From the ecstasy of victory to the #%@!* agony of defeat

Sunday was the Dragon Boat Festival Finals. While I was away gallivanting around the Bay, the Women’s Team line-up was already set. That meant the only role left for me was to be the drummer, which is cool, even tho the seat is a 4 x 10 inch piece of wood and there is no butt pad. (Teams don’t practice with a drummer as the instructions come from the coach, who’s usually the coxswain. In fact, for normal practices, most dragon boats don’t have the head and tail installed. They’re only for the races. Same goes for the huge drum at the bow.)

800m is a long distance to row. We were reminded of that fact harshly when while we were rowing out to the starting line, Coach yelled at us not to rush our strokes as we would not have the stamina to maintain the strength of each stroke. He also added, “You’re not as young as those other teams.” Ouch. That was low. (Though kinda funny after the fact; it’s something we’ve always known, that we are sometimes competing against student groups or teams consisting of people who are in very physical vocations, like the armed forces or police force, and don’t involve sitting at a desk 15 hours a day.) But it served his purpose. He said what we lacked most was aggression, from both the Men’s and Women’s teams. However, it’s not blind rage and unbridled adrenaline he wants, but controlled power. During the race, he again yelled at us not to rush our strokes (that was what the lashing the day before was all about — he wanted to pace our strokes, but the 20-crew boat was too big and no one heard him and everyone rushed through the race and there was no power and our performance was worse than poor). It’s not frequency that would drive the race, but steady strokes with good, proper force and power in every pull. He yelled out the frequency in the dragon boat war cry: “Hee-yah! (Hurgh-ah!) Hee-yah! (Hurgh-ah!)”. And everyone actually followed in perfect unison.

At its most basic, my job would be to not fall off the boat as that disqualifies the team. And drum. (I didn’t have to in our first race years ago, but apparently it’s mandatory now.) I also try to echo Coach’s orders. To say that the drummer also cheers the rowers on is one way of putting it. Alternatively, you could say the drummer is Anthony Robbins on a bad trip screaming his lungs out, spitting expletives, possibly in more than one language, even better if one of those languages is Hokkien, reminding everyone of every Saturday we’ve sacrificed, for months, for years, of every bad day, of every frustration from work, from our bosses and clients, to channel every ounce of anger and rage into power for every stroke because there will be no what if’s and I should have’s later on — and kindly do not forget to pause, twist your body, stretch out, point and use your #*%&ing legs and kick and pull — for 5 minutes and 33 seconds.

There were two women’s heats, and our girls had the fastest overall time.

From where I sat, I could see Coach smiling from the last buoy to the chequered flag finish line. To be sure, he was still screaming bloody murder, but I could see he was smiling as he did it. First. Who would have thought. It was such a high, and I’m only the drummer. The girls were ecstatic. The boys were ecstatic for us. There were high-fives, slap-on-the-back’s, heaps of congratulations, screaming and delightful squeals just because (hey, we’re still girls). Coach was beaming throughout the debriefing because the Men’s Team A came in first in their semis as well.

But those were the semis.

When the time came for the final, we were in lane three. In the middle, just like competitive swimming. The Men’s final was the race right before ours, so Coach was coxswain for them and not the Women’s boat. He had briefed our coxswain thoroughly, given him complete instructions and had full faith in him. And he did everything by the book during the race: the three hard tens, the last charge — everything. But somehow after the starter’s gun, after our ten hard pulls and twenty pick-ups, even with everyone throwing everything they had into the race, we simply could not pull ahead of the other boats. We came in a painfully agonisingly close fourth. No medal.

The losers’ walk back to our tent was something we would all want to, but never will, forget. Our time for the final was over ten seconds worse than how we performed during the heats. The three other teams that beat us were jubilant. I suspect they must have gone through what we went through the day before — a #@*%! lashing from their coaches to “wake their ideas”. Apparently the commentator didn’t fail to notice that we were first in our heats but were now struggling to catch up. No one said anything and no one will say anything, but I would bet big money to say I’m sure it has crossed more than one of our minds — we wished Coach was on our boat with his whip during our final race (I think I heard one of the senior guys mention in private the strategy of it to Coach). The Men’s Team A came in fifth in their final; last year Team A came in fourth.

Live and learn, I guess. We now have one more experience to tap into next time we go into a race. As Malcolm S Forbes put it: “Victory is sweetest when you’ve known defeat.”

After we warmed down, we took our photos, we packed up our stuff, folded the groundsheets, rolled up our new banner, washed up a little, then went to the hawker centre at East Coast and pigged out on a veritable buffet of foods that were bad for us (which is why they tasted so good) in a fine and proper way. Training resumes in three weeks’ time. The SAVA 500m Sprints are next, and then the second biggest event of the year, the River Regatta in November. We are Naga.

Race day!

The Duanwu Festival (端午节 duānwǔ jié), or Dragon Boat Festival in English, occurs on the fifth day of the fifth month on the Chinese Lunar Calendar (in 2008 it falls on 8 June). It is a public holiday in China (as of this year) and Hong Kong and Macau, but is celebrated in Chinese communities around the world. It is steeped in tradition and rituals, especially in Hong Kong, where dragon boat races are a major event. There, and in other Chinese cities, dragon boat races are commonly held during this period.

There are several legends behind the festival, but the most well-known one says that festival commemorates Qu Yuan (屈原 qū yuán), a poet and political advisor who held high office during the Warring States Period (475-221 BC) in the southern state of Chu (楚 chŭ). A patriot who held integrity and loyalty in high regard, he had given advice to his king, opposing an alliance with the state of Qin. However, the king fell under the influence of Qu Yuan’s political enemies who slandered Qu Yuan’s name, resulting in the king banishing his most loyal counsellor.

While in exile, Qu Yuan wrote some of his best, most fervent poetry, for which he is remembered today. Eventually, the Qin invaded and conquered the Chu capital. In despair of the fate of his nation and in protest of having been wronged, Qu Yuan drowned himself in the Miluo River (汩罗江 mìluó jiāng) while holding a rock.

When the people found out about the suicide of their most loyal patriot, they rushed to the river to try to save him. Arriving too late, they beat drums and hit the water with their paddles to scare the fish from eating the poet’s body. They also threw rice into the river to feed the fish so that they would not devour the poet’s body. This is said to be the origin of zongzi (粽子 zòngzi) (or “ba-zhang” in Teochew dialect), steamed glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves which are traditionally eaten during this period.

Anyway, the festival isn’t as big an affair here as, say, in Hong Kong. Furthermore, times have changed. I remember eating homemade zongzi once a year when I was a kid (my paternal grandmother made the best in the world). But today, zongzi are available all year round in many shopping malls and food courts, and there are a dozen variations of them based on the recipes adapted by various dialect groups and local flavours, eg Nonya bazhang.

That said, the Dragon Boat Festival races are this weekend, a 800m race held in one of the reservoirs here (it was more fun, and chaotic, a few years ago when the races were held in the bay downtown; unlike the still waters of the reservoir, the waters were choppier, with waves and currents created by frequent boats ferrying workers to and from the nearby quay to the ships and tankers out at sea).

