Memoirs of a Geisha

Usually one would read a book before watching the movie but I did the opposite for Memoirs of A Geisha. So which was better?

First of all for those of you who haven't seen it( why not?!!) the basic plot is as follows. The story focuses on the life of a young girl Chiyo who came from a fishing village. Due to her parent's poor health Chiyo and her sister (Satsu) were taken to Kyoto. Chiyo was separated from her sister and was taken in by an okiya owner known as Mother.

Chiyo lived in the okiya with another girl similar to her age called Pumpkin and a Geisha called Hatsumomo. We learn of the struggles Chiyo faced as she is badly bullied by Hatsumomo. Chiyo tried to escape from the okiya to run away with her sister but was unsuccessful.

As her punishment, Chiyo had to serve as a maid to repay her debt to the okiya but a geisha called Mameha came to her rescue and Chiyo ( who later became known as Sayuri) became Mameha's apprentice. The love interest is between Sayuri & the Chairman. I won't spoil the ending for you if you haven't seen it already but I'm sure you can guess what happens.

The movie had wonderful cinematography but I felt there wasn't much chemistry between Zhang Zi Yi and Ken Watanabe( who is cute by the way! i think he was in the Last Samurai ). Fortunately, Gong Li,acted the part of Hatsumomo convincingly.I did sympathise with Hatsumomo because she was so insecure of herself and threatened by Chiyo up to the point that she was willing to make Chiyo's life as miserable as possible.

When you read the book you can "sense" the build up of the tension between the Chairman and Sayuri. I didn't feel the movie managed to recreate this tension in some of the scenes. Another example would be Sayuri's relationship with Mr Nobu.In the book, Sayuri was fond of Nobu in a platonic way but we never see the friendship developing further in the movie.

Some people may say that the book is boring at places because of the slow pace but I would have to disagree. I think this only adds to the atmosphere and mood of the story. The movie had edited many of the scenes in the book which is understandable because there's only so much you can fit in a movie. It is a shame though because personally some of the scenes especially the ones in Sayuri's later life would have added more depth to the movie.

So would I recommend the movie? Yes, even though I felt the movie wasn't as good as I thought it could be, it made me want to read the book. The book is definitely a good read (kept me entertained on my train journey from Slough to London this week!) The writing is brilliant and I felt that I saw a glimpse of the highs and lows of a geisha's life.

I would recommend you to see the movie and read the book too if you haven't already done so. Even if you have already read the book after watching the movie you will want to read it again. :)

The next movie I'm looking forward to is the adaptation of Dan Brown's book "The Da Vinci Code". I hope the director and cast can live up to the high expectations of the book. Watch this space...

Soulmates...do they really exist?

People my age are starting to think about the future and settling down...some of us have been lucky in finding " the one ". But what about those of us who are not so lucky because of relationships which didn't work out?? This reminds me of an episode in Friends when Phoebe talks about finding your "lobster" whereby each lobster has a soulmate.

Is there really such a thing as finding your soulmate?? What if we think we found our soulmate but things didn't work out ...will we ever find another soulmate??

Nowadays, there are increasingly higher rates of marriages failing...I guess there are no guarantees. A happy marriage is not something that happens automatically, it is something which both people in the marriage have to work at to make it work.

I hope that when I settle down that person is firstly a good Muslim, caring, kind, funny and someone that I see myself growing old with..... Will we ever find our "lobster"???

Part 2

Here goes for my trip back home part 2...

I celebrated Raya Haji with my bro and kak nor this year. My parents were doing their Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca..alhamdulillah they were safe and their Hajj went smoothly.
Usually during raya we would gather at Mamapam's place but this year Babah & Mamapam spent Raya at Babah's hometown in Perak. So it was a relatively quiet Raya..went to Kak Nor's relatives house and Che Kah's house.

Len ( my dad's friend) was in KL for a business trip with his partner Marigold. Since my parents weren't around my bro & i jadi wakil to meet up with them. My bro was tied up with work so I met up with Len & Marigold for dinner at Mandarin Oriental. The views from the restaurant was pretty but the food was probably a bit too posh for me...hehe I'm not used to all this fine dining stuff.

Marigold had lived in KL when she was a little girl as her father was part of the British High Commission during the critical time when Malaya (as it was called before Independence). She was reminiscing on her childhood in Malaysia.Her father was good friends with Tunku Abdul Rahman and Marigold was lucky enough to have met Tunku Abdul Rahman before he became our First Prime Minister in Malaysia. I was so impressed because she had met one of our great leaders in the country.

In my last weekend in KL, I attended one of my good friend's wedding Lini with Yana. Her akad nikah was on Friday at her home in PJ. Lini looked beautiful...berseri as a pengantin should be :) The akad nikah went well and Mizan only had to say his lafaz once which was impressive.

