Where could be better place than a zoo to bring a bunch of kids for outing?

I can’t remember when was my prior trip to Zoo Negara… it must be more than a decade ago. The zoo seemed decent though, the condition and animal ‘collection’ was better than I expected.

It reminded me that despite lots of unfairness and stupid stuff in Malaysia… we are still a lucky bunch of people to be born on this land. It’s a pretty rare occasion that I felt really good to be in Malaysia, or to be a Malaysian… lots of the other time I was rather pessimist about our future, couldn’t help it.

Btw, I watched the movie in a hospital… any other weirder places to watch a movie?

喜欢这花，不因其美，不为其色，不恋其香… 喜欢它，纯为其名… 勿忘我。

[Photo by Jonas Bergsten]

When I was a kid, lion dance was quite often seen… during CNY or any Chinese organization’s related events.

Although Malaysia is world renowned for lion dance, it’s not as easily seen as those days. When I was a kid we could get a ‘lion’ performing at our house for RM10 or less; now it cost much more and needs advance booking.

Some people like to relate this to government’s sanction etc., but fact is it’s hard to maintain a lion dance group… it’s not financially sound and youngster these days are not as passionate about these kind of activities; they prefer TV or PC games perhaps.

I wonder 50 years from now on… will people still be seeing lion dance in Malaysia.

I first heard about Sissel’s music from Japanese drama “Summer Snow” (starring Tsuyoshi Domoto and Ryoko Hirosue) in 2000/2001. Her voice was simply mesmerizing.

It was also with Summer Snow that I learnt about the beauty of pan flute (played by Romanian musician Gheorghe Zamfir in the video).

Later on I found out that Sissel was involved in Titanic OST, providing some beautiful voices and hymn for some songs.

Play the short video clip, you will understand what I mean (unless you are one of the rarity that never watched Titanic).

Sissel’s official website.

The website claimed that they are “the world first website for copyrighted movies absolutely free.” The launching of the website was reported by tonnes of China media, so they could be probably offering legal downloads as claimed.

The catch from the downloads is that advertisement has been slotted in between, so it’s very much like seeing movies on TV rather than in cinemas; the advertisement are probably funding the copyrights for those movies I guess.

Good thing is that the movies are quite new, and some of the China produced movies are not shown in Malaysia at all. I’ve seen some English movies at the download list, but the website is in Chinese.

Haven’t download any movies yet myself; the Streamyx connection has been horrible for the past few days, will try to download a couple of movies when I got the chance.

It has been almost 9 months when AXN announced the making of Amazing Race Asia, and it’s finally here. With the support and sponsorship of Malaysia Tourism Board, it’s not surprising that the competition was started in Kuala Lumpur.

Overall I think the 1st ever episode of Amazing Race Asia was pretty good. Production wise it’s not as strong as the US version, but I think the Asia teams are stronger and more balanced than the US teams.

The diversity of culture and nationality of teams are the main selling point; I’m a bit disappointed to see that there’s no team from Middle East, China, Japan, Korea etc… but it’s just the 1st season, I shouldn’t be over critical.

One thing funny is their English speaking, their English slang gave me goose-bumps… even the host Allan Wu’s English sounds a bit weird, Asiaglish perhaps.

There are some ugly scenes though… apparently 2 out of the 10 teams were conned by Malaysia taxi drivers; thanks for the ‘nice’ promotion of Malaysia tourism.

There’s a voting for favorite team that’s going on at the AXN website, none surprisingly Aubrey and Jac, actress and model from Philippines are taking the lead in popularity.

Most of the teams look pretty good physically; I thought that the 2 fat brothers, Mardy and Marsio from Jakarta would come last, but they arrived at the pit-stop first instead… another reason not to judge people on their appearance.

I am predicting Ernie and Jeena from Philippines to win the race. No particular reasons, just feel good about it.

[Image courtesy of Joyo.com]

The J-Drama is “Moero Attack,” not sure if it’s using the same title in Malaysia when it was showed last time; I remember the show was in translated in Malay.

Frankly I can’t recall much of the storyline or the face of the leading cast; but somehow I think of the TV series once in a while. Perhaps it’s the time when me and my 2 sister were doing the same thing, watching the TV, which didn’t happen too often because of the huge age gap and different of interest.

Back to Moero Attack, the drama was made much earlier before it was shown in Malaysia. The leading character was played by Araki Yumiko whom was around 20 years of age when the series was made; she’s around 46 by now.

The last public appearance Yumiko made should be an invitation from CCTV in 2004, where she was invited to visit China, where Moero Attack was quite a hit back then as well.

Some trivia… most of the actress were 150cm-160cm in heights, very much shorter than average volleyball players. When the drama was filmed, the net was actually lowered a couple of feets, and the volleyball court was smaller than standard size.

The girls look much prettier on TV than on this photo… the styling was too over and the angles of the photo made the pageants look stiff and odd.

What’s the point of using stylist and professional photographers if they are not making the contestants more charming?

I know many people are saying that the quality of this year contestants are so so… but fact is most girls will be happy to look like them, and most guys will be happy to have girlfriends like that.

I hate that Astro is using the SMS tactic again; I’m getting bored with all the programs that involve SMS… I will never understand people that send tons of SMS to support people they don’t know, guess I am getting old.

Btw, I think I already paid Astro enough with my monthly subscription, and did I ever mention the outrageous minutes of advertisement from Astro these days?

The idea of putting the pageants under the spotlight for a couple of weeks is nothing new as well. I would rather watch “America Next Top Model” instead.

I won’t be critical on the pageants’ performances, the girls are not perfect but at least they are daring to put themselves in front of thousands TV audience, showing their strength and weakness… brava for that.

In the end there can be only one winner to be crowned Miss Astro Chinese International Pageant 2006, hope that the girls have enjoy the contest, as the journey itself is often the most valuable experience irregardless of winning or losing.

[image taken from Miss Astro Chinese International Pageant 2006 official webpage]