Italy and Malta Trip (Day 7): Goodbye Italy and Hello Malta!

It was our last day in Rome but flights from Rome to Valletta are only one and a half hours long, so we still had time for one more museum! Coincidentally, we also spent about an hour and a half at the Museum of the Liberation of Rome. The museum is located at the very same building which the SS used to hold and torture Italians who resisted Nazi rule during WWII.

The building seems small but there were a couple of floors to explore, as well as numerous exhibits and rooms. Although most of the words were in Italian, we were provided with an audio guide.

In the above picture, there this exhibit next to the picture of a tank in the streets. It contained a message that a resistance fighter by the name of Ignazio Vian had carved into bread, and his message was "Courage, Mamma". (Bread reminds me of the film I had to watch for class: Rome, Open City) 

Of course, resistance fighters were arrested, interrogated, tortured and killed. Before their deaths, many prisoners scratched out messages and left graffiti on the walls of their cells. There was a prisoner who counted the number of days he was imprisoned for, and another who wrote long paragraphs of Italian words. (I wish I could read them!) 

According to the audio guide, there was a prisoner who believed that the traitor who betrayed them was the one nicknamed "rabbit".

This is a reproduction of the jail cards of the Jews who were killed during the Ardeatine massacre or Fossa Ardeatine massacre on 24 March 1944.

On 4 June 1944, Nazis who were fleeing Rome massacred more prisoners. Most of the prisoners were identified except for one. Finally, in 2009, the last man was identified as a British officer. On the left of the exhibit, there is a picture of the memorial that they added for him.

Just a picture of the buildings nearby! I learnt a lot from this museum and I think that it was worth the visit.

We had breakfast at a random cafe (and lunch at a different restaurant) before heading to the airport.

Our train tickets!

It's nice to look at the black departure board and feel this sense of anticipation, wondering what the next destination has in store for you.

When we reached Malta, someone was sent to drive us to the hotel. By the time we checked in at Hotel Osborne, the sky was already dark.

The lobby! Okay, so I think that the best hotel, out of the three hotels that we stayed in during our trip, was the Hotel Olimpia in Venice! But my boyfriend preferred Osborne Hotel. 

The hotel in Rome was the smallest, and that's to be expected since, well, it's Rome. So our larger room at Osborne Hotel was a welcome change!

Time for dinner at a random restaurant! I ordered meat that I didn't like again. (I have to stop doing that)

After dinner, we took our time to explore our surroundings and to familiarise ourselves with the streets of Valletta! 

I really wish to go back to Malta! But I wouldn't visit the country in winter again. I'd like to take a dip in the ocean in summer.

That's all for day 7! Malta is amazing, so please stay tuned!

Italy and Malta Trip (Day 6): Rome

Finally! We arrived at the Vatican City! This picture was taken after we had breakfast at our hotel. We then had to take the train and avoid all the people who were trying to sell us tours or supposedly discounted tickets. Then, we had to navigate our way through a sea of people at the entrance before finally getting to the first few exhibits at the actual museum. 

Every single room in the Vatican was grand. There were so many galleries and so many things to look at that it was all a blur! I think we visited the Art Gallery first, where there was a huge amount of religious art being displayed everywhere. After that, we went to the Ancient Egyptian exhibit. The room with the mummy and the sarcophagus was so ridiculously packed with tourists. All I could do was to snap a few pictures here and there. There were canopic jars, hieroglyphs carved into stone, and cat figurines of course. Spotted a statue of Anubis and also one of Sekhmet in this semicircular room where all the larger statues were kept.  

We had to walk down so many corridors and each looked just as majestic as the next. The corridors never seemed to end and we did not have time for all the exhibits! We came across the Hall of Animals, which was supposed to make up a stone zoo. There were huge Roman sculptures in every corner. 

There was this hall that was filled with ancient maps and it was interesting to see how the world was viewed by people in the past! I feel like we could have spent the entire day here but the walking was really killing me and we needed to get some lunch. I think it is impossible to fully explore every single part of the museum in just a single day.

We popped into a Chinese restaurant called "Ni Hao" that sold Japanese food (so I guess it's just an Asian restaurant?) and I ordered a meal that came with soup, sashimi, sushi, rice and chicken, all for under 10 euros I think! Basically, Asian restaurants are just way cheaper.

Obviously, we had to take some pictures at St. Peter's Square!

So beautiful! The columns remind me of the scene in Disney's Hercules, you know? The scene when Hercules does not know his strength and he accidentally causes all the columns are the marketplace to collapse like dominoes. That scene was probably based on the columns at St. Peter's Square.

In front of St. Peter's Basilica!

Okay, I just had to try and fit all the columns into the a panoramic picture.

There were some Christmas decorations on display behind us.

After this, we headed to Largo di Torre Argentina, a square that used to house four temples and a theatre, but all that's left are remains.

The main attraction for us was actually the cat sanctuary! We walked around and spotted a cat. After that, we found the entrance quite easily.

After going down a flight of steps, you'd see a little entrance. The shelter is located under a busy road, so the first thing I noticed when I stepped in was all the noise and vibrations of cars above us. But the cats are totally fine with it!

