Memoirs of a Geisha, with a Chinatown jaunt

Since last week's plans to see Memoirs of a Geisha fell through, I went out today with Tiff, Kevin and Nhan to watch it.

We spent the first bit of the day wandering through Chinatown so that I could find a big fabric fan. I found one for $12 and plan to gesso it so that I can paint my own design onto it. We popped into Kikiwai to look at the figures and knick-knacks - nothing thrilling and everything ridiculously overpriced as always.

Tiff and I spent time drooling of over the Star Wars costume book at Chapters while Kevin read a tourism book about Hong Kong. He'll be there for about 3 weeks in March. >_<" Eeeuww... Anyhow, if anyone knows some good shopping haunts, let me know so I can pass it onto him. He plans to come home with Gundam models and figurines and who knows what else @__@" (oh, and the weird thing wrapped in brown paper in this picture is the giant fan I bought).

The movie itself was underwhelming. While it was visually very beautiful, I couldn't get over the stupid accents the actors were using. I found it distracting and at times even annoying. There were many plot deviations from the novel that I couldn't write off under the "oh well, it's a movie, things need to be changed" mantra. Many events were glazed over and I didn't like the ending at all. I think I was expecting to see glimpses of the aged Sayuri looking back on her past but mingling it with modern New York as well. Oh well, now I've seen it and I can forget about it.

We went to Marché for dinner where Kevin and I had a great roast beef dish. I ordered a piña colada from the bar and it was GROSS. It tasted like those disgusting chalky shakes you get at Booster Juice. Kevin took it back and even the bartender agreed that it was nasty so I got a free Shirley instead. Hurrah for '2 for 1' dessert coupons!