Never a good audience

Destinations Twenty Twelve

2012-01-26T22:57:00.005+08:00

Having lived in Malaysia for a quarter century, I have come to realise that the richness and beauty that she has to offer.

There are so many hidden gorgeous spots that are worth the effort for us to explore. What a waste for us to grow up in this tropical country if we do not know how to appreciate the gems that are buried in this piece of lovely land.

After doing some research, I am listing down 8 places that I ambitiously plan to go in 2012. I do not know if I can make it for all but here are the destinations.

Lata Kinjang Waterfall, Perak

Lata Kinjang is one of the tallest falls of Malaysia. Part of the cascade can be easily spotted if you drive on North-South Highway. It is a popular spot as it can be accessed easily by public. Anyway, camping is possible if you hike up further and there are a few clean and quiet spot just right beside the falls.

Gunung Tebu, Perak

Gunung Tebu is the highest peak in Terrenganu with the elevation of 1039m from sea level. It is not hard to hike and the camp site offers a panoramic view of South China Sea. Perhentian Island can be seen from the camp site if it is not foggy. The mountain has an ancient tomb on top of it and is said to be the meditation spot for Malay warriors who practised silat.

Gua Gunung Runtuh, Perak

Gua Gunung Runtuh is an archaeological cave where the archaeologists retrieved the oldest skeleton in Malaysia dated 11,000 years ago, known as Perak Man. The town that it is located, Lenggong Valley, has a few show caves that are accessible, namey Gua Puteri and Gua Harimau. This cave is also being evaluated by UNESCO to be awarded UNESCO World Heritage status.

The Pinnacles at Mulu National Park, Sarawak

Mulu National Park is located in inland Borneo. Mulu’s Pinnacles tower above the surrounding landscape, some reaching heights of 40 to 50 metres. Centuries of water have eroded and dissolved the rock into razor sharp spikes which knife skywards through the surrounding rainforest. The fastest way to access Mulu will be flying from Miri.

Note: I already booked the tickets to Sarawak and will be flying there in the end of April. Woohoo!

Lata Kijang, Negeri Sembilan

I came across this marvelous cascaded waterfall when I was searching for Lata Kinjang. It is also a very tall waterfall located in Negeri Sembilan. Camping was possible and to access this waterfall, one has to drive a tiny red soil road for about 20km from Kampung Esok. You will be passing Orang Asli (aboriginals) settlement on the way to the falls. There are a few camping spots but not near the waterfall as flash flood can happen. In November 2010, the fall and its surroundings have been declared out of bounds for the time being by the Negri Sembilan authorities. Proper planning has to be carried out for this spot.

Wang Burma Cave, Perlis

Despite being the smallest state in Malaysia, Perlis has its charm as well. At the border of Thai and Malaysia, Wang Burma is a cave system that has become the main attraction of the Wang Kelian State Park within the Perlis State Park. Wang Burma is divided into two main caves, one is Wang Burma Satu where abundance of amazing rock formations like stalactites and stalagmites can be found, and the other is Wang Burma Dua, which requires one to be both physically and mentally fit before venturing into the cave. An exploration of the entire Wang Burma cave system will take approximately 3 1/2 hours.

Sungai Chiling, Selangor

Sungai Chiling has been one of my to-go camping destinations since my university time but so far I have yet to walk the talk to go camping. It is a scenic spot, popular among picnickers and campers. However there is danger of flash flood thus caution has to be taken for campers.

Gunung Datuk, Negeri Sembilan

Gunung Datuk literally carries the meaning of 'Grandfather's Mountain' in Malay. A two hour hike, the view it offers is fantastic. As there is a flat surface just below the summit, it is ideal for camping. Permit has to be acquired for camping trip.

I certainly hope that I will be able to make it to all places above. I think I fell in love with mountains, caves, waterfalls and camping ever since my last trip to Gunung Stong in Kelantan. Life is too short to not do what you enjoy isn't it?

Let me know if you are not afraid of leeches and don't mind being covered in mud for hours and do not need a toilet to excrete and likes shower au-naturel in the waterfall and can hike up to an elevation of 1000m with 10kg weight. I'll call you up. :D

Disclaimer
Again, just to stress that I have not been to all the above-mentioned destinations. Thus all photo credits go to the original sources. Let me know if it is your pictures and you do not agree for me to post it up. I'll take it down.

Leap of Faith

2011-12-17T00:43:00.001+08:00

How many people have an active seven year old blog?

I wish for the years to come, I will still maintain the passion for writing though I will have less time and less energy and less brain juice.

I know that I have stopped blogging for a while, if you ever notice. That was because I realized that my recent blog posts were just forced poo after a long constipation - dry and hard. They sounded like travelogues that I wouldn't even read.

Perhaps, I am experiencing the changes and adjustment of priorities in life which occur to everyone when they enter a new stage of life. After working for more than one year, naturally I will have to adapt.

I certainly want to define a new direction and a new style of maintaining my blog. This post would be a marking stone that I shall begin with, though I am clueless about what is going to be written, yet. :)

Let's hope that this new perspective of life would be guide me to overcome the fear and make a big leap.

Like this.

Tsukiji Fish Market

2011-11-13T19:53:00.004+08:00

Tsukiji Fish Market is one of the must go in Tokyo, first in the list for things to do in Tokyo in time.com and it also ranked no. 1 in lonelyplanet.com.

I guess it's either the angmo are thrilled by the size of tuna fish or simply Tokyo does not have a more exciting spot. In my opinion, it is overrated. *smirk*

Having said that, it is worth the pain to visit this place because it tells you how important seafood is for the Japanese. Besides, I guess it's the only place that has daily auction for Tuna before the dawn breaks, no? (provided that you are willing to wake up at 4am in the morning and catch the 430am train to get there, which I didn't)

The map

As a Malaysian, the concept of wet market was not foreign to me at all. Thus it might be the reason why I was not particular fascinated by the fish market.

At the entrance of the fish market.

The motorised trolleys used by the fish vendors in the market

Rows and rows of narrow alley. The fish vendor would maneuver their trolleys in those alleys and they would yell in Japanese for you to give way.

Amazingly, the market did not stink despite the amount of seafood in there.

Ikura

Squid

Beheaded Paul the octopus. lol

Extravaganza huge Tuna head! I guess this was way bigger than all the tuna that I have ever consumed in my entire life. lol

Tuna tail I guess?

Geoduck aka Elephant-trunk Clam

Japanese Eel!

When I was taking the picture of this super large tuna, the vendors were trying to tell me that I was not supposed to go inside and take picture of that but I was not aware that they were talking to me. After they realised that I didn't understand a single word they said, they just laughed it off and let me. Only after a while my friend who understood told me that. I guess sometimes that's the benefit of being a foreigner tourist. :)

The food stalls outside of the fish market.

A tip for you if you are planning for a visit to Tsukiji fish market - Go on a Saturday morning. Why you may ask. Well, simply because all the food stalls would be giving away free samples on Saturday morning and the portion is generous!

lol here's my Malaysian frugality at its best! :D

Savoury Sakuraland

2011-10-21T22:27:00.010+08:00

Warning: This post contains explicit imagery that will trigger excessive gastric acid emission and indirectly cause obesity.

Often, one of the fun and interesting portion of traveling is to eat. It's always easier to understand the local culture better with all your senses, including taste bud, isn't it? :)

Basically, there are a few types of restaurant in Japan. The most popular one would be small chain restaurant where people usually grab a quick meal.

A mega huge metropolitan like Tokyo doesn't have the patience to have somebody serving or asking you what to eat when all you want is just to grab a quick meal. Therefore, vending machine is introduced to substitute human.

Basically, what you do is to read the menu at the glass wall right at the entrance of the restaurant and decide on what you are eating.

Then, you go into the restaurant, find the vending machine with the speed of lightning and insert your bills or coins and press on the button of the food you want to eat.

Fortunately I can still read kanji or else I would never know what I am eating. lol

Gyudon

Japanese Curry Rice

Usually, in this kind of restaurant, people eat really fast and leave immediately after they gallop the food. A average Japanese salaryman takes half of the time that I finish my meal to finish his.

Apart from this kind of grab and go restaurant, there are also restaurant that you can sit down and chill with your friends.

Ippudo

Ippudo is one of the famous ramen chain in Japan. This one is located in Chiba prefecture.

The ramen is really springy and the broth definitely satisfy your umami craving. The broth is actually an essence of boiling meat and bones for a long period. There is a grinder and a bowl of fresh garlic on the table where you can grind some garlic into your ramen.

Yumm. Hakata Ramen!

Cozy environment for you to sit down and chillax.

If you ever go to Tokyo, please do not miss visiting Tsukiji Fish market, which I will cover in another post. There is this stall that sells Tamago Yaki right in the open market next to the fish market. Every Saturday, you can sign up and make a tamago yaki and take it home for free. They will even take a picture of you and print it for you on the spot. How nice~ :)

Tamago Yaki Apprentice

Basically just Sweetened Egg Rolls.

There are a lot of stalls in the open market that offer free food samples on Saturday morning. Therefore we ate almost everything from beef to sashimi to fresh octopus to barbecued pork and that was our lunch for the day lol.

Anyhow, being a budget traveler, sometimes we had to cut down a little on food and guess what, this was the cheapest food I had in Japan which was Soba in clear soup for 100yen. Ok it tasted just like noodle in salt water. XD

Takoyaki. Sometimes, when we were on the go and didn't have much time to sit down for lunch, we would just go into the convenience and grab something from the shelf and heat it with the microwave provided. Anyway, one of the observation that I had was Japanese does not eat while walking. I guess that is considered rude in their culture and I did that all the time, inviting glances from people around me. hahah XD

Kimuchi Gyu Don. Kimuchi = Kimchi.

Gyudon with Tamago. Deliciousss :)

Contrary to popular belief that Japanese eat sushi everyday, they usually don't. For them, sushi is considered something to be more of class. Therefore, to go in a sushi bar, you have to wait to be seated. It was not polite to just walk in and sit down.

Sushi Bar.

As I was eager to try everything, instead of taking sushi plates from the conveyor belt (which would cost me a bomb!), I ordered a plate of sushi platter with all kind of different salmon, prawn, salmon roe and scallop. The freshest sushi I have ever had. :)

I always wonder how dorayaki tastes like when I was reading Doraemon as a kid and why Doraemon was so fascinated by it. So I bought some and tasted them for myself :)

If a group of Japanese want to hang out after work and drink, izakaya will be the place to go. The unspoken rules in an izakaya is that you have to order an alcoholic drink first before you start ordering food or something else.

Suntory beer. Light and chilly.

One interesting thing is that Malaysia is on the map lol. I guess our twin towers made it to Japan. lol

Ocyadsuke is a dish where the tea is poured into the rice. The fragrance of the tea somewhat enhance the taste of the very ordinary rice.

Gravy being poured into fried rice.

Toriyaki. Skewered Chicken :)

Finger food to go together with beer

Cocktail Hong Kong and Tokyo. Anyone wanna take a guess on how they make the drink glow? :)

Ended up we started being friendly to the girls next table and they asked us where are we from. When we answered Malaysia, one of the girls said, "I know there's a phrase you guys use - Mareshia Boleh!"

Looks like our motto made all the way to Tokyo too. lol

Onigiri = Japanese Sandwich. Basically it's rice wrapped with seaweed and the fillings can be very creative. It's my favourite snacks when I was traveling in Tokyo as it was easily available in all the convenience shops.

Last but not least, Japanese MOS Burger! This is a prawn burger and they offer all kind of seafood burger. nom nom nom.....

With this, I conclude my food trail in Tokyo. Frankly, the Japanese food is very healthy and that explains why there are hardly fat people in Japan, not to mention obesity. They put a lot of emphasis on the freshness of the food therefore the seafood are amazingly fresh.

In a nutshell, I still think Malaysian food rocks! :)

Yokoso Jump Japan!

2011-10-07T22:57:00.008+08:00

It has been exactly a month since I boarded the Kuala Lumpur - Tokyo plane. It was a fun 10 day vacation in Tokyo and a breakaway from my routines. Well, I have been holding on to a principle that I should always do updates on my blog with happenings that are fresh out from oven but apparently this round I was a little bit of slacking off.

Pardon my procrastination if you know how come-back-from-vacation-happily-until-you-see-tons-of-email-piling-up-in-your-work-inbox feels. :)

Anyways, here is the first post to kick-start the rusty fingers on the blog!

Basically, to post in details about the trip to Tokyo would be very time-consuming and this blog is never a travelogue (Well if you are interested in the itinerary and the budget, which is considered the boring part of traveling you can always leave a comment and I can send it to you in email). Therefore, here I present to you, all my ~~successful~~ jumping shots that I have taken in Japan!

Jump @ Sensoji Temple, Asakusa!

Sensoji Temple is one of the oldest and most famous temple that still stands in Tokyo. Well you can google for more information but basically this is just another touristy destination.

By the way, look at the face of that old man. Was he contemplating to try the jump as well? XD

Jump @ Ginza!

Ginza in Tokyo is the equivalent of Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles. It is one of the most prestigious shopping district in Tokyo. Branded stuffs can be found here and all I did there was jumping instead of shopping. lol Anyway, there were shops with affordable price for example H&M and Uniqlo but when I was there they had already cleared summer clothing and started selling clothes for falls it would be crazy to wear those in Malaysia.

Jump @ Shibuya Crossing!

Shibuya Crossing was said to be the busiest scramble crossing in the world. According to my friend, there would be only 4 minutes idle time (meaning nobody crosses) in a day. Nothing spectacular except that it could be fun sitting there watching so many people come and go. I would say, Time Square equivalent of New York City? :\

Jump @ Gibhli Museum!

Gibhli Musuem was established by Hayao Miyazaki. No idea who he is? Have you ever watched Totoro? No? I am so sorry for your childhood. XD Hayao Miyazaki is one of the most prominent animation director in Japan. One of his recent hit was the movie Spirited Away. In the museum it featured a lot of the animations that he has ever made and also how his great ideas came about. There were strictly no photography allowed inside the museum therefore sorry for the downer.

Jump @ Chiba!

Well Chiba is a prefecture next to Tokyo and why was I there? Mainly because my friend was staying in Chiba and I slept over at his tiny little studio for 10 days. :)

Jump @ Tokyo Tower!

Tokyo Tower? Do I even need to say anything about it? Basically it is the landmark of Tokyo for decades but now Tokyo has another new landmark which is the Tokyo Skytree. Mehh.

~~Jump~~ Stretched out arms @ Nikko!

Nikko is one of the towns in Japan with World Heritage Status. The historical building includes shrines, temples and a bridge. Besides, there were some very spectacular waterfalls around the town. This is Kegon Falls, one of the tallest waterfalls in Japan.

Jump @ Kamakura Daibutsu!

What else can you do while visiting a Buddha statue? Jumping I guess. lol Anyway this is the second tallest Buddha statue in Japan. You can go inside the statue for 10 yen (Honestly, nothing cost 10 yen anymore in Japan except for this). Summer is definitely not a good time to go inside because you will be suffocated by the intense heat inside the statue. @_@

Jump @ Yokohama!

I went to Yokohama before catching my plane back to Malaysia. It was a metropolitan side by side with Tokyo. Basically it was a seaport with a nice city skyline view (Minato Mirai). I would be writing more about Yokohama in a separate post. :)

That's it folks for the sneak peek of my 10 days in Tokyo. There were certainly a lot more that I didn't include here so please visit for more! :)

Kelantan Camping Trip

2011-09-08T11:04:00.004+08:00

Continue from Part 1

5am in the morning, we took the train from Tanah Merah to go to Dabong.

First in the list, caving! As there were a few caves in the Jelawang Jungle that were interesting, we decided to go back in time and experience the life of a caveman.

The van and the guide picked us up and dropped us at Gua Ikan (Fish Cave) area. We then walked across the road and started to stride into bushes.

Entrance of Gua Gelap, which literally means the Dark Cave.

After tunneling in the dark cave, we came to a point where the guide asked us to switch off out light and enjoy the darkness. It was eerily dark and silent in the cave. All we could hear were our own breathing and we could see absolutely nothing as it was pit black! I tried to wave in front of my own eyes and to no avail, I could see nothing.

Besides that, there were times when the cave tunnel got smaller and smaller and all it left was a fissure for us to squeeze through. I had to stop breathing for a moment to allow my chest to pass through.

Can't imagine how small the cleft was? See this

Definitely not recommended for people with claustrophobia.

The UFO light effect. Not quite a success as I didn't bring my tripod in. It would be nicer if I did :\

Cave Phallus XD

I guess at the end of the day, we entered enlightenment. :)

We saw the Light!

We then proceeded to the Gunung State Park which housed the biggest waterfall in Southeast Asia. We were going to hike and camp on top of the waterfall.

Majestic!

Our camp was right on the top of the waterfall, to the right.

The ascent to the campsite was challenging as we were carrying our own food supply, water, tent, fire supply and clothing. The slope was steep and the trail was muddy and slippery. On top of that, it rained quite heavily 30 minutes before we reached our campsite. It took us roughly 1 hour and 30 minutes to get to Baha's Campsite.

Bahas Campsite.

After the rain stopped, we set up our tent and fire to dry our clothes. When the water in the waterfall descended, we walked to the edge of the waterfall and the view that it offered was magnificent!

The place where we spent the night.

Well, after the skies turned dark, we got into our tent and started to doze off while talking as we were exhausted.

*Fast forwarding with Snores*

After a good night sleep, we were welcomed by this beautiful sunrise.

Good morning Kelantan!!!

We then proceeded to hike to the peak of the mountain. It was a 3 hours torturing hike and to our disappointment, there wasn't any view that the peak could offer. The only thing that was fun up there was squirrels-feeding.

Peanut butter. Yum!

On the peak of Gunung Stong. There were a few other peaks that were higher, namely Gunung Ayam and Gunung Korbu.

We descended the mountain and showered in the waterfall on our way back. We then went down the hill and caught the train back to civilization.

I hadn't been so fun for quite a while. To be able to embrace nature in such close proximity was really revitalizing. I have been living in the man-made world for too long and I think this camping trip came in just in a perfect timing. On the other hand, I am just glad that I am living in Malaysia as there were so many things it could offer.

Had Nasi Dagang before heading back to Penang. yum.

So yay, I drove Gerik Highway and I peaked Gunung Stong!

*Perasan*

Kelantan Road Trip

2011-09-07T09:58:00.000+08:00

Sometimes, the best moments in life take me by surprise. A road trip cum camping trip that came to happen in the eleventh hour essentially hit the chord.

Often Kelantan is not a popular destination for vacation but I decided that I wanted to at least drive the Gerik highway for once in my life. Therefore the inspiration for this trip was actually the driving. In addition, I remember reading somewhere that there was this mountain with waterfall somewhere in Kelantan so I looked it up and it became part of the itinerary. A three day holiday for Merdeka Raya was just perfect so we hit the road on Independence Day.

The very pleasant-to-drive Gerik highway. As it was elevated, the air was cool in the morning.

Elephant Crossing Sign. Not a sign you would see on North South Highway. :)

In Kelantan, the only way of moving from one place to another, is to drive. The first day we hit Tanah Merah, we rested and it was raining. The next day morning, we started our driving mania with the Kelantanese heat.

As Kelantan bordered with Thailand, there were a lot of Thai influence in Kelantan. A most obvious example would be the biggest reclining Buddha statue in Southeast Asia.

I love this shot :)

The largest reclining Buddha was found in Wat Photivihan in Tumpat and yes we were almost enlightened. :)

Nasi Kerabu, a Thai influenced dish which rice is mixed together with santan, fish, slices of cucumber and vegetables. According to our local guy, a Thai Nasi Kerabu was green in colour (as shown here) while a Malay Nasi Kerabu would be blue in colour. Interesting huh. The taste was rather bland but very refreshing as there was some minty herbs in it.

The weather was so hot that the golden monk needed some shades too!

We then drove around to explore some other temples with Standing Buddha, Sitting Buddha and ~~Squattiing Buddha~~ Dragon Boat under the cloudless skies.

Standing

Sitting

Dragon Boat

After that we drove to Kota Bharu. As it was still a public holiday, a lot of places were close and we didn't get to see much.

So we took picture with the first bank in town! It was known as Bank Pitis and said to be built in 1890.

As the heat was driving us crazy, we found this interesting sign board that reflected perfectly to our state of mind. :)

We also had one of the best Nasi Kukus in town (according to the local guy) ;) I know it doesn't look appealing at all but you have to trust me when I say it is really nice! The rice that they use were larger than usual and it was simply delicious!

By the way, Nasi Kukus stands for 'Steamed Rice' and imagine how many bowl of steamedrice were inside those steaming pots?

We then drove to the moon light beach (Pantai Cahaya Bulan aka PCB) and decided to call it a day because on the very next day, things would get extreme!

Click here to read Part 2

Moment of Glory for the Robotic Kids

2011-07-31T18:08:00.006+08:00

Another fortnight passes since I last blogged. When I was in college, weekly updates were never a problem and the reason for me not doing it was usually procrastination. lol. Now it is a completely different story. I no longer have the luxury to do weekly update. Sad but true. Anyway, this post is a sequel of Mindstorms and is related to First Lego League. So read them before you start asking questions! XD

On 26th of July, 25 energetic high school kids, 2 enthusiast teachers and 6 sleep-deprived engineers woke up at 5am to board on the bus at 6am to set off for a state-level contest known as NRC (National Robotics Competition).

NRC is basically divided into 2 category - Regular Category and Open Category. For regular category, the students have to come out with a robot design to fulfill a certain task whereas for open category, a theme is given and the robot design has to be coherent to the title and it can be very creative. The theme for this year is "Robot Improves Life"

SMK Georgetown, the school that another engineer and I mentored, participated in three categories and they had spent months designing and perfecting their robots.

To take part in the open category, the students have to design a poster to explain how their robots are fulfilling the theme.

For the students from SMK Georgetown, they came out with the idea of an automated and obstacle-avoiding wheelchair. The wheelchair has ultrasonic sensor and will sweep across the horizon to detect obstacles and it will turn to the direction with no obstacle. The second design was a intuitive controller that the user can use to control the movement of the wheelchair. It was said to be intuitive because the user didn't need to press to control the direction, he simply needed to move this hand left or right in front of the ultra sonic sensor.

Two mentors and three participants for the Open Category.

This was the design - a blind man guidance dog from my Alma Mater, SMJK Jit Sin. It is IMPRESSIVE, isn't it? :)

Six engineers from National Instruments who volunteered as a Lego Mindstorms Trainers

The other two teams took part in the Regular Category. They had two tasks to be completed. First it would be the Stair-climbing robot and the second one was a Robot Recycler. As the two categories were held simultaneously in two different location, I was only able to take pictures at the Open category venue.

