Tuesday 27 May 2014

Shadow Wolf Mysteries 3: Cursed Wedding


Yeayyy.. Another pretty hidden object game. Everything in this game is attractive. The characters are beautiful, handsome and cool. The sceneries presented are served with perfectly hand-drawn graphic and the lovely musics as the background. The characters are really act. They show real gestures, movements and conversations. It's like a movie. I Love it ~ ~!!

 
 

We'll play as a detective who had been called to Paris by a bride-to-be names Veronica. Just days before their wedding, the ancient werewolf Mephistus has appeared in town seeking revenge on Veronica and her fiancé. You are asked to help the couple as Mephistus bites Veronica's fiancé and it has changed him to be a werewolf attacking his own darling.

Explore Paris to find man who knows what gun can be used to kill Mephistus and secret ingredients to create concoctions which will help Veronica's fiancé back to his true nature.





Monday 19 May 2014

Phantasmat

Woohoo. Finally I can steal the time away to finish this game. Oh my~~ This game is so creepy. Without needing to give us horrific graphic- the graphic is so poor in my sight, the storyline itself had been success to scare me. Too many paths to go through.

In Phantasmat we will play as ourselves. There's no clear character in solid appearance like most hidden object games I ever played. We'll give a role just the way we position ourselves in that game, as the main role. Oh, without conversation also. The conversation is the one-way one.


You are on your holiday. Feeling your car are getting to stray, you decide to consult with your map. But an accident happens which will lead you something terrible. A nightmare. Your car crashed and the rainy night make everything to be worst. Nobody will take any risk to approach a broken car under the heavy rain. Water is one of the best materials of electric discharges.

So you decide to enter the forest. You see an old shack and suddenly a girl come from nowhere in the dark. You tell your car is broken and you need if she can help you. She offers you to use a phone in a hotel nearby. But, besides giving you an advise, she also warn you to leave the hotel as soon as you finish with your stuff.

You walk to the hotel panorama and step into its gate. The hotel has a quite unique name. Drowned Hotel. You are welcomed by its owner. An old man. He says it's kinda surprising to see stranger visit their hotel. You utter that you need to use the hotel's phone to ask help. He allows. But a blackout comes. While the phone can't be used without the electricity. You need to fix the generator.

 
 

Your feet lead you to enter the basement through its corridor which ends in the generator room. Before you can finish your steps to your aim, the previous girl scolds you why you are still in the hotel. She has warned you to go away as soon as you finish your call. Knowing what really happen, she points her finger out to where you have to go to fix the generator. The generator is fixed and the hotel lobby is filled with lights. It means you can use the phone.

You dial the numbers and someone speaks in its end. Out of your expectation, he tells that your location is out of detection. Nolens volens, you have to rent one of the hotel's room to wait for morning to come. Your room is next to an old lady's room. She is funny, friendly and creepy at once. She tells you about what a glamorous town the hotel is located at used to be. But everything turned 180 degree because something she still conceals.

The girl actually is working in the hotel. She waits to have some time to speak with you. To tell you something you need- you have to, know. She tells that there's something terrible with the hotel, its owner, the old lady and town nearby it. She asks you to find a way to escape from there. She begs. You agree and because you need to get out of that place, too. A long search you will go through. To a cliff in the right side of the hotel which will show you a cemetery panorama and your search takes you to a diving suit. You dive to the drowned town then. Finally you find the answer. The truth that nobody except you is human.


This girl is naive. She has a romantic heart. Came to the town just to work. Not even to settle in there. Her fault for falling in love with a bastard married man. She believed when he told her that he would leave his family to marry her. But suddenly the bad news spread. The dam would collapse and people had to relocate. The girl thought the relocation was the best chance to sneak into the church to marry secretly. Wearing the bride's gown, she ran to the church with a bouquet in her hand. But her man never come. He precisely run with his family out of the town. And the girl died of drowning in her waiting.


This old man is the owner of The Drowned Hotel. His past was dark. He was a gangster member with so many success bank robberies. Found his partners got caught by police, he realised sooner or later he would get caught too. So he decided to run into a small town in nowhere to settle and build a brand new life. He tried his best to hide his true nature to give a good impression toward people there. Then he stayed in a hotel, showed the best attitude so people accept him easily. But habits which had been built for years couldn't be eliminated in months. He desired to own the hotel. Then the news about the dam which would collapse came to his ears. He worried his money would be stolen if he left the hotel. Thinking the hotel was located safely on a hill, he buried his money before running. But unexpectedly the dam collapse faster than expected. The man died of drowning with his money.


