Movie- upside down

Watched this on my flight to Hong Kong. The movie was slow-paced and I kind of considered giving it up halfway but then I'd have nothing else to do on my flight and I wasn't sleepy so I pushed on and completed the movie. I'd say I was very happy when it ended, not because of the ending (duh, I kind of expected that they'd be together in the end anyway despite how impossible it seemed at the beginning) and because it finally ended and meant I had passed two hours of flight time. 

The story's about a guy from the down below falling in love with a girl from up top from their chance encounters from young. I know it seemed quite weird, but I kept thinking throughout the film if the people there get neck stains from having to crane their necks all the time while talking to people from the other world with a different gravity. Haha. 

And the name of the main characters- Adam and Eden. I don't know if there were any biblical references (as far as I understand, I don't really see it?) There were no references to God and the two of them didn't sin (they were just kids who fell in love with someone who they shouldn't and they live in different worlds). I felt that a Romeo and Juliet reference was more prominent. But then again, it wasn't really a tragedy and while they fell in love with someone they shouldn't, there wasn't really family conflicts involved. 

Okay, then I'll just settle for a cheesy love line of people falling in love with someone they shouldn't, yet they will overcome the obstacles in their love life and achieve happily ever after. A super succinct take of mine about the movie. 

5 things about Hong Kong

I have just returned from my Hong Kong trip a while back. I'll try to summarize up this trip experience into 5 things that I felt were part of the trip. All these are strictly in my opinion and be ready for lots of rants! xD 

 5 THINGS ABOUT HONG KONG BY ME!

1) I felt my claustrophobic 

Space in Hong Kong were really very maximized when it came to their usage. There were buildings everywhere, people everywhere, even the walkways seemed pretty narrow. I prefer to have my own space, I'm pretty particular when people are too near to me as it sorts of intrudes my comfort zone. The trains were really packed when it came to their peak hours, especially if you're heading to central in the morning on weekdays. The hotel that we stayed in was pretty small but it was cozy so it wasn't that bad. But I really disliked walking on the streets with people everywhere and having umbrella 'fights' with others as our umbrellas jostled and bumped into one another's on the walkways. 

2) The queuing 

I have to admit I'm not a really patient person and I usually avoid queening if I can help it. I queued a lot in Hong Kong. When in Disneyland Hong Kong and Ocean Theme part I think half the time of the seven hours we spent there were used on queuing. That wasn't the worst part. I think the more uncomfortable thing was point number 1, my claustrophobia, when it comes to queuing. Queuing made me feel trapped and I don't really understand why others must stand so close and near me that they were bumping to me even when the queue was not moving. It just made me very pissed and my mood was just so bad. They were good during those rides with adrenaline rush and then they were gone once the queuing cycle starts again. Oh well. I guess this is training for my patience. 

3) The stairs

There was a lot of stairs. I felt fitter after my trip to Hong Kong! xD The MTR were filled with stairs (mostly escalators were only for going down, you'll have to climb up the stairs to exit the station and there were some exits without any escalators and you'd just have to climb up/down the stairs everytime. On our trip to the Ngong Ping Buddha, the flight of stairs to the bottom of the Buddha was jaw dropping. I felt so accomplished after climbing up the whole staircase with only a few pauses. On my way, I can't help but be thankful that I can still climb stairs (albeit being breathless and all). I'd better travel when I'm younger and before I get older and my health declines and I can't take such kind of exercise anymore. 

4) The food

The dimsums were great- Tim Ho Wan was awesome. It was really affordable and yummy. I missed the BBQ pork buns, the gui hua gao and the yummy carrot cakes. I think we ate wanton and fishball noodles for at least 5 times over the span of 5 days. The variety of food choices were mostly Chinese food on the streets. Shopping malls have more food options. 

5) Early retirement to our hotel

We returned to our hotel and concluded our day of exploration in Hong Kong pretty early everyday, at about 8plus pm daily. I guessed we're just so tired. (I don't even know from what? Walking too much? Queuing? The rainy weather?) It felt a bit wasted going back to our hotel so early while the night is still young but we couldn't really enjoy much further. This made me miss the night markets that we enjoyed when we were in Taiwan last year. 

I've decided to include our itinerary here too. All these are going to be memories for me :') Since I'm such a forgetful person, I'll force and discipline myself to record more stuffs by blogging and typing them out instead of just leaving all these experiences in my brain to rot and fade away. 