Anyway, it was a pleasant surprise when SMK Georgetown was announced to be winning the Best Poster Design and also the First Runner-up for the Open Category during the prize giving ceremony. Initially we didn't aim high as SMK Georgetown was only involved in this Lego Mindstorms thing for less than a year. The first encounter was the time when we went to the school for introduction into this program. Besides, they were competing side by side with top schools like Chung Ling and Penang Free School. Therefore, it was really a shocking but glorious moment for them!

Innovative Design and First Runner Up!

SMK Georgetown being interviewed by eduwebtv.com :)

This was indeed a moment of glory for the robotics kids!

I guess, hard work paid off at the end of the days :)

Congratulations to SMK Georgetown and no slacking off! Keep the good work up and bring back more trophies in the future! XD

Also, special thanks to FOS who has been a very good leader :)

Growing Up

2011-07-31T17:20:00.007+08:00

Birthday never fails to serve as a reminder - it forces you to stop and reflect on your own life.

Unquestionably, I'm blessed to be where I am today. Still, like I always do, I constantly have doubts about the choices that I have made or I will make.

Each life is lived differently and I am well aware of that. Having said that, everyone of us is still inevitably being plunged into the wave of so-called trend. After all, materialism and hedonism are kings of 21st century.

Somehow, I realised that I'm intrinsically motivated when I see the meaning and value of my deeds. I guess, I will have to keep it this way while moving forward. I will need to stay true to my decision despite the fact that it will not make sense to everyone

All in all, I am going to be the one either bearing the consequences or the fruits of my decision.

Thank you friends for the celebration of my another year of my life on planet Earth. :)

Chew Jetty

2011-07-03T21:44:00.000+08:00

Just realized that my blog has been idle for three freaking weeks. I guess that simply means that i'm getting more used to my job and there are always comapny sponsored after work activities like Ultimate Frisbee, Badminton and Futsal. I think I fulfilled the 8 hours per week exercise quota.

Anyway, this is a lazy post with a lot of pictures and lesser words. It was the photo shoot-out of Photography Kaki Club in my company. We went to Chew Jetty located in Georgetown before dawn to catch the sunrise. Enjoy the photo and please vote for your favourite shot!

Dawn of the Jetty

Side by side we saw the sunrise.

Livelihood of a Breadwinner

Serene Orange

Boat and Sampan

Egg Yolk and Boat on Yoke

Religious Light

Photographer in Action

Home and Office

I freeze time.

Home on the Sea

Backyard

These were the active members of the photography club. :) and all the above photo were taken by yours truly. :)

Chew Jetty is one of the reasons why Penang obtained its Unesco World Heritage Status in 2008. Chew Jetty is a labyrinth of wooden houses built on stilts on the shores of Georgetown. It is known as Chew Jetty because the early settlers in Penang from China who bore the surname 'Chew' stayed together and formed a clan of its own. Therefore people who live in Chew Jetty mostly have Chew as their last names. For more information you can go to http://www.visitpenang.gov.my/portal3/what-to-see/attractions/chew-jetty.html

It so happened that one of us who went there bears the surname Chew and in fact, he grew up in Chew Jetty and still has relatives living there. So we got a special tour inside the wooden house. Walking in the house, it reminded me of the old wooden house that I lived in when I was a kid.

So which one is your favourite photo?

Tandem Paraglide and Beggar's Chicken

2011-06-19T18:01:00.003+08:00

Trivia: What does paragliding and beggar's chicken have in common?

Answer: They are both located at Bukit Jugra, Banting! :P

So the story started when I first saw a paragliding voucher online and I thought, hey, the last time I did skydiving, it was almost a year ago. I then recruited a few friends on facebook and bought the voucher.

We reached Banting at 930am, had some breakfast and then we waited for the instructors to come. The appointed time was 11am but we were darn too excited and got there at 10am.

It was cloudy and windy. A perfect weather to just lie down and chill. *with birds chirping and tree leaves rustling in the background*

Never did we know that, to be able to paraglide, a really strong wind was needed. We waited from 10am to 2pm only to experience a short moment of airborne paraglide and they called this 'Para-waiting'

My tandem instructor, Zain who assisted me to buckle up!

See the video below for the entire process!

Flew like a wind!

My favourite shot of the day. :)

What a picture! :)

A group photo at last.

Legend has it that Bukit Jugra is famous for Beggar's Chicken (叫化鸡 jiaohua ji), a legendary dish that was so good that even in the ancient China, the emperor was willing to eat it with the beggars. Click here for the source of this legend and more information about the preparation.

There were a lot of folklore about the how Beggar's Chicken originated. One popular belief was that the beggars in ancient China had no fridge and salt to preserve the chicken/meat and no cooking utensils as well. Therefore they wrap the chicken with mud and baked it in the fire and amazingly, the chicken tasted much better and thus people improved the recipe and made it a dish. A more detailed version of the origin of Beggar's Chicken is here

This was the legendary Beggar's Chicken! As the chicken was baked with mud and soil wrapped around it for one whole day, the meat was tender and soft and the aroma of the herbs were all absorbed into it. As the dish needed to be prepared a day earlier, you had to call in for reservation and walk-ins will not be entertained.

Using the same method, but instead of chicken, this was pork's feet. :)

Another signature dish in this restaurant was the Fish Cake. Pretty decent as well.

A group photo with the sign which said "Signature Dish of the Beggars Clan - Beggar's Chicken"

In a nutshell, it was a fruitful day even though it took us the whole day. After this paragliding experience, I learnt new things and I really thought that paragliding was a cool hobby. (Well, pricey at the same time :\)

Alas, one more item in my wish list. :)

50bucks

2011-06-04T01:31:00.003+08:00

Let me just be honest, I was a little bit shocked when I saw that there were responses flocking allover from the cyberspace regarding my previous post on the Tanjung Tokong Food Court scam. Thanks to my friend who shared them in Cari forum, the forum that makes things go viral in Malaysia.

First of all, I truly want to thank those who are empathetic with what I have been through. Thanks for being supportive. Thanks for the suggestion for involving the authority. There were already people who did that and apparently it was of no use because he indeed had the right to charge RM50. For those who pointed out my mistake for not being attentive to the banner, I will take this as a lesson and be more alert in the future. For those who read through my blog, thank you for paying so much attention to me. I feel honoured.

On the other hand, I wish to clarify that I didn't say I was right for parking at his place. Like what I wrote, I did apologize to the uncle for being a first time offender and for not seeing the banner at all. I penned this down because I record my experience in life in my blog and this was part of it. I took a photo because I needed a proof for paying RM50 and of this chaining incident as well. (There was no receipt or whatsoever. Thanks to my blogger's instinct :) ) I was asking for a boycott for this food court because of how they treated me (trying to grab my camera, snatching my car key).

Anyway, I didn't have time to look through the 400++ comments (and still growing) in the forum so there are a few things that I would like to address here:

1. When I said my life wasn't easy as a fresh grad, I referred to the crazy inflation in our country. There were people who reverse-logic-ed my statement and concluded that my company must be pathetic. I have to clarify that my company treated me well enough and for those who were worrying for me that I might get fired because of this, stay assured, everything is fine. My boss knew about this and he thought I should sing a song for this too. :)

2. I didn't expect that this post would go this far. I never expect people would read such a long-winded article lol. When I first posted it, I was expecting only my friends to be reading. Although the article was posted in Cari with my consent, I totally underestimated the power of Cari. The INITIAL article's target audience is my Penangite friends but it was totally out of my expectation that it would go viral.

3. Response to all the hate comments in Cari, well you guys can just assume that I am retarded if that makes you feel better. I didn't have the kind of mindset that, to park a car, you have to definitely be a consumer there. To me, to park my car properly equals to paying reasonable amount of fee and as long as it's legal and it does not block the way then it is fine. So for those who are like-minded and don't have a slightest idea about this, please keep that in mind. :) If this incident were to teach me anything, this is exactly the food for thought.

Thanks for the sensational hoo-haa that you guys brought me. I couldn't help but wrote a song for this incident to commemorate such a rare event. I am not a professional musician so pardon my out of tune and out of beat. By the way it is in Mandarin and please do not take the lyrics seriously because they were for FUN and ENTERTAINMENT. Take this as my way of apologizing to those keyboard warriors who ran amok after reading my article. I didn't mean it. :)

Anyway, my last statement will be that I will not ever step into that food court again. I guess there are two school of thoughts here. You are free to make your own choice based on what you read about my experience. :)

Basically this will be what I have to say about this incident. Not a single word more will be mentioned in this blog regarding this matter after this. :)

Take this song with a pinch of salt and humour please :)

Food Court Scam

2011-05-31T23:38:00.003+08:00

My friend, R and I were attending a dinner gathering in a restaurant in Tanjung Tokong. We wanted to park our car in the restaurant only to find out that the carpark was full. Naturally, we continued driving and parked our car in a food court nearby.

我和R到tanjung tokong的一间餐厅赴约。因为餐厅的停车位爆满，我们就很自然地开车到附近的一个小贩中心的停车场，把车泊好然后走路到餐厅去吃。

After the gathering, we walked back to get our car and when I was about to drive away, there was this old man knocking my side window. Thinking that he wanted to collect parking fee, I winded the window down but he signaled me to come out of the car. I thought something was wrong with my car so I went down from the back of the wheels.

吃了一顿晚餐，我们就开开心心的回到车内然后开车就走。就在我打入退牙的那一刻，有个阿伯敲敲我的镜子。我以为他要收parking钱，所以就把车窗搅了下来。但是他打手势叫我下车。看他这副样子，我还以为我的车有什么问题所以就下了车。

"You didn't patronise our food court did you?" he said with hostility. "You have to pay me 50 bucks or I'll chain your car." he said in Hokkien.

“你没有在这里吃东西hor？” 语气中充满累积了他一世人的怨气与敌意。“给我五十块不然我就锁你的车” 他用典型的槟城福建话。

My very first response was apologetic.

我有点知错，所以我低声下气地跟他说。

"Uncle, I am sorry. I didn't know that. Let me go to the food court to eat now." I said.

“Uncle，对不起。我不知道这边不可以park。我现在就进去吃东西”我说

"No way. You cannot do that. Once you park here and walk out to eat, you HAVE TO PAY 50 BUCKS! The banners already stated this and they were everywhere!" the tone raised.

“北赛！！你北赛啊呢！你只要把车停在这里然后出去吃，你就要给我50块！那边的布条写的清清楚楚！到处都有！”他的声量不去唱大戏真的浪费。

The banners were hung at a dark corner and come on, who the heck would pay attention to banners? My blood started to boil but I held it down.

我抬头一看，躲在阴暗角落的布条根本就不显眼，而且谁人会酱有空去看布条？我热血开始沸腾起来但是我告诉自己，忍！

"Let's do this nicely. I didn't intend to do that because I didn't see the banner. It was dark and it was my first time here. I'll go inside and eat." I tried to calm my voice.

“我们好好谈。我根本不是故意要park这边的。我没有看到哪个布条。天色昏暗而且我又头一拜来这边。好我现在就进去吃。”

"Ya uncle. We will eat inside. Uncle please don't lock our car..." Without me realising R stepped out from the car. She pleaded with a voice that could melt all men's hearts.

“是咯uncle，我们进去吃。Uncle你不要锁我的车啦.....” 不懂什么时候R跑下车。她用一种全世界男人都会溶掉的声音对uncle说。

But it seemed like the uncle wasn't buying that at all because he yelled.

事与愿违，看起来uncle根本就不吃她那一套因为他狮子吼。

"No freaking way!!!!!!!! If you were against the law and you said that to a policeman you think he would let you go without giving you a summon?" he spoke as if he were the Chief Minister of Penang.

“北赛！！！！！！！！如果你犯法料你对警察这样说你觉得他会让你走嚒？？” 眉宇之中竟然有林冠英的架势

"But you are NOT policeman and I didn't do anything against the law!" I protested, knowing that he would not buy it.

“但是你又不是警察，而且我什么都没有做错？” 虽然我知道他幻想自己是警察可能有一段时间了，我依然抗议。

"Chain the car up!" He shouted.

“锁车！！！” 他中气十足。

A few foreign men with chains and locks started to chain my car in a very skilled mannner. Within seconds, my car were chained up and the adrenaline was rushing in my guts. As someone who just stepped out from college, life wasn't easy at all. In a country with an insane skyrocketing inflation, paying RM50 for parking wasn't something that I could wave off just like that. No I wasn't born with silver spoon in my mouth. I fixed my mind to not pay him and at the same time figuring what I could do.

几个外劳开始很熟练地用铁链和锁头把我的车锁起来。我的车就酱被秒杀了而我的火气就更滚了。刚刚毕业的我，生活过到连买面包都要算。在这个通货疯狂膨胀的国度，给五十的parking根本就是要命。我又不是含着银汤匙出生。所以我倔强地不要给他钱同时脑袋急转弯想办法。

At this very moment, the chaining action freaked R out and she quickly forked out RM50 to the old man and asked him to unlock the car. I was not in time to stop her and seeing the contented face of the old man tipped the limit of my boiling point.

就在这个时刻，看到车被锁，R吓了一跳然后在惊恐之中掏出50块叫阿伯不要锁车。我来不及阻止她。看到阿伯收钱满足的样子，我的愤怒已经超越了我的觉醒极限！

If I were a gangster or whatnot, I would have taken out my phone and started calling people but unfortunately I was not one. Then something crossed my mind - I had a CAMERA in the car and Facebook and the computer were my best weapon. So I splinted into the car and took my camera and ran in front of the old man and snapped a close-up of him!

如果我是歹仔，我第一时间就会打电话叫人。只可惜我不是。电光闪石间，我想起我在车上的相机。Facebook与电脑就是我最好的武器！我凌波微步冲入车内，抓了相机就跑到阿伯面前拍了一张表情写真。

Then I ran, with the speed of light, back to my car and ignited the engine only to find out that R was still not in the car. In the meantime, the old man and his gang started calling for backup and there were more people flocked and surrounded my car. They blocked the door when I was trying to close the door of my car and opened it from both sides and tried to grab my car key and camera.

拍了拔腿就跑到车里，启动引擎然后才发现到原来R还在车外。同一时间，阿伯和他的马仔召唤更多马仔来围攻我的车。他们挡我不给我关门然后两旁夹攻，抢我的相机与车匙。

Just imagine this, at the back of the wheels, I was holding my camera with my left hand and grabbing my car key in the keyholder with my right hand. A man in red tried to snatch my camera from the left side door and another tried to grab my car key from my right. R ran inside the car and started to help me to push the man away from me and the guy from the right succeed in grabbing my car key because the key chain broke. A few of them pulled me halfway out from the car and I yelled on the top of my lung for help, hoping to get some attention.

想象一下，我坐在司机位，左手拿相机，右手紧握插在钥匙洞的车匙。穿红衣的马仔从左边企图掠夺我的相机，另外一个从右边抢我车匙。（我突然有点后悔没有练过左右互搏术）这时，R也跑进车内，帮我把红衣男的手扯开。而右边的马仔也成功把我的车匙抢到手因为钥匙链扯断了。几个人用力把我半身拉出车然后我就大声喊救命希望引起别人的注意。

I saw some bystanders started to flock towards my car but I could also see more of their gang were surrounding my car and R were shouting.

我看到有过路人开始涌过来我的车但我也看到更多的马仔来势汹汹围攻我的车。R很惊慌的喊说：

"Stop messing with them! They outnumbered us! They outnumbered us!"

“表跟他们来硬的。他们人很多！他们人很多！”

I looked around and I knew I was in a very bad situation. The bandits were surrounding my car and I had a girl with me. In this flight or fight situation, I didn't want to risk our safety so I had no choice but to choose flight.

我看看周围，自己根本就处下风。一大堆喽啰围着我的车而我车上又有一个女孩。在这种战斗或投降的情况下，我不想吃眼前亏所以无可奈何只有投降。

"I will delete the photo! I will delete the photo!" I shouted.

“我把照片洗掉！我把照片洗掉” 我喊到。

So I took out the camera and delete the photo I took earlier on. But they demanded me to delete all the pictures. So I formated my camera's memory card in front of them. They gave me back my car key and I quickly drove away. To make sure that nobody was following me, I made a few detours before I went home.

我把相机拿出来然后当着他们的面把刚拍的照片删了。但是他们变本加厉要我把所有照片都洗了。在他们的淫威之下我只好format相机的存档。他们就把车匙还我然后我就快快驾走了。为了确保没人跟踪我，我绕道而行了几圈才回家。

You think the story ends here? No freaking way. A tech savvy would know that nothing is not recoverable digitally or else Edison Chen wouldn't be involved in a sex scandal like this. The first thing I got home was to recover the picture I took.

以为故事就酱完料？笑话。只要是电脑达人都知道，数码世界里，没有什么是不能找回的。不然陈冠希就不会酱红鸟（pun unintended haha）啦！回家第一时就是帮我相机急救。

See this guy for your own (ok I know it was mosaic-ed)! See the accomplice behind? He was holding the chain like some sadist. Don't fall into a scam like this again because I believe there are a lot more other victims. I urge all Penangites to unite and boycott this food court because they were acting as if they were above the law! As a Malaysian, we have the guts to say no to injustice and mistreatment. Our country can only move on if we are civic-minded enough.

你们要记住这个人的脸（虽然打了马赛克）。看到后面帮凶的样子吗？根本就象拿铁链的変態。请大家小心不要再掉入这种陷阱了。我也吁请所有Penang郎杯葛这间自以为自己在法律之上的餐厅。身为马来西亚人，我们要拒绝不公正与不正义的事！要国家进步，我们的公民意识必须先进步！

‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’ -Martin Porter

“好人不出声，邪恶满天下” - 马丁伯克（不好意思我自己的烂翻译）

We want a better Penang and we don't want people who abuse and destroy the future and reputation that we are trying to build for our homeland!

槟城的明天会更好！我们不要槟城建立起来的未来与名誉，被那些废人毁掉！

Say no to Tanjung Tokong food court!

ps-> photo was mosaic-ed as not to infringe on the portraiture right.
照片打马赛克因为不要侵犯肖像权。

By the way, if I were to be assasinated, you'll know who to look for. XD
还有，如果我被人暗杀了，你们知道找谁咯。

Links to location: https://foursquare.com/venue/3473761
http://maps.google.com.my/maps?hl=en&q=5.452255,100.306176&ie=UTF8&t=h&z=16

Similar stories:
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?sec=north&file=%2F2011%2F5%2F7%2FNorth%2F8636011&sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4dc74f87bf3701bf%2C0

The barbaric old man

The Universal Experience

2011-05-16T22:05:00.004+08:00

If you type 'backpacker guide Hollywood', my blog will top the list. Totally perasan :) I guess simply because backpackers don't go to Hollywood huh. Haha.

There is this one place on earth that has all the things that you only see in movie and it is known as Universal Studio. It is basically the heart of Hollywood and the very reason how Hollywood gained its name.

Welcome to the very original Universal Studio!

Universal Studio is basically where most of the American series and movies you have ever seen were shot. By turning it into a theme park, the rides and shows are very much related to the movie world. Anyway, the one thing that I found fruitful was the Studio Tour where I hopped on to a tram and toured the studio.

Lo and behold! Fast and Furious Five were shot in this stage!

'Revealed: CSI Miami, CSI New York, CSI Las Vegas...were all pictured in Los Angeles.' said the CSI buggy.

The time machine!

Miniature model of the King Kong Skull Island.

Amity Ville! If you were born in the eighties and earlier, you should know Jaws doesn't only mean the two pieces of bone that control your mouth movement :P

When we were touring the studio, out of the blue there was this plane fell from the skies and crashed right in front of us! Don't believe me? Take a look at the picture on your own!

Plane crash omg!

The weird thing was, no one was in the plane! What an eerie scene!

and Bart came to our rescue!

The only Malaysian celebrity in Hollywood - Orangutan from Malaysia! XD

There was also a live show which based on the movie 'Waterworld'. It was a 15 minute action-packed show with a lot of special effects.

A plane burst out of nowhere in the middle of the show and the audience sitting in the front row were drenched!

Cliche in Hollywood action scene - a man dangling on the verge of falling down and man on fire fell from building. :D

There were a lot, a lot more in the studio that I didn't cover in this post because I simply couldn't. It would be ultra long winded if I try to write about everything. Nonetheless, a visit to Universal Studio was worth the pennies. It explained why American movies and series are so popular worldwide!

The show ended with a big explosion. Believe it or not, they repeat this show three times a day. lol!

Come and experience Universal Studio Hollywood! (lol no, they didn't pay me to say that XD)

Bidding farewell to the entertainment city of Los Angeles......

Backpacker's Guide to the Hollywood Sign

2011-05-07T06:10:00.001+08:00

So, you spent all your money on the plane ticket to LA and you are left with 2.20 dollars in your pocket and you're pondering what you could do next with 2.20 dollars in the City of Angels.

Rest assured because this post will guide you to the Hollywood sign, with 2.20 dollars (and some sweat).

Follow this step by step guide you will get to one of the best spots to get a picture like this.

Step one, get to a subway station and take the train to Hollywood/Vine Station. To know how to get around with the subway, you can go to the LA Metro website. You will spend $1.50 here in order to get to the destination.

Once you walk out from Hollywood/Vine Station, you will be right on Hollywood Boulevard. Pantages Theather will be right across the street. Walk towards east along Hollywood Boulevard and look for a bus stop with LADOT/DASH, like this.

Ignore the wedding dress, please. XD

You should see a bus like this that is going to Beachwood Canyon. Get ready with your change of $0.35 and hop on the bus! For the schedule of the bus you can check it out here.

The bus will turn towards north and go along Beachwood Drive. You should stop at the last station which Beachwood Drive/Westshire Drive

Walk along Beachwood Drive towards north. Don't worry about going the wrong direction because you would be seeing this if you go the wrong way :)

Anyway, walk for approximately 30 minutes and you will be seeing a sign for Sunset Ranch. Yes, you can rent and ride a horse up the trail to the sign if you want. :)

Basically, you will be starting to hike once you go pass Sunset Ranch.

Alongside with the hike, the view it offers is nothing but awesome!

You can get pictures with LA city center in the background and some wild flowers in the foreground!

Walk towards the direction of the sign. You should always turn left whenever you are at a fork.

Once you are close to this silo, you are just a few steps away from the picture perfect spot!

The view of LA city skyline!

Of course, jumping shot is a must when you are this close to the sign!

Not so successful shots

A slightly better one!

Ok, maybe this is the best?

Of course you follow the same route back and remember to keep the $0.35 change for the trip back!

In a nutshell, I hope this simple piece of information helps u to have a budget and rewarding trip! :)

City of Angels

2011-04-21T06:12:00.006+08:00

Disclaimer: All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

I hopped off the plane at LAX with a dream and my cardigan. Welcome to the land of fame excess, am I gonna fit in?

Jumped in the cab, here I am for the first time. Look to my right and I see the Hollywood sign.

My heart was humming this song when I got to Los Angeles.

A couple of months before my trip to LA, I received a wedding invitation from a long lost friend, Will. Well, it isn't that politically correct to call him Will because he is officially known as Prince William of Wales. I looked at my wardrobe and I figured that I needed to have a makeover.