The first race, we weren’t in top form and kinda got a #*@%! lashing from our frustrated coach. For our second race, the Men’s Team A, we fared better and came in first in our heat. For our third race, the Men’s Team B, we came in a narrow, (really very narrow, very close) third. Tomorrow, the guys will race in the semis, while the Women’s Team will participate in their first race directly in the semis.

God speed.

Forever spirited away

My first exposure to Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki’s and Isao Takahata’s creations were before I had even heard of the company and its founders.

I was in kindergarten. Maybe. I can’t remember the exact age. But I remember Heidi, Girl of the Alps (アルプスの少女ハイジ Arupusu no Shōjo Haij), a Japanese anime series based on the children’s classic Heidi, by Johanna Spyri.

It was made in 1974 but has been dubbed numerous times through the years (the one I watched was in Mandarin), released on tape and DVD, and is popular with children even today. One can see why. A little girl and her pet kid goat (or was it lamb) running barefoot in lush green fields of Switzerland, stringing daisies or lying on the grass, playing under the vast expanse of blue sky. Free and carefree. It was the stuff of dreams for kids growing up in cities (goatherd boyfriend and heiress best friend notwithstanding). It sure was for me. The best I could manage was sneaking out of my grandparents’ flat while my parents were at work to run around the block (and get a scolding later because little kids get kidnapped by drug gangs) or play in my grandmother’s rooftop orchid garden (and get scolded for nor wearing shoes because I would get “worms”).

I didn’t even know Heidi was by the people who would years later start Studio Ghibli — Isao Takahata (director), and Hayao Miyazaki (scene design and layout) — until two years ago when I visited the Ghibli Museum and there was a whole room dedicated to the series. Talk about reliving your childhood.

  

Much much later, still before I’d heard of Studio Ghibli, a colleague passed me a VHS tape (that’s how long ago it was) of Grave of the Fireflies (火垂るの墓 Hotaru no Haka) by Takahata. 

At the other end of the spectrum from the happy Heidi, this story is a poignant one of two orphaned children, Seita and his sister, Setsuko (it’s apparently based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Akiyuki Nosaka). Even today, it’s considered one of the most compelling anti-war movies ever made. I had always thought it was a sad tale of the children’s plight during WWII in Japan, a point of view from the Japanese side decades before Letters from Iwo Jima. Until a few years ago when another friend pointed out a deeper moral, blaming the boy’s prideful behaviour and how it led to their tragic ends. Interesting. Never saw it from that perspective before.

Anyway, whatever you take from it, it’s a profoundly human story, considering it’s a “cartoon” made in 1988. I’ve since lost my tin of fruit drops (a recurring item in the storyline) which I bought on my first trip to Japan, but I’ve got the movie on DVD. Powerful film.

Princess Mononoke (もののけ姫 Mononoke Hime) is probably the West’s first introduction to Miyazaki (outside of anime fans and arthouse moviegoers), with Miramax targetting the masses and releasing it in selected cinemas in 1997 (with translation and adaptation credit to Neil Gaiman).

It’s a tale that touches on some of my favourite themes: mythology/fantasy, magic, forest spirits, animal spirits, and humans and deforestation (a bit like an anime Elfquest, only it came too late to absolutely consume my teenage years). Many see this film as an environmental message told in the form of Japanese mythology. 

The tale is about an Emishi (it was once a real tribe in Honshu) prince Ashitaka who defends his village from a demon-possessed Boar God and in the process, gets cursed himself. To find the origin of that curse, and hopefully a cure so he won’t die, he journeys to the Forest of the West, a wood where spirits reside, including the Shishigami, Forest Spirit, a huge beast like a stag with many antlers, the face of a baboon and feet of birds, who at night takes the form of a giant Didarabocchi, a translucent supernatural creature that walks around the forest radiating a faint blue glow.

In the forest, Ashitaka meets San, a human girl brought up by the Wolf Goddess, Moro. (Moro attacked San’s parents who were found destroying the forest. As a sacrifice to save their own lives, San’s parents threw her to Moro, who raised her as one of her own together with her two young cubs.) As though rejecting her humanity, San is in battle with the humans from Irontown who are set on clearing the forest to mine more ore. Ashitaka finds himself trying to mediate between the forest spirits and the humans, yet the humans don’t intend to stop. In fact, they want the head of the Shishigami, which promises immortality. Look out for the kodama, the mesmerising, almost hypnotic, kind of cute tree spirits that sit on the branches in the forest.

(This being one of Disney’s first release of anime in USA, it’s interesting to see how they wanted to do things, and how fans reacted. Don’t underestimate the power of geeks.)

However, my favourite by far (a really really far) is Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi), an Alice in Wonderland meets Brothers Grimm tale, Japanese mythology style. A rabbit hole that leads into strange bizarre world that’s not all peachy keen and safe, but really the opposite, fraught with spirits, wraiths, witches, monsters, dragons, magic spells and hexes.

It actually begins with a rabbit hole of sorts. Chihiro and her parents are en route to their new home in a new town when they chance upon a tunnel which leads them into an old amusement park filled with an abundant, tempting feast. As her parents gorge themselves, uninvited, on the food, they are transformed into pigs. Chihiro’s distress at her parents’ transformation turns to panic as the sun sets and the “amusement park” becomes a spirit world. Enter Haku, a boy who helps Chihiro. He takes her to his mistress, the witch Yubaba, as being under her employ would be the only way Chihiro can remain in the world long enough to find her parents and rescue them. Yubaba agrees to let Chihiro work for her, but takes possession of Chihiro’s name — the kanji of her name literally flies off the paper leaving only a partial character which reads as Sen (in many cultures, a name is probably one’s most significant, precious and personal possession; likewise folklore or beliefs across the world, knowing one’s name is considered as having a power over that someone).

In the rest of the adventure, Sen’s mettle, courage and character are tested as she encounters spirits and demons who visit the bathhouse where she works, as she searches for a way to rescue her parents from the spirit world, and save Haku (we learn he, too, is under Yubaba’s spell) who has been cursed by Yubaba’s twin sister, Zeniba, because he stole her sigil on Yubaba’s orders. Sen is aided on her quest by Yubaba’s son Bou, who’s been turned into a fat mouse, and his crow, who’s been turned into a hummingbird.

Besides the story of Sen’s evolution from self-centred child to a young girl who discovers her own inner strength, Miyazaki has also injected messages about the environment into the movie in the form of a Stink Spirit that visits the bathhouse where Sen works. No one wants to attend to him and he is cleansed only after Sen pulls out all the trash, junk and gunk that has been trapped in his disgusting, blobbish form, revealing a grateful River Spirit that rewards Sen with magical all-healing pills.

In Spirited Away, Miyazaki creates a strange, mystical, sometimes dangerous, world which defies reason and logic. He dreams up characters, so many of them, both good and bad. Supernatural yet possessing such fallible human traits like pride and greed we can almost see ourselves in them. And in the courage and will of the heroes, we also hope to see ourselves. They’re a colourful bunch: Sen and Haku, Yubaba and Zeniba. No Face, Bou (and his hummingbird) and Lin. Even Kamijii, a six-armed old man that works in the bathhouse’s boiler room, and the endearing susuwatari, the army of soot-balls that work for him.

