To the cinema : Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1)

After the quite diasppointing "Half-Blood Prince" in my opinion, I was expecting more from the "Deathly Hallows". No doubt it was only part 1 of 2 (which I think is an attempt to make more money from us before the whole Harry Potter saga ends), I still had quite high expectations for it. It was also partly due to the feedback from the Harry Potter fan (my sister) that it was good.

But once again, it kind of disappointed me. It started off quite exciting, and I was expecting the same kind of action and energy to continue throughout the show. However, it didn't really worked out for me. To be honest, I could only feel the evil and sinister part of the dark lord getting more powerful. I didn't feel Harry Potter or his friends getting more confident or powerful to defeating him.

And as my friend had so rightly pointed out, the flow of the story was not that fantastic either. Like there was about 5-10 minutes of excitement and action, then followed by a whole 30 minutes of nothing, with no surprises or unexpected happenings. It was getting kind of predictable as the 2 hours and 10 minutes dragged on.

In my opinion, if they were to cut down on those long and draggy parts, there might not be a need to have "part 1" and "part 2" for this final episode. So, I'm off to finding the book and finish reading the "part 2" and then decide if I want to spend on catching the movie when it comes out 6 months later.

Universal Studios Singapore

A good friend of ours decided to invite us along to Universal Studios Singapore as her company was having a family day there and the weekend tickets are going at the price of a weekday ticket.

As expected with new tourist attraction, it was quite crowded and queues for the popular rides were long. But we did managed to take the rides recommended. I couldn't remember when was the last time I took an amusement park ride. I got to admit that my legs did feel kind of shaky after the "Revenge of the Mummy" ride, which we concluded was the most fun of all.

The "Rapids Adventure" ride in Jurassic Park, the one where everybody will get wet, was quite disappointing. We spent almost an hour queuing for it, only to experience a few seconds of thrill.

However, some of the featured shows were quite good, like the Shrek 4D movie and the Steven Spielberg special effects theatre. And then there were the random performances on the streets, and the occassional meeting of movie characters, like Shrek and Fiona, Frankenstien, Po, etc. Even though we all knew that some were only costumes with people in it, something about these characters that bring out the child in us. I wouldn't mind spending a whole day there just to wait for these characters to come out and take photos with them. ;p