Saturday, September 13, 2014
Hello guys! How is it going? I haven't been writing because there's nothing interesting to write about. Like its predecessor, this post is most probably not gonna be interesting either. However writing exercise is important, at least for me. So today I'm not gonna be that lazy. Let's start with my 6th book this year which I finished reading this week, The Orphan Master's Son Adam Johnson. The novel won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and I chose it because Oshie was gushing about it. It is a really good book, though I am not as taken by it as Oshie who said he's haunted by it after finishing it. It tells a story of the life of a guy in North Korea. There are only 2 chapters in the book and it started to get really interesting for me in chapter 2 which I thought was beautifully structured as well. The story in this chapter was told forward by 3 different sources, one of it was from the loud speakers which apparently exist everywhere in North Korea to transmit propaganda and announcement. I wonder if these loud speakers really exist and people really mustn't get rid of it. Anyway, I thought the story from these loud speakers was told in flashback but towards the end we found out it's happening at the same time as the other 2 sources and it was a nice surprise for me. It is very strange of me to find a structure of a book to be as amusing as the story. I don't know, I like clever stuff? Anyway the way the author wrote about life in North Korea is really remarkable that I wonder how much of it is really true. I know the Japanese kidnapping are true, the atrocious labor camps are true though perhaps the methods are different than what mentioned in the book, but there are things that I wonder if they really exist like the autopilot machine and the state giving replacement family member. The author did manage to visit North Korea when he was writing the book, but obviously he only saw what's being presented to him, but it's enough for him to note that life in Pyongyang is perhaps much much different than the rest of North Korea. I never thought of that. So it's always good when a book opened your perspective and made you learn new things. Another surprising discovery for me was that the pride Kimilsungia orchid is actually originally from Indonesia. Anyway the ending of the book was sad for me. It's strange that as the story progresses you know how the ending would be with the clues you are given, you don't know how, but you know the way it will end and yet you still feel sad when it's finally written down and you reach those pages :( It's really a curious thing to see how long North Korea can stay the way it is.So right now I am reading Le Petit Nicolas by René Goscinny and Jean-Jacques Sempé. It's a french book. Got it when I suddenly remembered that Kinokuniya has a french section. It's a children book, it consists of short stories with a bit of illustration. I actually know Le Petit Nicolas before this book because I watched its cartoon (which is beautifully made) in YouTube when I was preparing for DELF B2 and that's the reason I got this book. So far obviously I don't know many words, but I am able to understand the story. In fact I'm quite surprised that I'm able to read it with less problem than I anticipated. I don't use a dictionary reading this because it will just take a long time, but when I remember words that I didn't know, I do look for them in the dictionary once I finish a story. The stories are about the little boy Nicholas and his friends and the kinda trouble they get into. Pretty cute.
Next Saturday would be my last Japanese class in this term. We're completing 10 weeks. Pretty fast and a struggle it has been. We had our last hiragana dictation today and surprisingly I didn't make any mistake. I didn't do any mistake in all the dictation tests and it surprised me because I thought I would eventually flounder, but hey I made it. I have signed up for the next term. This whole experience has been a demoralizing one with me often feeling frustrated, but the usual me could not just give up. It seems we're learning katakana in the next term. I wonder how my brain gonna handle it. I couldn't even read properly in hiragana that I had to google about the possibility of having dyslexia in Japanese. Perhaps it's me not getting used to it that I am reading like a child who is stumbling in every syllable. It's frustrating because I didn't recall being this way when I was young learning how to read. I confirmed this with my mom, the young me saw a word and just read it without having to struggle sounding the syllable to read the word in its entirety and so this new experience of being so incapable is hard for me to reconcile with.
That's pretty much my life so far. Gonna go home next month for a few days, finger crossed I'll have interesting stories then. Hope you're having a more glorious time in your side of the world :)
:) eKa @ 7:17:00 PM • 0 comments
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
What's your complain now Eka? Well last weekend I was badly stressed out that I didn't sleep and as such I had a bad headache on Saturday evening. I was popping pills in the span of like 3-4 hours which was okay according to the panadol that I was taking, but who knows? I am still here writing. It's all because on Friday morning my phone's screen couldn't light up. I switched it off in the hope that it just needed to be restarted, but then it refused to wake up. I waited again, took out the battery, waited, but it just couldn't start. The whole day I was basically not able to concentrate much and yet there were things that required my attention :( I had hope that perhaps it just needed to be charged but I also thought that it's time to get it replaced. So I quickly bought a new phone. Been using Nokia all my life and the strange me stick to a brand without reasonable logic. So I didn't browse around, I knew it would be Nokia again and I chose the cheapest Lumia out there. Simply because this is unplanned expenses and no I don't need fancy things. My old phone, E72, was great and many people didn't think it was smart, but it's smart for me. A lot of time a tool is only as great as the person wielding it. My old phone could be used to call, send texts, browse the Net, be an alarm clock, remind me of things to do and that's pretty much what I need.Anyway the new phone Lumia 525 uses a micro sim and my dear sim card which has been in my possession since my early days in Singapore is not. Pause for a moment to reflect that I have been using the same sim card for close to 14 years. Anyway that was another arrrgghh moment for me. So gotta go to Singtel and asked for a micro sim with the same number. I had to pay S$ 38. Got home, tried to switch on my phone while charging it, it didn't work :'( Put the new sim card into the new phone, as expected no contacts data were there and in that moment it occurred to me that I only memorize 3 phone numbers in my head, my own, my house's phone and my aunt's house's number in Jakarta. Technology has rendered us useless without them. I was so stressed out. Try repeatedly to switch on the phone, sometime after waiting some time. One time it worked and I was so happy, but then it couldn't stay awake long enough for me to follow the instruction to transfer data through bluetooth and after it died, it just refused to wake up again. There was a time, it was awake and I carefully noted down the important information like some pin and password I stored there. Don't freak out, these are pin and password to non-important stuff and there's no identifier which pin and passwords these belong to, but yes it's still bad to do this. So anyway, this happened from Friday evening all the way to Sunday morning. I had one crappy weekend. Sunday morning after much praying, I managed to switch it on. I let it charge for a while, not sure if it's charging from the electric cable or the usb connection, either way I let it charge for a while and very carefully so as not to make sudden movement that could kill it, I did a back up through Nokia PC suite. It managed to stay awake long enough for it to complete. Praise God, Jesus, and the universe!
