I’ve had a fun couple days. A few of us headed to Loughborough to stay with some friends and then travel to Alton Towers. It’s one of the better theme parks in the UK. We had some half price vouchers too. I felt bad because the guy who collected the vouchers couldn’t come due to a late realisation that a bunch of our friends had lectures on Wednesday which was the day we planned to go. We all had to compromise and go on the Tuesday. That left him out though as he wasn’t prepared to compromise his Tuesday. Anyway Alton Towers was great. We hit up the big roller-coasters and some of the smaller rides. The queues for the big rides were around 45 minutes. It was a school day as well so imagine what the queues would be like on a weekend. Yikes. We did squeeze a lot it and had a ton of fun. Click the pic for some pics of us all posing around. In the evening we all went for food and it was nice to have a chat and catch up with them all. I even slept well, which is rare since I only seem to sleep well in my own bed. Yep fun few days.

Geuddae geusaramdeul (The President’s Last Bang, Korea, 2005)… OK! Crazy suggestive English title which is helped by the fact you see topless girls in the first five minutes! Seriously though, this is not porn but a Korean film about assassination of a past president- President Park Chun-hee. It was based on a true story. The film is about the events leading up to the presidents assassination. It look’s at some of the joys of the president and portrays his loneliness. I can’t really summarise much more without explaining the events.
The film is shot well and certainly looks good. It kept me interested by moving between different characters roles in the assassination and also the reactions and feelings of those caught up in it all. The “high class lady” was particularly funny due to her confidence around people she is supposed to be very respectful towards.
A film of this type is always bound to bring controversy. Apparently a lot of Korean people weren’t happy about it and bits were cut from the film. I am not familiar with too much Korean history so I took the film for what it was rather than what it was based on. In doing so I enjoyed it.

Yaku san-jû no uso (Thirty Lies or So, Japan, 2004) was recently released on DVD so I got a chance to catch this film. I heard it’d be a funny entertaining film. Anyway a bunch of con-artists/swindlers meet up to carry out a mission. The film is almost entirely set in a train on the journey home after the successful swindle. The problem for the team lies in trusting each other not to run off with the whole case of money rather than splitting it equally. The distrust lies in the fact that three years ago a pretty girl named Takarada had run off with the money. After an act full of tears she was trusted to be part of team again but this left no doubt in everyones mind that someone would recreate those events again.
The film is funny and well executed. Portrayed nicely is that the characters all show emotion that limits their abilities to run off with the money at the next stop. There is a huge amount of twists and turns to keep you guessing what will happen. I think the film needed them to stray away from being too dull. I enjoyed the film but at times I was a little bored. Also I think some of the comedy got lost in the translation on a few occasions. Fairly average entertainment in my eyes unfortunately.

I met up with a few friends today. I hadn’t spent time with these guys recently as we had been finishing up our courses for the summer. Yeah so since we were all back here in the ‘port we thought it’d be nice to hang out. We headed for Cardiff and had a buffet lunch at Pizza Hut which gave us good time to catch up on recent events in our lives etc. Afterwards we went into town as a couple of them needed some summer clothes. No doubt the insane heat we are having lately reminded them of that. We drove around a little and ended up at Cardiff Bay for some ice-cream on the water front. I had Pitascio (sp? You know the nut) flavour. It was strangely only nice after the first few licks. Click the pic of my friend doing his superstar pose for some more dodgy phone-cam shots of my friends and a weird structure in the bay.

Seriously work was silly. The temperature inside was insane. You couldn’t move without sweating. We have a modern building but their is no air conditioning or old fashioned fans. On our department we have one desk fan which just moves the hot air around. Our company is very tight on providing things for the staff. We aren’t even getting a pay-rise this year. One of my bosses came over to me today and said that I was the only one on the department that hadn’t gotten a customer to do an online order. I pointed out I was in no position to do so due to the tasks I have to complete but he was having none of it. He said I’m letting the department down. That of course is rubbish because I’m easily one of the hardest workers on the department and without me they would be losing more than they are now. He said I have to do one next week or they’ll retrain me in that area. What’s the point? Because after they do that I’ll just go back to my old tasks anyway. It’s all about store statistics and I’m just another one. I can’t wait until I have to leave in September. Well it’s not that bad but I do have to move on. South Korea first then.

