Looking forward to enjoy my time outside Singapore without phone calls or text messages from the office. Yes, this will be my 6th time to Japan. Although a fren of mine called me weird for limiting my horizon of the world, but I’m glad I’m off to a place whose people are more polite and considerate than Singapore.

Moreover, it’s a place I feel comfortable with and enjoy travelling around. It’s not that I travel to the same old place every year. It’s always to familiar and unfamiliar places each round.

If 3G roaming charges are not too sky high, I’ll consider blogging daily abt my travel anecdotes when I’m in Japan.

Cheers!

Dunno how many ppl are still reading this cos it’s been abt 3 months plus since i’ve updated anything on this.

Currently waiting at ion orchard for a fren for lunch and going to botanic gardens for a walkabout with my 35mm later, followed by dinner with uni frens who I haven’t met up in a while.. Looking forward to the day! Will post pics of my walkabout if I get the chance.

Stay tuned!

So much so that my sis complained to me about viewing some ancient post…

That’s because I’ve been busy Facebooking with my iPhone and although there’s WordPress has an app to post stuff directly, Facebook definitely makes it easier to post photos as well. (WordPress can only allow text for now…)

Something to note that I’ve been trying some of the Ramen joints around Singapore today and made some changes to my own ranking.. Here’s how it looks like

Expecting aching arms and legs within the next few days. Haha…

WordPress was released on the Apple app store just a few days ago! Woo-hoo!

The pic is at the driving school, cos I’m typing this post while waiting for my lesson to start. Wonder how the pic will turn out…

Just one quick update here, finally booked my driving test on 29 dec! Hope to pass 1st time sia… Recent assessments show trends below 18 pts!

Realised the reason why I dun bring my camera out so often now.. It’s because of the bag. I previously bought a 7 million dollar home which is huge by nature and can pretty much hold everything including the kitchen sink.

Thought it would be good to bring a single bag out for everything (camera, lens, water bottle, PSP, headphones, lens cleaner, spare batt, etc) but add on  a tripod and lugging the bag around in Japan this Mar / Apr was no joke..

Finally decided to get a smaller bag! And Crumpler of course! My messenger bag my sis got for me from Aussie (It has a rougher skin compared to the current smooth type) has lasted since 1998! 11 years! And people still question why I can shell out a 100 bucks for a bag… Ask those ladies who spent 2K on a bag only to get soiled by a spilt drink / lipstick / random dirty airborne substance…

I bought the 4 Million Dollar Home initially and had a hard time fitting the camera and the telescopic lens in. Went back today to change to the 5 Million Dollar. Friendly guys at the outlets @ Wheelock Place and Ion Orchard!

Can’t wait for my next camera outing now that I can travel lighter!

Watched the 2 above back to back on Friday and Saturday evening.

Inglorious Basterds

Another dose of Quentin Tarantino. Expect lots of gore, funky comic-esque intros and disjointed storyline. Was looking forward to it when the 1st official trailer featuring Brad Pitt was shown.

Timeline’s set during WWII when France was occupied by Germany and how a small guerilla army led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) killed a whole bunch of Nazis and even Hitler himself. Of cos that wasn’t how Hitler died… and one columnist wrote about how he overheard 2 noisy people in the cinema behind me thinking that that was how Hitler died.. “Cos they show in movie mah, so must be true…” :S The real gem in the show would be Colonel Landa, an interesting character if you ask me…

Gotta admit Quentin doesn’t really sit well with some…. Oh well…

For Tarantino fans, this is a must!

Rating: 4/5

The Ugly Truth

3 Reasons to watch this show.

1. Katherine Heigl!
2. Katherine Heigl!
3. Katherine Heigl!

Ok seriously, it’s a romantic comedy starring Katherine Heigl (Grey’s Anatomy) and Gerard Butler (Gamer, 300) Katherine plays Abby, an award winning,prim and proper, control freakish TV show producer struggling to garner in higher ratings for her company. In comes Michael played by Gerard Butler, a no-holds-barred commentator on guys, girls and sex. Fire meets water. Boomz!

