Taken

was at home for the past few days... thinking a lot... well.. not exactly thinking a lot... but just staring into blanks and wandering... letting your mind wander is sometimes a form of freedom...

couldnt take it anymore... needed to get out of the house... smsed huazai and joanna to see if they wanna go out... huazai was busy... had to meet his friends... joanna obliged, albeit only after dinner... i din mind... as long as i get a breather... she suggested ice rock ice creamery at holland v... where we can have ice cream and catch up. she was filling me in with the ongoings in shanghai, the very trip that i missed out last min... hearing it already makes it sound damn fun... i would love to be there, amidst all my troubles...

watched Taken with her... heard good reviews of the show, but didnt expect it to be this good... i could connect with the movie... briefly, its about a divorced family, dad was neglecting the family cos of higher calling from the country. he was working as a preventer. his daugther lied to him regarding her overseas trip to gain his consent as she was underaged, only 17.

Given his job nature, he has every sense to be paranoid and extremely careful about things. He was fuming when he found out on the way to the airport... but he managed to see things from another perspective... letting go is a form of learning... Daughter got kidnapped in Paris, by human smuggling organization. he was so calm about things that it was almost unbelievable. he din blame his ex wife for deceiving him so that the daughter can go for the trip. he collected himself, organized and flew in to paris to save his daughter... one man.. alone... i think most people, or rather 99.9% of the people would be shouting at the ex wife if such a thing happen, i think i would too, esp when one is trying so hard to protect his beloved daughter, the wife is busy helping the daughter cover up... i guess rationality ruled over emotions in this situation. think most people cant do that, but its the movie, yet i am impressed, very...

practically, he caused a mayhem in Paris... utter destructions, wantonly killing, even though they are bad guys... police couldnt do anything to him, cos he was much better trained than them... several notches above... from basically almost no evidence or clues, he managed to hunt the society down and almost entirely wipe them out himself... typical hero movie i guess... but i guess the focus here isnt all that actions and explosions. for me, the focus is how far a dad is willing to go to save his daughter, so selfless... so careless...

i see my family relations, a certain extent in the movie... the broken family part... the distance between father and daughter, partly cos he doesnt know how to express himself, of course at the end, the daughter grew so much closer to the dad, but i dun see it happening for me... i dun see how my dad wud go all out for me... maybe he will, maybe he has been doing it in his own ways silently. sometimes i feel it, but maybe cos i am skeptical, i tend to see the other things that he is doing that is keeping the distance between us... i see my mum overwhelmingly loving me... just like in the movie, all the coverups...

yes, i come from a broken family... sometimes i wonder if there will be a shadow in me when i start my own family... one thing for sure is i know i will love my wife and sons and daughters to the end of the world. Just like Liam Neeson in the movie... i think he just sealed his status as a father whom anyone would love to have... i do!! i would love to have a father like him in the movie...

Fukuoka

Finally get to come to Fukuoka...

was glad that i met my drinking buddy on the way here and his newly wedded wife... when that happens, u know that any plans of going sightseeing is virtually dashed...

fukuoka, famous for Ramen, is definitely a place to start trying some authentic ramen if you haven had any.. well... i must say they are pretty good.. but it seems like everyone here eats ramen for every meal... cos everytime we want to try a certain shop, there is a super long queue at the store and the queue doesnt dissipate...

first day, we roamed the Tenjin area, clothes are super expensive there, at night, met ernest andd joanne for dinner at some bbq joint... the place is pretty cosy, typical japanese style where u have to sit kneeled but of course we couldnt do it... the full is pretty tasty though not filling, in the end, we had to eat something else from the roadside street stores to fill up our tummy... roadside street stores seemed to be a dominant feature here, i didnt see them in other parts of Japan before. Maybe its a specialty feature here... in the end, we ended up drinking till late into the night, talking cock as usual... its nice to catch up...

next day, was raining the whole day, i had wanted to go sightseeing but the rain pretty much spoiled everything... so ended up shopping again and visiting a Shrine... its the first time i visited a Shrine in Japan... so its pretty exciting and an eye opener. coincidentally, its the Golden Week Festa here in Japan. so it seems like the whole of Japan is having a week of off... everyone is out and about.. and there is a parade in the streets, lotsa festivities and performances everywhere... after that was back to the room and here i am online, and packing my bag full of tidbits from Japan... I need to come back here again to do some proper sightseeing the next time... Fukuoka.. Capital city of Kyushu Province...