MOVIE REVIEW : the Last Stand & Race 2

What a movie and it's totally beyond my expectation. I heard about his latest movie, wanted to watch but haven't really pay attention enough towards the trailer. Was randomly checked the cinema's website and found it THE LAST STAND is out already and Grumpy was too eager to watch. I didn't expect anything much toward this movie but I ended up loving it. The movie went quite slow but as it got into the middle where the chasing were more thrilling, the movie becomes quite entertaining. One time movie for me for me but it's not because I didn't like it but its more like I won't be bother watching twice, that's all. I like, love but not favorite, that's how I supposed to describe. I'm sure lots of people are looking forward to watch him back in actions (even i do) but I guess for the "full coming back" welcoming performance, he did great. IMDB gives a high rank for 7.2 and as for me, I give it 8.5/10. Yeah, see, how much I really adore the movie :)

Basically, the LAST STAND is a very simple story about chasing the number one King of drug named Cortez, who got escaped before got transferred to his new prison. His plan is to get into Mexico by building bridge from Summerton Junction. Well, FBI couldn't stopped Cortez with his spectacular car runs in 200MPH until they contacted the local's sheriff at Summerton which of course Sheriff Owens, Arnold Schwarzenegger, in charged. No more telling you, better just watch because this movie has NO twisted story and I don't want to spoil anything.

The movie is really entertaining, full well-packed of actions and of course some jokes in between. I've to say the storyline is quite usual and Forest Whitaker is totally crap in this movie; something is just not right in his performance, moreover he doesn't fit for the role. The actions are thumbs up, totally enjoyed a lot not too brutal I guess (not in my eyes :p)! Some random jokes to lighten the movie done by Luis Guzman. My opinion about Mr. Arnold's performance and that's "Cool Grandpa back in action!" As you know he is quite expressionless but this cool attitude and rough face with not much dialogue is what made this kind of movie suits him. The way he talks and everything is just like when he was at Terminator. I mean no offense but I'm pretty sure you'll be getting the same kind of impression after you see the last few scenes when he fights alone ha-ha-ha-ha! Cool Grandpa with Awesome Actions and Full of Awesome Gun Toys ha-haha-ha!

The Gwumpieh PRE-WED?

okay! before, I published the photos from our quick gateway sometimes the next few days, I decided to uploaded our photos first which were taken by our traveller friends and editing by myself. Bromo is so beautiful and so does its surroundings. With a random touch of my editing, I guess I've made the area look like the ones in Europe or somewhere in western country. Those who didn't know thought these photos are our PRE-WED and taken in overseas. NO! This is not our pre-wed although yeah, it's totally look like ones. Love the place, love the photos and thank you so much girls for taking our pictures! The only thing I can say is that, Indonesia is beautiful but it's depending upon us on how much we want to discover its beauty. Cheaper in expenses of course but we have those beauty. As for us, Bromo is like a different new world and so not Indonesia. The weather and its beauty make us feel as if we are somewhere in Europe! And the last photo is my most favorite ones, as it's totally dreamy and captured the moment! Well done to Ika/Rini who took the picture :D! 

Movie Review : Hansel and Gretel , Les Miserables, Now is Good

It's great to be able to catch the latest movies especially after the messy flood attacks. We sneaked out in our hectic hours and especially, its been a while since we went for movie date. So yeah, watching two movies in a week is more than enough entertainment for us. Time to concentrate work and rushing them more. We watched these movies in different day but I felt like write everything under one name. 

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"Look down, look down, don't look them in the eye! Look down, look down, you're here until you die!" a song that you'll heard from the first scene that will definitely take your breath away. It isn't just the song but the expressions, the awesome performances and of course the cinematography too. Finally, we watched Les Misérables and it was such right decision for me but not-so-right for Mr. Gwumpieh. Right from the first scene, the movie has taken my heart and full attentions away. I was actually looking forward to see this movie knowing there are two of my favorite actors : Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe and some others amazing actresses and actors too. I know you would be expecting much more of the movie once you saw the trailer especially "more actions" instead talks but this movie is beyond my expectation. The way they made it and the actors and actresses performances made it perfect! They chose the right people for the right movie which is rare to find nowadays. I ranked them 9.5/10 and I do aware it's musical movie but what I didn't except it's music all-the-way until the end.  Sad enough that lots of people were getting bored when they watched this 3 hours movie and I could heard some of them yawned. Even Mr. Gwumpieh was too bored and acting silly throughout the movie. He likes it but not loves it and definitely not as he expected despite it's awesomely produced. I do expected lots of actions but I couldn't take my eyes off from the screen, it's really grabbed my full attentions.

