Peter Hoflich

I had a great trip to Canada and Hong Kong, just got back yesterday! Saw a bunch of cities, met a ton of people (many for the first time, some for the first time after 20 years!), and did a bit of shopping and eating and drinking!

The pics to prove it are below.

The trip started off with a 28-hour journey from Singapore via Hong Kong to Toronto. My flight from Singapore was due to leave at 10:40; if I would have timed myself to arrive at around 9:00, as you’d expect for a 10:40 flight, I would have been in the thick of unpredictability since that was rush hour, when it’s hard for the cab (if you can get it) to get anywhere. So I left early, passed by the office to pick up some chargers I’d forgotten, and then checked in early so that I could chill out in the business class lounge over breakfast. Nothing special in the flight lounge but crappy food, coffee and beer. I spent ages trying to log in to my office email, which wasn’t working well at all!

Once on the flight (which was delayed one hour), I felt that the business class was just o-kay – food so-so, service so-so, the best thing about it was the personal capsule you get with the funky lay-back chair and the noise-cancelling headphones, and how they don’t hassle you to stop listening to your MP3 player during take-off (which, from Singapore to Hong Kong, was delayed by an hour because of some sort of issue in economy class). In Hong Kong I bought a Giorgio Armani tie (!!!!) to match my new Collezione Armani suit (!!!!!!). Never thought I’d ever buy things like that, but – hey, times change. The flight lounge there wasn’t special either, but since I was on Cathay Pacific and they are a Hong Kong-based airline they have several lounges to choose from (I tried a different one on the way back, and it was better – at least it had better food). Flight lounges when you’re traveling on your own are no fun anyway…

The flight from Hong Kong to Toronto was pretty lame; it was delayed by two hours due to a huge thunderstorm passing through (total flight delays so far – three hours!), so I drank beer and read and listened to music. The window seats were taken up by people who slept throughout, or were tapping on their personal devices when the flight took off through the spectacular mist-shrouded city (it was spectacular from what I could glance from my middle-section seat!). I powered through the flight, not sleeping much (I’d save that for when I got to Canada in the evening, hoping it would help with the jet lag) and watching movies. On the Toronto flights I managed to watch Beasts Of The Southern Wild, Life Of Pi, Lincoln, Prometheus and Hitchcock (on the flight back I took in Zero Dark Thirty and Silver Linings Playbook – I will review these films below the pics). Met mom and dad at the airport, drove to Midland, and slept an exhausted eight hours in their spare bedroom. Nice.

Spent three days in Midland hanging out, going for walks, acclimatising myself to Canada, took a lot of walks, observed a wonderful moonrise one night when my jet lag wouldn’t let me sleep, saw the stars for the first time in years, watched the Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding discs from the Monterey Pop Festival set, as well as the first part of the Woodstock Director’s Cut. Went through my old possessions, found a few cool things – my old cassettes, my old LPs, my old CDs, my old comic books, my old clothes; I selected to take back an old brown suede jacket, a long jacket that had belonged to my uncle, three cassette tapes (Mother Love Bone, Soulstorm, Motorhead), and grabbed a stack of comics to either let my son read or sell on eBay. Ate some great food, drank some Kaiser beer with my mom and dad, and went to visit some old family friends. Didn’t take many pictures!! Too bad…

Drove into the city, had lunch with my boss on April Fools Day, checked into my hotel (the Metropolitan, next to City Hall on Dundas), then chilled out over beers at the Horseshoe Tavern with my friend John, went up to Soundscape Records on College (bought a Jonathan Wilson CD and the Lemmy documentary DVD), then ate and drank on College. My Visa card was rejected as I was paying, and I kept getting text messages from Citi throughout my trip about it… not impressed.

The first day at work on Tuesday was great, meeting colleagues I’ve been emailing and phoning with over the 14 months since I’ve joined, met my boss’s boss, then met her boss as well, chilled out at the offices on Wellington Street, spitting distance from three other places of work of mine in Toronto (Metro Centre, Roy Thompson Hall, the Royal York Hotel), and got to know how my company really works away from my splendid isolation in Singapore. Perfect. Funnily enough, as soon as it was 4:30, I suddenly got zapped by jet lag and extreme fatigue – no energy, just wanna sleep. That night I met my friend Tom at my hotel restaurant where we chilled out and ate and drank and caught up, first gathering in 20 years! It was fantastic!! But by 10:00 I just couldn’t go on – I passed out mid-text as I was trying to send a message to our mutual friend Huw, hoping to plan next day’s meet-up. Ouch!

