Trip to KL Feb/Mar ‘08

My recent visit to KL this weekend was a fruitful one. I was able to meet up with many of my old friends – my ex-roommate, ex-coursemates and some of the Malaysia 6. I haven’t seen some of them for up to more than 2 years already. It’s a great gathering; the feel was still the same as good old times.

The yummy beef noodle at Petaling Street

My favourite at Genki Sushi

Me and my ex-roommate
Gathering at Coffee Bean, Midvalley

Jun and I

WSS and Pak Yong

Dinner at OUG, special treat by WSS

Lam Mee at Old Town, Cyberjaya, big portion!

Me and Huwi Yin at KLIA Transit Station, Putrajaya

Waiting for my train to KLIA (not taking MAS, but AirAsia)

KLIA
I like this slogan

Level 2 - Passed!

I am happy to announce that, I have finally passed JLPT Level 2! *sob sob* After many attempts, finally... My heart was popping very fast when my teacher hanged over to me the envelop. I immediately looked for the tiny little paper, which is the result slip. After a while... Yes yes! I finally got it! It's like a dream come true!

2008 CNY

This year's CNY sure is a happening one: gatherings, "makan" etc. As the saying goes, a picture paint a thousand words. Below are some of the pics taken:

Deparment CNY celebration, team 168

God of Prosperity
Lion Head

Seafood at Hai Boey on the 7th Day

High School ex-Classmates Gathering

Primary School Gathering

The Road Not Taken

Those who's around my age would have known this poem, because it's in the school syllabus, by Robert Frost:

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there,
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost has taken the path not taken by many others and became a poet. Recently, I am at the crossroads too, deciding whether I should take the road which is more grassy. Every road leads to an unknown path, the future is not decided, unless we make our own decision and actions.

Chinese New Year Eve

Today is Chinese New Year Eve. I get to leave 1/2 day earlier for reunion dinner. Not many people come to work today, there's less traffic on the road but the atmosphere is there. As usual, there's police officers on standby near the Snake Temple. Luckily I didn't make an illegal U-turn.

After work, I spent most of the time cleaning. Th weather sure is very hot! It made me feel lazy and sweaty (no air-condition at home). My dad was busy washing cars; mum was doing housework; bro was occupying the PC and folding origami roses. Too bad, those roses are not for me. I did helped out too, by putting on the two "mousy" decos on the front door.

Recently I have being calling up my ex-classmates for gathering, but it seems that most of the phone numbers in the graduation magazine is no longer valid. I have being receiving voice messages that sounds like "The number that you have dialled is not in service. Nombor yang anda dial tiada dalam perkhidmatan kami." Gosh, these kind of numbers are increasing! Sooner or later, I may not be able to contact most of them via the graduation magazine. Many of them are unable to attend the gathering due to: -
(1) Not in Penang
(2) Family gathering

Hopefully I get more angpows this year, wahahaha! Wishing you all Happy Chinese Year!

Happy Chinese Year!

So fast, it's another year already. I still remember last year, around this time, I attended my relative's wedding, received JLPT results, received a fortune pocket, yummies from my colleagues etc. So many good things...

But, I hope that this year, all my wishes and resolutions can be fulfilled. Else, everything will be turned into nothing but a dream.

Do you remember any memorable dinner with your family and friends? Chinese New Year is always the time for gatherings, especially this year, when we can have 4 days holiday in a go. Make sure you make full use of it!

Short Trip to KL '08

Last weekend I made a short trip to KL and Cyberjaya. It's been around 3-4 months since I last been there. This time, it's to attend my close friend's wedding. I was shocked when Sylvia told me about her wedding. She's the first among my coursemates to get married. The wedding was held at night and at a multipurpose hall in Putrajaya. The stage is surprisingly grand. The hall was covered with wooden floors. Reminded me of a dancing studio.

During this short trip, I had met up with several friends: Travis, Ross, Huwi Yin, Sylvia and Jin. Huwi Yin is very nice to let this "free-loader" to stay in her room for 2 nights. I had met up some new friends, also get to know that "this world is very small". When she showed me the pictures taken with some Intel-ians, I noticed a few people whom I know through Toastmasters.

In addition, I had been to several places where I have always wanted to go - Ikea, The Curve, IOI Mall and Sepang F1 Circuit:-

Ikea - There's many nice furnitures at Ikea, even though I have heard from my friends so many times, it's my 1st time going there. Some of the furniture designs and ideas are really creative.

The Curve - A place with many luxurious restaurants.

IOI Mall - A place frequently visited by MMU Cyberjaya students. The nearest place to watch movie from Cyberjaya. But, the worst cinema that I had been to. Even though the movie ticket is cheaper by RM2, the seating is terrible and there's a smell in the cinema. Worst, I was seeing "rambutans" more than the movie screen.

Sepang F1 Circuit - Place for Formula F1 (racing cars). There's hardly any living creature when we visited. The whole place is very huge. There were several cars practicing at that time, we can hear the "voo" sound.

Dim Sum @ Happy Garden - According to Jin, it's a place famous for Dim Sum near Kuchai Lama. The taste - quite similar to Penang's. Haha... really much more better than I expected.

******

The last few moments of my KL trip, a photo with my "room and transport manager" in LCCT. Thanks a lot for bringing me around.

Happy New Year!

This year's xmas and new year celebration sure is a grand one. "Grand" as in there's a lot of party -> food. Too much of something is not good. I am beginning to suffer from these luxurious foods.

Today, I get to go home earlier. I departed from my office at 3pm but there are a lot of cars on the streets, which is something very unusual in a hot and sunny Monday afternoon. There’s a rumour that the petrol's price is going to increase again. Thus, petrol stations are packed with even more cars than ever. Phew~

Cheah Chee's Big Day

December 23 is Cheah Chee's wedding. The ESG gang was invited to become "chee mui" (sisters) during her wedding day. Here we were, all dressed up in white, anxiously waiting to see the bride.

The bride waiting for the bridegroom's arrival. She's so beautiful.
Too bad we didnt took a photo of all the "chee mui" together. It would have being a very nice one.

My New *Handphone*

I bought a new phone recently, to be exact 1 week ago. Time to say goodbye to my >3 yrs Nokia. After 3 Nokia phones, I decided to get a SE instead. Based on some online recommendations, I decided to go for this camera phone, with a nice camera:

The pictures taken are actually much clearer than I thought, it's like camera quality with auto focus. Wahahaha... next time I can take more photos without bringing along my camera :)

Merry Christmas

"Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!" The festive season is approaching. This year, I made my own e-Card. The background is taken in a gift shop and with some touch up:

For this year's xmas party, I got some soft toys:

Birthday Celebration

This year, I celebrated my birthday on Dec 7, instead of the actual date. I was surprised when my team leader called us for a dinner that morning. She said that she had something to announce. "Announce", what would that be? Almost everyone was gone before the meeting, and I didn’t feel suspicious. I was waiting for them and Cheah Chee was ushing me to come faster. Without a second thought, I followed Astina to the meeting room.