This old lady had the most sinister past among them. She was just a common young lady. With her beauty, she seduced the innocent Mayor then she became his wife. She enter the high class community and everybody knew who she was. The Mayor's wife. But she was not satisfied for always being her husband's shadow. She then killed her husband by poisoning his drink. She was sorry. Really, really big sorry in her heart. Then she rent a room in a hotel to move into because the house she and her husband ever lived just reminded her about her husband and what she had done to him. The dam was collapsed when she was in her husband's cemetery begged for forgiveness.

Sunday 11 May 2014

Summer In Seoul

First of all, I wanna say Happy International Mother's Day for every mom around the world. May all of you be blessed by God for every pure love, protection, affection, and nurture you had given, is giving, and will give to your family. Lots of love from a daughter from Indonesia, Lia..

Here in Indonesia, we celebrate Mother's Day nationally on December 22nd. No matter what, everyday is the right special day for our mommy :heart:


image Title: Summer In Seoul
image Author: Ilana Tan
image Year of Publish: 2006
image Language: Bahasa Indonesia
image Genre: Romance, Teen fiction
image Series: Tetralogy four seasons

This is the first book by Ilana Tan for her tetralogy four-seasons love which would be followed by Autumn in Paris, Winter in Tokyo and Spring in London. This tetralogy just remind me to the four-seasons love in Korean dramas: Autumn in My Heart, Winter Sonata, Summer Scent and Spring Waltz (I know nothing about the last one /hmph) and precisely when reading this book, I really like watching a Korean drama. The story flows like the most plot and storyline Korean drama always serve us:
  • Unexpected encounter
  • Rich man >< common girl
  • Unilaterally jealousy
  • There's no truly coincidence in this world, your past affect your future.
This novel tells the story of Sandy aka Han Soon-hae, Indonesian-Korean descent girl. She studied in Seoul and worked in a famous designer's boutique there. On one night in Summer, she did a grocery at a supermarket. There he met a handsome man named Park Hyun-shik and the man had accidentally taken the phone belonged to her due to the similarity of its shape, colour and ringtone. Sandy frantically trying to get her cell phone back. Sandy then went to the man's residence, and the house was owned by a Korean famous young singer named Jung Tae-woo, while the man who took her cell phone was Tae-woo's manager. Without knowing it, the experience at that night would reveal the secret four years ago and changed her love story.

Jung Tae-woo, a Korean famous young singer had reemerged into the entertainment industry after 4 years of vacuum, in case of an accident four years ago. In the midst of his return to the world of entertainment, there were rumours spreading that he was a gay. He was concerned that gossip will affect the sales of his new album. That's why his manager suggested him to take pictures with a girl, to break down the issues. When Sandy appeared in front of them, Park Hyun-shik was sure that Sandy was suitable to be a "lover" of Jung Tae-woo for some time. Jung Tae-woo was not aware, that the presence of Sandy would open the old case he had tried to forget.

Meanwhile, Sandy who unhesitatingly accepted Hyun-shik's offer to be a "lover" of Jung Tae-woo to get the  "gay" gossip disappeared. Originally Jung Tae-woo unsuspected why Sandy immediately accepted his offer, while Sandy just told him not to regret his decision to get Sandy involved in his issue. The days of Summer, Sandy and Jung Tae-woo start as "lovers". The feeling changing was happening. Mutual interests appear between them. But both of them do not realize the truth of the story from four years ago was chasing them.

The important question was sticking out: since in the beginning of Sandy agreed the request for help Jung Tae-Woo, but it seemed she did not want to ask for anything in return. Is there a hidden plan in Sandy's mind? Who is sandy actually? Does Sandy has something to do with an incident of four years ago--an incident made Tae-Tae-woo decided to disappear from the entertainment world?

Tuesday 6 May 2014

1 Litre of Tears: Drama VS Real Life

Surely no need for me to ask if you know Ikeuchi Aya from 1 Litre of tears. First time for me to know this drama was when I was  a senior high. There was a private TV channel in my country aired a drama talked about a girl’s fight with her Ataxia disease. So sad for me to watch it. It was success to make me and my friends full of tears. But people said that it was a remake. Or actually plagiarism. Then another private TV channel aired the original one. A Japan drama, entitled 1 Litre of Tears. I still remember that I was not as sad as watching the ‘remake’ version but when I was a college student, I bought the DVD to watch it again and I could see the tragic life from Aya. Aya should figth with her Spinnocerebellar Degeneration or well known for Ataxia disease.

