SVong-Along

Men Without Women is a set of 7 short stories following Men Without Women. In each story, Haruki  Murakami explores the thoughts and lives of a man who is alone because they somehow lost a loved one- through death or due to her leaving him. The book basically pays homage to Ernest Hemingway's same titled short story collection (which I have not read)- but with stories taking place mostly in Japan and I'm assuming a more modern perspective since the collection is from 2014 but it was not translated and published in English until 2018. As a Murakami fan, the writing style was what I expected- whimsical, almost stream-of-consciousness in a way that really makes you empathize with the narrator of each story. Murakami explores various roles such as doctors, students, actors, lovers, and is able to relate everyday themes we think about- work, relationships, and sex, and delve into how these themes play into our lives. I finished reading the stories in less than a week while I wa...

Bonjour! What's it like to go to Disneyland Paris? Essentially it's the same as Disneyland with a few ride variations, slightly more French than English (cast-members all still know Anglais thank god), and a whole Ratatouille area with a ride and restaurant! Disneyland Paris is about a 1-1.5 hour train ride [RER-A] from Paris city-center.  Upon entrance, Disney Paris has a much grander entrance than the simple gates in CA, you walk to a big pink palace-like building before scanning your ticket and entering the park: Chanrith is thrilled to do DLand Paris for the 2nd time. It also happened to be the 25th anniversary this year. I LOVE this snapchat filter/geotag.  Main Street USA is almost exactly the same as CA's, (I recognized the same music and felt at home). At the end of Main Street is Sleeping Beauty Castle. We stopped by Sleeping Beauty Castle first since crowds are usually smaller in the morning. It was tall and big.  Danna told me I matc...

I love the Crazy Rich Asians novel by Kevin Kwan (I am planning my dirty 30 in 2 years themed on the book and also stupidly made it one of my 30 goals before 30 to go to its movie premiere - I was in Europe though so that was a fail) regardless- I was very excited for the movie. I have seen it twice, and I was thoroughly entertained despite thinking the book is way better. Below is what I would've live-tweeted (if I truly had no shame- but I am Asian, just not crazy or rich)- and disclaimer- there are spoilers . Also the pictures below my tweets may be subject to copyright. But first- some screenshots of what I did tweet while watching the previews: During WB credits intro- tapping my feet to this big-band style Chinese song, this soundtrack is already 🔥 and I'm going to LOVE this movie  Wishing Eddie was in this London scene like the book, after re-reading the book for the 4th time I need to lower my expectation that they will copy the book  The entire mo...

From Munich we took an overnight train to Paris. The metro kept getting delayed so we had to take a last minute taxi to the train station and we ran to get on our train, but we made it onto the train which left around 3 AM. We got to Paris in the morning, left our stuff at Hotel Ampere which Chanrith booked on Hotwire, and then took public transit to Versailles. Unfortunately, the most convenient train (RER-C) was under construction [late summer/August is not the greatest time to go to France FYI], so we had to take a bus and another metro to get to the station where we could finally take a very packed RER-C to Versailles. It probably took us over an hour to get to Versailles. After getting off the train we walked about 10 minutes to get to the Palace. When we got to Versailles it was PACKED. The line was crazy and it was probably a 3-4 hour wait... for the hoi polloi. Luckily Chanrith is an annual pass holder- so we went to the front and cut the entire line. But still among ...