To my surprise, they were there with a huge chocolate cake!

They also give me and my mentee, Steph a birthday card so that we can write to each other (Steph's b'day is a week later but she'll be on leave). *ting ting* the cute teddy bear cards!

At night, I had a celebration with my lunchmates at TGI Friday, Queensbay (Queena is missing in this picture).

The crew sang me a very nice and "energetic" birthday song. Hmm... singing must be the first requirement in getting a job here. They also made me standed up and shouted. So paiseh... luckily Steph is there to accompany me. I like this brown tiny piece of cake, it's very chocolatie.

Last but not least, I would like to say "Happy Birthday" to my beloved senior, Huwi Yin who share the same birthday as I, and thanks my dear friends and family members who remembered my birthday.

Life after JLPT

The long waited JLPT had finally over. Days before the exam, I was feeling very nervous. I really didn’t feel like re-taking this exam next year. Next year’s exam will fall on the day before my birthday. Thus, I must strike for this exam! This year, my not-so-cute junior, Patrick was taking the exam with me. Surprisingly, the talkative Patrick is rather quiet on that day. Perhaps he’s too nervous to say anything or too concentrate reading his notes. He told me that he’ll be leaving to Singapore for a 1 week vacation after the exam. Student life…… how wonderful!

Last year I was having a terrible time with the listening paper. Due to the room setting, there’s a lot of noise and I was hardly able to hear anything “meaningful”. This year, on the side, it was very clear and I can hear each and every word of it. However, it was too tough for me. Yet, another obstacle for me to score in my listening paper.

After the exam, I should have feel very relax. But, I did not feel so. Instead, I feel a bit down and a lot of negative thinking are lingering in my mind. Perhaps, I am not confident with my exam or too much worry. Haiz…

10 days trip to Taiwan

Finally I’m back from Taiwan! I was getting bored with the hawker food there on my last few days there. Too much of anything is indeed not good. I spent most my days in Taipei. Some of the places that I like in Taiwan are, Ye Liu Geology Park, Alisan, Mei Nong Hakka Village, A Mei Cultural Village, Feng Jia Night Market, Longshan Temple, Fisherman’s Port, Dan Sui Old Street, Eslite Bookstore 诚品书局 and Ximenting.

In short, I will say that Taiwan is a shopping paradise for girls. Quality goods are selling at a cheaper price in Taiwan.

During my visit there, it was approaching winter. Most of the clothes that they’re selling are mostly thick and long sleeves, the “free” size there is a bit too big for a timid person like me. Thus, I only manage to get a few blouses. The clothes there are very fashionable; too bad it’s not suitable to wear in Malaysia as it’s too thick for the hot weather here. The Taiwanese are all very well-dressed. Everyone walking on the streets looks like they are a movie star.

The hawker food in Taiwan ranged from around 30 to 40 TWD. Currently, 100 TWD is around RM9.25. The portion is very big, it’s better to buy 1 and share out with friends. I especially like the “mee suah” at Ximenting. The bubble milk tea there is cheaper and nicer as well. For 40 TWD, you can get an extremely large cup, enough for 2 person. There’s a lot of small coffee shops in Taiwan, the coffee, milk tea, drinks and dessert that they’re selling are much cheaper compared to Starbucks (there’s a lot of Starbucks outlets there, do not worry if you miss Starbucks in Malaysia). A great place for those who wish to hang out for some chatting.

Personally, I like to collect small, light and nicely design umbrellas. Those kind of umbrellas are relatively cheap in Taiwan and even cheaper than in China. I bought 2 fancy, good quality, small and light umbrellas at 350 TWD. 1 umbrella is around RM19. Currently in Malaysia, for such an umbrella, you definitely won’t be able to get it at RM19. Perhaps you may get it at at least RM40.

Alisan is a very nice place to visit – fresh air, nice scenery, and many weird trees which reminded me fairy tale stories. But the journey up is a very long and scary one as the road is extremely narrow. I would say that drivers’ skill there is extremely good. They can drive on such roads even without any street lights and there’re hardly any cars or houses around the area.

Transport around Taipei is very convenient. You can take the MRT around easily. Taxi charges is by meter and very expensive. Minimum payment is 70 TWD. If you want to go to places like Taipei 101 and Mei Li Hua, you can take MRT and then take the FREE shuttle bus as you get off from the MRT station. There are signboards at the MRT station there indicating which exit and bas you should take.

The bas and MRT station here very much reminded me of those in Korea.

Good points of bas service in Taiwan:
- Got indicator (where is the current location, they’re about to make a turn or break). We can easily know where we are without asking the driver.
- Only 7 TWD per ride.

Good points of MRT service in Taiwan:
- There’s a gate forbidding passengers who are waiting for the train to go over the safety zone.
- At peak stations like Taipei Station, there are personnel around to direct the passengers when the train is full.
- There’s escalators and lift at all MRT stations.

But, I did prefer the MRT station design in Korea. You can easily differentiate the stations by the design itself as all of them are different.

There are many night markets in Taiwan. If you want to buy cheap stuff, night market is the place. The cheapest night market that I come across so far is Feng Jia Night Market 逢甲夜市. This night market is named after the university located beside the market, Feng Jia University. The things there are cheaper as they’re targeting mainly students. As the things there are cheap, it attracted a huge crowd, including tourist like me. It very much reminded me of the streets near Busan National University in Busan. Things there are cheap and nice! Things that is cheap in Taiwan: towel, variety of socks, soft toys, necklace and other accessories, umbrellas, bags.

There’s a lot of unique snack food in Taiwan, one of the popular ones is “mua chee”. A bit different from those in Malaysia, it comes in a variety of flavor – green tea, peanuts, yam, chee ma and so on.

For those who forget to pack in some of their things, fear not, 7-11 shops are almost everywhere and open 24 hours to serve you with all your needs. They are selling a variety of goods, from food, umbrellas and other stuff. You can get almost anything there. The size of the 7-11 shops there vary, some maybe as small as a normal shop, some maybe as big as a drive-in fast food outlet in Malaysia. The food packaging there is very nice. There’re selling a variety of coffee in 7-11, very much reminded me of the convenience shop in Korea.

I will keep you guys updated with more info on the interesting places in Taiwan in my next post.

Meanwhile, here’s some photos:
http://flickr.com/photos/dellachew/sets/72157603141047523/

Leaving to Vacation Soon...

