Terracotta Warriors. Audacious taxi drivers. Cold weather. Daytime fog. Bell and Drum Towers. Riding bicycles on the city wall. My niece (!) Susan (studies music composition and plays the violin). Chinese food that I actually like.

Pi, who was originally named after a swimming pool, but renamed himself after the irrational number (or maybe the Greek letter), grew up in a zoo in Pondicherry, India, and astounds friends and family with his active interest in religion at a young age, especially as he practices Hinduism, Islam and Christianity all at the same time, much to the dismay of the respective priests. His life takes a dramatic turn when his father decides to emigrate the family to Canada and their ship sinks, leaving Pi stranded in a lifeboat, together with a female orang-utan, a spotted hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg) and an adult Bengal tiger.