Fish Avenue

Before Chinese New Year, I bought my first ever Percy Jackson book, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. Saw a lot of its movie posters while I was in Taiwan. I didn't know what story it was until I got my hands on the book. It's all about the Olympian gods and the demigods. I've always loved Greek and Roman mythology, how could I miss out the Olympus then? :) Thought I could finish the book before I watched the movie.

When I turned on the first page, I got gloomy. The story was written in first person, "I, Percy Jackson......" :( It's funny that I don't mind reading blogs that's written in first person, but I do not choose/buy books that's written that way. Why? I do not know. I just feel funny and weird to read books written in "I".

Since I've bought the book, I just had to finish it. It took a little getting used to, the next thing I know, I could hardly put that book down. No fancy and big words, it is so simple and easy to understand. Then I realised, ah, it was meant for the children, dumb me. Hahahaha. The story was good enough, love the edgy side of Percy Jackson.

Went to watch the movie then 2 days ago. First, I was a bit surprised to see the "bigger" version of Percy by Logan Lerman. Percy from the book was only 12, this one on the screen looks 16 (Logan is 18 this year). Of course, this is the movie, not wholly based on the book. Then things got worse, most parts of the story have been changed. Grover isn't the shy and timid Grover, Annabeth isn't the wise and calm Annabeth, and Percy has become pretty arrogant and self-centered in the movie. How sad......

Half way through the movie, I had to tell myself to stop comparing it with the book, enjoy the movie! Hahahaha. Yup, it was still a good movie despite the distorted story from the book. Andrew was wondering how Luke stole the lightning bolt and why Zeus would suspect Percy, the movie didn't explain it well. However, we still enjoyed the movie. Andrew even said "it was better than Harry Potter". LOL! He is never a HP fan. :)

If you want to watch Percy Jackson, better watch it before you read the book. It isn't good to have a "book" in your mind while watching the movie. If you have read the book, make sure you erase all the Percy Jackson shadows in your mind before you enter the cinema. :D

One thumb up to Percy Jackson the movie, and 2 thumbs up for the book.

I went to Kinokuniya wanted to buy the other 4 books of Percy Jackson series (there are 5 of them in total), which I've seen few weeks ago when I bought The Lightning Thief. Good grief, they're all out of stock! It's gonna take 2 to 3 months to replenish! Oh my, my, my...... Gotta try my luck in other bookstore. Sob, sob.

Now, let's see some Percy power! Yay!

At last, watched Legion last night with Andrew. Wanted to watch it long time ago, but was so busy after the trip. Fortunately it is still in cinema.

I was so looking forward to it. The trailer looked promising. I had faith that it was going to be a good movie. Especially when I saw all those angel's wings flying all over the screen. Andrew was also wow-ing at those gigantic black wings! LOL! We were full of faith, until last night. :(

The movie was okay, Paul Bettany looks cool. He never fails to impress the audiences with his unique look, bad or good guy, you're just gonna love him. But he was trying too hard to look charming in the movie, what a big spoiler. Lucas Black, again I found this man familiar, it was later only I found out he is the guy from The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. His acting sucks in Legion. The rest of the cast? Not worth to mention. Oh, there's another one, same old Dennis Quaid. LOL! Been seeing him in lots of movie lately.

The story was lousy though. There were a few parts where I almost fell asleep with their oh-so-intellectual conversations. I kept asking Andrew "why do they have to talk so much". I guess the director/script writer treat us as some kind of kids, they have to explain every little details to us. Funny is, they left one important thing unexplained. Why her? There must be so many single ladies got pregnant before marriage, why must it be her? Who's the father of the child? Is he special? I'm not sure if the director did it for some reason for not disclosing that. For the sequel? Perhaps. But no history on the pregnant lady, that just confused people. The armor that the Archangel Michael and Gabriel were wearing, in the movie, that was so gladiator-like! Geez...... And how funny it is when Michael referred to himself as a general of an army in the movie. *Faints* All of a sudden, the "heaven" has become some sort of invincible kingdom and the angels have become the warriors.

Andrew said, "the earth is like a playground to the God in the movie. He keeps the mankind alive when He's in the mood and just exterminates everybody when He thinks He has lost His faith. Haha." But he still thinks the movie is good. Hahaha. I just couldn't believe that God could lose His faith on human. Lost His patience, yes. But faith? And He couldn't do it and has to send a bunch of macho angels to be the assassins.

I am not a God believer, but I understand that if God ever exists, He would never lose His faith. If He could ever lose His faith on us, how are we going to have faith in Him again? Correct me if I'm wrong.

If you just want to get entertained by Paul Bettany's look, go ahead and enjoy yourself. If you're looking for some butt-kicking actions, be my guest. If you're looking for some intellectual inspirations from the movie, you may want to think twice.

I still love Paul Bettany with wings. LOL! Oh, and also his jacket in the movie! Ooooohhhhh......

If you know me well, you would know that my favorite Japanese Anime is none other than "Bleach".

