Monday’s evening at Gardens by the Bay to check out the Mid-Autumn Festival light-up.

It’s Monday, start of another typical five-day work week again. I’m curing my Monday blues today by finding things to do for the evening after work. Besides having dinner with a friend, we decided to go check out the annual light-up event at Gardens by the Bay in conjunction with the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival (with the theme being ‘Garden of Blooms’). This year’s Mid-Autumn Festival falls on 29th September 2023.

Besides than featuring many bright and colourful lantern displays scattered across the picturesque Gardens by the Bay (most displays are at the Supertree Groove), this year’s event also includes food street, carnival rides, cultural performances, cultural programmes and workshops. The daily Garden Rhapsody light and music show at the Supertree Groove also had moon-themed soundtracks only for this particular month in conjunction with the festival. I watched the show as well which lasted a little over 10 minutes.

Here are some of the photos I took of the lantern displays. They are gorgeous, isn’t it?

Although it’s Monday evening, but there were still a lot of people here tonight to visit Gardens by the Bay and check out the light displays like us surprisingly. It must be super crowded here during weekends then. We also noticed a lot more ang-moh (white people) tonight (and lately too). I felt like I was in US or Europe just now. I believe they are most likely here for the past F1 weekend and decided to stay longer to explore Singapore.

We spent about two hours walking around the area before calling it a day. It was very warm and humid this evening though (and there’s no wind at all) and it’s working day tomorrow hence we don’t plan to stay longer there. At least today it was an interesting end to another typical busy day at the office after checking out these wonderful lantern displays. No matter what, with or without event, Gardens by the Bay remains one of my favourite places in Singapore for a leisurely walk or a bicycle ride. A place full of memories on top of great views.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! Mooncakes…my favourite.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival (or Mooncake Festival or Lantern Festival or whatever you called it) to all my Chinese families, relatives, friends, neighbours, colleagues, or whoever out there reading this and do celebrate it! The festival which falls on the 15th day of the 8th month on Chinese lunar calendar is one of the most important festivals in Chinese tradition. It is even made a public holiday in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. But why not in Malaysia too? Hmmm….we felt sad of not getting a holiday for this major festival.

Anyway, forget about holiday and let’s put our focus on the positive meaning behind this celebration. This Mid-Autumn Festival is meant for whole family to gather together under the bright full moon, and is emphasizing on three fundamental concepts; gathering (family and friends), thanksgiving (give thanks for the harvest or for harmonious unions), and praying (moon worshipping in hope for conceptual or material satisfaction). Let’s make it simple; it’s all about family harmony. So, please do stay with the family today (it’s convenient since it’s Sunday and everybody is not going to work or school) and enjoy dinner and chats with mooncakes tonight. Kids can have fun and play lanterns and candles tonight.

Leave your tablets or smartphones away and indulge in the true meaning behind this wonderful festival. Have a try on delicious mooncakes, a bakery product which is specially made for this celebration. Now, there is a lot of variety to the flavours of mooncakes available for sale from many different brands here in Malaysia (Kam Lun Tai, Tai Thong, Overseas, Baker’s Cottage, etc). I love mooncakes, and since I can only eat them for only a short period of time in a year, I would be willing to buy many of them. Recently, not only I do bought two boxes of mooncakes from Tai Thong that cost me over RM100 (even after discounts) and additional two boxes of jelly mooncakes (another RM64 spent), but I also sometimes bought some mooncakes from a hawker stall that I frequently visited to buy my breakfasts in weekdays.

Mooncakes taste good and I especially like the original ones (lotus paste with yolk). I also enjoyed the snow-skin and the durian-flavoured ones. But buying many of them is very costly now. My wallet hurts. If I’m not buying them, my home would be empty without any mooncakes to taste (all my other family members didn’t really quite like mooncakes), and that would make the festival ’empty’ and ‘meaningless’ to my family. Anyway, I really ate quite a lot of mooncakes this year, since my generous colleagues were offering mooncakes in the office many times recently. I’m not tired of it (just like how I’m not tired of eating my favourite durian…haha).

Anyway, Happy Mid-Autumn Festival once again!

(Images in this post are from various sources throughout the world wide web)

Avengers’ wave came again.

For Malaysians who like Avengers, kindly proceed to visit Mid Valley Megamall right now. I’m sure you will be excited and satisfied once you are there. Why? Because, currently, there is an exhibition going on at the Centre Court themed on the Marvel superheroes that formed the famous group called The Avengers. It is that famous because of the first film of The Avengers trilogy released three years ago that went on to collect over 1.5 billion dollar to become the world’s third highest grossing film.

