The Artist -- 3 1/2 Stars

We went to see The Artist last night. What a delight. It takes a bit of getting used to the film, but in the end we thought it was completely worth the effort.

The plotline of the film (which is reminiscent of both "A Star is Born" and "Singing in the Rain") is the downfall of a movie star who cannot make the transition from silent films to talkies. He falls into despair and is rescued, in the end, by the love of a woman and, oddly enough, the love of a dog and a chauffeur. It's a heart warming story, though, honestly, one we've probably all seen before.

What makes this movie special is its format. The conceit of the film is that it is actually made as a silent film -- filled with music and the old cue cards conveying words. One favorite of that genre was the simple word "Bang!" to evoke a loud sound.

The score to the movie is wonderful and luscious. It sounds and feels like a love story to old silent movies. There's a wonderful homage to "Citizen Kane" as well. In short, this movie was clearly made by someone who loves movies for viewers who love them as well. It's novel and innovative and well worth the effort.

TruOrleans -- 3 Stars

We love New Orleans. We especially love the cajun and creole food that goes with the music and the vibe of the city. It's been a long while since we were able to find that taste outside of Louisiana.

But halleluiah. New Orleans has now come to DC. Last week, we went to TruOrleans, a true taste of the bayou brought to us by a native cook, Marcia Johnson. We split two great appetizers -- eggplant fries and crab cake balls. Then for a main course, Paul had the Leland's jambalaya and Katy had the crawfish ettouffe and both were a perfect taste of the Big Easy. And the Sweet Potato pound cake desert? To die for. Throw in Abita beer on draft and this place could be in the French Quarter.

We especially liked the vibe of the place -- it has the feel of a traditional New Orleans down-home restaurant. The chef and the general manager are friendly and were wandering the floor making people feel at home. If it weren't for the fact that the food was amazingly tasty and guaranteed to add pounds to the waistline, we would go there almost every week! As it is, we've found a winner.

A Quiet Friday at the Museums

It was a beautiful day here in Washington yesterday and the streets on Capitol Hill were empty. So we went for a pleasant walk down onto the Mall (where the crowds were much bigger) and stopped in at the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art.

They have a couple of neat exhibits there right now. One is "Warhol's Headlines" -- a fascinating collection of Warhol paintings in which he takes newspaper headlines and turns them into art. His small changes are sometimes amusing and always interesting, but the idea of just copying a newspaper kind of makes you wonder what art really is. Still, he's iconic and it was fun to see so many of his paintings in one place.

A highlight of the visit was the Portuguese tapestries -- a recently restored set of tapestries that recount the conquest of Tangiers in the early 1400s. We'd seen the Bayeux tapestries a few years ago and these were much the same but on a much grander and finer scale (after all they are 300 years later in history!). We could have spent an hour just looking at the 4 of them -- well worth the trip.

And then, surprise! A small room with some more moderns out of the regular collection including some old friends, Monet, Manet and Cezanne. Also a new Mondarian that we hadn't seen before. Quite fun.

We topped the day off with a quick trip to the National Building Museum for their new exhibit on "Unbuilt Washington" -- a collection of drawings and concepts for parts of DC that never got built. A pyramid for the Lincoln Memorial. A Memorial Bridge with medieval towers. An East Capitol street (where we live) with a row of Federal office buildings. Moving the Supreme Court to where National Stadium is now. A real fun walk down "what might have been" lane and well worth the trip.

Add in tapas at Jaleo for dinner and a brisk walk home and what could be a better day?

Makoto -- 4 Stars

We went to Makoto Restaurant the other day with our friends Connie and David. Calling Makoto a "Japanese place" or a "sushi bar" simply doesn't do it justice. What Makoto is, is one of the finest and most enjoyable dining experiences in Washington.

Granted, Makoto is not for everyone. For one thing, the chef really has a set of "rules" that he expects everyone to abide by. They tell the story (one hopes it is apocryphal) of how he once fired a customer and kicked him out for insisting on a sushi preparation the chef was not willing to make. So be prepared -- there are no shoes allowed and no cell phones permitted. And if you order beef, the chef will ONLY make it medium rare -- so don't ask for beef if you like yours cooked all the way through.

On the other hand, if you can put up with the chef and his idiosyncrasy, be prepared for a magical experience. We all chose the 9-course tasting menu (reasonably priced at $60/person -- drinks extra) and it was worth every penny. Over the next 2+ hours we had courses ranging from a tasty mussel broth to tuna sashimi. We had beef sabu and pomegranate with tofu sauce. We had shaved ice with boysenberry, an orange roughy, and avocado with a miso-soy sauce. Each of the dishes was just a small 2-3 bite size portion so you didn't get at all full.

Perhaps the highlight was a single piece of shrimp, wrapped in a tasty black bread, and then deep fried to perfection, sprinkled with a green sea salt/crushed red pepper mix. Yum.

The menu is seasonal -- you won't see this menu ever again. But the next experience will, we expect, be just as good. Go and enjoy (and have some cold sake too!).

Manitou Springs, Colorado

We are out in Colorado for the weekend. On Monday, Paul has a conference at the Broadmoor, so we came out ahead to spend some time up in the mountains with our friends Jim and Dar. We are staying at a great little hotel called "The Cliff House" where we have found good food, fine rooms and truly wonderful service.

Yesterday, we spent the day mostly walking around Manitou Springs. It's a quaint little town with lots of little shops. It tells you everything you need to know that it boasts a Dulcimer shop and a shop specializing in hemp products. Retro-hippie, with chai and mate and crepes everywhere you would look.