I heard Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills was a good place to shop thus I decided to shop there for the suit that I would be wearing for the Royal Wedding.

Waking up in Banana Bungalow on Hollywood Boulevard and got myself ready to hit the town.

~~We hopped on the bus and started the journey. Apparently, LA was quite well connected with bus and subway. A day pass of 6 dollars and we had unlimited rides!~~ We decided to rent a car and tour the city in the morning as the shops were not open yet. By the way, I found it amazing that the buses in the city take have a hook for bikes!

This was the cheapest rental available. :\ So I had no choice but to rent this car.

My friend and I decided to visit Walt Disney Concert Hall to listen to Los Angeles Philharmonic's performance.

The architecture of the concert hall was unique and interesting

This was one of the side hall. Photography was restricted in the main orchestra hall therefore we did not take any photo inside. To look at the interior design of Walt Disney Concert Hall, you can visit the wiki page

A picture outside of the concert hall.

We then drove around LA and I found this to be very interesting

The Angel's Flight! With a quarter you can take the tram up. It is said that Angel's Flight is the shortest railway in the world!

Literally 'Angel's Flight' :P

When Kobe heard that I was making a trip to LA, he told me that we should meet up in Staple Center so that he could show me around in the stadium. Thus, after lunch, I drove the Staple Center.

It had been a while since I played 1-on-1 with Kobe. Anyway we weren't able to play for too long as he had to be prepared for his play-offs. So we caught up a little bit and he had to catch the plane.

We then decided that it was time to go for shopping. We thought it would be cooler if we could pay in cash so we decided to get some cash from the bank.

What bank you asked? It was Hanmi bank! Hanmi bank? Hanmi bank!

It was a smooth drive to Rodeo Drive and this was the entrance to the shops!

After shopping in a few usual brands like Giorgio Armani, Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Prada, I stumbled upon this very interesting shop known as Porsche Design.

I only knew Porsche cars. Have you ever heard about Porsche attire? I was given a few free gifts when the shopkeepers realised that I was a Porsche car owner.

Of course after supporting so many European brands, as a Malaysian, we had to support our very own home-grown brand. In addition, Jimmy Choo the founder is a Penangite. So I bought a few stuffs in Jimmy Choo as wedding gift for Will and Kate. I heard that Will's mum, Queen Elizabeth II is a big fan of Jimmy Choo therefore I bought something for her as well.

I left Rodeo Drive with a bagful of clothes and apparels. Woohoo! By the way, don't ask me how much I spent because there was no price-tag on the stuffs that I bought!

We tried to catch the sunset in Venice Beach. It was only 20 minutes drive away.

The beach was indeed very appealing!

and we decided to call it a day!

Thank you for putting up with my lunatic ravings XD

A for April...and Austin

2011-04-16T11:54:00.006+08:00

I'm sitting at the corridor outside of my dorm in Banana Bungalow, Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, California right now. As I'm typing away, there's a band practising some songs and some dudes playing basketball downstairs. The breeze was awesome and the weather was perfect to stimulate my blogging mode.

First off, my apology for hibernating my blog for almost a month. I have been extremely busy prior to this trip to the States. For who doesn't know, I was in Austin for the past week for an internal technology conference of my company. I was trying to wrap up some stuffs before I went to Austin thus all the hustle and bustle.

When I was in Austin, while coping for jet-lag, I had to, at the same time, prepare for my presentation in the conference and play catch-ups with some of the friends from Austin. I was pleasantly surprise that a lot of my Austinite friends remembered me quite well. (We were playing card games and there was one card that asked them to say the first and last name of each participant and they could spell my last name!) In conclusion, I had a great time in Austin. Simply put, apart from Penang and Kuala Lumpur, Austin seems to be the one place that I somewhat feel belonged when I go there.

First thing to eat in Austin, a Taco!

Nerve-ticking presentation. Anyway it went well :)

A group photo with the VP and the CEO, also the founder of my company, Dr T!

Party with the 2010 Summer Interns~

Meeting up for the third time in a year's time! XD

The Yum Seng kaki-es. They like to do the yum seng thing, loud and blatant, in the bar. This is what we call cultural exchange lol.

I was so busy that I didn't have to meet up for lunch/dinner so we decided to meet up in a boutique while I was shopping some clothes. lol!

and I left Austin with a stomachful of Texas oversize bigger-than-thou-face barbecued Rib King!

Ok enough of Texas right now. Let's switch the channel and talk about my thoughts.

Somehow, I feel like I am now totally falling in love with traveling. I like how it feels walking on a street that is so different and seeing all the people around you, not knowing that I am from another part of the world. I like how it feels meeting new faces and understanding people's lifestyles and cultures from all over the world. I think through traveling, I understand myself more and I have a bigger picture of what is important to me and the role that I should be playing. It sort of gives me peace of mind when I am taking the subway or the bus on a completely foreign street.

By the way, this particular hostel that I was staying were full of Europeans. In my dorm there's one French, three Brits and two Spanish. No sign of Asian except for my friend and I. haha.

I will be making my way back to Malaysia on Sunday. Keep reading for posts on the City of Angels!

Shattered

2011-03-22T20:29:00.007+08:00

I am supposed to be packing my backpack right now instead of writing a post if it weren't for the quake that shattered Japan on 11 March.

Anyway I got refunded by AirAsia so basically I didn't lose anything.

The quake and tsunami in Sendai, Japan also triggered a tsunami alarm as far as Penang. A group of teenagers from my church were initially going to hike Pantai Keracut on 12th March but the word pantai was like a taboo and we had no choice but to change the destination.

Any idea of the whereabout of this picture? :)

and it was school holiday last week, which essentially had nothing to do with me, except...

Tell me what should I feel about this? XD

Nothing much to blog about lately. I have shifted my life's focus bit by bit and I guess it's the same for all my university friends who graduated last year. When you are a student, you have the privilege to procrastinate, slack off, make mistakes and give lame excuses. Nonetheless, things changed from the moment you signed the offer letter. :D

Anyway, I have no complaints with anything so far except for the skyrocketing property prices in Penang. Imagine a condominium of 1100 square feet causing easily RM400000? That's way too...scary. I guess that's the challenge of X-Generation in the 21st century. :\

and did I say that I will be going back to Austin in April? :)

Penang Needs LRT

2011-03-04T21:41:00.005+08:00

A truck that turn-turtled on the road caused a massive traffic jam in Penang...for two days consecutive because they couldn't remove it until the next day. I was the immediate victim inthis unfortunate incident :|

Traffic congestion in Penang is of course, incomparable to the no-reason, anywhere, anytime, craze-driving, bumper-to-bumper jams in KL. But, sometimes it can be very annoying too.

When I was in KL, I could still make a decision to take public transport instead of driving. Undeniably, the human traffic in LRT can be nastily heavy in KL but I would still have a choice. In addition, it does help to reduce traffic on the road, even by that tiny little bit. In Penang, I don't really have a choice. Taking the bus you say - do you know how pathetic the coverage of RapidPenang is if you simply compare the bus routes to any city in China. :\

Let's take it further and look at Hong Kong and Singapore. They both are dense island city and they both have very comprehensive rail linkage. With the increasing numbers of vehicles in Penang, I guess it's time to look at building a comprehensive public transportation in Penang. At the same time, to be a cleaner and greener international city, public transport is definitely playing a significant role.

Of course I am no expert of the whole public transportation thing and I don't know how feasible is it to actually build subway or LRT or monorail or whatever in Penang but I am saying that this is something that the Penang government and the Federal Government should look into. :\

Anyhows, Penangites, these are a few pictures to make you guys feel better. :P

Wow, LRT is now in Penang?!

No more hustle-bustle in George Town!

Now you can cross the bridge with train!

I guess my photoshop skill is getting better huh? XD

I genuinely hope that the government is not taking a rain check indefinitely on building a comprehensive public transportation system in Penang already. :|

First Lego League

2011-02-22T23:28:00.004+08:00

I'm now at Penanng International Airport, waiting for the flight to Kuala Lumpur. Today I am breaking away from my usual working routine and will be having a recruitment drive in my alma mater, UTAR. :)

Anyway, just want to keep my blog updated.

Just the past weekend, I went to Taylor's University in Subang Jaya for First Lego League together with 2 of my colleagues.

Of course I was not participating in the competition but I was one of the coaches of SMK Georgetown students. If you missed out on my previous post about how I became a mentor at Georgetown, click here

The Taylor's University Campus was very scenic!

First Lego League is actually an annual event held in the United States to promote and celebrate science and technology with elementary and secondary school students. It is also held in countries across the world. Basically students have to prepare for a few tasks, namely the robotic challenge and tasks, the project research presentation and the teamwork challenge.

Overall, the whole event was more like a festival than a competition. There was upbeat music blasting non-stop throughout the competition and students were all cheering and shouting and yelling and dancing like nobody business. Even I was dragged up stage for an Indian dance! lol. You can see the video to feel the party heat!

Testing out their robots

As you might have be aware, when another engineer and I first approached the students to mentor them, it was only merely a month ago. I was not at all expecting to see them successfully participating in FLL because they had only less than one month to prepare for the competition. Anyway when I saw how dedicated and determined they were during the past few weeks for the competition, I told myself that no matter by hook or by crook, I would get their asses into FLL. (eh students from SMK Georgetown don't be too perasan if you read this alright. We still have more competitions to go to :P)

Doing some last minute programming

Despite the tight schedule, the students came out with a very impressive results as they were able to complete almost half of the tasks out of the whole challenge.

They were know as Robogeorge!

Affirmative sir!

Apart from their technical skill, team Robogeorge was very dynamic and synergistic and even though they were not well prepared for the presentation, they came out with very creative ways to present their facts.

Technical Presentation where they have to explain how they built and programmed the robot to solve the task.

They also made friend with another team sponsored by NI Sales office and as you could see they were so excited.

All the participants from all over the country.

Even though we did not bring back any trophy, we did not go home empty handed - we brought back a priceless experience of a lifetime and a great loads of fun!

Having all said, team Robogeorge was really mischievous beyond my control but guess what, they were only 15 and 16 so what more could I expect? XD

Let's work hard for the upcoming competition and stay cool! Let's win something back next year alright!

ps-> While you are reading this, I am now at KLIA Express, on my way back to Penang. :P

Paddy Field

2011-02-10T20:14:00.004+08:00

Frenzy is the exact word for my current state of mind and state of life.

Anyway, for the past Chinese New Year, I took the chance to meet up with some old friends and I called for an outdoor portrait photo shooting.

It took place at a paddy field nearby Nibong Tebal, or more precisely, Sungai Udang which was a ten minute drive away from my home. haha

The crew, the models, the photographer and the master. :)

Paparazzi. lol

Getting advices from sifu!

Here's the outcome of the photo-shooting session.

The Golden

The Elegance

The Dawn

The Clear Blue Skies

The Happiness

The Supergirls

I can now cross out one of the items in my to-do list - to have an outdoor portrait shooting at the paddy field :P Last but not least, a really huge thank you to everyone who agreed to tag along on my stupid ideas especially the models Miss T and Miss C who sweat through the whole shooting session. Not forgetting Mr. OCC who drove all the way from Penang to generously share his portrait shooting experience with me. :)

Happy Chinese New Year! Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Crossroad

2011-01-24T23:23:00.003+08:00

It has been ages since I composed a song. Before my right brain cells die I need to come out with something.

and I can only compose Mandarin songs :P

词，曲：Kae Vin

我站在彷徨的十字路口
不知道前进还是退后
有没有一个牵强的理由
总不能在原地停留

我站在昏暗的十字路口
不知道该转左或转右
希望你带着我一起逃走
就算我要默默地等候

这个城市的空气太单薄
下的雨晶莹剔透的在闪烁
连月光都显得很微弱
我迷恋你自信的执著

路边的花朵被微风吹过
连天使都为你而感到迷惑
请你带着我
灿烂的为你而活

and google introduced google translator for a reason. If you wish to know what's in the lyrics just head to the ultimate translator XD

Comments and critics are welcomed. Enjoy! :)

Mentor

2011-01-16T21:48:00.007+08:00

If you were an avid reader of my blog (shamelessly speaking :P), you would have remembered last few months I wrote something about Lego Mindstorms mentoring program.

So the program finally kicked off last week and the school that I adopted was SMK Georgetown and I just had a first Lego session with the high school kids there.

Basically, this is a joint effort and volunteer program between multiple MNCs (Multi-National Companies), local companies and Penang Science Council to bring in fun learning in science and technology to schools in Penang. Each participating company will sponsor Lego Sets and also offer manpower by encouraging their employees to volunteer and I am one of the volunteers ;)

A colleague and I were in charge of SMK Georgetown and we started the whole thing with some presentation slides.

There were a total of 38 enthusiastic students voluntarily joined us for the first session even though we only requested for 10! My colleague was giving the students a head start on what's coming!

Initially we planned to have it in the lab but we had to use the hall because the amount of students was overwhelming!

"Listen up guys, I will gouge out your eyeballs out if you don't listen to me wuahahahhaha!", said me. and I just realized that those guys were taking video of me zomg. XD

Students were having fun on the hands on Lego building session!

I was showing them some programming tricks. I was impressed by how fast those kids could learn!

At the end of the day, I was surrounded by a bunch of eager learners that wanted to grab everything I could offer to pick up this Lego Mindstorms thingy. It was totally a pleasant surprise to see the overwhelming reception of this program on the very first day. Prior to the first session, I was trying to tell myself to not to be dampened if the students were not zealous enough.

Anyway, I definitely feel contented to be involved in such a meaningful program even though it means that I might have to sacrifice my sweet Saturday morning. This inner reward is something that motivates me to move forward. Just have to keep my fingers crossed that I will not be burning out with my commitment in work, this lego mentor program, also my church's youth ministry and my own personal development. :)

Therefore, stop taunting me about not writing long enough post already! XD

Destiny

2011-01-09T17:07:00.004+08:00

Last year, when I was in Austin, I attended a wedding of a friend in Abilene.

It was in June.

On the first day of 2011, I drove down to Kuala Lumpur and attended their wedding thanksgiving in Malaysia!

The cool thing about that was their wedding thanksgiving started at 4pm in the afternoon and the wedding dinner started at 6pm and the couple had to catch the plane back to the States at 10pm! lol!

and this was my first time to see how a cute little piglet was presented in the wedding dinner ten-course meal! lol! Poor thing.

By the time we finished our dinner, the newly-wed (erm, not so new anymore lol) had already left to catch the plane. So we had no choice but to syok sendiri and took a picture together. :P

Anyway I was glad that I was able to make it to the wedding and met up with them. Definitely gonna see them soon :)

On a more serious note, if 2010 was a transition year, then 2011 will be a year which I will start to settle down and start to think about things which I didn't give much thoughts to.

and I had an awesome conversation over this plate of Steamed Chicken Rice at the town of Bukit Mertajam.

and I hope 2011 will be a year for me to realise what my destiny is. :)

Wrap-Up

2010-12-29T22:42:00.004+08:00

My 2010 was like a roller coaster ride.

In the beginning, I was working my butt off for my final year project and frantically looking for a job.

Then I got a job and it was a 3 month internship in the United States. So I flew in May.

I attended a wedding of an old friend,

visited New York City

and did skydiving

and of course I worked at the same time.

I came back to Malaysia and I attended my convocation in August.

I started working in Penang in September.

and I am now writing the last entry of 2010 with a hope of a better 2011 ahead. I hope God will be in the picture just like how He did in 2010. :)

Happy New Year everyone and thank you for reading this 6 year old blog! :)

Javelin River: Panorama Hill

2010-12-18T13:23:00.001+08:00

The Sungai Lembing town. My first ever HDR attempted therefore pardon the edgy tree. I only shot the photo in normal quality therefore the information loss :/

Well, Panorama Hill at Sungai Lembing was famed for it's sunrise and sea of clouds. Thus I will do minimal writing here and let the pictures do the talking! :)

Just right before the dawn broke.

Almost there!

and the sun rose but it was blocked by some stupid clouds therefore no sunny side up for today's breakfast. LOL

Then out of the blue it became foggy

and foggier when we took a group photo :\

Call me Apollo! XD

Behold, the definition of picturesquely tranquil! (I had a hard time pronouncing them lol)

A sea of clouds~ Felt like diving in and swam :D

The blurry effect was caused by the moist on the lens lol.

Going down down down down down~

The famous Taufu made using the water from the hill for breakfast. Smooth and silky! :D

Then we left the town. Crossing the river on a wooden bridge.

So long, Sungai Lembing~

Javelin River: Rainbow Waterfall

2010-12-10T22:40:00.005+08:00

It has been a while since I last blogged. I have to admit that it's relatively harder to maintain a blog as someone with a job. :\ Sometimes I might be free but I was not in the right mood to write.

Anyway, I realise that I have not posted any outing/fun activities post for the past 2 months.

So this entry will be my impulsive and impromptu trip to Sungai Lembing (which translates to the River of Javelin), Pahang. For your information, it was a 7 hour drive from Penang to Sungai Lembing. XD

There are basically a few attractions in Sungai Lembing (despite being a small and rural kampung), namely the Rainbow Waterfall, Panorama Hill and also the one of the world's biggest underground tin mine.

On Friday night, I drove down to KL to meet up with friends and then we took off from KL to Sungai Lembing at 1am (pure madness!). We arrived at Sungai Lembing at around 5am. Took an hour nap and the four-wheeled drive guys came.

After about an hour of bumpy road ride, we arrived at this 'car park' where we had to park the car and started to hike.

Free car park and open air toilet.

We then crossed this knee level stream and kick-started the hike! Saw the 4wd? It was hidden behind the bush. :D

Hiking in rain forest terrain and water trotting upstream in search of Rainbow Waterfall sounded so darn adventurous! :D

and sometimes we came across weird creatures like the leech!! Anyway these were mushroom. lol!

Unfortunately, it was drizzling when we were hiking. The guide asked us to keep our finger crossed because the rainbow would only appear when there was sunlight. (told you to pay attention in physics classes! XD)

After about an hour of journey, I was greeted by this magnificent scenery!

Re-energizing and made me feel like running up with full speed!

Now I proclaimed that Planet Earth has better scenery than Planet Pandora! lol!

As I went closer to the waterfall, I couldn't help but took a deep breathe, and started snapping my camera like nobody's business (at the same time protecting it from being soaked wet as the rain was getting heavier!)!

Of course I have to make sure that I was at least in one of the photos! :D

This was directly under the waterfall. Sorry for the blur-ish photo as the lens was drenched.

Though it was cold and windy and rainy, we couldn't help but dived in the refreshing and freezing water!

Arghhhhhhh~

Though the view was rewarding enough, I was still a little bit unsatisfied as I didn't get to see the rainbow. :\

The photo below shows how the rainbow would look like if there were any.

Isn't it magnificent? :) Taken from Singaporebikes.com

Anyway, after the waterfall, the guide took us to this natural hot spring. After being in the rain and waterfall for a few hours, a hot spring could really make me sing "Hot and Cold"

You could really tell that it was a natural hot spring just from the colour itself! haha

The temperature was just nice!

Right after that, lunch at a famous Malay stall.

Mee Bandung. The Mee Jawa was more famous but it was sold out. :\

Initially we planned to check into the resort, rest for a while, then go to the famous Teluk Cempedak beach at Kuantan in the evening but we collapsed on the bed and blacked out for 2 hours as we were totally worn out!

Anyway, hunger was always the best alarm and we woke at 7pm and drove to Kuantan for some seafood!

A scrumptious dinner indeed!

and I loved this shark meat!

We drove back to Sungai Lembing and had some charcoal-barbecued pork for supper and decided to call it a day!

Look at the fat! Definitely enough to compensate all the energy loss! lol

That's it for this entry and I'll leave the Panorama Hill for the next entry! ;) Before ending this post, enjoy the video of the journey to the rainbow waterfall! :D

Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T21:34:00.003+08:00

It was my first time to actually be aware of the Thanksgiving celebration as I was invited to a Turkey feast by my boss.

Turkey. Yum. Smooth and tender.

5-1 of the new-hires. One wasn't able to make it after 42km of full marathon. XD

Anyone need a babysitter? XD

and yay I successfully finished the 21km Penang Bridge International Marathon despite the ultra heavy downpour that came about after an hour of running.

Read the entry of my last run of PBIM here. :)

Anyway, I'll do a little bit of American for this entry :P Gonna come out with a gratitude list in conjunction with Thanksgiving. This will also serve as a refresher when I start to take things for granted :)

1. Successfully graduated from university with first class
2. Granted an opportunity to undergo internship in the States
3. Finally owned a dslr, Nikon D90 to be specific
4. Got my dream job back in Penang
5. Able to serve in Nibong Tebal Gospel Hall youth ministry
6. Have a place to stay and a car to drive
7. Health of my parents, who are currently backpacking in China
8. Settling down in Penang, living life the way I want to.

Of course there are more but I'll keep them to myself ;)

A group photo for the opening ceremony of NI next week.

Happy Thanksgiving and come back for more! :)

The Eleventh Month

2010-11-10T19:56:00.004+08:00

This blog has been a faithful time keeper for me. I know I should stop and sit down and start to think when it is left un-updated for too long. In this case, it has been almost 2 weeks since I last wrote something and trust me, it doesn't feel like 2 weeks at all.

Anyway, I ain't writing to rant about how busy I am blah blah blah. Haha, it's a total waste of time to actually take time to rant.

I made a 3 day trip last week to Cameron Highland as Friday was Deepavali.

It was a Family Camp put together by SGC (Setapak Gospel Centre) in conjunction with its 20 Anniversary.

A group photo and I was the photographer. haha.

SGC was the first and also last church that I stepped in when I was in college. Without me realizing, my life had been revolving around it for the past 5 years. I was definitely more than a church-goer I guess. My involvement in the ministries actually fostered my spiritual and also personal growth. I engaged myself with the local community in Setapak.

and I was surprised how I took it for granted for such an important part of my life. I only realized how much impact it had in my life after I left. :|

YMCA. lol

I am currently reading this book with the title of {Following Jesus in the "Real World"}. The prelude already struck me because it was as if that the book was written for me! lol. Here are some excerpts of the book:

'...you saw dramatic evidence of the advance of the kingdom of God while you were in college. Relationships were plentiful and easily formed, so the avenues for kingdom impact were numerous. You may have seen friends become Christians. You may have helped a young Christian grow in his or her faith - or had someone help you mature in Christ. You may have taken leadership in a group - small or large - and seen God work through your willingness to take risks....'

'"Faithfulness to God" is not a relevant category for most career-planning and job-placement centers at secular schools'

'The "real world" economy just isn't hospitable to the idealistic phrasings of our worship songs. Hectic workdays yield no peace; time-squeezed relationships yeild no love; materialistic acquisitiveness yeilds no joy. Where is the kingdom of God in all that'

I have only read the first chapter and I started to reflect on my life. It is a transition from college to career and I really don't want to let go of this significant portion of my life just because I started working.

