From the Mountains, to the Sex on the Beach

I will do this quick and dirty, with minimum words, since each picture already worths thousand words. The City has been having fantastic weather the last couple weeks, with beautiful sunny weather and summer like temperatures. Where was I? The beach of course. Yup, that beach right there in the picture. When I was lying on the warm sand, this is all I see, while hearing the sound of the wave. Then, a bunch people show up. One of them wants to be like the Little Mermaid. Then I moved on, went to the highest point, over looking the City. I have not been back to the Botanical Garden for a long time. It’s a perfect time to revisit now because it’s the blooming season. Yes, the spring is here, except everywhere else. The next stop? Asian Art Museum. I noticed this in the grand foyer. “To be content with what we possess is the greatest of all riches.” Hmmm… In that sense, I think I am very rich. Isn’t that easy to say when you actually possess something? Try to preach this to the homeless people. Yes, I also went to visit the Aquarium of the Bay for the first time. It turns out that I wasn’t missing anything. It’s no comparison to The California Academy of Sciences. However, I took couple pictures of the jelly fish, dancing elegantly. Hong Kong’s “Demon Chef” Alvin Leung is in town for the Papillon X event. He is famous for “X-treme Chinese” cuisine. On Friday, when he was making a “Sex on the Foggy San Francisco Beach” from food (yes, even the condom is made from eatable ingredients), I took a photo in action. I even tried some of the “sand” on the plate, made from some oat meal. Inside the “condom” is some soymilk. It turns out that sex won’t just be on the beach. Today, I visited “On the Edge: Erotic Photography Exhibition,” very briefly, out of curiosity. Oh, boy. My eyes hurt. I have never seen so many vaginae at the same time (nor separately). This is also why I love this City. Tomorrow, I will go back to the wild to take more pictures of the wild flowers and enjoy the beautiful weather before the rain returns next week. I know, I overloaded the pictures this time. Oh, almost forget, a film review I wrote a week ago. Sanctum By now, anybody who has even just heard about the movie “127 Hours” probably already gets the message—bring a sharp knife when you go explore in a never never land (or the lack of). Some cave divers indeed bring a sharp knife with them. However, that does not seem enough to save their fate during their adventure in director Alister Grierson‘s 3-D thriller “Sanctum” (USA/Australia 2010 | 109 min.). Nor will it save the film from sinking into the deep cave. Frank McGuire (Richard Roxburgh) leads a National Geographic team inside South Pacific’s underwater Esa-ala Caves that is regarded as “the mother of all caves.” His resentful 17-year-old son Josh (Rhys Wakefield) comes for a visit, joined by an uppity financier Carl Hurley (Ioan Gruffudd) and his equally arrogant girlfriend Victoria (Alice Parkinson). After they reach inside the cave, a heavy storm causes a flash flooding and cuts off the route for getting out of the cave. They must find a new way to escape the sanctum with limited resources, supplies, and few options, if any at all. During the struggle for survival, all hell breaks loose gruesomely, both in natural and in human. Although we are expecting danger when a parachute is needed for falling into the cave, the film is still a hair-raising experience. It reminds us that we should leave the nature alone sometimes. Occasionally, the film displays great visual of underwater and inside the cave. The film would have been fascinating if it were a documentary about surviving on National Geographic Channel. Unfortunately, no. The film wants to create some human drama. Actually, lots of them. Although it is produced by the creator of “Avatar,” James Cameron—“the king of the world,” but this film has a different writing team. Yet, this film’s cheesy dialogues are just as laughable as in “Avatar,” if not worse. As for the 3-D, when it is all dark in a cave, why is it matter if it is 3-D or 2-D? Unless, the film crew turn on the superb lighting. Most of the characters are stubborn and ego driving. Whenever they escape from a terrifying episode in the extreme condition, they shout at each other, quarrel with each other, when they are not trying to kill each other. Here is my advice for them: next time when you dive into that mother of all caves, you should learn from James Franco in “127 Hours,”, go by yourself, and do not tell anybody where you are going, but do bring a sharp knife, just in case. “Sanctum” opens on Friday, February 4, 2011 at Bay Area theaters. http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/OgW7L2uq2VM&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&ap=%2526fmt%3d18