you have a lot of cats
kota kinabalu trip
I went to KK with Daphne for a weekend trip. Really the purpose of the trip was to see Patricia and hang out with her, but it was still a lot of fun in other ways. I really miss just going away - I've been on a couple of family trips last year, but family trips mean watching out for the smaller kids and, er, being very tired all the time.
This trip is still tiring, of course, (going out always is, for an introvert) but without the kids bit! I loved that the place we stayed was in walking distance to so many interesting places to eat, a mall (that we didn't go to cuz there was no need) and saltxpaper, a stationery store that reminds me a lot of stickerrific.
The Jesselton Artisan Market was being held that weekend, so I finally got to visit it after hearing so much about it! I resisted the call of pretty blouses and jewelry (that I won't be able to stand wearing anyway, but still love to look at) but bought a bunch of stickers. Was kinda sad there weren't any postcards being sold, but I spent a LOT on cookies that I only finished eating yesterday, so I guess that was fine.
Patricia's brother drove us to Kokol Farmstay, which was a fun way to spend the day. I was too afraid of heights (and not a fan of having others take pictures of me) so I didn't really take advantage of the swings/photo places, but I enjoyed just being up there and looking at the mountains, and the ocean in the distance. One thing I miss a lot about living in Desa View was, well, the view. My current house's view is basically an apartment much nicer than mine.
Oh, and there were cats! Three cute strays - two manja ones and one chatty one - and I finally met Patricia's cats in person. I love Soju...
In the end, I bought lots of postcards and had a good time, and was so sad to leave. Really want to go again one day - maybe after I've completely paid off and slept off this trip.
the batman
I hadn't made proper plans to watch The Batman, but after the sixth or seventh time someone asked me what I thought of the movie, I decided to watch the next available show after work. It was... surprisingly good?
I don't know if it's for every superhero movie fan, or even every DC/Batman fan. I've seen some very valid criticisms of the film - one of them being that fans of it are the sort of people that validates that thing said in The Matrix trilogy, that humans tend to question the realism of things if there's no suffering. It's kind of dark.
Thing is, I didn't think I would like it for precisely this reason - I am so, so tired of grimdark interpretations of Batman. But you know what? It works, in this case. I enjoyed the movie, and I liked the fact that Batman got to do some actual detective work instead of just punching villains into submission and/or relying on super cool tech. I liked the fact that most of the gore/violence is fade-to-black. It feels stronger, somehow, this way. I love this Alfred, although Alfred is easy to love in most of the Batman films I've seen. I love Catwoman, and the Bat/Cat working relationship that I've really missed ever since Tom King got booted off the main comic. (I love Tynion IV's work with Image, but I definitely dropped the whole series when the first issue tried to undo all the interesting character developments Tom King had started on.) And I love that we get a scene where Bruce/Bat looks down to see all of Selina/Cat's cats looking up at him, and just stating, "you have a lot of cats."
I like that it does somewhat address the popular fan question of him improving Gotham with his money rather than superheroism, and I like the hint of character development where we might see Bruce Wayne's public persona changing in a future film.
I guess this movie gives me hope about the DCEU franchise, and that is not a small thing.
That's all for this week, stay safe!