My days seem to be passing by really quickly. I feel like I haven’t done a lot but I guess I’v done more than I think. Since finishing University I have cleaned my room and put it back into a good living space; fixed up and improved a lot at Keikaku; studied Japanese and Korean; been training hard at the gym three times a week; and finally helped various friends out with varous design skills. People still come to me for help, I guess I am a valuable resource for them. I hope once we all start getting work some of them will use me on a freelance basis because I’m not ready to tie myself down to a job until I’ve been to South Korea this year and maybe Japan next year.
Last night was interesting. Those of us who showed up for Japanese, showed up late. The teacher thought we were all absent when he found us 20 minutes later. He said “No study, we go pub!” So we all went for drinks. I guess that means Japanese class is over for the summer. I’m going to improve my kanji (Chinese characters) over the summer I think. I also need to get fluent in the Hangul system (Korean characters) before I head to University out there. Anyway, after the pub I thought I’m out now and I may as well stay out so I went into town and drank with some friends in a bar called “The Gallery.” It showcases artwork and is designed fairly nicely from what was once a strip club. I got to hang out with some slightly older friends that I haven’t been spending enough time with recently. It was great to catch up with them all. I had fun and shockingly busted a few moves on the dance floor.
The photograph is out of my bedroom window as the sun set. I like the distress from the glass on the shadows of the buildings. Also I uploaded a few more older photographs to my Flickr page.

After Japanese class and an excellent mushroom burger from the local vegetarian cafe, me and two friends headed to Bristol Zoo. I hadn’t been to the zoo since early high school so it was good to go back there. I was hoping for tigers but they don’t have them anymore. They have a lion though. I was really impressed with the fruit bats for some reason. They looked so cool climbing and flying around. The aquarium was cool too. The fish I’m always amazed by. So many kinds with so many different features. The seals were funny. One seal owned this rock and wouldn’t let any others near him. I even got a picture of him roaring. The penguins I was also excited to see but they just stood there doing nothing. All in all though good day. You can check out my phone-cam pictures here. I should have took my digi-cam really.

Yeoja, Jeong-hye (This Charming Girl, Korea, 2004) was quite an unexpected film for me. Jeong-hae appears to be lonely. She lives alone and only really has contact with people at her job as a postal officer. She seems to accept this way of life and doesn’t seem too unhappy. Soon though her emotions start showing as she gets an interest in a small cat and she starts to remember her mother and the past. An aspiring writer seems to express a slight interest in her and her lonely life looks like it could evolve. How will she deal with all these new emotions?
This film was quite hard to watch because of the expectation that something more may happen. The film seemed to document Jeong-Hae’s way of living and then what happens if a little more emotion is applied to her life. It’s well acted and shot very well. I liked it but as I said expected more to happen. However if there was more of a story it wouldn’t be the film it was.

I went to Neath for Karate last night. It took longer than usual to get there as the club had moved halls. About an hour in all. Anyway we found the place, it was smaller but certainly cleaner. It was warmer though due to the lack of a ceiling and the roof absorbing the sun. Three of us were taking a grading. We had to take some nasty falls onto the hard wooden floor and go through a few rough fights; I have the cuts and bruises to prove it! It was worth it though, I totally held my own and no one got any advantage over me. So I passed! Yay. I have one more grading then I can go for Black belt. Yikes.

I got my BA (Hons) yesterday. Well the results. I had a 2-1!!! Missed a first by a mark basically. Very happy though because when I looked at the break down of the marks, I aced Graphics with a solid A. Basically my English skills in the dissertation brought me from the first to a 2-1. I had a B for the dissertation. I think that’s an achievement since I really never learnt English correctly. They say my ideas are excellent and I cover every point but I just can’t articulate it correctly on paper. Still I’m very happy because my portfolio is strong and I have a strong degree.