Dan Brown: Origins

Origin (Robert Langdon, #5)Origin by Dan Brown
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

If you are looking for some great conspiracy with exciting cryptology, you would definitely be disappointed with this book. I personally think Dan Brown exhausted all his creativity in the past few books with regards to religion and symbols, this new book is mediocre.

The storyline was predictive, codes were mediocre and tactics were commercialized with the introduction of an AI. I think he has the idea of this book will be shot into a movie (which is fun to see Winston comes to life in a movie adaptation). The additional humour with the interaction with Winston makes the book more entertaining to read.

What Dan Brown never fail to create is, the intricacy of every country he has written. After this book, you would definitely like to visit Spain to see all the different buildings that was being illustrated in the book.

The book is definitely a page turner to solve the mystery of what Edmond Kirsch going to disclose. However, I felt the "idea" wasn't great enough to account for the killings.

Is still a pretty good book to pass your time but, be prepared to be really disappointed. You won't get a satisfaction out of it.

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20160512-14 Malacca - Places to visit

Malacca is a good place to spend a short weekend as it is only a 3 hours ride from Singapore. The list are not exhaustive but some of the places that worth visiting for the 2 days stay.

SHORE OCEANARIUM
2F-01, The Shore Shopping Gallery,193, Pinggiran @ Sungai Melaka,Jalan Persisiran Bunga Raya, 75100 Melaka

What is different from S.E.A Aquarium at Sentosa is, this places houses a great variety of fresh water fishes. There is also an interesting touch pool which you actually can touch a stingray! As what the appearance tells you, a stingray feels like a carpet, soft and slightly flurry. You can see a series of variety of marine life like hermit crab, turtles which are not found locally. I love the Arowana collection too!


SHORE SKY TOWER
Located at the same building as the Oceanarium, you can get up to 42th floor of the building for a pretty nice sunset. 



MARITIME MUSEUM or FLORA DE LAMAR
Muzium Samudera, (the Flora De La Ma), Jalan Quayside, 75000 Malacca, Malaysia

The Maritime Museum or the Flora de Lamar is a replica of the Portuguese ship which sank in the coast of Malacca while on its way to Portugal. Inside the museum houses some history of malacca trade. The only comments: Is pretty stuff in there.




MALACCA CRUISE
Jalan Laksamana, 75000 Malacca(next to Quayside Heritage Centre, close to the Maritime Museum)

The cruise is recommended to go at night as it is more breezy (Malacca can be very hot in the day) and you can enjoy the night scene of the river with the lighted buildings along the river.  The tour last about 45 minutes and it is recommended to grab a podium seat if you would like to take some nice photos. The boat tour takes you from the Muara Jetty to the Taman Rempah Jetty where some passengers alight. You can alight here if you wish or wait for the boat to u-turn back to the jetty that you have boarded.




3D JONKER WALK
27, Jalan Hang Jebat, 75200 Melaka, Malaysia

Malacca also have its own version of "Trickeye Museum" known as the 3D Jonker Walk or Upside Down @ Jonker Street. As the place is pretty quiet, there actually a photographer who follows you around to take photos of you (in order to sell to you later). However you can see the photographer's help for one or two photos if you need a group picture.

The place is interesting with Doraemon 3D room.
Malacca

20151228-31 Siem Reap, Cambodia - Food

The itinerary is those standard ones which is offered by the local agency. What I would like to share would be some of the cafe hopping experience I had while I was there. 

Cafes

BLUE PUMPKIN
Hospital St. (Old Market), Siem Reap, Siem Reap

This place sells the best caramel with cashew nut ice cream I ever had! A place that cannot be missed place when you go Cambodia.The caramel had an extra fragrance while the cashew nuts was coated with sugar. I had the same ice cream thrice while I was there.


Gelato Lab (near Blue Pumpkin)
Alley West

Rustic kind of deco while you savor away your ice-cream. They carries quite standard ice-cream flavours.


SISTER SREY CA
200 Pokambor St, Riverside, 1 Old Market Area 
Tue - Sun  7am-6pm


The menu was rather nostalgic as it was found in between old book covers. 
The food there was rather standard breakfast.


KAYA CAFE
Hospital Street, opposite Old Market, block from riverside Pokamber Avenue, near corner Street 9, 06 396 6735, 
8am-10pm


The place serves very local kind of dessert which is pretty interesting for tourist like me.
Middle: Traditional Cambodian Rice Wine (Sombai) - Lemongrass and Lemon flavour 



CAFE CENTRAL
Street 11, opposite Old Market, 017 692 997, 7am-11pm

THE SUN
Street 11, corner Pub Street, 077 578 955, 7am-11.30pm

Basically these 2 places are affiliated, located a few doors away from each other with similar deco and they sell similar drinks too.

Have some chilled drinks here before continuing your journey~


Meals

Meals are usually included in your tour package which I usually not that nice. This is one of the meals that we went scouting for
GENEVIEVE'S RESTAURANT
Sok San St, Siem Reap, Siem Reap 3058, Cambodia 

Rank #3 on the tripadvisor, the place is packed with tourists. You cant get a seat by walking in. Recommended to walk in to make a reservation for next day.
The food is very value for money and rather tasty, maybe that explains the high rank on trip advisor. I think ranking highly on trip advisor brings in the tourist crowd too. 

They have lemon grass crabs which is rather cheap for the amount they offered. The smoked duck salad gives you a choice how well you want your duck to be cooked (like beef!)
Cambodia

The Girl On The Train - Paula Hawkins

The Girl on the TrainThe Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This book generally is a waste of time. After reading it, I went goodreads to check out the reviews, there were some really funny ones..

I would suggest the author watch more dramas. Such plot probably appear in local drama umpteen times. The author can't even bothered to create enough characters to send the guessing game more in depth. There were 3 male characters, the victim's husband Scott, victim's doctor Kamal and the female lead ex-hubby Tom. The victim was pregnant at the time that she was murdered, the baby was not Scott and Kamal, who else would you guess? At least the author was not lame enough to claim the baby to be the policeman's or Stranger A's.

What was the murderer's motive? Because he wanted to break up and the victim don't want to. So he flew into anger and hit her with a rock? Huh, what is this man? Nothing better to write?

The writing standard was poor. The character of all characters were weak. The book built basically NO emotions. You don't feel any joy, any pitiness, any anger, nothing. Even a glass of plain water would taste better.

Rachel being drunk and losing her sane, SUDDENLY became sober. He should explain more about the fairy godmother in action, Maybe fairy godmother need to run off to attend to Cinderella, not able to appear as calefare for the book.

Seriously, even you have time and got nothing to do, DON'T READ IT. Unless you want to be an author and need some motivation, you probably felt you could do a better job.

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lousy
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