Some of them were sleeping soundly next to the objects that were displayed for purchase. They are used to the presence of admirers and visitors too! 

Just like any other respectable shelter, the Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary takes care of cats of all kinds. There were fluffy cats and regal-looking cats, but there were also cats who were missing an eye, and cats who suffered from other physical disabilities. But it didn't matter because all of the cats were so sweet!

One of the ladies who worked there told us stories about the cats! There was a cat in particular who was knocked down by a car and had some health issues, but it was extremely friendly and it kept approaching us! I could not take a clear picture of it since it kept moving around. Ugh, so cute!

I bet this fluffy one was adopted shortly after our visit!

There's also this programme that the shelter runs called "Distant Adoption". Basically, you can be a sponsor of one of these cats if you make a monthly donation, and the shelter will give you updates on the cat you have "adopted"! We found it a little too costly (we are poor) but I think it's a great idea.

In the end, before we left, we bought a black tote bag. There were many other items on sale too, and you can buy these items to support the sanctuary. (If you don't, you'd be judged by the cats there) 

Next stop: Piazza Navona. I wish I could've taken a beautiful picture of this place in the day as well! People were just hanging out at the square and the ambiance was really nice. The grand building in the picture above is Sant'Agnese in Agone, a 17th century church. It's near the Fountain of the Four Rivers. (also pictured above)

I think that this is Fontana del Moro, the fountain located at the south end of the square.

Fountain of Neptune is located at the north end. There were also horse-drawn carriages in the square.

After looking around, we boarded a bus down to Trastevere. My boyfriend wanted to bring me to an Italian restaurant to try the best carbonara in Italy, but apparently, he did not know that you needed to make a reservation beforehand. (Research fail!) The waiter at the restaurant claimed that they were fully booked, although from the outside, the place seemed almost empty. It was rather strange.

Anyway, it didn't matter in the end because we just strolled down the streets and popped into Ristorante da Augustea, a random restaurant we found. I didn't like the pork that I had ordered because I found it too chewy for my liking, but the potatoes were nice. 

My boyfriend thought the meat was yummy, so he was willing to trade me his delicious carbonara! (The perks of having a wonderful boyfriend) I should've just ordered this in the first place. It's okay though, ordering the meat was still worth it because of the potatoes. 

(I know it's taking me forever to blog about this trip but I'm just so busy with work. I'm trying my best to blog whenever I can and hopefully I'll finish blogging about this trip before the year ends!)

Crazy Rich Asians (Film Review)

I think Rotten Tomatoes is crazy to give Crazy Rich Asians a rating of 93%. The movie was just plain boring! If I wanted to watch a shitty Channel 8 or Channel 5 drama, all I'd have to do is turn on the television. I can't believe I sat through the entire movie without throwing up out of disgust, then standing up and walking out. (At the start I already felt like leaving the movie theatre. I should've done so, just like how Pierre Png got out of his car) There was nothing good about the movie. The entire plot (if there even was one. For the first half of the movie, I felt like nothing was going on) was so cliche. Come on. The rich dude's family doesn't approve of his girlfriend. Okay. We've seen that in a million Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, and Hong Kong dramas. Basically, most Asian dramas. So what does the movie Crazy Rich Asians do to make itself stand out? Absolutely nothing, apart from spending their budget on crazy and rich stuff. Yeah, okay, I get it. That's the title of the damn movie. But can't you at least have an interesting plot as well?

And yeah, okay, it's an all Asian cast. I GET IT. SO WHAT? Black Panther was praised for its cast too, but it also had a wonderful plot. It was exciting. I didn't feel like killing myself while watching it. In fact, I wouldn't mind watching it again because it was that good! But this movie? No thanks. And in the first place, it shouldn't be called Crazy Rich Asians. I mean, the only Asians in this movie were Chinese people. The movie started with a quote from Napoleon. "Let China sleep, for when she wakes she will shake the world." I immediately turned to my boyfriend and asked, what's the point of this quote? Well, apparently there is NO BLOODY POINT. The movie producers are giving all other Asians a big and loud, "Fuck you! Chinese people are the only Asians to us, and all Chinese feel a sense of belonging to China!" Why the fuck are we talking about China anyway? For the last fucking time, Singapore is not in China, okay?

As if the plot wasn't bad enough, the acting was worse. Okay, there are still dramas with cliche plots. To be more specific, there are a whole bunch of dramas about the exact same thing. Rich man. Poor girl. Rich family disapproves. Conflict. Love conquers all. Happily ever after. Okay, sure. Some people like that shit. There are people who watch these cliche dramas or films and cry because the acting was good and they felt moved. But in this movie? I just felt like punching the male lead in the bloody face. First of all, he doesn't even tell his girlfriend about his family. Which motherfucker does that? And Rachel, the female lead, informs her mom about this fact casually. Somehow, her ASIAN mum is okay with her daughter flying all the way from America to Singapore with a creep who doesn't even tell her anything about his family. Are you kidding me? Then, as if that wasn't a red flag, Rachel later finds out that Nick didn't tell her about his ex. Excellent communication skills, Nick. The worst part about Nick is that he thinks he's Prince Charming because he spews out cliche one-liners like, "I think I just fell in love with you for the second time." EW! SLAP HIM, RACHEL!

