Amazing April

My favourite month is coming to an end, and April will always have a special place in my heart because of the memories in this month annually. This year is no different. Despite still nursing a chronic cough, I still went out to enjoy myself. Be it eating, shopping, watching movies, playing board games, exercising, watching F1, watching soccer, as well as planning my overseas trip.

Let's start with the food!

High Tea Buffet @ Marina Mandarin Atrium Lounge

High Tea Buffet @ Marina Mandarin Atrium Lounge - Desserts!

That's my post FYP treat for myself. Even with the credit card promotion, the price was about SGD 25++ per person. The mains were quite good, and some of the cakes and desserts were amazing! Still, I feel it's those places where one visit is enough and will definitely rule out visits in the near future.

Korean BBQ

Korean BBQ

I know it sounds unconvincing, but I'm generally not a fan of buffets. Haha. Look at the amount of food for 2 people!! I had fun "playing" with the prawns though. My last similar experience was years ago in either Seoul Garden or Marina South, and it was glad to re-live this "cook yourself" experience again. I particularly liked their Korean Citron Tea.

Nothing special about this one. This is my "last" meal at NUS. The mixed combo at Megabites @ FOS.

Guess where is taken at? It's Sakae Sushi. (I know, yet another buffet!) They have recently upgraded their buffet, which included a free flow supply of sashimi and other red plates. The plates are more beautiful and fancy as well. But that all translates to a higher pricing as well. For a Friday lunch, it's SGD 32.90++. *gasp* Still, I counted the cost of the plates and we exceeded the final price we paid, so it's all good. The salmon sashimi I ate that day is probably more than what I have eaten in my past 24 years.

Meatballs @ Cafe Cartel

Apple Crumble with Vanilla Ice-cream @ Cafe Cartel

Took advantage of the 50% off side dishes and desserts after 2100h at Cafe Cartel. Realized the meatballs are really, really good!!! Will definitely eat it again!

Chicken Hotpot @ NEX

This is something like a mini-steamboat. Decided to try something new, but it's actually quite pricey but the size of the serving. Not worth another visit. :(

Needlessly to say, that's my birthday cake bought by my mum. Tasted surprisingly good. :)

Salmon Cheese Baked Rice @ "some Japanese restaurant"

This is quite nice. Could be better with more salmon cubes. Haha.

Grilled Fish @ Astons

Sausages @ Astons

The sausages are tasty (especially the cheese-flavoured), but it gets a little 腻 after a while. Hahaha. Still, it's my first time trying the version at Astons.

Finally, I got to claim my free slice of birthday cake from Starbucks! :)

So that's my "nice" meals in this month of April. Do I look fat already? Haha.

Alright, shall keep the non-food stuff to another day.

P.S. The new blogger is getting on my nerves. Totally not used to their customization. Grr.

American Pie: Reunion

That's my 6th movie this year. This time, I was the receiving end of free movie tickets, thanks to YR.

It was only until after the movie, then I realized the American Pie was a drama series. Anyway, the movie is about these college friends going for a reunion party after 10 years of graduation. They bumped into ex-classmates, rekindled old flames, and found that everyone has been leading their own lives. Some were doing well in their lives, while others are holding humble jobs. Some were married with kids, while others were single and were looking for love.

I don't think I'm a conservative person, but personally, I felt the amount of nudity was a little overboard. Some "exposure" were really unnecessary, like seeing a guy's penis for a few seconds, and a woman's breasts for a whole ten minutes (approximately). Lots of coarse language and even much more sexual references. You have been warned.

Fortunately, the (only) good thing that came out of it was the amount of humour generated. It's probably one of the funnier movies I have watched in recent years, but most of the humour is derived from sexual references. Still, it's very funny. While I wouldn't hesitate to give full marks for humour, the movie fails in terms of storyline.

For those who aren't fans of the American Pie drama series, you could probably just watch 2 hours of 'Just For Laughs' for your daily dosage of laughter. Hehe.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

End Of School

No more movie reviews for the time being. Hehe!

