Legion

At last, watched Legion last night with Andrew. Wanted to watch it long time ago, but was so busy after the trip. Fortunately it is still in cinema.

I was so looking forward to it. The trailer looked promising. I had faith that it was going to be a good movie. Especially when I saw all those angel’s wings flying all over the screen. Andrew was also wow-ing at those gigantic black wings! LOL! We were full of faith, until last night. :(

The movie was okay, Paul Bettany looks cool. He never fails to impress the audiences with his unique look, bad or good guy, you’re just gonna love him. But he was trying too hard to look charming in the movie, what a big spoiler. Lucas Black, again I found this man familiar, it was later only I found out he is the guy from The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. His acting sucks in Legion. The rest of the cast? Not worth to mention. Oh, there’s another one, same old Dennis Quaid. LOL! Been seeing him in lots of movie lately.

The story was lousy though. There were a few parts where I almost fell asleep with their oh-so-intellectual conversations. I kept asking Andrew “why do they have to talk so much”. I guess the director/script writer treat us as some kind of kids, they have to explain every little details to us. Funny is, they left one important thing unexplained. Why her? There must be so many single ladies got pregnant before marriage, why must it be her? Who’s the father of the child? Is he special? I’m not sure if the director did it for some reason for not disclosing that. For the sequel? Perhaps. But no history on the pregnant lady, that just confused people. The armor that the Archangel Michael and Gabriel were wearing, in the movie, that was so gladiator-like! Geez…… And how funny it is when Michael referred to himself as a general of an army in the movie. *Faints* All of a sudden, the “heaven” has become some sort of invincible kingdom and the angels have become the warriors.

Andrew said, “the earth is like a playground to the God in the movie. He keeps the mankind alive when He’s in the mood and just exterminates everybody when He thinks He has lost His faith. Haha.” But he still thinks the movie is good. Hahaha. I just couldn’t believe that God could lose His faith on human. Lost His patience, yes. But faith? And He couldn’t do it and has to send a bunch of macho angels to be the assassins.

I am not a God believer, but I understand that if God ever exists, He would never lose His faith. If He could ever lose His faith on us, how are we going to have faith in Him again? Correct me if I’m wrong.

If you just want to get entertained by Paul Bettany’s look, go ahead and enjoy yourself. If you’re looking for some butt-kicking actions, be my guest. If you’re looking for some intellectual inspirations from the movie, you may want to think twice.

I still love Paul Bettany with wings. LOL! Oh, and also his jacket in the movie! Ooooohhhhh……

Bleach Out All Over Again

If you know me well, you would know that my favorite Japanese Anime is none other than “Bleach“.

Last week, I noticed that I have abandoned it for more than a year. I couldn’t even remember where I stopped. Spent the whole of both Saturday and Sunday night to pick up the traces. Re-watched the last 25 episodes of where I stopped. Geez, I could barely remember that I’ve watched them before.

If you weren’t a fan of Japanese anime, you wouldn’t understand all the passion and time I spend on it. I’ve even bought 5 original DVDs before. Now they’re with Andrew’s brother for more than a year! He told me they’re still in good condition, I wonder why he hasn’t returned them to me yet. :( They’re my PRECIOUS.

Facebook, MSN and TV have taken up too much of my time over the past one year. I have no one to blame but myself. I’ve chosen to skip my book-reading and other interests for Facebook! The influence of Facebook is that big, if you let it. I am now living most of my time in the virtual life of Facebook, which is something I do not feel proud of. My writing sucks, my creativity has gone dry, my knowledge stays where it was a year ago…… I keep telling myself I have no time but I do have the time for Facebook! Argh…… Now I feel frustrating.

I will now cut short on my Facebook-ing time, and hopefully get back to the real life before Facebook chews it away bit by bit. I shall now “bleach out” my time for my sweet old interests.

I do not want to post any more of Bleach videos here in my blog. You can get them on YouTube if you want.

Taiwan Touch My Heart

It was more than 6 months ago when I booked the air tickets. January 2010 seemed to be a long time to wait back then. But look, I am back from the trip.

