Lost in Beijing - MIFF

A few more posts coming to round out my blog on our (amazing, incredible) 8 week trip, but we're now back and I'm into the Melbourne Film Festival for the 18th consecutive year.

My first film this year was Lost in Beijing - a Chinese film set in contemporary Beijing and showing off the city to full effect (though I didn't see streets as empty as those shown in the film when I was there last week!). The stock plot revolves around a young couple and an older couple. Through a plot device the younger woman has sex with the older man. She also has sex with her husband. She becomes pregnant. The older couple have no children as the wife is infertile. Who is the father of the younger woman's baby? (dramatic music plays)

Actually there is much to like in the film. Apart from the older woman, the acting is good. Tony Leung (the older man) is excellent as always. The film really does give a sense of life in contemporary Beijing and some of the scenes (particularly the sex scenes and the birth scene) feel particularly 'real'. Horrible camerawork.

7.5 out of 10.

Beijing

Another short one.  Having a great time in Beijing, being shown great hospitality by K.

 

Great Wall yesterday - absolutely amazing, a tourist attraction that lives up to the hype.

 

Awesome peking duck.  Great Iranian food last night.

 

Shopping and massages today.

 

Forbidden City and Tiannanmen tomorrow.

Portofino

It already feels like a long time ago, but last Thursday afternoon we took the train from Levanto to Santa Margherita (spelling?) then walked to Portofino.  SM is a very resorty seaside town.  Portofino is a few kilometres away and is a very exclusive port attracting an international crowd of yachties, playboys and wannabes.  And us.  The walk from SM is boring in parts, but most of it is beautiful and meanders past some amazing clifftop houses.

 

When we arrived we sat at a bar on the harbour for a drink with all the other beautiful people, then went for dinner.  Again with all the beautiful people, except for the woman with the scary plastic surgery at the next table.  Then the best pistacchio gelati I'm ever likely to eat. 

 

All followed by a long, painful train ride back to Levanto.

 

Portofino had the most amazing selection of shops - pretty much every top-end designer name had its own shop there, even though probably only a few hundred people live in the village.  The harbour is extraordinarily pretty and absolutely crammed with boats.  The town square is very pretty also.  Overall a good but slightly surreal experience.

Amsterdam

I still need to blog about Portofino, but right now M and I are staying with D & K in Amsterdam.  They have a beautiful huge and light apartment in the 9 streets; very central.  A great dinner last night at Nomads - a north african feast - then a wander through the central city and the red light district.  Off to Bruge for the weekend.

Cinque Terre

A few great days in the Cinque Terre, staying in Levanto. 

 

Walked from Levanto to Riomaggiore on Tuesday - about 7 1/2 hours.  The walk from Levanto to Monterosso was fantastic - far less busy than the 'cinque terre trail'.  We saw only a few people and it was very beautiful and a fantastic start to the day.  From Monterosso to Vernazza and Vernazza to Corniglia were great walks (very hilly!), Corniglia to Manarola and Manarola to Riomaggiore are nowhere near as interesting. 

 

Levanto, where we were staying, is 1 town further along than the cinque terre.  An italian-style seaside resort - the beach was pretty crappy (at least to Australian eyes) but the europeans all seemed to love it.

 

Tuesday night we had a fantastic pizza right on the Vernazza waterfront.  An amazing view and a fantastic evening.

 

 

 

 

 

Lucca

Our travels roll on.  We are now in the beautiful Tuscan town of Lucca and looking forward to exploring.

We spent the weekend with A & F in Florence at their fantastic new(ish) apartment near Piazza Santa Croce.  An amazing location.  It's great seeing A in her home environment - it's been more than 6 years now she's been in Florence.  M and I did much wandering around Florence's streets and taking in the atmosphere and had a great dinner at a local Osteria with A & F.

Dinner in Panzano on Thursday night was an experience - the local celebrity butcher (!) has opened a very trendy restaurant which has a set menu of 6 meat courses.  A & F drove down and we all had a fantastic meal in the little town. 

Also this week we visited so many places - Montepulciano, Montelcino, St Gimingano ... the list continues.  Tuscany has many, many beautiful towns.  And some great hiking quite near our base in Lucolena.

It was incredibly rejuvanating settling into a base for a week - the constant packing and unpacking is very draining.  Our little farmhouse was cute and a great base to see the Chianti region and Tuscany more generally.

Chianti

As you will have read, we are presently in siena for the Palio. 

 

We are staying in a little farmhouse in the Chianti Classico region of Tuscany, near a little village called Lucolena.  Lucolena has a few hundred people, a shop and a pizzeria which is fantastic but is open only 3 nights a week.  It is an agricultural village.  We are very lucky - our little farmhouse is very cute and recently renovated and has its own cute little garden with an amazing outlook over tuscan hills.  The satellite TV is eccentric.  2 channels of Al Jazeera, Algerian TV, Abu Dhabi TV, Syrian TV, lots of shopping, an arabic childrens channel, Azerbaijan TV and so very many more.  500 plus channels of TV and radio.  2 channels in english.  BBC International and Bloomberg.

 

In fact the views everywhere are incredible.  We are getting sick of telling eachother to look at the view - they are always good.

 

Food is great.  Pizza, pasta, cheese, bread, olive oil, tomatoes, wine, pastries and so much good coffee.  I had better not get started on the coffee or I will never stop. 

 

So far we've visited Panzano (for an arts festival), Greve, Arezzo, Cortona - and a number of small towns whose names presently escape me.  Such a beautiful part of the world.

 

 

Early post on the Palio

Am in Siena at the Palio - the famous bareback horse race. 

 

It just finished a few minutes ago and was raced and won in sensational circumstances.  There were numerous false starts - the horses simply would not line up in formation.  The race itself was sensational - 3 very very fast laps around the Piazza del Campo on the dirt track.  The end was amazing - green-and-white (GAW) was winning easily but blue was catching up fast.  To M and I it looked like GAW held on for the win.  And GAW fans certainly celebrated.  When the winner's flag was raised, however, blue had won.  Much emotion from green and much jumping up and down and celebrating from blue fans (including many standign near us).  After protests, however, GAW was reinstated as the winner.  It appeared a popular decision overall, but led to much emotion in the blue quarter.  I write this in the blue part of town, and there are many tears and much emotion.  Children and adults are openly weeping in the streets.  The mood is sort of ugly.

 

The horse I was backing - pink and yellow - lost its rider about halfway through the race.

 

An amazing experience.