Ezlink Refund Time, or is it?

The website read:
You are eligible for a refund of $XX.

Seperately, you have also been undercharged $XX + $YY but the bus operators will forgo this amount. No action is required from you for the undercharged amount.

Are we seriously overcharged? Another way for the bus company to earn more $ from us....

黑。白。

看着荧光屏的数字，心里也有了盘算。现在只能相信天无绝人之路，问题是几时才能柳暗花明又一村呢？真想“感谢”某人某年某月所定下的某某策略。。。

Next Three Days

Synopsis: Life seems perfect for John Brennan (Russell Crowe) until his wife, Laura (Elizabeth Banks), is arrested for a gruesome murder that she didn't commit. Three years into her sentence, John is struggling to hold his family together, raising their son and teaching at college while he pursues every means available to prove her innocence. With the rejection of her final appeal, Lara becomes suicidal and John decides there is only one possible bearable solution: to break his wife out of prison. Refusing to be deterred by impossible odds or his own inexperience, John devises an elaborate escape plot and plunges into a dangerous and unfamiliar world, ultimately risking everything for the woman he loves. [Source: Yahoo! Singapore Movies]

Truth be told, the first half hour of the movie was kind of boring as the audience went through the whole legal process of Brennan fighting and appealing in court to prove his wife's innocence. The fun part only started when Brennan began to plot his wife's escape from jail. Through a few hiccups here and there, seeing the main lead getting beaten up and cheated, finally he was able to obtain all the necessary tools for her escape. After which, it was hard action as he snatch his wife from the jail guards, get past the first road block in less than 15 minute, getting the audience heart leaped out as he was met with some last minute obstacles, before getting scot free by some stroke of luck. An average movie to watch for the weekend.

Rate: 6.5/10

Related articles

• Russell Crowe: 'The Next Three Days' Review & Trailers (omg.yahoo.com)
• Jailhouse Crock: Breaking Out Is Hard in the Disappointing The Next Three Days (observer.com)

Rapunzel: A Tangled Tale

Synopsis: "Rapunzel" is an action-packed, swashbuckling, animated musical comedy about the girl behind 70 feet of magical, golden hair. A princess stolen from her parents' castle as a baby, Rapunzel is locked in a hidden tower longing for adventure. Now an imaginative and determined teenager, she takes off on a hilarious, hair-raising escapade with the help of a dashing bandit. With the secret of her royal heritage hanging in the balance and her captor in pursuit, Rapunzel and her cohort find adventure, heart, humor, and hair... lots of hair. [Source: Yahoo! Singapore Movies]

Rapunzel can truly be considered one of the better cartoons for 2010. Simply hilarious with her pet chameleon "Pascal", and "Maximilien", the horse who behaved like a dog, the cartoon can also warmed your heart as the Disney theme is filled throughout the show. With Mandy Moore anchoring as "Rapunzel" and also the lead singer for most of the songs, there is never a bore moment in the movie. An excellent show for everyone to brighten your day, simply worth every money paid for the ticket.

Rate: 8/10

Related articles

• Christian Movie Review: Tangled 3D (csahm.com)
• "Movie Review: Tangled" and related posts (blogs.orlandosentinel.com)
• Tangled (boston.com)
• Review: 'Tangled' is old, yet new (cnn.com)
• "Long Beautiful Hair - Tangled - Movie Review" and related posts (tapeworthy.blogspot.com)

Congratulation to Mr & Mrs Cai

Well, this is kind of late in posting, but wish Leonard and Kristin all the best in their next stage of life.

Kung Fu Wing Chun

Synopsis: There are many schools of Chinese martial arts and their history date back to decades, if not centuries. Among the different sects, Wing Chun is one of the most popular and widely practiced. "Kung Fu Wing Chun" tells the story of origin and development of Wing Chun. It stars Bai Jing (upcoming China Kung Fu actress) as Yim Wing Chun - the founder of 'Wing Chun', Kara Hui as Yim's Kung Fu Master and Yu Shaoqun as Yim's husband. [Source: Yahoo! Singapore Movies]

With not much advertising done for this film, I thought this was some low budget movie out to grab some quick bucks from the recent Wing Chun sensation. However, I was proved wrong as it turns out that the whole show itself was rather funny and refreshing. Differentiating itself from the usual Wing Chun hero that is serious and tough, the director decided to cast the main lead this time as a tomboyish and humorous heroine. Watch her as she battle for righteous and love, and brings the audiences through her life story in the 110 minutes show. The only flaw I could find was in her 2 best friends final death scene. They are blabbering some conversation that was rather awkward and doesn't really fit into the picture before dropping dead at the same time. In summary, a worthwhile movie to watch for the weekend.