Almost everyone told me I was out of my mind to go for a 8-day trip. I was worried too, about the money and the time. Tickets booked, I had to go ahead. After I’ve done some search on the internet, I realised 8 days in Taiwan ain’t long enough to cover most of the tourist spots. Enough for Taipei and hopefully some other places nearby Taipei. Went to MATTA fair once to look for some tour packages, we couldn’t find what we wanted. Everyone then decided we go free & easy.

The process of drafting our very own itinerary wasn’t easy. We hardly meet, all we could do was communicate through MSN. We have had countless headaches with the accommodation and where to visit. We compromised a lot to reach a mutual agreement, trying very hard not to make each other feel that they’re at the losing end. Disagreement did happen, to find the middle ground is harder than you think. Luckily we managed it well. Sometimes with so many inputs, I got impatient and confused. I am grateful I have friends who are willing to spare their patience on me. That left me feeling even more guilty than ever.

I felt a tinge of triumph when I saw the itinerary was all done and finalised. Special thanks to Melissa and Wan Yi who spent most of their time browsing through all the oh-so-confusing websites/forums. :) Their “web hunting” skills are incomparable! LOL! I sometimes wonder how did they get all those websites where I couldn’t even Google them out! Hehehe.

The itinerary wasn’t a perfect one, but it was good enough. I guess we were too greedy to have so many places woven into it, we didn’t have the time to visit all the places as planned! LOL! Part of the reason being we are all shopaholics!!! Can’t believe we shopped and spent so much, both money and time on shopping! Hahahahaha!

Let’s see…… We dropped Shida Night Market on the first night ’cause we were all so excited to check out Ximending first. Second night, we missed the Fishermen Wharf in Dan Shui ’cause it was already dark when we finished our shopping in Dan Shui Old Street! Gosh…… Didn’t manage to soak ourselves wet in the hot spring too. Strike out Miniature Museum since we got advice from Wan Yi’s cousin that it is a waste of time. :P On the 4th day, we missed Sun Yat Sen and Chiang Kai Sek Memorial Hall!!! Terrible! But we made an impromptu trip to Mr. J’s French-Italian Restaurant and the Miramar Ferris Wheel. :)  Mel was sad that we didn’t make it to Taiwan Storyland too. We spent 2 nights in Jiu Fen instead of 1 night! Sun Moon Lake plan sunk into the deep ocean. LOL! Jiu Fen is a beautiful place. We heeded the advice from the B&B owner to stay 1 more night to explore Jiu Fen. That we never regret. :) My only regret is we didn’t make it to Yehliu Geopark. :(

Although we missed out those places, it didn’t make this trip less pleasant. We all have had a great time. Traveling with a bunch of great “actors and actresses”, I can guarantee you there will be no boring moment. We were laughing like mad people during the trip! Oh, not to forget, we ate a lot too! The weather and the walkings, made us hungry all the time.

Taiwan is truly a great tourism place. They make it so easy for the tourists to get around in the country. I can’t help but think why can’t Malaysia do that? Our public transportation here is a mess, the signboards here are a mess too. I imagined if I were a tourist in KL, I’d get frustrated with the transportation. Sigh……

I’ve fallen in love with Taiwan. She truly touched my heart. Will I migrate to Taiwan? I will if I could. I can’t, I can’t dump my responsibilities here. But I will definitely visit Taiwan again. Hopefully in the near future. :)

P. S. : I’ll be posting my Taiwan trip itinerary slowly (please give me some time to compose). I have gotten all the information from the internet, now it’s time to return the favor to those who need it. :) I was a lil’ selfish in sharing it, until I realised “hey, you’ve gotten the information from the people who are willing to share, your itinerary isn’t original like you think it is!” :) If you’re willing to spend the effort, I am willing to share. Do watch this space for the Taiwan updates. :D

Miyazaki Hayao 宫崎俊

This name came to my mind out of nowhere. I’ve watched many of his animated films. Few years ago I even bought a collections box with 6 animated movies in it.

Last year, bought a DVD of his new movie, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (悬崖上的金鱼公主). I didn’t know the movie was from Miyazaki Hayao until I bought it home. I was more interested in the Ponyo on the DVD cover, it was so cute!

