the Tetons to Jenny Lake.

Thus motivated, we hiked up to Sunset Lake.

These were some of our views leaving Sunset Lake and heading up to Hurricane Pass.

Soon we arrived at the border between the Jedediah Smith Wilderness and Grand Teton National Park.

Then we descended down to Hurricane Pass.

Here was our view over Schoolroom Glacier.

Zed looked down from Hurricane Pass into the South Fork of Cascade Canyon and the Teton Crest Trail.

Morning sun made it a nice time to play around the lake under Schoolroom Glacier.

Here Phin and Jacob filter water from a snowmelt stream for us to drink.

We met a lot of other people on the trail the further down we went in Cascade Canyon. It was a nice late-summer day and lots of day-hikers had headed up the trails from the Jenny Lake side.

Erin picked us up at Jenny Lake at 4:30 pm. Our total hiking distance over those two days was about 24 miles.

Here's what IMDb says about this movie:

Charlyne Yi embarks on a quest across America to make a documentary about the one subject she doesn't fully understand: Love.

Jon and I watched it a few nights ago. Well, Jon fell asleep about halfway through, so I guess I'm the one who watched it. I didn't hate it while I was watching it, but the more time that goes by since I saw it, the more it makes me kind of mad that I wasted my time on it. Charlyne Yi doesn't believe in True Love, so she travels around the country (and even to Paris towards the end) asking people about True Love--do they believe in it, what is it, what are their experiences, etc. She even consults some "experts" who might have something to say about love--some professors of biochemistry or something like that. She has some famous friends, one of whom is Michael Cera, with whom she starts a relationship. In spite of her experience with him, she refuses to change her mind about the existence of love. Nobody can teach her anything. Why are they driving and flying all over the place, presumably spending a bunch of money? Apparently, it is just to make this documentary. There are also scenes featuring paper cut-out figures.

IMDb says this is a partially-scripted documentary, and I'm not sure what that means, but I don't care. The director, Charlyne's friend Nick, is played by an actor, but everyone else is just who they are. What I learned is that Michael Cera acts just like every character he's ever played (as far as I have seen, and I guess it's possible he was acting in this movie, too). I also learned that some people think they're clever enough that we should watch them making a "documentary." I think it was meaningless, self-referential, and self-indulgent. You could probably put some more "self" words in there. I hope I can stop being annoyed by it now. (I supposed there are some people who would say the movie succeeded because it got stuck in my head, but again, I don't care.)

After our trip to Helsinki, we went to Amsterdam for a night. We stayed in a hostel that was movie themed. Our room was Star Wars themed, and had a huge picture of Darth Vader on the wall.

We went to the Anne Frank house, and looked at some of the older buildings along the way. One of them was an old church that had a really weird Roman numeral on it.

It looked like cbbc, but for real it was C I backwards C = M, I backwards C = D, C which adds up to 1600. Wikipedia has a close-up image.

At the Anne Frank house we saw a lot of cool stuff. I didn’t really know anything about her before going, so I’m glad I could go.

We went to an Indian restaurant that was really good, and then we returned to our hostel for our last night in Europe. This square was nearby:

Our ferry to Helsinki from Tallinn was canceled because of rough seas and they sent us over to another ferry, but we had to wait another two and a half hours so we walked around Tallinn for a while. Finally we got on the ferry and there we met these two Finnish guys who didn’t speak any English at all. They didn’t even understand hello. Dad thought they were speaking Estonian at first and kept trying to communicate with them using our phrase book. Finally one of the people next to us asked us if we wanted them to translate for us. After that little adventure, we went to our hotel. We just stayed in there because it was late.

The next morning was Sunday. We went to church at a building about a quarter mile down the street. A lot of the people there spoke English, and missionaries translated for us.

After church, we walked around in the bay area for a while, then went to a ferry to go to the fortress island Suomenlinna. That was awesome. It was probably a ten or twenty minute ferry trip, and was really cool. It has lots of old cannons, and stuff.

At the south island there were a lot of tunnels running around underneath the walls.

It was totally one of my favorite parts of the trip.

After Suomenlinna we went to a couple of the big churches near the docks. In one of them we heard an organist practicing for his performance that night.

Then we met up with someone Dad knows from Interchange named René Hertell. We went to dinner at a restaurant called Virgin Oil. After that we went back to our hotel.

Several months ago, I went through a new and different phase. I'll call it my Korean Drama phase because that's what it was. My friend Veronica wrote to me on Facebook and said, "You should try a Korean drama. They're usually only about 20 episodes long and like a Spanish-language soap opera, but clean." This sounded weird to me--I had never watched a Spanish soap opera and I had no interest in anything Asian--but I was a fan of Hulu and it turns out there are several Korean dramas (subtitled in English) available there. Veronica recommended I start with a show called Pasta, and thus it began.

Pasta is about a girl who works in the kitchen of a high-end Italian restaurant. There are some fun cooking scenes and assistant chefs yelling, "Yes, Chef!" There are also some quirky, funny characters. It's mostly a romance, though. I'll warn you that, according to wikipedia and this show, it's typical for Korean dramas to feature a sweet girl falling in love with a guy who treats her badly, in this case because he's her boss and he treats everyone badly, and, you know, he's trying to help her become a real chef. It's a fun show. The romance is sweet and old-fashioned--this is, I suppose, traditional Korea, where holding hands is a big deal. I think it's still my favorite.

My Lovely Sam Soon. This one has some elements of Bridget Jones's Diary, like imaginary scenes of heroism on the part of the main character that contrast hilariously with her real life. Sam Soon is apparently a very old-fashioned and ridiculous name in Korea, akin to something like "Bertha" might be here. She hates her name, is slightly overweight (although she looks great to me), and her mother thinks she's an old maid. There's romance, pretended and eventually real. It's funny. I liked it quite a bit.

Boys Before Flowers. Yes, it's true that some of the titles don't translate very well. This one was about a group of super rich high school boys and the daughter of a dry cleaner they eventually befriend. Apparently, feathered hair and tight clothes are popular for guys in Korea. In spite of the odd fashion choices of the rich boys, I enjoyed this one, too. It was silly sometimes, but also funny and sweet. This is another one where the girl goes for the guy who's meanest to her, and I kind of wanted her to end up with someone else.

Bad Love. This one is a little racier than the others, at least in subject matter. There's an affair, I think. I can't remember this one very well, actually. What I remember is that the girl started out as a cellist but because of some injury had to stop playing. It was too long. I still enjoyed it, though.

It was delightful to find during this phase of mine that a friend of mine also enjoys Korean dramas. Her husband went on an LDS mission to Korea, which piqued her interest. She watches them with her daughters, though, which is selfless and family-oriented of her. Anyway, I stopped watching them so I could go back to knitting while watching TV. I did manage to do some knitting while watching and reading the subtitles, but it wasn't very fun. From what I've read, Korean historical dramas are supposed to be pretty good, too. I imagine I'll watch more someday. I thought they were fun--fun to hear Korean and fun to be intrigued by Korean culture and food. Also, they were generally quite a bit cleaner than American TV.