The youngest basketball shooter in Cameron Highland! lol

Nevertheless, the fact is that no matter how I miss and reminisce my vibrant college live with a loving and caring Christian community, I have to accept the fact that it is now all gone.

and I'll have to move on and start some something new. I realize that I have to be more of the provider instead of a receiver.

Strawberry milkshake, strawberry float, strawberry yogurt and strawberry pancake!

At the end of the day, the bottom line is that I'll have to live up to my faith.

Strawberry scone.

Although I do not have the slightest idea of my future but I truly believe that God has my best interest in mind.

Strawberry tea and strawberry pancake anyone? :)

Mindstorms

2010-10-29T22:47:00.012+08:00

In the last post I mentioned about attending some robotic workshop and here I am to elaborate on it. :)

So, everything started with the formation of Penang Science Council.

What does Penang Science Council have to do with robots, you may ask.

The fact that hundreds of electronics multinational companies sprung up in Penang for the past 40 years has created an ecosystem to attract and nurture more talents from all over Malaysia and overseas.

Thus, the Penang state decided to start the nurturing process as early as possible, which is starting from high school and thus Penang Science Council was founded.

They have a series of programs going on in schools all over in Penang and one of them is the Lego Robotic Mindstorms Platform.

This project prompted all the giant names in Penang like Motorola, Intel, Osram, B. Braun, Seagate, National Instruments and so on to sponsor 30 sets of Lego Mindstorms to schools. Apart from that, each companies will be mobilising volunteers to learn the necessary skill and then be distributed into different schools in Penang.

Wanna know more about Lego Mindstorms? Watch this.

This was the Line Following Robot that my counterpart and I designed in the Robotic Workshop.

Lego Mindstorms is actually a collaboration between Lego and National Instruments (read: my current company). Lego provided the hardware solution and National Instruments provided the software platform. Well, I know cupcake is not related to robot, just putting the photo here for the sake of it. XD

Basically, this Lego Mindstorms thing is a perfect toy for kid.

First, you assemble the parts. You can be totally creative and build whatever things you can possibly imagine!

To make life easier, Lego even provides a CAD (Computer Aided Drawing) software for parts assembly! haha

Look at that I am such a genius. lol.

Ops....This was the lunch I had when I was having my Lego Mindstorms workshop. muahaha. Totally not related to this post. Another 'just upload it for the sake of it' photo. :P

Anyway, after you build the structure, you can program it using G-programming language, which stands for Graphical Programming language!

This G-programming language is a solution given by National Instruments as NI is specialized for that! This Mindstorm NXT software is a subset of LabVIEW, the main software that NI owns. Read more at ni.com. lol commercial break here. XD

By doing this, it makes programming so simple that even kids could do it! I am sure you can understand the block diagram above right? It's meant for kids! :D

After two days of workshop, I took the Lego Mindstorms set home to explore as I will have to be a Mindstorms Mentor (sounds cool eh? Like some superhero from X-men wuahaha) in a month's time.

and these two were the projects that I did in the past week.

This was a segway/inverted pendulum that utilised a light sensor to balance itself on two wheels. :) PID control was involved to provide the error feedback.

This was a blind robot that had no sensor or what so ever. It would just move forward blindly and bump into obstacle. Anyway the interesting part was the mechanical movement. :)

Of course I didn't design these two projects on my own. The designs were taken from http://www.nxtprograms.com. Anyway I hope I'll be able to come out with some original ideas after plagiarizing two designs. :P

Therefore my living room was in a total mess right now. muahaha.

I am sure that this project will benefit the Penang kids. By exposing them earlier to engineering and science in a fun and engaging way, who knows we might have our very own Apple, Rambutan or Durian or whatsoever coming out from our very own 'Bolehland' . lol. I don't mind Penang turning into an ultimate Geekdom. So much better than building some stupid 100 storey tower. XD

Of course, I am glad that I am able to involve in such a meaningful contribution to Bolehland or even the state of Penang. :D Tell you a secret, some other motivation for me to join this including hanging out with high school young ~~girls~~ kids and sneaking out to volunteer during working hour. :P I hope my boss wouldn't read this wuahahah. (In case you are reading it, I was just kidding! ^_^)

Oh by the way, I should not forget to mention that Lego Mindstorms is actually a toy for 8 year old and above. XD If you think you can't handle it, I feel so sorry for your brain. :P

Toddler

2010-10-22T21:14:00.007+08:00

Day by day, hour by hour, clock seemed to be ticking faster ever since I started working. Nevertheless, the best thing about my job is that I have flexible working hour thus I can totally arrange my own daily schedule.

Nothing in particular to blog about in this post. Last week I made a trip to KL to attend a wedding. In the mean time, I kinda met up with a few friends and not surprisingly, everybody was busy with their precious weekends thus I didn't meet up with all of them. Just a rant. :P

Stepping into the career life feels like stepping on an elevator - no time to stop, and it keeps moving up. Anyway I still play basketball twice a week. Will be joining a 3 on 3 competition together with my colleagues. As it is only open for the tenures of the location of my current R&D Centre, I hope we can win something.

On the other hand, I'll be volunteering for a school mentor project in some schools in Penang. I'll be mentoring some high school kids to join a robotic competition of Lego NXT Mindstorm, which is a product of Lego and my company, National Instruments. I am sure it will be fun. :) Stay tuned for more updates on it alright? :)

Anyway, just wish to post up some really cute toddlers' photo that I had taken for the past few months.

I hope they will light up your day.

Adorable? Go make one on your own! :D

Redefine

2010-10-11T21:53:00.008+08:00

An old man was sitting all alone in the grocery shop in a petrol station, reading an English book. He was indifferent to anybody that walked pass him or threw him weird stares.

He was well dressed with a red shirt, a pouch on his waist, a pair of khakis shorts and a pair of hiking shoes, tied with raffia shoe laces. I couldn't make out what book he was reading but it was a thick and worn out book. His face was aged with wrinkles and the glasses didn't make him look younger. His right hand thumb was bandaged and he had a sling bag full of some English newspapers.

He appeared to be unhappy.

I didn't know why but this scene struck me. An old man, all alone, appeared to be well educated, read a book in a petrol station.

It made me ponder. An old man who could read a book like this must have read a lot of other books in his life. A man who read so many books had to be a well-educated man, or at least a man that looked at the world and knew what was going on.

The point was, I was always taught that education is the key to success, that knowledge empowers you to be who you want to be and at the end of the day, brings you happiness?

I was inspired by people who stood on the stage with glow on their face, rewarded for their academic achievement. I salute people with higher qualification or multiple degrees.

I couldn't help but wonder what were the stories behind this man. Did he have his heyday back then? What brought him down a road like this? He didn't seem like a street wanderer to me judging from his well-tugged shirt and nicely-tied belt.

But I was just like anybody else in the shop, got our errands done without paying much attention to a distraught old man.

He might not know but without him doing anything, he created a little conundrum in the mind of someone who just started his life, his career.

I guess, I will have to slowly redefine my perspective of life.

For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;
the more knowledge, the more grief.

Book of Ecclesiastes, 1:18

Wall Photo

2010-10-05T21:48:00.005+08:00

Time flew like nobody's business when I worked for 8 hours in the day and covered myself in paint for 3 hours at night. That was why I hadn't updated my blog for more than two weeks! September ended and October kicked off! Twenty ten is coming to an end!

Anyway it was worth the hard work. Just take a look at the pictures

Before the painting, well, not exactly, I painted it white first.

The paint does the magic huh?

From another perspective...

It went from a plain white wall

To this! :D

Anyway I did not do this alone all the while (only some times). My parents did help and so was my colleague. :)

This would be my music room where I could just close the door and make noise! :D

The guest room aka bedroom with beds. :)

The window for pure staring purposes. lol

I bet you can totally tell that I am a true blue Penangite just by just looking at my room! One more Pinang tree and I am all done! :D

So that was about the place where I am currently staying on the island. Still commute back to mainland on a weekly basis.

Well, life at work is great. Great environment, great people, great activities and great job. A month has passed and I am still a happy employee. I have been learning stuffs and feeling valued. I guess that's about all a fresh graduate can get isn't it?

and internet was just installed hours ago. To start a new life in a new place, you always need to be connected. XD

One more photo for the conclusion.

There are always reasons for me to love Penang and this is one of it, the Penang bridge! This picture was taken on the peak of Bukit Jambul.

Standing tall and looking far.

Signing off!

Of All the Beautiful Things

2010-09-19T20:57:00.005+08:00

Of all the beautiful things in life.

and Life starts when school ends. lol.

Writing has always been one of my passion. I still remember I filled up the 'Cita-cita' column with 'Penulis' when I was in secondary school.

So don't worry. This blog will always be alive even though I am no longer a care-free student. It's just that I might have to cut the updating frequency down to once a week or even once a fortnight.

This post is pretty random anyway. It's a peep of all the beautiful pieces of my current life. :)

I went for a hike in Penang last week with my colleagues. We only did it halfway anyway the view was quite rewarding.

This was the Gurney side of Penang.

We went for breakfast in the market in Lorong Kimberly. Walking around with a DSLR made me look more like a tourist than a local. :D

One of the beautiful things in Malaysia is the cultural richness. This is Ketupat, one of the must-haves of Hari Raya.

Lantern Festival aka Mid Autumn Festival. I believed a lot of us had the childhood experience of getting on a bandwagon with a lantern in the hands.

Usually we burnt it. lol!

I am supposed to be staying in Penang island however due to some technical error, I still commute from the mainland to the island on a daily basis. It means that I cross the bridge everyday, twice.

and I came across this awesomely beautiful rainbow on the other day. It was a full one, cutting across the bridge. I could see it from end to end.

Warning: DO NOT TRY THIS WHILE YOU ARE DRIVING! (photos below were taken using my Iphone)

I would be more than happy to drive to work if I could see this everyday. :D

It was raining a little bit.

How awesome! Dual layer :)

Driving towards the rainbow.

I took these when I reached the office. Looking out from the balcony, I could see these...

See the bridge?

The mountainous terrain of the island.

The rainbow was slowly fading away!

Aestheticism always makes life better. At least it makes the ugly reality a little bit endurable.

By the way, Malaysia (especially Penang!) is such a great place to live in. isn't it? :)

National Instruments Penang

2010-09-09T21:41:00.006+08:00

First of all, Selamat Hari Raya to all Muslims and have a great weekend! All the best!

I felt compelled to blog about this because there are people who thought that I am working in a musical instruments company when I told them I work in National Instruments!

Before I begin, let's just make it simple by first narrating the chronicles. (This is for those whothink that I am a street performer. I still play the guitar but hey I do not make a living out of it alright? :P)

I had been studying Electrical and Electronic Engineering for the past 4 years and I got the chance to undergo an eleven week internship in the headquarter of National Instruments at Austin, Texas. You can read about it here and right now, I am working in the R&D Centre of NI in Penang.

Just to warn you that this post is going to have a ~~tad of~~ lot of engineering.

This is the logo and name of the company.

So what does this company do, you may ask.

National Instruments is a producer of automated test equipment and virtual instrumentation software. Their software products include LabVIEW, a graphical development environment, LabWindows/CVI, which provides VI tools for C, TestStand, a test sequencing and management environment, and Multisim (formerly Electronics Workbench), an electrical circuit analysis program. Their hardware products include VXI, VMEbus, and PXI frames and modules, as well as interfaces for GPIB, I²C, and other industrial automation standards. They also sell real-time embedded controllers, including Compact FieldPoint and CompactRIO. Common applications include data acquisition, instrument control and machine vision.

Excerpt from Wikipedia

Alright, this explains everything but I think most of the readers might not get it so I'll try to illustrate it with some pictures.

People, say hi to BEAR. BEAR is actually a military project to help in disaster relief as it is able to lift very heavy object. It was not designed by National Instruments but the team who put this together, utilized NI's hardware and also software platform as the 'brain'.

Okay, so now you know that NI's products can be utilized in the robotics field. But this is only one of thousands application of NI's product! Here's another one.

DAQ aka Data Acquisition. In fact, this is one of the very main portion of NI's market. NI's products help its customers to 'acquire, process and present' its data.

For example, acquiring data about the wind speed and direction and make changes to the wind turbine in order to maintain its constant speed that can generate an optimum amount of electricity. This can be achieved by using NI's products as well.

By the way, the wind turbine that you see in the picture above is actually a scaled-down model of the real huge wind turbine.

Apart from that, NI's products are used in automation as well. This robot will assemble a model of an aeroplane if all the necessary parts are present. It has a vision system that first scan through the platform and decides if it should assemble them, or proceed to the next one if something is missing.

Apart from all the canggih-manggih things, NI's products can also do something fun, like some toys!

These are actually remote-control robots made from Lego and they could navigate around the area without bumping into any obstacle! The location of each robot was also tracked and shown in the monitor!

All the products you saw, were showcased in NIWeek. It is a annual 3-day conference. It was attended by engineers and scientists worldwide to have a glimpse on NI's latest development. NI's customers will also showcase their products which use NI's products as their platforms.

The founder and CEO of NI, Dr T was giving speech about his insights about NI's future development.

NI is also expanding its operation globally. Spot Penang? :D Did I mention that the R&D site in Penang started its operation in September 2010?

This was a cool bus!

So, I am now back in Penang, Malaysia and started my first ever career with National Instruments!

My desk. :D

The lab. We have to use the box as the desks are not shipped in yet! XD

I hope this will clarify the doubts that you have about National Instruments. This is not a very technical explanation but I hope it is able to give you a rough idea. For more info, check out http://www.ni.com

By the way, for eleven consecutive years since 2000, Fortune magazine named National Instruments one of the 100 best companies to work for in America! :D

ps-> if you googled in for more information about NI Penang, just leave a comment here. I'll try my best to answer you. :)

Island of Peace

2010-08-30T21:28:00.005+08:00

Happy Merdeka Day! Despite all the chaotic conundrums in Malaysia, let's wish Malaysia a happy Independence Day. We all know that how awesome Malaysia is (okay, maybe not the ruling party) so let's keep our finger crossed for a better tomorrow. :D

Last Saturday, I got to hang out with some ex-colleagues whom I knew when I was having my internship in Intel 2008. These awesome people was making a gorgeous seafood trip to Pulau Aman aka Island of Peace and I got an invitation card. XD

So you are wondering where this Pulau Aman is? Well even as a true blue Penangite, I never knew this island was populated even though I was aware of its existence. According to some online travel guide, the island is populated by 300 people.

This is a satellite map of the location of the island (the one circled in red), which was right between Penang island and the Peninsular of Malaysia. The pink line refers to the Penang bridge. :)

To get onto the island, we hopped on to a boat like this and took a 10-minute boat ride from the jetty. The fare was only RM6 for both way. The Malay ladies in the picture were probably residents on the island, just finished their Hari Raya shopping I guess. :)

As we were approaching the island, I noticed that there were a primary school.

Upon reaching the jetty, there was a stretch of nicely arranged fishing sampan

It was about one o'clock in the afternoon and we were hungry. This was the only restaurant on this island and I believe it was built solely for tourist like us.

It was a floating restaurant and it offered a very soothing and tranquil view with sea breeze. Totally awesome.

As it was Bulan Ramadhan and the villagers were fasting, we asked if they were operating before we placed our order. Fortunately they were open for business else we would tour the island, starved. haha

There were only two types of fresh seafood the restaurant could offer, which was mantis shrimp and crab. When I said fresh, I meant they were just caught, and still alive. :D

We had a bowl of Mee Kuah which was a bowl of noodle with red hot gravy and a LOT of shrimps.

These poor things were steamed only as it was so freaking fresh. They were good enough to eat them on their own!

The face of mantis shrimp!

I was sure that he passed his biology dissection test with flying colours! lol the flesh on the left and the shell on the right! XD

After the scrumptious meal we walked around the island to help with the digestion.

A group photo minus the one who took this, with my camera :P

Childhood game. :)

We then walked around the village.

Rooster and hen and two girls :)

Some nice white flowers on the island

A typical Malay village styled house.

Anyone can name this fruit?

Okay. I will stick to nangka. lol!

We followed the trail along the seaside and it led us to this dead end. Anyway it offered a good view of the ocean. I saw the construction of Penang Second Bridge.

We walked back to the jetty and got home. I wanted to do a little bit of swimming but everybody else wasn't prepared so I gave up.

Anyway, I wanna do this the next time I go there! ;D

Heartfelt

2010-08-25T22:14:00.005+08:00

I am taking this opportunity to thank all everybody who made it to my convocation despite the smoldering sun.

First and foremost, my parents who dressed up preppy clothes to attend my convocation. Without them I wouldn't be standing here. I love you guys!

Next on the list, the ultimate super awesome professional photographer (the one in white shirt, you would know him if you are in Kampar UTAR, he is one of the higher ranking people in photography society lol) who perspired and followed me through the crowd to capture all the great photos! He too tried to attend to all my weird photography request. Thank you! Definitely appreciate your perspire and our 11 year friendship! :)

How could I leave you guys out? My all time favourite childhood playmates who are always there for me whenever I need them! You guys are my awesomest friends!

My convocation youngest and cutest attendee! Thanks to his daddy and mummy who waited for me for more than 1 hour outside the hot glazing sun! Thanks for the present!

Of course not forgetting my super juniors! Thanks for the flower and small little banner! I totally appreciate y'all being so supportive! You guys have to rock on in school alright!

To everybody who did the hat toss together with me, I have to say that I am glad to have you guys as my coursemates throughout the last four/five years. I might not be of close acquaintance with everybody but I wish everybody all the best in their future endeavours! (lol familiar tagline) Hey I am sincere alright! Add me in facebook if you haven't! :P

For those who didn't make it to my convocation, I guess you have to wait maybe a few more years! XD

It's high time to kiss the comfy campus life goodbye! :D

August Rush

2010-08-20T18:19:00.009+08:00

Sorry for the lack of update in my blog but I have been on the run.

I have been traveling up and down Penang, Kampar and Kuala Lumpur in the past few days, hanging out with friends who are more than faces on Facebook

Yesterday I was still in KL and now I am in Penang and tomorrow I will be in KL again for my convocation on this Sunday. Therefore please congratulate me. :D

I will be settling down in Penang island and permanently staying in Farlim area for the next couple of years. Please let me know if you are coming to Penang as well alright? Penang can be real fun if you've got the right people to hang out with. :)

Nothing eventful to blog about although life in Malaysia so far has been fruitful and contented.

Perhaps I should upload some photo that I took in Air Putih. I made the trip there with a friend who shared the same passion for photography. :)

Enjoy the photo feast.

I am gonna get myself a portrait lens!

Crystallized water!

Next time, if you happen to bump into a half naked guy with barefoot in Quick Silver surf pants, in a tropical rain forest holding a Nikon D90, please say hi. XD

UTAR Kuala Lumpur. When I was taking photo of my Alma Mater, someone questioned me "Why are you so fond of this school?"

*speechless*

UTAR Kampar West Lake Student Village. By the way, landscape like the one in the photo above with clouds and mountains is rare in Texas.

That's all for this post. Again, please let me know if you are able to make it to my convocation this Sunday! :D

Friendship State

2010-08-12T11:05:00.002+08:00

I flew 30 hour and I am now home in Penang.

Like I said in the previous post, I've got to write about my trip to Fort Worth and Dallas.

Apart from being known as a Lone Star State, Texas is also known as the Friendship state. Don't ask me why, I don't know either. lol

Anyway I was lucky to have a friend whom I knew for 8 years and he is currently residing in Texas. Yes, the same guy who got married 2 months ago.

So the couple drove down to Austin to celebrate my birthday with me and invited me to Fort Worth to spend a weekend with them and his family.

I gladly accepted and I drove 3 hours up north. (Without the help of GPS navigation! XD)

We then went out for a trip to Dallas

The skyline of Dallas

We paid a visit to the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden.

A Texas flag in the park.

We met a squirrel

and also a gigantic rabbit.

We then drove down to downtown Dallas.

It was a Saturday and the city was clear of traffic

Courthouse at Dallas

Dallas was made famous when President JFK was assassinated on a parade in year 1963. He was on a Presidential motorcade.

This was the approximation of his final head shot.

We then proceeded to Fort Worth Stockyard.

A little bit of history lesson here. Fort Worth used to be a place where cowboys and ranchers gathered and brought their livestocks to be sold and the buyers would bid for the
animals. The people did their trading of livestocks by exchanging goods in the market. This was how the term 'stock exchange' and 'stock market' were coined.

Longhorn! There was a rodeo stadium there! Due to time constraint I didn't go in for the sport. Just one thing, I wonder how does it feel like to be pierced by one of those?

When the railroad was built, Fort Worth became a major shipping point for livestock and thus the Stockyards Station.

Cowgirls/cowboys were all around on the street. Just one thing I couldn't understand - How did she stand the 40 Celsius degree of summer heat wearing like this? =.=

It would have been more fun if it wasn't the heat.

Before I left for Austin, they made me a huge Texas feast with all the barbecues!!

It is a norm to own a outdoor barbecue stove like this in Texas, just like how we have a rice cooker in Malaysia.

Yum! One thing that I am gonna miss about Texas would be the barbecue.

The jalapeño popper was my favourite!! It was actually jalapeño peppers that have been hollowed out, stuffed with a mixture of cream cheese and spices and wrapped with bacon and barbecued!

Gonna try to do that in my next barbecue. (just wondering if I could get jalapeño pepper in Malaysia, or I'll replace it with red chili! lol) The jalapeño popper was the one beside the second empty plate on the left.

Last but not least, a picture with the family

Thanks for the weekend! :)

ps-> okay I promise the next post would be something Malaysia!

So Long, Texas

2010-08-06T11:18:00.004+08:00

I was supposed to blog about the trip to Dallas and Fort Worth last week and also the global conference, NIWeek that I just attended.

Anyway I guess I am having blogstipation right now due to mood swing.

What caused my mood swing, you may ask.

Because I am going back to Malaysia in less than 30 hours' time. Not that I am not excited about going back, it's just that I wished I could stay a little bit longer here.

Nevertheless, a quick one for Dallas and NIWeek

This was a street in Dallas. See the cross in the middle of the road?

Question, what was so special about it?

Well, not a big deal, just street where a President of United States was assassinated here. :P

Now you have an idea how big NIWeek was.

Don't get me started or else I would have a hard time to stop writing about all the awesome pawsome keynotes, demonstration, new products and exhibition in the conference. :)

So glad to be able to work with such state of the art company. :)

I will blog about my trip to Dallas/Fort Worth and NIWeek when I get back to Malaysia.

Not gonna spend my last day in Austin, blogging long long stuffs. :P

Another 30-hour flight home

So long, Texas! Definitely gonna see you again!

Kickstart

2010-07-31T12:04:00.007+08:00

This is the path that I walk to work everyday.

Another five more days to walk on this forest-ish trail again.

I will be taking my flight back to Malaysia on 7 of August. I wish I could stay longer in Austin.

Anyway, life goes on so I got myself some stupid photo around the place that I stay for the past two months.

