Tag: sleep

Grrr, yesterday I twisted/pulled/crunched/whatever something in my back. It was annoying me all day yesterday and for extra fun it made sleeping last night a waste of time. I didn’t wake up rested even though I went to bed early1. I woke up with my back still feeling cranky and without feeling the joy of having a full night’s sleep. *grump*

I’m feeling cranky today. You have been warned.

1 Ok, it wasn’t early by many people’s standards but any night I make it to bed before 11 is an early night for me.

This afternoon Ariesna and I went out to see The Bourne Supremacy. As I expected it was mostly a fast paced action movie with just a hint of drama tossed in to spice things up. Was it good? Well… it would have been better if they didn’t use such jerky camera work for the action sequences, particularly the car chases. I have a fairly strong stomach for such things but even I was starting to feel a touch of motion sickness by the end of the movie. Poor Ariesna was downing some Dramamine to try calming her stomach and fight off the severe motion sickness that she was feeling. Still if you can get past the motion sickness issue; there are some other disappointments in store for you:

  • Matt Daemon isn’t playing the role of Jason Bourne as well as he did back in The Bourne Identity.
  • Figuring out the real bad guy in this film takes no effort and that ruins the suspensefulness of the film.
  • The portion of the movie where Bourne goes to Russia, feels tacked on like it really belongs in another movie1.
  • The way Bourne dealt with the Russian assassin didn’t make any sense.

So am I saying that I hated the movie? No, I enjoyed it quite a bit. It was a fun film that allowed me to have some mindless entertainment for an hour & 48 minutes. Given I woke up exhausted and was in a sleepy haze all day that was probably for the best. I give the movie 3 and a half out of 5 cups of coffee. It’s worth seeing if you can catch it at a matinee or at a cheap-seats movie theater.

1 Though I have to admit, I did admire Bourne’s character for locating the girl and apologizing to her for what he’d done in the past.

This morning was another sweltering day and after a short hop on the train; we walked up to Osamu Tezuka Productions. When you first step off the street towards their door; there’s a marble (maybe granite) status of Astro Boy. Then you walk inside and immediately you’re surrounded by merchandise, mostly from Astro Boy but also from some of Tezuka’s other series, such as Princess Knight. Then it was up the stairs and we split up with half of us touring of the offices while the other half watched a video. I went on the tour and the wonderful people there let me video tape it; so I won’t talk about it here. Then we went back to the waiting area and watched some of Tezuka’s animation work while the other group go the tour. It was a very nice environmental work with no words set to one of Tchaikovsky’s operas. Then they brought in one of Tezuka’s former assistants and he gave a short presentation about what it was like to be an assistant. I was still suffering from the heat, so my fried brains couldn’t think of a question before the presentation was over. On the other hand, at least I wasn’t sleeping with my head on the table through the presentation.
(more…)

Homestay, day 1
We got ourselves checked out of the hotel this morning and I found that calls to the US must be around $1/minute, as I’d called Ariesna a couple of times and hadn’t spoken all that long but the bill was rather high. After we were all checked out, we walked down to the language school. It was extremely hot out and there wasn’t a lot of shade. I noticed K was having problems, so I carried her bag for her to the school. Once we were there, one of the teachers brought us some drinks and snacks, but the A/C wasn’t working all that well and we were still frying.
(more…)