Flight Log of American Airlines Flight 186 from Beijing Capital to Chicago O’Hare on July 11th, 2016

It was a school-sponsored month-long summer program at Cornell University.
Originally, given AsiaMiles’ double mileage promotion for students residing in China Mainland, I was more than eager to persuade the travel agency to book me on Cathay Pacific to New York or Chicago, and then on a separate ticket to Ithaca. However, school regulations demanded that I must went through extra bureaucratic procedures for them to pay for my separate tickets.
So that spelt the end of Cathay Pacific, leaving me only the choice of three major US carriers. Since AA’s itinerary has a longer layover at Chicago O’Hare, and it was a Boeing 787 which I haven’t flown on before, I picked American Airlines.
By the way, Ithaca airport was closed for runway maintenance, so we actually flown to Syracuse, where Cornell University arranged shuttle services for us.
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Downtown Beijing Day Trip, National Museum and Zhongshan Park

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Assassination Classroom Season 1&2, a Japanese Animation Series that didn’t get enough to deliver

I came to known the Assassination Classroom series because my friends were watching it on a train ride. I decided to give it a try, which ended up as just another topic for our casual chats, no more.

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London Has Fallen (2016), an overall good action movie with unrealistic settings

London Has Fallen poster

If I want to make a list of the most exciting movie trailers of the year, London has Fallen would definitely be one of them. In fact, it’s trailer is so breathtakingly action-packed that I decided to go for it immediately after it’s out, without consulting to IMDB or Rotten Tomato or Entertainment Weekly, which is quite rare for me.

The plot is straight-forwardly exciting: At state funeral for the British Prime Minister in London, leaders from other nations were murdered in various terror attacks while US president (Aaron Eckhart) narrowly escapes with his head of security Mike Banning (Gerard Butler)…
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Your Lie in April, a Japanese animation series bravely endeavored into the musical world, and then got lost

Its subtitle says it all, “I met the girl under full-bloomed cherry blossom, and my fate has begun to change.”

YLIA

To be more explicit, the life of the piano prodigy and protagonist Kosei Arima turned for the better while the life of the girl he met, violinist Kaori Miyazono was taken by chronic disease.

Most Japanese animations with such a prominent pair of “he” and “she” easily reduce to mere lengthy chronicle of the chemical reaction in between, maybe a little bit more dramatic as this is a life-and-death plot. Yet the 22 episodes of Your Lie in April seemed much more peaceful as the plot would otherwise suggested, as that girl and violinist Kaori’s constant smiles and positive attitudes had been guiding our protagonist boy, who overcame the death of his mother and summoned strength to go back on stage, while leaving audiences half a year of colorful symphonies. When the series ended with Kaori looking back at all her memories with Kosei in a letter, many said they burst into tears.

I didn’t.
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Flight (2012), a movie with heoric scenes and prolonged bathroom breaks

flight

The plot of Flight is easily summarizable: an alcoholic pilot went to work drunk, a heroic pilot saved his plane from mechanical failure.

After some tense scenes in the cockpit for the first half an hour of the movie which ended in a crash landing, the pilot, Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington), met Charlie Anderson as the pilot union representative and attorney Hugh Lang, who helped him deal away with detrimental evidence and guided him through NTSB investigation. He met and helped heroin addict Nicole Maggen along the way. Yet in the final NTSB hearing, where he no longer felt comfortable lying, admitted the truth that he’s drunk during the flight.

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Ajin season 1, an animation series that transcends its peers

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Usually, I got to know a movie or a TV series by its trailer or word description, which very often give me a reliable impression of what it is, and more importantly, how good it is. That’s not the case for Ajin, which impressed me with its OP. I know songs don’t usually speak for the quality of the overall work, adding to that, it’s actually a human vocaloid of its OP parodying the infamous fertilizer Jinkela. To me, this is just the first thing unorthodox about the Ajin series.

The plot of the Ajin series is not the most fascinating. After being hit by a truck, protagonist Kei Nagai discovered he is actually an Ajin, a species that would automatically regenerate soon after death. Being hunted by authorities, Ajin went on the run with his best and only friend Kaito…
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Flight Log of KN2252 DAT-NAY on May 15th, 2016

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Weekend Trip to Datong, Day 2: Mount Heng

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Weekend Trip to Datong, Day 1

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