Ataxia is a terrible disease where the cerebellum of the brain gradually deteriorates to the point where the victim cannot walk, speak, write, or eat. A cruel disease, as it does not affect the mind, it causes the victim feels like a prisoner. (The disease damage the brain ability to control the victim’s brain ability to control her body movement without disturbing her intelligence. Her intelligence made her thought why she could not walk properly, speak, write or eat freely like before and then accepted her fact condition).

The drama was set in 2005 till I know that it was a drama based on true story from Aya’s diary who lived in 60’s-70’s and died in 80’s. The diary itself had sold for 1,1 millions copies in Japan only (not fix statistic) and inspired so many people. But when I read the diary virtually, I found so many differences between the drama and Aya’s real life. Of course we cannot conclude that the script writer change the story line as if she/he just liked to. Because I am really sure she/he could not change Aya’s struggle story without her family’s permission.

I want to make a comparison between ‘Aya’ on drama and ‘Aya’ on her real life based on my point of view as an amateur. Not to say that the drama was a fictive but I found that the changing on drama from the real life caused a different point of view for myself to see Aya. If I compare Aya in her life and the drama, I saw that Aya’s life on drama was very sad but she faced it in a lucky way. Some people said that if we want to see how Aya’s close-to-her-real-life, just watch 1 Litre of Tears movie version. Although there were still some differences to her real life, the movie version was closer to Aya’s real life (based on some people who ever watched the movie and I never).

In movie version, Aya was rolled by Asae Onoishi who acted as Asumi, Aya’s senior and roommate in their disability school. No matter if it was drama or movie version, the purpose is one. To show people what Aya did to struggle from her disease and ask people not to give up easily.


Here are some differences which I could find between Aya in her real life and Aya on drama:

Illness Creeping

In her real life, Aya knew her disease when she was fourteen, sooner-being a senior high girl. So her junior high teacher and mother had a meeting to discuss which school Aya would continue with her condition. In drama, Aya found her disease after being accepted in Higashikou, a favourite school, with her best friend, grated by Kawamoto senpai and also met Haruto. (in her life, Aya also studied at the school)

See? The Aya in drama was more lucky. At least she could cheer happily with Mari, her best friend in front of the publication board where their name written as the exam candidates who passed the Higashikou entrance exam. She blushed when Kawamoto, a boy who she had been his secret admire since eleven was grating her for her acceptance in the school. And also met Haruto, Aya’s guardian.

The real Aya? She and her mom just cried when they knew Aya was accepted in Higashikou.

Cannot play basketball

The drama script writer made Aya as a girl who played basketball actively. Even she joined the basketball club since she was in junior high school. Maybe the writer wanted to make it more dramatics by using basketball as the symbol for Aya who can walk properly and even run freely but then being handicapped in a wheelchair because of her illness. But, in her real life, Aya was bad in athletic. Aya herself noticed why she didn’t put her arms forward to break her fall so she would not fall straight to the face. She thought it might be caused by her poor ability in athletic. In drama, when Aya fell straight to the face while would go to school, didn’t realize why she didn’t put her arms forward to break her fall but mother did.

Once again the Aya in drama had something the Aya in real life did not have T.T

 Aya lost her three front teeth.

When Aya crossed the street to another bus stop, it was sprinkling. An elementary school boy shared his umbrella with her and she tried to walk fast trying to keep up with his pace. All of sudden, she fell flat forward, blood flowed from her mouth and stained the wet asphalt in red. And the result? Her lip was swollen and her three front teeth were broken and gone.

Maybe we could see the same scene when Aya had a date with Kawamoto senpai in a night for the firework exhibition, using Yukata. All of sudden, Aya fell when they were holding hands crossed the road. The same thing between Aya and the elementary boy and Aya and Kawamoto was they were waiting the light turned green.

Aya’s all of sudden fallen while having a date did not steal her beauty but how about the all of sudden fallen in her real life?

There were no Kawamoto senpai and Haruto

I think many readers of Aya’s diary hope to see how Aya wrote about Haruto in it. But there was no Haruto actually. The same case to Kawamoto, Aya’s senior in Basketball Club from junior high. If real Aya had a poor ability in athletic, how could she attend a basketball team. If she never be a basketball team, how could she being a basketball club member. If she never be a basketball club member, how could she had a senpai in basketball club named Kawamoto. Even one of the six fears why Aya felt so hard to be transferred to the disability school was boy thingy.

