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Uh oh, the weather here in central Florida dropped below the 70s this morning! It had seemed like an awfully warm winter up to this point! That can only mean one thing... THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END! And, to commemorate, what better than the 2009 action thriller, 2012 - The End of the World?
Again, the mere presence of this full length feature film on YouTube is rather surprising to me, as this movie was released just three years ago! That said, considering large portions of the film are set, you know, TODAY, it's interesting to see some of the anachronistic elements that pop up here and there, such as the dearth of Apple products (and other smart mobile computing devices)! I can understand Back to the Future, Part II getting some of its vision of the future wrong, but that was predicting almost thirty years into the future, where as this movie was looking, at the time, less than three. You'd think they'd have gotten it more right! Of course, considering the super realistic depiction of our main characters fleeing various portions of the apocalypse, the smaller details are perhaps a little easier to overlook.
This past Saturday, we had contemplated visiting Orange Lake resort once again, as Uncle Subrata was gracious enough to authorize my family to use it in his stead again this year. However, with Cherry's aches and pains seven months pregnant, we decided that we would stay in town this year and try to find some local things to do.
Fortunately, I came across this wonderful event - the Family Christmas Extravaganza!
This incredible free event featured free music, bounce houses, pony rides, exhibitions from local law enforcement and services and free food and drinks!
And, ittook place literally right in our back yard, at Max K. Rodes Park! We'd visited the front part of this park many times in the past - the playground we usually take Fifi to is in the front of the park - but we never knew about the huge back part of the park. I recall that the city recently acquired the park, so I suspect many of the facilities are very new. The sports facilities certainly looked new, and the youth basketball game we watched during the event seemed to confirm the new-ness as the signs up on the wall of the gym declared that this was the inaugural season of the league!
As always, I managed to take quite a few photographs of the occasion. Today, per a suggestion from frequent Grant's Pad patron Karn, I've decided to try embedding a slideshow of the event instead of forcing you readers to scroll all the way through the post! See below:
Ahhh, the classic musicals of yesteryear, when Hollywood was arguably at its most glamorous! Today's feature can be considered one of the many, many highlights of the late, great Audrey Hepburn.
Fun Fact: As with many musicals, My Fair Lady was adapted from a Broadway show which actually featured another actress by the name of Julie Andrews. However, Audrey Hepburn was selected to play Eliza for the film adaptation due to Andrews' lack of film experience at the time, and the film's producers wanted a "big name" for the lead role. As a consequence, Eliza's singing parts were actually dubbed since Audrey did not have much singing experience! Of course, Julie Andrews later on found her own fabulous success in hits such as The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins.
Numerous travel sites have mentioned Taiwan's unique topography which renders the island somewhat of a diamond in the rough for hiking enthusiasts. This topography clearly did not go unnoticed when the Nationalist party officials fled to Taiwan back in '49, as our trip to Cihu, near my grandparents' house in Taoyuan, made perfectly clear. Due to the mountainous nature of this trip, Fifi and Cherry stayed home.
Giant statue of Chiang Kai-Shek at the entrance of Cihu
I never knew this, but former president-for-life of Taiwan, Chiang Kai-Shek, was quite fond of the Taoyuan region, so much so that he constructed a strategic military retreat compound in the nearby mountains surrounding Cihu, or "Kindness Lake". To get to the compound, we first had to hike a mild trail around the back of the mountain, which featured some nice vistas as well as interesting opportunities to take photographs of rather exotic insects:
The bus taking us to the beginning of the trail
An old tunnel
Before long, we'd reached the main part of the lake, where the compound still sits today. The buildings have since been converted into museum exhibits, covering various topics from biographical history of Chiang's family to, rather curiously, entomology:
A model of a skiff frequently used by Chiang
I found these letter exchanges to be very interesting - Apparently Chiang had on several occasions requested supplies from the U.S. military...
And President Roosevelt himself as well!
Portrait of Song Mei-Ling, the most famous of Chiang's spouses and one of the famous Song sisters
Madame Song dabbled a bit in traditional Chinese painting... okay, more than dabbled!
Reconstruction of Chiang's quarters
Some copies of Chiang's notes from school
Famous photo with Dr. Sun Yat-Sen
After visiting each of the six buildings of the compound, we sat down for some ice cream before heading to the Mausoleum, where Chiang's casket (but not his body, as I understand) is protected today by an honor guard. The video captures the once-per-hour changing of the guard:
Along the way to the Mausoleum, you pass several military bunkers built into the hills
The casket
One of the anorexic guards
After visiting the mausoleum, it was a short walk back to the front side of Cihu park, where we had a few more good photo-opps:
What are you looking at, Melinda??