After Lini's place Yana decided to visit Meddy in Ampang. It was already pretty late by then.. but we decided what the heck we'll just go anyway. My sense of direction in KL is especially bad but luckily the roads were pretty much quiet late at night so we managed to get to Meddy's place with little trouble. It was good to catch up with Meddy and Shasha and we only left their place about 3am!!

Lini's wedding reception was held later on that night at Perdana Felda. Yana & I decided to go to Meddy's place and we got ready there. It was a beautiful reception and it was nice to catch up with friends there. Lini & Mizan looked lovely and they looked happy together..awwwww... :) I wish them Selamat Pengantin Baru and semoga bahagia hingga ke anak cucu......

On my last Sunday in KL, I met up with my friends for brunch..thanks guys for coming!

Then I went to Mamapam's place for Sunday lunch..Che Kah masak kerutuk daging and there were also other lovely dishes (too many to name) cooked by Che Kah & Mamapam...yummy!!! I'm definitely gonna miss all this back in UK.

Time flies when u're having fun

I arrived back in UK yesterday. I had a wonderful time as always. It would have been nice if my parents were in KL a bit longer but it's ok..I was lucky enough to meet Nuqman and spend time with him and the rest of the family. At least the little kid dapat jugak tengok muka aunty dia ni yang kat London..who knows when I'll see him next.

I also went to Melaka which was a road trip the girls and I have been planning for a long time...since we graduated all those years ago! Amanda (a.k.a. Panda)was a wonderful host...showed us her hometown and all the good eating places to eat...it was like we were doing a "Jalan Jalan cari makan show" in Melaka.

We started out by going to Amanda's place and then headed down to the centre of town for Nyonya food at Makko's. Excellent food...we thought as four girls we ordered too much food but all our plates were empty by the end of the meal. We did burn "some" of the calories by getting some cheap DVDs and walking around the old shop houses area in Melaka where there are a lot of craft shops.





Panda brought us to try fresh soya bean which was different that the usual one because it had hints of ginger in it. I wasn't sure whether I would like it with the ginger but I was pleasantly surprised.

We then took some tourist photos at the Dutch buildings ..it was weird to see a windmill in the middle of Melaka.Before dinner we stopped over to buy some putu mayam( i think that's how it's spelt) and also tried the freshest iced coffee I have ever tasted...kalah Coffe Bean and Starbucks!

The "piece de resistance" was the ikan bakar place we went to for dinner. I think the place was called Medan Ikan Bakar Sri Duyung in a really remote spot in Melaka. The food was amazing...I wanted to have some more of the fish but my stomach couldn't take anymore..and I had my kangkung belacan and sotong goreng...all time favourites!!!

Our last stop before heading back to KL was the famous Bee Bee jam tarts...one of the best places to get jam tarts in Melaka. If ur planning to get ur bulk supply of jam tarts u have to order well in advance. The Bee Bee house smells of jam tarts all day... and there are people constantly preparing fresh jam tarts pratcially 24hrs of the day. We managed to get some last minutes jam tarts to bring back. Damn sedap!

All in all a great day trip to Melaka. Since it's only abt 1.5-2 hrs from KL I'd definitely go there again.Cher-ryl and Anisa weren;t able to join us but we will definitely be making a return trip there.

I'll update the rest of my trip in my next blog...now I'm trying to get to sleep to get rid of my jetlag. Nite nite people!

2006:What lies ahead...........

Hi everyone,

Well, I've been back for nearly a week now. I spent the first few days with the family and sent my parents to Haji. I didn't expect sending them off for Haji would be so emotional but I guess I got caught up in the moment. Maybe one day we can go for umrah together as a family.

The last few days I've been going out and meeting up with frens and relatives. I went to my niece birthday party last Friday which was good fun. The food was delicious catered by one of Abg Nizam's frens. I especially loved the trifle..yummy! The kids were entertained by Kak Ina as the games organiser. I will put up pics soon.

I met up with my fren for New Year's at Hilton KL . Food was good but music could have been better. They played house music which was terrible to say the least for the first couple of hours but luckily played R&B music towards the end.

I've also been able to spend time with my adorable nephew. He loves to smile!! cute sangat!!!!! Unfortunately his health is still not good...he is still wheezing due to problems in his lungs and chest area. He may need to undergo physiotherapy in the chest area. Let us all pray that he gets well soon.

So we are now in 2006.....new year's resolutions...hmmmm well I've never really been a person who comes up with New Year's resolutions cuz I probably would not stick with it..hehe.

But if I really had to think about it my New Year's resolutions would be:

1. Be a better person e.g. patient with others and be more tolerant towards other people.

2. Be healthy and live a prosperous, happy and successful life

3. Meet someone who can love and accept me with my good and bad sides along with my background

Wishing all of you a Happy New Year 2006!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)