So then I had the backup but then there's no way to put it into the new phone. Both are Nokia but there's no instruction I could find to do this through the PC suite software. Maybe I didn't look hard enough. What I found were to install a software that could read the back up file and I did that. It was another glorious moment because I could see everything and export everything and I learn a new thing. The text messages lost its contact name, so there are just number. I guess that happens because I have activated the new sim in my new phone? However there were still the contacts intact, name and number matched. There were also other contacts which I think came because once I used msn messenger in my old phone. So all in all with the right software you could still dig in into what's inside your phones despite of the sim card being deactivated. Isn't it scary to think what can happen with your phone if it goes to the wrong hand? Anyways, we're not done. I have all that, how do I put it to the new phone. Lumia being a windows phone perhaps I should have explored the possibility of importing these contacts through my Microsoft account, but I didn't think much about it and just went to the first solution I found which was to transfer all the vcf files to Google and then link that Google account into the phone. After much struggle to format the combined data correctly, I made it happen ladies and gentlemen! I was super duper happy and relieved and felt really REALLY thankful to God. Now that I think about it, I am not sure that I could do the same through my outlook account. However for the rest, like some text files that contained the said important information like pin and password, I did in the end choose to use the sky drive. Linking this back to the title, everything is in the cloud now, which will make it easy for me the next time such unfortunate event happens to me again, but it also makes me uneasy about it. All those personal information. Someone somewhere just your typical IT guy could just get a hold of these things and then paste it on some web for the whole world to see like what have happened before that passwords of many people are appearing on the net. Your data don't seem so sacred anymore, that is the way of the world now. Who knows how many of my contacts have been syncing their phone to whatever Google or other accounts they have and my phone number and my name has been floating around somewhere in the cloud. It's funny to think that I often roll my eyes when I was told who and who are concerned about putting their data on the cloud and here I am right now feeling not so great myself about doing it. However I really don't see much choice in this moving forward, the technology starts to dictate us, not the other way around :(
So this new phone, well I miss my old phone. There are many things that I can find wrong with this new phone, the alarm will not work if the phone is shut down, there's no blinking light to tell me I have unread messages or a miss call and most annoying of all, this phone like all other "smart phones" requires charging like every 1.5 days. Seriously, I thought we should be more environmentally friendly? I hate this weakness a lot. So yeah, new phone, but I miss my old one dearly. The old phone was like more than 6 years old. I know this because I managed to find photos taken by it dated to 2008. So I guess it's just time for it to die and I am pretty proud of myself for being with it for so long and how awesome it has been serving me. I have grown so accustomed to it that it's hard to move to something completely different. Changes are always hard for me.
Change of topic. Went to Singapore Garden Festival yesterday. It's moving out of Suntec to Gardens by the Bay this year and as the years go, I found myself getting less and less mesmerized by it. I'm not sure if I will make visiting it a must the next time it happens. I guess many of it are like installation arts and that's always hard for me to think what I think about it. That's not to say that there aren't beautiful and interesting things. Also I have to say that whoever designed this in Gardens by the Bay are pretty awesome in erecting all the structures and making the path ways. Singapore is really good at doing this kinda thing.
I ended yesterday by watching The Expendables 3. It was okay I guess. However Sylvester Stallone in scenes with people like Mel Gibson and Antonio Banderas just kinda show how much better they are at acting than he is. They were really good. Then I got really confused with Jet Li. He always gets top billing for this movie but aside from the first one he only appeared a little bit and didn't really do much action. Did they put him in just because of the Chinese market? Anyway funny how I found the first one to be kinda boring and yet I kept on coming back for the sequels and so far they kinda grew on me :D I have to say by they I don't mean the young kids. The Expendables should just stick to their old fashion action because it's where their draw is. Alrighty, that's about it from me. Hopefully in the next post I won't be complaining about much stuff again.
:) eKa @ 8:58:00 PM • 0 comments
Saturday, August 09, 2014
Hi guys, how are you doing? Today is a public holiday, so there's no Japanese class *yay!* I've been looking forward for this weekend and yet I am struck down with flu. Survived the last 2 days in quite the agony. Yesterday I felt cold most of the time and my temperature was kinda rising up and down. Today I'm feeling much better, the nose is not so blocked and there seems to be no sign of blood tinted mucus anymore. Though it's not as perfect as I have wanted it, I am still quite glad about the fact that it's a holiday today because I got to get up late and I think it's very helpful because I needed the rest.My parents have come back from their holiday, so that's good. However this week has not been swell and next week is looking as bleak as well. Found little white worm in the dragon fruit that I bought (hence the title). Not sure if I ate any of them. It's perhaps not a crisis but then when you had a not so good day and you experienced that and you're alone, no one to talk to about it and to get advice and assurance from, wondering if it's not a big deal, if you're gonna be okay, or if you should take some medicine, all and all you just got really really depressed. As what modern human would do, I went to google. It seems it's not a big deal because the acid in the stomach would just kill the worms and many wrote that the fact that there's worm in the fruit should make you feel better because that means there's no chemical in the fruit. Still, I'm kinda traumatized. Not sure if I would buy that fruit again. It was just gross.
Managed to watch 2 movies this week and they're the super heroes action kind which contradict what I wrote before that I'm pretty much done with this kinda movie. Well, I have my reason. The first one was Guardians of the Galaxy which I wanted to watch because of Chris Pratt. I first saw him in Everwood and recently I've been watching Parks and Recreation where his dumb character Andy Dwyer would frustrate me a lot if I have to deal with him and yet I have to admit Andy is very lovable. I have to say that Chris Pratt is quite an underrated actor. He has actually been in many good movies like Moneyball and Zero Dark Thirty and he also voiced the main character in The Lego Movie and yet he's not what one would consider to be a super star. Anyway I think Guardians of the Galaxy is so so. It's a good think that it's not awful but I don't think it's remarkably amazing like what the reviews have been saying. I love the songs from the mix tapes though, I thought they were fun. Will I watch the sequel? Well maybe I'll wait for it to be shown on tv. I have to say that baby Groot in a pot is super cute, that merchandise would definitely sell well out there, but I haven't seen any.
Another movie I watched was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Chose this because of sentimental reason. Watched the cartoon series when I was young. One of my childhood memory was when mom woke me up in the middle of my nap to go to the market and she let me buy toys and when I had to choose one for my brother I settled on Michelangelo for him. Not sure why perhaps because he's the most fun. It was a good memory. Anyway Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles wasn't bad though it wasn't amazingly good as well. I appreciate the shorter running time because if I had to sit through things blowing up for 2 hours plus, I'd be just annoyed. The Shredder character with the new armour looks Transfomer like so you know there's nothing new to be offered in this movie. Strangely I didn't find the turtles to be so lovable. One of the villain from the cartoon series that I watched when I was young was this brain floating in a jar and I was actually looking forward to see this, but it's not in the movie. Well that's about it peeps. Hope you are well and your days are glorious :)
:) eKa @ 5:31:00 PM • 0 comments
Monday, July 28, 2014
Sunday.Started writing this on Sunday night. I should be brushing my teeth and lie down, but as it often happens, I feel restless and so I am writing now. I thought I would be super relaxed because Monday is a public holiday and I am thankful about it, but the restlessness still comes, even yesterday on Saturday night. Perhaps because I am so alone :( My mom has been telling me to come home more often, like just go home for 2-3 days. For the 14 years since I left home, I think this is the first time that she's telling me this. Perhaps she's right, I should. However this holiday season, no one is really at home. My parents have holiday plans, mom will even be travelling quite a bit in the next 2 weeks. So even if I were to be at home, it will still be very lonely.
