be great in whatever you decide to do

before i start this post, let me just confess something. i've never watched x-men origins: the wolverine until this morning. as i was procrastinating tidying my room this morning, i decided it might be a good idea to put that movie on. then i discovered hugh jackman. 

well, i've always find him very very attractive. a perfect six-pack. a nice voice (with an australian accent), great actor. there isn't anything that i can't love about this guy, but something in wolverine just made me want to go on a hugh jackman marathon. so i did. 

then i stumbled across this movie.

real steel.

if you think i'm going to tell you what happens, i won't. obviously i'm not a professional movie reviewer, but i think this is one of the best movies i've ever watched. you know when a movie's so good, you shed a tear at the end of the movie? yes it's that good.

on the serious note though, it is phenomenal. the actors are amazing, the story board is amazing, the special effects are amazing. i don't know if hugh jackman is really a boxer or not, but it doesn't change how good the movie is.

i know this is going to sound cheesy, but the movie really brings you up. it makes you think everything (and i stress, EVERYTHING) will work out at the end, as long as you work for it. doesn't matter if you're a man, a woman, or even a robot. you might be clicking on the little red cross button to exit this page, but hear me out.

"i know it's corny, but i also think that sometimes corny is exactly what this country needs." - william hayes, "definitely maybe"

i will go no further on, but please enjoy a gif of hugh jackman boxing / doing ballet. it's awesome

ラーメン博物館

so i went to japan for a few days and things went well. too well. i gained at least 5 pounds and i'm not even joking. i've learnt that money spent is directly proportional to the money spent. one of the highlights of the trip was definitely going to the momofuku ando instant ramen museum.

we didn't plan this. i dropped the guide on the ground and it opened on this page. talk about destiny and all that jazz, but it did happen. my brother decided he wanted some souvenirs for some friends, and so we went. going there really wasn't that big of a deal, but making our own cup noodles was just bomb. 

each of the noodle cup is 300 yen (about 24 HKD or 3 USD). not exactly expensive for a souvenir, but extremely expensive for a cup noodle. well as the big spenders that we are, our family got 18. we were also given big markers to draw on them and so we did. i'm just gonna say i'm a child at heart. the one that i've kept for myself looks like this.

front of my artwork

and the back of it.

i must say my design is rather dashing

18 of these. it was a pain to bring back home i must say.

after we've drawn on them, the processing begins. first, we were given the noodles. i mean if you aren't given the noodles, it defeats the point of just going there. however they first put the noodles in upside down, and the machine turns it over, so the noodles would be in the cup in the right way without sticking out. clever right? one of the good things about working in these corporates is that they do think of all the details. like pixar. if you don't know about my love for pixar, click ME to see it.

it's like a small cup-noodled ferris wheel

then it comes to packaging it. they use a plastic bag to seal everything, food and all. in order to make sure the bag is sealed and tight-fitted, they use a heating mechanism to make the plastic stick onto the cup. do i know the science behind? no i don't, but it sure looks good.

after it's all done, we get to put them in plastic bags that can be filled up with air and used as air sacs. another really clever invention by a japanese company. i approve, momofuku ando. kudos to you.

and there's me with all of the finished products

you might think: "sam, you've travelled half way across osaka to go to a museum and make instant noodles?"

well the answer to that is, yes i have. was i thrilled to have gone? well sort of, but not really. on the other hand, it was great, because my brother had so much fun. my brother is a very very sweet boy, who doesn't really mind going with us to anywhere as long as we are happy. this time round though, he was the one who told us he wanted to go and all, and i'm glad we did. to see the smile on my brother's face when the final product came out was priceless. too bad i didn't snap it down with my camera, but it was definitely worth every single penny.

because it's his bad luck to be the best

as a self-confessed movie addict, i tend to drift away from tv shows. it's not like they're not any good. i just assumed tv shows are less thought-through. then i came across hannibal.

from google images. googles just fantastic.

if you've heard of the silence of the lambs series by thomas harries, you would definitely know who hannibal lecture is. hannibal is a clever yet evil cannibalistic psychiatrist who is destined to be the rival of will graham, a special fbi agent. that's the most in depth i can go into without giving away any of the plot and to hide my lack of knowledge on the novels.

i have to say i have not accepted myself to be so hooked on the tv series. bryan fuller has done a fantastic job on portraying all characters with full details in 13 episodes. the details and set created are phenomenal. there's a scene in one of the beginning episodes, where a murderer's daughter comes home to see the word "cannibals" written on her garage door. even though the camera focuses on the daughter, we can see hannibal blurred out in the backgrounds.

let's be honest here though. i still haven't finished the series, as i cannot watch too many episodes a day. compared to the crazy rate i've gone through "fringe" (4 seasons in 3 days, crazy i know), i've spent a whole week watching one season, which is quite slow. i couldn't actually sleep after the first 6 episodes, giving me the hint that maybe i should either slow down or stop watching.

well to conclude, this is a time-worthy series and if you want something thrilling to watch, you know what to watch. just make sure you lock up doors at night to feel safer when you sleep at night.