Dirty Dance 1/2/09

After staying home doing nothing for the whole day of New Year day, Lei and I decided to go outdoors for a change. Friday morning, we went to OHIP office in the early morning. On the 2nd day of year 2009, I finally got my Canadian health card after waiting for about half an hour, which was not too bad, considering there were 50+ people ahead of me, it’s a pretty efficient process. I should be able to enjoy the free, universal healthcare in Canada in about a month, somehow this reminded me of Michael Moore’s documentary “Sicko”.

Lei bought the musical tickets for the afternoon show; we then drove to Chinatown in downtown Toronto for a quick bite before the show. Talking about the food in downtown Toronto, it’s the best - cheap and authentic, although I have to admit that most of them do look little shabby and I try not to think about how the kitchen would be like. We had steam buns and la mian … Yummy!

When we were led to our seats in the Royal Alexandra Theatre, the show was about to start. Till then, I realized the show we were about to watch was “Dirty Dance”. I absolutely love the original movie by Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze, one of the few English-speaking movies we were introduced to when we were little in China. I remembered this movie, also because this movie inspired my sister and myself desire to learn dance, although it later ended with nowhere like many of our other ambitions. Talking about the show, I like it, the stage design is creative and efficient, a lot of dancing with a lot of energy and emotion. The actresses and actors are cute. I like the lead actress and actor for Baby and Johnny; they do look like Jennifer and Patrick in the movie.

I guess I became snow-phobia after that accident. When we got out of the theatre, it started snowing. I changed our plan of spending the night in downtown immediately when I saw the snowfall, it was a quite heavy snow, and my black jacket was all covered by a thin layer of snow after just 2 blocks walking to parking lot. Yes, let’s go home immediately, I dislike the snow driving.

The rest of the week was relaxing. I watched couple DVD’s to make up for the ones I missed when I was traveling. “The invisible” is a 2007 movie, which talks about a teenager became invisible to the living and near death after an attack leaves him in limbo. The movie has very favorable soundtrack music, topped by my favorite artists, “Open Your Eyes” and “You’re All I Have” by Snow Patrol, and “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” by DCFC. The story itself is not very convincing, although not bad for killing one and half hour if you simply don’t want to do anything but relaxing. “ The others include “The Black Dahlia”, “Superman Returns” and “Beyond the Border”, unfortunately I fell in sleep while watching 2 of them.

Overall, it’s a very relaxing New Year weekend, and I’m fully pumped to go back to Stamford for my final two weeks of audit. I’m looking forward to conference in Atlanta, where I’m going to see a lot of co-workers and friends I got to know during the last two years.