Anyways, I have finished reading number9dream by David Mitchell. He's a very talented writer and this book is very imaginative. There are 8 chapters and I think they would make a good tv series. Each of the chapter can take 1 episode and each episode will be so different from the others. There are usually 2 plots or what I would call layers in each of the chapter and the story can be so different, like in one chapter it's about characters in another story. It is beautiful the way it's written. It doesn't make it easy to read sometime and to imagine the scene. Even now I am still rather confused about when the story was set, like is it in present day? I'm not in love with it, but I have to say that David Mitchell is a very good writer. This book and Cloud Atlas are so rich in the story, so what's inside his brain must be interesting. I think what's inside the brain of very imaginative writers must be real amazing or it could be dark too and that wouldn't be so fun. I learn something new from this book, which is about kaiten, which is an underwater vessel which can fit just one soldier and the soldier inside it would go into a suicide mission by aiming their vessel to enemy's ship. It is beyond words how brave these soldier were to be willing to go on this mission. I am seriously in awe of the sacrifice that the Japanese would be willing to make for pride and honor.
So it turns out, that's my 5th book this year! So far, I have read:
- Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan
- Si Cacing dan Kotoran Kesayangannya - Ajahn Brahm
- Everything Is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer - the movie is not as rich as the book.
- The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger
- number9dream - David Mitchell
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Monday.
I am finally back to the cinema. Watched Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Chose this because the reviews are really good and I myself thought it was really good. It felt a bit slow moving at times but I like how the story is not that straightforward. The characters were actually trying ways other than violence, they're not that purely bad or evil. It's amazing how fear can make one be ruthless. I felt the main character is actually Caesar, the ape, rather than the humans. It was quite touching at parts that I did shed some tears. Kinda good to be back into the movies.
That's pretty much it about life. Tomorrow is Tuesday, but I have a feeling Monday wouldn't let you off just like that. It's strange that I talk about being alone and lonely and yet I hate the idea of having to be around people. Hope you guys have better days ... I'm not sure how sincere I am in saying that.
:) eKa @ 4:44:00 PM • 0 comments
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Hello guys! I have started my Japanese classes and today is lesson 2. After 2 weeks of lessons, I wonder if my brain is slower because I am older. It's hard to accept that so I thought perhaps it's because it's been awhile since I conditioned myself to learn something and study, so my brain is just slow because it hasn't been used for a long time. It has been more than 1 year since I quit french class. However, today I just felt that perhaps it's really because I am older. I'm not the oldest in the class. Last week there was a couple, husband and wife, but today they didn't come. I wonder if they quit. The rest of the classmates are like in their 20s which reminded me of me when I learned Italian. I was pretty much the youngest and my brain worked really well. With this Japanese lesson, I practically forget everything taught in class when I leave the class and somehow nothing stuck. I remember during my student days, sometime I didn't have to force myself to learn because I could just remember information like I remember a picture, for example I could remember what the page of the book looked like and where the information was written. This time around, I have none of that and I do feel like the stupid one in class which is even more frustrating with me because people who knows me back when I was a young student would say that I'm pretty smart. I just feel really slow. Then there's the whole writing thing. We're learning hiragana now, which I'm not sure why it's hiragana, I wonder if we'll learn kanji too. The teacher doesn't really speak English and there's no explanation on the different writing systems in Japanese and why we're focusing on hiragana. I thought my writing is bad and not as correct as the examples, but when I saw the writing of my classmates on the board today, I felt better. Though it's perhaps because they're writing on the board, it's looking rather ugly. So far in each of the week, we're only learning 10 syllables and as I told you before, I pretty much forget what I learn in class today. The only way I could manage the dictation this week was by spending last week rote learning the 10 syllables, writing over and over. With more things coming, I'm not sure how I am going to cope. You perhaps can notice I'm so pessimistic. I am rather demoralized just because this is not easy for me :( Pronunciation wise, initially I felt like it's rather easy, but it turned out it's not so easy after all. I am bad at discerning sounds. It was a problem when I was learning English and a major problem when learning French. Perhaps the only time it was pretty easy for me was when I was learning Italians. All in all, classes haven't been something that make me bounce out of bed on a Saturday morning. In fact, I think I was dreading class yesterday. I don't think I should quit, but I begin to question how long I can do this.So since I have class now, I haven't been going to the movies. Nothing to update there. I did complete watching the first season of True Detective and I thought it is as good as the critics say. Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey both are awesome in it. Woody Harrelson with hair and a cleaned up Matthew McConaughey are handsome. Matthew McConaughey was still looking rather skinny in this series, I really really hope he's putting more weight so he'll look healthier. I have also fallen in love with the korean reality tv series Dad! Where Are We Going?. I'm not one who watches Korean things. The only korean tv drama that I have ever watched was Princess Hours and I did love it a lot and I really do want to visit the teddy bear museum featured in this tv series. It is perhaps really addictive these Korean things. I love Dad! Where Are We Going? because the kids are cute :D
On Indonesian news, it's reckoning day on Tuesday, 22 July. I feel we're all waiting in bated breath who our next president will be. It's all because Prabowo Subianto, one of the candidates, is ruining it all for our nation by not accepting reality. So what happened was for you guys non-Indonesians who's not following the news, after the election, many organizations were doing a quick count. The credible organizations who's been doing this for past elections released results at around 47% - 52% in favor of presidential candidate number 2, Joko Widodo, whom I voted for. These organizations have around 1-2% margin error. He declared victory I think around 3 pm. I do have to say that the announcement kinda made me disappointed a bit. It was a group announcement and I think he didn't even speak first, so he didn't seem to be fully in charge for me, which is one of the criticism people have of him that he'll just be a puppet president. Anyway after that, Prabowo, presidential candidate number 1, also declared his victory because based on the organizations he followed, he's winning. Mind you the organizations he's basing his information are not credible. The tv station that's obviously on his side and published this result had been ridiculed by many people. They're seriously in denial and I am getting embarrassed watching news about this in Channel News Asia and reading articles from oversea newspapers. 2 candidates declaring victory make it sound like Indonesian don't know how to count. So that's why we're in limbo now. What supposed to be a happy occasion is now making people on the edge. Prabowo seems adamant he's winning and that make people worry that when official result is announced this Tuesday there'll be riots from his disappointed supporters. I actually had a dream a few days back that Jakarta is having a riot again like 1998 and I felt scared in my dream. I saw black smoke plume in my dream. When I googled the 1998 Indonesian riot this week, the rape cases of Indonesian Chinese was really so traumatic and I thank God that He kept our family safe at that time. Anyway, the way Prabowo has been reacting in this past 1.5 weeks should be eye opening for people supporting him, unless they're all as delusional and in denial as him. It's seriously embarrassing for our nation. I read a newspaper that the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, called our president asking if Indonesia is alright. Embarrassing no? Just because of one person who couldn't let go. I admire his commitment to fight until the end, but to be a good leader you should put the nation first before yourself and right now he's putting himself first.