Dear Readers,

I'll be away to Taiwan for a vacation soon. This is strictly a self-sponsored trip and for 10 days! Thus, I am now very "pokkai". I'm currently very busy packing and completing my work. Hence, I may not be available to answer any of your chatting invitations. But, fear not, I'll be back soon.

Regards,
Your Beloved Blogger.

FY08 Q3 Birthday Celebration~

This quarter, we held our team’s birthday celebration at Kampachi, a Japanese restaurant in Equatorial Hotel. As its location implies, this is a expensive restaurant. We had our lunch there and the attendance was almost 100%. Unlike usual celebrations, this time, everyone got a goodie bag of Tupperware goodies. *Sob sob* a few of my team members will be leaving us after this quarter. Could the goodies be a farewell gift?

For photos: http://flickr.com/photos/dellachew/

Temporary Tour Guide

A few weeks ago, during the festive holiday, I became a temporary tour guide for my friend Christoph who visited Penang. It was his first time in Malaysia. He said that he's more interested food. So, I brought him to several "hotspots" for some local delicacies. He's surprisingly a small eater!

We visited several tourist attractions where I haven't been there for perhaps about 10 years ago. I always refuse to bring my local friends to Penang Hill because I feel that there's nothing much to see there. But, my recent visit there makes me change my mind. We arrived there at 8am in the morning. There weren't many people and the air was fresh and cooling as we arrived at the top station by cable car. I like the view of the clouds and mist. To my surprise, there's a canopy walk there, of course at the price of RM5 per pax if you want to try out. It was very scary especially when the "bridge" is shaking!

During this period, I had visited the butterfly farm and the Lantern Fest at Autocity, Butterworth as well.

You can find some of the photos here:
http://flickr.com/photos/dellachew/

Enjoy!

Lantern Festival

At my age, lantern festival is no longer about “tanglung” and free food. In my office, there are lanterns, but we do not light it (for safety purpose). We have celebrations, but we do it during daytime. Although the fun is not the same anymore, it’s another day of celebration. This year, we had a short celebration again in the cafeteria.

Ups and Downs

Today, super duper early in the morning, I received mails, not of compliments but complains. Later on, I found out that it was due to my mistake. Even, my director came over and asked me about it - this is something new. I feel sorry for my boss for letting her to answer so many calls regarding the issue. I guess this is part of the downs of life. The whole day I was trying to make myself "move on" as there were many pending tasks to do. I am glad that I have supporters and friends who are there to brighten up my day.

Recently, I received a shocking news from Sylvia. Aizura aka Yuya will be engaging this October and her wedding ceremony will be in January next year. She'll be the first among my coursemates to get married! Congratulations girl! Please help to spread good news if you happen to know someone who knows her.

Tired

Recently I was very exhausted. I guess many people are tense up as well. My JLPT exam is approaching yet I feel that I am not putting in enough effort on this. I am feeling a bit guilty for myself. However, after a tiring work during the day, I would prefer to enjoy myself with anime or drama series rather than revising. This kind of mix feeling, is it a signal that I am getting lazy?

Team Dinner @ G Hotel

To keep things short, yesterday night we have our team dinner at a new hotel in Gurney Drive - G Hotel. Before this there have been forward mails spreading around about the buffet of this hotel. Its dessert is especially tempting (outlooks).

Overall the food is eatable. Not much choice on the food. A lot of dessert was served. The food taste is so-so. Some are better though, but yet to reach my definition of “delicious”.

"Secret"

Yesterday, I joined my colleagues for a movie titled “Secret” by Jay Chou. This film is also directed by him. Initially, I didn’t plan to go for this movie. After hearing good comments and recommendations from my other colleagues, I decided to give it a try. The beginning of the story is rather plain and the paste is quite slow. There’s some twist and turn in the story. What I like most about the movie is the piano playing and the school uniforms. I like the design of the music room as well, very classic.

Overall, I won’t say that it’s an extremely good movie but worth watching.

Short Trip to KL

Last weekend I took a short trip to KL. It was a sudden decision make up by my crazy mind because I wanted to see fireworks! Long long time ago, I do not like fireworks. This is because there will be a huge crowd rushing to the same place, looking at the firework for 5-10 minutes. The firework wasn’t impressing at all, at least for a primary school kid like me back then. However, this has changed after an unanticipated firework during Bon Odori back in 2000. The firework was so beautiful. It was alive! However, the firework during MIFC is even nicer! I am really glad that I made an effort to go there. I really enjoy the 20 minutes firework display by the lake side in Putrajaya. Last year, when I saw Yushu’s pictures taken in Korea on the fireworks, I really feel like flying there immediately and join them with the display. Well, looks like I don’t need to do so anymore in the future as I can see them in Malaysia as well :)

During this short trip, I met up with several old friends. It’s really great to catch up with them and *update* myself. Each and every one of us is taking different paths now. But, they are all very interesting.

MIFC - Fireworks Competition

The fireworks competition is now on from August 18-September 2. Nations from Australia, Japan, Italy and Malaysia will be competing for the Merdeka trophy. Venue: PICC (Putrajaya International Convention Center).

From the photos posted in the forums, it's really really beautiful! How I wish I can fly there now! How I wish I could have a high-end camera for all these photo shooting...

Here is the schedule of the competition:
http://www.mifc.com.my/test/mc/information.html

Here are some links with photos:
http://www.photomalaysia.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30835
http://www.photomalaysia.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30940
http://flickr.com/photos/tags/mifc/

Thanks!

Thanks for those who have been supporting me for my speech contest:
- My dear couch for the contest - Kelly/Gan-san. Thanks for spending your time to rehearse with me. It has helped me a lot.
- Kevin and PJiuan for the support.
- Pateriku-san for leaving comment at my blog.
- and those names not mention here.

It's great to have friends like you all. I really miss those times back in MMU!

The Sad Rice Cooker

Today, I attempted my first public speech contest - Japanese Speech Contest, Penang preliminary. I was quite confident that I will do well for this contest. However, things didn't turn out to be the way that I expected. I was quite disappointed when the MC announced that I won the 4th prize. Anyway, I brought home with 3 presents - a non-functionable calculator and mousepad combo, a Japanese conversation book and a Panasonic rice cooker.

My mum has always wanted to buy a new rice cooker, a more advance one since our current rice cooker is rather "old". However, since it's still functionable, we didn't buy a new one as replacement. Finally, it's time to change to a new rice cooker, with non-stick features and a special holder to steam food. For me, this is a sad rice cooker. It reminded me that I have got the 4th prize and fail to get into the finalist.

Anyway, I feel that I should join the next competition. Hopefully, I do not get another rice cooker the next time. Somehow, rice cooker now has a new meaning for me - rice cooker = failure.

