H&N November

You know the funny thing about my blog recently, I made a Christmas post before my November post...

BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! 

Anyway November was the most eventful month I have had in a while. I went to Glasgow for my convocation, spent 2 weeks at home alone doing social networking and finishing some Buddhist video work. That doesn't sound like much but compared to the idling in the past few months, that was hectic!!!

Barony Hall is so grand!!!

So I planned a week long trip to Glasgow for my graduation ceremony and stayed with my mentee. Words can't really describe my feeling of staying back at my old house, cooking at my old kitchen and walking around Glasgow reminiscing the year I spent there. I also got to wear a kilt for my ceremony. How cool was that? The temperature outside was around 5°C and the breeze was blowing in my unprotected groin area... WOW! The ceremony was very grand, the hall was filled with families and friends and I invited Zamir and Guo Hong to the ceremony as guests as well. They also helped to stand in as my photographers of the day and did a wonderful job.

Just a few days before the graduation ceremony was my birthday. I had a chat with my parents through Skype the previous day and spent my day as usual. It was around 11pm when Zamir told me a friend was looking for me in the kitchen. Then I walked to the kitchen and they pulled out two birthday cakes to surprise me. I really appreciate their effort to celebrate my birthday when I was away from Malaysia. Thank you guys!

Thank you Zamir, Kang Wee, Seng Yang and Guo Hong :D

On the day before the ceremony, I met Kumar along the street while collecting my kilt and he invited me to join his family on a day trip to Oban the day after the ceremony since I was free. The tour took us to Oban as well as Inveraray, Glencoe and Inverarnan. The weather was horrible for the first half of the day, even until we reached Oban for lunch. Then after a short drizzle, the mist that was ruining all the photos were cleared but we were already on our way back to Glasgow. Kumar's family were all very friendly and their company was definitely a highlight of the trip.

Just hours before I reached Malaysia, my parents left for their India pilgrimage tour for 13 days. Of course this was not the first time I was left at home alone but it was really fun to have total freedom for 3 weeks including the Glasgow trip. I was so bored that I satisfied my time with social networking and also went for GSC free movie with Ivan and Rizdwan, this time was Skyfall!!! That's probably why I dedicated 2 recent posts to James Bond.

I think that's it! Hope you enjoyed it... read it while you can until next Friday #endoftheworld

lalanandaFRY
17/12/12

Confessions of a Gameless Child

Ok! Gameless is actually not quite true in my case, so it should be

Confessions of a Game Console-less Child

When I was in my early primary school years, I was like every other kid in my school, not studying much and playing all the time. At that time I didn't know anything about video games, all I wanted to do everyday was to play finger games. Finger games are those we play one on one, some are more complex versions of rock paper scissors and some are special hand shakes. My favourite was called "Ji Gu Ba", a two hand combination of conventional rock paper scissors and 가위 바위 보 (kai-bai-bo), Korean rock paper scissors. *I just found that out recently*

Agumon from an old mathematics book

Then came my generation's video game age. I remember when I was 8-9 years old, my friends in school who had elder siblings would have played the PlayStation at home and were the cocky ones in school bragging about how Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil were the best game in the world. Another group of cocky kids were those who had either Tamagotchi or Digimon Digipets. Most of them brought those to tuition classes to play since they were not allowed to bring them to school. I always wanted to have one myself but my parents told me "how can you take care of a pet when you can't take care of yourself?". There was also a trend to shade old mathematics exercise book pages with 8-bit pixel Digimon shapes. So I was the kid who would be salivating when a bunch of friends discuss their newest games and levels.

This look like my old GBC!

The other phenomenal game that time was Pokémon, both the GameBoy games and the trading card games. Everyone was playing Pokémon cards around the early 2000s. When my parents bought me my first deck of Pokemon cards, I felt like I was back in the "trendy" world in class again, or at least not an outcast anymore.  Around that time, my aunt gave me a GameBoy Color for my birthday. I literally felt like a superstar that year thanks to Pokémon. The GameBoy came with just one cartridge which had 101 games, among them were Mickey Mouse: Magic Wands!, my favourite game at that time. My best friend Guan Huan introduced a game he said to be "the best game ever made", which was Pokémon Silver version. He lent his cartridge to me after he finished the game and I was hooked for hours.

During one Chinese New Year, my family visited my dad's cousin and for the first time in my life, I played my cousin's "old" PlayStation *PS2 was out already*. We played the original Gran Turismo while the adults chat. That was the time I understand why everyone was crazy about it. If I am not mistaken, I played that racing game with him for the whole afternoon and I was still not satisfied.

