Appleseed

Yesterday we invited some friends over for dinner. Big Elf loves to be host and he will cook really nice food for his guests! Unfortunately, the food looked too good that I totally didn't bother to snap a photo of it. I am always ravenous when there's prawns!!

The dinner setting






















The dishes were:
1. Spicy Black Bean Beef
2. Ma Po Tofu
3. Sambal Tumis Banana Prawns
4. Stir-fry bak choy (I cooked this la, simple and easy).

If you don't already know by now, Big Elf always leave the vegetable dishes to me and he will get his hands on the seemingly more important and substantial dishes ie the meat and seafood.

Calla lilies

Some random shots just to make up for the dishes I didn't photograph. Sorry =( These are calla lilies which I plucked from my landlord's garden. They grow very well towards the end of winter and of course spring time. Soon, there will be hydrangeas in the garden. Can't wait for it to grow!








Candle light holder from Ikea





















The dessert!!!


At least I remembered to snap a photo of the dessert while Big Elf was preparing it. It was just a simple cookies and cream ice-cream with strawberries and chocolate topping. Our friends left us with a movie they bought, an anime called Appleseed! We then watched it for the night and it was quite good.. not so much of a Studio Ghibli style movie, you can tell. It was war and bloody... I'm sure you get the gist of it. All in all, it's highly recommended.

Howl's Moving Castle

I have been watching Studio Ghibli's anime diligently since this year.Many of my friends have probably watched them long long time ago, yet I only started now. Perhaps it's good in a way because I'm sure I wouldn't understand it better than now. I have watched several but didn't think my interest would last this long. Hence, I didn't blog about it. The whole idea behind studio ghibli is something worth respecting from the movie plot they produced. Time and again, they never fail to impress audiences, especially me. Every anime has a good story line and morale in it. However, it may not be suitable for Christian audiences, especially kids as they engage in all these supernatural, magical, gods and goddesses and monsters like theme, overtly non-Christian beliefs. Then again, I am not an extremist and I know who I serve. So, I'm not too worried about watching it and being a fan of Studio Ghibli.

My first Studio Ghibli's anime was Howl's Moving Castle. I was immediately fascinated by it, an animation with such engaging storyline. I was absolutely drawn to the visual effect and I cannot believe, I was totally charmed by it. I never knew about Studio Ghibli before but this was a great start to my venture on watching all Studio Ghibli's production.

Howl's Moving Castle is based on a novel by Diana Wynne Jones. Here's the spoiler for those who haven't watch. But even after reading the plot, it is still worth watching!


The film starts off with the protagonist of Howl’s Moving Castle, Sophie, a timid and unsure 18-year-old girl who works in her late father's hat shop. She has a chance encounter with the mysterious wizard Howl (27 years old), who rescues her from some menacing soldiers. However, by doing so, Howl brings Sophie to the attention of the Witch of the Waste, who visits Sophie and whom Sophie inadvertently offends and puts a curse on her, transforming her into a 90-year-old woman. Unable to tell anyone of the curse, she sets off on her journey to the Waste, to beg Howl to lift the curse. On the way she meets a magically animated scarecrow whom she names Turnip Head. Together they find Howl's moving castle.

Inside the castle, Sophie comes across a fire demon, Calcifer, with whom she makes a deal: He will change Sophie back to her normal age if she can break the contract that binds Calcifer and Howl together. "Grandma" Sophie also meets Markl, Howl's young apprentice; Howl himself appears soon after. Sophie hides her true identity and claims to be a cleaning lady hired by Calcifer to maintain the castle. (However, Howl, like Calcifer, has been able to 'see through' the spell all along.)

Sophie discovers that the front door of the moving castle is magical, allowing transport to four different destinations. She also begins to see Howl's true nature. He shows this when Sophie messes with his potions in the bathroom, accidentally causing his hair to turn red at first, then to black. Howl throws a tantrum, claims 'There's no point in living if I can't be beautiful!', and calls on the Spirits of Darkness.

Time passes, and Howl receives summons from both Porthaven as Wizard Jenkins and Kingsbury as Wizard Pendragon to fight for the King. A war is being fought over the missing Crown Prince Justin. Howl suspects the Kingsbury summons is a trap set by Madame Suliman, Kingsbury's head sorceress and Howl's old mentor. Too cowardly to confront her himself, Howl convinces Sophie to speak to Suliman by posing as his mother, "Mrs. Pendragon."