  

Susuwatari (ススワタリ) translate literally to “travelling soot”, and first appear in Miyazaki’s earlier anime film My Neighbor Totoro. In Spirited Away, they work by carrying coal from the coal pile to the furnace. If they aren’t given a job to do, they turn back into soot. They get excited if you feed them Japanese candy kompeito.

  One of the susuwatari (although he’s not fuzzy any more) currently serves as my keychain (taking over from Ryoga Hibiki 響 良牙, the piglet from Ranma 1/2, who was also a keychain of a bad guy ninja in Speed Racer), and another larger one (purchased from Ghibli Museum) used to sit on my desk at work and occasionally got hurled at account executives. (It’s okay, it wasn’t hurt.) (The susuwatari, not the executive.)

Spirited Away was released in Japan in July 2001 where it became the highest-grossing film in Japanese history, surpassing Princess Mononoke for highest grossing animated film. It was the first movie to have earned $200 million at the worldwide box office before opening in the USA. By 2002, a sixth of the Japanese population had seen this movie. The film was dubbed into English by Walt Disney Pictures, under the supervision of Pixar’s John Lasseter. (By the way, Miyazaki has a no edit rule on his anime films; Disney has distribution rights to Studio Ghibli films outside Japan, declining only Grave of the Fireflies and Only Yesterday.)

Spirited Away is the first anime to win an Academy Award (in 2002).

Come get lost with me

Making a trip out of the city to a small town to visit a small museum. Santa Rosa wasn’t a first for me. Visiting Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, Tokyo, is also an adventure of its own, but one any fan of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli would gladly attempt.

Watch their movies — My Neighbor Totoro, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Grave of the Fireflies, Kiki’s Delivery Service, My Neighbors the Yamadas, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle — and you’ll understand why.

And these are just the more well-known ones.

Founded in 1985 by acclaimed anime director Hayao Miyazaki together with his colleague and mentor Isao Takahata, and executive managing director and long-time producer Toshio Suzuki, Studio Ghibli has actually made over 20 theatrical and TV films, not counting the short films and the ones made pre-Ghibli.

Many of Miyazaki’s films are set in magical, mythical worlds, or have characters from our world step into the realm of such worlds. Likewise, the Ghibli Museum sets out to be a fantastic journey for the young and the few unabashed young-at-heart. It’s an adventure that begins with Miyazaki’s motto and invitation: Come get lost with me.

The Central Hall is bathed in natural light flooding through the glass dome above. Propellors of a giant fan rotates languidly overhead. Bits of coloured glass and shiny marbles speckle from the ironwork of the stairs and railings. Old-fashioned elevators, spiral staircases, short cut bridges, narrow passageways, overhanging terraces take you where you want to go. Or maybe not. The fun’s in the exploring.

The museum gives children a basic introduction to cartoons and animation, then takes you behind the scenes and gives you a look at how their cartoons are made. And how!

With wildly decorated rooms and an almost maze-like layout — you could be in a gallery one moment, then suddenly transported into a room right out of a farmhouse filled with someone’s favourite things, toys, books, blank and not-so-blank sketch paper. And it looks as though that someone has just stepped out of that room a moment ago. His pencil’s still on his latest drawing and there are eraser shavings on the table. A few rooms later, a curious machine shows you how those sketches, now a painted animated cel, becomes a scene in a cartoon. Kids that love Totoro — Poof! Boing! — will love bouncing on the Cat Bus. Climb all the way up and you’ll discover a secret garden on the roof, haphazard and blooming. Standing guard, the huge robot from Castle in the Sky. In the sunshine-filled courtyard below, you can draw water from the old hand-pumped well.

There’s also the Saturn Theatre, where short films shown only at the museum are screened; the projectionist’s room looks like a train car with big glass windows so kids can see how film moves through a projector.

Everyone takes home a memento from the world of Studio Ghibli — your ticket is composed of a strip of film from one of their cartoons.

  

And here comes the tricky bit: You can’t buy tickets at the Museum. You have to buy them before you go to Mitaka.

The Ghibli Museum website states: Entrance to the Ghibli Museum is strictly by advance purchase of a reserved ticket which specifies the appointed date of the reservation.

What it means is:it might be possible for you to purchase tickets outside Japan in your country at designated local travel agency counters (likely to be JTB). See if your country is on the list.

Or you can buy your tickets at Lawson convenience stores throughout Japan. Most likely, this is the way to go.

Tickets for each month up to three months will be available for sale on the first of every month. You will also be required to pick a time slot for your visit. Oh, and the museum is closed on Tuesdays, year end and New Year holiday, and for periodic maintenance. There is no space for parking cars at the museum itself.

When I was in Tokyo, as Murphy’s Law would have it, I kept seeing all other convenience store chains except Lawson. Until I stumbled on the Lawson at Omotesando.

Then came the tricky bit of actually buying the ticket. The ticket can be bought from the Loppi ticket selling machine (looks like an ATM) in the Lawson store. It’s got a whole range of features and does a whole lot of stuff. Through it, you can purchase tickets for museums, shows and events. Why, I bet it can even dispense hot milk tea or instant cup noodles. The only problem was, it’s all in Japanese only.

Never mind, I was prepared. I had written down the instructions in Japanese, copied from the Lawson website. I had hoped to be able to compare the words and thus press the right buttons. But, nope, that didn’t work. The steps and graphics on the Lawson website were probably just a guide and the interface varies slightly, which becomes a major thing if you can’t read the language at all.

Loppi instructions

I suppose I could have asked the counter staff for help, after all I had the museum’s name written in Japanese. If only I wasn’t in the Omotesando Lawson around lunchtime while it was packed with customers.

In the end, a helpful stranger came to my rescue (probably so I would stop hogging the machine; maybe he wanted instant cup noodles). I tried to explain what I wanted in Japanese (“How, ticket, buy, Ghibli Museum, allergic to shellfish”), but my Japanese is non-existent outside of menu items and “kawaii!”, and he spoke no English. In the end, communications came down to the one true universal language — sign.

Anyway, that was two years ago. Maybe the Loppi machines now have English. Otherwise, the steps to buying a ticket can be found on Lawson’s website. Other websites that may be helpful are this one by digilander and nausicaa.net.

Once you’ve got your ticket, getting to Mitaka is easy. It’s on the JR Chuo Line, then from the Mitaka Station South exit, follow the Tamagawa Waterworks for 15 minutes by foot to the southern end of Inokashira Park. Alternatively, hop on the community bus which goes directly from Mitaka Station to the museum (¥200 one way, ¥300 round trip; children’s fare is half that price). I recommend the walk coz it’s a pleasant stroll along a tree-lined canal that’s the “waterworks”.

When you arrive at the museum, you’ll realise why you needed to buy the ticket before going to the museum. Totoro and his susuwatari soot-balls have overtaken the ticket booth. But it’s okay, he gives you directions to the museum’s entrance. And your adventure begins.

