Man of Steel Review

Watched Man of Steel 2 days ago. Not as exciting as I expected it to be. Yes Henry Cavill (Hey Henry now I am your fan, definitely) and special effects are really an apple of the eye, but for the storyline? I don’t think so. With Zack Snyder as a director and Christopher Nolan as storywriter, my expectation in this one is super high and yet in the end I feel that despite the film was good, I didn’t see anything that gave me goose bumps.

In my opinion somehow everything goes very fast yet predictable. The storyline however really are depicting Christopher Nolan character of writing stories (with jumping scenes of different time frame) which already are proven to be successful as Memento or Inception. However in this case, in several jumping scenes it just perfectly fit for the story and touching hearts, while in several other jumping, it is a little be forced to be aligned with the movie and somehow (I don’t know, maybe it’s only me) I am confused with which time frame come first another. The border between the beginning and the end of jumping time frame is not too recognizable.

Furthermore I think the storyline are forced to be fit into 2 and half hours resulting in little emotions showed and felt between each character because they are competing with the short time target. Everything was happening too fast even before I realized what’s going to happen on the next scene.  In the end I can only say that this movie really is just focused on the extraordinary special effects. On the other hand however, both Zack and Nolan introduced a new way to deliver a superhero movies that more logical and realistic with current 21st century.

There are 3 things I’m glad I noticed that in this movie, which are unusual and glad of: 

• The movie is not all about the Superman. They try to depict the concept of a newcomer superhero (such as Clark) from another view of human and society. It’s not like people are going to be excited and welcomed the first time they saw something like (for example) Spiderman right?? In reality now, maybe people will fear and ask and reject extraordinary people like that and in this movie, they reflecting the natural reaction perfectly. The main character was blended in perfectly with all the society reactions, not as the usual superhero that always gets primary attention and exposure and sudden fame. Don't expect a grande and breathtaking welcome of the superhero in this movie. It's time for a superhero movies to be more realistic.

           "Jonathan Kent: People are afraid of what they don't understand."

           "Perry White: Imagine how our world would react if they came face to face with this..."

• Clark’s nickname for “Superman” and the meaning of the “S” symbols described quite elegant and cool. See it for yourself. They are not forcing it, it came out naturally.
• Finally Superman realized that underwear are wore INSIDE the suit, not outside it. Finally man, finally!

Uhm, what can I say is that… I am far more excited and get that more “Oh Shit” time when I saw FF6 for sure. This is only another prove to me that I am not a fanatic fan of superhero movies I guess. I didn’t say this movie is bad, only it didn’t meet my super high expectation (as we always said, expectation always disappointing) but still a very worth movie to watch in the end.

Anyway, this is a really amateur version of review from me (and my first movie review too). Don’t take it too seriously dude! It’s only one fool’s opinion! Just go and watch it to have your own opinion about this movie :) 

VIVA NIHONGO

Been absent for 3 weeks from my last post. A little bit sad cause my last post didn't gain much reader until now. But despite of the absent-ness of me (and lack of reader) I still love to write though. I will not stop writing my blog. Ever! Cause I believe my life will be more and more exciting to be shared later in the future.

For these 2 weeks finally my Japanese Language Study (or I will call it Nihongo for Japanese Language from here) went from exciting into chaotic! Everything from this language is so brand new to me that If I didn't catch up myself even after my Nihongo course, I surely will be lost in translation. I knew that Nihon-Go is difficult but never thought it will be THIS difficult. Nihongo and Bahasa really are two different world without enough language bridging. Horay.

I take my course everyday, from 7 p.m until 9 p.m. For total I only have 52 meetings until finishing all the materies and take off to Japan. Honestly, this scares me. 52 meetings is definitely not enough for preparing you to live in Japan and have convo fluently! Even somehow I know my teacher also think it’s quite impossible for me to catch up to N3 before going to Japan. (Japanese Language Proficiency test are ranked from N5 for the lowest and N1 for the highest level.)  So I decided to take it to the next level: taking 2 weeks materies into 1 week only, study as fast as possible so that I will have several weeks advantages in the end to practice my convo or learn new materies.

Nihongo consist of Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji and Romaji. Introduced you slightly, This is what Hiragana looks like:

And Katakana.

 Kanji is the word the same like Chinese Hanzi, and Romaji is the latin word like I typed in these blog and all of you used to.

Most of the people asked, when did we use Katakana, Hiragana, Kanji or Romaji? I was told that It is by studying you will understand. Writing the whole sentences in Romaji all the time and you will be considered uneducated in Japanese. Writing the whole sentences in Katakana and Hiragana considered you learn Japanese but really just the basic one (or didn’t have sufficient knowledge about Japanese). Writing it all in Kanji and you’ll be considered as a Chinese. Japanese language, part of them are written in Hira/Kata while some of them are written in Kanji. Romaji is rarely used. So, only by studying and practicing you’ll know when to use 4 of the word form in the right time and place (and sentences).

