Our Journey » Reviews

Must watch : Puss in Boots !

sandy — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 08:42:38 +0000

All cat lovers will enjoy this animated-movie.

I think Antonio Banderas’ voice was perfect for Puss’ character, very sexy ^^

I better refrain myself from spoiling the story. Just watch it ! 8 out of 10 stars from both me and hubby.

Kecewa dengan Taksi Primajasa !

sandy — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 04:56:34 +0000

Posting berikut saya kirimkan juga di Surat Pembaca Detik.com, semoga segera ditindaklanjuti .

Hari Senin tanggal 14 November 2011 sekitar pukul 20.00 saya mencari taksi di Bandara Soekarno Hatta. Yang tampak available saat itu adalah taksi Primajasa, tanpa pikir panjang – karena selama ini saya percaya akan kualitas taksi resmi Bandara, saya langsung menghampiri.

Petugas taksi Primajasa menanyakan tujuan saya kemudian bertanya “Pakai argo atau tidak?” .

Perasaan saya mulai tidak enak, saya jawab, “Pakai argo dong !”. Kemudian dia berusaha membantah saya, saya tetap ngotot dan akhirnya dia tampak meng’iya’kan. Karena lelah , saya masuk saja.

Di tengah jalan, saya kembali merasa tak enak, karena saya tidak diberi complaint card yang juga berisi catatan surcharge yang harus saya bayar. Saya lihat complaint card itu ada, namun dipegang sopir. Saat saya melirik argometer,saya makin curiga karena argometer ditutup dengan selembar kertas. Benar saja, argo ternyata tidak dinyalakan ! Adu bantah pun terjadi, karena sopir mengatakan saya telah menyetujui biaya sebesar Rp 120.000 untuk perjalanan dari bandara ke Latumeten Grogol ! Kemudian sopir juga menyalahkan saya karena tidak jelas memberikan instruksi.

Pada akhirnya saya hanya membayar Rp 100.000 dan menghindari beradu bantah lebih lanjut. Nomor Taksi Primajasa yang tidak bertanggungjawab ini adalah A623, sayangnya saya tidak sempat mencatat nama sopir.

Saya sungguh sangat kecewa atas apa yang terjadi. Tidak hanya sopir, namun juga petugas Primajasa di Bandara juga sama tidak bertanggungjawabnya. Saya harap Primajasa segera melakukan perbaikan atas kinerjanya sebelum seluruh pelanggan menghindari menggunakan taksi ini.

Mr Bean Cake : It’s not a cake, it’s a work of art

sandy — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 11:10:19 +0000

I especially love the monkey, she’s extremely cute in that pink bikinis ^^. What’s even better was the cake underneath this intricate icing art, it was very chocolatey, luscious, and sinful ! Congratulations Dapur Cokelat, this cake is 10 out of 10 ! Yanti said she will keep this icing masterpiece forever in her fridge, I’d like to see how it will look like 5 years from now.

Siomay Pink!

sandy — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 04:09:46 +0000

Siomay is a common street food here in Jakarta and many West Java cities. I don’t know who first created Siomay, but you can easily tell that this delectable dish has both Chinese and Indonesian root. It’s very similar to Yong Tau Foo in Malaysia and Singapore, but instead of drenching the steamed fish cakes in soup, Indonesians pour peanut sauce, sweet soy sauce and chili sauce on them.

The vendor of the so-called Siomay Pink is Mr Sriyono, he became legendary because he sold his siomay with a pink bicycle decorated with pink teddy bear and he was famous for wearing pink attire from head to toe. In an interview, he said that his decision on pink-ifying everything came after he decided to get his life back after a bitter divorce and bankruptcy. He wasn’t allowed to visit his daughters, and since they love pink, he hoped that by riding around selling siomay in pink, his daughters would one day found him *sniff sniff*.