     

Ghibli Museum
1-1-83 Simorenjaku,
Mitaka-shi, Tokyo 181-0013
Opening hours: 10am-6pm
Closed Tuesdays
(Straw Hat Cafe is open 11am-7pm)
www.ghibli-museum.jp/en

Studio Ghibli
ghibli.jp

Two big hits kick ass

Two very big stars. Two larger than life heroes. Two chocolate chip cookie-munching movie-goers. Chweets and I caught Kung Fu Panda and The Incredible Hulk at the cineplex last week with a debate in between whether Subway or Mrs Fields makes the better soft chocolate chip cookie.

First, Kung Fu Panda.

As far as animated movies go, for good storylines, plots and dialogues, for “cartoons” that are fun for kids, yet still clever enough for adults, and all-round entertaining for all walks of life, Pixar sets the bar for me. There are some cool animated movies out there not by them, but not many.

So, I went into Kung Fu Panda not expecting much. And came out happy.

The art and rendering are beautiful. The storytelling was well directed (by Mark Osborne and John Stevenson). The pace is brisk. And the martial arts action sequences are nimble, fluid, full of grace, and pack a punch (even though we’re talking about creatures like a snake, an insect, a turtle…).

Sure, the typical kung fu stereotypes are there, but they have to be. That’s what kung fu movies are all about – the shifu and unlikely-underdog-student-turned-hero storyline. But Kung Fu Panda has enough wit, satire and in-jokes to be clever enough to achieve greatness. And, it didn’t resort to lame, tawdry Chinese jokes (like Rush Hour 3). In fact, it was more grounded in Chinese culture than I expected, and done tastefully.

The basic plot is simple: Po the Panda (Jack Black) works in the family noodle business in the Valley of Peace, but he dreams of becoming a kung fu warrior, like his heroes the “Furious Five”, made up of Tigress, Monkey, Mantis, Viper and Crane, and trained by Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman). The yoda-like Ancient Master Turtle Oogway makes a prophecy about a past villain, snow leopard Tai Lung, escaping his prison to wreak destruction on the Valley and says it is time to choose the Dragon Warrior. Instead of one of the Five, it turns out the “Chosen One” is the unlikely Po. The Five are sceptical. Master Shifu is reluctant to train the obviously incompetent Po. And Po himself realises the difference between dreaming and doing. Meanwhile, Tai Lung escapes in a prison break more spectacular than Wentworth Miller at his best…

As the movie’s tagline says: “Prepare for awesomeness.” Really.

  

Second, The Incredible Hulk.

Everyone says this version is much better than the first Hulk. I can’t really remember much of the first Hulk, so maybe there’s some validity to that. In any case, this Hulk stars my favourite green actor (pun not intended) Edward Norton. (“Ed Norton as Bruce Banner?!”) Yeah, I thought that too. But he’s a versatile actor. Precisely how he can pull off the part. Thuggish in American History X. Wimpy in Fight Club. Resigned in 25th Hour.

It helps that this movie begins with Bruce Banner already knowing what he is, so we skip all the dealing with the superpower-ness and jump right into (as well as have more time for) the story of how he lives in hiding while the army tries to hunt him down, and tries to find a cure.

Anyway, it’s no Iron Man, which is easily superior. But, unless you prefer Ang Lee’s deep yearning Hulk, The Incredible Hulk by Louis Leterrier has enough explosive action and adventure to make for an enjoyable superhero movie. The way I see it, Marvel’s smart to put their money behind Iron Man. It’s a new franchise, unlike Hulk which already has a predecessor, kinda touching on the same storyline since this one is not a sequel, but part of the build-up to Avengers (or something like that). (Damn, I missed the Nick Fury easter egg at the end of the Iron Man credits. Grr.)

By the way, Subway’s soft chocolate chip cookie won. It’s a little bit crunchier on the outside, but also soft to chew.

7 days to race day

Coach was nicer but training was harder. My back (and everything else) hurts more than last week. I’m sunburnt. I got blisters. And all I’m scared of now is I won’t get to row.

Why Road Trip?

I’ve always wanted to do a road trip across, or partially through, or somewhere within, or whatever I can get, USA. I mean, isn’t that the ultimate American adventure? Europe is somehow backpacking territory, conjuring up images of train rides from Spain to the French Riviera to Italy to the Alps to Eastern Europe.

But USA — this is road trip country. Route 66. Pacific Ocean Road. Yellowstone. Yosemite. Death Valley. Or New England in the Fall. Maybe this was the conditioning I received or the pop culture I was exposed to in my youth. From the Muppet Movie to Thelma and Louise, from Forrest Gump to Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.

Maybe one day…

 

WHY
• It’ll be some adventure
• Route 66 (which starts in Chicago! I was there, dammit)
• The Arch of St Louis (which my youngest brother says is nearer Champaign than Chicago is to Champaign! Argh!)
• The Mississippi River. A must-see for anyone who wanted to grow up and be Huckleberry Finn (and/or had a girlhood crush on him)
• Mt Rushmore
• Mall of America
• Cedar Point (any takers?)
• Niagra Falls. Bring own barrel
• Mermaid Parade at Coney Island, New York (in June)
• Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
• Philadelphia, Boston, Vermont and New England area
• Salem, Massachusetts. Broom wholesalers
• World’s Largest Buffalo (Jamestown, ND) and World’s Largest Cow (New Salem, ND)
• World’s Largest Rattlesnake Roundup (Sweetwater, Texas)
• Graceland. Do I really need to explain?
• Elvis Is Alive Museum (Wright City, Missouri)
• Nashville, Tennessee and the Grand Ole Opry
• Dollywood
• Kansas City (There is a Caravaggio in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. John the Baptist/John in the Wilderness)
• Liberal Pancake Race (Liberal, Kansas)
• Site of First Official Elvis Sighting (Vicksburg, Michigan)
• Truck stops and greasy diners and Mom’s apple pies
• San Antonio and the Alamo
• World’s Greatest Lizard Race (Lovington, New Mexico)
• New Orleans, Louisiana. And bayous. And the Everglades
• Cadillac Ranch (Amarillo, Texas) or Carhenge (Alliance, Nebraska)
• Colorado. Aspen (which I can’t afford) or any other slope
• The Salt Flats of Utah
• The Great Potato Marathon. Like a normal marathon except runners carry an Idaho potato (Boise, Idaho, in May)
• Rodeos and county fairs
• Death Valley. Lowest, driest, hottest place in USA
• Las Vegas. The Bellagio, the Strip, the Stratosphere, the Liberace Museum and O (!)
• Hoover Dam and Lake Mead
• The Grand Canyon
• Monument Valley. The Mittens, the Totem Pole, the Ear of the Wind Arch (Arizona/Utah, on the Colorado Plateau)
• Area 51
• Yosemite
• Yellowstone
• Montana. Big Sky Country. Where Last of the Mohicans was filmed. Home to Glacier National Park and Little Big Horn (I got a really bad joke about Custer’s last stand…)
• The Pacific Coast Highway, US101
• Malibu, Santa Monica, San Diego, Tijuana (OK, I know I’ve been to Santa Monica before, and Tijuana is in Mexico… shaddup and keep driving)
• Big Sur, the dunes of Oregon Coast, Mt Hood, Crater Lake National Park, Mt St Helens, the Cascades
• Monterey Bay and Carmel
• San Francisco (again)
• It’ll be some adventure (and I’m only just starting)

 

NOT
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre
• I Know What You Did Last Summer
• House of Wax
• Deathproof
• Vacancy
• Twister (the movie, and the weather phenomenon)
• No car

California dreaming

Oscar Wilde wrote: ”It’s an odd thing, but everyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco.”

