I was over the moon when the guy at Scotia Bank gave me a call yesterday saying that I could “early renew” my mortgage. I thought I had to wait till September before I could renew it since I had signed a 1-year fixed rate contract last September. In fact I could do an early renewal six month in, just that I had to do it at the same bank (i.e. in September I’ll be free to refinance at a different bank.) Anyway today I went to the bank and the guy gave me a really good rate - 3.5%! I had 4.75%, so it’s a 1.25% decrease, pretty impressive That equals a saving of $120 a month on the mortgage…..so happy.

I came up with an idea to set up a projector screen in my living room yesterday so that I can make some good use of my 4-years old projector (covered with dust). I thought I could make one with some white pieces of paper instead of actually going out to buy one (which costs around $150-$300). Today I put my thoughts into action and actually tried and see if I can make one up.

The idea was simple: 6 pieces of dollar store craft paper ($3 total), tape them all up, hang it up on the wall…that was pretty much it. I went out to get some paper today and spent about an hour and half to put everything together. It ended up pretty nice and sturdy (kind of exceeded my expectation) I was even able to install a “holder” for my Wii sensor bar near the bottom of the “screen” with two paper clips, pretty cool IMO. Anyway here are some progress pictures, they are pretty self-explainatory.

Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms / ???? ??? was a war drama shown in Japan in 2007. I usually don’t watch war/history movies and I almost stopped watching at about 10 minutes in when I realized the film was about some war history, I was glad that I didn’t. It wasn’t subbed so it was a great opportunity for me to try to understand the story listening to pure Japanese.

There are two parts to the story. Part one began with a 22-23 year-old girl Minami (performed by Kumiko Maso / ?????) who was a victim of the Hiroshima atomic bomb incident in year 1945. She had scars on her arm from the fire at the incident. The story talked about how Minami lost her younger sister and her father in the incident, and her post-war life living with her mother and younger brother, Asahi. Minami got sick for no reason and had been coughing blood. She died from radiation poisoning (just my guess) at 26. Coping with the tragedy, her brother continued to live and get married with a girl who was living in the same village as he did.

Part two of the story began with Nanami (performed by Rena Tanaka / ????), the daughter of Asahi (Minami’s younger brother), one day realized that her father was acting strange at home and left home without saying a word, so she followed him out secretly. Her father ended up taking a bus to Hiroshima (from Tokyo where they lived) and Nanami followed him onto the bus. At Hiroshima, Nanami saw her father meeting with a couple old people, going to his older sister’s (Minami) tomb, and revisiting the area where it used to be the village he lived in. Nanami there learned about his father’s past and the story behind her hair pin, which was worn by Minami before. Nanami also recalled how her mother died on the floor while she was couging out blood, and she wondered if she would end up having the same fate as her mother - as a post-war victim that was highly susceptable to death by radiation poisoning.

The movie was very beautifully sculpted, with great settings, scenery, and most importantly the great symphonic soundtrack. I liked how they talked in I believe Hiroshima dialect in the old days. It made it 3 times more difficult for me to understand but I felt great when I seemed to understand most of what they said. The story-telling was awesome, like since there were different time periods involved, flash backs were used to introduce different time frames, mood and colors were also used pretty effectively such that you wouldn’t be confused what setting the current scene was in. Some people may get bored watching this movie I would think, even though I truely enjoyed it (thus bothered to write this review). I liked it and in my opinion it is a highly recommended!

To close up here’s a synopsis from nhatkyviet.com:

Adapted from Kono Fumiyo’s award-winning manga, Yunagi no Machi Sakura no Kuni (a.k.a. Yunagi City, Sakura Country) is the story of two young women living in different times, and the unforgettable historical memory that connects them. Director Sasabe Kiyoshi follows up his WWII drama Sea Without Exit with a sensitive portrayal of postwar life under the shadow of the war experience and the atomic bomb. Divided into two sections - “Town of Evening Calm” and “Country of Cherry Blossom” - the film alternates between 1955 Hiroshima and the present-day with Tanaka Rena (Waiting in the Dark) and Hochi Film Award Best Actress Aso Kumiko (Kairo) in the leading roles.

Atomic bomb survivor Hirano Minami (Aso Kumiko) knows all too well life’s bitter brevity. She lost her father and sisters to the bomb and radiation poisoning, and has not seen her brother since he was evacuated years ago. She takes hesitant steps toward first love with her coworker (Yoshizawa Yu, Night of the Shooting Stars), but happiness and normalcy are elusive in the atmosphere of postwar Hiroshima. Decades later, Ishikawa Nanami (Tanaka Rena) travels to Hiroshima to find out the reason by her father’s frequent mysterious trips to the city. There she slowly retraces the story of a young woman whose life has affected hers in more ways than she realized.