Now, he put his bike to rest and opened up a small eatery instead. All the pinkness is definitely a good branding effort, but a product needs more than just a strong brand And I’m happy to announce that this siomay is actually very good! Much better than what you get on the street vendors whose siomay usually very ‘doughy’ because they use very little fish and meat but plenty of flour. In Siomay Pink you can taste the yummy fish in every bite! Yumm…

Where is it ? It’s at Jalan Kramat/Jalan Arteri Pondok Indah, opposite of SMAN 29 and Pakubuwono Apartment.

Review : Shaolin

sandy — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 04:42:25 +0000

After bai nianing around (I just made bai nian an officially a verb , means visiting homes during Chinese New Year ^^) , we went to watch the latest Andy Lau’s movie : Shaolin. We expected any movies with Andy Lau in it to be good, but Shaolin surpassed our expectations. It’s not just good , it’s a masterpiece !

Simple plot but every actors certainly gave their best performance in this movie. Andy Lau is very convincing as Hou Jie, the arrogant, greedy, ruthless warlord. Nicholas Tse looks completely psycho in his role as Cao Man. There’s also my favorite actress , Fan Bing Bing ^^ ! Fan Bing Bing is Hou Jie’s conflicted wife who has to endure all sorts of crap thanks to her husband’s greed. Jacky Chan appeared as a cook monk in Shaolin temple who is super afraid about going out of the temple’s compound. The fighting scenes were really good too, very Shaolin. In fact, many of the casts in this movie are real Shaolin monks. This movie is also loaded with lots of moral messages: compassion, humility, forgiveness and lots of selflessness. I went teary-eyed during the movie and I wasn’t the only one *sobs*. Congratulations to Benny Chan and his team of Action directors, this movie deserves a 9 out of 10!

On the funny side, I noticed that Hou Jie’s costume looks very much like Street Fighter’s M. Bison o_O.

Hou Jie

M.Bison

Forget all other movies, head straight to the cinema and watch Shaolin !

Review : Hello, Stranger !

sandy — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 06:54:38 +0000

SPOILER ALERT : Read this mindless post only if you know you won’t watch this. Now, I’ll start by giving this Thai romantic comedy a 4 out of 10. I’m quite upset that I wasted 2 hours of my weekend watching this . The idea behind this story was very interesting though. Two strangers meet in Korea and decided not to tell each other’s names, fearing that it will ruin the fun of being able to be in a foreign country doing things that you don’t usually do. Obviously, they then develop some sparks! Sadly, the real world – that they temporarily leave behind – doesn’t seem to like the sparks. Sounds simple. Why do they have to take 2 hours to do this? There were way too many unnecessary additions that didn’t really help the plot development. Another annoying thing about this movie was that many parts of the story were utterly ridiculous.

Let me give you an example:
One night boy told girl that he has an ex-girlfriend, they broke up because she wanted to get married, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to. So she left, but over time, he realised that he actually wanted to marry her. So the girl told him to write a postcard to his ex-gf to ask her if she’d like to marry him. How sweet ! After he sent the postcard, alas … he ran into some Thais tourists who happened to be his ex-gf’s friends ! And they told him that she’s getting married soon >< ! ( How come I never met anyone I know when I went somewhere ? ) So boy was broken hearted, he tried his best to forget her by having lots of fun. Within a couple of days, he was 90% sure that he’s in love with this girl – whose name he doesn’t know. Then suddenly … *thunderstorm* his ex-gf showed up right in front of the hotel o_O, she received the postcard, decided to cancel her marriage plan and booked a flight to Korea to find him. Romantic ! But I don’t think this is making any sense.

Another ridiculous part : Girl suddenly wins a lotttt of money in a casino, allowing them to rent expensive cars, went on shopping spree, and hire a Bae Yong Joon lookalike as a waiter -_-”. Seriously?

The ending scene also made me want to rip the director apart ! Too sad and tearful for a romantic comedy.

Let’s rewrite the ending, here’s Sandy’s version:
Boy still goes back to Thailand with his ex-gf, because what can he do ? She has travelled all the way ! But once in Thailand, he told her, “Sorry, I can’t marry you bla bla bla …. ” His ex-gf probably cried a river, but yea.. she was evil too, she left that poor fiance of hers the minute she received that postcard ! Then next he will try to find her blog by searching “Trip to Korea, Coffee Prince” ! She’s obviously a blogger (I could tell). Then he finds her blog and drops a message there with his mobile phone number and his name. When she moderates her blog’s comments, she can see it and contact him. ^^ Now, that’s romantic !