I concur.

It’s been almost two weeks since I left San Francisco and I’m missing it. A lot. It’s a nice city. Expensive, yes, but that’s what they say about a lot of cities. New York. Tokyo. London. Even here at home, prices are rising every day. I think the lifestyle in San Francisco is a bit more expensive than some places, but people can adapt.

I like it because it’s a warm city. The ambience, not the weather (even then, the weather’s not the worst in the world). Open to new ideas, has an air of creativity. Modern, progressive, yet still kinda friendly. Not as frenetic as, say, Hong Kong. Or as edgy as London (no one understands why I like London; maybe I need to spend more time there so see why so many people dislike it so much). People, even the ones in ad agencies, don’t seem to work as crazy hours as in Asia. Granted my experience in SF was made from the point of view of a visitor and not someone who lives and works there. And the comparisons I make are hearsay and not first-hand. Still, it seems like a cool, well-balanced place.

There’s so much I can go one about. Too much to list. Maybe it’s because it was on my weekend in the city so the memory’s still fresh, but my second ride to the Golden Gate Bridge was especially memorable. Retrievers digging furiously. Terriers chasing frisbees. Toddlers toddling on the sand. Couples relaxing on the beach. Families and friends picnicking and BBQ-ing on the field. Wind-surfers and kite-surfers seizing every gust and breaker. And the Bay speckled while with hundreds of sailboats.

Not that the hours and days spent wandering the up and downhills, exploring the parks and chilling out at the cafés were miserable or anything, but other memories of the city that still stand out in my head as happy are getting lost in Chinatown, walking the Hyde St Pier and Aquatic Park, being mesmerised at the Legion of Honor, and playing Mario Kart on Nintendo Wii at my penpal’s couchsurfer host’s place (this, I think, is coz I was sceptical about the Nintendo Wii before, but Mario Kart caught me off-guard and surprised me — it’s really, really fun).

Alas, I didn’t get to catch up with some other ex-colleagues on this trip. And I didn’t get to see Sam. The cutest guy in the city, and I didn’t get to meet him. Grr. I was in Florence when I received a video of Sam’s new song. He had Linus hair then, messy. I’m missing the best Sam moments. I missed his second birthday party.

I also didn’t get to do the road trip I’ve always wanted to do.

Before I left, I wondered if I would actually do it. My art director, while she did her film course in LA last summer, talked about how she rented a car and drove to the beach, and how nice that was. Something seemed missing and I couldn’t place my finger on it, but the week before I left was a crazy week for so many reasons that I dismissed it and pushed it to the back of my mind. I realised what it was after riding shotgun on the long drive to Champaign with my brother. A solo road trip was a different kinda thing. Like what another friend did: surf board on the roof of his car as he drove up Pacific Coast Highway (insert photo of solo guy sitting on sand dune watching sunset, or some other soul-searching-like image of that genre). I realised the road trip that I was seeking to do required a minimum number of two. Best friends or a bunch of friends on an adventure. Sky above, ground below, open road ahead. Oh, well…

And no, I didn’t forget I went to Chicago on this trip (and barely just explored it). My youngest brother’s leaving next week to work there and I’m already dreading it and wondering when I can go visit. Maybe Christmas, if he doesn’t come home. I think I need warmer clothes.

Buy right, bi-rite

I guess a supermarket can be an attraction. I like walking in supermarkets, and walking in supermarkets in a foreign country is even more interesting because it’s a snapshot into another culture. For example, provision shops in Vietnam display cognac right beside milk powder. The Beijing supermarket I went had the biggest frozen dumpling display I’ve ever seen (they all look the same outside but had different fillings inside). Walk into a Japanese supermarket is like walking into a buffet of clever home-cleaning liquids and gadget, and innovative space-saving solutions (some Japanese roommates at the hostel brought their multiple-clothes-peg hook with them).

In San Francisco, it’s organic food (but, of course). The farmer’s market at Ferry Building on Saturdays is the best, so said my youngest bro’s friend (although I did hear a girl complain that she paid $20 for lettuce there). It’s his ritual to head there every Saturday morning to get his fruits and veggies before heading into the office to get some work done.

In Mission District, I chanced upon Bi-Rite Market. Bi-Rite Market describes themselves as a “destination” for restaurant-quality prepared foods and catering, organic produce, sustainably raised meats, poultry, and seafood (that’s one thing I’ve noticed about SF —they state where the fish come from, whether it’s farm-raised or wild. For us, it’s just fish, and you look at the eyes and peek at the gills to see if it’s fresh or not), as well as fine wines and everyday groceries. I thought it was a cool supermarket, they had a great cheese section, though I’m sure doing good by Mother Earth doesn’t come cheap.

I also noticed that they had an ice cream store (they call it “cremery”) across the road. It was at the right place at the right time because I got my chocolate ice cream (I’m rarely adventurous when it comes to ice cream — it’s either chocolate or, only recently, macha) and headed off to the Mission Dolores Park, where I could hear a free concert playing.

Everyone’s an art critic

The historic Mission District of San Francisco is famous for the Mission Dolores, the city’s oldest building, which is also its namesake, the Missión San Francisco de Asís. It was called ”Mission Dolores” owing to the nearby creek named Arroyo de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores, or Our Lady of Dolores Creek. It was founded in 1776 and rebuilt in 1782 with conscripted Ohlone (the Ohlone people are the indigenous people of Northern California who lived in the San Francisco and Monterey Bay areas since the sixth century) labour in exchange for a meal a day. (Those caught trying to escape and resume their old lives were severely punished. Hmm, how Christian-like.)

Today, the Mission is a mishmash that’s ethnically mixed, artistically inclined, gritty and neighbourly all at the same time. You’re as likely to meet chichi designers, suits, career activitsts, punks, as you are prostitutes, ravers, Latinos and lesbians. The best Mexican food can be found in the area, right within walking distance of the best organic salads and pastries. 826 Valencia (independent pirate supply store) is found south of the best pubs and magarita bars in the city.

There’s also art — in the form of Balmy Alley (with murals inspired by traditional Mexican paintings made famous by Diego Rivera) and Clarion Alley. At Clarion Alley, only street art that is truly inspired — such as the gentrifying elephants displacing scraggly birds, or the silhouettes of the kung-fu female anarchists — is allowed to stand the test of time and left intact, and not peed on.

As though I needed any proof of what the guidebook was saying, as I was halfway down the alley at the Valencia St end, an art critic near the Mission St end was expressing his views on someone’s creation. (There seems to be a lot of encounters with public peeing on this trip.) Still, aromatic gallery experience aside — the things one bears for art — Clarion Alley is a fine display of intricate murals and the art of self-expression, whatever form it may come in.