Now, why these popular superheroes are back? That’s because its sequel (the second in a planned trilogy for the successful film franchise) titled Avengers: Age of Ultron will be released to the worldwide theatres end of this month. Wow…wow…wow…We have been waiting three years for it, and it finally arrived. I’m sure you are as excited as me right now. And let me tell you; I bought the tickets for one of its first few days of release over a month ago, just to get a good seat, to avoid GST charge, and to at least fulfill part of my wish to watch it as soon as possible.

Early critics’ response have came in, and most already praised this sequel for being darker, having more complicated story, and more actions. Wow…that makes us to look forward to it further. After this Age of Ultron, the last in the trilogy would be the Infinity Wars and will be separated into two parts (following the current trend of splitting final chapter into two movies). But for that one, the epic conclusion, we will have to wait few more years. Let’s come back to this Avengers: Age of Ultron. Have you watched its trailers? It looks very good and promising.

Back to the exhibition of Marvel’s Avengers in Mid Valley, the displays are amazing. Here are some shots that I took this week over there if you can’t make it personally to the place. You will see toy figures of Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Loki, Hulk, Hawkeye, Agent Romanoff, Nick Fury, etc (with their weapons and accessories). Those famous names in Marvel’s comics. But I think the exhibition should also highlight Ultron, the villain of this coming film. Without him, the film wouldn’t exist. How about other new supporting characters too like Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Falcon, etc? I didn’t see them in the displays, or maybe I am not concentrating enough.

Now, people are already forecasting how much this sequel can gain in global box office? It has a big chance to beat the first Avengers for the biggest opening record, but many said that it would not gross more than the first one in final total (1.5 billion). But it will almost certainly earn over 1 billion still. Avengers: Age of Ultron will be out in Malaysian cinemas on 23rd April 2015 onwards. We are even few days ahead to the day of release in United States.

(Copyrights reserved to all images in this post)

 

 

Ice bucket challenge everywhere!

What’s more trendy now than the superbly popular Ice Bucket Challenge? If you didn’t know about this thing, then I guess you must be someone fully disconnected to the outside world. Also known as ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, it is an activity involving dumping a bucket of ice water on someone’s head to promote awareness of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and encourage donations to research. The challenge dares nominated participants to be filmed having a bucket of ice water poured on their heads and challenging others to do the same. A common stipulation is that nominated people have 24 hours to comply or forfeit by way of a charitable financial donation.

The challenge went viral through social media and had since became a pop culture phenomenon from mid-2014. Many celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs and even politicians across the world participated into the event. They include Ben Affleck, Jessica Alba, Jack Black, Tom Cruise, Leonardo di Caprio, Vin Diesel, Robert Downey Jr., James Franco, Tom Hiddleston, Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Steven Spielberg, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, etc.  A lot more. Asian celebrities whom also took part were Andy Lau, Jay Chou, Nicholas Tse, Joey Yung, Nick Cheung, etc.

Recently, I see countless of Facebook posts sharing how the celebrities or even some of my Facebook friends performing the challenge themselves after being nominated. The objective to create awareness for the ALS disease is good. It is for good cause. However, I find that the way of doing it isn’t quite right. For me, it is a waste of water. Furthermore, if you are genuinely helpful to donate to a charity, you don’t need to tell everyone that you are doing so. And I believe some of the participants only took up the challenge just for fun, and also to show to everyone that they are ‘updated’ to the trend, without donating anything to the ALS Foundation. That’s just not right. And I guess many didn’t even know what ALS is.

Due to its unbelievable popularity across the world now, the Ice Bucket Challenge also received a lot of criticisms with some celebrities informing that they will not perform the act eventhough they had been nominated by others. The reasons; similar to what I have said just now. Besides that, there is a source claiming that most of the donations given to ALS Foundation didn’t go directly for research or other much needed categories that require more attention and funding. Instead, most of the money goes to somewhere else or even for somebody’s pockets. There is still no truth to this claim but yea…you can actually donate to many other charitable foundations too…to the one you trust the most, and not necessarily the one that got the most attention now. Like me…I would not do this Ice Bucket Challenge, but I would still donate to charity.

