TV Drama Review #280 - A Pillow Case of Mystery II 施公奇案II

No.of Eps: 21
Yr/TV Stn: 2010/TVB
Cast:
Bobby Au-yeung ~ Shi Shi Lun
Jessica Hsuan ~ Wu Jun Rou
Joel Chan ~ Su Ying Jun
Leila Tong ~ Ding Mei Ren
Johnson Lee ~ Niu Da Li/Pillow Fairy
Synopsis: (edited from Dramawiki)
After the demise of his 3rd wife, 4th wife & 3 children, Shi Shi Lun becomes dispirited with the political world and spends most of his time travelling around in search of fun. Along the way, he meets a spirit medium, Wu Jun Rou, who somehow gets caught up in a mysterious murder case. It is not Lun's intention to intervene at first, but with the fortuitous assistance from the pillow spirit Niu Da Li, he can finally crack the case and prove Rou’s innocence. Lun regained his confidence and pledges his fight for justice. As time progresses, Lun and Rou get to know each other better and gradually fall in love. Lun finally decides to get over the past and marry Rou. Amidst the various challenges of his new life, Lun realizes that Rou seems to be hiding something and that there is a malicious plot behind their marriage.
Ding Mei Ren comes to the county to look for the 8th prince, who dumped her on the day of their marriage. He turns out to be Su Ying Jun, a constable working under Lun. To take revenge of Jun, Mei Ren decides to marry Lun...
Slacker's review:
After a gd 4 yrs, APCM returns with the sequel, and most of the cast has changed. Nonetheless, the drama was packed with interesting cases, and they were somehow connected to one another. Overall, APCM is a typical case-cracking drama with typical developments, so there's nothing new, but it's still watchable.
There's nothing much to comment about their acting as everything's pretty standard.
Bobby and Jessica had good chemistry, but I thought he had better chemistry with Johnson. Ha!
Jessica's performance was alright here, but I did not like Jun Rou. She's quite selfish and annoying at times. Personally, I do not like to see Jessica in such roles. She's not as suitable as Kenix (the female lead in APCM 1).
There's one guy who caught my attention, and he's Joel Chan. I thought his performance was really not bad. Chemistry with Leila was pretty gd too. (Saw sparks~)
Johnson Lee was really funny here, and it was no surprise for me as this guy is quite wacky in real life. I got to see Niu Da Li cross-dressed as woman and animal...very interesting.
Themesong is "Bie Di Gu Wo" by Wong Cho Lam.

Counting down...

1 more week to go before I take my short little break.

Work hard, play hard :D

Jeremy's Wedding Dinner

--Imperial Ballroom @ Mandarin Orchard Hotel--
Attended my colleague Jeremy's wedding just now. Sat with my call centre & sales compliance colleagues. I knew he did not invite many colleagues , but I was a little surprised that some was not here tonight. So, I felt honoured to be invited. (That show's how good is our friendship....lolz~)

Anyway, food was not too bad, and everything's fairly simple. The ballroom's design was quite unique la, and the best part of the dinner to me was actually when the bride & groom entered the room, Jeremy took the mic and sang "Close to You".

Last but not least, wish the couple all the best and have a blissful marriage! Congratulations!

Tiring Week

My entire morning was spent meeting with internal auditors, and I managed to do some work in the afternoon before going for Ops CNY Dinner, which was supposed to be our D&D. Well, this kind of D&D suits me as I only need to do one thing....and that's EAT! (No theme, no performance...whatsoever)

So, the dinner was held at Tiffany Cafe @ Furama City Centre. The international buffet was alright, food choices kinda limited. Returned home at 9 plus, and I continued to have my supper at home. Lolz~

There's a system testing later in the morning (3a.m), and my boss's team kena. I was happy that I was not involved...lolz!!! Hopefully the production test will be successful, or else we will be in deep trouble.

So what's up for tmr?
Sending Tuan off in the morning, and I gotta attend a colleague's wedding dinner in the evening.