However, despite of the velocity of my study, it all affects my whole routine now. I spend most of the days study language. Study and study and study somehow I feel like sick of it. I’m glad now I force myself to write and update something in my blog (even I have to force myself WTF or else I’ll be studying again) because as I said before, writing is somewhat became one of my refreshments during stress time. I’m glad now I can write this (and ignoring my Nihongo book stack for a while).

Now I’m struggling to keep it balance between study, blogging, daily devotion or praying time, resting time day by day. For these 2 weeks I found myself really indulged in studying and somehow in several days I get sick of it. My blogging and devotion time is consumed day by day until now. I try to rearrange myself so that I can get it balanced between all of those things. I know that if somewhat I am fed up and bored with Nihongo, I will not have the same enthusiasm anymore to study language and It’s quite dangerous, since in Japan later I have to communicate all the way around in Nihongo. I hope I can balance it well. It’s so hard for me for these 2 weeks. Entering the 3^rd week promise myself I must be better and be careful not to be bored in studying Nihongo.

Will post again as soon as possible! Never knew writing will be THIS MUCH refreshing ­~~~

Budget Phuket Holiday (Part 2)

The same as before, the next day the tour driver picked us up and drove out to Ao Poh Pier. Here is the detailed itinerary for the day:

And here are some photos to you:

On Ao Poh Pier. Had to walk along this shitty long bridge to go to the cruise. Sunlight made it worse.

On board, waiting for take off while offered some drinks and snacks.

Taking photos from the front of the cruise. Feels like Jack and Rose in Titanic. Only more cheesy. hahaha

Arrive at first destination, canoeing to see the bats inside the cave.

Secon canoeing in Panak Island. No more caves but astounding panoramas of cliffs inside.

After that, we had our lunch at the cruise while heading to the next main destination, James Bond Island.

Arrived at James Bond Island. We were only given 30 minutes to do the shopping and taking photos of the stand-alone rock. And our cruise can docked directly at the pier. We changed to a smaller boat first that took us to the pier and take off from there.

The small boat.

After finished with the James Bond Island, we were unto the next destination for swimming. Too bad the tour guide said we couldn't visit Naka or Lawa Island for swimming because on those days the beach can be quite dangerous because of many stingrays swam around it. So we decided to stop near some what-so-called small beach to swam and feed monkeys!

Last entertainment, male version of Ping Pong Show! The show was so hilarious and so vulgar!! Hahahaha

In conclusion I can say that this James Bond Islands isn’t as exciting as the one we do at Phi-Phi (and not as tiring as before too), but somehow more soothing and relaxing. Watching beautiful scenery through the whole trip made us “whoaaa” “wooow” and so on. It is a beautiful scenery indeed. 

But the excitement didn’t end at that time! We were very waiting at the next activities to do, watching Cabaret!! Maybe all of you wonders why the heck I would be so excited about watching cabaret its so ordinary blah blah blah but guess what? There’s something special about Thailand Cabaret!

Yes, maybe as most of you already know, most of the performers, in spite of the beauty, it’s all BOYS. They are called Lady Boys because most of them are transgenders. I don’t know how far they go, are they already had their sex-change surgery or not but as far as I know most of them already had their breast implants! You see it yourself, this is the photo after the show:

Be careful, they are beautiful but bitchy! Hehehehe

In spite of they are mostly Lady Boys, but the cabaret show was beyond expectation! It was very good and beautiful and funny you gotta watch it in Phuket. An entertainment can’t be missed.

For overall, those two days were the main point of my holiday in Phuket. In the final day we only search for Hard Rock Cafe to take some photos, walk alongside Patong Beach, bought some souvenirs to be brought home, ate some good food in Jungceylon Mall (The biggest mall in Patong) and packed up to the airport.

Stop a little while at BK to have some ice cream and hash browns:

What we had for lunch was Thailand Lumpia, Tom Yam Seafood, and Mango Sticky Rice for dessert. The desert was so amazing!!!

That concludes all of my journey in Phuket.

Here are some tips to travel to Phuket:

• Based on my experience, always bought more money with you. Phuket is the center of tourists attraction thus makes the average price of things higher than Thailand. My cousins count all the approximate money needed for me. I bought around 6000 baht and spend ALL of them right on the last day. I have no spare money to buy several souvenirs and food there. It’s recommended although this is a budget holiday, you bought around 8000 baht per person for 4D3N.
•  Don’t trust taxi/tuktuk services easily. They have a lot of sales there that attracts you with all the taxis and tuk tuk. I myself didn’t know which one to believe in so I didn’t take the risk of asking one and ended up being fooled. Live in Patong area, and everyhing reachable by foot.
•  Sunblock, sunblock, sunblock. The sun can go a bit rough. You’ll get sunburn before you realized it. And Dark eyeglasses. It’s important.

      In the end, I'm not regretting at all for went to Phuket! It was fun!! Although somewhat a little bit crowded but the change of environment is worth it!