Here is the official trailer in English.

Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant

Saw the trailer of the movie last month, kept bugging Andrew that I wanted to watch it when it was on the big screen. LOL! I have a thing for vampires, curses and demons (it’s purely for entertainment, I’m not practicing any demonic act or research on becoming a vampire :P ). But surprisingly the Twilight series don’t seem to make its way to my heart. I did not watch any of the Twilight movies, not even read the books.

This movie caught my eyes because there was this Cirque Du Freak that I have read so often in books and magazines. The bearded lady, wolf-man, Siamese twins, dwarfs, the giant, snake-man…… They’re all freakingly freaky. I don’t think I have the guts to go see it if the circus was real.

The movie was about Darren Shan, who stole the spider Madam Octa from the vampire Crepsley, and then got himself turned into a vampire just to save his best friend Steve’s life. A 200 year-old truce between 2 clans of vampires were broken because of one boy.

John Reilly looks familiar to me, perhaps I’ve seen him in some movies but I can’t recall which ones. He isn’t the handsome man type, but he did look good in this vampire character! Middle-aged but charming. The leading actor who played Darren Shan is even more stranger to me. The only person that I could recognise from the movie was Josh Hutcherson, who played Steve. If you’ve watched Zathura, Bridge to Therabithia and the recent Journey to the Center of the Earth, you could recognise him right away. I just couldn’t believe that he has grown so much.

I enjoyed the movie, but I don’t think Andrew had a good time. Could see his boring face throughout the movie and his face didn’t even twitch while I was laughing so hard. Hahahaha……

It’s a funny and interesting movie. Worth to watch.

Sherlock Holmes

The last movie I watched in year 2009, was Avatar (2D). Then I watched Avatar 3D on the first day of 2010 with Andrew. Not much different between the 2D and 3D, sometimes the 3D looked blur and both Andrew and I felt a little bit of dizziness watching the 3D. The movie was absolutely awesome!

Before the Avatar 3D, Sherlock Holmes was my first movie of the year. Got the early bird tickets at RM9 each. Watched it on the 1st of January morning, the very first movie.

I’ve not read any of Sherlock Holmes books, nor am I a fan of Sherlock Holmes. But I am a fan of Robert Downey Jr. and a small-time fan of Jude Law. :) Downey is charming in his own way, while Jude Law is charming in every way. But I was shocked to see Jude Law appeared to be older than his age in the movie, sometimes even looked older than Downey. That certainly did not do him any justice.

Guess I expected too much of the film and I was disappointed. The movie was good, but the story seems to be a little boring. Before Sherlock Holmes could finally explain all the seem-to-be supernatural incidents, I was already guessing that all of them were some man-made plots. Did I read/watch too much of those detectives books/movies that I could now analyse things in a different way? Hahaha. I have no idea.

Love the sense of humor of Sherlock Holmes, and his weird behavior and also the way he lived not by the common rules. We were all taught to abide by the rules and sometimes we miss out a lot of fun from not following the rules. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not asking you to break the rules. Just once in a blue moon, we have to break ourselves away from this common world, from what everybody seems to be doing the common things. Not thinking the same as everyone else does, think out of the box, walk the path that least traveled by others…… Not many of us could do that, and when someone could, we always see them as a freak or weirdo. Imagine if everybody were to think like Sherlock Holmes, his rules then would become the common rules, what seems to be common now would be the weird. That would be cool, huh? :D

I wonder if there would be any sequel to this movie.

Shopping

On 30th December 2009, tt was so kind of Yee to tell me that Zara is on SALE! Thought I could check it out and see if I could get some work pants and shirts. Didn’t see anything that’s worth the money, they’re still expensive even after the discount. It’s just another sales gimmick they have to attract more customers.

Since I couldn’t find any working clothes, went on the check out if there is any cheap winter jacket that I could possible grab. I kept oh-my-god-ing on the jackets’ prices and Andrew kept giggling. When I was about to give up, I guess I said too much of “oh-my-god” and God heard me, I saw this jacket and the price was OK! Even Andrew said OK. Too bad that there were some imperfections on the brown color that I like, I had to take the white. Now I have to be careful wearing it.