Wednesday was a day of meetings and I met Huw for lunch at Jack Astor’s on University, great meet-up after 20 years! Wednesday night I had an after-work drinking session with the broader communications team (about 40 people), which was perfect, and then headed off to meet my two oldest friends from my neighborhood, Paul and Mike; funnily enough, we once again ended up at Jack Astor’s (but this one was on Dundas)!!! A great evening of catching up, just perfect. Love you guys!

Thursday was a lot of fun too – busy in the office, skipping lunch, then meeting with university friend Liz for Greek food (20 years, man, 20 years), then to the Horseshoe Tavern for more drinks, the Rex Hotel for jazz, falling asleep in my chair, then off to the hotel for sleep.

Friday, last day in the office, many many more meetings, lunch with another friend I haven’t seen for 20 years, and after work a lovely dinner with my friend Patty and her family. That was followed with drinks with my friend Danella and her buddy Robb. Wow! That was a strange evening, as I basically walked from Roncesvalles back to Dundas and Chestnut, stopping at a few pubs along the way. It was also very cold.

On Saturday I woke up, fussed around the room doing emails and time-wastin’ stuff, then went off to my friend Teresa’s. I hadn’t seen her for 20 years either, but it was fun going to her place in York Mills, meeting her family, eating great food, autographing my book, buying coffee, and then off to see my friend Tom again and to meet his family for the first time at his house in Bloor West. Good times, then home by cab along the DVP late at night. Sunday I woke up early, packed, checked out, walked from Dundas and Chestnut to Queen and Ossington to meet my friends Danella, Robb and Rikk for lunch, then up Ossington to Bloor, along Bloor toooo Bloor and Yonge, then down Bloor to the Eaton Centre to meet my friend John again. Bought a new suitcase, bought some CDs for myself (from Singapore’s Wormrot) and a Percy the Platypus t-shirt for Zen at HMV, a Big Lebowski sweater at Sunrise, drinks at The Library, then off to Greek food on the Danforth by cab (with a cool view of the Toronto setting sun from the banks of the Don Valley – nice!). Greek food, a beer at an Irish pub, and then time to head to the airport.

The flight back was very easy. I got to the flight lounge, had a bunch of drinks, boarded the plane, sat down, and then passed out exhausted (I’d been up 18 hours and had walked all over the city). I slept for two hours in the prone take-off position, then put my seat down and slept another five. I had a window seat, so I opened the blinds and saw the midnight sun over Severny Island, awesome!! Lowered the blinds, watched Zero Dark Thirty and Silver Linings Playbook, some episodes of dumb TV series (The Office Season Nine, 30 Rock) and stuff like that. Monday dissappeared into the International Date Line and by Tuesday when I got to Hong Kong at 5:00 AM (!!!) I went through customs, headed to my friend Margaret’s place, hung out with her and her family, then went to meetings from 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM (intermittently during the afternoon, while I was on the phone with Naoko, I also ran into Margaret’s husband Larry during the walk from building to building – happy coincidence!!!). Yes, I was tired by the end of the day, and rooftop drinks with journalists downtown was interrupted by some serious construction noise – bummer!! But it was all good.

Checked into my hotel, fixed my luggage, slept, and woke up on Wednesday morning for an 8:00 AM meeting with journalists. Nice. I had a full morning in Hong Kong, then went off to the airport. The flight was not very special, as I had an old airplane (wide-ish seats in business class and no podule, mini-screen movies so I just read my book); but getting back home was great. It had been nearly two weeks. Wow…

The amazing thing about meeting people for the first time in 20 years was that NOBODY HAD CHANGED EVEN ONE IOTA!! In character they were exactly the same, and in appearance more or less the same (some were spookily identical!!). I think that’s great. The big difference is that we knew where we were in life; twenty years ago the big questions were “who will I marry, how many kids will I have, where will I go, what will I do, what kind of career will I develop, will anything bad happen?” Now these questions have been answered, so there’s less uncertainty. Family situations aren’t the same – for some of us thing maybe our elders are gone, family situations aren’t perfect, we may have fallen on hard times – but we can still talk about things with greater perspective. This is valuable, and a part of wisdom. A few of the things that my friends told me in meetings really hit home, and I really treasure those encounters. Great great great.