Sophie runs into the Witch of the Waste while going to the royal castle. In the castle, the Witch of the Waste is captured by Suliman's stronger magic, stripped of her powers, and shrunken into a helpless old lady. Suliman then confronts "Mrs. Pendragon" and demands that Howl become a war magician. Howl comes to her rescue disguised as the King of Ingary, but Suliman sees through his disguise. They escape on a flying machine along with Heen, Suliman's asthmatic errand dog, and the now-helpless Witch of the Waste. Howl stays behind, fighting off the chasing soldiers, while Sophie goes ahead, flying back to the castle. Suliman, however, learns of Sophie's identity. Howl returns in a large birdlike form later that night and Sophie wakes up as her young self again. She confesses her love to him and tells him she wants to help him break his curse. Howl rejects her and flies away. Sophie wakes up to find it was all a dream.

Howl transforms the castle into a larger and more beautiful version of itself as a present for Sophie. Meanwhile, the self-confidence she has gained, along with her developing affection towards Howl, has begun to reverse Sophie's curse, returning her gradually to her true age. Madame Suliman attempts to track Howl down at the hat shop. Howl flies off to defend them; however, each time he transforms into a large birdlike creature to defend himself and his friends, it becomes increasingly difficult for him to revert to human form. Sophie receives a surprise visit from her mother Honey, sharing a brief but emotional reunion. Honey, secretly blackmailed by Madam Suliman, leaves a small bag which turns out to be a spy bug. The Witch of the Waste destroys it by feeding it to Calcifer, but it severely weakens him as a result.

Eventually, Suliman's henchmen swarm the hat shop, forcing Howl and Sophie to retreat. Howl transforms into the bird creature to draw the enemies away, while Sophie moves the castle back to the Wastes. Sophie convinces Calcifer to rescue Howl, but in his weakened state, Calcifer is unable to move the entire castle. Sophie removes Calcifer from his hearth, to reduce the size of the house, but then returns him and uses her own hair as fuel. However, the Witch spies Howl's heart in the ashes — the one thing she had been seeking for ages — and greedily grabs it. The heart sets her aflame, forcing Sophie to throw a bucket of water on her and Calcifer. Calcifer is reduced to a small flame that is unable to control the castle. The castle breaks down even further and they are all thrown off a cliff.

Sophie cries for Howl, thinking he is dead, but then in the rubble, she finds the magical castle portal. She enters to find herself transported into Howl's childhood. She learns of the relationship between Howl and Calcifer, and discovers why Howl is unable to truly love anyone. She returns to the present to find Howl outside the door. Howl is in bird creature form, badly injured and bleeding, but is able to take them back to their friends.

Sophie, Howl and Heen land on the remnants of the castle, and Howl falls unconscious as he transforms back into human shape. Sophie convinces the Witch to give Howl's heart back to him and pushes it into Howl's chest. Calcifer emerges in his true form and shoots off. Without Calcifer powering it, the remnants of the castle give way. Turnip Head sacrifices himself to stop the castle from sliding off a cliff and Sophie thanks him by giving him a kiss. Turnip Head then turns into Crown Prince Justin, who had been transformed by a spell that could only be broken by a kiss by his true love, Sophie. However, when Howl wakes up, Sophie shows she is really in love with Howl, which breaks her own curse. The Witch of the Waste tells the Crown Prince Justin to tell the king to stop the war, resigned, goes back to tell his king to stop the meaningless war. Calcifer returns and decides to stay even though his contract with Howl was broken.

Heen reports all this to Madame Suliman back in Kingsbury through her crystal ball; which showed that Prince Justin was rescued, there is no reason to continue the war. The film ends with Sophie, Howl, the Witch of the Waste, Calcifer, Markl, and Heen traveling in the newly-rebuilt castle and with both Sophie, and Howl kissing — which now flies.