Come 22 July, I am expecting that the result is the same as what the independent organizations have been declaring, that Jokowi is the winner. Seriously if it's not, I will be shocked. Due to this quick count saga, Indonesian is like educated on what quick count is. My first understanding of it was wrong. I thought quick count results are the results from all the polling stations after the on the spot counting. Yes in Indonesia and I am very proud of this, after the polling station is closed, the votes are counted immediately and everyone can just come to watch the counting and make sure it's okay. Anyway, apparently a quick count is not from all the polling stations, but it's just a sample and this is where I am so amazed that it can be accurate with only 1-2% margin of error. I thought you would need a big sample size to be accurate, but apparently the sample size is small. You see, there are more than half a million polling stations in all over Indonesia, in places far and remote. The sample size these organization used are about 2000-4000 polling stations which is very small compared to the total numbers, not even 1%, but if you put it into perspective that these organizations needed 2000-4000 people to be watching the vote counting and reporting the result, it's still quite an effort to do this. I am seriously curious how the statistic works that they can accurately predict the result. Googling so far just told me that as long as the random sampling is done correctly, the result should be representative of the actual result. Another thing I learn was that, I always thought after the result is counted on the spot, these boxes of votes would just be brought to Jakarta to be re-counted again, apparently it's not so. It's being brought to a district and then a bigger district to be re-counted and again this is an open event, so if you're free you could just come to the election office and watch the counting, which is what all the supporters and volunteers have been doing. They're making sure that the result is the same since it's counted on the polling station. I am also very proud that our election committee is very transparent that they're posting all the scanned voting reports from all the polling stations online. Even though many people have reported that some of these reports had been altered, the election committee is putting this out openly and this should be applauded. Anyone who want to see it and compare it and use it to count can do so. In fact there's already a site done by just common citizens who pulled these scanned reports and tabulate the results. This site also shows similar results, around 47%-52% in favor of Jokowi. Despite everything, I am proud with the election process, I am very proud that everyone can vote and that the results have been transparent and open. Yes there's irregularity, but such things also happen in country like USA. Also while many people including me are worried waiting for July 22, no conflicts have broken out so far and so I am thankful for supporters who are restraining themselves and all the military and police who are guarding the situation. Oshie said it's a good thing this election is during Ramadhan and I do hope next week people would just be busy with their holiday travel back to celebrate the end of Ramadhan that they wouldn't have the time and energy to incite riots.
:) eKa @ 6:05:00 PM • 0 comments
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Hello guys, this post is not that interesting. As always you said? Well I'm just gonna write some things that I did. So since I last wrote, among other things I have watched 22 Jump Street which wasn't bad. It's still funny and I love their self deprecating jokes on themselves, a good example of that is the ending credit. I appreciate that the jokes weren't that crude, yes there were the typical penis and stuff jokes that guys like them like to do, but I didn't feel like we're being bombarded by it in every scenes, so it's much appreciated. I start to see the appeal of Channing Tatum in this movie. He is very likable.Then I got to watch the latest Transformer movie, Transformers: Age of Extinction. I did write I may watch it because Mark Wahlberg is in it, but upon knowing that the movie is 2 hours 45 minutes long, I started to question if I could stand it. In the end, I got to watch it for free and it was kinda compulsory, so endure I must. I watched it after a big lunch and I haven't been sleeping well for days and so I wondered if I would sleep in the middle of the movie. I didn't, I survived the whole 2.5 hours plus of things exploding. As you can sense from what I wrote, I'm not that excited about watching it and after having to sit through it all, I don't think it's a good movie. I could be wrong because one person in the group thought it's super awesome. I think it's only focusing on giving explosions and special effects, which is not to be unexpected. The story itself has potential I think, especially the part about how the material of the transformers can be so adaptable, but overall the execution of the story and the characters were all disjointed which again is not the point. The point of this movie is things exploding, but after being pounded again and again to watch them, I just lost interest. It's not even as comical as the previous ones. Every character that they tried to make funny fell short of being funny. Remember in the previous movies there's the manic FBI or something agent, he's crazy but you'll miss him because he's actually funny, you'll also miss the fast talking Shia LaBeouf. Here there was one character in the beginning which perhaps supposed to be funny, but then they killed him off and that is perhaps the only unexpected thing in this movie because now that you think about it, I don't recall any characters introduced to us in the previous movies died, so I thought okay they're trying to make this movie more edgy, but that's pretty much my only moment of well that's unexpected. I still like Mark Wahlberg, but I thought this movie would be just fine or perhaps better if we're presented with Josh Duhamel and Tyrese instead. I thought these two should have been brought back because at least their banter is interesting. Remember in the first movie, Josh Duhamel's character just had a baby, well if they need a family to anchor this movie, they should have used his character as the story and it would make more sense. In building Mark Wahlberg's story, I am asking how on earth there's a big truck in the middle of an old theatre. How did that happen? Then there's Stanley Tucci who is a great actor but his character is just strange. It's like he began the movie being kinda scary crazy to just being a silly person towards the end and I think they did that to make him the comical aspect of the movie. Then there were 2 girls working for his character which I thought are not necessary, these 2 female characters could just be lumped into one. I was most confused about when Stanley Tucci's character had to take the lift up to escape, but they waited around and never pressed the button up. It didn't make sense, but I guess it made sense for the movie makers because then the bad guys could catch up and the girl could kick some ass. It's so freaking silly. Also I began to hate the stereotyping of the female character, the daughter of Mark Wahlberg's character pretty much did what the other main female actresses in the previous movies did. Please, there are other things that these girls can do other than scream and cry and in need of a hug all the time. Towards the end, I began to see the special effect action sequence in a more deconstructed kinda way, meaning I wonder how they did all that. I feel if there's a movie documenting about how they make Transformer 4, that movie will be more interesting than Transformer 4 itself. Alright maybe I'm just a girl hence I didn't enjoy this much. To my defense there can be a good balance in making this kinda movie more appealing to all sides, for example the previous Transformers movies managed to be much better than this fourth one.