Rate: 7.5/10

Megamind

Synopsis: Megamind is the most brilliant supervillain the world has ever known - and also the least successful! Over the years, he has tried to conquer Metro City in every imaginable way. Each attempt, a colossal failure thanks to the caped superhero known as Metro Man, an invincible hero until the day Megamind actually kills him in the throes of one of his botched evil plans. Suddenly, Megamind has no purpose. A supervillain without a superhero. He realises that achieving his life's ambition is the worst thing that ever happened to him. [Source: Yahoo! Singapore Movies]

An interesting twist from the norm, where the supervillain killed the superhero at the start, and it sets you wondering, what's next? The movie put the audiences through the emotional struggles and thoughts of the supervillian as he tried to get on in life without his arch enemy. Sure, he might have his way now, but after a while, it kinds of bore him as there is no one to challenge him. Isn't our life the same? Doing routine work everyday is kind of boring, but if we are to meet chellenges and beat them at it, it keeps us going on and satisfied! An average movie to watch to pass time if you have nothing else to do. Be entertained by the supervillian (often botched plans) as he tried to find a purpose in his life.

Rate: 6.5/10

Related articles

• Megamind answers the question, "What if Lex Luthor won?" [MovieReview] (io9.com)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Synopsis: The final chapter of the "Harry Potter" saga comes to the screen in this feature adaptation of the popular novel by children's fantasy author J.K. Rowling, with series veterans Steve Kloves and David Yates writing and directing, respectively. The "Deathly Hallows" will be split up into two films, with Part 2 set for release in 2011.

Personally, I don't like films to split into 2 parts. Why do they like to keep the audience heart hanging and torment them for 6 more months before the whole episode is finally complete? Overall, I feel the film length is a bit too long. Although all the casts have ample time for their own character developments, this is done so at the expense of fierce fighting scenes. Part 1 of the movie was not as action packed as I would like it to, and worse of all, it ended at a scene where the big evil obtain the all mighty elder wand. My advise to you is to wait for 6 more months, and watch the whole movie at one shot. I guarantee that the movie companies will release a movie marathon package. =p

Rate: 7/10

Related articles

• 'Harry Potter' countdown: Steve Kloves speaks (herocomplex.latimes.com)
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5th Year Anniversary

Time Flies, it is kind of hard to imagine that I managed to keep this little blog alive for the past 5 year. When I am schooling and I have the time, posting and updating the blog was kind of easy. However, it is a different ball game once I stepped into the working society. Coming home late every day, metally drained, it is kind of challenging to still find the time to write and update on the daily activities. Many of my friend have already leave their blog for dead. No idea how many of you still visit my blog, but want to thank boss, who still comment from time to time on my tag board~ =)

New Year Resolution for 2011:

1. Keep the blog alive.
2. This is a repeat from last year as NUS has constantly rejected my application. Make it for a M.Sc
3. Go on a holiday every year.

Some Statistic:

Page Count: 39783 +4353

Year on Year increase: -1116 -21.13%

Bangkok Day 8

Bangkok Day 8: Home Sweet Home

*mds and I had an early flight to catch back to Singapore. Here were some of the last minute photos that I managed to take before we fly down south.

 Tango Vibrant - A hotel with cheap rates and nice decoration.

 Stop by a Jap restaurant at the airport for our breakfast.

 A shrine in the airport

And with this, it was the signal of the end of my holiday. Time to get back to reality, where tons of work are piling up for me!

Bangkok Day 7

Bangkok Day 7: Meeting Jang

*mds and I woke up quite early in the morning to take a taxi out to meet Jang at her office. Jang had just given birth a couple of months back, so much of her time was spent attending to her little one. Today was one of the rare day that she was free to meet us for a couple of hours.

Lunch was spent at a recreation center next to the sea, where they had a nice view of the Gulf of Thailand, with sea gulls flying close by searching for fishes. This kind of reminded me the days back in Cedar Point.

 The entrance to the recreation center

 Tom Yum Gung, Fried Rice and Crabs for lunch - Yummy!!

 Me & Jang

 Front Decoration of the Restaurant

Long bridge to the restaurant, with sea breeze blowing on both sides

Time flies and soon, it was time to bid farewell to Jang. We had a great time catching up with one another. *mds and I had to return to our hotel to sleep early as we had an early morning flight to catch back to Singapore. =( Fun times always seems to pass by quickly.

