Casa de Shogun

Finally moved out of the service apartment I was in for 8 months into a new house, just a few kilometers from work. Its ridiculously too large for one guy and a dog, but, the yard is huge for Shogun and the neighborhood is nice and quite, except for a Muslim minaret nearby that blasts its prayers throughout the day through a huge loudspeaker. The house is brand new, about 5000 sq feet, three second story balconies, with another few thousand sq feet of yard. (All provided free of charge by DreamWorks. Thanks DreamWorks!) There is a servants quarters intended for your live-in service staff to stay, but I'm determined to go servant free here. From the terrible experience of my service staff at the last place, I'd rather just clean myself. We'll see how long it lasts, though, as its a shitload of marble floor to keep the dog hair swept off. While most of my associates have a cook as well as a housekeeping staff, I contend no one will really be able to cook up a bowl of ramen noodles quite as good as I do, so I believe I'll abstain from that luxury as well.

Sri Lanka - Temple of the Tooth

In the center of the island is a small town called Kandy. There is a Buddhist temple their that they keep the tooth of Lord Buddha, removed from his cremation remains in India and brought down to Sri Lanka centuries ago. Apparently the British took it from them for a while, while Sri Lanka was under British control, but returned it to them later. The temple was cool. It has suffered some damage from suicide bombings by the rebel terrorists a while back but was for the most part intact.

Sri Lanka - Jewel Mining

Another one of the biggest exports of Sri Lanka is precious and semi-precious jewels. They don't pan for them in streams or dig huge earth pits like Africa does for diamonds - instead a team of 5 or so guys digs a well-like hole straight into the ground about a 100 feet deep and sifts through all the dirt and mud. It takes them months and months to dig the hole. Looks like a shitty job.

Sri Lanka - Tea Factory

Tea is a big export of Sri Lanka (they actually have lots of exports for a small island - they make clothes for large companies, shoes, dishes, etc). There was a tea factory along the road to Kandy that let you tour, so I figured I would. It was incredibly hot due to the huge furnaces used to roast the tea leaves (remember the temperature was already close to 40 celcius without the help of huge furnaces), smelled, and was overwhelmingly brown. Looked like a shitty job.

Sri Lanka - The Elephant Orphanage

About 45 minutes outside of Colombo there is an elephant sanctuary where they bring in orphaned elephant calves (usually due to landmine death of the parent) and raise them in an open environment. Twice a day they walk all 100 or so elephants to the river for them to play. And they love playing in that river. Some lay down on their side and submerge themselves completely in the water, breathing just through their trunk like a snorkel, others shoot water at each other, others roll around in the mud. It was awesome to watch so many elephants at once.

Sri Lanka - The Taj Sumudra

Stayed at the Taj Sumudra in Colombo. An older but very nice 5 star right on the ocean. The water is too rough and breaks too close to the beach to go in where the Taj is though, so if your itinerary while in Colombo includes walking from your hotel room into the ocean, you should stay farther south in the city.

Sri Lanka

I have internet access once again and I've finally got all my photos from Sri Lanka and Bhutan uploaded. So lets start with Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is a little island just south of the southern tip of India. Its just north of the equator, and is entirely covered in equatorial rain forest. Its hot. Really hot. To get it out of the way, Sri Lanka just concluded (for the most part) a long, bloody civil war a few months ago. So, Sri Lanka is still very militarized. There are army checkpoints all over the place, helicopters circling, etc. And they aren't messing around or slacking off like the Indian army guys you see lounging around. You can tell these guys were in active combat not too long ago. The war was between the ruling government and the Tamil Tigers, and went on for 20 years or so. I'm sure wikipedia can fill you in on all of the details. The rebels admitted defeat a few months ago and thus the war was declared over, but there is apparently still rebel activity in the north and eastern parts of the island. So you don't go there. I flew into and stayed in Colombo, the capital, and against the advice of some, including the US embassy, got a car and driver and went into the north center of the island to check out some old Buddhist temples and things. Everything went fine, no incidents, although the driver did mention a few times during the drive out into the jungle "thats a bad part, we are going the long way around" and stuff like that. But if you don't let the militarization and rebel activity bother you, and I didn't, Sri Lanka is a beautiful place and I'm looking forward to going back, as the Sri Lanka Air Force will give you a tour of the island in one of their helicopters with some advance notice. That will be awesome.