Lo and behold, the art of extreme stupidity at its best. :P

and here's a photo of me in my cube. See the Malaysian flag? Yeah I hung it up! See I am so patriotic :D

Honestly, I really enjoyed the two months in Austin. Made some pretty cool friends, did some pretty cool stuffs. This is a video made by one of the marketing intern. It was funny. See it and you'll know how hard I worked. XD

and not forget to mention that I will be working with National Instruments Penang when I go back.

So, see you guys in Penang! :)

p/s-> will be driving up to Fort Worth/Dallas later. Stay tuned :)

Petty

2010-07-26T05:03:00.005+08:00

Everything seems so petty to be blogged after the thrill of skydiving.

Anyway, life goes on and this blog has to be updated to keep it alive.

and my two-month in the States is now at its very end.

So fast.

Ain't getting enough yet. But I will be back, for sure. :)

This is a petty post. No information, just words and a state of mind.

In the States, I did so many things that I had never done before.

I met so many people that I had never met before

I lied down on places that I had never lied down before

I talked to so many people that I had never talked to before

I watched games that I had never watched before

I made friends with people that I had only heard before.

I watched play that I had never watched before

I ate things that I had never eaten before

I saw things that I had never seen before

I was in a position that I had never imagined that I would be in before

and this dreamlike life is gonna end soon. Time to wake up!

Be ready to welcome me back, Malaysia. :)

p.s -> please try out my like and dislike buttons. You response is helping me to be a better blogger :D

Ten Thousand Feet

2010-07-20T11:00:00.010+08:00

How does it feel like to fall off from ten thousand feet above the skies?

Read this post and I will tell you everything!

One of the guys who did a sky-dive last year, suggested the intern to do it again this year.

I decided to do it, as a milestone of my 23rd birthday. :)

Don't wanna bore you with too many details. Let's get it started!

Anyway, it started with the most dangerous part of the skydiving - an hour long drive to get to the drop-zone, known as Skydive Temple in Salado.

lol it's said that the fatal rate of driving is much higher than skydiving. You be the judge. :D

So we got to the Skydiving Street.

We were required to sign on a release form so that we wouldn't take any legal action against Skydiving Temple if any mishap were to happen.

A group photo of the skydivers! woohoo! The girl in green, she was tricked by the one who took us here (the one who took this photo) into this skydiving thing. She didn't know she was going to skydive until 2 hours before we drove there and she didn't even know her friend was not jumping as well! lol!

A wardrobe full of the jumping suits!!

I'll skip the part where I was dressing up and you could see how I resembled to Power Ranger after I put the suit on, in the previous post.

Instructor: You listen to me, you make my job easier, you do not, you make my job harder but either way, we are not going to die.

Me: *I'm gonna hijack the plane. muahahaha.*

The plane then took off and it took around 20 minutes to reach the altitude of 10500 feet (3200 meters) up in the air.

*8000 feet in the air*

Instructor: Hold on to your harness during your free fall. A tap on the shoulder and you can let go of your hands. Make sure your legs are bent backward. Thrust your hip forward. blablabla blablabla

Me: *Not listening* Shit! Why am I doing this? I want out! @^$(@)#%^@#)

But I was too late. The door was open. The wind was blowing wild. The plane was trembling. My feet were on the hanger.

A leap of faith! Before I realized, I was kind of forced out of the plane!!!

*Hanging on tied to my harness* I suddenly remembered all the instructions! lol

With my head down!!

I AM FREE-FALLING!! The world was spinning, I didn't know where was the skies, where was the land, I just felt like.....FLYING!!!

Contradict to what we usually think about the ticklish feeling in the stomach, there was no such feeling during my free fall. It was totally different from roller coaster/space shot.

Like I said, it felt like, flying.

A balance chute was then released to stabilize the fall

The Tachometer said "8000 feet up in the air!!"

Time for some camwhore moments. Even 8000 feet above sea level!! Woohoo!

I felt like I was floating or flying. The wind was strong but I didn't realize that I was falling. The free falling lasted for around 40 seconds but to me, it felt like a few seconds only.

Around the altitude of 5000 feet, the parachute was deployed! This was the moment where the ticklish sensation came about!

and I was in the air, doing all kinds of tricks, turning round and round and left and right! It lasted for around five minutes.

Then I touched the ground, still in a euphoric state of mind.

'Awesome!!!!!' was the first word I uttered when I got to the ground!

Also, it was the priciest five minutes in my life! lol It was in HD so gonna take some time to load. So make yourself a cup of coffee, grab some snacks and come back later for the video! :)

If you skipped all the reading to get here, then I suggest that you go back, and start reading word by word! XD Gotcha!

We went home with our trophies. A photo of us in the air! Spot the special one? Yeah he was the chicken who tricked his friend into skydiving but he himself didn't do it. Whack him the next time you see him k? Anyway, just fyi he jumped last year. That made him excusable but still, chicken LOL! *Kev, you're not gonna get back at me, are you?*

I wanna yell on the top of my lung every time I recall the moment of me jumping out of the plane! I still have adrenaline rush when I think of the flying sensation! The bottom line was, I had an unforgettable moment.

*Watching the video over and over again*

Bungee jump will be my 24th birthday's celebration!! Join me anybody? :D

23

2010-07-19T02:37:00.006+08:00

So I spent my 23rd birthday in Austin.

I could never possibly imagine that I would spend my 23rd birthday in the United States when I was celebrating my 22nd birthday. Now it makes me ponder: Where would I be celebrating my 24th, 25th, 26th and subsequent birthdays? :)

It was a very happening birthday indeed.

When the clock struck 12 on July Fifteen, I was in my room, just updated my previous post. :P

Then the lights were turned off and I heard the familiar tune of Happy Birthday.

I was surprised by the chocolate cheesecake with the candles to remind me of my age!

The interns and the engineer :D

We ate the cake and chatted a little bit for about an hour and we went to sleep as next day was still a working day.

In the morning of the very next day, I woke up and got ready for work. Usually I walk to work but on that particular day, we needed the car to go for the Boat Party so we wanted to drive to the office.

and I was greeted by the sight of a shattered window.

What a huge birthday gift for me. =.= Anyway, I heard that there were five cars being sabotaged on the very same night.

After I got to the office, I made a police report and notified my superiors and person-in-charge for the car about it. We got a car change on the very next day. :)

You must be wondering why the kid photo. Well, July 15th was the 'Bring Your Kids to Work Day' and I volunteered myself to help out in a game for the kids. Basically, it was a day for the employees to bring their kids to the office and have fun. :)

Save our planet!

Right after that, we hit the road to attend the boat party in Lake Travis!

Clear blue skies and glazing hot sun at Lake Travis!

Beers, snacks, soft drinks, food and music......everything you need in a party! :)

My Birthday lunch. :D

Feel the atmosphere? :D

After sailing around the lake for 30 minutes, it was time for some splashing!

Jumping off the boat!

Again and again! :D It was fun as the water was really cooling. People floated on the water with a cup of beer in their hands!

The Large Marge. I was on the Ark. :)

After that, I got back to my home and the newly-wed couple drove three hours all the way from Fort Worth to Austin just to take me out for dinner. So glad to have such amazing friends. :)

Moonshine Patio Bar & Grill

Medium rare Jalapeno Hanger Steak with mashed potatoes and I got a free skillet apple pie with maple ice cream from the restaurant as it was my birthday! :D

I definitely enjoyed the dinner!

So much for my 23rd birthday. Absolutely a happy one. :)

Hang on! Don't click on the close button yet! Here's some sneak peek of what is coming up next....

No idea why was I dressing up like Power Ranger? Read my previous post for clues and read my next post for more! :P

Signing off! :D

Six Flags

2010-07-15T11:43:00.005+08:00

I am 1 hour and 17 minutes away from my birthday, as of GMT -6:00. :)

Thanks for everybody who wished me, using GMT +8:00, which meant that you are 14hours ahead of me. :P

and sorry about the frequent update of my blog. You might need to spend some time reading but let me assure you, it's totally worth it. :P

Frankly speaking, I just realised that I have so much to blog and if I leave them there I would forget about updating them.

Before that, my company have rented 2 boats for my department and everybody will go for a boat party on them tomorrow ~~to celebrate my birthday~~ to show the company's appreciation for employees.

Yay so I get to spend my birthday on a boat, indulging in beers and snacks and sunbathing and swimming and whatsoever. ^_^

No facing the computer or debugging my circuit on my birthday! Woohooo! :P

Anyway, this post is meant to update about my A-W-E-S-O-M-E-S-T roller coaster experience EVER. The caps are serious!

Six Flags is a theme park that has several branches all around the United States.

The one I went to was Six Flags Fiesta Texas located at San Antonio.

It was about an hour and a half drive away from Austin.

It was kinda like Sunway Lagoon + Genting Highland Theme Park in Malaysia, just BIGGER!

I was greeted by this giant roller coaster known as the Goliath upon entering the theme park compound.

Seeing them alone was enough to give me some adrenaline rush!

The only bad part of the whole theme park experience was the line. We had to wait for 30 minutes to 1 hour to get on a ride for a few minutes. :\ So we camwhored along the way! XD

This was the first ride we hopped on, The Boomerang. Try to spot me! :D The first one who got it correct will get a prize from Austin! :P

After that, we changed into our swimsuit to go for the Wet Park!

While waiting for the ride.

This funnel thing known as the Tornado was the best slide out of all slides in the wet park!

We had to carry the raft all the way up

Trust me! It was superb! We almost flipped over but we survived!

This vertical slide was thrilling too!! Before I realized, I was falling down straight!

This one, was the FASTEST roller coaster that I had ever ridden. I couldn't stop but yelled all the way. See the 1 minute long video for yourself.

The speediest ride ever!! and no I didn't pee in my pant. :P

This was the only one that I found it so-so. Apparently the one in Genting was faster and better.

The Gullywasher.

They won some Looneytoon soft toys!

This was the hit of the day! The Superman Kryton Coaster! It was almost free-fall!! Photo taken from Wikipedia as I didn't manage to sneak my camera on the coaster. :P

The park closed at 9pm and then it had a firework combined with laser show. I had to admit that the theme park was creative. They projected image and laser on the cliffs in the theme park, dubbed it with narration and music and created effects using fireworks and explosions. It was a story about the history of Texas.

Kaboommmm!

Awesome fireworks!

If you are looking for a euphoric and adrenaline-rushing experience, this is one place that you can go!

That's all people and there is another thing that I'll do to celebrate my 23rd birthday - to go SKYDIVING! Yeah you hear me right, I am going for tandem skydiving this Saturday.

Stay tuned!! :)

Big Apple

2010-07-13T09:22:00.008+08:00

Simply put, four days were never enough for a trip to the Big Apple. Somehow I was like a greedy worm, trying to chew away enough juice from the huge apple right in front of me with the clock slowly ticking away!

Our New York Pass actually gave us a two hour walking tour guide around the Broadway District. She was the tour guide who walked us back in time and told the stories of how New York achieved what it is today.

Right after that, we headed to the MOMA. Museum of Modern Art.

I was overwhelmed by the un-comprehensibleness of the items being shown inside. Be it a naked out of proportion male statue, a few huge pieces of metal junks, a keyboard with a plate in between, or a United States flags with distorted colour. There were a lot more weird stuffs and after 2 hours of viewing all of them, I felt, disturbed.

Perhaps my artsy-ness was not on par with the New York standard yet.

A group photo outside the museum.

After the museum, we went to Hudson River Side to have a view of the largest fireworks in United States. Apparently there were a lot people who shared the same thought. It was easily more than 20 thousands people I think.

Unfortunately I was stuck behind some trees as it was way too crowded. But it was a great experience anyway.

A little story happened right after the firework. We were separated and without cellphone, we were not able to contact each other. Anyway, all of us made it back to the hotel safe and perhaps the separation served a purpose ;)

The next morning, I ~~wandered alone in the street~~ asked somebody else to take some pictures of me pretending to be lost in Time Square.

The best poser ever in NYC! :P

Save the Cheerleader, Save the World!! Anyone knows this quote? :P

We then went for the King Tut Museum. Too bad no photo were allowed in the hall.

We then made our way to see the Statue of Liberty. We were transiting in the Grand Central Station so we did a little bit of photography there.

Yes this was Grand Central Station. :D

We got ourselves to the jetty to take the water taxi to the Liberty Island. Upon collecting the tickets using our New York Pass, we walked to line up for the ferry and guess what, the line was longer than 1 kilometer with almost 300 people waiting under the glazing smoldering sun!

We gave up on that one, and walked to another pier to catch a sail around the Statue, without stepping on the island itself.

On our way there, we passed by Wall Street and how would a ~~poser~~ photographer like me ever miss the chance to snap a few good shots? :P

We then got ourselves up in this ancient sail boat known as Clipper City Sail and voila, we met the Statue of Liberty!

People, say hi to Lady Liberty!

We then made our way back to Broadway/Time Square district to catch a Broadway show.

Frankly, we were a little hesitant to pay 67 dollars (after 50% discount) to watch a Broadway show.

However I was decisive enough to insist on going to watch it even if I had to watch it alone.

and it turned out to be the best part of my New York Trip!!

We bought the tix for this fairly New Musical (all the classics like Phantom, Wicked, Mary Poppin, Chicago, Memphis were not on play), known as In the Heights. It was a musical about the life of Hispanics migrant in New York.

Guess who was in the play? We got a photo with him after waiting for half an hour at the backstage. Can you recognise him? A little hint here would help you to find out who he is: google "HSM 3 cast" :D

My advice: Never miss a Broadway Show if you were in New York, even if you had to beg for the money to buy the ticket! Seriously! :D

We called it a day after the boardway show and the next day was our last day in New York.

As our flight was schedule at 340pm in the noon, we decided to check out the hotel early in the morning, and made a visit to the last two destinations, which were Central Park and American Museum of Natural History with our backpacks.

The spot where I did the hop with my backpack, was a spot featured in a lot of movies and the bow bridge as well. :)

As the museum was open at 10am, we had a barely two hours to visit it. FYI, the museum was super extravaganza huge and two hours were only enough to cover 10% of it.

So I picked some of my favourites categories to visit and gave others a skip.

Meet the Easter Island dum-dum (remember Night at the Museum? XD) and the skeleton of my childhood favourite dinosaur, Stegosaurus!! yay!

When the clock struck 12, we had to leave the museum as we needed to reach JFK at 2 and the subway would take around one and a half hour.

and I left New York, with a I *heart* NY shirt,

and a gloomy face. :(

Empire State of Mind

2010-07-09T10:39:00.010+08:00

What comes across your mind when you think about New York City?

Statue of Liberty? World Trade Center? 911? Empire State Building? Broadway?

It is a city full of characters, lights, skyscrapers and arts.

I spent four days in New York and I kinda fell in love with it.

In the island of Manhattan, every street is a photographic material. It is a place that has the capacity to accommodate the blending of all kind of people and culture yet does not lose its own. It is a city full of peculiar futuristic art and the historical richness of the past.

The trip to New York is definitely not just another travelogue.

Frankly, I am never a city person. I always love nature more than metropolis. However, visiting New York, gave me the feeling of eating a piece of multilayer cheesecake. It brings you into a state of mind. :)

I guess that's all for the up in the air introduction. Now it's the time for some down to earth blogging. To make sure that every penny spent was worthwhile, we bought the New York pass that would allow us to skip the queue and enter the attraction without buying tickets. We also bought an unlimited subway card so that we had no need to pay for every single subway trip.

We collected these at Planet Hollywood located at Time Square.

Time Square :)

Six of us made up of this trip to NYC. 5 Malaysians and 1 Salvadoran and yes, the one missing was Yours Truly, who was holding the camera. =_=

The first attraction that we went to was...

~~Julia Roberts' home!~~ I mean, Madamn Tussaud's Wax Museum.

As I have already blogged about the same Wax Museum that I visited in Hong Kong, I will just give it a skip.

Anyway this is the biggest Wax statue ever. It was made in London and they had to put it down from the rooftop.

As the museum was located in Time Square, we walked out and there were lights everywhere!

Then, we went all the way to Empire State Building, to catch a glimpse of the night of New York City.

Although it was already 1230am in the night, the lights were still dazzling.

Be prepared to be mesmerized.

Breathe-taking night view of NYC. I was trying on a effect. Not bad huh? :)

We called it for a day and went back to the motel for rest.

The next day, we went out to see the city, showered in the morning sunlight, on top of Rockefella Building.

The subway station near where we stayed. 72nd Street.

As it was July 4th, there were some outdoor live going on near Rockefella Center. We met somebody, which I believed from the movie Twilight. Can somebody name him for me, please?

Rockefella Center.

We *heart* New York

Click to enlarge the panaroma
These were what we saw on top of the building. Simply picturesque. :)

There was a dancing room on top of the Rockefella Center where the lights will follow your dance movement. So we I danced. :P

This post ends here. :)

Please anticipate for the next post.

Museum of Modern Art | July 4th Firework | Clipper City Sail around Statue of Liberty | Broadway Play | Central Park | Museum of American Natural History |

Blues on the Green

2010-07-02T08:20:00.008+08:00

Everyday I learn some new things about the States, be it trivial or profound, good or bad. In fact, there are a lot of good things that we can learn from them and one of them being the way how Americans know how to relax and enjoy a good time. Just keep on reading.

As I've already mentioned before, Austin is practically a town full of music and the people here are proud of it. There are always countless of events related to music.

I got an invitation to go to this annual event known as Blues on the Green, in Zilker Park. It was held on a really really big football field that could easily house thousands of people.

To avoid traffic and to get a good spot, we arrived 1 hour before the event started.

A Texan drove by and yelled at us, "Hey I want a picture too! I am a tourist!" =_='

By the way, you will notice that there will be a lot of my pictures in this post. Apparently there are people complaining to me that out all of the photo I posted, only less than 5% were mine. So I have no choice but to put up more to satisfy the peeping-tom inside them. :P

Never thought that people love to see me that much. XD

Here you go, it was me sitting on the soft, fluffy and green grass of Zilker Park.

Lo and behold, it was me and the stage!

Not long after, we found a good spot and sat down and the singers started to sing on the stage.

Honestly, the songs they sang were more country than blues. They were good anyway. So whatever.

It was me again! Lying on the grass, enjoying the music

The interns minus one.

Then we met up with other co-workers and we finally got a blanket to sit on!

Then we saw Mr. Freak-out Baby! XD

Basically, you should have observed that there were a whole bunch of people attending this outdoor concert from all the photos I posted above. (No? You just saw me? XD)

I am trying to make a point that people here in US (at least in Austin) know how to take a break and enjoy having a good time. Music, home-made food, friends and families under a dawning skies and the best thing, it was free! It was a Wednesday and it was full of people who came after work.

Perhaps things like these only happen, when the society reaches a certain level of stability and maturity and is being managed properly?

This is a question for all of you, especially Malaysian to think.

See, we were thinking so hard for it! XD

I am 30 hours away to the trip to the Big Apple. :D So come back for more!

Matrimony

2010-06-29T07:48:00.006+08:00

I still remembered how I checked out the prices of the flight ticket from Malaysia to United States in December last year when Jon told me that he was going to get married in June 2010.

It turned out to be a figure that somebody like me, who would be graduating in May 2010, could never be able to afford.

So I just dismissed the thoughts of attending the wedding.

If you are a loyal reader of my blog, you should be able to know how I got myself in United States, without paying a single cent. Long story short, it's God's grace that brought me to the wedding. :D

The wedding took place in Abilene, which is located three and a half hours away from Austin. I got a ride to the town, just in time to make it for the ceremony rehearsal. :)

The awesome-est Church. Simply perfect for a wedding!I was made one of the groomsmen and I was totally excited about it!

The custom of American wedding is that the bride and groom are not supposed to see each other before the wedding takes place. Therefore right after the rehearsal, they had to be parted.

As the groom-to-be and I had never seen each other for two years, we really had got a lot to catch up. We talked until I fell asleep soundly, while he couldn't. XD

We woke up early in the morning to go to Dyess U.S Air Force to decorate the dining hall as the wedding reception was going to be held in the club house of the air force base. It was superbly cool! Apparently U.S Air Force base is not some place that anybody can simply enter!

After the decoration, we watched the World Cup game of USA vs Ghana before we changed into our suits. lol. U.S.A screwed up big time by the way. XD

I was on the stage throughout the whole ceremony therefore I wasn't able to take any picture.

I took this right after the ceremony ended. Lovely huh. :)

I was paired up with her. Lovely groomsman and bridesmaid huh? :P Ignore the person on the right please. XD

Officially Mr and Mrs Lee. :D

A photo with all the groomsmen and bridesmaid. yay!

It was almost seven and we rushed to the wedding reception at the air force base.

We took this outside of the clubhouse. Too bad we'd got no time else we could take one with the bomber as the background. :D

A rather patriotic cake I would say. and the boy in front of me took the Malaysian flag away before I could eat it. grrr....

The Chinese Tea Ceremony during the reception. A must for Chinese but it was rather a new thing for the Americans. :)

The First Dance. A must for American but it was rather a new thing for the Chinese. XD

The Wedding dinner turned into a party when everybody got out to the dance floor and danced. :)

and how could I not take a photo with the U.S Air Force officer, who happened to be the father of the bride! :D

Last but not least, my sincerest wishes to this lovely couple. I know it's lame but I really can't wait the day to hold a Chimerican baby. XD

Father's Day Out

2010-06-25T08:39:00.004+08:00

I know I am four day late but still...Happy Father's Day! :)

It was a spontaneous decision to go east of Austin to visit a few places, namely Bastrop State Park and Somerville Lake.

It took us about 1 hour drive to get there and I learned something new about the States that day when we were in the gas station (read: petrol station).

We actually need to pay for pumping up the car tires!

A quick survey here: will you pay 1 dollar for pumping up your tires?

A. Yes, it's cheap!
B. No, I will rather use my mouth. lol

We drove past the town of Bastrop and found it to be a self proclaimed "The Most Historic Small Town in Texas". It was a pretty small town with a street full of the Wild Wild West kinda building.

So we stopped and took a few of photos. There was even a good-looking cowboy on the street.

See, I wasn't bullshitting u. XD

Not long after that, we proceeded to Bastrop State Park, which is also known as "The Lost Pines of Texas"

Upon the entrance of the state park, there was a wild flower area full of these small yellow flowers and of course we wouldn't miss the chance to camwhore a little bit. :P

The entrance of the Bastrop state park and one of the pine tree trail.

and there was this nice little lake inside the park. The reflection was indeed breathe-taking.

The cowboy with surf pants made his way to the lake.

The fruit of pine tree I guess? I could see them everywhere in the park.

After we got enough of the park, we drove another 40 miles to Somerville Lake. Frankly, it was also a perfect spot for camwhoring.

The model and the ~~cowboy~~ photographer was acting quick!

The output. Girls rule! opss.....:P

Some really nice shot for each of us....