Last night I watched L'Écume des jours or in English it's called Mood Indigo. It has some french actors whose works I have seen before: Romain Duris, Audrey Tautou, Gad Elmaleh, Omar Sy. Romain Duris and Audrey Tautou seem to work together often. It's quite an interesting film because it's set in a fantasy world and things were strange, installation art kinda way, which perhaps people can dismiss as just being french :P It's interesting too that one could think of such universe where everything is different but the one story that remains the same is the story about love. So this movie boils down to a man meet a woman, fell in love, were happy, but then the woman got really sick and everything just went into despair and as the story became sadder, all colours disappeared and it became a black and white movie. Another plot is that the man's best friend fell into an addiction which in this case is for books written by an author that it ruined him and then his girlfriend destroyed everything that caused the boyfriend's addiction. There's also a bit of social critic about how the poor of the society is being treated badly. So the story was pretty much one that's been told many times before, but the universe and the way it's all being presented is strange. So anyone wants to watch something different, you can try this one. I didn't have the time to watch it when it's out in the cinema and so I only got to watch it yesterday. Évidemment mon français est horrible :( Sans les sous-titres, je ne comprends rien et oui je suis triste avec ma compétence.
Speaking about language, I feel I should be taking classes soon, especially since last year I pretty much didn't do anything useful with my life. It's just, not doing anything has compounded the laziness that it's hard to get started. I was thinking of finally relenting and learn Chinese, but there aren't any classes (cheap enough) opening soon. So it seems I'll be taking Japanese instead. There's a class opening soon, but I haven't registered because my laziness is questioning if I am going to do this. If I do something, I do it until its completion and learning language takes like 3 years plus (without break) to reach advance level and this Japanese takes close to 4 years. Do I really want to do this? Then I asked my lazy self if I have anything better to do which I don't, but the laziness is still putting doubt into me. Knowing me, it seems I will eventually take the class, we'll see.
On Indonesian election news, I sent in my vote on Friday. I am voting for Joko Widodo. It's disappointing that these are the 2 options we're given but in the end the decision is a pretty obvious one. Regardless of what people say, we are voting for a coalition and the coalition for the other candidate is so full of questionable people with questionable motives and characters. The final straw was that when FPI endorses them. I just can't, I can't be on that side. I disagree with presidential candidate, Prabowo, who during one of the debates said that the internal threat for Indonesia is poverty. I think the internal threat for Indonesia is muslim extremists. Unfortunately the 2 candidates do not seem to be willing to take harsh actions on this kinda group who's not tolerant to other religions and not respecting our country's principle of diversity. Anyway, if he wins I don't think Joko Widodo will be able to do much of the things he wants to do. One of his argument for leaving his governor post so soon to run for presidency is because he would be able to do more things in the central government, but again it's all about coalitions and his coalitions in the parliament is the minority. Indonesian politicians being the type who like to make things difficult would definitely make things harder for him. So I'm not hoping things would change drastically. I still hope he wins because that for me would be a sign that people are smarter that they want a more tolerant government, that they see beyond faith. I have to say that seeing people's posts in Facebook, some of them were silly, There's this guy supporting Joko Widodo who demonstrates the same adoration a teenage girl would have towards boybands, like Joko Widodo and Jusuf Kalla could do no wrong and they're the best. Come on, Jusuf Kalla was seen in the documentary, The Act of Killing, praising the gangster Pemuda Pancasila group. They're not perfect. I would have thought that guy could be smarter in his comments, so that's one thing that kinda irks me a bit in the lead up to this election. I guess at the very least it's not silly adoration for Prabowo.
Lastly, I went to the flower dome in Gardens by the Bay yesterday with La Gioia. It's having a Persian theme and it's a disappointment. I only took 70 pictures and they're not amazing, so no flickr set for them. They closed off the walking area near one of the display area, which is strange and silly of them to do. La Gioia pointed out that there were boards explaining the display in the closed off area but since we couldn't go near, it's hard to read. I wonder if they have been doing it, it seems so since I saw a picture of Tulipmania this year and the walking area was closed off as well. I visited Tulipmania last year and yes the walking area did get overwhelmingly crowded but instead of closing it off, they should do crowd control, limiting people going in and forcing people to go in 1 direction. I think the reason they don't want to do this is because they have to have staffs for this. This makes the visit to a display which is so underwhelming even more disappointing. Anyway, here are some pictures. Casyrn gave me the photoshop actions she's been using and it's my first time using them and I'm not sure about the combinations to be used and it took longer than I wanted to in editing the pictures so I only used one option and I'm not fully satisfied and some of the colors seem weird. Anyway here you go.
There are these lanterns which perhaps look cool when they're lighted up.
These furry flowers look good and I like the pattern at the back.
This picture below is the only one I didn't edit. This happens rarely but sometime I do get picture whose colors is just perfect the way it is.
I like the pattern but the colors seem weird, yes?
Sigh, if only this fountain is more amazing than just a very low water bursting up.
:) eKa @ 1:07:00 PM • 0 comments
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Hey peeps. So since the last time I wrote, I actually finished a book. I finished The Catcher in the Rye this week. That's what happens when I have to eat lunch alone. I read. I thought The Catcher in the Rye is really good. Something that I think will be useful for teenagers to read and though I am not a teenager anymore, somehow all that sentiments of hating stuff and in general be lost kinda resonate in me and kinda reminds me of some people I know. It was impressive as well how J. D. Salinger wrote this because it's like a whole stream of consciousness. I have always wished that there's a magic pen of something which can write all my random thoughts as they happened. Now I see that if such thing is possible, the end result is most probably similar to The Catcher in the Rye. The book itself is not very thick and the story actually only took places in a span of just over a weekend. It's about a boy who got kicked out of a school again and decided to get away on his own for a few days before going back to his parents. The books contains all his thoughts in those few days. Towards the end, the book has some pretty wise lines coming from his ex-teacher, Mr. Antolini. 2 that jumped out to me are these:"The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one."
[Mr. Antolini actually mentioned that this is attributed to Wilhelm Stekel, an Austrian physician and psychologist]
"I'm not trying to tell you," he said, "that only educated and scholarly men are able to contribute something valuable to the world. It's not so. But I do say that educated and scholarly men, if they're brilliant and creative to begin with – which, unfortunately, is rarely the case – tend to leave infinitely more valuable records behind them than men do who are merely brilliant and creative. They tend to express themselves more clearly, and they usually have a passion for following their thoughts through to the end. And – most important – nine times out of ten they have more humility than the unscholarly thinker."