On the positive note, I like boy’s sarcastic and cynical remarks , “If there’s no Korean dramas, will Korea has visitors ?” Some scenes are quite funny too.

Finally …

sandy — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 05:15:40 +0000

a chance to get together with my girlfriendssss… Yanti and Emil. Also present : the hubby and Yanti’s boyfriend – Hermawan. We randomly picked Manhattan Fish Market – a newly opened seafood restaurant in Central Park Jakarta ( I just have to emphasise that this is in Jakarta instead of New York) – as our dining venue. Their Manhattan seafood platter was superb!! I’m giving it an 8 out of 10 ! Yummy prawns, scrumptious oysters, awesome fish, I’m subtracting some points on their calamaris because I’ve tasted better calamari elsewhere. Overall, very good .

Great seafood +

Great company

Awesome night with full tummy ^^

The Oatmeal – Nutritiously funny

sandy — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 10:20:34 +0000

I wasn’t talking about the gooey porridge that hubby hates, but about http://theoatmeal.com . Certainly one of the best sites to procrastinate with, after icanhascheezburger ^^!

Lol ! I should use : thewife@erwinandsandy.com from now on. I wonder if using company’s domain will do the same trick. Read more about what your email says about you here.

And yeppp… I’m no longer crazy busy, I can bloggg now! After being sleep deprived for several days, caffeine overdose, and worrying, my tiny task at work is finally completed. Looking forward to more exciting projects soon.

Cat Diaries – The First Ever Movie Filmed by Cats

sandy — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 03:43:34 +0000

This is the world as seen by Friskies’ RePURRters.
My review: Not bad for first attempt, but RePURRters, you need to do better job next time, after all you’re assigned to make mews coverage. Just kidding guys, you did great

Review : Oriflame Precious

sandy — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 07:03:54 +0000

A fact about me : I love perfumes and I’m very picky about my fragrances. I hate lots of perfumes and I generally try to steer clear from very floral perfumes that make me sneeze. The worst reaction came from a perfume from The Body Shop that I received as birthday present, called “Moonflower” , I sneezed endlessly as if I was having pollenosis or something. I wasn’t sure if it was Moonflower causing it, so the next day, I still insisted on spritzing it, and again … the wave of endless sneezing came. I decided to give it away and to my surprise, other people didn’t get that allergic reaction.

Another perfume I hate was Clinique Happy. Several years ago, Happy was all the rage, everyone seemed to love it, everyone … but me. Apart from these two, I also dislike Cacharel Anais Anais, all ranges of Revlon’s Charlie, etc etc…

Typically my preference leans towards oriental scents, I prefer scents that are non-linear and complex where the notes are subtle but well blended. My typical perfume is warm instead of fresh. Spicy instead of sweet. Another quality that I truly appreciate is staying power, because I don’t want to spritz every half an hour.

So you see, I’m super fussy. Perfumes that win my heart so far are Dune (Christian Dior), Escape for Women (Calvin Klein), Dolce Vita (also from Christian Dior), Neroli Jasmin (The Body Shop- poor staying power, but doesn’t matter, hubby loves this).

And noww… I’m adding another one to my list of favorite perfumes : Precious from Oriflame ! I wasn’t too convinced initially because so far I didn’t get any luck with Oriflame perfumes. But I ran out of perfumes and I don’t want to spend Rp 1.5 million because we’re currently on a strict budget. So I decided to give this one a try.

On first spritz, the smell is rather cloying o_O , oh nooo…. have I made the wrong purchase ?? It was very floral , very powdery, and I sneezed once too! But after several minutes, wow… it’s very very pleasant. It’s warm and has a very good staying power. After work, I still can detect the yummy smell. I’m giving Precious a 9 out of 10. I hope Oriflame never discontinues this.

What hubby thinks? He gives it his seal of approval, but he still thinks Neroli Jasmin is better.