Asia's Next Top Model Cycle 4 ~ 2 episodes impression

Asia's Next Top Model season 4 had premiered on StarWorld Asia (channel 711 and 722 on ASTRO Malaysia) on Wednesday, 9th March 2016, and currently it is at its second episode which had already been aired on 16th March 2016. At first I wanted to write a post after its season premiere but I thought maybe I should give it one more episode before I write anything about it. It allowed me to know more about the contestants and also the new line of judges.

For this season, not only do we have 14 new contestants vying for the title, we also have a new host, and a new model mentor. Taking over from Georgina Wilson as head judge and host is Cindy Bishop, while Kelly Tandiono is replacing Joey Mead-King as the model mentor. I must say, I will truly missed Joey Mead-King, not only she has been the consistent face on the show but she was also funny and entertaining to watch. She was a good mentor to the contestants too.

I was a bit confused on who is the creative director for this season. It was promoted on TV before the premiere that Yu Tsai would be the creative director, even in the official website it was stated that he will be taking that role for this season. So when he didn't show up in the first episode and Kenneth Goh showed up instead, I felt a bit cheated. For the second episode though, neither Yu Tsai nor Kenneth Goh showed up so who is the real creative director for season 4? As it was heavily promoted that Yu Tsai is indeed the creative director, I guess maybe we would eventually see him on the TV show, starting with episode 3 perhaps?

Time out! ~ Trip to Bukit Bendera, Pulau Pinang - Feb. 2016 -

I don't normally post personal stuff here but I thought maybe I'd do just that, just to try something different. Besides, it's not really that personal anyway.

My family and I went for a trip to Bukit Bendera (also known as Penang Hill) at the end of last February. It's quite an interesting trip so I thought I would share some of the nice pictures I managed to take and some of the interesting things we did up there. At least it could serve as a simple guide to people who are planning to go there, or perhaps introduce the place to people who have not been there before.

So where is Bukit Bendera a.k.a. Penang Hill? It's located in Pulau Pinang (or Penang in English), one of the state in the northern region of Peninsular Malaysia. There are island side and mainland side of the state and the hill is located on the island side. It's a popular tourist spot so if you ever get lost, you can stop to ask the locals, most likely they would know how to direct you there. It is also stated in some of the road signboards once you get closer to the area. You can get quite a few useful info from their website too like how to get there, the ticket prices for the tram to go up the hill and any interesting activities that are going to be held there.

I visited their website before we went up the hill and thought it would only be a short trip since it seems like there is nothing much to do, but we end up spending around 4 hours up there! I was shocked myself. My last trip there was when I was in secondary school so it's been awhile. It's definitely exciting to see the place had been developed well.

So here are some pictures that I managed to snap. I'm going to spam a lot of pictures here so I apologize in advance if they slowed down the loading time.

You can see the tram tracks from here

Zootopia ~ movie review

Jason Bateman as Nick Wilde (left), Ginnifer Goodwin as Officer Judy Hopps

Zootopia is the 55th animated feature film from Walt Disney Animation Studios. I've been enjoying my time at the cinemas with the last couple of films from the studio in recent years like Big Hero 6, Frozen and Wreck-It Ralph, so seeing how amazing the movie trailers were for this movie, I was certain I would have an amazing time with Zootopia too, and I sure did. So here's my review for Zootopia.

I will try to keep this review spoiler-free so you would know as little as possible regarding the plot if you haven't watch the movie yet.

So what is the basic story for Zootopia? It's about a country rabbit named Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) who had graduated from the police academy and appointed as a new member of Zootopia Police Department. Wanting to prove her worth as a capable police officer to her chief officer, Chief Bogo (Idris Elba), she must solve a missing animal case in 48 hours with the help of a fox who is a small-time con artist, Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), who happened to be a key witness in the case.

What to watch? ~ 2016 movies: March

February is definitely the month of Deadpool, that movie made so much money at the box-office (and it still playing in cinemas!). Which movie do you think will be big in March? There are a few interesting movies lining out for March, so let's check out some of them that caught my attention.


1) London Has Fallen

Release date: March 4, 2016
Cast: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Angela Bassett, Morgan Freeman, Alon Moni Aboutboul, Melissa Leo, Robert Forster, Radha Mitchell, Charlotte Riley, Jackie Earle Haley.

I didn't watch the first movie, Olympus Has Fallen (released in 2013), because I felt like I wouldn't like the story so much even though it looked like a fun blockbuster movie. The trailer to the sequel though looks quite impressive, so I might tempted to watch it when it comes out. I'm still on the fence but judging from the trailer, the casts and action sequences are all looking good. Hopefully it will have good word of mouth too when it is released so that I would have more confident to watch it at the cinema.

Watch London Had Fallen trailer here!


2) Zootopia

Release date: March 4, 2016
Cast: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, J. K. Simmons, Shakira, Nate Torrence, Mark Smith, Jenny Slate, Raymond S. Persi, Bonnie Hunt, Octavia Spencer, Don Lake, Tommy Chong, Alan Tudyk.

This film looks very interesting. I had been consistent in watching Disney Animation movies in cinemas for the past few years now so I'm definitely going to watch this. What I'm interested the most is the world building for this movie and to see how the studio converted our daily human life and apply it for animals. I had fun even looking at the movie posters at how they interpret the animal city life so I'm really looking forward to see more from the movie. It had been released few weeks earlier than the US release date in some countries and so far it has been making good box-office money.

Watch Zootopia trailer here!