(Images in this post are from various sources throughout the world wide web)

Movies’ box office analysis this year up to July 2014

‘Frozen’ was last year’s highest grossing film, and is currently fifth highest grossing film of all time and also the highest grossing animated film ever, defeating ‘Toy Story 3’. Its box office intake of over US$ 1.2 billion was a huge surprise to me. At first, I never thought that this animated film would become such a hit. That was last year’s story. Now, I will let you have a guess of which film this year so far has the potential to climb to the top of the ladder on the box office table and stays on its solid No.1 position till the end of the year? I believed many would have guessed this right…it’s easy. The answer is…

‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’. This latest fourth installment of the popular ‘Transformers’ movie franchise has now grossed over 966 million after just a month of being released. In just a month, this movie is nearing US$ 1 billion milestone already. Incredible achievement. Despite receiving poorer reviews from critics compared to the previous films, but this one never slows down on its box office intake. It has now easily overwhelmed the other films released this year. By the end of its theatrical release, my prediction is that this film will cross over US$ 1.2 billion, a figure slightly higher than its predecessor, ‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon’ which took in US$ 1.12 billion back in 2011.

I also has no doubt that this film will be the highest grossing film of the year. Other potential film to be released on the second half of the year that could pose a bit of a danger to this (but it’s quite unlikely) is the final chapter of ‘The Hobbit’ trilogy, ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’. This one is expected to gain over US$ 1 billion in box office too.

Up till now, the ten highest grossing films of the year are:

1. Transformers: Age of Extinction – US$ 967 million (Expected to cross over US$ 1.2 billion in final grossing)

2. X-Men: Days of Future Past – US$ 739 million (Expected to cross over US$ 750 million in final grossing)

3. Maleficent – US$ 715 million (Expected to cross over US$ 730 million in final grossing)

4. Captain America: The Winter Soldier – US$ 713 million.

5. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 – US$ 706 million.

6. Godzilla – US$ 498 million (Expected to cross over US$ 510 million in final grossing)

7. Rio 2 – US$ 490 million (Expected to cross over US$ 500 million in final grossing)

8. The Lego Movie – US$ 467 million.

9. How To Train Your Dragon 2 – US$ 424 million (Expected to cross over US$ 440 million in final grossing)

10. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – US$ 364 million (Just released. Expected to cross over US$ 500 million in final grossing)

Interesting facts from the above list which will change from time to time:

– 5 films this year grossed over US$ 700 million respectively. This is a very good result for box office this year.

– Out of the top 5 highest grossing films of the year so far, three are superhero movies.

– Animated films also performed fairly good this year, but still lacks behind those superhero movies. Three are on the list as of current.

– One surprising entry to this list is ‘Maleficent’. Many predicted it would ends with perhaps US$ 500 million in grossing only. But now, it is slowly climbing up and sits in the top three with over US$ 700 million figure, thanks to the Disney’s regaining popularity in recent years and also the overwhelming star power of the main lead of the film, Angelina Jolie.

– Other potential films to be released by the second half of the year which will climb to this top 10 position are ‘The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies’ (95% probability), ‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay-Part 1’ (95% probability), ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy’ (70% probability), and ‘Night At The Museum: Secret Of The Tomb’ (55% probability).

– It’s very likely that all ten highest grossing films of the year will have a box office intake of at least US$ 500 million respectively by end of each film’s theatrical run.

That’s my box office analysis so far. I have watched all the ten movies in that list. Cool…This year is cool with many great movies!

(Images in this post are from various sources throughout the world wide web)

Mid-Autumn Festival is great with mooncakes!

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to all Chinese (to myself and my family too) celebrating it! Yes, today is the 15th day of the 8th month based on Chinese lunar calendar. Well, this festival has a lot of other names too such as Mooncake Festival or Lantern Festival or whatever you call it. This is one of the major festivals in Chinese culture and tradition in case you didn’t know. But it’s just another usual working Thursday in Malaysia, where festivals like this are seen minor and not emphasized. Anyway, this festival still stays strong in our roots and hearts. (Image below from source: T. Chua, 2011, and edited)

I hope young children are having fun playing candles and lanterns these few nights. I recalled those happy moments I had when I was a child lighting up candles, and from there, creates interesting pattern or pile it up together for a slightly bigger flame, and then putting papers and leaves to burn together too. And my parents will usually came out of the house at this point of time to stop us from doing so. My sisters and my neighbours would sometime joined the fun too. Lanterns (in my childhood years, there are only traditional folded paper lanterns and animal-shaped plastic lanterns) were hung by the side of a wall with help of wood sticks. Really beautiful. I hope young children now still stick to this tradition, but I believe now the more popular choice of lanterns are the electronic ones.

Last Sunday, my relatives had organized a dinner gathering accompanied with a bit of rituals worshipping the Moon. I didn’t play any of the candles or the lanterns (I’m an adult now) but I do enjoyed watching all my little cousins and nephews playing and having fun. Looking from that, I find myself getting old soon. Haha… In the gathering, out of a sudden, a lantern dropped off and caught fire. It spreads so quick to the nearby plastic bags. Within a second, we freaked out but after a short while, it was distinguished by a slipper. Not my slipper. Hence, an advice to all especially kids; be careful no matter what when playing with fire.