This show is simply hilarious with Michael teaching Abby how to hook her perfect neighbour and I swear that the same tricks he taught her would have worked on me. Damn!

Check out her cutesy victory dance and her “climatic” announcement at the dinner table with her company’s management!

Perfect for dates!

Rating: 4/5

4 Movies. 2 weeks.

I caught them in the exact order I’ve listed here from top to bottom and going to give my 2 cents worth about them.

Coco before Chanel
Caught this with Princess at Vivo one weekday evening. Was looking forward to it initially cos of Audrey Tatou. She’s a great actress, unfortunately the movie fell short of my expectations and it got boring in the latter half of the show. Didn’t really show how she became a famous designer but did give an insight to Coco before she actually became famous. Whether the tale is true or not, who knows?

Rating: 2/5

G-Force
Ivan and I were bored one day after our dinner at Bugis Junction and were searching for movies to watch at 3 different places (Bugis Junction, The Cathay and Plaza Singapore).

Finally decided to catch this at the Cathay because it seemed slightly better than the other choices and the timing was more acceptable (2330 as opposed to movies past midnight).

Show’s not too bad. It’s about a team of highly trained guinea pigs doing secret agent missions and all. The start of the movie was pretty entertaining with them doing one mission. The guinea pigs (not hamsters!) were funny and cute but it’s your run-of-the-mill Disney / Pixar show with a predictable ending and jokes about guinea pigs… Perfect for the family.

Rating: 3/5

Gamer
When I watched the trailer of this movie, I told myself “Man I want to watch this!” As a gamer myself, the title is appealing enough.

Story goes: people controlling other people in an Counter-Strike game. Catch is, once your guy is dead, he’s really dead. The people who are being controlled are convicts who are given a chance to be released if they can survive 30 battles without dying. It revolves around a convict nicknamed “Kable” who has made it 27 battles so far, just 3 more to go. Kable doesn’t know why he’s in and all he wants is to be reunited with his family on the outside. But the kudos goes to the villian who is a game creator. He’s somewhat like the Joker. Catch it before it ends!

Rating: 4.5/5

9
Just caught it today with Law, GY, Xiong and James at AMK Hub. Before the show, we got a chance to take a look at the latest Gundam arcard game which features real cockpits and controls like a Gundam. It’s called Senjou no kizuna (戦場の絆). You pay 5 bucks to create a character card and anotehr 5 bucks for 2 games, each games lasts for about 3-4 mins or shorter if your mobile suit gets blown up. James had a shot at it and we were marvelling at his skills! Not bad for a beginner!

9 was something I was anticipating, partially because I did not hear about anything about it and didn’t know what the story was about. All I knew was the show was released on Sept 9 (09-09-09).  It’s actually about a group of small intelligent beings (one in the pic above) who are given a number each and are trying to survive in a destroyed world with no humans. They have to tackle dangerous metal beasts and even their own kind in the “society” they built up. What I liked about the show is the different type of personalities of the different “numbers” and they all came from the same “source”. Animation’s super great and it’s perfect for people of different ages to watch!

Rating: 4/5

After a few weeks of silence, I decided to check with a Hello! shop assistant about it and he could only say “they will email you one”. One fine evening (or night cos it was 1145am) I checked my mail and saw that 1 mail which goes Apple iPhone 3GS.

And it was! The mail directed me to order from a website where I had to register an account and the link to order the iPhone 3GS was dead! Only the link to order the iPhone 3G was ok. Bitched about it on Facebook.

Tried a few days later and it worked! Guess it was about 1.30am so I didn’t see clearly what I chose.. I ended choosing a weird number (cos I’m still with M1) and a 30GB data plan! And I’ve already pressed the “OK” button! Yikes!

Called Singtel the next day to coax / persuade / threaten them to change my data plan to the 1GB one and they relented. But that’s not all! I told them to deliver on last Saturday and the phone came on Tuesday, way before the date! And I was learning driving! I called the delivery guy when I reached home and was ticked off by the guy saying that I should left a letter of authorization or something.. (But I said Saturday!)

Anyway, finally got my hands on it and still having trouble using the keypad (fingers big or keypad small?) But all in all it’s a great phone~ Cheers!