This was how the cowboy made his way to the lake from the town. Well, we saw this pretty horse in a fence by the roadside. Probably reared by some of the farmers on the country side.

The diva. XD There was this bed of red flowers and everybody wanted to be in it.

On the way back, the skies looked like one of the wallpapers. It was really nice.

As we were traveling back in the car, we passed by another little town known as Giddings and a building caught our attention.

Again, we got down of our car and snapped the hell out of it. :)

There was only so much that a post can contain. I will be uploading more photos in facebook.

and I will be attending a wedding in 30 hour time. The best thing is, I will be the Groomsman!!

Curious about it? Your curiosity will be satisfied when the next post is updated.

Follow my blog then! :D

Landon Pigg

2010-06-19T13:37:00.010+08:00

I got an invitation from some other interns to attend a mini concert and I thought it would be fun as Austin is famed for its live music in town.

It was a mini concert in a BBQ restaurant known as Stubb's BBQ in down town. Landon Pigg was the singer.

If you have no idea who Landon Pigg is, google him up. He is the singer who sings the theme song for Shrek 4.

We got there at 7 to get our dinner.

The view of downtown.

Interior design of Stubb's.

Photo with the other two interns

The interesting part kicked in when we flipped the menu open. The dinner special for the day was Goat Tacos. What was surprising was that a few of the Americans had never had goat/mutton before. haha

This was my Goat Tacos with Mashed Potatoes and Coleslaw.

The concert wouldn't start until 9. We finished the dinner at 8 so we decided to go out to get something to drink.

Famed as the Live Music Capital of the World, it was not a strange sight to see musical instruments everywhere, even by the road side.

They even had signboard for musicans! That was just so cool :)

This was the famous Sixth Street. Probably it was still too early so I didn't actually see a lot of people.

We got into one of the bar and got something to drink. It was a 1 dollar treaties meaning 1 dollar for every cup of drink and shot.

Alcohol is just dirt cheap in US. =.=

We got back to Stubb's at around 10pm as Landon Pigg would start singing at 11pm. Anyway there were some other singers singing before that.

She could sing pretty good.

While waiting for Landon Pigg, we kinda hung around at the restaurant compound.

The interns.

Something ridiculous happened right after I took this photo. A mean lady walked to me and asked for my photo pass.

Apparently, she said that to bring in a big camera (which was referring to DSLR), I would need a photo pass and she asked me, in a very gruesome manner, to leave my camera outside.

Facing such a rude and mean b@$ch I had got no choice but to leave the camera in the car. I was irritated but I got no choice. Plus it felt so insecure to have my baby in the car. :(

Anyway I brought my Olympus Compact in as well.

and I am sure you can obviously spot the difference of photos taken by a compact and a dslr. Quick quiz: Which photo was taken by DSLR? :P

I would end this post with a nice song from Landon Pigg. :)

Signing off :)

Pedernales Falls

2010-06-13T11:57:00.003+08:00

Pedernales Falls is one of the Texas State Park that is located about one hour away from the City of Austin.

It was a windy and cloudy Saturday. I followed some of the engineers for a relaxing trip in the wild before the really hot summer that is going to kick off in July.

Upon entering the entrance of Pedernales Falls State Park, we were welcomed by the US and Texas Lone Star flags flying high.

We were also given a map by the park ranger to navigate around.

By the way, the entrance fee for the park was 5 bucks per person. However they had got this Pass of all Texas Parks so we got inside without paying anything. :)

The first thing that we did once we were in the park was looking for a good spot and laid out all the lunch boxes. There were nasi kunyit, fried tom yam Bee Hoon, spaghetti, pan cakes, fruit cakes, chicken curry....and as you all could have guessed, I cooked spaghetti. LOL

Imagine picnicking under a big tree shade with breeze and little yellow all around. It was so cozy that I couldn't stop eating. :P and the food was good of course!

While they were talking about changing diapers and sending their children to kindergarten.....

I lurked around and started camwhoring. Believe it or not, this was a self-portrait. I think I am getting better at it haha. By the way, do you somehow feel that this photo has a taste of Bollywood? XD

After the fulfilling lunch, we walked down a trail full of yellow and red flowers to get to the water so that we could have a splashing moment.

Flowers were growing all over.

With a merciless smoldering sun shining on top, the stream water became so inviting. So I immediately took off my shirt and jumped right into the water.

and guess what? I spotted the paparazzi in action......

To capture the father and son moment. :)

I brought a book that I borrowed from the internal library of NI and I had a chance to lie down under the shade and flip a few pages after I got up from the water. Cozy....

After a few hours, we proceeded to the main attraction of the Pedernales Falls State Park, which was the Pedernales Falls. Enjoy the photos :)

The rock and the water.

It was cloudy but still the sun was dazzling.

It was a cascaded fall rather than a vertical fall.

The water was calm but the wind blew and thus the ripple.

How could I forget to do my signature hop when it came to such a scenic spot?

I tried the smoky water effect for a few times as the sun was too freaking bright so it was hard to set the shutter speed slower as it tended to overexpose. Anyway this was one of the okay shots.

It was still striking hot even when it was already 7pm. The skies went completely dark at 915pm today.

What a long day and relaxing day.

It's time to sleep.

More to come for my life in Austin! :)

Surreal

2010-06-06T09:10:00.019+08:00

Sometimes I sat down and I thought to myself,

'I am actually in the United States'

and I felt so surreal.

Sometimes, things are happening too quick for me to even respond to them.

I still remember the first day I got to my high school. From a small town to a bigger town. I was awed by my classmates of how differently they did things. I think that was the first time I got some sort feeling that I would classify as culture shock (lol!). Gradually I fit in and I spent 5 years of my life there, leaving fragments of wonderful memories and not forget to mention I made a couple of life-long friends.

I could still recall clearly how I got a really serious fever the first week I moved to Kuala Lumpur to attend the college orientation after I got out from high school. Again, I adapted myself and the five years in university were definitely 5 years that I wouldn't wanna forget.

Right now, I am standing at the very point of a new beginning and I am feeling exactly the same as the beginning of my high school or college.

I am adapting to changes and at the same time, I cling on to something that doesn't change. By clinging on to those constants, it actually helps me to move forward.

and one of the constant that I cling on, is the insistence to keep this blog updated, alive and kicking. :)

Well that's all for the touchy-feely sentiments. It's time for some real stuff. ;)

So this will be a snap shot of my second week in the States.

Monday was the Memorial Day that I missed this bus. Screw it.

Tuesday, I had a splendid dinner with the pastor from the church at a Texas Steakhouse with the name of Salt Grass.

I had the New York Strip medium rare and trust me. It was a really good one. The chunk of beef was about the length of my forearm. I finished it because it was really tasty! Tender and chewy with the half-cooked layer in the middle. hmmm

A photo with the pastor.

The Texas icon - Long horn!

Some cowboy saddles

The Original Texas Steakhouse

The dinner lasted about 2 hours and the pastor was very intrigued with Malaysia. So I had been telling things about Malaysia from the weather to the food to the politics to the culture, to the lifestyle and to the language.

Malaysia tourism board should pay me for that! :P

Wednesday, farewell dinner at Rudy's barbecue store with the some engineers from Shang Hai as they would be going back to Shang Hai.

Rudy's was in fact very famous for its barbecue and sense of humour.

Why would a restaurant ever wanna put that? lol

Attention to mean and nasty customers.

As I had problem digesting the steak from the day before, I only order 0.3 pound of pork ribs and it was really good. They seriously barbecued the meat using oak wood!

I guess they left out the word 'fat'.

Malaysian Engineers and Shang Hai Engineers. Can you tell which four are from Shang Hai? :D

Thursday, a product bring-up party in the company.

The conference room was turned into a party room!

and free beers were provided! :D You could take some and keep it in the cubicle if you want. haha

Friday, colleague's son's birthday

The boy was so hesitant to blow off the candle. XD

Malaysian styled home party. XD

Like father like son.

from left, an American kid, a Malay girl and a Malaysian Chinese boy and they were equally excited jumping on the bed. lol

Saturday, splashing at Barton Spring Pool!

It might seem like it was a man-made pool in fact it was a natural spring. The temperature was 20 celsius degree even though the summer weather was 35 celcius degree!

the side of the pool was around 10 feet. Make sure you can swim before you jump inside!

As it was a natural pool, it was full of algae in the water. It got very scary when out of sudden my feet was strangled by something.

Sunbathing was never an Asian thing especially Malaysian girl I guess. They always wanna be as fair as snow white. lol

I will end my post with something that I cooked for myself.

Roasted chicken with mashed potatoes and salad.

Beef Bolognese spaghetti with mashed potatoes and salad.

yum...

Memorial Weekend

2010-05-31T02:47:00.006+08:00

Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May. Formerly known as Decoration Day, it commemorates U.S. men and women who died while in the military service. First enacted to honor Union soldiers of the American Civil War (it is celebrated near the day of reunification after the Civil War), it was expanded after World War I.

-Wikipedia-

On the Memorial Saturday, some of the engineers brought us out to a shopping outlets in Round Rock.

Round Rock Premium Outlet

There are plenty of outdoor shopping malls in Austin. I guess the people here prefer to have fresh air while they're shopping, simply because they've never turned off the air-conditioners at home.

There wasn't a huge sale going on either. Anyway, it was relatively cheap enough to give shopaholics from Malaysia some jaw-dropping moments.

These were usual price. Imagine if there was a sale.

Anyway, I didn't buy anything on that day. I am waiting for a bigger sales!! ;)

The next day, which was a Memorial Sunday, I went to two sessions of worship in two churches together with another intern.

This was a Methodist Covenant Church, from the outside.

When we walked inside, we were awed by the ambiance of the interior design. Imagine this, we were actually singing 18th century old hymns in this church, accompanied by pipe organ! How cool was that?

All the windows were crafted with different patterns and designs.

The altar

Judging from her smile, I would say she liked the church? :)

After the first session of worship, we went to the second church which was a Baptist Church, located just right next to this Methodist Church (which was also the church I went last week). It was a more modern church. On that day itself, they were singing hymns too. To make things interesting, in conjunction with Memorial Day, we actually sang this hymn, America, the Beautiful

America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!.

Trust me, for some reasons, I felt patriotic when I was singing that song. Maybe it was the tune and the mood. XD

Later in the afternoon, we went out to Town Lake to do some photo-shooting and also exercises.

I took this when I passed by downtown Austin in a car. This was actually Sixth Street, the famous street for its pubs and live music performances
.

A butterfly around the Town Lake.

There were actually a lot of people swimming and kayaking in the lake, given that the next day was a public holiday.

The jogging trail along the lake. I went there together with other interns and engineers.

People were kayaking.

and jumping off the bridge.

The tortoises got scared and they actually ran out of the water for their lives. lol

Austin city skylines from the Town Lake.

After that, we drove another few kilometers to get to Mount Bonnell. It was a very beautiful spot for sunset.

Finally some photo of myself. :)

I love this photo. :D

Some real nice bungalow built by the riches of the riches along the shore of the lake. Looking down, we could actually see their backyards. lol no privacy at all.

This was the best photo of the day I guess. I just love altitude. yay.

The sunset at 840pm and we went home.

On Memorial Day itself, I was planning a trip to downtown for more photo-shooting but this round, I checked the online schedule and was going to go down by bus.

When I saw 8:26am, I was thinking "The Americans were really confident for their punctuality huh."

Guess what? We waited for 2 hours, and the bus never came.

Ended up we walked to a shopping outlets nearby.

What a memorable Memorial Day.

Tex-Mex

2010-05-30T11:09:00.006+08:00

Texas is actually located right next to Mexico. In fact, a huge part of the border between Mexico and US is actually stretched across Texas. and you wanna know how close is Texas to Mexico? It's so close that when I am sleeping on my bed, if I fall down to the right, I'll land on Texas but if I fall down on my left, I'll land on Mexico. That's how close it is.

and I hope you know that's a joke. lol.

So it's not a unusual scene to see a lot of Mexican and Spanish speaking people in Texas. Therefore It kind of creates a unique fusion of food sensation in Texas, which is widely known as Tex-Mex.

I have been to two restaurants selling Tex Mex and to be honest, I find the food just okay. A lot of beans and stuffs. Anyway, still haven't got the chance to try on authentic Mexican food yet. Heard that it's real good.

On the other night, we went to this restaurant known as Trudy's for some Tex-Mex.

Looking at the menus, I really had no idea how to order as the food were all names in Spanish.

After reading for a while, I've decided to order Quesadilla as it was the only thing that I could pronounce correctly. :P

and I found the name Quesadilla to be pretty elegant as well. :)

So this Quesadilla was something like capati with cheese, chicken and beans wrapped inside and some veges and sour cream topping off. It was quite filling as well. I had to box this up and it became my lunch for the next day. XD

I had no idea what it was. Just simply took the photo of the plate of the person next to me.

So was this one. As you might have already observed, Tex Mex always comes with beans, beans and more beans.

On the Friday evening, we got out for happy hour at Manuel's.

Manuel's.

Say hi to Quesadilla again.

Some sourish fish with tomatoes.

Beans with sour cream on chips with green pepper.

and I love this beer. Tasted better with the frozen cup (and lime too). Yum.

Negra Modelo.

See I can speak Spanish. :P

31 May will be a public holiday in the US...It means outing and shopping ...So stay tuned for more....hehehe *smirk*

When East Meets West

2010-05-26T11:32:00.007+08:00

People have been asking me to blog about my life in US and here am I, to kick start the very first post! woohoo *lion dance dong dong qiang*

For those who didn't know, I am having a 10-week internship in National Instruments in Austin, Texas, USA.

My flight from Penang -> Singapore -> Hong Kong -> Chicago -> Austin was delayed and the journey was prolonged from 30 hours to 51 hours. I think thats why I felt like sleeping at 9pm and waking up at 6am everyday. Today is my first time staying up so late and it is 1030pm now by the way. :P

Up till now there hasn't been any really huge stuffs happening so I'll be blogging bits about life here since I have touched down on this land.

The first thing that is worth some pictures here is the apartment that I am staying. Ask me why? See it for yourself. :P

I am occupying the room alone, with a private bathroom and private wardrobe room. Tell me how can it be cooler? XD

On Saturday night, we cooked spaghetti for our dinner. Typical huh? XD

The six interns from Malaysia.

On Sunday morning, another intern and I walked about 30 minutes to get to a baptist church for morning worship.

It was a small, warm and friendly community church. A few of them talked to us and surprisingly, most of them know where Malaysia is!

The very next day was my first working day. I had my lovely breakfast before getting off to work.

It was relatively cheap to buy milk, cereal and strawberries here! A bottle of milk of 4 liter cost about 3 bucks whereas a huge box of huge strawberries cost 1.2 bucks and a huge packet of cornflakes cost 1.5 bucks. Even after conversion, they were so much cheaper than prices in Malaysia. Oh not forget to mention that 8 oranges only cost 1 buck! :)

Being an alien here, I did not have the luxury to own a car (but they are trying to get one for the interns, apparently Malaysia driver license can be used here!), so we walked to the company from our apartment, through a little forest full of flowers and trees. They said there were even foxes and deers if we were lucky enough to spot them!

See I am not bluffing! XD

Of course we would not let go of the opportunity to camwhore even when we were in the lobby of the office. :P

On the lobby itself, there was a gallery showcasing some of the NI (read: National Instruments) products. This was one of the base products.

Looks pretty canggih right? XD

We were then summoned by the HR officer to line up and had our photo taken to get the badge. We got the badge instantly

Nice and dandy! :P

All the interns then proceeded to the New Employee Orientation which was very much similar to a college orientation.

We were even taken to a tour around the campus!

After that the Malaysia interns were taken to do the drug test. This was to avoid hiring some drug abusers.

We would pee in a cup and the little puppy would sniff and tell the nurse if we passed the drug test! XD

Then I got back to the office and was brought to my cubicle.

and I saw my name, huge and colourful, on the wall of my cubicle. ;)

I would be sharing my working space with another intern as we would be working on the same project!

Looking down from my office I could see the flags flying high~

I guess there are only so much to blog so far. I would be blogging more once I've got the chance to explore the city of Austin.

Stay tuned for more :) (I really felt like photoshopping away the lamp post. lol)

51hours

2010-05-23T06:37:00.002+08:00

It took me 51 hours to travel from Penang to Austin.

Penang -> Singapore -> Hong Kong -> Chicago -> Austin

It's Saturday evening 540pm at Texas right now and it's Sunday 640am in Malaysia.

I think I am having jet-lag right now. Feeling really sleepy.

Gonna update some real stuffs in few days time alright? :)

Never Again

2010-05-18T20:23:00.014+08:00

Gentle reminder: This is a non-halal post :)

I slept at 3am and work up at 5am. We could only most probably gather like this in a few years time, or never again.

We headed up to Klang 630am in the morning just to have a bite on the famous Klang Bak Kut Teh.

and trust me, the taste was so good that it was worth my sleep-deprivation. I don't think anybody can find such good bak kut teh anywhere else in Malaysia. The very same golden rule of no good laksa outside Penang.

Even someone like me who doesn't like eating intestines, found the pork intestine to be tasty. The gravy of the bak kut teh gave a very unique sensation to the taste bud as well. You really have to try it to understand what I am trying to say here. :)

After the heavy dose of breakfast, we then drove on to Port Klang, to catch the speed boat to Pulau Ketam.

The speedboat that we rode on. If you ever have the chance to board it, please do not miss the toilet. You let go right into the sea. :P

What is so special about this small little muddy island? Well this island is actually a swamp area and it is not really a suitable place to have permanent residence due to the muddy nature of the land on the island.

Somehow, there were people settling down on this island and started to build 'floating houses' which are houses that are built on wooden stilts. Kinda similar to the clan bridge in Penang I guess.

As suggested by the name Pulau Ketam (Crab Island), this kind of little crabs were everywhere in sight underneath the pathway.

Once in a while, the special guest made its appearance.

Nine of us roamed around the islands. The villagers didn't even bother about us. I guess in their mind they were thinking to themselves "Why are these city folks so keen to come to this kind of places? Some more bringing three huge DSLR cameras."

The street with restaurants and shops.

As I mentioned, the houses and pathways in Pulau Ketam were built on wooden stilts thus it was not possible to even ride a motorcycle on top (might crush into the mud down under anytime), not to mention a car. XD

Thus it was a usual sight that everybody was riding on bicycle in this small island with 8000 population.

There were also no road sign or whatsoever in the island so we were walking around blindly. However, we were lucky enough to meet somebody who was willing to be our tour guide for free.

Meet our tour guide, Mrs Spottie~

The dog walked ahead of us and stopped every now and then to look at us, as if signalling us to follow her. Well, she really brought us to a few secluded places.

You see, the photographers were doing their jobs dedicatedly. XD

After an hour or so strolling around the island, the skies turned dark and we felt the rain drops.

To our dismal, it rained heavily.

Thus we took refuge in a sheltered kedai runcit. So was our tour guide. Perhaps the kedai runcit owner paid her some commission? lol

There was virtually nothing to do. Some of us picked up the newspaper and read and some of us went playing with the dog, some fell asleep, some played with Iphone and I, was playing around with my DSLR.

I tried on a few effects and this was one of my favourites. :)

This one too. Wonder if you have ever played with this kind of bubble before? It comes with a small straw and a mini toothpaste package goo-like fluid. You apply the fluid on the stick and blow and voila, you've got yourself a big bubble :)

As per demonstrated :)

Trust me, all residents in Pulau Ketam are skilled cyclist. They have been riding on bicycles since kindergarten! For us, the worst case scenario of bicycle mishap is to fall down and bleed. For them, it is to fall down into the stinky mud underneath and heaven knows what is inside. (They do not have proper drainage system, so all the excrements go all the way down...)

Just to give you an idea how filthy was the island.

After the rain became mild drizzle, the tour guide decided to bring us to a temple. So we took a group photo there. The tour guide refused to join us. Too bad.

A typical fishing boat on the island.

We then went for lunch and the seafood on the island sucked big time! This was supposed to be a fishing village and the seafood should be fresh but I didn't know why it tasted worse than those in KL!

Even the crabs were overpriced (RM32 per kg, it was only around RM20 per kg in KL and RM12 per kg in Nibong Tebal). Thus we didn't order the crab.

To make things worst, when I snapped the photo of this trishaw, the auntie seated suddenly yelled at me in a very rude manner

"Hip hamik l*n j***!?!?!!?!(" (copy this and paste into Google hokkien translator to understand what it means if you don't understand :P)

Leaving me stunned for a second and walked away.....

Definitely not a place I will ever step my feet on, again...

Will be leaving Malaysia in two days' time. If you are in Penang, I don't mind you sending me off in the airport with banners :P Just kidding. Let me know if you wanna meet up alright? :)

Tearless Goodbyes

2010-05-15T17:09:00.006+08:00

I am now home in Nibong Tebal, Penang, with all my stuffs moved back from KL.

No more place to stay in KL. No more life in KL.

It's really the beginning of another phase of life. Yes I am a little bit emotional but I have no tears to shed.

Perhaps everything is so jam-packed. It all happened in a split second and here am I.

Anyway, this post would serve as a closure for my life in KL. It is all about the happenings of the past week, which is basically the last week of me in KL and some the people around me for these years.

I decided to make it into a collective post with numerous of events and people because I am lazy to separate them into different posts. :P

and everyone and everything in it, added up and formed the magnificent picture of my life in the past five years. :)

It began with my church mates buying me a dinner at UK restaurant, not in United Kingdom, but Ulu Kelang. :P

It has been a great pleasure to serve the Lord together with you guys. :)

Right after the my final paper, a bunch of juniors asked me out together with a few other classmates to have a yumcha session.

You guys have two more years in the campus. So fully utilise it and make the best out of it. :)

We went to Pulau Ketam the day after. 'We' refers to my fellow classmates who are going to put on the mortarboards and throw them high up in the skies together in the graduation ceremony.

A group photo in Pulau Ketam.

We have been friends for at least 3 years and I think I spent most of the time with you guys in the campus. I hope all of us will do great in the future. Don't let the reality crush you. :)

and I am saying this to everyone I know graduating in the same batch. Just because you are not in the photo doesn't mean you are left out. ;)

On that night itself, I met up with several teens (some no longer) from my church. They are kids that grew up locally in Setapak. When I first knew them, they were just primary school and secondary kids. The fact that they are driving and entering college just hits me right in the face, telling me that I am old. XD

Just wanna tell you guys that don't give up in life. Do your best and leave God the rest. You guys have been great friends to me through out these few years. Glad to know you :)

I have been thinking whether should I put up your photo here but at last I decided to. XD

simply because it will brighten up somebody's day!

Be a good boy and you should start calling me 'koko' the next time I see you alright? :D

We grew up in the same place but we all ended up in KL. Now I am breaking the rules, for leaving KL and I hope I am influential enough. :P

Well this is not goodbyes because somehow or rather, we will meet up again.

and due to the fact that we have known each others for decades, you guys deserve two photos in this post. XD

Cheers!