The Aya on the drama ever had a broken heart when Kawamoto senpai letf her when he knew Aya’s condition ( had a rehabilitation in the same room with the old people and doing weird exercises) but then she had Haruto. Who never leave her until she told him not to see each other anymore because she understood that they had different life. Aya stuck with her handicapped and Haruto should continue his life to get being a great doctor in the future.

The Aya in real life? She just had a wish to have a love story with someone she would love.

Firm Mom

The Aya’s mom in drama could show us successfully how Shioka loved her daughter more than herself. How she will do everything to help, protect and made Aya sure that she would never be left. Aya even wrote in her diary if when she had to crawl to reach the bathroom which only 3 meters from her because she could not even stand although if she held something anymore, her mom also crawl behind her (to show she was not alone) and they both cried. Shioka even said that she would take Aya with her if she died then.

But we never see Shioka in drama told Aya that it was only a baby who showed what she thinks by crying and Aya had made a senior high looked bad. We also never show Shioka in drama said that Aya should use her brain to develop everything she had learned so she would not fall so often. Do you remember when Aya asked her mom, dad and doctor if she could get married or not? Shioka just showed her shock with Aya’s question and give silence as the answer.

In their real life, when Aya asked if she could get married to her doctor, Shioka automatically answered ‘No, Little Aya. You can’t’. When Aya asked why she can’t, mom just answered as cheerfully as possible that Aya need someone to get married to. First of all, she had to find someone who fully understand her condition and would agree to marry her.

Shioka realized she had given her daughter a cruel answer. But she did not want to give her a vague reply that would encourage her to cherish an illusion that would soon be dashes.

But then she moved to tears when Aya shook her head and said ‘No’ T.T

Cool Dad

Aya’s dad in drama was an owner of a Tofu Shop and also a funny daddy that showed his strong for facing the whole family problems in front of his children and covered it by his humors successfully. But in the real life, Aya’s dad was a cool man, I mean not as funny as dad on drama. I think Aya did not give many informations about her dad in her diary. She just said that her dad was an impetuous but sweet. Aya wrote she was touched by her dad’s attention when he told that it was better for Aya not to go out of home in a sunny day not in the night.

I think there is no reason to use her cool daddy as one of her unluckiness compared to Aya’s funny dad in drama.
***

I think those are the big points that make Aya in drama is really different with Aya in real life. But whatever it is, I can learn that everything I can get in my life is a bless by Allah. Even the little things like typing on my phone keypad is also a bless for someone who even cannot move her finger freely T.T


And these are the othere little differences between drama and real life for Aya. Not the big deals but they were parts of Aya’s life also.

Aya’s daily activities

In her real life, Aya has the daily tasks like watering the garden, weeding and also check if there are insects on the becks of the leaves of the tomato she planted. But, in drama version, Aya shown as a girl that only go to school, play basket and help mom and dad in tofu shop. Even there was no front yard in Aya’s home.

 Mary VS Ganmo
The drama version shows Aya has a dog named by the family as Ganmo. Ganmo was a lost dog found by her (or may be Haruto found him first). Nor Aya either Haruto could keep Ganmo in their house but the probability is bigger for Ganmo to live with Aya (even till Aya’s death, Ganmo still lived with the family). Mom and Dad allowed her to have a pet because they had known about Aya’s illness and want to make her happy by allowing her to do what she likes to. While in her life, Aya has a dog named Mary. Mary was died because the neighbour’s fierce dog bit her.

Aya has two brothers

In drama Aya just has Hiroki as her only brother but actually there is Kentaro, Aya’s youngest brother. And at that time, Rika was only two months. Not a kindergarten student like in drama.

The Other Side of Suffering 

Everyone feels pain
But surely, after suffering satisfaction will arrive
Even with sports; studying or other ordeals with life,
It’s like that for everyone
If we can beat the pain, on the other side
a rainbow of happiness awaits us.
That will definitely become a treasure
Lets believe in that.


Step by Step 

When my existence seems to disappear
I will look for the place where I can do the best I can
From now on, I’ll deliberate slowly
I won’t be impatient
I won’t be greedy
I won’t give up
Because everyone takes things step by step