Muka Head

Yesterday, I joined my colleagues for an expedition to Muka Head! It was a rather tiring journey but it's adventurous! It's great to see the monkeys and little crabs by the beach. I like the cool breeze, it's so refreshing... I sprained my ankle a bit *ouch* but thank god it's nothing serious :) My mother warned me not to go the night before as I was not feeling well, but I am glad that I make it there. It's another great experience with friends!

Here are some of the photos taken:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dellachew/

I have included photos of some of the yummy dishes taken the appreciation dinner at Kirishima, a Japanese food restaurant in Cititel Hotel, Penang.

July Events

Recently I have been rather busy. You may wonder, “busy with what?” - friends’ birthdays, attending events and meetings, meeting old friends and going for trip. Events are such as MATTA fair, recycling programme, Bon Odori and farewell.

One of my counterparts has decided to move on to another position in my company. He was a loud person and we used to talk about the way he talked and his behavior. However, after he leaves, I sort of miss the times when he makes a lot of noise. It kills the silence and tension here. Whenever I moved to a new cubicle, I will feel that something is missing - voices of people surrounding me, their phone conversations and their laughter. Last time, I used to complain about an Indian fellow sitting near my cube. He always talks loudly. Every single word he said, we were able to hear it clearly. The situation got worse after office hours as his volume increased. But now, I would like to thank this “speaker phone” for his noisiness. Without his “voice”, it would be very quiet and scary in the office if I staying back for extra work.

During MATTA fair, I registered for a trip to Taiwan in November with my colleagues and some friends. Hopefully everything turns out well. A short trip to MATTA fair turns out to be a lengthy one. We had gone thru almost each and every booth. I predicated that we can go home at around lunch time, but it ended up to be supper time instead. My mum was calling my handphone for more than 10 times. As it was quite noisy in the stadium, I didn’t notice the calls at all. Or perhaps, I was too excited over the brochures and handouts. I was extremely hungry as I reached home, but it seemed that I had lost the appetite to eat as it was already more than 10pm.

It’s great to meet up friends once in a while. Recently, I met up with my lecturer and 2 secondary school friends. I have never gone out with my lecturer for a tea before that. After graduating, I got this “push” to meet up my lecturers. Dr Andrew was back in Penang for a few days, a de-tour for his business trip in Singapore. It was a small gathering between Khai, Wee How, Dr Andrew and I. Wee How turned out unexpectedly and that was the first time I talked to him even though we were course mates. Sir treated us the drinks in Starbucks and it was the first time I ordered Hot Chocolate Caramel. I grew to love this drink very much and was looking forward for another cup of hot choco in Starbucks soon!

Unpredictable weather

The weather now is really unpredictable. It’s raining in Penang almost everyday when the weather is supposed to be hot and sunny. Today it’s raining again and the rain is very heavy. From the glass in my office, I can see the trees moving from one way to another in a fast and heavy movements.

For those who are not in Malaysia, 端午节 is falls on tomorrow. It’s a season of Chinese dumplings and dragon boats.

Yummy Food #1

Here's some of the yummy food in my recommendation list, of course it's mainly based on the restaurants in Penang:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dellachew/sets/72157600389899953/

Tasik Temenggor

2 weeks ago, I had a family trip to Tasik Temenggor in Perak. It was a last minute trip. As Tasik Temenggor is not a well-known tourist spot and my parents scared to be cheated by the marketing agent of the resort, we decided to check out the place first. We got to know about the place as they had setup a booth during the Floral Fest in Botanical Gardens, Penang. Tasik Temenggor is one of the few places popular for fishing fresh water fish. It is an extremely huge lake located in the mountains with many islands inside of it. It is the main source of water for many rivers in Perak.

Before we departed, we had decided that if the resort does not exist, then it will be a free and easy trip. It turned out that the resort does exist and we even met the owner of the resort. We loaded our belongings into the speed boat and headed towards the resort.

We took the 3 Days 2 Nights package. The resort is very new, around 8 months old. Many of the chalets are still under renovation. They are not very luxurious but decent. There’s only a few person in the crew and all of them are multitasking. Some of the highlights of this resort is:
- Water basketball
- Nice scenery (sunrise, sunset, moonlight)
- Steamboat dinner while the weather is cold
- Free flow of instant coffee and tea

Activities:
- Water sports (basketball, canoeing, swimming)
- Jungle trekking
- Visiting the orang asli village
- Fishing
- Water drifting (provided if the water is good)

Unless the usual islands trips, everything here is very relaxing. There is no rush between trips. If you do not want to do activities, you can lay around by the lake and do some reading, play card games and/or mahjong or watch TV (astro installed with some channels).

Below are some of the photos taken:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dellachew/sets/72157600378931689/

Perhentian Photos

Hi girls and guys,

I have uploaded my Perhentian Island trip photos. Have a look:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dellachew/sets/72157600286203741/

Perhentian Island

May 11, 2007 (Friday) – I departed to Pulau Perhentian with 14 people – my colleagues, and colleagues’ friends. The journey started off with some familiar faces and some strangers. However, we all mixed up well at the end of the trip. The bus departed at 9pm.

May 12, 2007 (Saturday) – We arrived at Jerteh, Terengganu at around 3.30am. Everyone was sleepy and surprised as the bus arrived much early than we expected. The van driver was still sleeping when we called up. We spent around 5 hours at a small shop near the jetty while waiting for the speed boat to Pulau Perhentian. It was a very long wait. At around 9am, we walked to the agent’s office. The speed boat to Pulau Perhentian departed from Kuala Merang at 9.30am. The speed boat was indeed very speedy. I felt wonderful as I rode on the boat; it feels like as if I was riding on a wild house.

The water in Perhentian is cleaner than the ones in Redang, even though the sea color is not as nice as Redang’s. The resort that we stayed was Cocohut. At first, we thought that it was a typo in the quotation and the correct spelling should be “Coconut”. But, Cocohut is the correct. I like the dining place and lobby. It looks a bit like Hawaii style. Our rooms were at the upper level of a 2 storey wooden building. Somehow, I felt that the building is not very solid. Our rooms are either dime or rather dark. There were 2 queen size beds for each bed, regardless of the number of people for each room. It was a better place compared to the resort that I last went in Redang.

The meals here were better too. Food was served according to the group of visitors instead of buffet style. We don’t need “fight” for our share of food. We had a snorkeling trip on the same day, shortly after lunch. As it was the first snorkeling trip, everyone was very excited. We putted on our sun block lotion even before the lunch and put more after lunch!

We went to 3 places for snorkeling. I was “too active” for the first round as I thought that that will be our only place for snorkeling. I used up almost all my energy, without any reservation. I was “half-dead” when reaching the second place. I was very excited to see the gigantic turtles that I swam with all my energy towards it.

Advise: Remember to make sure that you have enough energy for all the trips.