Last week, I noticed that I have abandoned it for more than a year. I couldn't even remember where I stopped. Spent the whole of both Saturday and Sunday night to pick up the traces. Re-watched the last 25 episodes of where I stopped. Geez, I could barely remember that I've watched them before.

If you weren't a fan of Japanese anime, you wouldn't understand all the passion and time I spend on it. I've even bought 5 original DVDs before. Now they're with Andrew's brother for more than a year! He told me they're still in good condition, I wonder why he hasn't returned them to me yet. :( They're my PRECIOUS.

Facebook, MSN and TV have taken up too much of my time over the past one year. I have no one to blame but myself. I've chosen to skip my book-reading and other interests for Facebook! The influence of Facebook is that big, if you let it. I am now living most of my time in the virtual life of Facebook, which is something I do not feel proud of. My writing sucks, my creativity has gone dry, my knowledge stays where it was a year ago...... I keep telling myself I have no time but I do have the time for Facebook! Argh...... Now I feel frustrating.

I will now cut short on my Facebook-ing time, and hopefully get back to the real life before Facebook chews it away bit by bit. I shall now "bleach out" my time for my sweet old interests.

I do not want to post any more of Bleach videos here in my blog. You can get them on YouTube if you want.

It was more than 6 months ago when I booked the air tickets. January 2010 seemed to be a long time to wait back then. But look, I am back from the trip.

Almost everyone told me I was out of my mind to go for a 8-day trip. I was worried too, about the money and the time. Tickets booked, I had to go ahead. After I've done some search on the internet, I realised 8 days in Taiwan ain't long enough to cover most of the tourist spots. Enough for Taipei and hopefully some other places nearby Taipei. Went to MATTA fair once to look for some tour packages, we couldn't find what we wanted. Everyone then decided we go free & easy.

The process of drafting our very own itinerary wasn't easy. We hardly meet, all we could do was communicate through MSN. We have had countless headaches with the accommodation and where to visit. We compromised a lot to reach a mutual agreement, trying very hard not to make each other feel that they're at the losing end. Disagreement did happen, to find the middle ground is harder than you think. Luckily we managed it well. Sometimes with so many inputs, I got impatient and confused. I am grateful I have friends who are willing to spare their patience on me. That left me feeling even more guilty than ever.

I felt a tinge of triumph when I saw the itinerary was all done and finalised. Special thanks to Melissa and Wan Yi who spent most of their time browsing through all the oh-so-confusing websites/forums. :) Their "web hunting" skills are incomparable! LOL! I sometimes wonder how did they get all those websites where I couldn't even Google them out! Hehehe.

The itinerary wasn't a perfect one, but it was good enough. I guess we were too greedy to have so many places woven into it, we didn't have the time to visit all the places as planned! LOL! Part of the reason being we are all shopaholics!!! Can't believe we shopped and spent so much, both money and time on shopping! Hahahahaha!

Let's see...... We dropped Shida Night Market on the first night 'cause we were all so excited to check out Ximending first. Second night, we missed the Fishermen Wharf in Dan Shui 'cause it was already dark when we finished our shopping in Dan Shui Old Street! Gosh...... Didn't manage to soak ourselves wet in the hot spring too. Strike out Miniature Museum since we got advice from Wan Yi's cousin that it is a waste of time. :P On the 4th day, we missed Sun Yat Sen and Chiang Kai Sek Memorial Hall!!! Terrible! But we made an impromptu trip to Mr. J's French-Italian Restaurant and the Miramar Ferris Wheel. :)  Mel was sad that we didn't make it to Taiwan Storyland too. We spent 2 nights in Jiu Fen instead of 1 night! Sun Moon Lake plan sunk into the deep ocean. LOL! Jiu Fen is a beautiful place. We heeded the advice from the B&B owner to stay 1 more night to explore Jiu Fen. That we never regret. :) My only regret is we didn't make it to Yehliu Geopark. :(

Although we missed out those places, it didn't make this trip less pleasant. We all have had a great time. Traveling with a bunch of great "actors and actresses", I can guarantee you there will be no boring moment. We were laughing like mad people during the trip! Oh, not to forget, we ate a lot too! The weather and the walkings, made us hungry all the time.

Taiwan is truly a great tourism place. They make it so easy for the tourists to get around in the country. I can't help but think why can't Malaysia do that? Our public transportation here is a mess, the signboards here are a mess too. I imagined if I were a tourist in KL, I'd get frustrated with the transportation. Sigh......

I've fallen in love with Taiwan. She truly touched my heart. Will I migrate to Taiwan? I will if I could. I can't, I can't dump my responsibilities here. But I will definitely visit Taiwan again. Hopefully in the near future. :)

P. S. : I'll be posting my Taiwan trip itinerary slowly (please give me some time to compose). I have gotten all the information from the internet, now it's time to return the favor to those who need it. :) I was a lil' selfish in sharing it, until I realised "hey, you've gotten the information from the people who are willing to share, your itinerary isn't original like you think it is!" :) If you're willing to spend the effort, I am willing to share. Do watch this space for the Taiwan updates. :D