They get you thinking, no? So anyway now I am reading number9dream by David Mitchell which turns out to be very hard to read. I think the sentences are too crafty or beautiful or poetic that I have a hard time registering what was written and this is coming from the back of The Catcher in the Rye which so fluid in the way it's written. I feel like I'm progressing quite slowly in number9dream and there are times when I thought if I were the type who give up easily, I would just give up on this book. David Mitchell is not a Japanese and so when I read the book jacket that this book is about a Japanese boy and set in Japan, I was amazed that one could write such details about something that one is not, but apparently his wife is Japanese and he has lived in Japan before, so it kinda makes sense that he could write with such details. He actually wrote this book before Cloud Atlas and this book is even more interesting in terms of structure. I have only finished the first chapter and I'm still not sure what's going on, if there's an alternate reality or the different stories that jump from different parts are kinda different daydreams of the main character. I'm still not sure what the main reality is. It's also quite futuristic or perhaps science fiction-y in a way. It's a thicker book and I do hope that I can finish this fast to make time for book number 5.
On movies updates. Here are the ones I managed to watch. I watched Maleficent, which I thought wasn't bad. Maybe it's just me, but I thought the raven should be the true love and so when that didn't happen, I was kinda disappointed. At least it's not the prince though. I also watched Edge of Tomorrow which was much better than I thought. I thought it would be like Groundhog Day meets science fiction action and that it would just be lame and weird, but yeah it was much better than I expected. I got to thinking that Tom Cruise is just such a heroic leading man. Yes, Tom Cruise has played different characters, but him as the hero is just so Tom Cruise and as Gascoigne puts it, he's good at that, at being Tom Cruise :D It's amazing that he has hit 50 and still be desirable. Then today I watched Chef with la Gioia and I love it a lot. This kinda movies are really the type that supports my point on why we should waste our times watching formulaic super heroes movies, not that Chef is not formulaic itself (the dad had to disappoint his son one more time before coming around), but it's still really good and the food shots are glorious and Jon Favreau is just awesome at what he does, he's really talented.
On music updates (something I don't often do here), been listening to Boyzone. Boyzone is the boyband that I worshiped when I was a teenager and I went all crazy about it. They were the first concert I have ever attended! Before you get all dismissive about it, I think every straight girl will have their boyband phase :P Anyway they really colored my junior high school life then. Love Stephen Gately then and it's always sad when I think of him now. One would think that their music would be the first I put into my iPod but I only did that some weeks ago and since then I have been listening to them over and over. I love their newer albums though there were songs that sounded like the Take That songs after their own reunion. As always the case from before, I hope the rests would sing more. They do give Mikey more chance now. So anyway, listening to their old songs sometime got me smiling and thinking of those days when I was young and insane. Teenager insane I mean and we all know they can be such a pain :D I also listened to Linkin Park's album, Living Things for the first time last week. I know it's very late of me, but how I LOVE this album. It sounds like their earlier works that made me love Linkin Park in the first place. Really good album to add into my Linkin Park therapy session, that is when I am really really angry and pissed about something and I just need to drown the world, I usually listen to Linkin Park's first 2 albums. Hope their next album will be great as well.
On other people's life update, Starfish got married last week. I went to the wedding with Gascoigne, la Gioia, and Joey and we met Whisky and Jean there. The topic of finding the one has been the topic of our conversations ever since I knew Starfish and I guess it's good that he has finally found the one. It happens really fast for him, like around 1 year? The last time I met with this group of people, he was still single, and then suddenly he met someone and it's was full speed ahead. We didn't really stay long for the wedding, but then all of us minus Jean decided to catch up and have cold drinks and enjoy the much needed air con at the Old Town cafe. I love how all of us who actually talk and meet with each other rarely can just have great conversation when we meet. We joked and talked about stuff and the time spent felt short. I wonder if the next time we meet would be because one of the person in this group is getting married and that makes me think if the group going for a drink afterwards going to be smaller. I hope it will be me though :D
:) eKa @ 8:54:00 PM • 2 comments
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Finished my second book of the year, Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. If you've been reading my blog (which is surprising for me), you would have read that this book was mentioned a few times in the previous posts. A quick check in this blog let me know that I got the book in April and I finished it in May, so that's pretty fast for my standard, all thanks to the waiting that I had to do during the trip. It's an interesting and sad book. I guess any story that explores the holocaust is never not sad. It's interesting because of the structure of the book and the stories being presented. There are 2 stories which grew from one central story of an American writer who went to Ukraine to find a lady in a photograph pictured with his grandfather. Interestingly, nothing much is known about the background story of this writer and his life. One of the stories were about this trip to Ukraine being told in chapters written in not so good English by the Ukrainian guide. Another story was a fiction written by the writer about the history of the village his grandfather was form and the first known history of his ancestor up to his grandfather. There were also chapters consisting letters from the Ukrainian guide about his thoughts of the writer's story and about his life. I find it really interesting that we know more about this guide rather than the writer who actually kick started the whole event in the story. All around, the stories didn't end well and it's all so sad, though perhaps it's slightly more hopeful for the guide. I just feel rather sad with how it all ends :( Apparently there's a movie made based on this book. Elijah Wood is in it. I wonder how it goes, hopefully I find my way to watch it.Reading this book made me realize how I don't know a lot of things about Judaism. So I often cannot picture the scenes from the story well because I don't know the things which were described and I have to say it made me rather sad that I'm so not knowledgeable about this. I often feel rather good that coming from a Buddhist family, grew up in a Christian school, and coming from a country where the majority of the population is Muslim, I know quite a fair bit about these 3 religions. However, it's always the things that are lacking that quickly make you feel bad, at least for me. Judaism seems very interesting since it seems that there are a lot of things that Jewish people needs to observe. Unfortunately Judaism is not visible in my side of the world.
So anyway, decided to go with the classic for the next book, The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. It's already close to the middle of the year and I am only starting my 3rd book, I need to hustle? Watch less things? Happened to meet an acquaintance at Kinokuniya yesterday who lent me his membership card which allows for a 20% discount, so since I couldn't quite decide and think the 20% discount is pretty good, I also got number9dream by David Mitchell, who also wrote Cloud Atlas. I wasn't that keen on getting a book from an author whose other works I had read. I think since I did that multiple times with Paulo Coelho, I just felt that there's so many great authors and stories out there to explore, but in the end the cover and the story seems interesting, but yeah for now I am starting first with the classic.