Unlike the previous semesters, I haven't been keeping track of the weeks during the course of the semester. In my mind, I'm only aware of the various deadlines of my FYP thesis submission and presentation. Somehow, 13 weeks flew by and I have stumbled through my two core modules. I think my mind is already distracted from studying after since I completed my FYP. And it doesn't help when the content is so difficult (the lecturers aren't helping much) and I don't understand most of the stuff. Totally zero motivation these days. Right now, I will just gladly take a B for both modules and scrape through with a First Class. Yeah, I need a minimum of 2 Bs or equivalent.

To be honest, I haven't been going to school that often during my final year. So in a way, there was nothing to celebrate or be excited about the last lecture or last tutorial. I don't think I will miss (most of) the lectures, tutorials, or even the canteen food. I certainly won't miss the relatively long journey to school, especially since I don't take 45 minutes to an hour to travel to my workplace in the future.

Contrary to what most people say about university is all about getting a degree, I must say that I have learnt a lot in my course throughout the four years. Despite some occasional criticisms about the quality of the teaching, I think it's inevitable that a department will have good, as well as, bad lecturers.

Anyway, I'm left with 2 final exams in the coming weeks and I will try my best to find motivation (amidst all the celebrations of you-know-what :P) to learn the modules from scratch. Sounds like damage limitation, but that's the reality. After all, the midterm results and CAs have indicated that I'm struggling.

Hmm, that's all I have. Looking forward to the coming week! Presents presents presents! Speaking of presents, I have just splurged and bought a few presents for myself last Friday. LOL! :P

The Cabin In The Woods

I'm NOT a fan of horror movies. It's because I don't believe in paying money to scare myself and I'm not a brave person to begin with.

Anyway, I won the tickets from Radio 91.3 (4th time this year!) so I thought I should give it a try. After all, it's all about trying new experiences in the month of April. :)

Before the movie began, I found myself getting nervous already. And ten minutes into the movie, thoughts of regret flashed across my mind. Haha. Anyway, it's about 5 young adults going for a staycation over the weekend at the cabin in the woods. The cabin was not the usual cabin, as the characters soon found out when things started to get mysterious and creepy. They tried to escape the forest, but one by one, they were being hunted down.

In case you are wondering about the plain and predictable storyline, you are actually wrong. I have not mentioned a large part of the movie because there's a certain twist and it would spoil those who intend to watch. Towards the end, I must admit it became a little funny and not scary anymore.

For a relatively timid person, the level of horror in the movie was manageable. Certain parts were creepy and freaky, but the secret "comedy portion" allowed the viewers to catch a breather. However, the level of goriness is very high. Lots of blood, organs, heads, arms, etc. You get what I mean. Usually, I will just avoid looking at the screen for that couple of seconds if it's too gross. Oh, and I especially 'hate' it when the director makes harmless characters pop out right in the screen when you least expected it just to scare the viewers. Lol.

So I survived my FIRST horror movie!!! But I don't intend to go for another one anytime soon. Not my cup of tea (which explains the biased rating), because it makes me nervous, thinking about what is going to happen or what they are going to scare us with (so as to mentally prepare myself), throughout the movie.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Mirror Mirror

That's my 4th movie of the year. Once again, thanks to Radio 91.3.

'Mirror Mirror' reminds me of 'Red Riding Hood', a movie that I watched last year. It's similar in the sense that they used the characters and features of the fairytale, but changed the storyline and made it more mature.

In this movie, the main characters are Snow White, the seven dwarves and the evil queen. In short, the evil queen took over the kingdom and Snow White wanted to take it back because she believed she's the rightful leader. Together with the help of the seven dwarves, she ultimately succeeded of course. Haha, did I just spoil the story?

Hmm, not to worry, there's a couple of twists and turns towards the end. I got a fright when the poison apple came out, and I thought the audience got a minor scare too. Even though the storyline is pretty predictable and simple, the movie scores high points in the component of humour. Strictly speaking, it's not a comedy but you can't help but laugh every few minutes. At times, I couldn't resist but laughed out loud. It's really, really funny. Finally, I felt that Julia Roberts' act of the evil queen stole the limelight from relatively average performance by Lily Collins, who acted as Snow White.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars