A Dirt Path Into Kok Jin's Life

Ways to reply frustrating loop mail

2012-01-20T08:48:00.001-07:00

A few days ago, I noticed this email from a random guy complaining about receiving unrelated email from our project loop mail list.

I don't know why I just find it so funny. I mean why on Earth will our project loop email go all the way from Indonesia to Germany?? And look at the way he reply "I do NOT have anything to do with your project!".....lol.....looks like we have met an unhappy man....

Then yesterday I received an email from MMU asking us graduates to do an online survey AGAIN...I remembered I just did a similar online survey not too long ago when I was in US, answering 200 (or 400? couldn't remember) stupid questions to get ourselves accessed. As if by answering those nonsense questions we will know our character better....It just doesn't make sense....

and this time, someone replied....and with a bang....in your face, those who came up with this survey idea...Hahaha....

11 meaningful events in the year 2011

2011-12-31T05:59:00.002-07:00

The year of 2011 is quite an eventful year for me. Too many life changing evens happened within these 12 months. It isn't a perfect year but what on earth can be 100 percent perfect right? I know with all I have gone through in 2011, I couldn't have complain too much about it.

Overall, I think I have grown up into a better person, seen through more things in life and of course understanding better with what I am looking for in life and what I will be chasing for in few years time.

Hereby I list down the 11 most meaningful events in the year 2011.

1. Went to The Sepang F1 Grand Prix 2011

Finally I fulfilled the promise with a friend to watch the Grand Prix live after so many years of postponing it. Used to be a F1 fans during the secondary school years but lost track of its latest news in recent years due the domination of Ferrari and Michael Schumacher back those days and the ever-changing FIA rules just made me fed up.

But those 2 days (the qualifying session and race day) were just meant to be cars, cars and still cars...Listening to the roaring engines could just make the adrenaline in your body rises up so high within seconds...

Never though the circuit could be that big.

Never expect the situation could be that noisy.

Panning shot of Lewis Hamilton and his Mclaren Mercedes.

Months later after the Grand Prix, an Italian Motor GP riders died on this very same track in a horrible accident during the race. Life is just too unpredictable to be as smooth as the word spelled.

2. Leaving the place called Cyberjaya where I spent 4 years of my University life

I can still remember when I arrived in 2007, it was really undeveloped and disappointing everyone with the name Intelligent City. 4 years later, although the disappointment is still there but the whole area looks more like a city now with buildings, working people and us university students.

spent the last 3 years staying in this unit and contains more memories than anywhere else in Cyberjaya.

3. Bidding farewell to these bunch of people

People come and go all these years but after all the hustle and tussle,

glad that most of us still remain intact.

it still remains as a mystery to me why the number of people appearing in the photo doesn't really reflect to the true amount of people that we called as a gang. Well, maybe it was just my problem.

You know things are never gonna be the same again once everyone of us moves on to the next chapter of our life. But the moments that we gone through together (tears or joys) will not only be kept in the hard-disk but also in our heart.

4. Submitted my final year project thesis

The final year project represents the end towards my degree pursuit. It will take sometime, maybe up to years to testify my decision to take up this topic is a wise one or its antonym term.

7 months, 2 semesters and it all goes down to this 1 book.

it is not something that I will be proud of as the project wasn't as grand as other show-cased projects.

But I am glad that it is all over now because at some point, I really thought that I am not gonna make it to the end.

5. Went to United States of America for a long long Vacation

Needed something else to recharge my battery after 4 years of degree studies, I went to the North America for 4 months on a summer work and travel program. Although it was a long planned thingy but it was actually a sudden decision to finally put my name on it. Well, like I always say, crazy things have to be done with a sudden crazy thought.

so a week after I had done with MMU and Cyberjaya, I hopped on several planes and flew for 30 hours to the city of Rapid City in South Dakota USA.

and then another 40 minutes of drive to arrive in this small peaceful town on a rainy night where I would live for the next 3 months.

and after 4 years of living in big cities and fast pace lifestyle, it was certainly nice and enjoying to spend a few months on a slowly paced area where you could see blue sky everyday and stars every night

meeting these people under such special occasion is nothing can be described in words.

6. Back to work after all these years

Got to work for paycheck because I still needed something to support my cost of living for 4 months right. Well, it wasn't easy as we were more like a cheap labor who worked to the max for a minimum salary.

yeap, housekeeping and front desk reception were what I did for a living.

While the robotic housekeeping requires a mixture of stamina and speed,

front desk reception requires more than just standing over there and greeting customers. So they were not as easy to handle as to be seen by other people.

still we manged to form a good partnership to handle the hotel to minimum troubles.

7. Been to a few more places in this colorful world

Haven't been traveling real much since the year 2010 (just Singapore only). So after working for 3 months in Keystone, I planned myself a 22 days trip around some places in the USA, in order to compensate the missing portion for 2010 and 2011 as well. =)

Nope, I have still not yet been to the Eiffel Tower. This is just the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas.

The Bellagio Hotel with its famous music fountain.

Bryce Canyon, Utah

Hollywood, Los Angeles

San Francisco.

1 of my top pick city to be visited although

something catastrophic happened that it almost ruined my entire trip.

But I still love everything over there so much.

If I ever gonna revisit USA,

I will make sure myself to stop by this bay city again.

with the Golden Gate Bridge as background

Mariposa Grove, Yosemite National Park.

It's just amazing to find yourself so tiny among the Nature.

and also just nice to be in the wilderness for 1 whole day long.

Glacier Point, Yosemite National Park.

Yosemite National Park is just such a nice place to go,

the beauty of Nature is in every inches of the park,

I mean how can you forget such a beautiful scenery right?

The Capitol, Washington DC.

Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC.

New York City.

MET Museum, New York.

Brooklyn Bridge, New York.

8. The experience of Traveling Alone.

For 1 week, I was all by myself in Washington DC and New York. Without anyone I know, without anyone that I have seen before, turned out it was fruitful one. I enjoyed walking along the street, go wherever I want to go, stop wherever I want to stop. Freedom.

I believe most people nowadays love traveling, but not everyone possess the courage of doing it alone because many people are afraid of loneliness. *Just saying*. So I am glad that I made it through and complete my USA journey. It was a bit scary at first to be honest, but once you get into the local, it wasn't that bad, at all.

one of the greatest president in United States History

9 hours in a Museum, all day long and hadn't seen it all.

Liberty Island

9. Convocation

Finally the day has come, the official convocation ceremony for my degree studies.

a real full stop to my University life

it was merely just 10 seconds on the stage, but it took 4 full years to reach there.

people say the degree paper is just a pass for you to get your first job,

and I couldn't be more agree with them.

looking at the pictures taken that day, definitely worth it to cut short my USA trip and made it back.

10. Working as an Engineer

Got a job offer after 1 week returning from USA, took it up without much comparison and consideration because I have a thinking that "well, it is just my first job, why should I care so much". The job is more likely towards project based technical support, so my first ~~project~~ task was being sent to Indonesia to support a local project.

Currently in Jakarta, a few more months? Might be in Bandung, Surabaya or even Kalimantan.

and over here, we got stucked in traffic jam from morning,

until night.

Oh well, technical support is not easy, so being a freshman in this industry, I have so many things to learn. I feel like a primary student because even though I have studied in this field for 4 years, but once I stepped into the industry, I still realized that, none of my lecture notes can be applied.

I have to sacrifice a lot for being stranded over here by my company, but I always tell myself, all these things that you are going through are just a transition period, give yourself a year or two, and your time will come. And I feel much better after telling myself that.

11. A special person that I met in 2011.

And lastly, how can I conclude my 2011 without a mention of this person whom I met during a certain period in 2011. Although things between us has come to an end due to a certain distance in between, but I had a great time during that period. Thanks for everything and I hope you do feel the same too.

That's all for my 2011, not too eventful but still Okay in my opinion. I am satisfied at the end of the day. Looking forward to an even better 2012. Happy New Year everyone.

That 2011 Summer - Part 1

2011-12-05T08:25:00.001-07:00

How time flies, as recently I observethat 30^th May was the last entry I posted at Singapore Changiairport terminal lounge which was also right before the night I started mySummer 2011 Work And Travel journey, todayI am already in the month of December and 2011 is coming to an end real soon. Well,it has been two months since I returned from US and it has been a month since Istarted working in this company as a RNP engineer, my first career job. Yousee, the contrast between a career job and a summer holiday job is so extremethat until now I still find it hard to adapt.

So things went accordingly as plannedwhere I first submitted and presented my final year project, then went toUnited States for work and travel, finished the working part and startedtraveling around US for 22 days, finished the traveling part and returned toMalaysia just in time for my convocation, had a sentimental morning on myconvocation and then found a job in this telecommunication company. But what Ido not expect is, I was then informed by my supervisor on my very first day thatI will be sent to Indonesia to support a project and have some on-job trainingat the same time. I know although it was part of the job agreement as mentionedduring the interview, but being sent out after just 2 weeks joining theindustry for the first time without any previous experience? Even myself can’tbelieve it is happening. Honestly, I was quite excited about this business tripbut at the same time kinda worried too. The same mixed emotion before Ideparted to USA few months ago.

Okay, let’s get back to the work andtravel experience in USA, I think every past participants will have noobjection if I conclude it as 1 of the most wonderful and unique experiencethat you can ever get in your lifetime. We had so much fun over there despitedifferent cultural background and several controversies. The working place ofmine is a superbly small town name Keystone located at the edge of South Dakota,a huge state which is relatively unknown to most people compared to California,New York, Texas or Florida. Most of the people couldn’t imagine how small itcan be so every time I have to emphasize this fact that it only has apopulation of 331 according to their 2010 census. Well, one of the regretfulthings that I didn’t do in Keystone was to take a picture with their populationsignboard because while we were there, we always opt to do it next time but bythe time we realized that we have yet to do so, everyday was already on theirway leaving the town one by one.

So the whole area along with othernearby towns such as Hill City and Custer are surrounded by the National Forestname Black Hill as the area got its name due to its dark appearance when viewedfrom far. But despite the small population of Keystone, it is hugely packed withtourists and bikers during summer because of the famous attraction located just3 miles away, Mount Rushmore and the Sturgis Rally Festival held every August. BasicallyMount Rushmore is 1 of the most famous memorial in US where 4 of their formerpresidents’ faces were craved on a mountain and Sturgis Rally is one of thelargest events for bikers where people came from all around the States togather in this Black Hill areas and have a series of activities throughout theweek such as bike races and touring around Black Hills.

We always tell our hotel guests that weare the closest town to Mount Rushmore as it is just 3 miles away but we neverhave an idea how far is 3 miles actually because we were exposed to the conceptof kilometers for so many years. Furthermore, we thought it couldn’t be thatfar since we can see the faces everyday from our little town. So 1 of the funthing that we did was on the last week of our Keystone day, a few of us bikedup 3 miles to the memorial and then further extended our route to theWashington's graphite profile area. We never expect it would be so tough because it was a15 degree inclination all the way up to the faces and it was tiring because wewent up there with our bicycles. But it was rewarding because speeding down thehill for 3 miles with full speed was totally hilarious and exciting.

~~~

Shall continue more on the daily in Keystone, working part and traveling part over the next posts. I hope I have the will to keep up this effort. =)

Beijing Trip Part 12

2011-12-01T05:24:00.000-07:00

Name : Beijing Trip Day 8
Date : 3rd January 2010
Place : 景山公园, 四合院，恭王府。

This post has been extremely overdue I know. And right now I am declaring a give up for constructing this last post of my 2010 Beijing trip. Right now just these photos (they were uploaded way months ago btw) will do, until one day I found the strength again to add in captions and descriptions.

Shame on me to end the series in this way. >.<

30th May 2011 - Day 1 @ Keystone

2011-05-30T09:29:00.003-06:00

So today is the 30th of May and it is a public holiday in United States. It is their Memorial Day where they will honor those people who had contributed or sacrificed themselves for the country.

And today is also my first official day at Keystone. Woke up early in the morning and I was amazed by the stunning scenery it offers.

This was 8.20am in the morning, and it was still kinda foggy. The mountain far far away in the photo is the famous Mount Rushmore where it mainly attracts all the tourists to our Keystone. The forest surrounding it is the Black Hill forest which in fact it covers the whole area of Rapid City (which means that it is indeed a very large piece of forest).

And also today me and Laura went to Rapid City airport to pick up another Malaysian student before the three of us went for some grocery shopping at Walmart.

By the way, do you know how proud those Americans are whenever they mention about Walmart? Here is an example from Laura.

Laura : Do you have Walmart in Malaysia? Well, you know....Walmart.....has.....everything, from food to clothes etc...and even if you are given five hour in Walmart and I don't think you can finish shopping as well...

See, that is how high they rate their nation's largest grocery retail shop. And we spent an hour shopping at their food store for our 1 week food supply. Bought some spaghetti, bread, cereal, juice and other lots of stuffs. Total cost?? Only for $26.66. And yes, they do not have rounding system and every cent counts. And I like the concept of quater dollar over there. It means that instead of using 20 cents, they are actually using 25 cents. Funny.

And by the way, there is an interesting conversation happened between me and Laura while we were waiting for the other Malaysian student to arrive at the airport car park. Here is roughly how it went.

Laura : So, tell me more about Malaysia food. What do you eat usually? Are they spicy?
Me : Oh. we have lots of variety for food. And we have Malay food, Chinese food, Indian food and they all are different totally.
(and then we continue elaborated on the food stuff until a certain point)
Me : yea, because we have multi races in Malaysia.
Laura : Oh really, then how did these people come to Malaysia?
Me : oh that will have to involve a long piece of history.
Laura : Tell me about it, I love history.
(was thinking how am I gonna explain about it...)
Me : So during our country's colonization by the British, the Britain tried to expand their business in mining and rubber so they imported workers from China and Indian and then those workers settled down in Malaysia...
Laura : Oh I see, so who are in the land initially before their arrival?
(gosh, this is even harder to answer than final exam..)
Me : Well, they are called the native and we call them the Malay,
(then before I wanted to start elaborating on the Melaka Empire's story, I paused for a moment thinking that it didn't sound that correct due to my ego towards rejecting PERKASA's claim, so I tried to link it to another story)
Me : Well actually the Malays are the official native, but archeologists have found some ruins that actually Hinduism came long before them but they do not have solid prove to verify that.
Laura : Oh, I see.....

Gosh, I think I have just brought her to Holland (if you know what that means), I even tried to bring out the Lembah Bujang story to cover up my ego to recognize the thing that the Malays are enjoying some sort of special right just because they arrived (from Palembang) a few hundred years earlier. Well, it involves a lot of politic issue so I am not gonna talk about it again over here.

I hope I can perform better next time as a exchange student. =P

And tomorrow we are heading to Rapid City again to do our social security stuffs before we can start working the day after. And it seems like I don't have much problem on jet lag issue. I am yawning and waking up at the correct time always. =)

The Journey Starts Now

2011-05-28T11:59:00.000-06:00

Well, it seems like I will like never gonna update this blog again don't I? Certainly lack of motivation is one point. But right now I do have the urge to jot down a little bit of moment before the passion in me evaporate again.

And as I am writing this post, I am now located at the RainForest Lounge inside Changi Airport, one of the three connecting stops for my journey to start working at the states. Yesh, I have enrolled myself into this Work And Travel Program in USA and all the procedure have been done two weeks ago. Guess most of the people have also already know about it since I have been indirectly telling the whole world about it through facebook.

Speaking about this RainForest Lounge, initially I thought it will be something like the Tunes Hotel beside LCCT where each guest will be entitled one room and inside the room there will be at least 1 comfy bed, a private bathroom and most importantly a TV (so that I can watch the Champions League final LIVE). But things don't always go as what you expect, much to my disappointment, it looks just like a youth hostel located inside the airport and each guest is only given 1 small area which I will call it cubicle over here, and you can basically peep what is everybody doing inside (and of course at this hour most of the people are sleeping soundly). As an example, the person beside my cubicle is reading a book and few cubicles away, a man is snoring so hard until I think I can put the blame on him that caused me failing to sleep now. Haha. But well, at least it still has free Wifi which still allow me to lie on the bed and type these stuffs out. Furthermore, as a free complimentary voucher given by the airline, what more can you ask for right?

Back to the Work and Travel Program, it is something that I have been planning for quite a long time. I have been planning about it since my internship last year and I even waited patiently for MMU Senate to announce the actual convocation date as well as taking the risk to do some last minute job application due to the previous reason. So officially it all started at the end of April and I was lucky enough to get the job offer easily and pass through the Visa interview without much difficulties. After that surveying around my flight tickets as well as drafting my traveling plan after my working part has finished. All done within a month. Bravo. =)

To kill your curiosity I will be heading to a remote town named Keystone, located in Rapid City, South Dakota state. It is no where near the Atlantic Ocean nor the Pacific Ocean, instead it is located in the north-center of the states and somewhere near a famous tourist spot known as Mount Rushmore. I will be working as a resort worker and so ironically to mention that after what I have done for the 4 hard years to finish my Engineering degree, I am back to my old profession as a hotel line worker, similar to the days when I worked temporarily in Genting. Life is unpredictable isn't it? It seems like this job is destined for me because out of all the other job offers available, the working period for this job is the only suitable option for me where I can still travel around for a desired period and still make it back for my convocation during October. So this is the story behind everything.

Seriously until hours ago after I have already settled myself down in the MH609 flight from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore I still can't believe that I am actually doing this all by my own. Yes although I know that there will be still 4 other Malaysians joining me at the same working place but the fact that we all are departing on different day makes me feel like it is still just me for the moment. So frankly speaking while I am excited about how all these experiences gonna turn out to be a huge impact in my life, I am equally nervous about making this long journey all by myself. But like what Mr. John questioned me during a phone interview few months ago, I have a point to prove not only to the doubters but most importantly also to myself.

So well, working and traveling around at a totally different environment aka country does not look like it will be a smooth journey all the way. Like what the old people love to say, take a step and look around lor.... =.=

Still got a few flights to catch tomorrow morning. From Singapore to Tokyo, Tokyo to Denver and then Denver to Rapid City. Much to my relief that luckily Miss Laura will be there at the baggage claim zone awaiting for my arrival. It is gonna be a long long day tomorrow although the time figure suggesting otherwise.

Shall update again soon after I have reached and settled myself down over there. Hopefully. =)

Good Night.

Friday, May 13th

2011-05-13T08:56:00.024-06:00

So today the date is May 13th. A dark spot in our Malaysian history where everything has to be reverted back to 42 years ago. But today May 13th 2011, it turned out to be the best day that I have in recent weeks.

Everything just seems to be so perfect today. Started off with early in the morning, woke up and finished the last part in editing my thesis draft and sent to my moderator for final checking before I can proceed to do the hard cover. Then in the afternoon received two emails saying that my passport is ready for collection as well as my flight itinerary has been finalized. So it is now 95% of completing the secret project.

After that went out for a movie in the evening. Not many choices of movie this week because all the blockbusters will only come out this June or at least next week. But since I haven't been updated to movies nowadays so an old movie surprisingly suited us.

Although I know I am very late to mention this, but still I want to make a shout out that this movie "Thor" is the best wei....The dialogue, the action, the story...just great...hahaha...

and the best part of best part is that we just paid student price for it due to weekday. Isn't it great while we are still students? =P

Then ending the evening with a nice dinner. because seriously I haven't been tasting any nice food for recent weeks due to various reasons. So although it is a little bit pricey in the end but I don't really mind too much about it...Good food with Good companion makes a Good combination for a Good evening no??

And the sms-es just keep on flowing in until the morning sun arises.....and there comes the long lost smile from deep inside my heart... =)

Good Night Everybody... Tomorrow will have some aiming to do...

500th Post - Recently

2011-05-07T17:29:00.033-06:00

It is true that I am blogging lesser nowadays and I am not denying it. Well, this time I am not pointing the finger at my final year project anymore. No doubt the last hurdle of this degree run has taken its toll on everyone of us but deep inside my heart there is a voice telling me that this isn't the only reason. In fact, I got a strong feeling that I am losing the drive to keep on blogging. No special reason, just that I know I am losing the creativity and idea to organize my idea and thoughts into words and paragraphs.

But well, at least I still don't feel like giving up on this blog yet cause it has been a part of my life for the past 4 years. It contains most of my ups and downs in life if not all of them. So let's see the next stop of my journey in some other place besides Cyberjaya will light up the fire of desire or not okay?

Anyway, talking about how the final year project has taken its toll on everyone of us, I have just finished my part 2 presentation last Thursday morning. Can't really conclude my project as a successful one honestly, at one point I was even wondering will my supervisor fail me for not getting the expected outcome. But the presentation went smoothly (even better than my part 1 presentation in my opinion) and from the conversation I had with him after that, I can sense the satisfaction he has and I think I have a good chance of passing the final year project (of course getting an A is out of topic). But anything can still happen at this point and my fingers are still crossing hard. lol.

So now only some alignments to do for my thesis report before I can proceed to making the hard-cover copy. And since I do not have any subject in this semester which means that I am totally free during this coming exam week. Maybe will arrange some meet up with various parties before I start missing them for the next few months.

By the way, the weather for the last few days have been extremely unbearable, it isn't only hot but also extremely humid, that will just make you suffocate in your room even though you are just sitting there doing nothing. Gosh, life is tough isn't it?? =P

That Rainy Evening

2011-04-30T07:47:00.002-06:00

Last week during a random evening, it was raining so heavily that I had to shut my balcony windows because I was afraid the stong wind might blown the rain into my room. After that I was back to the computer continue typing my draft thesis report.

15 minutes later, I stood up and walked around my small little room for some inspiration on how to elaborate my points. Then, I noticed this scene at the tennis court which is just outside my room.

Apparently there were 3 dudes playing around with rain water under a freaking heavy rain. And they seemed very enjoy doing so. I remember 2 years ago, I saw someone practising some exercise under a heavy rain too (here) but this was something different from that scenario.

So I stood there and observed the 3 of them for a while (yes, I procrastinated in such way). Then suddenly the orange shirt dude stood up, carried his girlfriend and ran around the court.

I saw his face from a far distance but could still barely recognise him. Oh My God, it was one of my coursemate and it all suddenly made sense at that moment.

Final Year Project drove everyone crazy and off their limit wei.... =.=

Here I Am

2011-04-26T09:49:00.059-06:00

Yes, I am still alive and here I am blogging again after missing for so long.
16 days of post drought and I have broken my personal record again.

Shame to admit the fact but I was really tied up with just that particular one thing recently.
And you should get it right it was my final year project.
Was kinda stress last week when I was stucked in my project but at the same time still had to rush for the drafts, but had no idea what to include in the thesis because was freaking stucked in the progress.
So yea, that was one very hard moment to get through.

Anyway, my drafted thesis deadline got extended courtesy of my supervisor and moderator.
I certainly hope that I will not get penalize for that.
So now it is down to that 1 presentation which will be somewhere in next week
A few more things need to be done prior the presentation.
But I do have a feeling that after the presentation there are still lots of modification yet to be done for the thesis.

Gosh, how could people come out with a thesis 100 plus pages They must be either spamming limitlessly or they must be some sort of undiscovered genius wei... =.=

Posted up this status last night, and immediately got a few respones within minutes.
Glad to see that there are still people who cares about stuffs I did in Blogger and Twitter. ^^

Anyway, I am working on a secret project recently which will be revealed once everyting is finalized.
But not so secretive anymore I guess as most of my closest friends in MMU have already know about it. ~~I close my eyes and pray~~ Finger cross that everything will go fine. =)

Pros and Cons,
Gives and Takes,
Sees the opportunity,
And grab it right away.
Crucial weeks ahead.
Together lets make it through this final chapter of hardworks.
Good Luck.

This Weekend @ Sepang F1

2011-04-10T09:56:00.005-06:00

I was a F1 racing fans during the secondary school years. You know basically during that time I was really crazy about a lot of sports, example from NBA, Tennis, Football, Badminton, even SEA Games or Asia Game occasionally and of course Formula One Racing. Might not know how to play all of them but certainly could tell a hell lot of things out of them.

So that period was between the post Mika Hakiknen era and the starting of domination for Michael Schumacher and his Ferrari team. And that was also when I started losing contact from Formula One news because I just don't like any domination in sports as it makes my feel boring. The same theory can be applied to the domination of Roger Federer in Tennis tour before players like Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic emerged. =P

It is a shame that being a Formula One fans or so call used to be, I have never been to the circuit to watch it Live despite the race has been organised for 12 years already. Living in the city of Cyberjaya, everytime when we are making trips to LCCT, we will surely pass by the circuit, however we will never enter as the circuit looks dull and death during normal days.

And also ever since Gamma year, Julian has been asking me to go for it together but I just couldn't find the time to do so as I was kinda tied up with campus activities at those period. But now at my Final year and also the mid-term break, I know it is again a now or ~~never~~ a long long time to be scenario. So after moments of discussion on the seating and the price, finally we decided to purchase the ticket 3 months ago and have been anticipating the day to come ever since then.

So this is it, the 2011 Sepang Malaysian Grand Prix has just ended and we were there for both Saturday and Sunday. Went for the Qualifying session to survey around the area and also the atmosphere but nothing can be compared to today's Race Day scenario The people, the showgirls, the cars, the engine sounds, the cameras, they just boiled your emotion up perfectly. It is true that I have never watch a Formula One race anymore since secondary school days although I do still keep track with the results annually (just the Championship result only =.=). But it was all just for the sake of knowing. Being there to the circuit and standing along with the crowd cheering for passing by cars, that feeling is just awesome.

And one more thing, they say Formula One racings are rich people's game and I can't be more agree on it. Everything selling beyond the entrance gate was jacked up at least like 2 or 3 times more expensive than you can find them during other normal days. Especially the food and drinks I have to say. Bought some souvenirs and is already declariing bankrupt for this month. Time to use the emergency fund forcely... >.<..

More photos will be up once I have finished off my draft lists or you can check out my facebook photos for the album which should be up in 1 week time. No description though.

And yea, after disappearing from the Formula One circuit for so many years, I don't have any favourite racer at the moment. So you can't say that I am rooting for Sebastian Vettel or Lewis Hamilton or even Fernando Alonso (These 3 are the most popular one based on my observation over the weekend) because I just love them all. Peace. =)

Adios 6514

2011-04-06T10:57:00.001-06:00

So 6514 had completed his last mission that Saturday which was to accompany me for a trip back to Taiping. And he is going to get a new owner real soon. T_T . Some said if the old one doesn't go, the new one will never come but guess not the case this time.

For all the 3 years plus as a degree student, he has stayed along by my side.
For all the group outings, he seldom let me down.
For all the sleepless night, he has stayed through them with me.
And for all the nice dates, he has witnessed them all.

And for those memories,

I will miss you much.

So Long and Farewell my dear.

Hope to meet you again on the road one day.

Beijing Trip Part 11

2011-04-02T09:51:00.000-06:00

Name : Beijing Trip Day 7 Part 2
Date : 2nd January 2010
Place : Temple of Heaven

So for the second half of Day 7,

we visited the Temple of Heaven 天坛公园, 1 of the 3 Must visit place in Beijing besides The Great Wall and Forbidden City.

We passed by this entrance a lot of times previously but finally got a chance to enter it...

bla bla bla.....about its history and some brief description...

Layout of the entire area...It is said that the Temple of Heaven is at least 4 times larger than the Forbidden City...And as you can see from there, most of the area are just empty spaces...

still a long distance to go before reaching its main buildings..

Random Lamp Post..

Still Standing Strong under the extreme weather...

Taken using a digital Compact Camera..

Under a Random Tree..

Divider between the Inner area and Outer area...

So this is it...1 of the most iconic building in Beijing..

The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest 祈年殿...

The name says it all about its purpose..

So I suppose it represents the Harvest God perhaps??

A closer view..

a master piece of Architecture...

Both of them looked so tiny in front of the building..

trying out some photography effect but failed..

the trio...

under the evening sun...

They just had to give a name to any ~~gate~~ door that they built didn't they?

That's not all for the Temple of Heaven, it actually has 3 main parts but most people only know about the first one. Me too thought so prior to that visit. So let's move on to the second part..

it is called The Imperial Vault of Heaven 皇穹宇

All the equipments used for Praying ceremony were kept in it.

a relatively small building.

people actually lined up just to see what's inside it...

which were things like this...

well, me too queued up in the line... =.=

Got to do what a tourist's suppsoed to do right?

1 of the most famous thing about The Imperial Vault of Heaven 皇穹宇 is this Echo Wall. Which can transmit sounds from 1 side to the other side.

waiting for our tourmates to catch up.

still waiting...

and we used the time to take some nice shots..

The Roof..

Photo of the day no.1.

Endless wall..

on a lamp post.

The Circular Mound Altar 圜丘坛. The thrid part part of Temple of Heaven.

Photo of the day no. 2.

1 for Entrance and 1 for Exit.

just an empty circular platform actually. a place for the Emperor to pray for Good Weather thorughout the whole year.

In the middle of the Circular Mound Altar 圜丘坛 there is this round slate called Heart of Heaven 天心石 where it was believed that it has a sound amplification function. So called used to communicate with the Heaven.

On the Heart of Heaven 天心石

His turn.

after finish visiting all 3 parts, time to head out.

saw a random lady playing shuttlecock.

she said it looked like the scene from Korean drama : Winter Love Song.

1 last photo in the Garden.

Oh, it was still new year (元旦快乐) back then.

And you may notice from here that all the 3 main buildings were actually arranged along the same line.

That's all for the Temple of Heaven.

Spent the rest of the day shopping aroud Beijing.

and That's the end for Day 7.

Our last night in Beijing... >.<

Coming Up Next : Finale of the Beijing Trip. And we were trapped and stucked.

不应该如此

2011-03-25T09:38:00.000-06:00

最近观察到一些事情,
产生了一种很不好的想法,
对与五个月前的那天晚上,
在回家路途车内,
那突如其来的问题,
从来没有觉得任何不妥,
但基于时间上的巧合,
不禁会让我自问,
到底整件事情是不是被她利用了呢?

又或许,我从来不应该这样置疑她.
明明跟自己很遥远的东西,
可编编一直在面前闪来闪去,
不觉得烦吗?

Beijing Trip Part 10

2011-03-21T10:01:00.002-06:00

Name : Beijing Trip Day 7 Part 1
Date : 2nd January 2010
Place : Zheng Yang Gate, Capital Museum and Around Beijing Streets.

So now we were in our 7th Day in Beijing. Early in the morning while we were having breakfast, we were informed by the waitress that Beijing snowed during the midnight. And we were like "wow seriously?? how can we not notice that from the window wei..." *swt*

Then we went out from the hotel lobby to ~~see what snow looks like~~ play around with snowssss before going up to our bus.

Photo of the day first.

Snow Snow Snow !!!

Date and Time printed. 7.50am - 2/1/10

I wonder why was I so excited seeing vehicles covered by snow.

Damn Jakun lar can? =.=

White snow covering white Car.

Happy to see real snow for the first time in his life.

we first went up to this Zheng Yang Gate.正阳门

City View from the top of Zheng Yang Gate.

Love the Winter atmosphere that made the city view looked bit blurry.

Snowy floor. So white So beautiful right?

felt like ~~stepping~~ printing our footprints all over it.

In front of the other Gate.

Then right in front of Zheng Yang Gate was this famous QianMen Street 前门大街, they have all kinds of shops along this ancient street wei...

posing with the street tram.

found Starbuck in Beijing.

found also a huge Christmas tree just beside the main road.

and took this Christmas Ball shot.

♥ the snowy effect on the ball.

with our Malaysian Tourguide Miss Joann.

then we took a short walk to our next destination.

spotted this motorized trishaw. Quite special heh?

Rows of Bicycle. suits the B&W effect?

yea yea, next time if you got no place to stay around Beijing,

just ask me for a 70% discount for this hotel. =)

another snowy vehicle.

happiness plus five...^^

photo of the day.

snowy bushes.

Our next destination : Beijing Capital Museum 北京首都博物馆.

we were allocated just too little time inside the museum,

so we could just finish visiting like 30% of its whoel area only. >.<

But here are some of the photos taken.

Ancient Cannon.

model of Qing Dynasty Capital during its peak period.

Crown for Ming Dynasty Emperor.

imperial edict 圣旨.

永乐大典, one of the most complete encyclopedia in Ancient China History, Compiled during Ming Dynasty.

Currency notes used during the Republic of China period.

then we entered a pavillion where they displayed various type of vases

Jade Vase.

made of wood but not quite light by appearance.

Porcelain Vase.

Managed to take down the name of this vase (using photo of course)

大清雍正年制景德镇窑珊瑚红地珐琅彩花鸟瓶 (1723-1735).

Same goes to this Ink set used by Emperor QianLong.

乾隆御墨 (1736-1795)

I suppose this was the grand generation of what I am playing now. lol.

last shot of the mesuem overview before leaving.

Quite a short post for this part as there will be quite a number of photos coming up for our next destination, so in order to avoid flooding you all with tons of photos in a single post, I will save them for the next one instead.
Stay tune folks. =)

Coming Up Next : They believed they could communicate with Gods when they stood on the arena.

是那夜晚

2011-03-17T09:23:00.004-06:00

上个星期的某个晚上,
突然间出现在布城某座桥的路旁,
双手调整着那看似弱不禁风的三角架,
颈项挂着那荒废以久的相机,
顶着凛冽的寒风,
虽然眼睛是在看着那闪耀的建筑物,
可脑里却不是在想着光圈和快门的配合.
四个字,
心不在焉.

是那夜晚,
让我再度衡量自己在未来几个月后要走的那条路,
贤忠说我这么做是为了实现自己的理想,
我说我这么做是为了想狠狠地放任自己一次,
看看自己到底喜欢些什么,不喜欢些什么,
说得潇洒点就算是寻找自我,
说得难听点就算是自我放逐,
不过无论如何,
近来频繁的天灾,
有时候还真的会让人有点心灰意冷的感觉.

是那夜晚,
让我意识到自己的摄品越来越失望.
是因为功课繁忙而久疏摄场了吗?
还是因为那晚心事重重而无心恋摄?
还是想要怪罪于那借回来的三角架?
不行不行,
长久这样下去不是办法,
必须想些点子让那把火重新燃烧.

毕业论文交了以后应该会有很多时间这样子做了吧.

~~~

有些事情,
听起来就不关自己的事,
听了过后又会反覆斟酌,
百思而不得其解.
但既然都说明了不关自己的事,
那为何又会为此伤神呢?
是因为好奇心吗?
还是因为咽不下当初的那口气?

Our Time Will Come

2011-03-10T13:02:00.000-07:00

I hope now still isn't too late to discuss about this new although it happened more than a month ago.

So just a few days before Chinese New Year, we fellow Malaysians received a good news all the way from Taiwan as a Negeri Sembilan girl named Lee Kar Wei won the 7th season of the famous Taiwan Singing Competition "One Million Star 超級星光大道". It is a prestigious competition considering that they recruited all their contestants from all around the world, not only in Taiwan.

Anyway I am not here to discuss why this Malaysian couldn't get her chance in her home country and was forced to go to Taiwan to try her luck nor the talents (especially Chinese music industry) are running away from Malaysia. Instead, I am more interested in her comeback story.

But first we take a look at her performance during the Finale.....
Damn Nice her singing can??
And she got full marks for it...
Well deserved Champion...

There was once during the competition she mentioned that she took part in "Malaysian Idol Season 1" before, and she performed so badly during the audition until she couldn't forgive herself for the mistake. For a moment I tried so hard to recall her face because I so-call self-proclaimed that I used to be a huge fans of "Malaysian Idol", especially season 1. So there is no reason why I couldn't recall that incident right?

Then few days later, there was a video circulating around Facebook showing the audition of Lee during the Malaysian Idol Season 1. I watched it and I knew why I failed recall her.

2 reasons. First, she looked totally different at that time from how she looks now. Second, I am kinda old already wei, I mean I do remember that scene but just can't link it to her because I just don't memorize her name. By the way, who will remember the name of a contestant who got eliminated during the second audition right?

So after watching the video, all the mysteries are solved. And I am quite impressed that she actually didn't give up her singing dream despite the great fall she experienced. She believed in her own ability and improved from mistakes, then she found her own stage in Taiwan. Whether she will continue to excel in the music industry remains an unknown but what matters now is she showed the whole world that Malaysia do have great singing talents and also the ability to comeback. Nicely Done, Lee Kar Wei.

Despite failure,
One must still do not Give Up,
Believe In Yourself,
And Someday,
Your Time Will Come.
Just have to be patient and remain confident.

Beijing Trip Part 9

2011-03-08T08:24:00.028-07:00

Name : Beijing Trip Day 6 Part 2
Date : 1st January 2010
Place : Garden of Perfect Brightness 圆明园, The Place @ State Road 世贸天阶, Nan Luo Old Street 南锣鼓巷

So in this part 2 of our Day 6 Beijing Trip, we first visited this place where it represents one of the darkest spot in China History called the Gardens of Perfect Brightness, also known as the Yuan Ming Yuan Park 圆明园.

As you may have already known, Qing Dynasty Emperors loved to build Royal Gardens everywhere. Just to name a few of it, we have the Summer Palace mentioned before in Day 6 part 1 and the Mountain Resort in Cheng De 承德避暑山庄. And of course this Yuan Ming Yuan Park was only 1 of their many huge Royal Garden projects. But in fact, it topped them all not only as the largest but also the most extensive collection of art works at that time, before it was burned down and robbed by the British and French troops. The story in between is too long for me to elaborate over here so please google "Second Opium War" if you are interested to know why. =)

Such a huge garden being burned down by invading enemies, it was protected and left as. No wonder the locals don't really feel like visiting this place. Our tour guide chose to stay in the bus, claiming that he was too dishearened to go into the park.

As I mentioned before most of the area were burned down, so actually there were nothing much left to see inside the Yuan Ming Yuan Park.

but it was still one of my favourite places in Beijing due to its rich yet sad history.

Anyway, we just visited the Western Mansion area 西洋楼.

which now of course only ruins are left.

This area was known as Da Shui Fa 大水法, just another way for them to call a Fountain. It used to look something like this.

but after that fire and 100+ years of history, now it became something like this. No more water spilling out from the ground.

The ruins were maintained and regarded as a symbol of foreign aggresion and humiliation in China.

The Arch in front of Da Shui Fa.

one of the most significant architectures left in Yuan Ming Yuan Park.

In front of the Baroque-styled Arch.

Solo 1.

Solo 2.

Solo 3.

Pillars.

Western style carving..

Another area beside Da Shui Fa.

Well, for this part of the area it used to look something like this.

The Thinker.

Eih, never notice there were girls behind me...

Then before we left, 1 last photo of it.

Just looked so beautiful even with the ruins.

Just saddening to see such beautiful (I can imagine that) piece of architectures being totally destoryed by invaders. Wars Wars Wars.

Actually the Chinese government are trying to rebuild this park to once its glory moment. While this panorama model showed virtual images of it. We didn't get to see it though.

But from the board, I noticed a few meaningful lines.

100多年过去了,圆明园昔日的辉煌曾是中华民族的骄傲,让几代人为之兴奋和感叹.但面对这片废墟,人们只能在梦中去拼凑那残缺不全的圆明园盛世景观.

Well said, nicely described my feelings after visiting this place.

Allright, enough is enough, we slowly walked out to the gate.

Bokeh.

Cat Spotted.

tried to play with him but he wasn't so interested.

benched.

Frozen Lake everywhere.

The general map of Yuan Ming Yuan Park.

The area that we visited just now was only like 10% of the total area.

See how huge it used to be??

Especially the portion of the lakes took...

After that we were brought to the famous Silk Street for some shoppings. It was a multi-stories building selling Petalling Street style items (you know what I mean). My opinion, once you stucked yourself too long in the building, evenrtually you would get tired of bargaining the price with them. The initial price they offered was way too insane wei....Selling items?? Looked pretty much the same in every stall...

Before we went for our dinner, the tourguide brought us to this highclass place.

It was called 世贸天阶 with the slogan "All Beijing Please Look Up" (全北京向上看). Why said so?

Because they had one of the ~~longest~~ largest TV screen in the World installed on top of you.

Apparently this area was really called "The Place".

Under the tree sitting alone in the Winter.... >.<

Christmas Decorations...

Camwore...

playing with some slow shutter effect.

Nothing much interesting about what they showed on the screen..

Furthermore, I believe everyone would get neckache by staring at it for 5 minutes. lol.

We didn't spend too long over there.

Well, it was understandable

and it was Time to go, for dinner.

After dinner, we walked along this old style alley.

It was kinda relaxing actually as they had music store, restaurants, shops selling random stuffs and etc.

Shop Closed. Just a decoration only though.

Quiet Alley.

Random shop selling random stuffs. =)

In front of a Restaurant.

Went in empty handed. Came out also empty handed.

last photo of the day before we went back to our hotel.

That's all for Day 6.

What a tiring Day we had.

Coming Up Next : Beijing was Snowing ??

4 / 3 / 11

2011-03-04T08:49:00.002-07:00

Currently I am stuck with my project,
I know it because the same problem has been bugging me for a few days already,
and if I can't debug the problem,
I can't meet my supervisor,
it is because I am suppose to meet him to conduct the testing,
not to debug the testing program.
I don't want to ask silly questions that will require his 5 minutes to solve it,
So guess I will have to change another approach tomorrow.
And see how will the outcome be.
Semester 3 of final year is beginning in 2 days time wei...

I use to be weak in programming during first year,
because I didn't really understand the logic behind it.
Then I tell myself to look at the larger picture,
To look at its potential in our field near future,
And to face it instead of running away from it.
So now in the final year I am,
Though my programming skills still aren't that excel,
and everytime when my project partner tell others how good am I in programming,
I simply hated it so much.
It is because I am Not.
But I am still willing to take a gamble in making this programming thingy part of my project.
And I don't know will it pay off or not this time.

Sometimes I wonder if previously I stood firm and chose CE over TE,
will I be free from any programming?
At least after talking with a ME grads,
it seems like you don't have to worry about programming so much.
And I do think CE and ME belong to the same category.
Gosh, why am I still thinking about CE matters again.
as I am only 3 months away from finishing my TE degree wei....

Featured

2011-02-28T07:47:00.053-07:00

1 day Koi Min tagged me on my facebook wall saying that he spotted us on a random website. So, I clicked into the website only to find out that it was a survey conducted by some students to study about the Development of Chinese Orchestra in IPTA.

The cover page of the survey looked something like this.

Frankly speaking I never know Malaysia has such many IPTA's wei..

so I scrolled down to see what Koi Min trying to mean...

and I scrolled down,

and down,

and I saw this...

lol, what the hell is my picture doing on some online survey form that isn't even conducted by MMU students?

and the question was asking about ""how many days you spent per week in practice.?"...Gosh, I don't even want to answer that because I am afraid that I might need to dig deep into my brain cells to do so. =.=

Just in case you didn't realise, you may find that picture familiar from here.

By the way, can I sue them for image copyright infringement?? =)

Beijing Trip Part 8

2011-02-26T03:51:00.015-07:00

The 2009 Beijing Trip Posts are back, like after so long huh? Wasn't really that free to process the photos and informations previously as I was tied up with assignments, FYP presentations and final exams. But right now since I am already done with them, I just have to squeeze out some time to continue this photo journey which is coming to an end soon. So please do keep faith with it okay?

~~~

Name : Beijing Trip Day 6 Part 1
Date : 1st Jan 2010
Place : Beijing Summer Palace, Shadow Puppetry Museum

It was Day 6 of our Beijing Trip and also the first day of year 2010. On new year eve, We thought there would be like fireworks scattering around the sky of Tian An Men Square but after being advised by our tourguide (which I doubted he was telling the truth), we decided to stay in our hotel and just watched the celebration from a dull TV. Apparently people over there werern't really that excited about the 1st January version of New Year, instead they were more like focusing on the lunar calender version of Chinese New Year. Furthermore it was so cold out there and I also thought that not many people would come out from their warm comfy house just to do some silly countdown. Please prove me wrong if it wasn't so okay??

So early in the morning of Day 6, we were brought to yet another government authorised shop where this time they were trying to sell us silk products. I will just briefly skip through this part as not many of us paid attention to them.

Displaying on their glass cabinet was a sample of the Qing Emperor's Dress.

while this showed an empress's dress.

Adult Silkworm.

Everyone knows who is this old lady right ??

(hint :The Empress Dowager CiXi 慈禧太后)

They were trying to make a selling point that even the royal family back in Qing Dynasty consumed silk products but who cares about it right?? =)

and we proceeded to our first destination of the day.

which was The Summer Palace of Beijing 颐和园.

some introduction about the place.

click to enlarge if you are interested to read it .

The ticket coutner.

We entered through the back yard actually.

it wasn't really a palace but instead was a very huge royal Garden,

as if the garden inside Forbbiden City wasn't large enough huh?

by the way this one was slightly over-exposed. =.=

1 of the largest museum among all royal gardens in China 文昌阁.

Photo photo a bit first.

Me wasn't ready.. =.=

a random pavillion beside the lake.

fantasizing which Emperor sat on it before.

playing with the artificial rocks.

posing with the frozen lake.

saw the bridge far behind there?

that was still part of the summer palace, 十七孔桥.

wonder how many winters have these trees withstood.

not the best view you would expect.

could look better during summer.

I mean Summer Palace wasn't meant to be visited during Winter right?

and these people would never understand the instructions huh?

Longevity Hill 万寿山.

where all the main buildings were located.

pathway to Longevity Hill.

A typical Qing Dynasty design.

Huge Garden Rock.

Have no idea why were they wrapping the tree with ropes.

乐寿堂, which used to be the living area for the Emperors.

邀月门, the entrance to Long Corridor.

some introduction about the Long Corridor.

as usual, click to enlarge if you are interested to read it.

as its name may have already suggested,

Long Corridor is the longest corridor in the World with 728 meters,

just seems endless from here huh?

beside Long Corridor was another large area of Garden.

with many weird shaped trees.

both of them in the garden.

us with our Tour Guide for the entire trip, Mr. Chen.

Bokeh a little bit. lol.

back to the Long Corridor.

they had paintings on every beam of the roof.

An example was this "Journey To The West".

Photo of the Day.

Endless Corridor.

my hair looked so messy after taking down the winter hat.

But I still like this photo very much.

wow, discovered something interesting.

then finally we were at 仁寿殿, the main administration building in Summer Palace, sort of like their temporary office when they were staying over there (during Summer of course).

Just look at the number of the crowd and you don't feel like going over and see what's inside anymore. So a picture from the outside would do. =.=

They believe that taking picture with this QiLin will bring luck and prosperity.

Another huge Garden Rock.

Then we exited through this main door.

An extremely huge garden just for their living pleasure during the hot Summer, these Royal Family Members (especially the Emperor) were just too good in spending people's money wei... >.<

Hawkers at the roadside selling stuffs like roasted groundnuts,

see how they were attracted by incoming tourist buses?

Next we visited this Shadow Puppetry Museum.

which looked more like an abandoned building from outside.

Does he have the potential to become a model?

The shadow puppetry performers were actually dwarfs recruited from everywhere around China because youngsters nowadays are not interested in picking up this traditional performing art. So those dwarfs have to do it for their livings.

This not so professional performance shown from the photo was actually led by us as we were invited to the backstage to play around with the puppets.

Pretty pathetic case in my opinion because nobody is willing to learn and popularize it and soon it will just disappear along with the wave of globalization.

But then think again, don't Malaysia's own version of shadow puppetry facing the same problem too? *sigh*

We still had a few more places to go for Day 6 and I shall reserve them for the next post. So stay tuned.

Coming Up Next : Another Royal Garden from the Qing Dynasty, but now only ruins are left.

All's Well Ends Well

2011-02-23T08:48:00.125-07:00

Here comes another post after one week. Geez, am I really that busy and lazy nowadays??

So I had my last paper of the semester last Friday afternoon. When the lecturer announced with a very strong Indian accent asking students to stop writing, I was still scrambling for answers on a few questions. *sigh* Spent too much time thinking on some unnecessary parts. =.= . And after I left the exam hall, I told myself "wow, there goes the last paper in this final exam and also the degree course".

Did I ever mention before that everything happened in this semester seems to be the last time that it will ever happen again?? Last lecture class, last tutorial class, last assignment, last lab session, last mid-term test, last final exam, last birthday celebrations, last Christmas celebration, last New Year celebration and sometimes even last full squad gathering. But I am guessing that it is the path every Undergrads has to go through eventually. Time to precious this coming short semester even more.

~~~

So Crystal Goh made a surprise trip back to KayEl during the weekend. Well it shouldn't really be considered as a surprise because everyone else knew about it like 1 month ago while me and only a few others were totally kept uninformed until that evening when she suddenly showed up in the restaurant. Where got such unfair treatment one right?? >.<

So on the occasion where she showed up, we were having late birthday celebrations for Yee Kean and Eric @ Bumbu Bali Puchong. After that we went to Temple Dong Chan @ Jenjarum that night as well as Skytrex Adventure @ Shah Alam the next morning. That evening itself we went to Subang Avenue for dinner (foods over there weren't really that nice though). Then the next day, a few of us (most of them couldn't make it for various reasons) went to Sepang Gold Coast and Shabu-Shabu Steamboat for dinner before sending her off to airport few hours later early in the morning. In conclusion we basically just went through almost every part of South Selangor within those few days.

What to do?? Since she doesn't come back that often so when she finally does we have to try our best to bring her around and accompany her right??

Now that she has gone back to her working life over there, it also indicates the beginning of our short 2 weeks semester break. Not going back for this holiday as I have to catch up some progress on my final year project after abandoning it for so long to prepare for Chinese New Year and final exam. So let's see whether my decision will pay off with much dividend or not okay? =)

Life goes on no matter what, even though sometimes you have this feeling of not being appreciated for whatever you have done and therefore you do not deserve anything from it. But still you gonna believe that All's Well Ends Well. It is just about the matter of your point of view actually. Just a friendly reminder to myself..

爱与不爱的决定里

2011-02-15T11:08:00.000-07:00

仔细一看,
不难发现最近还蛮多人更换了非撕不可的状况,
老的是这样,小的也是这样,
不同的是,
老的替他们高兴,小的替她担心.
但这一切的错中复杂,
都跟刚过的情人节很应景似的.

曾经开玩笑地跟一位朋友这样地说过,

"喂,为什么你那么想不开要现在开始一段恋情,那迟一些的情人节你又要花一笔钱来庆祝了.你应该等情人节过了先嘛."

他也很好笑地回答我说,

"是咯,我也没有顾虑到这点.那时候只是想到要这样而已."

那时候我联想到的是
也许他已经厌倦了一个人单独的日子吧.

个人所追求的事与物,
有可能因为个人的感情状况而改变,
冠上一句我整天说的,
未来的事情,只要还没发生的,一切都可能有变卦.
这一个时候可能决定要远走他乡,浪迹天涯,
但到了那一个时候有可能因为一个女朋友而乖乖地开始做工赚钱养"家".
所以还未落实的计划,
我也不好贸贸然跟别人讨论甚至是提起,
怕到时候变卦了不好回答,
只好带着官腔地回答一句"一切都还在筹备当中".

单身所享受的自由与放纵,
往往不是一般情侣所能了解的.
同样的,
情侣所感受的甜蜜与关心,
往往单身的就只能从记忆里找寻了.

决定爱与不爱,
很多时候就取决于那一瞬之间.
年轻时候的傻,天真还有差肩而过,
试问又有谁没经历过呢?

大家好好加油吧... ^^

Random Post in Mid-Exam week

2011-02-11T23:52:00.002-07:00

Well, just for the sake of informing those uninformed, I am currently in the mid-week break of my 2 weeks final exam period. Just finished 2 papers within 3 days with the second one completed yesterday morning. So now 1 more paper to go, the last paper of my degree study, and it is 6 days away from now. A period that looks long but not quite so when you scanned through that stack of notes.

Speaking about the paper I had on Friday morning, it was one of the hardest subject that I have ever taken in my degree, if it wasn't on top of the list. And initially I thought I screwed up its mid-term pretty badly but somehow when the coursework mark released a day before the paper, it was better than what I first thought, although I still failed the mid-term test... =.= ...

Anyway, after the lecturer collected our answer sheets, I think I was the only one who felt relieved because I find that paper was a bit easier compared to pass year's standard. But obviously everyone else disagreed and you could see that from facebook statuses and MSN personal messages. I am not trying to say that I can score well in that paper (I did leave a few answers empty too) but I think I managed to get enough marks to achieve my personal target (which I had set to a lower par beforehand). So maybe it was this thinking in my mind that made up for my satisfied look after we walked out from the exam hall. Some may misunderstand it as cocky though....>.<

So right now, I think I should take a half day break to relax and clearing a little bit of my mind. Oh yea, the Chinese New Year celebration has not come to an end, Yet.

So let's celebrate for a few more days please..... ^^

Updated on 13th Feb 10.40pm...

2011 CNY Family Reunion Dinner

2011-02-03T02:00:00.001-07:00

Last Night was Chinese New Year Eve, so we had our family's edition of reunion dinner at a restaurant as early as 6.30pm to avoid the crowd. Way so early wei...

Our car porch with the small small mini garden beside...

富贵花开迎新年

The number shown is currently not in service. So please do not call.

As usual there will be Lou Yee Sang activity...

Cousins and Uncle....Our one and only relative in town...

Hm...So many things have changed within this one year...

And finally yours truly

Fa...Do...Re...Mi...

Happy Chinese New Year again Everyone....Wishing everyone all the best...^^

2011's Brief Reunion Dinner

2011-02-01T08:21:00.007-07:00

2 weeks ago, the group of us went Teluk Gong for our annual Chinese New Year reunion dinner. The reason why they decided this place was because 2 years ago we had our reunion dinner over there too. It was kinda early for a new year reunion dinner at that time, but since our exam weeks this semester will coincide with new year period, so it was good too to have it a little bit earlier.

well, everyone going by themselves seems like the trend these days.

and since the group is getting larger and larger lately, we were seperated into 2 tables. (erhm.....like seriously??)

Then we had the Lou Yee Sang activity.

and as usual our Yee Sang was spread all over the table.

Not many photos were taken because we had too many cameras with us already. After dinner, we went to Shah Alam I-City for the movie "Ice Age". More photos were taken over there. End of story.

Seriously this trend of reunion dinner during Chinese New Year shall be continue for many years to come. Else, god knows when will this superb big group of friends ever meet again.

Happy Chinese Year Everyone.
辛卯年快乐. 大家快乐.

Beijing Trip Part 7

2011-01-29T08:38:00.408-07:00

Name : Beijing Trip Day 5
Date : 31st December 2009
Place : NanShan Ski Resort, WangFuJing Walking Street

Day 5 was rather an uneventful day compared to the previous 4 days. We were allowed to have late breakfast (by China's standard) and late check out due to the fact that we had just checked-in to the hotel less than 6 hours ago (like 3am in the morning from here?). Most of our tour members skipped their breakfast in exchange for more sleeping hours. I managed to wake up early somehow therefore I still went down to the dining hall to try out their buffet breakfast though. And I had a short morning walk under the ever-freezing weather because apparently the dining hall was inside another building. =.=

shot this outside the hotel lift.

Ancient Wine glass wei..

Ancient Chinese Vessel.

Departed from the hotel around 10something and headed to NanShan Ski Resort 北京南山滑雪度假村 for what else besides skiing. Well since it was Winter, of course we had to try out some Winter sports just for the sake of trying what. I mean how often can you try that in a tropical country like Malaysia right?

We had lunch over there too because our tour guide knew most of us couldn't wake up for breakfast so he arranged an early lunch for us.

After lunch we straight away checked-in to the ski area.

The duration was 2 hours long and expected to finish at 2.22pm.

Getting ready our equipments.

Both of us were ~~noob~~ first timer actually.

she chose to sit down at the cafeteria and chat with other aunties.
She claimed that she was too old for it already.. =.=

Oh yea, 1 thing I have to highlight over here. All the photos in the skii resort was taken using my Nikon L16 Digital camera because I kept my SLR in the bus. I found that it was kinda impossible for me to carry it around while I kept on falling and cuddling in the snow. So yeah, have to tolerate with its quality a little bit. And after such a long period leaving the digital camera world, I suddenly looked like a new camera user.. lol...

ski field for beginners.

he certainly had the style from this photo. hehe...

The first step was always important as a beginner..

In my opinion, the hardest part of it wasn't how to keep yourself balance while sliding down but how to press the break paddle after all the accelerations. How to get yourself up after taking a hard fall was a big problem too. During the first few trials, we couldn't even handle the ski lift. Funny moments indeed.

and after experimenting for like an hour, I started to get some rhythm already and decided to go for something more extreme.

was to leave my brother behind and go for the intermediate trail which had greater elevation and thus faster acceleration. Initially we promised to conquer it together but seemed like he still stuck in the beginner trail so no choice I had to go up solo. *sigh*

looking downwards from the peak of intermediate trail.

by the way, the small slope at the end there was the beginner trail.

looked so serious with the sunglasses.

Two girls asked for my help to be their camera man so in return they helped me out in this too. Like this photo very much and thanks a lot again.

The advanced trail. Pro snowboarders could even jump on it.

Ah-ha, finally One nice photo from my digital camera.

Actually I still couldn't brake properly at that time but the real fun part about intermediate trail was the great acceleration which I enjoyed the most. Couldn't make any nice turnings but accelerating down the slope in one straight line was more than enough for me already heh.. ^^

Some may ask, since I had the problem of changing direction and braking, so what if there was somebody blocking our way?? Well, I guess that was the definition of collision lor... hahaha....

she wanted a photo with the snowy mountain before leaving.

another one over here.

although she didn't ski, but she can still have photos wei... lol.

After leaving the ski resort, we were brought to another typical government authorised shop. This time was foot massage at their Olympic sports center if my memory serves me right. And as usual I would choose to skip this part. Next we went to this area called WangFuJing street 王府井大街.

It is a famous shopping street around Beijing with plenty of history.

The sky may looked dark but it was 6pm plus only at that time.

There was a huge book store (7 stories) at the other side of the street and we spent most of our time inside there. Bought some nice books with a good price but left little time to finish the other side of the street. >.<

Although it was already New Year eve but we could still see Christmas tree.

street light deco.

spotted this Giant Jabulani at the center of the square.

Speaking of Jabulani, the World Cup had already ended 7 months heh.

took turns to pose with it.

Actually he doesn't know much about football... lol...

1990 Official World Cup ball.

Nice bokeh effect. Favourite photo of the day.

then we crossed the famous WangFuJing Snack Street to get back to our bus.

Massive crowd along the narrow street.

another side of the junction selling small souvenirs.

The reason why this snack street is so famous for.

Fried starfish..

Forgotten selling for how much but should be RMB10 I think.

living baby scorpions.

They fried it on the spot for a few seconds & could be eaten just like that.

I didn't try out the scorpions though because I was freak out when I saw their legs still moving actively. So I took this fried seahorse instead.

Hard and Dry. tasted something like Ikan Bilis.

Didn't feel very satisfied.

Isk...should had really try out that scorpion.. =.=

Given more time standing in front of the stall observing how other people ate them, I think I would have persuaded myself to take up that scorpion. But at that time we were rushing back to the bus, so the timing just wasn't that right. Next trip I assume??

For that day, We had dinner in this restaurant 全聚德烤鸭店.

had Beijing's famous Roasted Duck.

and trust me it tasted so nice wei...

1 of the best meal we had in Beijing.

After dinner, we went back to Hotel and had good rest..

As the next day would be full of walking again.

Coming Up Next : How about a trip to the Summer Palace during Winter??

Our Royal Police Force

2011-01-25T08:42:00.155-07:00

Saw this post from a famous Mandarin Blog and it reminds me of what happened 2 months ago.

On a Sunday afternoon during early November (which was 2 months ago obviously), the 3 of us went to Taman Budaya for a percussion concert. After the concert I had to go to Pudu Plaza to order my Tamron lens which costed me around RM100 for prebooking it. And here is a fun fact for you, after paying that RM100 prebooking deposit, my wallet had only RM1 left. Nothing else. =.=

After that while we were on our way back to Cyberjaya through KL-Seremban Highway, I wasn't so sure about certain junctions so ended up I was forced to make an illegal lane switching in order to avoid the Smart Tunnel Highway. It was then I saw 2 policemen standing by the roadside signalling me to pull my car over. I wouldn't complain much about it because a mistake is a mistake but it was just a minor lane switching (and that's all I'm gonna say. =.=).But this was roughly how our conversation went through :-

(parked my car aside and walked towards their police car)
Him : Hey,tadi sana double-line tahu?
Me : Oh yea yea, tadi masuk lane salah tak nampak....
Him : So sekarang nak macam mana? Nak saman ke?
Me : erhm.....yea...Saman lar...(still couldn't believe I said this at that time)
Him : Awak betul-betul nak saman ke? RM300 tahu?
Me : yea, nak Saman, kerana sekarang aku tak ada duit. (flipped open my empty wallet and I think he noticed it indirectly)
Him : Nah...aku sekarang bukan nak minta duit...Cuma tadi double line itu tak betul...awak hanya perlu minta maaf cukup lar...
Me : Oh....Sorry bang...Sorry bang....memang tak sengaja...
Him : Awak masih student kan??
Me : yea yea...masih student sahaja...
Him : Okay Okay....awak baliklah, lain kali jangan macam ini lagi...
Me : Okay bang...Sorry bang...Terima Kasih yea.....

So back at the car, my friends asked me how much he asked for and they thought I was going to get some money from them to pay him (because they too knew that I had only RM1 at that time). After I told them the entire scenario, they were too shocked (and funny at the same time) to find out that I was let go so easily. And as we passed by the policeman, I saw another car was pulled over by his colleague for committing the same mistake as I did. Not so lucky anymore for the driver I guess??

and that's was how the story of "A Sorry worth RM300" came from.

The main point of this post wasn't to show off how lucky or how funny I was at that time. It is to point out the bribery problems (with the simpliest example) in our country, especially in the governing department. The police force is meant to help the public and with that they should be friendly and well-accepted by the public. But somehow when things get out of control and the public is afraid (or rather fed up) to seek for police's help and instead sort out their problems by themselves, it means something is going wrong with our judiciary system and it is going to cost our nation a lot in long term. Check out this post to see what I am trying to mean.

Although they didn't ask for bribery directly (who would right?) but they did mention its keyword (which is the phrase "macam mana nak settle sekarang"). Furthermore I don't think they will standby at the roadside wearing their heavy uniform just to pull cars over and wanting a simple apology right? Thanks again for giving me a chance that day Mr. Policeman, but not the same case over here from me, and you have to own a big gratitude to your other colleagues all over the nation for this.

That's not all about the great performance from our Royal Police Force and I shall post up another story about "the illegal U-turn at Zuok" some other day, provided if I have the time to do so. =P

Spontaneous Movie Session

2011-01-21T22:22:00.005-07:00

Last weekend, the 4 of us (who mainly had finish our part 1 presentation) went out in an evening for a movie session. The initial plan was to catch this soon-to-be-taken-down movie "Meet The Parents : Little Fockers", but somehow we saw the screening time wrongly and therefore were late for the show. Finding not so worth to watch it after being so late, we decided to switch to this movie "Great Day" instead.

A local Malaysian product, 天天好天.

Overall the movie was worth watching, although its storyline was kinda predictable. But what made it so worth watching was the family issues behind it. Like old folks home, young Father and young Son relationship, old Father and middle-age Daughter relationship, Grandpa and Grand-daughter relationship etc. Had a lot of laughters as well as some touching moments during the show. A show recommended for everyone.

Love the quote from the movie :-

无论晴天雨天，天天都是好天.

Just love the paddy field scenery so much wei....

This MV is 1 of its theme song and was shot in Taiping. Every Taiping people knows it since the first line of the lyrics. But sadly the movie wasn't shot in Taiping but in Kuala Perlis and Kuala Lumpur instead.

While we were in the hall waiting for the movie to start, someone popped up with the question "wana watch Paranomal Activity 2 after this?". Knowing that my reluctance to watch this type of movie, they agreed with the plan and even challenged me to watch it together. Oh well, I didn't drive on that day so I had no choice but to verbally agree as well (they even offering to pay for my ticket as a bait to lure me into it T_T).

After the movie "Great Day" ended, we left the hall and everyone was heading towards the car park. That was when I "friendly" reminded them about our paranomal activity plan and obviously they were excited by my teasing. So we went back to the ticket counter but still reluctant to step forward and line up. Then they decided to check out the seatings first before making any decision. I wasn't in the queue with them because I was standing far away watching trailers for "Great Day" as I was still under the influence from the show. All I saw was the 3 of them lined up patiently and seconds later I saw them taking out 4 pieces of red notes and at that time I told myself "Oh Shieeeet...."

So 15 minutes later, we all sat down in the screening Hall again. This time with the movie "Paranomal Activity 2".

And I rather not to discuss about this show as the four of us were traumatised after walking out from the hall. On the way back everyone was asking each other about its climax part but none of us knew because we all were covering our eyes during that part. =.=

Everything was so spontaneous that evening. But I like the spontaness behind it so much. It has been a long time already since I last had this kinda spontaneous excitement wei... lol.

A Wedding Dinner

2011-01-19T08:54:00.120-07:00

So half a month ago on new year eve, I drove myself back on a lovely morning and reached Taiping just in time for breakfast with the parents. Leaving behind the crazy new year eve celebration in KayEl and return to peacefulness in Rain Town for a few days.

Well, part of the reason for me making this random trip back was actually due to this :-

Mei Jun's (Niel) wedding dinner.

on 1111. Nice date heh ?

All these while I have been telling her to invite me for their wedding dinner when they two finally decide to make everything official and legal. Therefore when I got informed by her about the time and date, I just gotta confirmed my attendance with her. A promise is always meant to be fulfilled right?

When I told most of my friends that I was about to go back to attend a wedding dinner of a friend, the first question that popped out from them were about her age and they were pretty shocked to find out that she was actually the same age as me. I know a lot of people might be wondering what are they thinking when they are still at such a young age but what I want to say is, when the time comes and you are sure that you have met the right person, age shouldn't be the barrier to pen your signature on that piece of paper right?

I was kinda worried about not seeing many familar faces over there at first, but thankfully everything went fine. =)

Dinner started punctually at 8pm.

A good tradition that shall be continue. =)

Overall the food was nice.

And everyone on the table was drinking Red Wine like no tomorrow.

You know, the usual drinking challenge stuffs....

with Shien Ching.

with Meggie Lye.

with Sheng Jean and Hua Jin

yam-sheng-ing with Max and Mei Jun.

And Max got rashes on his back the next morning consequences of too much drinking that night. It took him quite some days to heal.
Felt so bad about it. lol.

with Poh Cheng
when all the guests were about to leave

we went on stage to take more photos.

with the bride herself.

spoted these cute small kids.

inside the lift.

went to Station One after that to chill out a while.

What a way for her to start her 2011. New journey starting from a new year. Offering the both of them my very best wishes for this journey of the life time. Was kinda touched to see the both of them walking together on that red carpet. And felt nice hanging out with those people who I don't often have the chance to. Great Night indeed. ^^

So, who's next to have another wedding dinner?? =P

(all photos are taken from Meggie Lye's Camera)

Beijing Trip Part 6

2011-01-17T05:21:00.067-07:00

Name : Beijing Trip Day 4
Date : 30th December 2009
Place : ShanXi DaTong Hanging Monastery and YunGang Grottoes

So I did mention in the last post that we had left The Great Wall and went to a town name DaTong 大同 right? The town of DaTong is located inside ShanXi Province 山西省 and because ShanXi is geographically nearer to Siberia so the weather in ShanXi is usually colder especially during Winter season. I can still remember during our time over there (around 1 day only) the temperature was like -10°C to -19°C, and just for comparing, the coldest temperature around Beijing was only around -8°C according to our tour guide.

The town of DaTong is famous for coal mining. Most of the citizen in DaTong are involved in Coal business from Miner to Owner. And I can tell you the Mine Owners are seriously very rich. Here is a link just for you to see the standard of rich I meant. One more thing about DaTong is for the famous traffic jam. Due to the increasing demand for Coal during Winter, there will be trucks and trucks carrying coal out from DaTong to other nearby province. Well, believe it or not, we did actually got involved in the traffic jam, =.= , and I will come back on it later.

Nevertheless, DaTong still has a lot to offer in Tourism and that was why we were there all the way from Beijing just to visit them... Allright end of Introduction. =)

It snowed the day before our arrival, that's why everywhere looked so whitey. This was taken from our bus. The window was frozen and I had to defrost them with tissue papers first before able to take any photos.

But it was a nice morning.
Nice Landscape.

Mini traffic jam on the way up.
We were already stucked in the bus for 1 or 2 hours,
so we decided to walk the distance in order to reach our destination.

Walking and shivering under the cold strong wind.

slow and becareful.

The road was slippery due to the snow.

So here is our first destination of the day.

The Hanging Monastery or also known as the Hanging Temple.

It was really built into the cliff and hanging in mid-air seriously.

Printing my footstep on the snow. lol.

1 of our tour member and also our ShanXi tour guide.

Posing in front of the Hanging Temple.

Our turn to pose.

Actually the Hanging Temple is already more than 1500 years old but still hanging strong today. Astonishing architecture no?

Crossing the bridge to reach the opposite cliff.

watch your steps as you climb the snowy and slippery stairs

it says that the temple is hanging at 75m above ground and used to be even higher.

the small entrance door.

erhm....seriously is there a satellite TV inside??

Hello there.

the stairs were so hard to climb

because the area was so small.

poetry by unknown poet.

too hazardous for us visitors to climb.

Typical roof carvings.

Wind Chime.

view from the cliff.

They say the pillars weren't actually supporting the building.

Well, it is up to individuals to buy it or not.

Nice paintings on the crossbeam.

the corridor was narrow too. Just enough space for 1 person.

The main hall 大雄宝殿.

Uncle, watch your head.

photo of the day.

trying out some bokeh effect.

haha. I certainly did look weird over here..

Allright, here is an overview of the hanging temple, we started off visiting level 1 of the first temple, then walked across the narrow cliff to the second temple. Climbed 1 floor up and slowly walked our way back to the first temple. Not allowed to go up to the highest level (level 3) though. It was somehow a routined journey as we couldn't really walk freely around the temple but to follow our tour guide carefully. Guess the old wooden hanging-in-the-air structure couldn't afford too many visitors running on it at one time?

Time to leave this magnificent piece of architecture behind.

snowy cliff...

with the hanging temple as background.

Looked happy with what they saw...

Winter Sonata feel perhaps ??

frozen river.

back to the hanging bridge.

with the majestic Mount Heng 恒山 behind.

the pulley that ties the bridge.

love this Siberia forest feel.

playing with my own shadow.

Our bus couldn't come to the ticket counter to pick us up because the traffic jam still wasn't cleared. So everyone had to walked like 15 minutes down the slope (just like how we walked up just now) under the ever-freezing weather. 1 of the toughest and most tiring walking journey that I had ever experienced.

After lunch we then departed to our second and last destination of the day.

which was around a 2 hours driving distance from we had lunch. Well, it shouldn't take that long usually but again you know, the traffic jam...

So here is it,

The YunGang Grottoes 云冈石窟.

one of the three most famous ancient sculptural sites of China.

and was constructed more than 1500 years ago.

Cave 5 and Cave 6 (the largest one of all) are twin caves.

and inside the center of Cave 6 stands a 17-meters tall Buddha Statue with other smaller statues around the four sides of the cave. So as you entered the cave, you might see a sky full of Buddha Statues.

Photography isn't allowed inside the Cave.

Therefore I can only describe them through words. Too bad. lol.

The east part of the area are mainly dominated by these kinda pagodas which is the entrance to the mentioned caves.

While the west parts are mainly these grottoes which I will classify them as the "outdoor" one.

Exposing to the wind over the years, you can observe erosion all over the statues. Can't fight against the nature huh ?

Cave 16 to Cave 20 also also known as The Five Caves Of Monk Tanyao. They were also the five earliest cave and perhaps their main attractions.

wonder how the colour can still be preserved after all the years.

in front of one cave.

thanks one uncle from our tour for helping us out in this photo. Although not so nicely taken. =.=

These caves weren't open to visitors due to unknown reason.

so we could only observe and take photos from outside.

the loss of valuable Buddha statues due to Thefting. *sigh*

one large statue depicting one of their ruler during the Northen Wei Dynasty.

it was near to the end of their operation hour and there were security guards rushing us to finish our tour faster so that they could go home early. But who cared about what they said wei... =)

they really made use of every inches to carve eh...

these mini size statues were only around 2cm tall. Nice pieces of carving but again heavily damaged by erosion. Such a waste.

another huge statue depicting another ruler of theirs in the Northen Wei Dynasty.

Another huge Sitting Buddha.

smaller statues beside him.

A comparison (with humans below) to show how huge those statues are.

1 of the landmark statue in YunGang Grottoes.

famous for its friendly smile to the visitors.

the three of us with our ShanXi tour guide Miss Yan.

do you ever wonder how long they took to make something this huge?

Ops... The moon was up already... Seriously we should leave now...

and that's all for our ShanXi tour.

By schedule we should be going back to Beijing on that night itself. Stopped by the town center of DaTong to have some dinner and brief shopping while waiting for the traffic jam in highway to ease a little bit, but it still took us so long to reach Beijing. Forgotten the exact number of hours got stucked in the traffic jam but it was very very long and everyone was sleeping all the way. At one point the bus driver even turned off the engine while waiting for the traffic to move, so all of us was like trapped in the dark cold bus for half an hour (at least?). By the time we reached our hotel in Beijing (春晖园温泉度假村) it was already around 3am. Luckily we still had the hot spring jacuzzi bath in our room itself to compensate this tiring ShanXi trip. Oh wait a minute, or it was just me who still had the energy and mood to "Jacuzzi" at 3 something in the morning? lol....

Unforgettable experience in ShanXi 山西 by the way. For the goods and the bads. ^^

Coming Up Next : First Time Experience of Skiing on New Year Eve.

Resurface

2011-01-14T16:01:00.006-07:00

My first proper post for the year 2011, and can you see that the posting date is already 15th January? Without much notice it has been half a month since I briefly recapped about what I had gone through for the past 1 year (a real brief one therefore without any photos) just before 2010 came to an end And I seriously do not remember was there anymore longer post drought in the past ever since I started blogging. However, I do hope that this will be an ever-lasting record. =)

As you might recall, I went back Taiping on new year eve for a friend's wedding dinner the next evening. It was a tiring journey back home not only because I slept little before that but also I departed from Cyberjaya as early as 6am in the morning. Still remember that new year eve was a public holiday due to our national football team's heroic performance in the AFC Suzuki Cup final?

Honestly was there any necessary to declare a national public holiday just to "literally" celebrate the achievement within ASEAN region? This shows the droughts in our national spots are.even worse than a desert. You see, part of the reason that forced me to depart so early was to avoid the usual massive traffic jam occurred during public holiday. At time, I doubted this theory because the traffic was kinda smooth, but then maybe it was due to the fact that it was a morning.

I will leave the wedding dinner for another post but it felt nice to be at home for a couple of days just before I entered one of the busiest and tension moments in this final year. First I had 2 assignment due date within the first week of January. 1 proposal based assignment and 1 question based assignment and both due dates were only seperated by 3 days. Then I had to rush for some progress in my final year project part 1, which the presentation coming right after that (second week of January).

Yesh, I do feel guilty for causing this post drought and now I am ~~making up excuse~~ explaing the reasons behind it. Sigh, I am really starting to feel that the stress and tense that a final year student is suppose to have is increasing exponentially day by day wei...

Anyway, I just did my part 1 presentation yesterday morning. It wasn't a good one in my opinion and in fact I find it was one of the worst presentaion that I have ever conducted in MMU. I left out a lot of things that I am suppose to explain and I think my supervisor wasn't really that satisfied even though he was smiling all the way as usual.

So now since my presentation was done before most of my coursemates even finish doing their presentation slides, I guess right now I can have more time to prepare for my final exam. Not totally a bad thing huh? But what comes first is that I will need the short weekend to rest myself well since I haven't been sleeping nicely for the past 1 week. Insommia due to stress I suspect? =.=

The Eve Of 2011

2010-12-31T08:23:00.119-07:00

As 2010 is drawing to an end, everyone is bidding goodbye to 2010 and making resolutions for this coming new year.

I can still remember that I was in Beijing China for last year's new year eve, initially I was hoping for a New Year Countdown or Fireworks at the Tian An Men Square but the weather was too cold to persuade me to leave my comfy room. Furthermore, our tour guide told us that apparently the locals don't really celebrate 1st Jan, instead they focus more on Chinese New Year according to the Lunar Calender. By the way, until now I still think that whatever he said about the celebration was a lie. So in the end, I spent the whole night staying in my warm hotel room watching TV programmes (such as their national orchestra performances, both western and eastern and dramas) and even fall asleep before the clock strucked 12am.

As for this year's new year eve, I am currently back to the small peaceful town of Taiping for the wedding ceremony of a friend of mine which will be tomorrow. 1/1/11 = 1111. Meaningful date huh? Sitting in front of my laptop while listening to the "noise" of Fireworks and Fire-Cracker. Reading people's new year shoutouts in Facebook and Twitter. Switching my mood to nostalgic and starting to recall on everything happened within the last 1 year.

Another quiet yet peaceful New Year countdown for me.

Frankly speaking, this 2010 wasn't really quite smooth for me. Stressful Tension moments and Heart-Breaking moments keep playing the "Catch Me If You Can" game for the first half of the year. Thankfully I did manage to step out from the shadow during the second half of the year, especially during my 5 months internship period. You know sometimes if you take a step backwards from the circle and observe it with a third person point of view, you can actually view the entire situation clearer and thus evaluate the relationship better. With that, when disappointment strikes either an individual or the group, we can handle the down side of our emotion better and stronger.

Here is a link to the video of the World's famous new year Fireworks at Syndey Harbour Bridge. Nice Fireworks indicating a fabolous new year ahead.

And this London Fireworks were even better. Check it out. (updated on 2/1/11)

Any new year resolution form me?? Well, I just hope that me can graduate smoothly by the end of this coming May. The rest?? I think I will take a step at a time. =)

Happy New Year eveyone.
May this coming 2011 brings more health, wealth and love to everyone.
Cheers.

This December

2010-12-28T12:53:00.010-07:00

2 more days before the month of December reaches to an end. So far it has been a month to be cherished. Good enough to compensate the remaining portion of the year that hasn't been so good in my opinion. And here are some recaps on some happening momentss for the last 29 days.

Early of the month before our mid-term break started,

we went to Mount Kiara on a quiet night.

To a Japanese Buffet Restaurant name Tenji.

In conjuction with Julian and Pei Se's Birthday few days later.

The place was nice and high class.

But not so much variety on the food.

I mean you are expecting something more than that when you are paying for that amount right ?

Then during the Mid-term break, I went to Singapore for a few days with my family.

Although I did have a tough week after returning to campus from the mid-term break, due to my poor performance in the last two mid-term papers of my degree year. I did have a short period of down moments after that but that's allright for now already. =)

Then on 14th Dec night, everyone took the effort to come out for a while to celebrate yours truly's birthday.

Smiles that come from deep inside your heart always look the best.
Agree ?

Didn't have the time to do any year-end shopping nor Christmas shopping due to undisclose reasons.

And the only time that I visited a shopping mall in KayEl was during a midnight movie session. Where all the shops were already closed. But you felt like you owned the whole mall to do whatever you want with these Giant bears.

Then a week later, everyone gathered around again to celebrate Yin Fung and Way Chow's Birthday.

Then few days later, it was Christmas eve and we spent the night on the peak of Genting Highland.

The crowd was there but not so for the Countdown.

Everyone was like expecting something spectacular from somewhere.

And 12am just passed by without most of us noticing it.

But we still had funs up there though.

Spent a few hours chit-chatting at Starbuck while waiting for the rest to come out from the Casino. By the way, I managed to resist myself from changing any cash chips. ^^

And I love this shot so much,

was from my Sony Ericsson P1i not so smart smartphone.

and less than 12 hours after we came down from Genting, we gathered around again for some sort of Christmas Party. As you can see, we had a Christmas tree and a lots of presents one wei...

And it was also Tze Ing the Christmas Boy's birthday.

Everyone with the blink blink Christmas Tree.

And everyone with their presents.

Will not be celebrating 2011 New Year eve with them so I guess that should be the fullstop for a wonderful December and a mix-fortuned 2010.

I hope 2011 will be a better yaer. Will it be ?

The Love Towards Christmas Balls

2010-12-24T10:28:00.002-07:00

You know Christmas is pretty much just around the corner when you can make shots like this.

2009-12-24 Christmas Eve @ Pavilion

2009-12-26 @ Genting.

2009-12-27 @ Beijing Hollyear Hotel

2010-1-2 @ Beijing 前门大街.

Got snow on it somemore.

2010-12-02 @ Tenji Restaurant Mount Kiara

2010-12-6 @ Singapore Sentosa Island

2010-12-7 @ Singapore Vivo City.

2010-12-8 @ Random Singapore ClubHouse.

2010-12-19 @ Midvalley Megamall.

2010-12-19 still @ Midvalley Megamall.

So quiet no people walking around behind me. lol.

2010-12-25 @ SK27.

Previous years Christmas was just like another normal day to me.

Started to enjoy the celebration of Christmas since 2 years ago.

Hence the date of photos taken.

Here is a Christmas advertisement video from Coca-Cola.

Find it quite interesting to be shared around.
The atmosphere in this video is just so warm.

So how's your countdown fella's?

Merry Christmas Everyone.

and Looking Forward to a Happy New Year.

Ho-Ho-Ho...

Beijing Trip Part 5

2010-12-22T08:34:00.181-07:00

Allright, after so many days of delay (since part 4) due to mid-term holiday follwed closely by mid-term exams, now I have the tiniest gap of free time to construct this part 5 of our 2009 trip. And speaking of it, isn't it 2010 is already coming to an end ?? Gosh, the messy time line.... =.=

~~~

Name : Beijing Trip Day 3 Part 2
Date : 29th December 2009
Place : The Great Wall of China @ JuYongGuan

So we continue from where we stopped at in the last post,

on half way climbing up the Great Wall.

forgotten how long finally we managed to reach one end.
Just one side of it only though.

Seeing 4 of our tour members walking around down there.

excluding this small little girl.

the sky was so nice that day.

Hah...now that looking back at this photo,

I remember this couple.

1 from the States and 1 from Beijing.

They were in their honeymoon at that time.

and revisiting Beijing after many many years.

knew all these from a nice short chat with them. =)

I looked so small...lol...

We reached one end, and couldn't go any further.
Well, since there was nobody else there.

A perfect opportunity to have our own sweet time taking photos.

Jump 1.

Jump 2.

slow-mo walking.

My turn to jump jump jump...

After that, decided to take a short rest

since there were only the two of us.

we sat down, took a deep breath
and enjoyed the beautiful scenary.

tried to take a panorama shot but fail.

So can only post up seperate pieces of it. =.=

And everything turned even more beautiful when it approached sun set time.

playing with my shadow.

it is true, such historical structures sure need everyone's cooperation to take good care of it.

Endless wall....

Mountains on the other side of the wall.

Favourite photo of the day. ^^

Time to slowly walk back down the hill.

See how steep was it ??

walking down the Great Wall is never easier than climbing up.

Because when you were walking downwards,

you could see how steep it is in front of you.

And the strong wind kept blowing you off-balance.

An example just in case you don't understand what I mean.

Things doesn't look that scary when you are walking upwards right ??

but the view looked totally different from here.

just had to hold on tight to the handrail to prevail the strong wind.

Sharp corner.

Gaya sial....

just so sad to see such Vandalisme act.

How selfish were they...

Continue walking down.

with the mystery locks...

my hair was so messy after taking off the winter hat...

we were back to this stone slab again.

and he demanded another photo with it.

trying to measure how high was it.

reaching the foothill.

back to the pass gate.

favourite photo of the day number 2.

Look at the old couple at the right bottom corner.

"执子之手，与子谐老".

From here, the Great Wall looked grand.

I mean it has been so Grand all the while,
but to be able to see it with your own eyes,

it was like "wow, how these people built it wei..."

and "how could the ancient soldiers stand climbing it everyday up and down??"

These hills were high, as I mentioned before,

it was more like climbing up a hill more than literally climbing any wall. but the excitement just keep driving you to go forward and forward,

until you reach one end.

and you don't really feel that tired after all.

it is 1 of the places that you're definitely coming back for a second taste. =)

we discovered this at the other side of the pass gate.

do you think it is a real one ??
or just an artifact ??

hey, I saw a familiar orange shirt guy down there.

discovered another small building nearby,

looked like a temple.

signalling an end to our Great Wall journey...

He was randomly pointing at a spot.

one of my stupidest posing photo...lol...

As an ending of this Great Wall trip.

A panorama shot of the Great Wall before we went back to our bus.

Some may noticed that Mrs. Phoon has been missing from this post.

Actually she just climbed half way only,

After she got tired she went back to the bus along with other Aunties,

While me and my brother went all the way Up...hehehe...

We left Beijing for ShanXi 山西 right after that.

Was a roughly 4 hours bus trip. Was sleeping all the way though.

Reached a town in ShanXi named DaTong 大同 around 8pm.

and had their famous ShanXi steamboat 山西火锅 as dinner.
As usual, the Night ended quite early.

and we would be travelling around DaTong the next day.

But what's over there for us to make such a long trip?

Coming Up Next : All the way for a Hanging Temple and Buddhist Temple Grottoes...under such extreme cold weather....like seriously??

1 4 3 5 2

2010-12-19T08:21:00.022-07:00

Look what the MMU server has done to us again this time. They are trying to conduct a survey regarding Student's Satisfactory towards various campus services such as lecture room, finance department, teaching materials and etc.

Sometimes it is not that I ain't cooperative enough to participate in some meaningless survey like this. Furthermore, what else can you do when they put this sruvey prior the Student Information Center website so that every student has to fill in the survey before they can proceed to check their record for attendance or even result (such as internship result).

Here is a printscreen of the survey form. I was half-way doing it when I suddenly realise that I just have to print screen it because it was just too ~~funny~~ weird giving an answer.

1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Agree and 5 = Strongly Agree.

So what if I wish to agree on something, shall I click the second left column, where the number Four is printed?? or the second right column, where the real number Four is supposed to be. So confusing until there is no way you can answer this survey in serious mood right ?

Few days ago some friend brought up this topic during a random discussion. Well, this is how he answered the survey. Being Neutral in every aspect by clikcing the number Three. Apparently that is how your answer can't go wrong nor you being too mean to the campus.

I know it might be a glitch, but if it is so, don't tell me no one complained about this matter and if there is really someone who complained about it, Why don't they take any action to correct it and instead leave it how the way it is ??

山长水远就是为了一本书

2010-12-17T08:47:00.005-07:00

今天下午刚从学校办完事回来过后，

就硬硬拉了一位朋友出来陪我去IOI走一趟。
目的就是为了去那边的大众书局找一本书。

是的，就是这本，

叶子麟博士的＂冷眼横眉＂部落格文集。

其实IOI也不会说很远啦，
只是放工时间塞车一下，
路程变得比较久些而已。
喝喝喝。

由于是晚辈的关系，
所以不好意思直接称呼他的网名＂Botak＂，
在这里称呼他为子麟博士会比较好一些。
印象中好像是在几个月前实习的那段时间，
一天在公司里无聊中上网胡乱搜索的时候，
无意中发现了他的部落格。
从此也就喜欢上他所写的文章，
可以说是几乎每天都会去潜水一番。

基本上他所写的都是一些评论大马时事的东西，
里头很有他自己的见解，
而且用词很特别，
所以在博客界里很受欢迎，
好像他把大家的心声都狠狠地拿出来大骂一番。
我呢，不敢说对国家时事的东西看得很透，
可能是社会经验少的缘故，看不出来政客们葫芦里买的是什么药。
虽然有自己的想法，不过还是鲜少与朋友们交换意见，
毕竟朋友里头也没有几个人是会去关注国家时事。
所以有时侯多读点时事评论员的想法，
还是觉得蛮有意思的。
当然，子麟博士的部落格并不是唯一一个选择。

那不久前呢，从他的部落格里得知他会出一本文集，
新书推介礼就在星期四（昨天），
虽然推介礼晚上有考试不能到场，
而且也不太熟去雪华堂的路，
但还是很有兴趣想去买一本回来看看。
读一读他之前在英国千里之外所评的大马政坛。
嘿，没想到还真的给我在书局里找到这本书，
就在新书堆那儿。
随同的朋友还问我＂哇，你不会等别人买了借来读啊？＂
反倒给我问回＂喂，你身边有几个朋友会买这样子的书哦＂

那不久前呢，从他的部落格里得知他会出一本文集，
新书推介礼就在星期四（昨天），
虽然推介礼晚上有考试不能到场，
而且也不太熟去雪华堂的路，
但还是很有兴趣想去买一本回来看看。
读一读他之前在英国千里之外所评的大马政坛。
嘿，没想到还真的给我在书局里找到这本书，
就在新书介绍那堆里。
随同的朋友还问我＂哇，这些书你不会等别人买了借来读啊？＂
我反倒问他＂喂，你身边有几个朋友会买这样子的书哦＂
很奇怪，明明我就是没那多余的时间去读课业以外的书，
可是最近书本呢还是买了一本接一本。
是准备给我毕业后没工做的时候读的吗？
哈哈，到时候就知道了咯。

个人觉得呢，
都是大学生了，
是时候开始关注一下我们国家的走势了，
不要盲目地跟随别人说＂改变＂就改变。
用自己的眼睛观察，
自己觉得需要改变，
那才用行动去改变。

国家未来的栋梁们，
你们明白吗？

p/s : 大家如果有兴趣想读一读子麟博士的部落格，可以去我旁边的link那儿找哦。

22 years of Age

2010-12-14T08:56:00.019-07:00

22 years of age,
is a time to step up a gear in life,
is a time to know yourself better what you want in life,
is a time to see yourself what will you be doing in few years time,
is a time to pay more attention towards family far away,
is a time to evaluate friendships around you.
is a time to have your real own life.

and I am doing so in real slow pace.

Didn't really expect much for this year's celebration, even though I am located in an intelligent city name Cyberjaya. Certainly sandwiching between the last 2 mid-term exams in my degree year contributed a large potion to its reason.

But still,

A million thanks for the simple yet meaningful celebration before I went back for the cruel week. For unknown reason I felt so awkward at that time. Perhaps it was due to the lol.

Appreciate the effort
and
Happy Birthday.
22 years old already I am,
Time to go out and make a difference I should.

13 / 12 / 10 of Pretty Much Screwed Up

2010-12-13T08:47:00.001-07:00

Nothing Much to Describe,
No long introduction paragraph as usual.
Just a few line to rumble out everything,
I screwed up my mid-term test just now.
My second last mid-term test in Degree year.
And I totally failed it.
I knew it once I saw the questions,
and it was double confirmed judging from the lecturer's expression after he collected my answer sheets.
It was like he couldn't believe a Final Year student would write out such ridiculous answers.
And yea, now I am face-recognised by him already.

I wouldn't blame it on the recent Singapore trip.
My memorizing skills has been deteriorating since n-years ago.
Even if 1 more week is given I still won't be able to handle all those lengthy words.
In my opinion, this subject is already a nonsense.
Fitting all 4 years of Optical Majoring studies into 10 chapters 1 subject.
And given a Lecturer who does best at slides narratting,
and treating last minute class cancelation as a fortnight hobby,
I should have see it coming.
But still, the failure is just too hard to swallow.

Last mid-term of Degree year coming this Thursday.
Finger cross I really hope that I am not screwing this up again.
Not a good start to the days after my mid-term break.

~~~

*updates*
Just finished the last mid-term paper of my Degree year,
equally screwed up as well,
I knew I can do the questions but somehow just couldn't get the calculation right.
Man, is it final year subjects getting really way so hard,
or is it true that I am losing my touch on my studies??
Darn...... >.<

Back From Singapore

2010-12-10T07:34:00.004-07:00

Hollo Malaysia,

and

Hollo Cyberjaya (Megamind's style).

Just to inform that

We are back from the island of Singapore.

Talking about Singapore,

I always wonder the same thing,
if Singapore didn't leave Malaysia 35 years ago,

Will it be such developed as today?

Hm...what's your answer then?

Well, Back to our trip.
Didn't really visit that many places during the trip,
Mostly also window-shopping here and there,
Things over there are so expensive when converted back to RM.
>.<

Some photo preview first,
detail posts in future. =)

Didn't get to go in anyway

due to time constraint. >.<

But the Singapore River cruising made up for it.

Got to visit some relatives too.

And the Orchard Road Christmas Decoration lives up to its expectation.

The street lights are way too beautiful than Jalan Bukit Bintang. lol.

If I will have to really point out 1 bad thing about Singapore, that has to be their currency conversion rate. Why lar $ has to be more expensive than RM ??