May 13, 2007 (Sunday) – We went to 2 islands for snorkeling – Pulau Rawa and Susu Dara. The second island has a lot of huge rocks and almost near sea level. Thus, it’s very hard to swim around without getting hurt. Things got worse when the waves were strong. After the rocky island, we stopped by at the light house before heading to the fresh water water spring. The sea is very deep at the light house and there are many corals and fish. It was fun jumping from the first level of the light house into the sea! Some of them scream with the all their might while we were waiting in the water.

It was already more than 2pm when we had our lunch. Most of us haven’t even bath. We were all very hungry! 2 of the girls joined another trip before the lunch. They were really too active! We took a nice and long bath after the lunch. Then, it’s photo session! We made a lot of weird and funny poses. It’s enjoyable.

We spent most of our free time playing Uno. Some of the beach boys even show us “magic”. The television in the lobby aka dining area is only available at 9.30pm. One of the guys was having a hard time catching up with his football games.

May 14, 2007 (Monday) – La Hotspring and Lata Tembakah, those are the 2 places that we went to after our Perhentian trip, while waiting for our bus back to Penang at 9pm. Those 2 places are far away from Jerteh, especially La Hotspring which it is located deep inside the jungle. It was named as La Hotsping because it is located in a village called La. It is a natural hotspring.

Before reaching there, we planned to hop into the hotspring and have a nice bath. However, the water was so hot that eventually, we only put our legs into the pond. Even though the hotspring is in then open air, we felt very hot after dipping our legs into hotspring. Our next destination is Lata Tembakah, which is located very near to La Hotspring. The highlight of this place is its waterfall. I was amazed to see such a tall waterfall up close. It’s a really wonderful scene! The place is not well maintained. Even though there’s a few changing rooms, some of the doors cannot be closed and some are too dirty. There’s hardly anyone inside the park. Leaves are all over the place. But, I like the scene of the tall trees, truly a tropical forest.

2 Nice But Sad Drama Series

Recently, I have been watching 2 sad Japanese drama series. I haven’t really being watching any Japanese drama series for quite some time already.

1. Karei naru Ichizouku is a tragic story between a father and son. The story is set shortly after World War 2. Japan’s economy was focusing on heavy industries such as metal. Economy was not stable and there had been a lot of changes for all the industries. Teppei grew up in a wealthy family. His grandfather established the first family business which is metal. After the success of the metal industry, his grandfather founded the banking business. Teppei who has great interest in metal succeeded the metal business while his father succeeded the banking business. Teppei and his father had never been in good terms. There were a lot of family secrets and tragedy inside of this wealthy family, unknown to the public. What is the main reason causing Teppei’s father to dislike him so much to the extend that he wanted his son to disappear?

(Spoilers will not be provided. Go watch yourself!)

Throughout the story, Teppei has shown great values of a true leader. He never gives up while his company was facing obstacles. He fought until the very end. In addition, he is a kind person who helped out his subordinates regardless of the danger. Despite his status, he mixed around with his subordinates like normal friends. Because of this, he has gained a lot of respect and trust from his subordinates. This great spirit has inspire the people around him to work harder despite facing difficulties.

2. 1 Litre of Tears (1リットルの涙, Ichi Rittoru no Namida?) is about a girl who was diagnosed with a disease called Spinocerebellar Degeneration when she was 15 years old, and was able to continue her life until her death at the age of 25 years old.
The plot is based on the true story of a Japanese girl named Aya Kito, who died in 1988. She kept writing in her diary to remember her experiences until she could no longer hold a pen. Aya simply wished to live until the end of her life, and the purpose of writing in the diary was to remind herself to not give up. She shed tears many times, at the same time encompassed by the rich love and support from her family and friends. Her diary titled 1 Litre of Tears was published shortly after her death. It encouraged many people, healthy or diseased, because of its inspiring and courageous messages. As Aya wrote, "Just being alive is such a lovely and wonderful thing."
– adapted from Wikipedia

From this drama, we can see the healthy and active Aya getting weaker and weaker, and eventually passed away. She has been struggling a lot after getting the disease. She has to give up her favorite sports, leave her school and friends, getting strange glance from people around her etc. However, despite all the struggles, she wanted to help others facing the same disease. Her diary has touches the hearts of the other patients, encouraging them to live on the remaining of their lives to the fullest.

Bukit Hijau

Recently I have been “adventurous”. 3 weeks ago, I went to Bukit Hijau with a few colleagues. It’s my first trip with most of them. Bukit Hijau is famous for its waterfall, it is located in Kedah. I haven’t been there for more than 10 years. I only have pieces of memories of the place when I was young. I still remember that I was very lazy to climb up to the top and my dad nearly drowned near the waterfall back then. We had a great time there even though I didn’t join in for the “water-fun”. Lunas is a small place, well known for its roasted duck. However, I was disappointed when I heard that they are not selling “pi pa” duck anymore, which is the one that I miss the most.

Click below to view some of the photos taken:
http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a146/dellachew06/BktHijau/

Public Holidays

Today is a “supposing” public holiday declared by my company as a replacement for the Wesak Day that fell on the same day as Labour Day. Yet, I was working on both days. Many of colleagues came to work as well. After all, it’s month end and also quarter end. Thus, working extra hours is unavoidable (meaning working OT is not something optional as the workload is heavy and we need to meet the dateline).

In Malaysia, Labour Day is almost equivalent to supermarket sales. Many department stores will be having discounts on a variety of items. I brought my mum for a dinner at Secret Recipe and shopping in Sunshine Supermarket. It can be considered as an early Mothers’ Day celebration as well.

I will *try* to keep this blog up-to-date :)

Yunnan - Day 8

Day 8, Saturday – It’s the last day of my Yunnan trip. It’s also shopping day! Our first destination of the day is a bazaar selling a variety of things, except food. It is called the Luo Si Wan Bazaar. It’s the whole sale market for other places in Yunnan. Things here are cheap even without bargaining. I bought some clothes and umbrellas. I was very excited to the huge soft toys hanging outside of some shops (taller and bigger than I).

Next, we went to the local food shop to buy some local specialties. The price of the food here is not cheap. It is advisable to shop at the normal supermarkets, such as Parkson. I bought a lot of tidbits, especially 乌梅 (“Wu Mei”). It’s a type of “asam-asam”, huge and black but not soul.

We had our lunch at a shop specializing in mushrooms. The supposing “nice” meal turned out to be bad. The wrong mixture of mushrooms caused me to have a bad appetite. Things became worse when I had a stomachache.

After lunch, we headed to the silk shop. The cheapest blanket cost around RM180, without the silk covers. The whole set of silk covers actually cost more than RMB 2K. There are other silk products such as clothes and handbags.