Stay bright and colourful! :)

That's about it. Enough for all the touchy-feely things that I have to say. :) and I have a disclaimer here: it doesn't mean that you are forgotten if you are not in any of the photo. Don't feel left out alright?

So much for my closure. XD

ps-> I will post up more photos in facebook. If time allows, I will try to blog on each individual event as there are really a a lot of nice photo. :)

The Ultimate End/Beginning?

2010-05-11T21:19:00.005+08:00

It finally ended.

6 years of primary school, 5 years of high school, 5 years of university.

Today marks the end of me calling myself a student again, for the time being. (I hope to further my study after a few years of work). No more exams, assignments, reports, projects and naggy lecturers! :P

and this will be the last post to be labelled as Uni Life. How sad.

Anyway, on a brighter tune, I shall now officially announce that I will be flying to the United States next week, for a 10 week internship period in a company based in Texas. The company has expanded its business to Penang. So this internship period will serve as an evaluation period to see if I will be qualified to work as a permanent in Penang.

Then I will officially be an electronic engineer. Woohoo! (and they say it will be the beginning of another endless journey....)

I should also not forget to introduce you guys my new toy:

People, meet Kae Vin's Nikon D90! ;)

Still in the process of learning how to use it. Hopefully can snap some real nice photo in the trip to Pulau Ketam tomoro.

This blog is finally revived!

So stay tuned! :D

Patriotic Hikers

2010-04-30T19:40:00.008+08:00

This post is specially written for all Malaysians and my non-facebook-friend readers. (as I have posted up these photo in my facebook a week ago :P)

You would have noticed it's Bukit Tabur again. The one I went earlier in February was Tabur East and this round it was the west side. This was the second time that I hiked the West side. The first time was in July 2008. They even celebrated my birthday up there.

I was asked to be the tour guide as all of them were first timers to Tabur West.

and the juniors said that was supposed to be a farewell with the seniors yet I had to prepare sandwiches for them. What kind of farewell was that? :P

Anyway, after a very tough hike (according to the juniors - I don't mean to show off but I felt nothing virtually :P), we finally reached the peak.

Magnificent isn't it?

The view was much better than the last time and we even found a subject of photograph - The Jalur Gemilang! XD

It was me waving the Jalur Gemilang on the peak of Tabur East!

Jump!

This photo bears a very profound meaning - I can live with nothing but my country! XD

Then we walked to the edge of the peak, which was a very steep cliff that looked really scary. It was windy and a wrong step could lead to a disaster.

To tell you the truth, my feet were trembling when I was standing there taking this photo. I do not have acrophobia but still, my guts were melting. (Gonna try bungee jump one day before my guts get any smaller! XD)

The peak were full of soft and furry algae like these and I wondered if I could plant it in my room. It must be very comfy to sleep on a bed of them! XD

Once in a while, to hike up this kind of mountain helped broadening the mind and the soul. A nature lover like me would like to see this every morning.

The ground up on the peak were actually flat enough to put up a tent. Camping anyone? :P

After all, waking up with the sight of this, will be the awesome-est reason to fall asleep! :)

Mesmerised.

The usual spot for group photo. :)

This marvelous hill might be one of the reasons why is Malaysia one of the best countries in the world. This beautiful country can be so much better than what is it today if she is being managed properly.

There is only one thing needed to be changed in Malaysia. I guess you know what I meant. I believe that change is possible and it starts with us, the very new generation that is going to define and shape the future of Malaysia. It might not be ideal, it might be ugly, it might be tough but we really need to be the catalyst of transformation.

Are you game for it?

My Future Restaurant

2010-04-23T22:02:00.003+08:00

I know a lot of you have seen it on facebook but I insist on posting it in my blog too

If I were to open a restaurant serving laksa using this robot (of course a much improved version), would you patronize? XD

For Your Pleasure

2010-04-18T21:56:00.005+08:00

I really hope that FYP is an abbreviation of 'For Your Pleasure'. Anyway, this torturous Final Year Project has now come to the brink of its end and here I am, panting.

Just to post up some photos to give you some idea what I have been doing.

It's a robot running on wheels!

We spent days and nights, testing and debugging here.

Colour sensors. Proudly designed by Yours Truly :)

Trynna figure out what's wrong.

Micro controller board.

Messed up wiring. :P

It was me trying to tell the robot what to do.

and it responded by saying Nanana....in Japanese. XD

What a corpse. lol

It just feels great to be an electronic engineering student, despite all the skipped lunches, hair-pulling and keyboard banging moment :)

I am not dead

2010-04-08T22:01:00.009+08:00

So is this blog.

Life is always full of surprises.

Well I am in a mood to give out something for you guys to solve. Try to crack this

KnaaetViionniaslgionisntgrtuomTeenxtass.

I think it's pretty obvious.

You can leave a comment related to the answer if you think you know what is it. (for example if you think it's some sort of food, you can say 'hey it's spicy' things like that)

Just don't reveal it and spoil the fun so fast. Leave it to the next person alright. :)

So stay tuned for more. ;)

Kiddo's Day Out

2010-03-28T18:04:00.004+08:00

One of the toughest jobs in the world is to tour a bunch of kids to a newspaper printing factory.

However I was bold enough to take on this challenge.

Sin Chew Daily.

I always thought that the front desk operator of such a giant corporate like Sin Chew to be hot and guess what? I was wrong! :P

The kids were reading the paper while waiting for the others. Now Malaysia has got hope! XD

One of the kids to take photo with the framed motto of SinChew. Doesn't understand? Thats the consequences of not paying attention in Chinese class. XD

Group photo before the journey started. This photo was even published in the paper!

The person in charge was telling the story of the newspapers to the kid in the exhibition hall.

Some of the old-skol newspaper that was printed in black and white.

The cycle of how the paper was printed.

The hen and the chickies.

The kids were led to a giant lift.

Once opened, they rushed inside worrying that the giant door might come down and crash them anytime.

It was so huge that it fitted everybody!

The machines were printing the paper of the next day in the speed of light.

The person in charge showed the kids the negatives of the newspaper.

After printing the newspaper, the machines sorted and tied them up. The newspapers then spiraled down the slide and waited to be transported.

It was a very informative and tiring trip indeed. Too bad we were not given anything after the visit. Not even old newspaper. Stingy sinchew!

ps->

1.Calvin, I tried to imitate your style to write everything in detail but I just couldn't. Guess I am not as auntie as you la. XD

2. I might be going somewhere far far away in the near future. :P

'Til the Fat Lady Sings

2010-03-20T23:51:00.000+08:00

Finally I sat down and I decided to click on 'New Post' in the blogger dashboard.

One of the papers of my team's final year project was selected to be published in a conference in Singapore. At least one author has to present in the conference in Singapore in June. It would be a great honour and achievement if we are able to do a ass-kicking presentation. Anyway let's not contemplate so much as the completion of the project itself might be a problem. Anyhow, I really hope I can go despite of the numerous unforeseen uncertainties that might come in the way.

I hope I have more to tell you but I have to wait. Now I somehow understood the agony of being told to wait. Can't eat well, can't sleep well. I have to go swimming and jogging to release stress and make myself hungrier.

Anyway, it ain't over 'til the fat lady sings. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Till then.

Let's end my post with a bowl of gastronomic curry noodle in Taman Sri Rampai pasar malam.

It helps me to gain my appetite back. :) (and makes life better XD)

Hiatus

2010-03-08T19:36:00.004+08:00

I'll be taking a break.

Final Year Project + Job-hunting + mid-terms + assignments + unforeseen circumstances = super high stress level

However, there are still a lot more that you can read in my blog.

These are some of my all-time favourite posts over the past few years:

Broga Hill

Mundaring Pizza

Weirdo Hat Yai

Canopy

Khmer Venture - The Power Rangers

Oon Chun May

Penang Rules

A Not So Selamat Hari Raya

Urban Hill

Visit to OA Village

A Glimpse of My Uni Life

Mount Kinabalu Adventure

Pantai Keracut

Of course there are still a lot more interesting posts to be read. Make sure you don't miss them:D

Currently still can't tell when will I be back. Perhaps one week, perhaps one month. Please subscribe at the sidebar so you will be notified when there are updates alright?

Thank you!

Dragon's Backbone

2010-02-28T11:57:00.007+08:00

Overview

Director: Kae Vin

Cast:
KY ... KY

Evan ... Evan

Release Date:
20-12-2012 (Malaysia)

Genre:
Adventure | Sci-Fi | Nature | Action

Tagline:
Let's go Hiking

Background:
The movie was shot on the hill known as Tabur Hill West, Kuala Lumpur. The director had once been to Bukit Tabur East and since then he fell in love with this magnificent hill located at the Capital of Malaysia.

He then gathered two prominent actors, KY and Evan to be his casts of the movie. KY was one of the director's hiking buddy during his trip to Mount Kinabalu, Sabah and also to the secret rescue mission in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Evan is an experienced hiker that had hiked Broga Hill together with the director before.

Trivia:
The Tabur Hill Ridge is rated the Longest Quartz-Rich Ridge in the world.

It is also a very ill-fated hill that had numerous casualties, the latest being the two casualties in year 2008.

Plot:

Evan was a scientist that had won numerous awards in the academy and he made discoveries that progressed the technology of the world. However, he was discredited when he published a paper about the existence of Dragon. To rescue his reputation, he has to prove himself right by searching for evidence in an extremely risky ridge on an island that had creatures that existed nowhere else on earth. Thousand of scientists who went there for research and soldiers who were sent to protect them had been killed in a gruesome manner. Thus, the government issued a ban to the island.

Evan then recruited KY, the ultimate mercenary that did not do trade for money, but for the truth. If Evan could prove that Dragon is real, KY would do the escort for free but if he couldn't, he had to pay the price that would cost his life.

What they didn't know was a series of bizarre events that lied ahead......

Additional Details

MPAA:
Rated PG for fantasy action/violence involving scary images and situations, and for a smoking caterpillar.

Parents Guide:
View content advisory for parents

Runtime:
108 min

Country:
Malaysia

Language:
Manglish, Malay, Chinese, Cantonese, Hokkien and English

Certification:
USA:PG (certificate #45902) | South Korea:All | UK:PG | Ireland:PG | Finland:K-11 | Norway:11 | Malaysia: PG13

Filming Locations:
Bukit Tabur West, Kuala Lumpur.

Company:
http://kaevin.blogspot.com

Stock Photo:

The group photo of the director and the casts.

The scientist who believes the existence of Dragon and he wants to prove it.

The director and the cast were captivated by the beauty of the hill itself.

Gorgeous.

This is shot in Malaysia!

The mercenary and the scientist.

The director and the sunligh

The director did his homework too.

The graffiti says: 回头是岸 (hui tou shi an turn back before it's too late)

A wrong step could be fatal.

The orange-ish sun ray.

The crews hiked for hours to get to the peak.

and there were 11 peaks. The crew went up and down.

This was one of the rare creatures that was found on top of the hill.

The moss which were known as the Green Carpet. It made a comfortable bed but if you sleep on it, it could be forever....

The scientist's life was at stake...

Could the ultimate mercenary successfully protect the scientist?

The Making Of "Dragon's Backbone":

This is only the making of the movie. The trailer of the movie will be out very soon. (29 February 2010).

Honestly, this Tabur Hill will be one place that I miss in the future when I am no longer in KL. The view up there is breath-taking and you have to be up there to understand what I mean. This is one thing I like about KL. However, I think KL people do not know how to appreciate this. I mean, ask any local who grew up in KL if he knows the existence of this marvelous place? Not many will know I would say. Not to even mention if they have hiked it before.

For those who wanna go hike Tabur Hill, please make sure you are fit and healthy and have enough sleep. A minor slip will be fatal. That was the reason I didn't invite too many people to go.

I wish I can go there a few more times before I graduate. Who's with me?

ps-> Calvin, I said something good about KL! ;P

Blogstipation

2010-02-25T23:42:00.008+08:00

Blogstipation
n. Inability to blog regularly.
n. Inability to think of anything to blog about.

Having a tough time dragging myself to sit in front of the computer to blog again.

Do you ever have the experience of feeling the bowel movement but when you rushed to the toilet nothing came out? You know you have a stomachful of excrement (ahem, I am trying to be polite :P) but for no reason you just can't let go. I guess this is one of the most terrible agonies in life.

Well same thing here. there are a lot of things running in my mind. Some sounded too melancholic to be blogged. Some are too personal. Some are just random events that I don't even know how to start.

Especially when I realize that I'll have to try to keep my blog trivial so that people who always googled "kae vin" to enter my blog wouldn't really know what I am thinking.

Things happened everyday. Trivial, life-changing, random, significant, interesting, exciting, common, you name it, they are just there. I just realized I don't have time to pen everything down in this little blogger text box and publish them anymore.

Kindly allow me finish another trivial post of me visiting the Penang Heritage Core Zone for the Chinese New Year Cultural Celebration with my family so that I don't suffer blogstipation alright?

You know I can't include all information about Penang Heritage or Chinese New Year celebration. All the information is just one click away if you are really interested.

One of the Penang icon - Komtar alongside with the Birch Office. Yes, the JWW Birch who was assassinated when he was bathing in Sungai Perak.

World Heritage Office of Georgetown

Malaysia is a truly multiracial society. Where else can you see traditional Indian dancers posing side by side with the god of money/prosperity?

and Malay kids putting up the Chinese Dragon Dance?

Family outing. Hanging out with the old men made me felt like kids again. But it was great. XD

They could just flip their heads and pass the flag pole to somebody else. Impressive

Journey to the West went live! and they could walk way faster then me. *stunned*

It was a great place to feel the heat of Chinese New Year nonetheless

So hot even the pig became roasted pork. XD

A lot of them were holding super mega extravaganza holies of holies DSLR so every time I snapped a photo, I felt so insignificant. :X

Khoo Kongsi. Still marveled by its unique architecture though it was my second visit

The high school kid played the 24-beat drum of order. (二十四节令鼓)

That's something I loved about Penang: The Penang high school kids are keen on promoting meaningful activities like cultural performance or musical performance (examples: dragon boat and lion dance, we have societies like these in the school). 80% of the performers of all sorts on that day itself were high school kids. Unlike the KL high school kids, all they know is to put on makeup act emo go shopping complex camwhore, and lepak - in short, kitschy.

Okay apparently this is just a very biased and sinister and unfair statement. All the KL people out there, don't get emo and don't take it seriously. I am just being discriminative. :D

There were more events and more shows at night but we were exhausted walking in the heat continuously for 2 hours so we decided to call for a break and go for laksa. (no more pictures of laksa because I realized I posted too many pictures of laksa in my blog already. Just click on the link if you are curious how laksa looks like in Penang. XD)

But we were not enough so we drove to Chai Leng Park for its famous lok lok.

and what is lok lok?

Lok lok is one of the Penangites favourite food where you dip all the raw stuffs inside the boiling hot water then eat it together with a variety of sauce.

first start choosing your lucky sticks

This is something very personal: These are my favourite sticks. XD

Don't dip it too long else the seafood will harden and not be chewy anymore. When it is done, take it out and pour your favourite sauce on it.

Guess guess guess! Which one is my favourite sauce?

Now I felt like I just had a blogorrhea.

lol!

F

2010-02-18T23:52:00.004+08:00

I think this is the very first time that I use a single alphabet as the title of the post. XD

Like what I posted in the facebook status: Chinese New Year is all about three F's: Food, Family and Friends.

So basically this is how a Malaysian Chinese born in the 80s spent his ~~Chinese New Year~~ Asean Lunatic New Year. (this was how Obama political-correctly greeted 'Happy Asean Lunatic New Year'. Apparently the Vietnamese and Korean are not happy with the term Chinese New Year because they celebrate it too. Then we would have a lot more to change: Spanish flu, French-kiss, Brazilian wax....just to name a few and they are all politically incorrect. =.=)

First day of Chinese New Year: spending it with family. Me and bro.

My leng lui cousin and I. Married already so back off. XD

My another cousin.

High school Form 5 classmates gathering

Day 2: Woke up early in the morning to go jogging at Mengkuang dam

Apparently a lot of people ate too much and needed to burn some calories.

Three of us then went Air Putih for some water trotting as it was too hot!

Chilling out. Man the water was real cool~!

Picture-perfect sun ray. :)

Primary school standard 6 classmates gathering.

My ex-room mates for three years and that was 8 years ago!

Gathering with the no.60 girls @ Autocity.

Part of Autocity

and it was so easy to bump into someone you know in Autocity during Chinese New Year. Apparently everyone from Seberang Perai goes there during CNY. XD

Camwhore in the outlet. :P

2010 CNY special: Wedding dinner! I attended the wedding dinner of this high school friend. We used to be sitting together in the lab in form 1. We didn't hang out that often after that because he played soccer and I played basketball. Thanks to facebook I got invited to his wedding dinner! (lol like testimonial to facebook only. XD)

Cover

2010-02-11T08:33:00.005+08:00

It's time to go home. :)

If I don't remember wrongly this is the very first time I posted a cover in my blog.

Cover for 稻香 (dao xiang) by Jay Chou.

Basically this is a country song and it's kinda a meaningful song.

The volume is kinda low. Turn it up :)

Have a splendid Chinese New Year and please drive safely. :)

ps-> specially dedicated to SNJ2009

After Party

2010-02-06T18:15:00.008+08:00

The Extreme Race was a success therefore we committee went for a scrumptious meal to celebrate it.

and since the Chinese New Year was around the corner, we went for 捞生 (lao sheng). I have a difficult time trying translate it into English and I came out with a few names:

stirring/mixing/scooping the raw....and they all sounded awkward.

Basically this is a Chinese New Year customary dish invented by the Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore. The Chinese in China, Hong Kong or Taiwan don't do this. For more info you can click here.

So let me give you a lesson on how should you lao sheng

First, you get ready with all the necessary ingredients. (Go to the wiki page for the complete list).

Then, gather all your stupid friends or whosoever that wanna become filthy rich.

Everybody must wear black, white and red. XD lol I created this rule :P

Mix all the ingredient together.

Take a photo of the yu sheng first

Get ready with the chopstick. By looking at this picture alone, can you tell how many of them hold the chopstick correctly? XD

and you scoop/mix/stir/chopstick the poor thing while shouting wishes/greets like 'Happy New Year', 'All Wishes Come True', 'Gong Xi Fa Cai', 'I love you', 'Happy Valentine's Day', 'May all prosperity flood your house' or whatsoever. I just went along with the crowd. lol.

So after you are happy with the process, you can start eating the yu sheng.

After eating the yu sheng, it's time for some proper meal. 10 dishes omg.

Some more got this super huge deep fried fish head.

and ah loong was such a desperado that he French-kissed the poor fish!!

and we dirtied the table with some orange drinks.

and I wish both of you love each other forever.

I know it's still a little early but let us get into the mood of the season faster. I would like to take this opportunity to wish everybody Happy Chinese New Year and Happy Valentine's Day.

Have a prosperous Chinese New Year! :)

Methinks

2010-02-03T10:57:00.004+08:00

Methinks, I am growing a zeal for swimming and reading lately.

I like to swim in between the dusk. With all the panting and sweating (yes I perspire when I swim, that's how hard I swim), the skies turn from a pinkish orange to to dark-blueish tone and the lights in the swimming pool are turned on without me realizing.

Surreal, is how I would describe the feeling whenever I dive myself beneath the water. To surface and breathe is like getting back to reality and I have to admit that I like the moment inside the water more than the moment up there. It is a spiritual world devoid of all noise, emotion, thoughts and feeling.

One, two, three, four......I count and I count and often I never lost track of how many laps I swam. 20 laps used to be my limit. Now I increase it to 30. Maybe 40 in a month's time.

and one of my reason to like swimming is as I swim, I wouldn't notice as it rains, or as I cry.

Frankly, I have been abandoning my habit for reading for a long time. I remembered last year I was reading A Hundred Years of Solitude but I couldn't stand the emptiness inside and I gave up reading this book.

This week alone I finished reading 2 books of completely different genre. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alenxandre Dumas and A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by XiaoLu Guo.

The first was a book written by a French in the post-Napoleonic Era. His classics include Three Masketeers. The Count was a thick book with archaic vocabularies but through this book I understood the eccentric and haughty nature of the French. Honestly I don't like the French after reading this book. A tough book to digest though. I looked up for some history of the Europe to understand this book.

The latter was an unknown book I picked up in Carrefour when it was having a RM5 promotion where all the books were piling up somewhere in the hypermarket. It was a book about how a girl hailed all the way from China to London, without knowing a single word of English, met a white man and fell in love with him. It was written from a first-person point of view of the Chinese girl. In the book it actually goes into the cultural collision of the East and the West. This book contains quite a lot of explicit sexual scenes yet this is not the only reason that makes it quite an interesting book to read.

I posted a quote from this book in facebook:

'Love', this English word; like other English words it has tense. 'Loved' or 'will love' or 'have loved'. All these specific tenses mean Love is time-limited thing. Not infinite. It only exists in particular period of time. In Chinese, Love is '爱‘ (ai). It has no tense. No past and future. Love in Chinese means a being, a situation, a circumstance. Love is existence, holding past and future.

If our love existed in Chinese tense, then it will last forever. It will be infinite.

I saw this rainbow right in front of me the other day when I went swimming. Let's go swimming. :)

Hitherto

2010-01-30T23:12:00.003+08:00

It always feels great when an event that you have been organizing ends accordingly.

Extreme Race was most probably the last event that I am part of in my campus life. It was proudly presented by Askar Wataniah Society in UTAR.

Frankly it was quite a blast today. The race was really extreme.

The first station: Diving for marbles and it was meant to drench everyone. XD

See it for yourself. I am not lying. They were putting all kind of stuffs in their mouths.

50 push-ups for girls and 100 push-ups for guys. Some even did it in the water with leeches crawling around. XO

lol this wasn't part of the race. :P

The committees.

Anyway, just wanna say a few words of encouragement here. Benny and Kenny you guys were doing great. You have achieved your vision back then when you were elected as the presidents. People were asking for Extreme Race 2 now. Bravo! Of course everyone else was doing a great job. :)

and it's time to make some changes in our campus and I am glad that you have already leaped a big step. Please fully utilize your remaining two years in the campus and achieve more alright. ;)

and sorry for not being a good sponsorship officer. :P

It feels great to be part of a changing force. :)

gonna blog about this race in detail when I got the more photo from them :)

Smoulder

2010-01-25T23:45:00.009+08:00

The weather is extreme abnormal nowadays. I feel I am smouldering from the inside out. So much for global warming! Somebody please save the world!

Last week I got to watch a movie for free as friend won the free tickets from My FM. To celebrate the winning of the tickets, we went for Sushi ZanMai. It was costly but yet it was the best sushi I have ever eaten! That explains the queue during dinner time on an ordinary Wednesday.

