lightning strikes twice

Back from Thailand, where we visited Bangkok for 4 days, and Koh Tao for 10 days.

Bangkok was pure madness everywhere.  So busy, and reminded me a lot of Jakarta.  It was really hot and sticky at this time of year, which made being too active very tiring, so we spent a lot of time enjoying our hotel, Lebua at State Tower, as well.  The Sky Bar on top of the State Tower was amazing.

Koh Tao is a small island a couple of hours from the much larger Koh Samui.  It is possible to ride from one end of the island to the other in around twenty minutes, but we mainly travelled between the main locations: our accomodation at New Heaven, Mae Head where the piers were, and Sairee Beach where the eating and nightlife action was.  Also spent a lot of time in air con catching up on favourite TV series such as The Wire.

All up very relaxing.  Didn’t do much of cultural note, but that wasn’t the point of the holiday anyway.

So, Rosemount Australian Fashion Week 2008 has just finished, and while I’m by no means a fashion person, I did get along to four shows (Frisoni Finetti, Ginger & Smart, Gail Sorronda and Mad Cortes), and also a fair bitof hanging out and talking turkey.  Good times.

Mad Cortes show today was hot:

• La Vie En Rose – fantastic film about “the passionate life of Edith Piaf”.  I really enjoyed this — there was something about her vigour that reminded me of my week in Paris last year.  The actress and the script conveyed her approach to life well, and the music was very stirring. It made me think of all my loved ones.  8/10
• Ratatouille – an animated film about a culinary rodent, Remy, and a bumbling garbage boy, Linguine.  OK, but nowhere near as good as The Incredibles from my perspective  Basic plot: Remy loves to cook (his hero is ‘Gusteau’), but no other rats do.  Evicted from their farmhouse he becomes separated and ends up at Gusteau’s restaurant, which has fallen on hard times.  Linguine starts working there, but has trouble with the head chef who is more concerned with his own microwave meal line than making good food.  The rat and Linguine combine forces, the boy falls in love and heaps of mostly contrived things happen. 6/10
• The Science Of Sleep – Surreal and awesome in some ways, but very annoying in others.  Stephane moves to Paris and falls in love with his neighbour.  He has very vivid dreams that hamper his waking life, and while he and his neighbour are creative matches, their love is never going to work.  This drives Stephane crazy, and he does many stupid things that annoy his neighbour (Stephanie, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg) no end.  Okay, 7/10.