VTT Postcard - Cape Town - Castle Of Good Hope

On the second day of our holiday, I planned for the family to go see some military history at the Castle Of Good Hope.

The Castle has been in existence since the 1670s. It used to be a fort and military centre and even a prison. Nowadays, the Castle houses the Military Museum and holds a high-noon firing of the cannon.

The preparation of firing the cannons

There were hour-long guided tours of the Castle, where the tour guide would narrate the history and take you around different areas of the Castle. The Castle's pentagonal shape highly reminds me of The Pentagon in the United States.

During the tour, the most memorable for me and my kids was the interrogation room that the tour guide led us into. The interrogation room was where the soldiers used to bring captives and punish them. The interrogation room had an adjoining room attached to it where the captives were kept. The adjoining room was filled with emptiness except for a barred window placed almost to the ceiling that let some light in. This was the only thing that the prisoners would see during their stay in this room, sometimes for several days on end. The soldiers would take one prisoner and torture him in the interrogation room while the rest would be locked up in the adjoining room. The screams and howls of the tortured would then drive fear into the rest of the captives. Quite wicked.

Missy just couldn't shake the fear from her facial expression

There is a key ceremony that occurs right before the firing of the Signal Cannon is performed. Both the ceremony and the firing are the main highlight of visiting the Castle.

Key Ceremony

Firing of the Cannon

After which, we spent a few minutes at the Military Museum, looking through historical weapons and waxed replica of native people in South Africa.

The Castle of Good Hope is definitely a piece of history not to be missed. Go on and check out their site.

Movie Watch: Ip Man

Borrowed Photo

I remember my eldest's first reaction when I told her that I had bought this DVD. "IP Man? Is this movie about an IT guy? Something similar to The Social Network?"

If you had any such idea akin to my eldest above, rest assure that Ip Man is not some hacker trolling the internet. Take it out of your mind now. Ip Man is wonderfully written and if you watch it with an open mind, it will even surprise you.

The movie has been in circulation since 2008. But I only stumbled upon the movie recently when a Chinese friend recommended that we watch it. I was not the least bit skeptical in purchasing my own copy of the movie because most of the Chinese movies that I've watched with my family have not failed me yet. They've enjoyed most of the movies even if they could not understand a single word said and could only follow the subtitles.

Ip Man is an autobiographical look at the life of Yip Man, a martial arts grandmaster who later became the mentor of the famous Bruce Lee. The movie follows Yip Man's life in China and the hardship that followed during the Japanese invasion of China in 1937. He uses his knowledge and mastery to survive and in the end, after defeating a Japanese leader in a public martial arts fight, he gave hope to the Chinese people to break free from the abuse of the Japanese.

The storyline seems simple enough but it is beautifully portrayed and narrated. Donnie Yen, a Hong Kong actor, represented Yip Man with such subtlety. His mannerism, poise, in fact, his whole demeanor depicted that grandmasters do not need big muscles to be great men.

The DVD I had did not come in English and was only available in Cantonese with English subtitles. But you know what? The family enjoyed it. Hubby was really blown away with all the action scenes.

So if you want a night in and a good movie, go and borrow this DVD at your local rental shop now. You won't regret it.

VTT Postcard - Cape Town - Table Mountain

One of the biggest uncertainty when it comes to visiting Cape Town is its weather. It is fickle and often goes from one extreme to the next with no warnings. More than normal, Cape Town has windy conditions that prove too hard to handle.

Because of such, I have been advised by many friends to not waste any time. When the sun is up and shining and the weather is glorious, do what you want to do before the weather turns.

Top of our list to see in Cape Town was of course, the majestic Table Mountain. It had recently won top honours for being part of the New 7 Wonders of the World.

So on our first day of sightseeing, we left around 9am to go up the mountain. The queue alone was unbelievable. We keep forgetting that it was December and Cape Town, like any tourist spots all over the world, is jampacked with tourists. We queued for 2 long hours until we got to the top of the mountain. It was an experience to ride up the cable that rotated so it could give the people a 360 degree view of the city from above.

When we got to the top, the views on all sides were magnificent. We tried to capture most of it on camera but I don't think any amount of pixels can truly describe how beautiful the scenes were.

Table Mountain did not disappoint. In fact, it had exceeded expectations.

We enjoyed lunch in the restaurant situated atop the mountain. After 2 hours of roaming around, we decided to descend. It took another hour to queue down. We officially got off the mountain around 3pm.

It was too late for the next sightsee so we called it a day.

Website: Table Mountain Aerial Cableway