At the front of the park, there is another curious exhibit - the garden of statues. You see, up until around the 80s or so, most public buildings, such as schools, were required to have a statue of Chiang Kai-Shek on display. When the Chiang family's dynasty finally came to an end, that policy came to an end as well, and most of the statues were taken down. However, many of the statues were spared from destruction, and instead came to rest at Cihu, where they can be viewed today:
It's kind of hard to see, but that is a row of statues lining the water
And that concluded the most historically informative part of our summer trip!
Today is 12/12/12, which happens to be the last repetitive date that we will see in our lifetime. Due to the timing of our generation, we have had the fortune to witness a full set of 12 repetitive dates (i.e. 01/01/01 through today)! It's very geeky, yes, but at the same time somewhat awe-inspiring as we are again reminded of how insignificant our lifespans are in the grand scheme...
In commemoration, today's post appropriately will be the last of the "Baby Sofia Milestones" posts - now that she's past two years old, this series may have to be renamed "Girl Sofia Milestones"!
Real-Life Lilo and Stitch?
I was hoping to be able to report getting over the "Terrible Twos" hump, since that phase seemed to start a little early for this little girl. Alas, it just keeps evolving into different types of quirks, from not wanting to take baths, to rolling her eyes at you, to playing back-and-forth mind games with you. It can get pretty frustrating some days, but as I have said time and again, God knew what he was doing when he made babies so cute!
Music
Aside from the aforementioned attitude developments, interacting with Fifi has never been more fun. From a very young age, she's always enjoyed music and activity, so (after a brief temper tantrum) we were not surprised when she had a great time at the Christmas parade this past weekend:
Music and dancing is a common theme in this episode of Baby Sofia Milestones, and there's no better time than Christmas to indulge in a little boogie-ing:
Education
The main focus of today's final Baby Sofia Milestones entry, however, is Fifi's educational strides. Last year around this time (sometime between Baby Sofia Milestones Entries 5 and 6), Fifi had recently learned to walk and was starting to say intelligible words, and was responding to commands, such as "nod your head", "kick", and "dance".
A few months later, Fifi learned to go in the potty, a skill she has mastered so well that she goes to the bathroom on her own today (including taking off/putting on her underwear and pants and wiping, though we make it a point to give her a good clean "make sure" wiping every now and again. She'll even hold it for the entire night as long as she remembers to go right before going to bed!
Around our summer trip, Fifi's vocabulary started to take off, in both Chinese and English, learning the names of animals, household items, and how to say and respond to basic commands. Not long after, Fifi was singing full-length songs in Chinese with Grandma!
Recently, we enrolled Fifi in swimming lessons. While she hasn't quite learned to swim yet, she has become quite comfortable in the water, and is no longer afraid to completely submerge her face.
Throughout the year, Fifi's has really focused a lot on emulating others. This happens most often when playing with other children, but she also tries to copy what we do as well, whether it be vacuuming the floor, talking on the phone, or taking vitamins. Sometimes, her emulation is really spot on - so much so that we can actually rely on her version of certain simple tasks, like replacing the trash bags in the kitchen and bathrooms. However, for other tasks, such as cooking and/or serving dinner, are best left as simulations:
Perhaps the most practical educational development Cherry has encouraged is Fifi's learning of the alphabet. Fifi was familiar with the concept of written characters through her very early exposure to books, but until recently, all letters were "A". She also was aware of most of the alphabet - in fact, the ABC song is one of her favorites in her repertoire. As you can see in the following video, however, Cherry's recent training efforts using Fifi's birthday gift from Grandma and Grandpa have paid off quite nicely, learning not only letters A-F and numbers 1-3, but also a number of shapes, all in just the last week!
Coming soon, the newly announced "Girl Sofia Milestones" Series!
Yesterday, I was excited to take my family to a free community Christmas concert. Fifi loves music, and I like free entertainment, so all was looking good.
The evening started out very nicely. Fifi sat down nice and quiet like last time, and was quickly making friends with the four elderly ladies sitting behind us. Once the music started, the elderly ladies taught her how to wave her hands like a conductor and she happily danced to the Christmas songs:
Unfortunately, our nice evening out took a sharp turn for the worse when a crazy old man several rows in front of us whipped back, glared at Fifi, and yelled at her to be quiet! Many of the other patrons were taken aback, and Fifi was clearly shocked and upset for about the next half hour. Being of Chinese descent, I am conditioned to show respect to the elderly, but you I can't believe how entitled some older people can be. Yes, Fifi was making a little bit of noise, but clearly out of appreciation and enjoyment, and to be completely honest, I, and for that matter, most of the audience around us, thought Fifi was perfectly well behaved - dancing to the music and applauding when appropriate. In retrospect, I really wish I would have put my usual deference aside and responded by telling the old man that he should be ashamed for picking a fight with a little two-year-old girl over enjoying a free community event...
