TIFF 2011

It all began when Andri randomly checked the website of Toronto International Film Festival 2011 at beginning of August. Ewan's movie had been listed as one of the movie who would have the world premiere in that festival. However, the title is really strange. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. It was so awkward and we always make fun of that phrase until our last day in Berkeley. When I went back to Toronto, I found out that Ewan McGregor himself will make appearance for premiere of this movie at TIFF and the date is 10 September 2011, which is Saturday. I told Andri about this and she was so excited to go to Toronto. After that, I need to buy single premium tickets for Salmon Fishing in the Yemen at Sep 3, 2011. Ticket sales opened at 7 am, and it was so hard to buy tickets. Luckily and maybe I can call this miraculously, I could log in to the website and bought tickets for Salmon Fishing. Andri and Raissa arrived at Toronto nearly midnight of Sep 10, so we went directly to hotel and slept for 4 and half hours. At 7 am, we were already at subway to pick up our tickets. In the ticket box, we also wanted to buy ticket for Ides of March (George Clooney, Ryan Gosling) or 360 (Rachel Weisz), but those two were already sold out. In the end, we bought Wuthering Heights, a newest adaptation from Emily Bronte's novel. After breakfast, we went to Eaton Centre and looked around (shopping too) for 2 hours and went back to TIFF Bell lightbox to watch our first movie, Wuthering Heights. It is a beautiful movie with the scenery and it is more humane than the novel version. After that, we have late lunch at Korean Barbeque and more window shopping before we headed back to the Princess of Wales Theatre for Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. When we reached Princess of Wales Theatre, we were surprised by the queue line to get into the theatre. We underestimated this movie. To get into the theatre, we needed to queue two blocks and again, miraculously, we got the third row from the stage because Andri forgot to bring her glasses. I could not stop giggling when Andri saw Ewan from 10 metres away. Her face was epic. Too bad, we did not have chance to take photo with him. The movie itself was funny and ironic. It is not as absurd as I thought it would be. We had late dinner at Spice Route which was really full, so we did not really enjoy the atmosphere there. Too bad. The last stop for that day was karaoke at Finch. We payed for 2 hours, but we got free hours, so in the end, we stayed 3 and a half hours there. The day after, we checked out from the hotel and ate brunch at Salad King, downtown then headed back to Pearson Airport. We planned to attend James Franco and Gus Van Sant discussion of their artworks at TIFF Bell Lightbox, but we overslept. I guess it is better to meet (or see) JF with Babad, so just wait (maybe next year if she makes her Canadian visa) Thanks for Andri and Raissa for super fun weekend! I hope I can go to NYC soon!

XOXO,

Nini