Day 1: The Peak

Reached Hong Kong around noon. Was deciding between taking MTR to our hotel or the bus. Took the bus instead (got an octopus card, the card's really useful you can get it to pay for transport- buses and MTR rides,  for paying food at a lot of shops,and even for making donations for wildlife conservation efforts in Ocean Park!). Ate fishball noodles for lunch (I forgot where, oh no my memory is failing me). And we set off for The Peak. We took the MTR to central and walked to the tram ticketing place. My gosh!!! The queue was horrifying!!! It was so long and the place was so crowded that I felt like I didn't want to go anymore. I just didn't want to queue and squeeze with the crowd. But of course I didn't say that out, my friend planned the itinerary and I didn't want to be a spoil sport. We queued for at least an hour, (if you can, do bring an electronic fan like those they use in theme parks cos the place is really stuffy or you can be like us and use the pamphlets to fan ourselves-so cost-saving! xD) And then!!! To our horror, we could've actually just tapped using our octopus card and joined another shorter queue that didn't need to wait for an hour because we had the octopus card and could just pay the entrance fee with that and not queue for an hour and buy the tickets!!!!  All these exclaimation marks are not enough to express my feelings at that time. !!!!!!!! I was trying so hard to control my temper. I really need to learn to be more patient and also more loving of other humans although I really hate crowds. God help me. Amen. 

Then was squeezing through the tram to the peak. The peak was okay, pretty nice view from the top (you have to pay to visit the peak's 360 viewing floor or something like that). Took some touristy photos. There was some filming of a korean variety show. Not sure what it was though. And we managed to watch a while of the night lights showing below on the skyscrapers and then we left before the crowd disperses. Then back to hotel.

Day 2: Disneyland Day! 

I loved the tickets haha! I got the one with Woody from toy story printed while my friend got the slinky dog from Toy story. And then queuing for rides, had lunch, more queuings and back to the hotel. My favourite part of Hong Kong's Disneyland was perhaps the Toy story area with the exciting U shaped car ride (like an extreme pirate ship) and just the decoration there in general. 

Day 3: Ngong Ping, Sham Shui Po

We took a train to Tung Chung and queued for the cable tickets at the ticketing place just behind the outlet shopping mall of Tung Chung. The cable car ride was pretty long about 25 minutes. The view was great too. I always wondered how people managed to build cable cars. It seemed like such a huge undertaking with a lot of responsibilities. We went to the Buddha, took a walk on the wisdom path (I recommend trying that out) and ate at the vegetarian restaurant in the monastery. We went Sham Shui Po for dinner at Tim Ho Wan. The fashion street at Sham Shui Po's awesome! Affordable and pretty clothes!! 

Day 4: Ocean Park day! 

Took MTR to Admiralty and got to Ocean Park by bus 269 from there. Then same as Disneyland, we queued for rides, had lunch, queued for more rides. I really liked Ocean Park more because there were more exciting rides here (there were 4-5 roller coaster rides, 2 being more extreme with the loops). It was raining so we didn't really get to sit a lot of the rides. Luckily, there were aquariums and zoos indoor for us to visit while it rained. Ocean park's bigger than Disneyland too. You'd have to take a cablecar/ the express train to get from one part of the park to another. Then we went back to our hotel in the evening. I forgot what we had for dinner xD

Day 5: North Point, Hong Kong art museum, Sham Shui Po

We set off for North Point in the morning for the Duck Shing Ho egg rolls there. Queued an hour for it. Went to the museum afterwards. The museum was interesting. I particularly liked the one on porcelain trade on the third floor. There was some activity booklet that you could complete and it was pretty fun! We spent our afternoon there. Went Sham Shui Po again for some cloths shopping then headed back to our hotel in the evening. 

Day 6: 

Our last day in Hong Kong. We went to get egg tarts in the morning from Tai Chung bakery at the Star Ferry Terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui. Then visited the avenue of stars and got our laopo bings at Heng Hung bakery in the basement of SOGO. Had Japanese sushi for lunch. Yummy!

Took a bus to the airport, then it was bye bye Hong Kong! See you soon (?). Hopefully I'll get to visit Macau next time too and be of the legal age to have an eye-opening tour of the Macau casino. 

God

I'm a Christian now. It came as quite a surprise to me even when I decided I'm going to God.

Jesus had once said , "Come to me all those who are tired and weary and I shall give you rest.  For my yoke is easy and the burden is light."

I was indeed tired and weary. I did just that. I went to god and felt this peace that I haven't had in a long time.  This sense of acceptance of who I am, a strong sense of being loved, cared for and blessed.

I still struggle with my faith but I'm much better now.  I'm more sure of life and my existence in general.

Cos when god is your reason to live, you have no reason to quit.

Thank you god. Thank you Jesus. Thank you for teaching me and allowing me to learn how to let go of my pride and deal with my problems.