Bangkok Day 6

Bangkok Day 6: Back to shopping

Having visited Platinum mall, Central World and Union mall, today was the time to conquer MBK. The weather was very nice to us, bright and sunny with not a cloud in sight! The MBK was a mix of normal retail shops seen in the Singapore malls and the small stores in Bugis street. You may find luxury foreign fashion brands such as A&F, Polo Ralph Lauren, Aeropostale and even Old Navy sold here. The clothes look really authentic. I think they might be the rejected goods from the factories, sold at highly discounted prices.

One interesting observation was discovered at their food court. Instead of the hawkers handling real cash, they used coupons instead. Maybe Singapore can adopt this idea to increase the hygiene level of our food industry? =p

MBK Center (Mahboonkrong)

Having done a whole day of shopping, we returned to our hotel dead tired and ate dinner at a seafood stall beside it before retiring for the night. For tomorrow, we will be meeting up with Jang, our last Thai friend whom we have yet to meet.

Bangkok Day 5

Day 5: A reunion of Cedar Point friends.

*mds and I woke up to a bright and sunny morning to meet Eve and her mom, who will be bringing us away from Bangkok to visit a floating market in the next province. The whole journey took around an hour of car ride, and it sort of remind me the days back in the USA, where travelling from one place to another was typically by car, lasting at least half an hour long. The floating market we were visiting was called Damnersaduak, one of the tourist attraction of Thailand. Luckily for us, there was not many tourists buzzing around the place by the time we reached the destination at noon.

We experienced vehicle traffic jams in Bangkok, now it is time for boat jam in the canal

Selling food by the river

Elephant, the icon of Thailand

Captured in time

Shopping by the river, anyone?

Busy Floating Market

The shops in the floating market closed quite early for that day. We were not very sure why, but by 2pm, most of the shops shutters were down. With some more time to kill before dinner, Eve and her mom decided to bring us to an out-of-the-way place to see another side of Bangkok. After navigating through a lot of side roads and small alleys, we arrived at some sort of a floating hut.

The hut was one of the drop off point for the Thailand traditional long tail boat, which were now ferrying tourists up and down the river, visiting shops that were set up along the river bank. Can you imagine beneath this calm water surface, it is actually swarming with fishes? By "swarms", I really mean it. Don't get what I mean? Trying throwing in some fish food and you will understand why.



Shops along the river bank

An old temple relic

Life along the river

After visiting the shops along the river, it was time to meet Ong for dinner. He drove us to a nearby Japanese Restaurant to have our meals and we spent time updating each other since we last left Cedar Point.

Thailand version of desert

Bangkok Day 4

Day 4 morning was spent moving our luggage from our friend's dad condominium to our hotel - Tango Vibrant Living Place, which was located just directly opposite Bayoke Sky Tower 2. On the way, I managed to snap some street photos of Bangkok from the taxi ride.

 The street just outside our hotel - 11 Soi Wattanawong. The tall building in front is Bayoke Sky Tower 2.

 A night shoot of our hotel

 A view of our room toilet

 And the nice room. All these for SGD$50/night

After settling into our hotel, it was time to meet our Thai friend - Pair, whom we met in USA while working in Cedar Point. *mds and I had arranged to meet her at BTS Mo-Chit, and after that, we were going to visit the local weekend market, Chatuchak (the local called it Jatujak or JJ market).

 A taste of Bangkok challenging traffic, where it is common to get stuck inside for 10-15 mins

 Pad Thai again for lunch in Chatuchak Market

 A view of Chatuchak stalls

Chatuchak Market really lives up to its name. Thousands of stalls are jammed pack inside it in Bugis Street style, so it is definitely a paradise for shoppers. The things on sale here are relatively cheap, and it is quite impossible to finish touring (or window-browsing) it in 1 day. As it is an open market, if the weather is accommodating, you will be fine shopping between the shops. But if it is a hot and sunny day, it can quite stuffy there by noon time.

By evening time, *mds and I had enough of Chatuchak, so we decided to shift location and gave a visit to Union Mall, which is located nearby.

I guess it is a culture/tradition of Thailand. For every shopping center that we had visited, there will always be a shrine like the photo above for people to pray to. I guess it is for the safety of the people and the shopping center? *mds and I ended the night bidding farewell to Pair at Union Mall, before we caught a taxi back to our hotel to rest.