Alfred Peet’s of Berkeley

I didn’t know Berkeley was so near San Francisco. It’s a 20 minute BART ride away. A long time ago, I was working on a project and we were citing Berkeley as an example of a community that had a cool, youthful, intellectual yet radical vibe — so I’ve heard and read all about. Four years back, this was also my youngest brother’s first choice college. I mean, if he had been accepted here, this trip may have been made much much earlier.

With a mission, I made my way to visit this campus of myth and legend status.

What I discovered instead was that Peet’s Coffee & Tea was founded in Berkeley. I like Peet’s. It’s a nice alternative to big-corporation-on-every-corner Starbucks. It was also where we found sanctuary a lot during that first shoot in Santa Monica a few years back, so it’s a little bit more special.

It was started by Alfred Peet, who was born in Holland and grew up in the coffee trade before moving to America after World War II. Appalled at the poor quality of coffee in the Land of the Free (a sentiment I can identify with because I still remember vividly my first “grown-up” trip to New York City, one of the first things my friends and I did was head to a diner and order a cup of coffee, then almost choke to death on the drainwater we were imbibing. If the British are tea drinkers and the Americans coffee drinkers, how come their coffee is so bad?), he became inspired to open the first Peet’s Coffee & Tea store on April 1, 1966 on the corner of Walnut and Vine Streets in Berkeley.

His coffee was a radical departure from what was then available, emphasizing smaller batches, freshness, superior quality beans, and a darker roasting style that produced coffee with richness and complexity. He also catalyzed the specialty coffee movement when he mentored and inspired a generation of coffee entrepreneurs, including the founder of Starbucks. In the coffee conglomerate’s early years of operations, they actually used roasted beans from Peet’s.

I can actually do a Peet’s mini-tour of San Francisco — there’s one in Ferry Building (next to the bookstore), in Polk, in Mission, in Embarcadero, in Potrero, etc. There was even one in Santa Rosa. And I know they’re really after my own heart: they also have green tea milkshake.

Ciao North Beach

During the time I visited North Beach, San Francisco was gearing up for a week of potentially record-breaking heatwave temperatures. I didn’t follow the weather reports to see if any records were indeed broken, but it was Bali-at-high-noon type of scorching.

Walking around Little Italy checking out the cafés and such brought back memories and I was soon craving Italian. I admit I was thinking of pasta, but the weather was simply too hot. So, led by my guidebook, I walked around until I found Molinari’s, a charming little store and deli counter that’s as Italian as it gets. Pick a loaf from the tank of breads, take a number, then pass it to the counter guy when your number’s called and tell him what meats or sausages you want. You wait for your turn standing beside delivery guys and shirt-and-tie guys. I like places like that because it means the people are there for the food.

I drool at the prosciuttos and salamis, stopping for a brief moment by the cheese section, then step back out into the sun.

In the end, the heat got to me and I settled for a smoked salmon salad at Calzone’s (it helped that the café was on the shaded side of the street), making a mental note of returning to Molinari’s another time. After all, I told myself, I’m gonna be in San Francisco a while.

That did not happen.

The salad was delicious though. It doesn’t look incredibly appetising here, but it was. It was fresh, it was refreshing and it was a good counter to the heat. Now I understand what Auntie Evelyn was on about when she said she had salads all summer long in Sydney.

I also stopped by Mara’s Italian Pastries. Couldn’t help it, the display of colourful sweets by the window ought to be illegal. I don’t have a sweet tooth, but I have a soft spot for tiramisu. So after I bit the initial bait and stepped into the shop, before I knew it, I was having dessert and a coffee. Part of me thinks I was just looking for any excuse to escape the afternoon heat.

Mara’s little café is also old world authentic; the surly old lady behind the counter speaks Italian. But Molinari’s… if and when I’m back in San Francisco again, Molinari’s will get special priority.

Molinari’s
373 Columbus Ave
San Francisco, CA 94133
Tel: (415) 421-2337
Hours: Mon-Fri 8am-6pm; Sat 8am-5.30pm (closed Sundays)
Click here for more info. Or read the review on yelp.

Mara’s Italian Pastries
503 Columbus Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94133
Tel: (415) 397-9435
Hours: Mon-Thu, Sun 7am-10.30pm; Fri-Sat 7am-12am

14 days to race day

It hurt to get out of bed this morning. Really hurt. It’s good to be back in training.

The secret swimming hole

Day three. Our guide takes us on another trail, his favourite, along the Merced River. It’s not within the park itself. We can’t go that far since we have to make our way back to San Francisco after lunch. Darn.

The first thing he tells us is: two things you gotta be careful of. Poison oak and rattlesnakes. And I’m thinking “Oh great, NOW he tells us.” (I went wandering on the trails around the lodge the moment we arrived in the late afternoon on my first day.) He points out what poison oak looks like — this is the first time I’m seeing poison oak in real life, knowingly. I didn’t just grow up in a city, but one on the Equator (one degree north, if one must get technical) where poison oak and poison ivy aren’t indigenous. We only got such wonderful poisonous plants like dumcane, pong pong, oleander. The guide also tells us what to do in the event of a rattlesnake encounter (don’t move, step away slowly when the snake calms down… something like that).

The trail turns out to be uneventful: a harmless black snake (a striped racer), a couple of cute newts (they’re really cold to hold, dry and chilled), a skunk (the guide says we lucked out coz he was told there are no more skunks in the area), and lots of wildflowers. Pretty.

Then we arrive at the secret swimming hole. The water’s clear and you can see all the way to the bottom, even the couple of fishes tarrying there. It’s really deep, and absolutely inviting. The kind you’d wanna take your shirt and shoes off and just take a running leap into the water. Which you can. But when we climbed down and dipped our toes in, it was freezing cold. That’s when the guide told us it ought to be, it’s snowmelt.

Another few hours totally wasted doing absolutely nothing. I love it.

Lost in the woods

I’ve spent so much time in one of the coolest cities in the world, and yet, the other thing I can’t stop talking (and thinking) about also wasn’t in the city — my visit to Yosemite. Even more ironic — words can’t begin to describe it.

Sure, I can tell you that Yosemite National Park (when I was a kid I thought it was pronounced “yohs-mite”) is located in east central California, USA. That it covers an area of 761,266 acres or 1,189 sq miles (3,081 km²) and reaches across the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain chain. It was designated a World Heritage Site in 1984 and is today visited by over 3.5 million people (!) each year, many of whom only spend time in the seven square miles (18 km²) of Yosemite Valley (which makes up one percent of the total park area).

I could start off on the Mariposa Sequoia Grove. About how Giant Sequoias grow in groves because, instead of having roots that penetrate deep to anchor their sky-piercing heights, their roots grow outwards to stabilise their towering forms. And when there are several Sequoias in a grove, their roots intertwine underground and their support one another. (Awww, like friends…)

I could point out that they live for thousands of years and two of the trees found here are among the Twenty Five largest Giant Sequoias in the world. That as they grow taller, they’re prone to be struck by lightning, and begin to grow less as a cone shape but begin branching out in a dome shape, with each limb the size of a huge tree trunk, such as with the Grizzly Giant, which is probably 1,900-2,400 years old. I could even go into how, until recently, rangers practiced fire suppression without realising that natural wildfires were actually beneficial and necessary for the Sequoias to grow.