More than ten year later, I still have an underlying urge to play video games. A few months ago I was watching several videos by James Rolfe a.k.a. the Angry Video Game Nerd and Pat Contri a.k.a. Pat the NES Punk about classic games and I decided to download a Nintendo 64 emulator to play Goldeneye and Ocarina of Time. Before that I also downloaded an NDS emulator to play Megaman ZX Advent and Digimon World Dawn and Dusk. It is just like reliving my console-less childhood, bringing out the fun and excitement from those naive years of the past.

the best Zelda game ever!!!

Am I the only person who still plays vintage games on my pc?

Am I missing out on more modern games?

I still play my League of Legends when my internet is not at snail speed. But whenever nostalgic feeling kicks in, I will always open my Project64 for a spin on Starfox 64.

lalanandaFRY
16/12/12

H&N Christmas

What is the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to Christmas?

Santa Claus?

Christmas Tree?

Reindeers?

Caroling?

Baby Jesus?

Small eyed me dressed as Santa?

I am not a Christian, in fact I am one who thinks that Christmas is just one big fat lie by parents to keep kids disciplined, which somehow evolved to a multi-billion dollar idea to sell gifts and toys. But I am not totally against this colourful holiday, I like to see those bright decorations and I love Christmas food. I am not really a fan of stuffed turkey, but I love the cookies and candy. Besides, Christmas is a holiday where family and friends gather to have a big feast together, how can I dislike that?

Cookies from last year's early Christmas party in Glasgow.

The best thing that comes from Christmas to me are awesome movies. I am not referring to movies like Santa Claus, Home Alone or Grinch, my first impression of Christmas movies is John McClane. I heard they are coming with another Die Hard soon. But of course Die Hard 1 and 2 are the only ones with Christmas themes and are awesome as always. I had the chance to watch those two movies at a young age and even after watching them dozens of times, the ending scenes of both movies where the John and Holly reunite with Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow! by Vaughn Moore still puts a smile on my face every time.

Yippee Ki yay, mother@#$%er

oh ya! and Mr Bean!!! He is and will always be slapstick comedy god to me although he only had 15 episode of Mr Bean. Too little for a brilliant comedian like him. Where is Rowan Atkinson now? 

You know what is the perfect Christmas combination? No no, not nice gifts under a huge Christmas tree and beautiful decorated ornaments. I'd rather spend more effort on having a complete Christmas dinner with family and friends, munch on Christmas cookies while laughing at Merry Christmas Mr Bean episode, then after the kids go to sleep, start the Die Hard 1 and 2 marathon! Additional bonus if there is snow outside. *Sob sob sob...* I wish I am still in Glasgow now!

Snow can be so beautiful even near an ugly James Blyth Court.

On a side note, I just won 2 contests in a row recently. The first one was a second prize for The Big Bang Theory slogan contest by HyppTV and another was Nuffnang's Premiere Screening of Jack Reacher. Thank you HyppTV and Nuffnang!!! My parents kept saying that I somehow have luck with these competitions. My principle of joining competitions or doing anything for that matter is

"If you try, there is a chance.

If you don't try, it is impossible."

Now that I think about it, I also won tickets for Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol last year, also a Tom Cruise movie, what a coincidence! So if you are going for the Jack Reacher premiere screening, see you there!

50 and still going strong!

lalanandaFRY

13/12/12

London Solo Trip #11 Aftermath

I don't hate you bed, I just have insomnia.

I read the past 10 posts about my London trip and I found that it ended on a bad note. When I returned to Glasgow, I didn't actually feel that down and unhappy, all I thought about was getting a rest. So the moment I got back to my room, I jumped straight to bed for a well deserved sleep. The weird thing was that I suddenly felt energetic and after staring at the ceiling for more than 15 minutes, I might as well be making good use of my time by unloading and reviewing my photos from my tiny red camera. Then when I walked to he kitchen to get something to drink, I found my kitchen and living room filled with packs of food. It was a total mess, almost as if someone had a chaotic party without opening any food.

Forget to introduce you to my makeshift coffee maker, I will go into that later.

Hours passed as I edited my photos with no urge to sleep whatsoever. Then my craving for coffee came and as soon as I finished a full cup of coffee, I started yawning and went to bed within minutes. *Another proof that coffee makes me sleep for some reason* By the way, you know the bad thing about sleeping in the morning, someone can just enter your room to wake you, especially if that someone doesn't have the habit of knocking. Where was I? Oh right, Chern Fei suddenly bashed himself into my room and woke me from my wonderful dream to make me prepare coleslaw for a barbecue party in the afternoon that he "supposedly told me yesterday" although I was in London then.

To be fair, it was a great getaway from the stressful finals we had less than a week before.

Great! Now I know why there was a mess in the kitchen and why I am still tired but can't seem to sleep in peace. Everyone was at the kitchen when I got out to make the coleslaw. The party was not bad, especially since it was planned just 1 or 2 days ahead. Almost all of the food in our kitchen and living room was used up over the day long party... and yes, it was from lunch all the way till dinner time non-stop feasting. They even organized several games, one of which I was not allowed to join because they said I would win... lol! How could I win every movie charades?