Needless to say, Cherry was furious, especially seeing how Fifi was so sad, so we left shortly afterwards...
Once upon a time, I held a weekly movie viewing at my apartment in college, taking advantage of Blockbuster's (R.I.P) rent-one-get-one free program while simultaneously providing an opportunity for exchange students to get together and socialize. This tradition went on for a few years, and now, I would like to revive it once again, in virtual form (although probably not as regular as the original Movie Night), thanks in no small part to recent developments in YouTube!
Back when YouTube first appeared in the Interwebz, it was limited to tiny clips (typically 10 minutes or less), and the video quality was horrendously shoddy, approximately 240p, which looks awful even on cellphone-sized screens. Nevertheless, it was video, that you could watch ONLINE, for FREE, without downloading anything at all! TEH AMAZNG!!one!1!
Over the years, the service has made several improvements, especially as competition from other sites, such as DailyMotion, emerged and offered different (and in some cases, better) content at higher playback quality. Notably, Google added HD playback resolution, which is quite impressive, integration with what is quickly becoming my favorite social network, Google+, playlists (making it possible to essentially replace the defunct music engine imeem as users could now string music videos together and set it up to play it back automatically), various automatic enhancement tools to take jitter out or improve the lighting of your uploaded videos, and, last but not least, the ability to upload videos of virtually any length, which of course, provided users the opportunity to... wait for it...
Upload full length feature films!
Now, this isn't really that new of a feature on YouTube. Previously, I exploited this feature primarily to find more obscure foreign films that don't usually get released in any form here in the U.S., such as Hong Kong comedy flicks or obscure documentaries. But recently, I've noticed more and more mainstream films are becoming available. I'm not sure why these videos don't always get removed, but I figured that I would take advantage while they lasted. And so, without further adieu, I present to you the first Movie Night at Grant's Pad with one of my favorite, yet still somewhat obscure to American audiences, film of all time, the film that introduced me to the so-called "Korean Wave", My Sassy Girl!
This romantic comedy features high production values, slapstick comedy, and a touching love story that is typical of modern Korean drama. It holds a special place in my heart, and I'm pleased to be able to share it with my readers today!
I can't believe we have lived in Melbourne for over seven years without ever knowing that we have a science museum all to ourselves here in Brevard County!
Museums have been a staple of our weekend entertainment plans for some time now. They are really a great option for people who have young kids and pregnant wives, because they are indoors for the most part, require a fairly low amount of walking/movement, and are generally stress/anxiety free activities, unlike, say, a trip to Sea World where a dolphin might bite you... (please note that I include this article merely as a point of reference and actually fully support Sea World in the hyper-linked case and do plan to visit Sea World many times in the future when my children are older - although I will think twice about letting them feed the dolphins on their own...).
So, when I found out that the Brevard Museum of Science and Natural History was having a free community day this past weekend, I was all over it!
The museum itself is quite small, though I expected as much. We were lucky to get in right when one Safari Todd was finishing up his critters lecture in the museum's lecture hall:
Predictably, Fifi was terrified of the bugs, but it wasn't a problem for Cherry or me!
Cherry holds the tarantula
And I try my hand with the scorpion!
I was quite surprised that Cherry mustered up the courage to touch the snakes, however. Usually, she detests snakes - but I think she wanted to set an example for Fifi. Clearly, the strategy worked - Fifi was predictably apprehensive at first, but before long she was petting all kinds of snakes!
Of course, we couldn't let the gator in the room get away before Fifi pet him!
After Safari Todd finished his presentation, Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus came in to read stories for the children:
After meeting Santa, we went ahead to explore the rest of the museum. Most of the museum focuses on the history of the Brevard County area, including the history of Florida crackers, prehistoric natives, and paleolithic natives. In fact, one of the most interesting exhibits is the one describing the "Windover Site", a community of relatively advanced peoples dating back over 7000 years ago that was discovered right here in Brevard County in the 80s:
I think this is a mock-up, but I guess I can't be sure
As any good science museum should have, this one has a small interactive area, but it's really small, and quite geared towards really young kids. You'll find no perpetual motion clocks or optical perspective tricks here - but there was this pretty awesome mock-up spacecraft that Fifi liked a lot!
All in all, it was a pretty good trip, especially at the great price of Free!
