The last Samurai

Since my hair got longer and longer, people started asking when I am about to have it cut.

And these days, I started to make my front hair into a bundle. Some Arabic friends saw that and felt interested. They said it's like a Samurai, like Tom Cruise in the Last Samurai. I hope I am as handsome as him. I told them that the hair style of a samurai is much more curious than mine. A samurai not only have a hair bundle but also shave part of hair in front. With this curious shaving, a samurai is hardly more handsome than I.

One Chinese friend also have a comment. He nicknamed me "陳小辮".  I think it's not a good nickname because it really sound like something peeing. Especially in Taiwan.

61 kilogram weight

It's has been a long time not writing blog.....

Several weeks ago, there is a party downstair in Wayne's place, which is said to be a Semester Beginning Celebrating Party. Since I hadn't weighed myself for more than half a year, I took a chance to do that. It seems doomed to gain weight living in USA. In the beginning, People scared gaining fat but immediately took it as a excuse to eat more. It's USA's fault, not theirs. They said, "In a country of junk food, what can I do with it?!"

However, it's really a nice thing to me. Because I always want to gain weight. Even when I was in army, I tried so hard like eating a lot, training my muscle and drink milk. Even so, I could not have my weight more than 60 kg. And that day, it's, not so surprising, 61 kg. I made it without intention.

Alright, I think 61 quite enough. Just keep it.

【Movie】Benjamin Button

只能說又是一部好萊塢電影
故事本身是有創意的
但電影的藝術面完全是好萊塢的樣板模式
了無新意可言

故事上
我覺得Ben在末年時(變孩童時)被描述成逐漸喪失記憶
退化成真正的孩童這點很可惜
若情況是Ben心智仍繼續成長
那麼一個老人的心靈被禁錮在一個小孩的軀體裡的故事會更有意思

Brad Pitt
除了很帥外
Ben被他演的既無感情也不特別
倒是對拋棄他的老爸令人印像深刻

電影中最讓我印象深刻的一幕

是在女主角的舞蹈教室

兩人搭肩看著鏡子

一個人將愈來愈老

一個人將愈來年輕

這一瞬間

彷彿人生的一個交叉口

The way I see San Francisco

San Francisco, a city of art. Many shops, like coffee shops or toy shops provide a space to demonstrate and to sell workpieces for artists. This really makes the city a smell of art. The Golden Gate Bridge is itself a master piece. It's so beautiful. Besides, It may be merely a coincidence that all the old friends I visited and new friends I made are all artists.

Rita, my seiner high schoolmate, studied in fine art. She had been in San Francisco for one year. We enjoyed the whole trip together with her boy friends, Mistu a Japanese. Her roommates are also artists. Hermione from Taiwan graduated in the Institute of Art in Chicago, now working in SF. Kevin from China now studies in the same school as Rita. He had worked in video game industry in Shen-hai for years before being in SF. A-Der is a friend I made when we were in the army. He is now studying in another art school in SF. His goal is to become a director making Taiwanese movies. His roommates are also from Taiwan, studying in movie and media individually.

San Francisco is also a city that has extremely freedom to express opinions. There is Gays/Lasbians area where they speak out their rights through parades every year. Their are area of Hippies where you can see people in long hairs, strange clothes with doggies. When Vienein War, it's historically against the war severely.

On the other hand, San Francisco is a dangerous city. The amount of homeless here is the most I have ever seen. They sleep everywhere in the bus stops, street corners, or under light stands. Some regions is strongly told not to go because of the drugs, robbery and gangsters fighting even in day time.

In the New Year's Eve, we came to the counting and the fireworks. It's so crowded. You can hear people shouting and smell everywhere the cannabis. However it's OK. What's so unfortunate is that we had a robbery report. Kevin is robbed of his camera by a group of black people on our way to the fireworks. I was told that this happened all the time just around the acquainted friends.

I think it's exactly this mixing of the beauty and the dirty, freedom to speak and dangerous to live that makes San Francisco attracted. I haven't known it well and I will be back one day.

San Francisco Day one

We went to Berkley today. Berkley didn't appeal to me very much in the beginning. The building style is not uniform. No uniform color. No consistent building type. Some of them have Greek Temple design. Some don't. I even saw one of them having a Chinese type roof. Simply speaking, it's very unorganized. 

Maybe, it's a symbol of freedom.

We enjoyed the sunset in the upper hill of the campus. You can see the bay area far away in blood-red shining.

Seattle Day Four

Today is the last day in Seattle.

I went to the Art Museum of Seattle. This museum is actually only NOT-BAD to me, but it's a good place to kill time though. On the other hand, I found myself have never ever appealed strongly to the art museum, either in Chicago or in here. Anyway, there is still some master pieces impressed me very much.

After that, I visited Pike Market again. I ate a  sausage sandwich inside the market. And then I went to a very stylish bookstore near the market. The books there is categorized by some special theme like Cuba, female right.... Inside each theme, books were put casually unorganized, which made me feel it stylish. 

Tonight, I took the airplane to my final destination, San Francisco. A city looks so dirty but with feeling.

Seattle Day Three

What will happen when a city built in a place where tides flooded twice a day? In a time having no toilet system, the tide pulls crap out all over the street and make the city stinky. And what would happen if this city were burnt down after a desperate fire but everyone survived? After the UNDERGROUND TOUR, I realized Seattle is just this kind of city.

Although it's UNDERGROUND we saw as a dark, humid and basement-like place, this is actually the real ground level( first floor) of the city where sunshine was used to be so bright everyday 100 years ago. The citizens decided to rebuilt the city in a higher level. What used to be the first floor now became the basement. People opened a new door on the original second floor if the building was survived from the Great Seattle Fire.

I was astonished by the fact that what I thought to be the ground is actually not ground. Everything is elevated. Every road is actually empty under it. It just made me feel so unreal.
And it reminded me that I felt so curious about why Chicago had a first-floor-like basement. Now it's obvious the same reason, the Great Chicago Fire.

In the afternoon, we visited the Pike Market. It's really a fascinated place. It's like Taiwan traditional market. There is EVERYTHING in Pike Market like seafood, fruit, vegetable, old books, antiques, vendors of decorations and even entertaining people.

So, it's absolutely a nice place to look around.