In the evening wandered down to Colorado Springs (15 minutes away) to listen to a concert by a group called Gaelic Storm, the specializes in celtic rock. Great fun. The fiddler and the drummer were particularly skilled.

Today we took a slightly different tack. We went for physical activity. We started with a horse back ride through "The Garden of the Gods" (a great red rock area near the Springs) and then we went up the Cog Railway to Pike's Peak. Unfortunately, it was so windy that we couldn't get all the way to the top (80+ mph) but we did go to 12,000 feet before turning around.

Tonight we are going out to dinner with the fellow who will be producing our film. Jim and Paul have participated in the start up of a 501(c)(3) company (Esprit de Corps Productions) that will be making a moving about how communities can help veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Especially on Veterans' day weekend, it is good to remember that more soldiers and sailors and airmen will be returning from these wars than we have had in American society since WWII.

Hiking Lake Waikaremoana -- New Zealand

We spent four days/three nights hiking around Lake Waikaremoana with the NZ company Walking Legends. There were 5 of us on the hike, along with Brad (the bearded guy) who was our guide.

The hike was challenging. In New Zealand, they call them "tramps" and they rated this one as moderate, but by our standards it was pretty hard. I would call it a "scramble" with a very rough track. Lots of tree roots to negotiate and a several sections where we went up and down and up and down and .... When we first heard about it, we sort of thought about this as a "walk around a lake." But it was much more than that.

All of which is not to say that the hike wasn't well worth doing. On the contrary, the trek was through some wonderfully beautiful country, it was well-organized, and we both had a real sense of accomplishment in the doing of it. We are pleased and proud to have done the hard work on this (and we should also note that some of our companions, who were younger than us, didn't find it particularly hard at all!).

The first day was a nice slow hike in from the entry point down to the lake. Waikaremoana means (if we remember correctly) "lake of rippling waters" and on a clear day it certainly deserves the name. The breezes across the lake set up ripples and waves that reflected the sunshine delightfully. The lake itself is located in Te Urewera national park, a rugged area of large mountain ranges. Amusingly, Urewera is Maori for "Burnt Penis" and commemorates an unfortunate event involving a Maori warrior and his camp fire -- one can only imagine.

We ended the first night at a wonderful cabin in the woods, right at the lake's edge. After a robust dinner and a good hard sleep it was off for the second day -- a much harder hike of 18 kilometers (11 miles) all on the same rough track. Still, even with the ups and downs the track was essentially flat near the water and pleasant enough.

The third day's hike proved a different story. Essentially, it was 4 hours of up and nothing but up through a silver beach tree forest with wonderful ferns grown throughout. As if "up" wasn't hard enough, it was raining all day. After a 600 meter climb, we arrived at the third hut soaked to the skin and dog-tired.

But oh what a great afternoon and evening. Soon Brad had a blazing fire going in the iron stove fireplace. We climbed out of the wet clothes and into dry ones and hung the wet ones up on the line above the fire to dry. The dinner was a simple chicken, vegetable stir-fry but it tasted fantastic. The only thing missing was the promised view of the lake -- the rain clouds set in and just covered the sky.

On the next morning, we took a group photo during a brief clear moment (that's it at the top) and then headed down, down, down to the waiting bus. It was dry this time around, but as always the stress of down on the knees is almost as challenging as the stress of up is on the quads. But we made it ... and at the bottom, Rob (the owner of Walking Legends) had waiting for us grilled sausage with onions and a beer. Honestly, we both thought it was probably the best meal we'd had in a long time -- nothing tastes better than a beer to wash down a hard physical effort and success.

We really can't say enough about Brad, our guide, and the Walking Legends team. The entire trek was well organized and put together, the people were friendly, and the scenery (despite the rain) was just magical. We are glad we got to see New Zealand in this special way.

Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef

We came to Cairns (oddly enough pronounced Cans -- nobody can tell us why) for one reason -- t0 spend a day on the Great Barrier Reef. We did that yesterday and it was good fun. We took a small cruise ship out to Michaelmas Cay for the day and did some snorkeling on the reef. To prove it we even have this photo.

In some ways the Reef is alot like any other reef -- we saw plenty of coral and lots of interesting wildlife. One of the most notable things we saw was a "cleaning station" where the fish line up to have the cleaner fish remove the parasites from their gills. Along with some pretty big clams and schools of parrot and rainbow fish we were pretty impressed.

But in an odd way the Reef is hard to appreciate. Its greatest feature is its sheer size -- the reef runs more than 2000 kilometers from end to end. But you can't really see that or experience it when you swim the reef. The little piece we saw was perhaps a bit more well-populated than reefs we've seen in the Caribbean or the Indian Ocean, but it didn't scream "I'm unique." We wonder how to capture that uniqueness in size and scope in a single day.

Today, we took another side trip to Fitzroy Island, a local beach. We spent the day just lying about and swimming trying to get a short break before the long flight home. We ended the day with a superb Balinese Risttaffel -- a tasting course in Balinese food -- at a local restaurant. It was definitely worth the time and not something we're likely to experience anywhere else.

And so, the trip draws to an end. Tomorrow, we start home with a 3 hour hop to Sydney. After an overnight in Sydney on Sunday we leave for home. 14 hours to LA and then 5 hours to DC. It'll be a long day. We've had a great time, but we are looking forward to sleeping in our own bed.