Our last destination is the flower market. In the market, there’re fresh and dry flowers. The flowers are very beautiful. After shopping in the flower market, we said goodbye to our local tour guide and flew back to KL.

Yunnan - Day 7

Day 7, Friday – Today we headed back to Kunming after breakfast. Our highlight of the day is West Mountain Dragon Gate. We went up there by cable car and came down by a “small car”. Things sold there are cheaper as there are fewer tourists. From the top of this mountain, we will be able to have an overview of Kunming city. The locals here will hike up this mountain on the 3rd day of CNY. I find it not very fascinating. I will just give an average rate for this spot.

After the mountain trip, we headed to a medical shop selling honey and different types of Chinese medicine. We have a trial on a special medicine for cueing sickness related to our legs. There’s free massage service for the leg as well. I feel much more after the massage. According to one of the massager, there are Chinese medical students. Of course, when there’s special service, we tend to give up to the sales person and bought some of their products.

We had our last dinner at a shop specializing in herb soups and wine. We had 4 pots of soups and I really feel a bit drunk after the meal. My face was red, luckily not as red as a tomato.

Yunnan - Day 6

Day 6, Thursday – It was cold in the morning as I reached the Yulong Snow Mountain station to take the bus and then the cable car. I can some rain drops falling onto my face when I got out of the bus. To be exact, those were not rain drops but tiny little snow flakes! I was very excited as it shouldn’t be snowing at this season. There are jackets for rent at the station for 30 RMB. The view along the way to the mountain is very beautiful. This was my first time seeing real snow! The queue for the cable car was very long as the wind was strong. I waited there for more than an hour. There were many tourists, both local and foreign, queuing up for the cable car. We had prepared some oxygen tanks with us, just in case we need them. Every cable car can only fit in max 6 person. We were enjoying the beautiful view of the mountain in the cable car, shooting photos of here and there. There are different types of trees as we went higher and higher. As we reached the park, there is nothing but snow, rocks and the mountain. But, the view up there sure is simply marvelous. However, this mountain is not suitable for skiing due to its landscape.

Our next destination was Bai Sui River (“Bai Sui" means white water). After the snow of the mountain melts, it will flow down to this river. Its water is crystal clear. The reflection of the sky on the water makes it even irresistible. It looks like a perfect picture, with the snow mountain as the background and clear blue water. “Gan Hai Zi” (sweet sea) is not a sea as its name implies, it is actually a meadow. When it rains heavily, it looks like as if it is a sea. Long long time ago, this meadow used to be covered by water.

We were all very hungry after the snow mountain trip. We had lunch at “Yu Sui Zai”. It is the holly land of the Dong Ba Culture. This place has a very nice view of the rivers and mountains. (In short, I can say that in Lijiang you can see many nice views of water and mountains.) There is a small museum for stones here. In this museum, there’s exhibitions of natural stones that looks like food. The stones all look so yummy.

Our next stop is the Spirulina shop. Lijiang is one of the 3 major places in the world producing natural Spirulina. After this, we said goodbye to our Lijiang tour guide and headed back to Dali. After lunch, we did some shopping at night in the old town. There are a few bookshops there, selling only Chinese books. There are a lot of books there which you cannot find them in Malaysia, especially books on the different minorities in Yunnan. I managed to buy a book at less than RM20, which is price at more than RM80 in Malaysia.

p/s: Your bargaining power must be really good if you want to buy things at a cheap price in China. It’s better to make some surveys around first before purchasing.

Photos - Yunnan - Part 1

Here are the some of the photos taken during Day 1-6 in Yunnan: (correction)
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v635/dellachew/Yunnan1/

Enjoy!

Yunnan - Day 5

Day 5, Wednesday – Today, we went to Lijiang. The journey is shorter this time. On our way there, we stop by at Shi Zhai Zi. It’s a village selling jade, crystals, local food and antics. What attracted me is the stone mountain opposite the village instead. We reached Lijiang a around 12.30pm. Our original schedule to go to Yulong Snow Mountain after lunch was cancelled as the wind was too strong. I was a bit disappointed as the mountain is so near, yet so far. There are 2 highlights today, Lijiang Old Town and Suhe Old Town. Lijiang Old Town is a very busy place with lots of shops and lots of people. We need to bargain in order to get the things at a cheap price, and this requires special skills and techniques.

Lijiang is famous for its water canals. The water here is very clean. Suhe Old Town is quite similar to Lijiang Old Town but there are not many visitors and the life there is more relaxing. The locals here like to play mahjong during their free time. The things selling here is also cheaper, even without bargaining. There are even more canals there and the water is really clear and clean. At night, there’s a place with fire and people will be dancing around the fire. It’s fun!

p/s: For Lijiang, ladies are address as 扮金妹 (“Ban Jin Mei”) while guys are address as 扮金哥 (“Ban Jin Ge”). I will continue on the "story" for Day 6-8 next week (hopefully...).

Yunnan - Day 4

Day 4, Tuesday – We went to Dali by bus. The journey was around 5 hours. The wind is stronger in Dali and the air is cooler and dryer. Er Hai is a very huge lake with shape of an ear. Er Hai Park is a small park located at the South of the lake. There’s nothing much to see there. Dali Museum is another boring place located inside the Dali Old Town. Tian Long Ba Bu Movie Studio is an artificial place built for the filming of Jin Yong stories. Jin Yong is a famous writer for the martial arts stories. There are several countries in the studio, built based on the stories by Jin Yong.

The Bai minority have been ruling Dali for 50 years. For the Bai minority, we can recognize whether a lady is single, engage or married by their hats. The hat is known as 风花雪月 (“Feng Hua Xue Yue”). For single ladies, their hats are of ½ moon shape. For married ladies, their hats are of full moon shape. It is a tradition that any man who touches a ladies’ hat must work for her for three years, unless the girl shows no interest in the man. For single ladies, when they reach the age of 18, their mothers will give their daughter a jade. This jade has been passed down for generations and will be inherited by the eldest daughter of the family.

The 3 cups of tea by the Bai Minority is something unique. The 1st cup is a bitter, the 2nd cup is sweet and the 3rd cup is a bit spicy. This also represents the sweet and bitterness of our life. For proposal, the man must prepare 6 pots of wine, 6 boxes of cigarettes, 6 chickens and a jade for the lady being proposed. The wine, cigarettes and chickens are for her parents to show his sincerity. If a lady is married, there’ll be jade on both hands. During weddings, the bride will wear sunglasses. It is said to hide her tears on the wedding day. Villagers, passersby, relatives and friends can give their blessings to the bride by pinching her. For the Bai minority house, there are 2 levels. The lower level is to stay while the upper level is to keep food.