It’s only RM99.90. To my surprise, there were some of them priced at RM139! Same jacket, same color, same everything, but RM40 different! I wonder why.

I was so happy that I finally got a jacket with a decent price. Then Andrew saw this 4-letter word (SALE! I know what you’re thinking! :P ) on Topshop’s display window and decided to go in to have a look. That was then I spotted this green cotton jacket. :D It fits him nicely! RM63 after discount. I wanted to get the smallest size for myself, too bad that the green didn’t have XXS anymore. I took the purple. :) Guess what, I got a RM25 voucher and it was RM37 for mine! So sweet of Andrew that he said he would buy that for me. Okay, my belated Christmas present from him then. :D

Last week went to Karaoke with Phoebe and Wan Yi, each of them bought that Zara jacket too! Hahahaha! :P

Kinokuniya was having this special 30% discount on selected books with purchase of another item of any value. How could I miss that! Went with Phoebe, I got myself another Jimmy Liao’s book. It is his new book, One More Day With You (走向春天的下午). Then this book caught my attention. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. There is already a movie based on this novel. I didn’t bother to watch it as I thought it would be boring. I don’t mind reading the novel though.

My first 2 books of the year 2010. :)

How nice to start the new year in such a splurge. Well, not really a splurge. LOL! Hope I could more intellectual this year, finish all the books that are lying there in the corner for a long time.

The Only Time…

…to look back, at 2009. Last year this time, I wrote “Hello my great 2009! I know you’ll be better!” I am delighted and the smile crept up to my face when I know I had a great 2009. I guess the Almighty once again proved to me that I can do it if I think I can. Not all my plans and goals for 2009 fulfilled, but I could held my head up high and tell the world that I have done 90% of what I planned. That was great, wasn’t it?

I said that 2008 was the year I traveled the most, I must say that it was only the beginning, to prepare myself for what 2009 could bring. 2008 I traveled more between Kuala Terengganu and Johor. In year 2009, I traveled more places.

Here they are again, my many first’s in year 2009:

1. Spent my Chinese New Year first time in KT.
2. Went to Seremban for the first time.
3. My first iPhone 3G.
4. Covered a wedding shoot on my own.
5. Had the first outdoor portraits with Vivian Tan aka MiuMiu.
6. My first Disney On Ice: Princess Wishes.
7. My first wedding buffet reception photoshoot was given to Angie on her big day.
8. First trip to Redang island with Phoebe and Wan Yi.
9. So honoured to photograph Christine’s pretty doggie, Fan Shih, for the first time.
10. Selene aka Shin Yee was so kind to be my model for my first pregnancy shoot.
11. Purchased my own web domain name for the first time.
12. The most unforgettable experience, F1 Grand Prix!
13. Fulfilled my childhood dream finally, Moto GP!
14. Taken Firefly airline to KT, feared it the most and finally experienced my first!
15. Phuket, the first time I set foot on Thailand and Phi Phi island.

There are still many of them, like first time I attended wedding dinner in Ipoh (Nicole’s) and Seremban (Melissa’s), first time I organised a company trip, first time been to KL Tower for a wedding reception, went to Singapore with Wan Yi and bunked at her house, felt the earthquake tremors for the very first time…… So many of them! I now realised 2009 has been a busy year for me. Busy having fun and living life to the fullest!

Kind of ended the year with a good note, Penang trip was fun. Learned more things during the year, made some silly and careless mistakes too. Michael Jackson was the greatest loss to the world in year 2009. The earthquakes that happened here and there, the lives that have lost…… Sincerely hope that 2010 will be a year free from the grasp of disasters. May our Mother Earth have mercy on us, the sinners who are killing her slowly.

2010 is going to be another brilliant year. I shall not reveal much on my plans, let the story unfolds itself when the time comes. Wish me luck.

Lastly, call me faker or anything, there is just one thing that I truly wish for, WORLD PEACE. It is ONE thing that our world really needs. Only with peace and peace only, that the mankind from all over the world could work together for a better future. People, don’t forget to say a little prayer for a peaceful world. :)

Penang For Christmas 2009

It was during our trip to Seremban and they suggested to go Penang. No one dared to commit until 3 days before the trip, the other girl said she has booked a home stay unit near Gurney drive. Supposed to be 5 of us, but one of the guys stood us up! Hmm…… So, 4 of us still went ahead as Andrew said didn’t want to spoil the holiday because of one person.