On movie news, I watched Bad Neighbours. I have to say Zac Efron is handsome, didn't realize that in High School Musical. I love Dave Franco more though, I think I start to love him more than James Franco :P While the movie is funny, I got turned off with all the boobs and penis jokes. I also watched Godzilla. Glad that they made Godzilla the hero and sad that Bryan Cranston's character died too soon in the movie. What I didn't watch is the latest Spider-man movie, I didn't watch the first one as well. Also didn't watch Captain America because I also didn't watch the first one. Also didn't watch the latest X-Men movie, though I did watch X-Men: First Class through pirated DVD. I guess I'm just so not interested in all these superheroes movies, though I may watch the latest Transformers since Mark Wahlberg is in it and we love Mark Wahlberg, don't we? :D Okay, nothing else is interesting in my life peeps. Hope all is going well for you. Ciao!
:) eKa @ 8:23:00 PM • 0 comments
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Holiday over, it was time for the long trip back to Singapore. I was in a dilemma in which flight to take. The flight which arrived earlier in Singapore would require me to wake up super early and endure a 5-hour transit. The other flight which allowed me to sleep more with shorter transit time would arrive in Singapore close to midnight, providing there's no delay. In the end I thought arriving around 3 hours earlier in Singapore was better. I think it was cheaper too. Chose Super Shuttle to get me to the airport because I wasn't keen on figuring out where the bus stop is at the crack of dawn. Pick up time was 05:10 am and that meant I gotta wake up at 04:00 am. I quickly showered and packed up my things and I managed to get down at around 5 am. The receptionist was closed which made me slightly annoyed because when I checked in I already told the receptionist I had to check out early that day. I pressed the bell, but it didn't seem to work and the child in me ended up pressing it over and over and I guess that sound made the receptionist who was inside the office aware of me. It startled me when he appeared from the dark and he said sorry. Check out was easy peasy since I had paid in advanced. Went to the front door and before long the shuttle arrived. Stupid me didn't realized that there's another person inside and I got a bit of a shocked when I heard a cough as we were waiting to pick up another person. There was an old man sitting at the back. The other person wasn't there or was already picked up by another shuttle, so in the end it was just me and the old man. He was dropped first at the domestic terminal and then I was dropped next. The driver was being your usual nice Kiwi, saying have a good day in a singsong kinda way that people in New Zealand often does.I have to say that the people in New Zealand are very nice and that was kinda overwhelming at first, especially for the socially awkward me. You go to buy something or ask for information and the people at the counter will be like, "Hello, how are you today?" and this kinda thing doesn't happen in Singapore and at first it's weird and perhaps making me rather anxious because I was thinking, oh I have to make conversation with these people. Then they would also never fail to let you know to have a good day after they finish helping you. So it's all very polite and nice and while it's making me nervous at first especially because I felt I wasn't being that friendly, towards the end with that shuttle driver I remember thinking that I would miss all that. In huge contrast coming back to Singapore, where the people in the counter don't even bother to give you a Hi or Hello, I felt like it's all a bit cold. This makes me think that people coming from this kind of culture must have felt the people here in Singapore is darn cold. Perhaps enough to amplify loneliness if that person is alone. Then I wonder about Indonesia and Jakarta. I suppose the people in the service industry in Indonesia might be in general nicer than in Singapore? I have written before about my experience watching a movie in Jakarta, where the person at the counter made sure I got all my tickets correct and explained everything to me like where the cinema was and asked if there's anything else I needed. Also every person working in Starbucks in Jakarta that I have walked in seemed to be so friendly, not that they are not in Singapore, but I guess in Singapore it's all about being effective and efficient and getting things done fast that I'm pretty sure small talk is not something that's inside the training manual when these people were trained to do the work. This also makes me wonder if it's just a cultural thing in New Zealand that it's just the way people are, like this is what they learn in Kindergarten and such about being nice to people and it's not something that is demanded in their work. Another thing that I noticed was that sometime I had difficulty understanding their English. Sometime the accent made my brain stop for a moment to process what's just being said. There were also occasions where I wasn't being understood and for the first time ever since I don't know when or ever, I felt kinda inadequate with my English :( There weren't many moments like this, but they happened and so that's kinda ironic in a way, being in a country where English is the main language and yet having problem with it.
Anyway, going back to the story, I arrived in Auckland airport early enough. Did some last minute shopping. Still had enough time to go to the viewing platform which wasn't that awesome. On the way there I saw some people sleeping in their sleeping bags. They must be backpackers. Another reminder for me that I will not be able to rough it out like that, though one shouldn't underestimate oneself, perhaps if I really really really have to, I'll do just fine. Saw the orange ray from the sunrise lighting up the sky and I remember thinking that's the last of Auckland and New Zealand that I would see.
For the flight to Singapore, I got an aisle seat. The plane was bigger than when I first flew in from Singapore that there were 3 seats at the side block. There's just another lady in my block sitting by the window, so the middle seat was empty and that's great. The pilot was cute because he was telling us like in 5 minutes we'll be passing Uluru and he told us what view we could expect. I wonder if all Qantas pilots flying in this direction do this. Since I wasn't in the window seat, I was thinking of going to the big window by the exit door, but other people was already thinking the same and there were some people crowding there. It was one of the weirdest flying experience I had with everyone sitting at the side block standing up looking at their windows. I didn't see much, I remember seeing the landscape around Uluru to be like sands in wavy formation, I think those are sands not river. I did see a glimpse of Uluru as the lady in my row nicely pointed to me, but not enough to take any picture. She also didn't manage to take any picture.
Arriving in Singapore, it's life as usual. The hot weather was not something I miss. I went to this trip feeling not excited, but I have to say that like any other trips I have taken, it has been great. One of the news in New Zealand that captured my attention was about this New Zealand tourist who's around my age who got shot and killed in Argentina when he was trying to stop getting robbed. Though he wasn't alone when the incident happened (there were 2 other tourists from other countries with him), I think he was alone on his trip. It was sad because to die when you are travelling and doing something awesome and since I was doing the same thing, it all feels very tragic and it makes me feel thankful that God does look after me all the time in all my trips. I don't know if it will get easier, that I will not get nervous anymore whenever I travel alone again, but I think I have to remind myself that the fear shouldn't be the reason that stops me from doing something that I know I will treasure. There were great views to be seen and they have been breathtaking and make me feel grateful for the opportunity, but other than that, the fact that I managed to make a connection, however short, with other people will also always be another side of travelling that I treasure. The fact that I could do this makes me feel good about myself :) Again, I thank God for the blessing, it has been awesome. Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld His love from me! - Psalm 66:20.