So we were supposed to watch Jack Reacher but once I saw Hansel and Gretel : The witch Hunter is out, I ditched Jack Reacher. I'm not huge fans of Tom Cruise neither I like his movie apart from Mission Impossible so yeah, let's see my new favorite actor who's totally dashing : Jeremy Renner. The story, I don't need to tell much right? Witch hunter and Hansel and Gretel, we know their tale anyway. So brother and sister becomes the witch hunters ever since they killed a witch for the first time, burnt into fire. Okay, if you see their relationship; it's more like lover instead of brother and sister. Somehow it senses like that in my eyes! Gretel was shown as so powerful woman at first, but later, she seemed to be very weak. The first 20 minutes will made you think this movie is so gonna be awesome but somehow, it's too monotone, bore you at the end. 

Of course for almost an hour I found it cool with unstoppable actions but I know, I won't be loving this movie as much as I wanted to. There's something missing since the first scene and that's the movie's flow is really fast. Super fast, you may called it that made this movie become so ordinary; just another slaughter movies. It have left no impression for me, just really an ordinary movie. I understand the actions, the brutalities and slaughters are the ones they concentrate the most to pump up the viewers' adrenaline but for me, it's more than that. It's really fast in changing scenes and made the movie look quite a mess. IMO, if you aren't too eager, wait until DVD. DVD is enough knowing it's ONE TIME watch movie and buying DVD do more wonder. Overall, It's good but not great and I rated 6.5/10. It's more like ONE time movie only and DVD shall do the wonder I guess. Nothing wow and this is my two cents. The actions are totally good, but the movie has no twist in it nor some highlight scenes. Definitely looking forward for the sequel which I know I'm going to watch though!

FLOOD Story : DAY 4!

DAY 4 and it's cleaning time. Today, I went back with Grumpy and My driver to check the house as well as helping my maids cleaning the house. Basically, today, we went home to do some extra exercises which made us super tired and sleepy at the end. Now, the boat dealers were showing off by offering us 100,000 IDR for one time only! The past two days we had been dealing 100,000 IDR for twice or forth time return. Some gave me that "seriously?"'s face but well what to do last time that were the deals we got. Apart from that, I knew the water wouldn't be that deep since I saw the MCD's area was just alright! But anyway, knowing we weren't ready to dirty ourself, we took the offered of 50,000 IDR. 

The first eye-catchy image I saw throughout the whole time stuck in a flood is this one. Father carried an empty water bottle with his other hand carrying his son. somehow, it touched my heart and if only I was using my Sony, the image would just be awesome. Oh I forgot to tell, all photos are taken through my Samsung Note. Nothing much to tell about today but my best prayer goes to Pluit's area as the water's level is as high as 2M along with crocodiles and snakes roaming around freely, so yeah it's quite scary! As for my house, it's quite safe and of course with those dirty water got into the house, no matter how many times you cleaned them, it takes quite sometimes to take those smelly smell away! We didn't clean the whole house yet since we got too tired but we did awesome job in cleaning :)

FLOOD STORY : DAY 1 - DAY 3

In case you haven't heard or see the news about Jakarta's Flood then let me tell you briefly about it. So it started on Wednesday with heavy rains, some areas got flooded but not too badly, some were just free from the flood. But heavy rains with continuous thunderstorms that may frighten lots of people not just the sound but when you saw them through your windows, it's kinda like between "super scary or super cool". In my case, it doesn't change me much I still sleep as awesome as I always do and found it OMG so cool! Yeah, sounds lame right, but I knew it frighten most of people as it was just like those in the movie and the sky was super dark! Lately, I'm a big fan of using the word super, so bare with the super in most of the sentence, super right?

As I woke up super late (was busy finishing The Falling Skies's series session 1), I opened my window and I didn't find anything surprising. I mean it's normal view in my eyes whenever the heavy rains poured throughout the whole night/day. Even for just 2 or 3 hours of heavy raining, my area would be flooded, so this kind of look (as you see the first and 2nd pic) doesn't amazed me. But what sadden me the most is the electricity! It's off and both of my phone batteries are in total crisis, so yes, it made me super worry. And fool me, even I knew the electricity wouldn't be turned on yet I kept counting hours, hoping it would be later at night even for just an hour. But wednesday was just unproductive day for me but made me felt lots better as all I slept throughout the whole day, woke up for an hour or less for food then slept again. The rain became heavier at night and I couldn't sleep not because I was scared but because I wanted to charge my phones so badly and the weather was actually HOT even its raining! Weird, hey! 