I love mooncakes, the hallmark of this festival. But mooncakes now are getting so expensive and so I observed lesser people are buying in recent years. The price is very unreasonable. But this is the first time I bought a box of mooncakes with my own money to treat my family. Actually, I am the one who eat the most. Mooncakes nowadays also came in variety of flavours by mixing fruits, cheese, coffees, nuts, or whatever possible. But in the end, I still prefer the original flavour (lotus seed with egg yolk and also the snowy skin ones). My eldest sister is good on making own jelly mooncakes and I like that too.

Last but not least, I would like to take this opportunity to wish every Chinese a Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! May you celebrate this day joyfully and harmoniously.

 

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! Time for mooncakes!

It’s the time of the year again when the Chinese celebrates Mid-Autumn Festival on the 15th day of the eighth month in lunar calendar when full moon is observed. This year, the festival falls on this day, 30th September 2012 and it’s a Sunday which gives no excuse not to have this day with family particularly. What’s usually emphasized by Chinese families especially on ‘big’ day like this is the family gathering and dinner together. So, there should be no reason not to allocate little of your time for it unless you are far away from your family. Have a great time with your loved ones!

This Mid-Autumn Festival, or famously known as Chinese Moon Festival, Mooncake Festival and Lantern Festival is considered to be one of the very important festivals in Chinese tradition. Of course, the festival is closely related to eating mooncakes and playing with lanterns and candles particularly to the young kids which can be quite fun too. I remembered those time when I was a kid playing those with my neighbours in front of my house. Too bad, I couldn’t buy many lanterns to hang around as my parents see it as a waste of money, if not, the atmosphere would be very cool with many bright lanterns surrounding you. Such a nostalgic feeling.

For mooncakes, I would never miss this delicacy which are only available for a month every year around this period of festival. In fact,  mooncake is my favourite, on which I prefer more on the snowy one which has to be kept in refrigerator. However, on this year, the sale of snowy mooncakes had been greatly reduced and it’s so hard now to find place selling that. But still, I have already had almost 3 full snowy mooncakes bought from Mid Valley in my stomach earlier already. Haha…Yummy. Couldn’t afford to buy any more as mooncakes are now getting much more expensive. In average, a mooncake now costs over RM12 (so a box of four usually exceeds RM50), and when you cut it into four pieces, one piece which can be finished in only a very few bites already costs RM3 alone. Not worthy to buy a lot. Price is a bit unreasonable.

In concern to that and the sudden desire of my eldest sister to try out on her own, she made jelly mooncakes for the first time this year and her works are quite successful. She made a lot, and we finished them very quick too, which means that her mooncakes are even qualified for sale which many others are doing now as well. But she made quite an effort on it, buying all the necessary stuff and ingredients, then spending a long time in the process. Thanks for her lovely jelly mooncakes, and now I’m actually craving for more of that. Haha….anyway, last but not least, I would like to wish every Chinese a Happy Mid-Autumn Festival for the year 2012!!!

 

(Image source: http://www.chinatravel.com/focus/mid-autumn-festival/cards/card-4.html)

Went to Mid Valley today to check out the Mickey Mouse exhibit and PC Fair

Today I accompanied my eldest sister and her two sons to Mid Valley Megamall to check out the Mickey Mouse exhibit and the PC Fair.My second sister suggested this and came along to fetch us. It’s super serious traffic congestion on road leading to the mall. Many planned to go to the mall today. Yesterday onwards, I started seeing people sharing images showing some Mickey Mouse exhibits displayed in the centre court of Mid Valley Megamall. It’s now the beginning of mid-year break of two weeks for kids, and the mall took this opportunity to have this Mickey Mouse collections on display to attract more visitors especially for kids enjoying their holiday. So the kids love that, and the adults love that too.

It’s also a very good idea of bringing back the icon of Mickey Mouse to this day when other cartoon characters like Angry Birds are more popular nowadays. No matter how long it is, Mickey Mouse still stays on a place in everyone’s heart. And yes, the collections’ display is very successful on attracting large number of spectators, even on this day alone when I visit the mall. Most of the people were assembled all around the centre court to view each and every display, ranging from small-sized ones placed in boxes to huge version of Mickey in the center that rotates on its own.  Many were seen taking pictures, and I’m one of them. It’s just very hard not to take out my phone to take a picture or two…and I took more than ten in the crowd. But I would just post five pictures here. Check out all these yourself when you are free.