:) eKa @ 9:40:00 PM • 0 comments
Saturday, May 17, 2014
Hobbiton is the last place that I visited in New Zealand. Also took a day tour for this, but it finishes early, supposedly around 3 pm back in New Zealand so that was kinda perfect for me who needed to fly off the next day. This tour departs rather early. The pick up time for me was 06:50 am. I got down and it turned out they're already there. I didn't notice it at first but the driver / guide / chaperon was apparently already asking the hotel receptionist about me. They were early, a good thing they didn't wait long, if not I would feel bad. So there's me and another 2 girls, Patricia, an American, and Juliana, an ex-Indonesian who's now an Australian. It did occur to me that I have to be thankful for this group. It's a really small group, but imagine, without them I would have been alone and that would be so awkward for me. Patty was nice, but quiet. I guess when you have someone like Juli around, you don't get much time to talk. Juli is obnoxious. I think it's too early in this post to bitch about her, so I'll save it for later and move on with the story of the trip.So it's a drive to Hobbiton. The morning was particularly foggy that day, which I still thought as cool, even though visibility level was really low. We arrived I think before 10 am at Hobbiton. The story about this place is quite interesting. Here's what I remember. Peter Jackson's wife grew up near the area and she remembers the landscape of the farms there and thought it would be a good setting for The Shire. So they went to the farmer who owns the land and ask if they could use his land. The farmer didn't even know what The Lord of the Rings were but he gave the okay. Then the movie studio working with the New Zealand government managed to get the New Zealand army to build roads and move things around to shape the landscape as needed for the film. I thought that was rather insane. In this trip, I found out that New Zealand has a population of around 4.5 million and obviously an area bigger than Singapore. With that population, their army shouldn't be that big and with a country area which is not actually small, I would have thought they have better things to do like guard the country, but there you go, they had time to build roads and such for a movie. Then the movie studio also managed to get a no-fly zone established over this area. It seemed there were people violating this and the pilot was stripped of his license for life. I repeat FOR LIFE! I really think all of this are insane!!! Yes, the secrecy is important and such, but there are better things to do with all these resources, like feed the hungry people, get clean water in poor areas, you know things like that? It's amazing how much power a movie studio can wield. I like movies and tv a lot, but I can't help feeling slightly troubled with this information :(
Anyways, to visit Hobbiton, you have to be guided into it. We're put together with another group, luckily not big. First we have to be driven to set. The bus driver was so funny. I think his name is Ben. Then our guide was Ethan W (I feel uneasy writing his full name) and he's cute. He's also only 23 and I was like feeling sad because I am so old and it's just another reminder how it's so not right to be crushing on 20 something. So Ethan told us that Ben played the Orc in Lord of the Rings and I felt kinda guilty because I don't know what an orc is. Apparently he kinda carried either Merry or Pippin in the film. I know who these characters are but I don't know which one is which. So I guess, I feel slightly bad for being inadequately knowledgeable about all this while there are really hard core fans in the mix or other hard core fans who have visited this place. Let me share some of the stories I have been told. Apparently it's not unusual for people to arrive in costumes and not necessarily LOTR costumes. Too bad no one in my group was in costume. Once there was a guy who was in full hobbit gear and he didn't want to leave until they managed to convince him to go during closing time. There were also 2 guys who were strangers and became friends because they found out both of them could speak elvish and then they just started conversing in elvish throughout the visit. I know ... what?!? ... and oh Internet, you ... However, the craziest thing I heard was of this lady who bought the ring in the gift shop, it was 149 NZD if I'm not mistaken and then took a helicopter ride over Mt. Doom and drop the ring there. Insane? Indeed. So anyways, in my group, there were hard core fans who knew stuff and could recite lines, but all seemed to be putting it inside. Perhaps it's one of those things, like if these people have been in a group with other hard core fans, things could really be interesting ;)
So The Shire is as pretty as it was in the film and there were a lot of details being put into this. It's bigger than I expected. They have gardeners who maintain the look and feel of this whole thing. The houses are just props meaning they're not functional houses. This set are used only for exterior shots, of scenes happening outdoor. The scenes which are happening inside the house were shot in a studio in Wellington. There are some doors that open but inside there's nothing. On one of them, there's just like only a really small area where they kept lights and umbrellas for the rainy days. I'm not a hardcore fan, but I couldn't deny feeling excited seeing all this :P It's really beautiful and cute. So this is Bilbo Baggins' house or which I called "the house" :D The tree on top of it is actually fake. I think they got the leaves from Taiwan and glued it on. It's still good enough though for the birds to hang out in it. The leaves do fall off, in fact one fell off and one of the girl who was a hard core fan asked if she could keep it and she was allowed to. She was giddy with happiness :P
With nothing much to do in Auckland, I decided to visit the Sky Tower. Honestly I don't have much interest in visiting things like this, but really because I couldn't think of what else to do so I did this, the same reason why I did the Christchurch Gondola. There are 2 observation floors which you can go into. It was somewhat interesting to see what's around Auckland, there's like mountains and islands nearby. Unfortunately the glass is tinted blue so all my pictures are bluish.
So since I really couldn't take being around her anymore, I decided to leave. Wanted to explore what other things Sky City has to offer, but there's nothing much. It's definitely not like Marina Bay Sands. There's a casino. Considering I have to pay to gain entry to a casino here in Singapore, one may think that I should make use of this free entry in another country, but then I didn't. I decided to call it the day and go back to the hotel. I needed to rest because I needed to get up at 4 am for my 05:10 am pick up to the airport the next day. I made a stop at the convenience store next door to the hotel and bought an apple. The cashier asked me where I'm from and though I wasn't in a chatty mood, I did answer him. Then he started speaking in Indonesian and he's very fluent in it. He's originally from Iran and he had lived in Indonesia for 8 years before, in different places like Jakarta and Surabaya. 8 years living in a country is enough to make you master the language? Well perhaps for Indonesian it is because Indonesian is not actually difficult. I asked him if living in New Zealand is better. He said he loved it in Indonesia because he thought Indonesia is great, the places are beautiful, the people are nice, it's awesome. I guess if you compare it to Iran, yes Indonesia is amazing in many ways :) The not-chatty me didn't ask why he left Indonesia but I told him I was going back the next day but to Singapore because that's where I live. He then said he's always confused why people want to leave Indonesia, to which I could only say in English that perhaps people just want to make more money which they couldn't in Indonesia no matter how hard they work. That's pretty much my short conversation with him. I was pleasantly surprised being able to converse with him Indonesian and that kinda made my day back to being good after being ruined by meeting Juli the second time. This cashier may not be as rich or as knowledgeable as Juli, but I would rather hang out with him where I can have good conversation than with such an appalling person. I know I bitch a lot about this woman, but I don't think I paint enough picture of what an obnoxious person she is. Anyway, this post is the last story from the trip. The next post will be about the trip back (not that it's interesting) and a bit of my reflection about New Zealand.
:) eKa @ 6:16:00 PM • 0 comments
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