THE FIRST day of FLOOD ( Wednesday, 16th January)

The 2nd Day , THURSDAY

"WOKE UP WOKE UP" my maid shook my right leg like she always did and shocked me. I just had my nice sleep around 3 or 4am and she woke me up around 7.30am. "The water got into the house" and with my grumpy and shocked face I was like "so?" I hate it the most when someone disturbed my sleeping regardless who as for me sleeping is super precious! So I went down to take a look with no surprising face like always. How could I surprised? it happened back in 2008 but this time, I felt the water got into the house faster than previous. I still look around in front of my house and ignored the flood. Then I sat for like 10 or 15 minutes staring at outside and the water evaporated from inside and gosh, now the water came even more and fast. I told my parents to evacuate as this time the water flew a lot faster and higher than previous time but they just ignored me.

The 2nd day, I decided to just get out from the house as we needed to buy things for our supply. The electricity is of course still turned off but the water were rising so fast + the heavy raining came often. You could see tons of Boats roaming here and there, few are used for private uses and the rests are for rented , well the locals took the advantage from it! The kids were gone insane, playing with the water like they never saw that much water ever. Mr. Gwumpieh and My driver came to take a look at my private beach and of course to pick me up with the wooden boat! (sorry forgot to capture)

 

And the crazy thing about the 2nd day of the flood is that MY PARENTS still insisted to STAY! I tried my best to push them to go away yet they didn't believe me anyway. I just got this feeling, this one will be worst and better to evacuate. Back in 2008, I felt like moving out but didn't really want to go as much as this time and I was super right anyway! So with my Grumpy face, totally pissed off and tried to save my phone battery as much as I could, I ended the night by waking up each time the heavy rains started. Oh my parents shifted to the upper floor and just like me, my mom couldn't sleep and kept waking up whenever the rains started too #LOL!  

Quick Gateway III : BROMO's OMG Trip ( DAY 1)

YES! Finally, our most awaiting and first holiday in the year came and we were just uber excited. It was only weekend trips, unplanned and fully unprepared too and that what made this 3 days holiday is totally adventurous. All we ever knew just our flights and the rest, we surrendered each and everything to our friend whois such a great traveler, Rini. This time, it wasn't The Grumpy's only but Ika came along all the way from Singapore. The truth, I never even been to Surabaya nor Bromo throughout my entire life, so yeah, saw Rini's awesome landscape photos of Bromo made me (us) wanted to see its beauty with our own eyes! Mount Bromo is located in East Java and it's an active volcano!  Go and search at Mr. Google because how beautiful they are. We took an early flight from Jakarta to Surabaya around 7.40am and arrived around 9.30am then waiting for Ika to come around 12-ish. Thanks to UNO cards which I brought that kept me and Rini entertained for a while. So the main plan is to minimize the cost as much as we can and I told Rini to do backpacker style but well, at the end of the day, it was semi-backpacker ha-ha-ha!

We were supposed to use Bus to go to Pujasera Terminal, the main bus terminal to go to Bromo. Since Ika's plane got delayed for almost an hour and we also ran out of time to catch the bus, we decided to use Taxi. From Surabaya - Pujasera took around 1.5 hours since there wasn't no traffic at all but since all of us were starving we decided to eat at the driver's favorite place. Our taxi driver is quite friendly. So this tiny restaurant (not too clean) is super cheap with good food and drink! Ignored the place but the food and drink is really great. I had "Nasi Pecel" - rice with vegetables in peanut sauce and it's delicious. I didn't expect the food to be that good and so did the drink, Orange Milk which I finished two glasses of them :D!

Overloaded with food made us super sleepy but me and Ika decided to just go for gossiping ha-ha-ha! Anyway, at the bus station, we had to wait for quite long (well it may not long but it felt like so) until that mini-bus is fully loaded. The driver and agent expected 15 people to be squeezed in that small mini-bus or else we had to pay a lot more. Unfortunately, we only had 9 people and we had to pay extra! Supposedly it's 25,000 IDR but then with less number of people, we had to negotiate and ended with 40,000 IDR each! I regretted though because the taxi offers another 250,000 until reached Bromo which was a great deal. But anyway, an experience we had. Somehow, I had fun on the way up, seeing the beautiful views all the way up! Oh yeah, as we go up, the weather is also getting colder and super windy since the driver drove the car really fast! It felt like roller coaster ride but totally enjoyed it especially holding Grumpy's hands, windy and chill weather and beautiful nature, made the journey extra romantic.

We arrived at the village nearby Bromo around 5.30'ish and we were just too messy but need to find place to sleep in. Since its unplanned so we just picked this place called "Setia Kawan" and as a non-backpacker, it just well, yeah! The bed is alright although I'm not sure when did the last time they ever cleaned up but their loo is unacceptable and FYI, no hot water so be freeze. At least for the place they offered for a night 125,000IDR, me and grumpy didn't find it worth it. But the view they have are great! anyway, couldn't think much except counting hours until we go to Bromo. We had food nearby the hotel of course and they only offered fried rice / noodles which I always chose noodles anyway! But then, finding an expensive hotel for half night is also not worth it too so well somehow it was a right option. None of us were able to sleep, too eager to see the beauty and at night, the weather is super cold. 