I need my Sunday at home :)

TV Drama Review #279 - Ghost Writer 蒲松龄

No.of Eps: 25
Yr/TV Stn: 2010/TVB
Cast:
Steven Ma ~ Pu Song Ling
Linda Chung ~ Liu Xin Ru
Fala Chen ~ Lingwu Xiao Cui
Sunny Chan ~ Gao Zhe
Synopsis: (edited from Dramawiki)
Pu Song Long is born in a Jinan family of New Year print. His father always hoped that he could one day carry on the family business. Ling mistakenly thinks that his father is working in collusion with some corrupt officials, and refuses to listen to what his father says. His good friend, Gao Zhe, is a constable and he hates corrupt officials as much as Ling does. Rumour has it that a fox spirit is creating troubles in Jinan. Ling is almost killed when he is investigating into the matter with Zhe. Fortunately, a mysterious girl named Xiao Cui comes to his rescue in the nick of time. It turns out later that she is the fox spirit, and that she saves Ling so as to return a past favor. As they spend more and more time together, Cui starts to fall for Ling.
The Pu family has secured a large order of New Year print. To ensure the work can be finished in time they have to hire a large numbers of female workers. Liu Xin Ru applies for the job, but her real intention is to look for the man who was unfaithful to her sister, and never did she knew that she would be caught in a love triangle with Ling & Zhe.
Slacker's review:
Ghost Writer has a unique theme of fox spirits mixed with a standard storyline of betrayal (family & friend) and love triangle. I thought the drama started off well, but later it became a little draggy as the love triangle took up too much time. I enjoyed the drama, and it was full of developments.
Steven Ma's performance was as usual, but Sunny Chan's extreme change in character outshone him. Pu Song Ling was the typical rich guy who cared about nothing, and he's kinda naive. So, later tragedy struck and he grew up instantly. Romance plot with Linda was not too bad, but Fala's Xiao Cui became too annoying at the later part. I felt kinda bored seeing Xiao Cui doing stupid things and got used by the evil fox spirit. Ending was a little out of norm. It was a happy ending, but you wld not feel too happy about it...lolz!
Sunny's Gao Zhe was the typical nice guy initially, and after he felt betrayed by Ling and Ru, he turned 360 degrees and became a cunning & cold-blooded person. Sunny's acting skills were great, as his expressions were distinctly different and he was natural. Though I hated Gao Zhe to core in the end, he's just a pathetic fella who lost to himself.
Linda Chung is pretty as usual, and Xin Ru was quite a nice person, except for the part
whereby she accused the Pu family for hiding her sis's murderer. Like Steven's Song Ling, Xin Ru was pretty much a one-dimensional character (i.e. they are the good folks). So, the not-so-good guys like Sunny and Fala had more chance to showoff their acting with their characters.
Good to see Fala in a meaty role, but I only liked the Xiao Cui who is kind-hearted and cheerful. Fala's acting has improved quite a lot, and she did well to show the transformation of Xiao Cui, who became selfish and committed sins. Ending for Cui was a sad one, but I guess it was the best ending for her.
Theme song is "Xin Qiao" by Steven Ma. A super nice song!

General Elections 2011

The map of Electoral divisions is out today, and we saw new areas for both SMCs and GRCs. My area is still....in the hot zone. Haha!
This will be my first G.E after turning 21, and I'm anticipating it.
This year's election shld be quite exciting.
We shall wait & see.

Genghis Khan, Silk Road & Tang Treasures

--Chinatown--
It has been a long day for me. Had lunch with E.W & Tuan at Chinatown before we headed to OG to pick my super advanced birthday present. Hehe~! So, I chose a Braun Buffel wallet for myself.
--ArtScience Museum @ Marina Bay Sands--
We bought the admission tickets at Hg Mall's Sistic counter on Saturday. It's $30 for adults (20% off for OCBC cardmembers). So, I only paid $24.60. There are many time slots for you to choose. I think they want to control the crowd, so do pick your time slot wisely.
There are lots of pictures, and I can only show some of them.
Sg's biggest private museum finally opened its doors this month.
To the lobby.
There are 4 levels in the museum, and we started from Level 4.
Nothing much to see at the ArtScience Exhibition. You got to see how high-tech the museum was. Haha! There were a few touch screen comps there, and whatever u are reading will be reflected on the white wall in front of it.
We saw another row of touch screen panels, and you can send postcards to your pals! Cool! I decided to try it myself and picked a postcard.
Type in email address and message.
This is what I received from my mailbox. Next time I can bring a list of email addresses and send to friends worldwide. Hehe!
This is another room with large screen panels. No special programmes shown though.
We went to Level 3 and Genghis Khan welcomed us.
The exhibition is held at the Upper Galleries, which is in the lotus shaped building. The exhibition layout started from Introduction of Genghis Khan, to his roots, rise of the mongols, building an empire, Genghis Statesman, After Genghis Khan, The Empire divided and Mongolia Today.
A Mongolian calligraphy on the wall.
Introduction to the Mongol empire.
The Imperial Passport, "Paiza".