Charades on the lawn!!!

The other was modified Chubby Bunny, with cherry tomatoes.

So how was that for an ending to a 4 days 3 nights London Solo Trip? It took my mind off all the horrible memories of the previous day immediately. So now that I think about my whole trip, I have to say that it wasn't the best trip I have had, however I have gained more confidence in arranging an itinerary to be more flexible and less prone to mishaps like this one. My mom asked me a while ago whether I regretted travelling to and from London by bus, I answered very honestly "Yes". But it was an experience well worth the hardship, an experience of a lifetime I would probably never ever want to try again.

lalanandaFRY
12/12/12

The Place for Bond-ing

As a Bond fan, I have been trying to incorporate Bond elements into my travels. While looking through my old photos, I found one in particular from long ago, when I was 3 years old.

My dad carrying me in Phuket.

That was probably the first time I ever visited a Bond location in my life. The photo was taken from Khao Phing Kan a.k.a. James Bond Island looking at Ko Tapu, the nail shaped island behind. We were touring Phuket, Thailand and this was one of the most popular destinations there. This was the location to 1974's The Man With The Golden Gun. In the movie, James Bond (Roger Moore) was challenged by the villain Francisco Scaramanga a.k.a. the man with the golden gun (Christopher Lee) to a gun duel at his secret island base. On the island, Scaramanga was accompanied by his little butler, Nick Nack (Hervé Villechaize) and one other unnamed henchman.

Notice Ko Tapu island behind them.

One film location that Bond movies use often is Venice, Italy. As early as 1963, From Russia With Love showed Bond in his first boat chase and romantic finale scenes filmed around those scenic islands. Then in 1979, Bond got an upgraded hover gondola for another fast paced chase scene in Moonraker. The 2006 Bond reboot Casino Royale shot a long romantic scene between the two leads as well as an action scene set in a sinking building along the Venetian Canal.

Bond (Roger Moore) in his hover gondola at Piazza San Marco.

Bond (Daniel Craig) driving a sail yacht near Rialto Bridge

When I was in London, I also took the effort to visit the SIS headquarters a.k.a. MI6 and Somerset House, which was set for both St Petersburg Square in Goldeneye (1995) and MI6 war office in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997).

Q (Judi Dench) looking at MI6 Building exploding as seen in Skyfall.

Somerset House used to show St Petersburg Square where Bond (Pierce Brosnan) and CIA Jack Wade's car breaks down.

Again used to show the War Office where Bond drives his DB5.

Scotland and its marvelous landscape was also used as film locations for several Bond movies. I visited the Scottish Highlands during a trip I made to Isle of Skye not long ago and the tour guide stopped by several film locations along the way including The Old Man of Stor in Isle of Skye, Eilean Donan Castle near Dornie and also Glencoe area. The Eilean Donan Castle, which is currently the most photographed castle in Scotland was shown in The World Is Not Enough as the MI6 Headquarters in Scotland after the explosion in SIS headquarters London at the beginning of the 1999 movie. The newest movie Skyfall (2012) was also shot in Glencoe in several scenes depicting Bond's heritage.

Eilean Donan Castle looks quite different with those antennas.

I was actually there twice, once in summer and another 3 weeks ago.

In my previous post, I mentioned that I visited Piz Gloria, Switzerland during my Europe trip to see the film location of my favourite Bond movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) where both the internal and external shots of the mountain top platform and revolving restaurant were used to show Blofeld's secret base disguised as an allergy research clinic. By the way, I noticed that the restaurant above was expanded.

Bond (George Lazenby) slides on the snowy platform while firing his machine gun in the climatic action scene.

The last one was actually in a minor scene of The Living Daylights where Bond (Timothy Dalton) went for a horse carriage ride with Kara Milovy around Vienna and passes many local tourist sights.

The horse carriage went pass Schönbrunn Palace garden, which was hosting a dance party.

I think that was all the Bond film locations I have visited. There are some other minor ones I have passed by but didn't take any pictures, so I can't really show here. Wait... I almost forgot Buckingham Palace which appeared in Die Another Day (2002) in a scene where the villain parachutes and lands in the front lot of the palace.

The most iconic location that I have been is a place that people think of whenever they think of London. What other symbol of London can be more iconic than the Palace of Westminster which appeared in many Bond films.

First time seeing it in Dr No (1962).

Then a dirty looking shot in Goldfinger (1964)

And in the opening boat chose of The World Is Not Enough (1999)

I wonder when I would be able to visit another film location anytime soon.
*Oh one other thing, the photos that you see before the screenshots from the movies are all from my camera's prospective, so my position may not be the one used in the movie. But I just want to show that I was there.*

lalanandaFRY
9/12/12