Rachel has good mahjong skills, I'll give her that. But if I was Rachel, I'd be utterly horrified if Nick proposed to me at the Singapore River. After all that shit, Nick thinks that a proposal would magically solve everything. Gross! At that point, I was internally screaming, "PUSH HIM INTO THE FUCKING RIVER, UGH!" I would have loved to see an ending where Rachel just rejects Nick in the plane, and flies off to New York. I don't need an expensive party at the roof of MBS with synchronised swimmers. That's so stupid.

There are so many unnecessary party scenes in the movie, and Rachel doesn't even seem to have any emotions about anything. Okay, at first, when she finds out that she's flying business class (or first class or whatever) and gets a glass of champagne and all that atas stuff, she is amazed by how rich her boyfriend is. (Which is strange, because you'd think that after one and a half years of dating, he would have at least pampered her in some way or another, or, I don't know, tell her about his family. See above) Then after that, when she's on some island, she watches girls fight for branded clothes and bags like it's the most normal thing in the world. She doesn't even judge them, and she doesn't even look disgusted. If she was indeed from a single parent family, she would have had quite a rough childhood. Why on earth isn't she judging these idiots? At no point in the movie did she show her disgust about the extravagance of it all. I would have liked a more relatable protagonist, please. Even superheroes with unrealistic superpowers are more relatable than this character.

Oh, and there are some side characters. Astrid is super gorgeous but the relationship she had with her husband aka Pierre Png was the dumbest shit in the world. She finds out that he's having an affair through the most cliche way possible: accidentally reading his texts. Wow, how original. And if that wasn't clear enough to the audience, they get Astrid and Rachel to sit down at the beach and they make Astrid state that her husband is cheating on her. Yeah okay okay, we get it! How stupid do you think the audience is? The movie has time for this nonsense but it had no time to show us what Nick's mother said to Nick after her mahjong session with Rachel. Ugh. And when Astrid tells Rachel about her sad news, Rachel doesn't react like a normal human being. She doesn't say things like, "Are you sure? What happened? How did you find out?" No. Rachel just accepts the news, like she had always known that this would happen. Erm, okay. Why are you so quick to judge Pierre Png but not the other girls who ended up calling you a gold digger?

And Pierre Png's character is so stupid. He was the one at fault but he gets to walk out of the car (such a coincidence, they stopped at a lovely bridge and not on a highway) and let his wife attend a disgusting wedding on her own. He says that he wishes for Astrid to raise her voice and fight with him. He doesn't like the fact that she didn't wanna cause a scene. Well, newsflash, loser. You don't need to fight to be in a healthy relationship. You're the one who's bringing toxic waste into the relationship, not her. This guy is indeed crazy and I'm glad Astrid ended the relationship on her terms, not his. But I still don't really care much for these characters. What's their point in the movie? To make sure that the story isn't too boring because the lead characters are? Nope, I was still bored. I had the urge to take out my phone and play some mindless mobile games, but I resisted because I had to be considerate.

You know what this movie should be called? "How Some Weird Chinese People Don't Tell Each Other Shit". If Pierre Png's character and Astrid talked about their problems, he might not have had an affair. If Rachel's mum told her the truth about her Dad and if Nick told Rachel the truth about his family and his ex, none of this would've happened. No stupid misunderstandings. I don't understand why they even kept the truth from their loved ones in the first place! Don't you think that your daughter deserves to know about her parentage? Don't you think that the woman you plan to marry would eventually find out about your crazy rich family? It's so ridiculous.

Nick and Rachel attend a wedding but the couple doesn't even speak Singlish. They are supposed to be Singaporeans, right? Why do they speak perfect English? Why does the bride keep screaming about everything? And why are they driving a car without the hood up? It's Singapore, and it's hot. And every time the actors try to speak in a language they aren't familiar with, I cringe. They either overdo it, or they just can't. But somehow, the servants can speak almost perfect English. Oh my gosh. Does no one in this movie have a Malaysian or Filipino accent? And the jokes? They all just fell flat. The theatre I was in was silent throughout most of the movie. When Rachel's mum flew over to comfort her daughter, there was a scene where they were just lying down on the bed, sharing a moment. Then the creep (Rachel's best friend's brother) arrives and takes not-so-sneaky pictures of them. The ladies laugh. Erm, ok. "Am I supposed to laugh with them?" I wondered. No one in the theatre laughed. I was laughing to myself because of the fact that no one laughed. They actors were trying so hard. It was just terrible. Lastly, Chinese people do not just listen to old Chinese songs okay! I thought this goes without saying but ugh, this is fucking ridiculous.

After the movie, my boyfriend and I just started talking about how we wasted our time watching a worthless movie, and it even felt like a game. We started saying, "I'd rather be _____ for two hours than watch Crazy Rich Asians." Some of these things included "marking terrible scripts", "in a bumpy jeep", "experiencing turbulence in a plane" and a cliche one, "watching paint dry". It's cliche but hey, at least it works! Unfortunately, the same thing can't be said for Crazy Rich Asians.