We stayed overnight at Landscape Hotel, which is located in Dali Old Town. The design of the hotel is of an old building and the room is very unique. It is classical. The blankets prepared are made of silk.
p/s: For different place, we will have a different local tour guide. This is their government policy. For Dali, ladies are address as 金花 (“golden flower”) while guys are address as 阿鹏哥 (“Ah Peng Ge”).

Yunnan - Day 3

Day 3, Monday – The highlight of the day is Stone Forest. Long long time ago, this area was under the sea level. The Earth plates hit and this place surfaces as what we see now. Stone forest is popular due to its unusual formation characterized by hundreds of stone peaks jutting out from the ground with majestic grandeur and in different poses and various sharps. Inside the park, there’s a “5 star toilet”. There’s a mini LCD inside all the toilets.

The most popular tea in Yunnan is “Pu Er”. Unlike other tea trees, the tree for this tea is very tall. By drinking more of this tea, ones can become slimmer as the tea will wash away the fats in our body. Thus, it is known by some people as “slimming tea”. The longer the tea leaves are, the higher the value it is.

Yunnan - Day 2

Day 2, Sunday – Everyday morning we will have buffet breakfast in the hotel that we were staying. There are 2 famous gates in Kunming called Jin Ma Bi Ji Fang. It is believe every 60 years the shadows of these 2 gates will meet. So far, no one has witness this phenomena and how true this legend is remains unknown. The main tourist spot of the day is the cave in Jiuxiang. This is also one of the shooting places for the movie, “The Myth” by Jackie Chan and a female Korean actress. This place is much more beautiful comparing to “Gua Tempurung” in Perak, Malaysia. It is windy inside of the cave and there are great views of the river and cave. We took a small boat ride around the area before exploring the cave. It’s a very huge area and we spent more than 4 hours inside. We took a cable car back to the entrance after exiting the cave. I was very worried while I was on ride as it was windy at that time and the seat was slightly shaking.

Along the way to the cave, we were able to see the long, solid and old railway track connecting Yunnan and Vietnam through the mountains. This railway was built by France around 103 years ago to transport the minerals of Yunnan to Vietnam and then to France by ship. France took 6 years to complete and repair the railway. Many people had been sacrificed during its construction, including several of its engineers. The train here is going on a very slow pace; the gap between 2 rails is relatively small compare to the usual standard.

Before that we went to an herb shop before going for our dinner at a special restaurant. The seats and table are very low; the floor is covered by pine leaves. For the locals, their floor must be covered with pine leaves from the day before Chinese New Year (CNY), till the end of CNY. They will change the pine leaves after several days, replacing the old ones with new pine leaves. The famous dish in this area is roasted duck. With the addition of a bit of salt, the roasted duck tasted good, but oily. A lot of vegetables were served. The fish served always contained a lot of fine bones, while the pork served always contained a thick layer of fats. The food is so oily that you can feel that your lips are covering by a layer of oil after eating. A dish of egg and big plate of bread with red bean sauce filling were always served as well and they were the children’s favorite.

We stayed overnight at the best hotel in a small town. It was a quiet town during the daytime and even more quiet at night. We had dinner at the hotel and it was terrible. The chopsticks and plates are not very clean. The local customers there sure have a bad way of taking their meal. The bones and food were all over the floor.

p/s: In Yiliang, we normally address the girls as 阿诗玛 and guys as 阿黑哥. 阿诗玛 is referring to beautiful and intelligent ladies while阿黑哥 is referring to honest and brave men. For dishonest men (playboy, lazy etc), they are known as 阿白哥. The wedding meal there normally starts between 3pm and 6pm. They’ll directly open up the presents given after receiving them. The “ang pow” given is quite expensive, ranging from a minimum of 480 RMB (around RM240) to a few thousand RMB.

Yunnan - Day 1

Day 1, Saturday – My tour guide is a young and tough lady, Lili. This is the first vacation with my mum after I work. I departed with the 9am flight to KL and then another flight to Kunming. I reached there at around 3.45pm. There is no time difference. From a far, we could see that Kunming is a developing city. There are a number of tall buildings but most of them have the same design and color. At Kunming International Airport, we were welcomed by our skinny and humorous local tour guide, Kevin. Our luggage was transported to the hotel separately by a truck as our bus was too small for the entire luggage. The weather is not as cold as I anticipated.

Our first spot is the Grand View Park. On the way to the park, I noticed that there were a lot of cars and bicycles on the street. It was weird to see people dressing up nicely in coats and boots cycling on the street. The Grand View Park is a scenic park with many flowers, lake, bridges and the classical 柳树 (“Liu Su”) along the lake. It is a lovely park. I love the 桃花 (blossoms). They look a bit like Sakura. In the park, there is a building called 大观楼 (“Da Guan Lou”). This building is famous for its longest 对联 (“Dui Lian”) in the world, consisting of 90 words for each side. The first part described the beautiful scenery in Yunnan whereas the second part talked about the history of Yunnan.

We had a luxurious dinner at a grand restaurant with Siamese design, but serving local dishes. The highlight of the night is 过桥米线 (direct translation, “cross the bridge noodle”). There is a story behind the name of this noodle. To keep this short, I will leave out the story. First, a very hot bowl of soup with some oil on top of it is served. The oil is to keep the soup hot. Next, put in the slices of meat (normally chicken and pork) into the hot soup. Then, the noodle, follow by the vegetable is put into the soup. We need to wait for a while for the food to be cooked before dining. The noodle looks a bit like the white noodle for “laksa” but a bit different. It is the local’s favorite food as well. They can noodles for every meal, of course with a different way of cooking. The waiters and waitress are very polite. (For every lunch and dinner in Yunnan, there will be beer.) There was a short performance during dinner. Kevin commented that the performance is not nice. The weather in Kunming is much cooler after sunsets. I need to put on my thin jacket so that I won’t catch a cold.

After the dinner, we check-in for our hotel. The hotel is located in the middle of the town. Thus, it’s very convenient if we would like to do some shopping or walk-around at night. I visited the city park at night and it’s beautiful with all the lights. The McDonald there is a bit cheaper and offer more variety of choices. I heard that it’s more delicious than Malaysia’s but I did not try it out myself as the dinner served was too much.

p/s: In Kunming, we normally address the girls as 小姑娘 (“Xiao Gu Niang”).

Yunnan in General

Since there’s a lot to write, I will cut down on the details and go straight to the more “interesting points”. Yunnan is a place in China. It’s located above Vietnam. In Yunnan, there are many places like Kunming, Dali and Lijiang. Kunming is a spring city. The average temperature throughout the year is below 30 Celcius. There are a total of 52 minorities in Yunnan. Among the 52 minorities, 25 of them have more than 5,000 people. The culture of the minorities is different from each other, such as clothing, songs and dance. Most of them do not have their own writings. For different places, they have different ways of addressing people. In general, the toilets there are dirty, some of them do not have doors, the doors are unable to be locked or the doors are quite low.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Wow… I haven’t been updating my blog for months. I guess the main reason is I am too lazy to get my hands moving after work. I received a very unique greeting card from Yushu shortly before Chinese New Year. Thanks a lot! I think that it’s an envelope to put money rather than a greeting card.