For Your strength is made perfect in weakness.

Movie- the identity thief

I watched this on the plane back home today.  It was quite an enjoyable film. The bad sexual references parts of the film aside, I think the movie actually did encompass a few learning and thought provoking points.

Synopsis of the movie: Sandy is an account keeper in a bank and he's the sole breadwinner of his family of four going on five. Due to an identity theft, he finds himself on the brink of getting jobless as he loses his financial credibility from chalkinh up debt on his credit cards (he was victimised). He will do whatever it takes to get the other 'Sandy' to Denever and explain the situation to his boss so as to keep his job...

Diana is a complex and yet simple person.  You're inclined to dislike her at the start of the film but yet towards the end, you'll come to understand her and possibly even sympathise with her.

She had a rough childhood as an orphan, no one cares about her. Her tough, loud and rough personality was her facade, a coping mechanism she developed to deal with loneliness and rejections. We all know the environment plays a vital role in a person's growth and Diana could be seen as someone who grew up without a conducive environment and went off path.

Then comes Sandy, the protagonist who gets her back on path and helps her discover who she really is- figuratively and literally. She's actually Dawn Budgie and finally knows her real name. We see the blossoming of a seemingly unlikely friendship.

I think Diana was really lucky.  I mean she picked a victim who she stole the identity from and yet he was so forgiving.  It seemed too unreal.  Maybe I'm just cynical but there's too much smooth going for them throughout the film. Sandy is way too kind, especially for a man who had a lot to lose. And he's really reckless and desperate- doing all these just to keep his job? I understand that he values his job very much but isn't his life much more priceless? He's no cop material. Well he has tons of luck too though.

And the bad guys hardly seem to catch up with them too, although they looked like competent head hunters.

Perhaps I'm reading way too much into all these.  I'm should stay contented with the movie as a good way to spend my two hours on flight.

book- old souls by Tom Shroder

This book just reaffirmed my belief for the existence of past lives. Yet as much as it answers some of my questions (eg: can people know their past lives without going through hypnotic regression/ do past lives really exist/how do you tell/ as much as I want to believe, I still kind of doubt it/ I am still skeptical) , it brought up more questions (eg: does everyone gets reborn/why can some people retain their memories like these kids and why do people like me have absolutely no other memories except maybe some phobia like being afraid of staircases possibly being linked to past lives?/how do one go through this process)

I really respect Ian Stevenson, his dedication to his research and the amount of effort he puts into his fieldwork and yet is so underrated by the public. While this is a free world (we can choose want we want to believe), I think reincarnation can only be a concept that is partially accepted by people. Unless there is really a definite mechanism (say like how you describe the Earth's hydrological cycle with the water evaporating into clouds then condensing and precipitating to Earth as rain), not everyone will accept this theory.

And maybe it's fine like that. just let this be a discussion, a contestation, an unsolved mystery of life.

movie- hotel transylvania

A cute animation movie. The premise is just basically about an overprotective father (Dracula) not allowing her daughter (Mavis) to have contact with humans/the outside world/beyond the hotel because he deemed the humans as dangerous etc. Alas, one human (Jonathan) found his way into the hotel and 'zinged' with Mavis! They fell in love at first sight!

Pretty much a common plot but it was quite well executed in this film. Very funny and entertaining. Though, I wonder what will come out of this human and vampire love. After all, Jonathan can't turn into a vampire (unlike Bella in Twilight series) so how will this love ends? He isn't immortal, unlike Mavis.

There's a hotel transyvania part II I think. They're doing a second series because of the good boxoffice results. I read that from wiki. Hopefully, they'll address that issue and personally I hope he doesn't turn into a vampire. Maybe they can try something new and turn Mavis into a human instead? Something like the little mermaid trading her voice for human legs, maybe Mavis can trade her fangs for normal humans ones.

Just a random thought.

movie-Alex Cross

I used to read the Alex Cross series last time when I was younger. Though, I don't think I finished it and could vaguely remember the storylines, I do knew that Cross's a spy/detective kind of guy that goes around solving crimes.

The movie was not bad. There's a twist at the end though, I didn't expect the person that they had been protecting to be someone that had hired the assassin to kill others but ended up not being able to control the assassin aka getting targeted by the assassin instead.

There were a lot of fight scenes, not my kind of show; I prefer reading fight scenes than watching them I guess.

And the part where Cross's wife died, I think that's a turning point in the movie for him, the part where his character unleashed. Because previously, he won't actively pursue the criminal (mostly he just protects his targets and encounters him) but this time after knowing he killed his wife, he was prepared to go for a final showdown with him. And of course, Cross won.