The latest film from Studio Ghibli, Howl’s Moving Castle is currently showing. We watch all films at Village Cinemas (not sure why, I guess Hoyts and other cinemas aren’t conveniently located for us) and the film was only showing at one cinema (Jam Factory) and only one session per day — 11:10am.

Such an “early” session on a Sunday meant that we missed the first minute or so — I blame the dopey girl selling us the tickets, and the fact that the ads/previews were much shorter than expected (only 5 minutes!). Still, with adults at kid’s prices, and our discount card as well, the tickets were cheap. Plus we got two $7.50 ticket vouchers to use at any Village Cinema; not sure when they expire. From then on, though, we were pretty-much transfixed to the screen for the next two hours. There was some sort of children’s party there, which meant a few loud kids but eventually they settled down.

The look of the film is typical Miyazaki, with it’s “steampunk” type machines, and late 19th/early 20th century French look. A few characters or scenes seemed “borrowed” from other Ghibli films (the big-nosed old lady from Spirited Away, the transforming half-person half-bird also from Spirited Away were the first two that came to mind) but the huge, lumbering, steam-powered machines are always a treat to see.

Once the film finished, we made our way to Ay Oriental Tea House, which is across the road from Bridie O’Reilly’s (I assume everyone knows where that is) and had some great dim sum. Justine had a flower-based tea which looked like it had dandelions in it; I had a “Gunpowder” green tea (so called because the buds look like gunpowder before they’re added to the tea).

We had 2 servings of vegetarian dumplings, as well as pork dumplings (which I squirted everywhere each time I took a bite ;), fish dumplings, prawn rolls and vegetarian rolls. The rolls weren’t so good, but the dumplings were excellent. We got tired of waiting for the custard buns we ordered. Normally, the dim sum is served a la carte (i.e. you order it) but today the waitresses walked around with plates full of it and offered you some of whatever they were carrying at the time every few minutes. Great stuff, except that the fried stuff never made it to where we were sitting.

‘Twas a lovely way to pass a few, lazy hours on a Sunday.