Ikura and Tako sushi!! yum

Salmon with cheese....Paradisal combination~

Chawanmushi - A cup of smooth steamed egg with sliced mushroom, crab stick and suprisingly, a rather fresh shrimp inside. @@

Talking about the free movie I watched, Legion. It was a crappy movie you wouldn't wanna watch unless you like movie with people machine-gunned angel-possess zombie for 5 minutes and then another 20 minutes of sentimental pillow talk and the storyline isn't much surprising. Luckily I watched it for free.

On a heavier note, I have bumped into a few obstacles in the progress of my FYP. I burned a piece of board (and burned ~rm100, that's how fragile electronic stuffs are :<)and I'm gonna start all over again. Anyhow this time I start with more experience and I have to work extra hard. Please praise me for my proactive attitude. XD

Actually I got nothing in particular to blog about except for the complains of the hot weather. How I wish I can go to the uni shirtless lol! Anyway this coming week there'll be an event Extreme Race and 22 teams have already taken part. Bravo for the Askar Wataniah society! :)

and there might be a change for my intention to go for Askar Wataniah in May. I might be offered something much better. So let's just see how. :)

People, say hi to Ah Hau. :)

By the way please help me with the poll on your left hand side. Thanks :)

Cordial

2010-01-21T22:06:00.005+08:00

She flew all the way from Singapore to Penang so I had to be their tour guide since they had been mine in Perth.

After picking her up in the airport, we had our breakfast at the 50 year old famous roti bakar coffee shop. :)

We paid a visit to the Snake Temple after then since it was only a couple of minutes away.

Marveled by a real snake

Then we just drove off to War Museum at Batu Maung.

It was a tunnel in War Museum.

After some doughnuts and coffee in Queensbay mall, we dropped by Khoo Kongsi.

It was also my first time there and it was interesting to know that how the first generation of Chinese community settled down in Penang island in the 18th century.

We had our lunch in New World Park and we proceeded to Kek Lok Si.

We paid a visit to the super large Kuan Yi Ma statue with her newly built shelter.

It was located in the middle of a small hill so we were able to have half of George Town (spelled George Town, not Georgetown :P) in sight.

Since we were already halfway uphill, we ~~hiked~~ drove further up to the Air Itam dam to chill and walk around so that we would feel hungry for dinner :P

She was confronting him because she hadn't eaten enough. :P

We then went to Gurney plaza to do some window shopping. When we were hungry enough, we walked to the long stretch of hawker stall right in Gurney Drive.

Under the persuasive power of two insisting Penangites, laksa (note: Asam Laksa) started to grow on the innocent Singaporean girl. She said she would know who to blame if she happens to have craving for laksa in the future. XD

We went to the beach in Tanjung Bunga for a stroll for some time and we went back to Bukit Mertajam.

We had a change of plan for the next day because she seemed to ~~have jet-lag~~ be too tired as she woke up 5 in the morning earlier in the day to catch the flight.

So instead of going back to the Penang island, they came to Nibong Tebal in the afternoon.

The first thing we did in Nibong Tebal was of course eating laksa! XD

After that, we went for some waterfall nearby because as far as I know, there's no natural waterfall in Singapore? (Somebody please correct/confirm my statement :))

We finally remembered to take a photo together lol!

She sure loved the waterfall although she fell down once and drenched herself. XD

Then we waited for sunset at a very seclusive spot where nobody knows where. I discovered that place when I was driving to the middle of nowhere :P

We got surprise by a flock of swallows hunting bees when the sun set. According to her, it was like live in Animal Planet. XD

We then savaged the seafood in Nibong Tebal which included crab porridge, prawn porridge, tomyam noodle and octopus.

Last but not least, we rode on a boat and went for some fireflies watching.

That's the end of my tour package. Now, anyone interested to hire me to tour you around Penang? Booking in advance is required and the price is always negotiable. XD

As my class was going to start in two days time, I've got no choice but to go to KL on the very next day. So it was time to say goodbye and I got really no idea when would I be seeing them again. They are going back to Perth and work there so I guess it will be a few years time before I can see them again. Emo.

My final trimester of my university life is tougher than I thought.

Stressed out.

But it's good to have stress anyway, keeps me motivated.

and don't get too offended if I suddenly throw a tantrum at you alright? Sometimes I just need to vent out. :)

Serenity

2010-01-14T18:55:00.006+08:00

Nothing feels as good as stumbling into a scenic waterfall.

As a matter of fact, this waterfall is just located a few km away from Nibong Tebal.

I knew about its existence but in my beat-up memory, it was just a dry-up stream.

So the other day I saw this post on Niel's blog, and I decided to give it a go.

After all, it was just a 15 minutes drive away from home. Why not?

We didn't stop at the first waterfall we saw, we hiked up instead

Then we were amazed by this.

I should have brought my shokubutsu along. XD

It was 12 in the noon, but all I felt was cool, refreshed and serene.

One of the reasons that made me feel so good was the rainbows all around me.

I saw rainbows literally everywhere.

Looking back

Looking up

Looking down

Tell me, what feels better than immersing yourself in the cooling waterfall on a sunny day so hot that it bakes you?

Of course there's always a price to pay but I don't really mind. Leeches help a lot with blood circulation XD

FYI, I wasn't aware that there were leeches on my feet when I took this photo. I only found out when I browsed my photo later on. :)

Some green algae on the dried tree trunk. This photo makes me love green even more :)

The water was hard on me!!

But I remained still and it felt like a really good massage :)

I wasn't aware when this photo was taken. I don't really recall what I was thinking at that moment but for sure, it was something philosophic and deep. :P

Nature is good to enjoy but only for those who are aware. There was this dent downstream and we poked a two meter long stick down and it couldn't reach the bottom. Somebody put a dried tree trunk there for a good cause. From the length of the tree trunk I did a little bit of trigonometric and I think the depth was more than 3 metres, which means it can easily have a swirl pool down under.

For waterfall lovers, it's always good to test out the depth of the water by observing the colour before you dive. Most people that died in waterfalls are trapped by swirl pool.

Last but not a least, a video of me exploring further upstream.

Please don't try this at home. The lion doesn't always sleep. XD

and I found out that we could have hiked further and there was better view up there.

This is so going to be something that I'm gonna do everyday when I'm home. So, who's with me now? :)

Eventual

2010-01-12T14:56:00.006+08:00

After three months of procrastinating and slacking off, my final semester of university is gonna kick off in a week's time.

I guess I am gonna handle this final 4 months of my campus life with extra care, treasuring every second of it.

That asides, I had a nightmare yesterday of me attending the exam of a subject which I have never studied before and thus flunked like nobody's business.

I woke up with the feeling that luckily it was just a dream. However when I thought tru it, I felt like this dream reflected how I felt about my future. I think I am not competent enough to step out in the society. I am afraid that I might just fail and drop out.

After all, it would be my first time graduating from a university. :P So it's better to have stress than to have none.

I guess all my same batch uni-mates of me are experiencing the same feeling too. (or I am the only one?? XD) So people, I am wishing you guys all the luck in the world! and stop reading my blog and get back to your final year project! XD

Enough of this rant. I promise I wont be writing things like this again until my finale exams are over. So stay tuned and more exciting posts are coming!!

and here are some totally random photos which are totally unrelated to this post but I feel like posting them anyway. :P

Ampang lookout point

Ten-year friend. Gosh I am old~!

Chilling out in Genting

Starbucks spokespersons XD

Famous Amos

Don't you feel like grinning too? :)

(Sorry ya mummy, use your son's portrait without your permission :P)

and I seriously hope that I can see it on your face :)

NLP

2010-01-07T23:40:00.007+08:00

Neuro Linguistic Programming.

Sounds like a big word huh?

Well, as a matter of fact, it is quite something.

The other day I attended this soft-skill course organised by UTAR with the name of Power Selling NLP for Marketing and Sales.

It was a two day course and it worths RM140. However I got it free because I was (and am) the assistant course-rep and I used to be the vice president of some robotic society. So UTAR was generous enough to give me a few hundreds of incentive points and 1 point worth RM1 (of course only for use in soft-skill)

So these points would go to waste if I don't make full use of them.

That's the whole reason I attended this course and I wasn't particularly interested in sales or marketing so no worries folks, I won't do you some direct-selling XD

Anyway this course turned out to be more fruitful than I thought (I even brought my laptop over in case it got too boring I could do something else)

Well, all the long winded reasonings and I still haven't explained what's NLP.

Let me show you a video. (Youtube disabled the embedded feature so kindly proceed to youtube to see it)

Well, I guess it pretty much explains what's NLP. It's a technique and something related to how people use language to influence a person's mindset and thoughts.

Sounds scary huh? Well it is kinda scary actually, to know how fragile human mind can be. and don't be impressed by me the next time you see me :P

In the two day course, I came across some people who are really keen on doing sales and they really hoped that they could get something from the course. Apparently they did.

Not forget to mention the fact that the facilitator was really a fun guy. The whole 9 to 5 course slipped away without us knowing. The whole thing was full of games, practices and experiments. It was kinda practical actually.

The facilitator was trying to sell an Iphone to this poor kid. He had to buy it or he couldn't walk out the classroom alive XD

The group photo. For a clearer picture see my facebook. :)

At the end of the day, yeah, I no longer have troubles buying birthday gifts for people. XD

My Artist

2010-01-03T22:35:00.005+08:00

First of all, Happy New Year!

Sorry but I am updating something 2009-ish. It was about how I spent my Christmas.

I just got the photos today :P

and this was what happened in the three day Christmas camp with the theme of 'Who is My Artist?' at Golden Sand Resort, Port Dickson.

It was a camp full of laughters and craziness but also serious moment.

Look what happened to the poor Christmas party host, who happened to be me. :( The poncho did not help apparently.

Then we had this really exhausting station games around the beach. and trust me, you don't wanna mess around!

The seaside tug-a-war. My arms almost fell off =.=

The step on your back and run thing. Almost paralysed me lol. Spot me?

We went for some bananaboat-ing as well. :)

Free for all in the sea.

Since the camp had the theme of 'Who is My Artist?', of course we gotta do some activities that were somehow related.

and there was this impromptu drama session where each team had to come out with a short sketch which the storyline had to be related to a certain passage and one of the scene had to be exactly like the preassigned classic drawings of all times.

Don't understand? See the superimposition below.

You got the idea? So somehow or rather, at a certain point of time in the sketch, there must be a scene where the actors had to pose the drawing out, which was insanely hilarious. Too bad it's just too hard to tell you how hilarious was it here.

See the cow? lol

Now this is something exotic. XD

It was just way too resembled!! XD

Funny sial!

No cigarette though. :P Still it felt very Mafia-ish XD

A group photo :)

and it was the hardworks and brainchild of everyone to make this happen :)

There were definitely more which I couldn't include here, for words alone were not enough to express the fun we had. For those how missed it, perhaps this year? ;)

Reinvent

2009-12-31T09:33:00.006+08:00

A gazillion years ago, the blog header used to look like this

When the blog background colour was still black

Then it became this not long after.

and I decided to give my blog a new name and I changed the background into white. So this was how the new header looked like

Then my photoshop skill got better and the header become this

It was year 2007.

It remained the header for 2 years until I changed it last year to this

and now, in the last day of 2009, I decided to reinvent myself, thus reinvent my blog. :)

You see, there are sure a lot of happenings in 2009. I have traveled to four countries in a row and I experienced this, experienced that. I met a lot of people and I have been to a lot of places doing a lot of stuffs.

But none of them really mattered.

I think 2009 is one of the year that I should always remember as a milestone because in this year alone, I got to know myself better. I listened to my own voice more than I ever did.

and I understand myself better. I know the foundation of my every behaviour, motive, intention and action.

At the end of the day, I am certain about my future.

and I did a little bit of analysis to myself, trying to dissect a little bit of here and there and I tried to figure out a phrase to represent myself to be the blog new name and this sentence just sparked across my mind:

Never a good audience.

It explained why I like to get involved in things that I saw. I like to be involved and I like to be known. I am not satisfied with being a quiet and good audience like everybody else.

I wanna to feel my own existence and I don't wanna be a nameless nobody.

and I have come out with this new header. Perhaps not any nicer than the 2007 one(Yes I still like that one most) but still, something new and colourful for 2010 alright.

Happy New Year and we are now one year closer to doomsday. :)

and say hello to my official FINAL year for my studies. XD

Random China

2009-12-28T23:47:00.005+08:00

This will be the very last post of my trip to China.

I had a real good time in Port Dickson for my Christmas and I'll blog it soon enough when I finish collecting the photo.

and this post is totally random. Just a filler I guess. :)

and I missed out this one previously. lol. I name this photo the Red Flags

Red flags :P

Random number 1: Me at a random alley with a random lady with a random look.

Classic!

The super big bowl of noodle in Guang Zhou

The ancient baby and the postmodern baby.

Girls T shirt selling at 1RMB. I should have bought a basket back and all the girls will love me :P

The first meal in Hai Nan island. Wen Chang chicken (文昌鸡, read 'Boone Sio Kooi' in HaiNanese)

The Sweet Potato Porridge. It tasted really good. Perhaps I should try cooking it someday ;P

Went to see this super huge Kuan Yin statue at Hai Nan island. Known as the 'Southern Sea Kuan Yin', 南海观音

Doing random silly stuffs in the compound where the statue lies.

Group photo~

Some spelling problem~

Some north-eastern China food in Hai Nan island. It was good but again, the portion was just way too big.

No smoking is no smoking and no spitting is Qing Wu Sui Di Tu Tan. Now this is some English!

Poor dying chicken....

ended up on the table

Taking photo with the signboard of the village~

which bank? Public Bank? Maybank? Oh you mean riverbank. :P

Pay me and I'll send you a postcard. :P

Thanks for making all the way here. Catch my blog again before the year ends alright?

Later~!

Broga Hill

2009-12-23T12:38:00.008+08:00

When I first saw Broga Hill, I thought it was somewhere I need to take a plane to get to.

Then I did a lookup online and I found that it was just 40kms away from my place in KL.

and I made a promise to myself that one day I'm gonna go there.

I started to invite people to go with me before my trip to Hong Kong.

But I procrastinated until one day, I decided to go there two days after and voila, here we are on the top of the hill! XD

and guess what, there were 12 of us, each of us had got a digital camera and three of them were DSLR (all Nikon fans. lol)

So the photo that you are about to see, were courtesy of ah Seng, Vinc, Smith dll. (dan lain-lain) XD

Broga Hill is one of the very rare hill in Malaysia that is full of grass. As we all know, Malaysia is a tropical country that is full of tropical rain forest. So as we were hiking, we speculated a few theories:

1. The soil on Broga Hill was different.
2. The strategic geographical location of Broga which causes the wind to blow 24-7 and thus bringing all the seeds.
3. 10 billion years ago there was a dinosaur shitting on that particular spot causing the grass to grow.

Whatever it is, I strongly recommend anyone who is doing agriculture research to investigate and publish a paper about it. XD

We got there at about 4am and it took us only an hour to get to the top. and we waited bloody 2 hours for the sunrise and guess what, it was too cloudy to have any sunrise. :(

Anyway it was a very enjoyable and windy wait. :)

Taking group photo. See I was shorter than the bloody weeds. :(

The group shots~

The big bully and the cry baby

Kae Vin *likes* this XD

Me and ah seng, one of the Nikon D90 holder, taken by another D90 holder. XD

I lost my way XD

How scenic!

Picturesque is another word for it

So we jumped!

Don't you feel like going there too? :)
By the way, Merry Christmas. :D

ps-> gonna check the weather forecast and go there again on a sunny day! For more photo, kindly view my facebook album :)!

Day Out in Guang Zhou

2009-12-18T18:29:00.004+08:00

I was caught red-handed when I posted that I was going to Guang Zhou in facebook. She furiously nudged me and asked me why didn't I tell her.

Well, simply because I had forgotten that she is in Guang Zhou. (haha sorry ya ning :P)

Guang Zhou

So I promised her that I would call her and pay her a visit when I reached Guang Zhou. Well, I did and she brought me around the town.

So I took a cab to her place once I got back from Hai Nan island.

and we went out for some Muslim street food. (Am I not getting enough of them in Malaysia? XD)

and the portion of the lamb noodle was bloody FOUR times of the size in Malaysia.

and I finished it!!! Can you believe it? haha?

I followed her to the church cell group in the night and the worship in the next morning as it was a Sunday.

Ji Nan University

and it turned out that she wasn't really familiar with Guang Zhou although she started attending JiNan University 3 years ago. =.=

She started scratching her head when she asked me where I wanted to go and I said 'Anywhere that allows me to camwhore and the photo should look China'. (as I had to catch my plane back to Malaysia on the next day already)

So she called up so reinforcement. XD

Right after the church service, we took a bus and got down at Zhong Shan University.

Took a photo with the statue of Sun Zhong Shan. No idea who he is? Pretty sure you're a banana or tembikai, or non-chinese. XD

Her friend then brought us to a restaurant nearby which used to be the office of Sun Zhong Shan's personal secretary. It was then modified into a coffee house. (which is rare in Guang Zhou! People there just don't drink coffee!)

Joyman Coffee House

Turned out that it was quite a cozy place to hang out and you must be wondering what the hell, eating in western restaurant in China?

Well, the five days with my relatives was just torturing as my stomach was stuffed with an awful lot of food after every meal. So I was hoping for something, erm lighter.

and it's hard to find coffee in Guang Zhou. People just don't drink it in Guang Zhou. =.=

After an hour or two in the coffee house, we moved on.

The next destination was an underground shopping complex.

Amazingly, there were 6 floors in this underground building and the air ventilation inside was pretty good actually! At least I didn't feel suffocated.

and I bought a pair of jeans. The price can go down to 50 renminbi per pair. Insanely cheap! :P

We then took the subway to the camwhoring spot, which happened to be a metropolitan park in Guang Zhou. There were a lot of Guang Zhou landmarks in this park thus it kinda fulfilled my requirment.

Yue Xiu Park.

This was a Korean Village. =.=

This was a candid shot but I liked it :)

Some lake inside the park.

So this was ancient porno? XD

The Chinese Santa Claus perhaps? XD

The Five Goat statue of Guang Zhou as Guang Zhou is known as the 'Goat City' (Yang Cheng).

Another angle of the statue

There was this stall right beside the statue selling all kinds of souvenir. I walked there and saw some postcards so I flipped through them. I was showing my interest to buy it already as I have a habit of sending postcards in each country I go.

"Hey you, if you wanna buy just buy it! Don't flip! You are making a mess!"
the evil lady at the stall yelled at me.

I stared at her. Speechless. What kind of attitude was that? I gave her some disgusting look and continued flipping. It was the only stall I came across with postcards so I had no choice but to buy it.

I guess the Chinese doesn't have the subject pendidikan moral huh?

The museum. This building was built in the Ming Dynasty, 14th century.

It was about 5 and the skies were getting dark at 6. I had to rush back to my relatives' place as my aunt had cooked the last dinner for us.

Anyway, it was a fruitful day.

Root Search

2009-12-14T19:42:00.003+08:00

Asian, especially Chinese, emphasizes a lot on 'root', which is the bloodline or ancestries.

That's why on the third day in Guang Zhou, we flew one and a half hour to Hai Nan island to visit the old house where my grandpa grew up.

It was located at a very remote village and it took us almost four hours from San Ya.

I virtually felt nothing during the trip as I was not emotional attached to any of this place. But to my mum and my aunts, it was the place where their father grew up and they had heard a lot about it at a very young age.

They were so emotional that they shed tears when they reached there.

It would long-winded to describe everything in details so I made a short video of the journey.

Enjoy :)

The Visit

2009-12-09T08:26:00.004+08:00

My trip to Guang Zhou wasn't exactly a 'traveling' nor 'vacation' trip. It was more like an escort. Well, if you remember, I wrote something in the beginning of the year about how the parent of my mum sailed all the way from China to Malaya after World War II.

My mum was born natively in Penang but her eldest sister wasn't. She was born in mainland China and she was left there to be the guardian of my grandfather's properties in the island of Hai Nan.

Anyhow, life got so tough in that poor island, she then moved to Guang Zhou with her son and husband.

So when my mum asked me if I were interested to follow her to Guang Zhou to visit my aunt and my cousin, I curiously agreed. I was intrigued to meet someone who is ~~bloodily~~ blood-related to me, yet I have never seen for life. She booked the air ticket and so be it. Together with my other 2 aunts from Malaysia, it made us a group of four.

I'll skip the story of what happened in the airport. In fact I have made a couple of really cool new friends. (That's what happens when you are out with your mum and aunts. You need to find someone to talk to! XD)

The plane touched down the Guang Zhou Bai Yun Airport at around 830pm, exactly the estimated arrival time. (Thumbs up for Airasia. I have flown 6 times with it and it was always on time. The longest delay I experienced was 15 minutes)

We were soon greeted at the exit of the airport.

From the left, me, my China aunt, my two aunts from Malaysia and my mum

Then we were taken to a restaurant nearby our hotel and had a really huge meal.

By the way, the Chinese (To avoid confusion, I'll refer to the Chinese people in Mainland China as the Chinese and people like me, as Malaysian Chinese XD) has a custom of eating eggs when people are reunited after a long separation.

I guess it's because the egg is round and thus brings the meaning of reunion which is tuan yuan (团圆).

and I was greeted by this poor little thing on my way in to the restaurant.

I would say 11 out of 10 Chinese men smoke. They smoke before the meal, during the meal and after the meal, right on the table itself. Well I guess smoking has become part of the culture?
From left: my uncle and my cousin's friend (who drove his van and picked us up at the airport)

From left: my cousin's friend and my cousin. (yeah he is about 14 years older than me XD)

Lo and behold, the first meal we had in China~!

干炒河 ~~Dried fried river~~ Fried vermicelli is the closest translation I could get and this is a really common food in Malaysia as well. XD

Watercress with century eggs.

Cute little crabs known as Chinese Mitten Crab. 大闸蟹. It's a kind of fresh-water crab so I don't really like the taste.

A kind of shellfish.

This was a kind of protected species of fish in China. However it was legal to eat the bred one.

I couldn't tell what was this either.

and this one was really something exotic. It was chicken + the poor crocky we saw on the way in.

But I ate it anyway, and it tasted like chicken, only softer and smoother. :P

More posts ~~on exotic food~~ are coming. :)

The Great fireWall of China

2009-12-05T22:47:00.003+08:00

Hello from Guang Zhou.

I didn't know that facebook, blogger, blogspot, twitter, youtube and wikimapia are all BLOCKED in China beforehand.

I was delighted that the hotel that I stayed provided me with internet so I thought I could do some live update.

Apparently I was so wrong. All the bookmarks in my browser are not accessible in this land. I tried to access through some other proxies but to no avail and I didn't really know exactly what software works so I gave up.

Anyway, I just got back to Guang Zhou from Hai Nan island this morning. Actually I didn't expect myself to go there but I went anyhow. Currently typing from the computer of a Malaysian friend who is studying in Guang Zhou. (guess who, KY? XD)

Will blog in details soon. Catch up soon alright? ;)

A random alley in Guang Zhou

ps->Screw them for causing me to lose 1.3 billion of readers. :(