4) Go camping - DONE (25-29/08/11)
Armed with a £20 Tesco tent and the essentials of a couple of crates of Stella and some bread, we headed to Leeds Festival. Glorious sunshine for the first day but the heavens opened for the second. Luckily, our tent survived and stayed bone dry inside, which is more than can be said for a couple others'... Some sleepless nights and an aching body by the end might persuade me to bring an airbed next time.
10) Make sushi - DONE (24/08/11)
Wanted to do this for a long time. Tasty but ALOT of effort.
43) Learn to read/write Chinese - In Progress
I've been trying to learn as much as possible over the summer but it's been pretty stop-start. I have, however, hit 90 characters so far. The thing is, with English, if given a word you can have a fair whack at writing it down, even if it is just phonetically. The difficulty with Chinese characters is that there is very little meaningful structure to them. They are made up of separate parts but how they are put together is far from obvious, especially someone learning the language from scratch. See ideogrammatic compounds. I'll wait until I hit 100 before ticking this off.
50) Finish writing HK'09 journal - In Progress
About 2/3 of the way through the first draft. Found this in my photos...
58) Watch 100 films I haven't seen before - In Progress [70/100]
- 4 Lions - Muslim extremist bombers wouldn't be my first choice to making comedy gold but it worked extremely well.
- Pom Poko - See below
- Dinner for Schmucks - Apparently a shoddy remake of a hilarious French film. Well, I thought it was funny...
- My Neighbours the Yamadas - See below
- Sherlock Holmes - Brilliant. Apparently a new one is coming out soon? Can't wait.
69) Get to level 80 on WoW - DONE (07/08/11)
Yep, I'm a geek. However, it has taken me 3 years playing on/off during summer. Good fun but not even close to being addicted as the majority of players are. Sad really.
92) Watch the entire Studio Ghibli collection - In Progress [9/19]
[These two are not directed by Miyazaki, but by Isao Takahata]
- Pom Poko - Another story centred on saving the forests. This time about shape-shifting raccoons and a cameo from the sly foxes. Typical Japanese, mystical, magical tale which was actually quite humorous at parts.
- My Neighbours The Yamadas - I don't think I've seen a film anything like this. Very basic animation (which gives it its charm) and revolves around the life of a not-so-typical Japanese family. The film is split into different aspects of their lives and is almost like a sketch show. Funny at times but starts getting dull the longer the film goes on for.