I could move on to all about its spectacular dome structures, most of which were cut from granitic rock of the Sierra Nevada Batholith (massive igneous rock that forms deep below the earth’s surface). Such as El Capitan, a 3,000 feet (910m) vertical rock formation composed of El Capitan Granite, a pale coarse-grained granite, in the Valley itself, known the world over as one of rock climbers’ favourite challenges (the call it “El Cap”).

I could talk about Sentinel Dome (Native American name “Sakkaduch”) and Half Dome (originally “Tis-sa-ack”), how they are 3,000 feet and 4,800 feet (900 and 1,450 m) high respectively, or how their shapes and geology are the results of exfoliation, that is, surface-parallel fractures in rock that “peel off” in layers (it’s much like peeling off layers of an onion) giving the granite structures their shape.

But really, when I’m standing on the peak of Sentinel Dome, all thoughts fail me. The sight of Half Dome in front just over there is enough to leave me at a loss of words. A year ago, I’d never even heard of this monument. A year ago, as we huddled around in the moments in between a slew of setbacks, beatings, political maneuverings and heartbreaks, I learnt about Half Dome from a teammate. Photos from Ansel Adams. Photos from him. To see Half Dome in person soon appeared on My List. And as the year trudged on, Half Dome slowly edged its way up. It still remains there, by the way. I know I won’t be able to do it on this trip, but one day, I want to climb it.

For the moment, there’s also Yosemite Falls in the distance. You can’t hear a single noise save for the wind in your ears, but you know those falls would be deafening. El Capitan in the distance. The valley floor a carpet of deep green pines. A circlet of mountain ranges in the distance. Awestruck is the word perhaps. The 360 degree view of everything. You’re spinning just to drink it all in.

To think the guide said instead of the usual picnic lunch place, if we were willing to walk a little, he would take us someplace else. The peak of Sentinel Dome is definitely “some place”. And it wasn’t that hard either. 2.2 miles (3.5 km) roundtrip.

No foie gras and truffle dish can beat that roast beef and cheddar sandwich. Take that, Michelin Stars.

We stop by Tunnel View, which is the main viewing point of Yosemite Valley laid out before you. El Capitan on the left, Half Dome on the right. And Bridalveil Fall silently tumbling down the edge of the cliff.

It’s been an amazing day so far. From the morning, surrounded by the tranquility of the redwood forest, you feel like you’re entering a temple. The forest is damp and you can smell its lushness. It’s green. Deep green. A silence ever so pervasive hangs in the air. It’s heavy with experience and wisdom as primeval trees loom over you. The spiritual rise hits standing on the peak of Sentinel Dome. Mountains, sky, forest, falls. Beautiful.

Until we enter Yosemite Disneyland. The Valley is filled with people, hikers, bikers, cars, trucks, RVs, lodges, cabins, tents. Everywhere. And it’s not even the height of summer yet. I can see how this place can turn to madness once the crowds arrive. I hear they don’t allow cars in and that people have to use the buses. But I see a lot of vehicles still.

It’s odd but two guys in the group wanted to stop and buy cigarettes. They were smoking here and there but it was one of those things I’ve already grown accustomed to ignore. Like how when a group leaves a restaurant or steps out of a buildings, some will light up and I’ll just continue talking with my friends and almost subconsciously move upwind or something. But their request begged the question: Do they sell cigarettes in a National Park? (If they do, hah, that’ll be the most ridiculous, sacrilegious thing in the world. Sheesh…) The guys went to find out. Whether or not they succeeded I don’t know coz my thoughts kinda drifted away… Though I did see them much later at the lodge smoking so I’m assuming they must have got them from somewhere (maybe at the lodge itself).

Anyway, the guide leads us up Mist Trail up to Vernal Fall. And the nice thing about it is, the higher you go, the less people there are. At the top of the Falls, it’s just a handful of hikers taking photos, sitting on the rocks, watching the clouds pass as the roar of the water beats a constant soundtrack.

I had an apple I saved from lunch. Now, that was one thirst-quenching soul-refreshingly sweet apple. Everyone had their snacks too, and ground squirrels and blue jays hop up and beg for food (it’s illegal to feed them) The critters are cute and friendly. One squirrel even poked his nose into my backpack pocket to scavenge for crumbs, his little claws opening the pocket like pantry doors. And I’m sitting right there. Hello? The critters are cute, friendly and fearless.

The only thing to do up at Vernal Fall is to lie back and daydream. The bear cloud picking a fight with the dragon cloud. The howling wolf cloud on a hunt. The sheep clouds… uh-oh…

It was sad to have to head back down. It would have been amazing if we could pitch tent there and spend the night on the rocks. It’s not a flat desert plain but there’s still a great view of the sky. I imagine that at night, without the pollution of city lights, or any lights, in the horizon, the heavens would be spectacular. It’s actually harder to stargaze like. With the sky flooded with stars, it’s harder to spot the constellations but I wouldn’t give a freaking damn.

A blanket of a billion gazillion stars above.

That. Would. Be. So. Awesome.

A water boatman and I

I had forgotten how peaceful an empty pool can be.

Afternoon on a weekday and there was practically no one else in the water except for another girl, but she was some ways off. My brother’s off at the driving range somewhere (the pool’s next to it and I’m like, sure, I need the exercise anyway, maybe I’ll tire myself out so I won’t wake up early and make pancakes like this morning, which was not a bad thing since I had all that batter leftover coz of the kimchi pancake I was craving for yesterday, which was fine tho I think I’ll try another brand of kimchi next time, and I need to look for a Japanese-Korean supermarket, I’ll ask my brother, his girlfriend’s half-Korean, better do it soon coz if or once I start work…)

A million other thoughts are running through my head, then I realise I’m surrounded by all this blue space. Emptiness. Motionless. Kinda weightless. Time slows down. Stops, almost. Suddenly everything’s so tranquil. The world becomes a distant muffle. Even the planes overhead (it was near an air base) were a murmur. My heartbeat’s louder. It’s the only sound in my head as I sink to the bottom, sit cross-legged for as long as my lungs can take. Which is not very long. My lungs aren’t very big. Good thing time slows down…?

Even when I’m swimming, the water’s all still. I’ll be going one direction and I’ll see an insect wing suspended in space. On the way back, I see it again, floating in the middle of nowhere. It was cloudy today, but there’s enough light to see my shadow on the blue-tinted tiles. And I’m thinking it looks like a water boatman, those pond insects I studied in Science Class in Primary 3. Later, as I return to the pool from the water cooler, I actually see one. It was like a trick of my imagination. Like something I thought about a few minutes back simply manifested. (Oh, that would be magnificent. Ha!) It was tiny. I would have thought the chlorine in the water would have killed it (there were certainly quite a few dead ants and other insects at the bottom of the pool). But there it was. Sweep sweep sweep. Stroke stroke stroke. Swimming steadily, darting about. Like a little alien in the pool. I tried to scoop the water boatman in my palms but it was too swift and agile. Then I lost sight of it. I searched, but I never saw it again.