Wikipedia (you mut be kidding if at one point, you thought I wrote the synopsis...hehe )

Graves of the fireflies: The saddest movie ever

I was persuaded to watch this anime by Big Elf. I wasn't interested because the title didn't really give away much. I had no expectation nor preparation to watch this movie. I simply watched it because I was coerced into it although Big Elf did tell me, it is a sad movie. Well, how sad can it be, I thought to myself. At the most, I will just shed a tear or two like I have in so many other touching movies.
Then, the movie showed. Thanks to Youtube, we can all watch almost any popular movies we want nowadays at our fingertips.

So, I sat comfortable on my bed, with the laptop literally on my lap, with no preparation, none whatsoever. Guess what, just 15 minutes into the movie, I was literally sobbing my heart out!!! I couldn't stop sobbing that Big Elf came rushing into the room, just to check on me. I gave him a good scolding for introducing such movie to me. It was really a painful movie and it touches every cell in my body I must say. It is not only touching and moving, but it is really.... really... sad. I have never watched any sadder war time movie ever in my life.

This is going to be a spoiler for those who hasn't watch the movie. The movie is about a teenage brother named Seita and a young sister, Setsuko(about 4-5 years of age) surviving as orphans during WWII. The part where I sobbed the most were the scenes below:

1. When their mother is dying (could in fact have died) and Setsuko asked to see her mother, but was refused by her brother. The mother was all wrapped up due to the blast of an air raid. She was severely burnt and died from the injuries. The scene where Setsuko just knelt down and sobbed because she can't see her mother, also not knowing that her mother is dead/dying, was so touching. The fact that she did not throw tantrums but just turned away in that sad and forlorn eyes, with a pouted mouth, standing still before knelting and cried, it was a very tearjerking scene.

2. When Setsuko was looking at her mother's ring and asked how come mum doesn't need her ring anymore. Then Seita told her, when mum is healthier, he will bring her to see mum. She just nodded enthusiastically "hm... hm..". That was another tearjerking scene.

3. When their distant aunt took away their mother's kimono to be traded for rice, Setsuko ran and grabbed hold of the aunt's arms to stop her from taking her mother's kimono and yelled, "No.. No.. it's mama's!" Oh, another tearjerking scene.

4. When Seito asked Setsuko what is she doing at one time, and Setsuko replied, she is making a grave, mummmy is in a grave too. That aunty told her mummy died, and she's in a grave now. (She was not meant to know that her mother is dead). Oh, such a heartbreaking line. Another tearjerking scene.

5. When Setsuko (in her pyjama) had to watch her brother being beaten for stealing food in order to feed them both (Seito had to resort to food theft in order survive) and being all alone and scared and not knowing what to do, she just cried out her brother's name, Ni-jan, Ni-jan. At this point, my heart totally went all out for her. Oh no, what if they lock his brother up for stealing food? What is going to happen to Setsuko? She has nobody around for her and for a 4 or 5 year old girl, it is unbearable to watch. She then tail-gated the man and her brother all the way to the police station and waited outside, all alone for her brother. All of me, am all out for her. Immensely saddening.

6. When Setsuko is languishing day by day and she woke up one day only to find her brother wasn't around. She is weak, tired, hungry and thirsty. Then Seito came back from looking for food only to find Setsuko collapsed on the floor. He tried to wake her up (well, at that point, I thought she died, so I really sobbed....) and the first thing she said when she opened her mouth was, "Water.. ". This is totally... not right for a 5 year old girl to have to go through all these. So heartwrenching!

7. When Seito carried the weak and frail Setsuko, and asked her what does she like to eat, to which Setsuko asnwered, "Tempura, Sashimi, Jelly.. ice-cream and also.. fruit drops". (the tin of fruit drops carried a significant meaning throughout the whole movie). I literally was sobbing, so hard I can hardly stop.

8. When Seito withdrew the last penny they have in the bank to buy food for Setsuko. He came home and found that Setsuko was lying on the bed, hallucinating. Setsuko was chewing a marble which she thought was fruit drop. Then, she offered rice balls to Seito, which she made out of mud. Finally, the part which I dread but already anticipated, Setsuko never woke up after that sleep.

My eyes... were badly swollen from crying. I, practically cried throughout the whole movie. Right now, I won't be able to blog my perspective after watching the movie. But I will in the next few days. It's late now, and I've got to sleep. Too exhausted from crying. Even from blogging about the movie, tears just rolled freely down my cheeks.