Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Life Update - April 2013

Hello guys. I know it's been a long time since I last wrote, especially considering that there were times when I wrote like almost every week. It's quite a darn thing actually, because without language classes right now, I don't force my brain to put thoughts into words, so shouldn't I be writing more here? Well it's just I don't feel like talking much about the inner struggle that's happening in life and also even during those times, I most often talked about the movies I watched and those writings are not exactly interesting. Speaking of movies, I've also haven't gone much to the cinemas these days. There were times when I watched at least one movie a week. These days not really so. There aren't many movies that I am attracted to, but I should also add that being out of the cinemas kinda make me not in tune to what movies are out there. Like yesterday, I wanted to watch The Place Beyond the Pines but I couldn't because I couldn't make it to the timing and there aren't many showings anymore since that movie has been out for more than 1 week now :( Such a shame to be missing both Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper :( So anyway, I did go to the cinemas a few times. Unfortunately, the movies that I watched aren't really the ones that interest me the most. I was there because there weren't many options left :( I watched Jack the Giant Slayer. I thought Nicholas Hoult was handsome though I think he wore pretty much the same look throughout the movie. It wasn't an amazing movie I have to say. Then I watched Oblivion on its first day out in Singapore. Not that I was eager to watch it, but as I said there weren't many choices out there. I settled on that because Jamie Lannister was in it. Alright, the actor who played Jamie Lannister. I believe he only had around 10 lines in the movie, but he did help killing a drone. Well it's a group effort but he did kinda fire the final shot. So we can say that the king slayer is the drone slayer in this movie. I thought Oblivion was so so. I don't like the story. It annoys me so very often that when the situation calls for the characters to be strong and fight, they stumble on love. It's like, hello, there are bigger things we have to deal with here, we gotta save the world, so let's get a move on. Hence why I think the idea of The Host is deplorable. Well, what do you expect when it comes from the brain that gives the world Twilight. One thing that is confusing for me in Oblivion is why the capsule that had Tom Cruise's love interest in the movie took 60 years since it was released to land on earth again and what is the physics of this that the girl didn't age at all? Am I missing something here? Is it something like the speed in which it was travelling is so much faster than what's been happening on earth, so for the girl it may have been hours but on earth it's been 60 years? Anyway, so yeah, I wasn't amused much with Oblivion. Yesterday, I had to settle with The Croods. It wasn't bad. I shed some tears. I couldn't guess how the story was going to go. I just knew that it being an animated movie, it will have a happy ending but the climax to there was quite touching. I appreciate it since it managed to surprise me and made me cry :P

So those are the movies. This week my cousins and aunt were in town. I only ended up spending time with one of my cousins. I don't get people who come to Singapore and choose to just go through one mall after another. I know malls are different from 1 place to another but at its essence, aren't they all the same no matter which country you are in? I believe my time in Singapore has made me look at malls with very little interest though they are still the places where I spend a lot of time in. In my defense, what else do you do in a city? Luckily or unluckily I ended up spending the Saturday with my cousin at both the Universal Studio and Gardens by the Bay. My mom had told me that my cousin wanted to go there and I told her that I didn't want to accompany him since I am in a high money-saving mode. However on the morning I met him, I felt sorry that he's not going there since noone wanted to accompany him and so I kinda said alright. Suffice to say, money saving mode went out of the window. Even more so yesterday when I spent close to S$90 on Body Shop products. Body shop always does this to me, I always end up with lotsa stuff and so much poorer. I try to comfort myself that this spending are the spending which will eventually happen some months down the road. It didn't help. Anyway, so we arrived in Universal Studio and as I was queuing, one of the staff was asking me if I live in Singapore. Apparently there's an excellent package for people who live here. I got 2 tickets, 2 S$5 meal vouchers, 2 S$5 souvenir vouchers, and 2 express passes for 5 rides for S$150. The vouchers and express passes were great. It was a good deal since the ticket was selling at S$75 each that day. I also got some sort of membership card (I think). I had to ask what it's for, apparently I can get discount with it. I'm not sure on what though. So anyway, we didn't do all the rides. We did do all the rides covered by the express passes, which are The Transformer, Return of the Mummy, The Jurassic Water ride, Shrek 4D, and the Madagascar ride. I actually did Return of the Mummy again :| I was rather freaking out about it and it's good that I managed to do it, but it's not something that I want to do again. Immediately after that we did the Jurassic water ride and I actually got pretty dizzy in it and I felt like I wanted to vomit. Luckily I didn't end up polluting the river. My cousin was pretty brave. He did both the rides on Battlestar Galactica and when he was done with the Cylon ride (the blue inverted dangling feet one), he had a big grin on his face. Crazy!