Movies

Beasts of the Southern Wild – a very good semi-reality flick about a young girl who grows up in the Mississippi delta in New Orleans, enjoying the pickin’ of the land until the pickin’ of the land gives out – the community is flooded, her daddy gets a heart attack, the villagers are displaced, and the food starts to disappear. It’s about growing up, it’s about livin’ in Louisiana. Loved it.

Hitchcock – Anthony Hopkins is great as the Master, Alfred Hitchcock (hey – same initials!). The absurdities of putting together the first slasher pic are documented. Life has never been the same since the Hitchcocks started this Hollywood thing, and there’s all sorts of uncertainty around putting the movie together that’s overcome by the realistation that it was ultimately a financial triumph. Ironically, he (like Truman Capote – see recent years’ Oscar entries) never produced a significant follow-up (although there’s a coy reference to The Birds). Great follow-up to Anvil – The Anvil Movie by director Sacha Gervais.

Lincoln – hard to talk about this film, which I fell asleep watching mid-flight, other than it’s very chatty. There’s a lot of dialogue. A lot of dialogue. A lot of dialogue. It’s the most un-Spielberg of all Spielberg films. I loved that he tackled a difficult theme, I loved Daniel Day Lewis’ performance (when do I not?) and I loved seeing Jackie Earle Haley (Breaking Away, Watchmen, Dark Shadows, etc); I enjoyed the fantasy that the 13th amendment was im-passable (since all know it passed); but this was a great film about zeitgeist – showing what it was like to live during those four months of Lincoln’s life. Fun stuff? Not really, but rewarding to the legend of America.

Life of Pi – It’s hard to imagine that this book could be filmed; and yet filmed it was. And successfully so! The background for the tale is well-grounded, with images of the Pondicherry (the visuals in the film make me want to go to this French-influenced part of India), high school love, zoos, nature, and the inevitable ship disaster, which I never really understood in the original book. The book takes a life of its own after the boy is discovered in the boat, with the ocean itself becoming the third character of the story, something that the book never succeeded in conveying. Magnificent! There’s the nutty “carnivorous island” point, there’s the”Japanese insurers” point, and the film is over.

It’s a beautiful film, and if it popularises the tale, all the better – I want to talk about the “carnivorous island” point, I want to talk about the”Japanese insurers”. Maybe this film will allow me to do so.

Prometheus – while it’s not a strong film (weak performances and absurd/unnecessary characters abound), the overall pontification on the nature of The Engineers is satisfying, as is the explanation this prequel provides of our first sight of an Engineer corpse at the beginning of the first Alien film. We get a strong female character (evident in all of the Alien films, but never again in another Ridley Scott film) with the domination of a very able Noomi Rapace; having said that, though, Charlize Theron’s performance and her character were TERRIBLE, as was the weird Scottish guy and his wimpy engineer friend (the Doomed Ones); the alien abortion was pretty gross, but that’s okay.

Let’s see what happens in the next film, which is inevitable.

The strangest moment was when I had flashbacks to plot points from Event Horizon. Bring it on… weird!!!

Silver Linings Playbook – I knew nothing about this film going in, and good thing too! It was a wonderful little flick, full of good cheer for down-and-out people with middle class connections. Good for them! They have emotional issues, they find each other, they dance. All right!

As rom-coms go, it’s nice to have one this challenging, as it’s about two loveable nitwits on psychiatric doses, not really ready to re-enter society, yet somehow ready to re-order their parents’ lives (is it always like this?) and go on a learning journey. High fives for learning journeys! The performance of both actors was stunning. I saw the film listed for an oscar, I wonder why it didn’t win. It was awesome. And loveable. The dude in the film was great, the gal nearly so. Wonderful story, wonderful acting.

Zero Dark Thirty – Probably one of the most important stories of our era, captured here in this little film. Has this moment entered the popular psyche, like when man walked on the moon and all those other dramatic moments? Maybe not really, but this film reminds us of what people did to get there.

The film starts with a stylistic glimpse of the fall of the Twin Towers. Sad. Then it gets to Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the intelligence work was happening. A tough story of broken families and destroyed friendships, and the hunch that paid off. Nice. I wonder how Katheryn Bigelow even got this story. If I’d wanted to make the story, how would I have done it?

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