This is again, another eating trip. We ate all the way during our trip. I wonder how many kilos I’ve put on after the trip!

Since this is the first time for the other 2 friends, we stopped at Bidor to have the famous duck noodles. It was almost 3pm when we reached KL. We went to Batu Ferringhi and Hard Rock Hotel. It’s newly opened. I was so excited when I saw the Michael Jackson statue at the entrance! Hahahaha! The hotel gives a very comfortable look and feel. The swimming pool nearby the beach is huge! It stretches alongside with the hotel. The rooms on the ground floor all having private exit to the pool. We didn’t want to get stuck in the traffic, we parked our car in the condominium that were staying and walked to Gurney Drive to have our dinner. It was only 15 minutes walk. The food in Gurney Drive was bad, still edible but bad. Last year Andrew and I got fooled once, this year with another 2 friends, we got fooled again. Hahahaha.

On the second day, went to Kek Lok Si again. The Guan Yin statue is finally done. Pretty spectacular. We were eating the whole afternoon. Then we headed to Khoo Kongsi. This place never fails to fascinate me. Every time stepped inside it just like stepped into a warp hole, taking me back into the old days. How they used to live their life, their history, their family tree, their clan, their ways……

Went up to the Penang Hill on the third day, wasn’t a good experience. The tram was moving like a snail, took 45 minutes to go up and another 45 minutes to come down, not forgetting the waiting time. The tram to go up was so crowded with people! It was hot and noisy. I was grumbling all the way up! LOL! Luckily it was lesser crowd when we came down, had some space to breathe. Penang Hill has nothing much. The view is okay, you can see the Penang bridge from above. But that’s it. If you wanted to go, perhaps you should try to go in the evening. I’d bet the night view would be much nicer. There are a lot of spiders on Penang Hill! They’re everywhere!

My second trip to Penang was great. We even went to Tambun for some seafood dinner. Get to know a new friend through my friend, what a friendly couple.

Last year, Penang was my last trip of the year. This year, again Penang is my last trip of the year! What a coincidence!

Makan-makan Seremban

After watching Avatar in the morning, we went to Seremban with Andrew’s friends. His friend insisted us to tag along and they didn’t even mind to wait for us to finish the movie. How sweet.

This trip was purely an eating trip. Hahaha. They even got the map and addresses for all the places that they wanted to go to taste the food. :)

First stop, beef noodles. Somewhere near the Seremban hospital, now I couldn’t remember its name. Anyway, this is the shop. There’s this beef noodles in Seremban wet market, but I heard from Melissa that the one in the market taste better. Andrew and I are not a beef person, but since we were there with the group, we had to adapt. No point yelling “eww I don’t eat that” and making everybody feels awkward. No harm eating it. :) The beef noodles taste unique, it’s dried with the gravy. The beef is a bit too hard though. Overall, it’s special and good. I love the beef balls though!

After the beef noodles, they wanted to go for the Hakka Mee. I’ve been there before with Melissa and the rest. Hmm… This time my friends don’t really like the Hakka Mee. They were saying the noodles are too oily.

I missed the Cendol, so I went ahead to have one! :D But this time was an Indian lady, didn’t see the Indian uncle. And this lady wasn’t friendly. :( My friends too had one, but they didn’t really like it. LOL! It was a hot day, I just wanted something cold.

We headed to Port Dickson to see the sea and feel the breeze. Aww…… It was nice to set foot on PD again. The sea of course isn’t as nice as those in the East Coast, but it’s good to get away from the city and feel the sea breeze.

For dinner, we headed back to Seremban. It wasn’t my first time to this restaurant Sun Yat Sing also, been there few times. Hahaha. Love the Marmite crab there. Again, my friends didn’t find the dinner great as they were expecting something else. Only Andrew and I were enjoying the dinner! LOL! 2 of us were eating away like nobody’s business. Hahaha.

It was one great eating day!