By the way, I wonder what the route people normally take in Universal Studio Singapore. I always turn right first and I think it's a nice route, you get all the exhilarating rides done first and then you go to the mellow ones. My favorite for being so relaxed is of course the Madagascar ride :P

I totally forgot about the new Sesame Street ride that we did this last. We should have done this first. It's just on the opposite of Steven Spielberg Presents. By the time we were there, the queue was long and the queue pretty much sucks. It snakes out to the outdoor and so at one point we had to wait outside in the hot outdoor. If only we had had an express pass on this. I have to admit an embarrassing thing. I was actually slightly freaked out with the Sesame Street ride. You see, unlike your conventional rides where your vehicle is running on a track on the ground, the Sesame Street's track is mounted on the ceiling, so your vehicle is dangling, although it was dangling like only 30 cm away. Knowing this mechanic made me rather alarmed though it was pretty relaxing actually. I mean, come on you have Elmo being all cheery and stuff. Yes, I am quite a chicken :P Anyways, I love Sesame Street. If you wonder, my favorite Sesame Street character is Oscar the Grouch because he's such a grouch though it seems he's nicer now than when I was young :P

After the Sesame Street ride, my cousin felt like he had had a good time and since he found out that I was actually planning to go to Gardens by the Bay that day, he said let's go. I was actually very tired but I was thinking that the idea of him spending most of his time in Singapore in malls kinda tortured my conscience so off we went. Why I wanted to go there in the first place was because I feel like I have to make use of my membership. I counted, that you have to go at least 3 times in a year to make sure that you get your membership worth and my card has been used for more times than that, so I'm all good now :P It's the Easter display in the flower dome currently. I didn't go during Chinese New Year so it's quite a pity. We managed to stay after sunset so I managed to take pictures of the waterfall after dark. For more pictures you can go here.

Of course you gotta have bunnies and colourful eggs for Easter. Another commercialization thing. If only people would learn more about what Easter really means and why it's so important (more important than Christmas) for all Jesus believing people.





I believe this is a tulip and I was pretty ecstatic seeing them. They looked like it and they were like hidden. They were in a small patch and they were small and there weren't many of them and many of them are not blooming yet, still in their green bulbs. Perhaps this is just some sort of experiments in cultivating tulips for the dome. It does say something isn't it if they're not blooming yet. The weather in Singapore is so hot, so it kinda means that the temperature in the dome is so controlled and cool that the tulips are blooming late.



The waterfall after dark. For some reasons I thought the light colours would change but it was just purple when I was there. I didn't go up again because I was so tired but perhaps it's really cool up there.

So that's the weekend. Today, I had the opportunity to try 1 Market restaurant in Plaza Singapura. That buffet restaurant by Chef Wan. I like it, but I'm not sure I ate my way to what was paid. I ate a lot though. I remember thinking how funny they didn't have gado-gado or a more Indonesian thing, like soto, rendang? They have a Japanese section though, with sushi and all which I didn't touch. I did touch the tempura. Maybe it's different depending on the day. So that is about life peeps for now. I am planning something big (well kinda big for me) in early May. I am strangely calm about it. I think the calmness kinda make me rather complacent that I haven't ironed-clad (iron-cladded?) the plan. So help me God!

:) eKa @ 5:25:00 PM •