Shaman's costume and drum.
A painted reindeer bone.
The Ger.
Jades.
Sword.

Chain-mail armour and arrowheads.
Arch and bows.
Leather armour.
Polished Mongolian Straight Sword.
Traction Trebuchet.
Read history of Mongol Empire on the white wall. (High-tech!)
Here's a miniature traction trebuchet for you to play.
Triple-bow Siege Crossbow.
Reproduction of the monument known as "Genghis Khan Stone".
A mummy's coffin.
Reminder!
Mongolian mummy of a tall female who died in the 11th or 12th century.
This is the place where you can take a rest, and watched performance by the Mongolian musicians.
Lots of Kiln were displayed too.
Impressive Qingbai Kiln.
Longquan Kiln.
Man's robe.
Woman's robe.
Eight Thousand Verses, gold on black paper.
Book with wrapping "10 Dogshid".
Monument to Khogshin Teel Fortress.
Buddhist chimes used during prayers.
Jamsran Tsam Mask, used by dance performers.
Porcelain of the Yuan dynasty.
Pair of Jars, Ceramic with coral encrustation.
A Ger for kids.
We moved on to B2, and visited the Silk Road exhibition first. Exhibition layout starts with introduction, Xi'an, Turfan, Samarkand and Baghdad.
This is where our silk comes from....
The machine to weave silk.
There are Ewer, Rhyton (horn-shaped vessel), Wine Peddler, and gold cup.
A simple showcase of the Karez water system in Turfan.
Showcase of what people wrote on when paper was not invented from East, South and West Asia.
Silver ore which is found in Central Asia.
Wanna get a better idea of the Silk Road? Click on them!
We're at the Baghdad section. Lovely glass from West Asia.
They also showcased various types of glass.
A mechanical marvel to tell the time.
Another device to tell the time, Astrolabe.
Book of Stars.
Mihrab Tile. It helps to indicate the direction of prayer.
A small theatre was found in the exhibition area.
We walked over to the last exhibition of the day, Shipwrecked: Tang Treasures and Monsoon Winds. I liked the visual tools they have for us. The exhibition layout includes 5 sections, Context (incl. Founder & Prologue), Discovery/Recovery, Cargo and Epilogue.
Info on where the shipwreck was found, and importance of SG Straits in international maritime trade. So actually, it was near Sumatra. I thought it was near SG.

Jars of various sizes.
26 bowls, Changsha Kiln.
Tripod incense burner with man and lion, Changsha Kiln.
Changsha wares with green glaze.
Ewers.
There were 4 rows showing everyday ware found in the wreck. Every bowl has a different drawing.
Four-lobed bowls with moulded and applied dragon medallion.
Stemcups with different animals inside.
Ewer with lugs and freely modelled dragon-head spout and feline-shaped handle.
Super impressive monumental ewer with incised floral lozenges and clouds.


Pair of lobed oval bowls.
Pair of square lobed dishes.
Round lobed dish.
Incense burner with openwork decoration.

Cups and dishes.

Leaf-shaped box.
View of Sg Flyer and Double Helix Bridge.
Esplanade.
Raffles Place.
--Dinner @ Pasta De Waraku, Marina Square--
Had my not-so-filling dinner at Pasta De Waraku.
My Scallop and Asparagus spaghetti in wafu sauce.
Tuan's crab, salmon & scallop spaghetti with soup.
--Shopping @ Plaza Singapura--
Walked around PS as Tuan wanted to shop, and she managed to find a pair of sandals. I was trying to find a top to attend my colleague's wedding dinner, but it's really not easy to find. In the end, E.W and I saw a nice top from Springfield. Not sure if I want to wear though...lol!