Some displays really look very interesting, while some are not that good. Well, there are a lot of different type of appearance given to Mickey, thanks to creative design applied to this familiar icon from costumes, colours, make-up, etc. We couldn’t stand longer in that area as the crowd was really huge. Everyone is busy viewing the display, and getting ready for pictures. I think I would suffocate if I don’t leave after taking some quick photographs. It’s really a lot of people. There are also kiosks nearby selling Mickey-featured items which are suitable for kids, and so my eldest sister bought some at a very low price for her sons, my two cute nephews.

Then we had dinner in Nando’s Restaurant in which I have not been to for a very long time already. What’s disappointing is that the chicken served was too small, and we were seriously not satisfied with the amount served,…and yet the price is that expensive. Before we leave, we proceed to the PC Fair on the highest floor. Another area with huge number of people. And this time, there are a lot of promoters surrounding you and keep promoting their stuff until I find it very annoying sometimes. I know that they just do their job but I couldn’t stand being disturbed all the way…and I have to say that I had no interest to stop the interruption despite having intention to check out about it.

All the things are sold in much cheaper and affordable prices. It’s very happening there, until to the point that I can say it’s like a war zone. We went in for a round just for a while as we hate this kind of crowded situation. In the end, me and my second sister bought one USB flash drive of 8GB respectively in a very low price. And it’s waterproof. I like the design of pen drives nowadays; it looks slim, cool and fabulous. I can still remember that last time in many years ago when pen drives are not a usual stuff and is newly introduced, the cost of buying one with only 2GB is already very expensive. Now, it’s so cheap. Well, the highlight of the PC expo is the kiosk located at the main entrance selling Nokia Lumia, the latest gadget by Nokia. But people nowadays would still prefer Apple items more like Iphone or Ipad.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

Ahh,…three hours left before the festival is over! So, better hurry up on wishing….Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to all Chinese around the world, particularly to my friends in Malaysia! It can also be called as Mooncake Festival or Lantern Festival. Today is the day for it because it’s the 15th day of the 8th month based on Chinese lunar calendar.

It’s holiday! But only for the Chinese schools, not for national schools or even university…too bad…I have to continue the day, back to campus on a new week and start the week with design again. It’s very much like a normal day here in Malaysia. The only thing different is that there would be full moon, and that we could have mooncakes, while for the children, they can play lanterns.

Talking back on lanterns, I wonder how many years I have not playing that already? I could hardly remember. When I was a kid, I like to play lanterns, and all those candles. But, I don’t play candles in normal way, I make things out from the candles, especially like creating huge fire from a bunch of lighted candles. That is cool, and we can burn something from it. I also like to decorate place around me with lanterns last time, making sure the candle inside each lanterns is not extinguished. The atmosphere created is very nice and beautiful.

All that was past, way back almost ten years ago when I was still a young innocent kid, playing with my sisters, or even with my neighbours. Now, I might find it childish but that is a very joyful experience as a kid and I’m glad I had experienced that before. Even now, there are not many kids playing lanterns or candles anymore at this generation as all they are attracted to now are those high-tech devices like I Pad or I Phone. Where has the old tradition of playing lanterns or candles gone? Not much seen lately on kids nowadays…

Anyway, Happy Mid-Autumn Festival again! Enjoy your mooncakes eventhough the price is very expensive, and enjoy the night (you must have spend your day for work or school like usual days) with your family, accompanied by the beautiful full moon! Now, I can’t even see the full moon from window at my sister’s house at 19th floor. Where are you? Talking about moon, it reminds me of a song played just now when I’m driving back home called ‘The Moon Represents My Heart’, an iconic classic Mandarin song by Teresa Teng. That is a very smooth and nice song, and it’s good to hear it on radio station.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

There are many names for this Chinese festival!

Mid-Autumn Festival, Mooncake Festival, Lantern Festival or even Full Moon Festival!

However, everyone would be celebrating it in the same way…

For children, they gathered, they played; fireworks, lanterns, candles and eating mooncakes.

For adults, they gathered, they worshipped, they chat, they eat mooncakes, they witness their children playing candles and lanterns.

    

However, this kind of annual tradition is getting much lesser, usually ignored, even including my family and I. Recently very busy with my assignment, but since this day is so important in Chinese calendar, hence I must find some time to update my blog here to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival together with the readers, coincides with the header of this blog for the month. This day reminds me of my childhood memories of playing together with my relatives at night! Really wish to get back to that moment, childish but I like it!

After the work that had just ended at around 5am midnight, we saw the lovely full moon, representing the festival very well, even without lanterns, candles or mooncakes!