2nd Celebration 2013

So yesterday was the 2nd celebration of welcoming New Year from us to the best ones. We tried to contact the ladies on the 31st but they didn't pick the phone, so yeah, the late celebration it was with them. They have been super helpful for so many years especially when our baby is rising, they have always been there, helping us, supporting us and praying for us. So we started the outing by having dinner first. And oh just for your information, before we met them, we were busy with work first LOL. As for dinner, lately, I had been craving for seafood super badly, so we decided to have seafood for dinner then followed with simple hang out at the cafe nearby. I've always wanted to bring the guys to this new cafe called 19th Avenue. The food is alright (none is impressive) but the place is totally awesome for hang out despite it full of teenagers. Hold on, we aren't teenie anymore nor we claimed ourselves are old; we are just mature with young soul within us =P!

Our tummy is fully loaded and felt like just sleeping but you know the fun shall continued. Went to 19th Avenue for just an hour or more, just for quick chit-chat, laughters and few sips of beers but we ended laughing and being silly. Great time, great food, great drink and of course without great people, the word 'great' won't came out! Cheers to 2013 and we wish all of your wishes be granted, dreams aren't longer dreams but it happens and come true. We wish each of you to be blessed with extra more love, happiness, luck, wealth, and be healthy throughout the whole year. We are so thankful to be holding the friendships longer than we thought and it's more than 5 years! See, how fast time flies and still united even though we didn't spend as much time as we should for catching up. Thank you for being our booth cheerleaders too, it meant a lot for me and grumpy. Looking forward for more catching up moments in this awesome year. *huggles* 

NEW YEAR EVE 2012

To end the awesome 2012, me and grumpy decided to just have small gathering at his apartment where he decided to be the chef. Everything was done in a very last minute even we made last minute decision too. We are fully occupied with works and hadn't have time to do a proper preparation not even a small decoration we able to do. Even at the last day of 2012, we still have to work, so yeah! Apart from that last second is quite challenging, it's an adrenaline rush LOL! But anyway, it was the best decision to do in welcoming 2013. What I didn't expect is that the moment would be more than just good but it was great moment with lots of laughters. Silly things happened and we were all just being ourselves. This is the first gathering all of them did and were having great time.

I know all of us were starving and waiting impatiently for the food but making Indian food is quite take sometime. Yeah, basically, it's an Indian-Arab Food Fiesta with Chicken Masala, Mutton Biryani, Daal, Seekh Kebab, and ended with Avocado Pudding which is so Indonesian ha-ha-ha! Pretty much multicultural, aren't we? And each of us had the food with no mercy! Now, check out the photos by seeing how "normal their faces are" before the food fiesta moment starts.

Since we had super late dinner at 11'ish, we had to rush to celebrate the new year. We had to go to the rooftop and sadly, we missed seeing the "fireworks" that were blown right at 12. Thanks to the lift who made us waited for more than 10 minutes! Trumpets, fireworks and camera were in our hands but I didn't take any firework photos! It was just so beautiful seeing from the rooftop, it felt like the fireworks is right in front of our eyes, and totally enjoying the moment! We spent like almost an hour or less in that dark rooftop with well, another unforgettable moment ha-ha-ha-ha! Anyway, the next photos look like we were totally drunk/ so high but that's not because of the beer! It because of the food we took and how much we were enjoying the moments ha-ha-ha-ha! 

At the end, this togetherness is not like "friends gathered together and have some food together". I felt the warmth of family gathering, it felt like " I'm celebrating my new year with brothers & sister", strong bonds in between. It was surely great time for everyone, and I'm pretty sure they also felt like me even Grumpy was so happy as I could see in his glowing face. 

I haven't written my 2013 wishes , dreams or whatever you want to call it yet, but I've conveyed them in prayers though. At first, I was still wondering what to wish, but now, I know exactly what I want and going to write them down tomorrow. Thank you LORD JESUS for granting my 2013 wishes and I know YOU are the provider & will be providing every little things I needed the most in life. I know YOU will be granting my wishes and this 2013 is going to be GREATER than 2012. We are looking forward for the great things will be happened throughout 2013, the successes and super wealth of our financial status we'll be having, tons of happy and grateful moments we are sharing, and will be traveling a lot for business, work and holiday purposes too. Our biggest dream(s) of the year will be granted and we are looking forward to be settled, AAMIIN. Now, i feel like writing each of them in a piece of paper but tomorrow night I'll ^______^

Great time, Great people, Great Food, Great moment in welcoming GREAT year of 2013 :-) Happy happiest new year everyone. We wish all of your wishes be granted and have an awesome journey in 2013.