Think outside the Jack in the Box

See Dick. See Dick win. See Dick win AdAge Magazine’s Campaign of the Year Award three years in a row for three different campaigns.

Since I was in university I’ve heard about Dick Sittig’s work. But I never really realised the extent of his campaigns until recently, maybe coz I’m not working or living in USA. But as a writer, his creativity has not only resulted in campaigns like the Energizer Bunny, Jack in the Box, and Nissan’s Road to Rio, which have turned brands around, let alone sales, but have also garnered the usual awards including Gold Lions, Gold Pencils, Metal Heads, Winged Things and basically more paperweights than most creatives can ever dream of.

While the Energizer Bunny appears in marketing textbooks the world over, I still have a soft spot for Jack in the Box. Intelligent. Witty. A smart dresser, to boot. What can I say, he makes me laugh. Hee.

Jack in the Box began in 1951 with headquarters in San Diego as one of the first fast food chains to launch as a drive-thru restaurant. “Jack”, back then, was a clown-like character who assumed the form of a speaker box. That is until he was blown up in a 1980 commercial when then owner, Ralston Purina, decided to move the company towards a more adult menu. In 1985, they further tried to give the brand a more mature look and appeal by renaming it “Montery Jack”, a disastrous move that lasted all of a year.

Following the E. Coli incident in 1993 in which some people died after eating undercooked contaminated patties, Jack was resurrected — “thanks to the miracle of plastic surgery” according to Jack himself — this time as a CEO with a ping pong ball-like head complete with facial expressions, and a business suit.

In his first commercial, his blew up the board of directors as retribution. This commercial was not without controversy as it came, coincidentally, around the same time as the Oklahoma City bombing. Naturally a lot of people were upset and angry, but the agency and the client stuck by their new campaign. They wanted to make a point that the company was headed in a new direction, no longer the same fast food chain plagued by food safety scares. Eventually, the public responded positively.

Dick Sittig isn’t just the mastermind behind the returning Jack in the Box, he also happens to be the voice of Jack. The advertising is lightly humorous, often with Jack making business decisions about the products and promotions. They’re tongue-in-cheek, satirical, and don’t talk down to consumers. Just like the old Ogilvy adage: The consumer isn’t a moron. She is your wife. Speaking of which, Jack also has a wife, Cricket. And a son, too: Jack Jr. (who, like all makes in the Box family tree, also has an oversized ping pong ball-like head). Jack also has a California driver’s license and a MySpace page complete with fictitious life story.

This is still the classic. I think it got a Gold Lion.

He still currently works on and/or oversees Jack in the Box advertising. Other funny ones are Jack’s Son the Vegetarian, the Stoner ad, the Intern ad, and the Market ad (I have the same problem).

I want my Jack in the Box antenna ball…

ihop — check

Who said ihop isn’t a classy kind of place? I had breakfast there when I was in Champaign and ordered a tea, and it came with slices of lemon. It’s true. It’s the little touches such as this that draws me to such fine, distinguished establishments as ihop.

Yes, this was my pancake breakfast. What else would one order from the International House of Pancakes? (Plus, I’m wary of bacon, sausages, eggs and toast too early in the day. They might be too much of a shock to my system. Once I had brunch at Denny’s in Vancouver — it’s practically tradition on our snowboarding trips — I think I almost died. I described the pain and symptoms to my friend and he said it was probably heartburn, but I’m quite certain it was something worse.)

Anyhoo.

It was a lesser minor dream come true, eating at ihop. The International House of Pancakes was one of the places on my checklist that I’ve always wanted to go to. I had already been to Jack in the Box a few years ago. Made my boss drive me to a Jack in the Box at 11pm in LA once. (My art director declined as she’s a little more sane than I.) We needed to call the office anyway, and the hotel lobby was boring. We didn’t make it to ihop on that trip, but all of us did go to In-N-Out Burger for dinner once. Those were good burgers. Give me a moment to reminisce.

        

Once, at a shoot in Auckland, a photographer asked us what we wanted for lunch and my art director and I both said Wendy’s, coz we don’t have that back home. We were at lunch when his rep called. We could hear her voice on his phone as we chomped into our burgers and fries: “What!? You brought the clients to Wendy’s?!” And he was like: “But they wanted to… Really…” That was a fun shoot.

Anyway, I guess it comes with the territory of working in media. Not just absorbing the culture of a place, but also taking in, drinking gulps of it, the pop culture as well. 

Take Jack in the Box. The brand is a fine example of successful marketing and brilliant strategy, especially when you consider that it made this comeback after suffering a major crisis involving E. Coli bacteria contamination in which some people (including children) died after eating undercooked patties.

Today, the ping pong ball-like head of Jack is an icon in the advertising world, the inimitable star of light-hearted 30-second satires that entertain, and sell burgers. (Speaking of which, the Jack in the Box antenna ball is one item I have been coveting for the last decade.)

Chalk it up to just wanting to try everything once.

I’m not crazy about it all the time. I only went to Jack in the Box again once (my last meal in SF; it was late coz I was packing like mad) even though it was down the block from where I stayed. There are only so many times I eat fast food in a year. And I’m kinda selective too. I’ll go for certain brands for certain reasons. Such as: I think a man with a talking ping pong ball head is genius. Or it could be something I saw in a movie or is mentioned in a book. Or Philip Kotler said something about it. Or the Dalai Lama. Hee. It doesn’t apply to everything. Like, I won’t mind terribly if I never step into Applebee’s. But if anyone knows where I can find an old fashioned drive in. Or one of those diners where the waitresses wear rollerskates. And let’s see, I’ve not been to White Castle yet… And I heard Red Lobster’s not bad… And…

Of jet lag and French toast

I don’t remember when it began. Years back from one trip or another. But I was jet lagged and woke up early. I remember it was still dark outside. And for some strange reason, I had a craving for French toast, like how my grandma and mum would make. So I made some French toast. At that time, I think I had not made French toast in ages, but I guess it’s like cycling, you don’t forget. Hee. Anyway, ever since, when I’m jet lagged and up early, I just feel like making french toast. Weird, I know. Especially when I currently also can’t wait to eat my toast and jam and my precious, precious made-from-the-goodness-of-the-Tuscan-hills honey. French toast never had a hold on me like this before. Good thing my youngest brother’s home coz he’ll finish it.

An enigma unravelled

About the sculpture by Rodin, Woman with Her Foot in the Air, that I thought was so intriguing because the woman’s position was so unusual — neither reclining, stretching gracefully, posing or dancing. Now, I might know the origins of that sculpture. It’s highly probable that she was in an economy seat in the middle of a row. She would have been sunk down really low in her seat with her knees propped against the folded-up tray table. Not in pain, but not entirely free of discomfort either. At one point, when she would be trying to get some circulation going, she would discover that the only place for her outstretched leg to go would be up in the air. Quod erat demonstrandum.