India Adventure Inactivity Explained - and a "best of" list

So, haven't updated in a bit because I am without internet at home where all the pictures are. Since the last update I went to Sri Lanka, which was a pretty cool place, and moved into a new house. I'm hoping to have internet hooked up next week and I'll start posting the pictures. If I don't, next weekend I'm heading to the kingdom of Bhutan in the Himalayas, and I'll add that trip to the list I need to post on.
In the meantime, check out this list of the top 100 songs and albums of the 2000's decade. Two Bright Eyes albums, one Bright Eyes song, and lots of Radiohead and Whitestripes, all some of my favorite bands, so its a pretty good list. Clearly too much hip/hop R&B crap in there - a Beyonce (spellcheck recommends "Bonce" and "Abeyance" as correct spellings of Beyonce - "temporary inactivity" and "head/brain". Kind of fitting I'd say) song, really? But top song of the decade - the one hit wonder "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley?! Sure, its a great song, but best? And in an album as bad as that one? Weird choice. Especially with treasures like "My Humps", "Hollaback Girl", and "Photograph" being totally snubbed.

Click here for stereogum post and complete list

Singapore: The Singapore Flyer

Singapore now has the largest ferris wheel in the world (they call it an observation wheel - whatever). Its like the London Eye only considerably larger. At its top you are about 500 feet in the air, the height of a 42 story building. It takes exactly 30 minutes to do one revolution, so its not exactly spinning out of control. The give you this iPod thing that narrates a history of Singapore while you ride the wheel. Its interesting but the voice acting is pretty subpar. As you go higher and higher, the city reveals itself, then Indonesia, then Malaysia.

Singapore: At Night

Just some pics from walking around at night. The Christmas lights are out and very pretty. I went to the theater on Orchard Blvd. to see New Moon, but unfortunately it doesn't open until Dec 3 in Singapore. So I saw Christmas Carol, and I saw it in 3D. Its a pretty astounding technical achievement in many ways. I truly think they beat the uncanny valley with Scrooge. The lighting and surfacing are gorgeous, the eyes have life, and the mocap is fluid and enjoyable. The lighting for the whole film is very daring - very dark, lots of shots are lit just through fx elements - especially with the ghost of Christmas Present. Jim Carrey's performances are phenomenal, I think the second instance of needing an Academy Award category (or special achievement Oscar) for mocapped performance (first being Andy Serkis for Gollum, of course). The 3D is good, not too many theme park moments (a few hands reaching out, to be sure). But its not incredible. Its used well with the lighting, putting a point light like a candle in forward z space creates an interesting depth. But the cityscape scenes should have been pushed deeper to create a real epic look. There are also some really scary moments. I thought a few times if I would have seen it as a kid I would have been scared shitless.
All in all, for someone that doesn't particularly enjoy the genre of cartoons, and doesn't particularly enjoy the 3D experience, I very much appreciated the film, which is pretty big props. Congrats Image Movers, sorry your box office wasn't stronger.
There was also a very long trailer for Avatar. I'm dying to be proved wrong on this one, but that film looks like a steaming pile of crap.
After the movie I went to an underground live music bar called the No Bar. Its entrance was in an alley, it was all basement level, it was relatively affordable, it had live rock music. Certainly this is the place in Singapore where they let their hair down a bit and drop a napkin on the ground. Hell no, it was spotless. And the drinks sucked, their mojito was made with this plutonium green mint/lime syrup mix and was disgusssting.
It should be mentioned in every post, though - my God there are beautiful women in Singapore. All dressed incredibly well and so well put together.