BJun had departed to Korea for her studies on February 21. She made a 1 day visit to Penang before her departure. It was great talking about the happy moments that we had during our training. Those are the great moments! We took a number of photos of our funny poses and in the toilet. They sure look very artistic, but I am not going to upload all of them here. *Else BJun is going kill me* Sorry for all the blabbing about Korea, I still haven’t get over the trauma of missing Korea. Eileen is going to be an air hostess. That is shocking news for us, but all the best! As soon as BJun arrived in Korea, I received messages from her. She said she miss us all and our beloved senior, Wei Shi. I wonder how it really feel, when I go back to the same place with different people, but with the moments of my previous visit. “Yesterday Once More”, this is such a nice song to describe my feelings now. This song also brings back a lot of memories. We always sing this song during karaoke session in Korea.

Many people have been changing jobs recently. Here’s a small advice here. It is better if you not change job frequently as it won’t look good in your resume. It will give a bad impression to your future employees as well. I am sure that if you are the boss, you wouldn’t want to hire someone who quits the next moment you hire him/her. To those who are facing doubts, just do what your heart say, but remember to listen to advice from people who care for you. Responsible for your own decision after you have made it.

Before Chinese New Year (CNY), I had been receiving SMS greetings from friends. ASCII art sure is nice. There are tanglungs and pigs. This year’s CNY is not so hot as there’s rain fall in between. I visited Fort Cornwallis on the first day of CNY. (Fort Cornwallis is the fortress that Francis Light used during the war with the Sultan of Kedah) It’s a great view up there! There are a number of performers from China as well. I was able to detect them from their Chinese slang. CNY always mean home visiting and this year is the same. As usual, we had steamboats at my uncles and aunties places. Unlike other steamboats, we had specially made “wanton”, nice ingredients, fried nuggets, herbal chicken and red wine other than the usual fish balls and soft drinks. My immediate neighbor invited us for a buffet lunch at their wonderful house. The house is even better than a hotel, very well designed and comfortable. He even gave us 2 huge packets of goodies!

December Photos

It may be a bit late to upload the photos now, here you go:

http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a146/dellachew06/2006/

Enjoy!

Happy New Year '07!

Everyone,

Happy Belated New Year! Sorry for not updating my blog for such a long time. I am getting lazy to online after getting back from work on Monday-Friday. I hope that everyone is doing fine. Let's clap clap our hands 2 times and make a wish...

*wish*

*wish*

*wish*

May your wish come true.

December Events

Christmas and New Year is around the corner. Yet, I haven’t made my birthday wish. I ate a lot for this festive season; hopefully I am not gaining weight due to the overflow of food.

The dinner at Amandari, a Malay cuisine restaurant, with Sam Burg, who is one of my bosses, turned out to be great. I like the long curtains which are the main decorations there; it is simple, but nice. The set meal was rather expensive, around RM500 for an 8 course meal. Luckily I am not paying for it. There were a lot of gigantic squid dishes. They use the same ingredient (squid) but different ways of cooking it. We had curry squid, barbeque squid etc. Even though I like squids, but I do not want to have a squid party. So much squid at the same time makes me freak out!

I joined one of the fitness classes with my colleague, Queena. It is a weekly class held at the company’s fitness center with a payment. The instructor, who is in his twenties, sure is good in shaking. The class is fun, even though I am not good at dancing.

The Toastmaster speechcraft session at TK Mah’s house was a blast. The house is very spacious, with wonderful decorations and good food prepared by Mrs Mah. Mrs Mah is a good cook. She prepared a “western food buffet” for us. There were spaghetti, tomato soup, barbeque chickens, fried noodles, muffins, garlic bread, cheese cake and soya longan jelly.

The “department” Christmas celebration was held in Evergreen Hotel this year. The theme is “Jingle Dell”. The department is bigger than I thought it to be. There were many unfamiliar faces and of course, those whom I know. The ballroom was rather small and the buffet is not very delicious, but not too bad. But, we did enjoy ourselves with the games and programs, especially the santa/ santarina session. Yu Ming was our santa and he was weirdly decorated by us using red papers, cotton and a piece of brown paper. All the teams come out with their santa/ santarina and we sure were creative. With the same materials, we had come out with a lot of designs.

The Toastmaster’s Christmas celebration was held a few days after that in PSDC. We had buffet for dinner. Most of guys dressed in white shirt and black pants, with a red color tie/ santa hat. I think we should make the door gifts as santa hats next time, everyone looks so… cute in them. It was another enjoyable session, though it was not as crazy as Jingle Dell’s.

Thoughts About Work

Here are some of the quotations that I like, by my friends:
- The present does not matter, but it’s the person who gives the present that matters.
- We need courage in our life for making every single step

After working, I realize several things:
- We earn enough money to spend, but we often do not have enough money to give to our parents.
- Even if there is no work for the day, we still feel tired after getting home from work.
- By following the rules strictly, we will not be able to achieve our goals. Think of the box!
- Distance is not an issue. Even though I have friends working in the same company, we only see each other for a chat during gatherings. The company is too big and we often do not have the time to catch up with each other.
- People often give up a good job opportunity because of transport and location. As the saying goes, “no pain no gain”. Short term suffering is better than losing a good opportunity. I will definitely go for it, unless there are some other factors that I may need to consider at that time (eg: parents’ health).
- Many people let problems to make their life tough, instead of solving them. Problems are meant to be solved. If no actions are taken, a problem will forever remain as a problem.
- We were striving hard to get a “nice certificate” during our studies. But these certificates are merely the key to get for an interview. There are much more skills that we need to learn other than the facts from the books, and these skills have proved to be much more useful in the future.
- The worst part of a wedding is the wedding dinner. If you invite guests A, then you must invite guest B as they both know you. Then, if you invite guest B, then you must invite guest C. In the end, you will need to invite many people. However, can you afford to invite so many people? If yes, go ahead. If no, you will have a headache selecting the people to invite. Wedding is no longer economical. The wedding photos itself need more than RM3K.
- As we earn more money, we have less time to spend them.
- We like Friday and hate Monday.

My Birthday

December 6 is my birthday, it is also Huwi Yin’s birthday. Birthday means that I have grown older. Does that mean that I am wiser now? I think it’s still the same. This year I didn’t get to eat any birthday cakes. Does that mean that I unable to make wishes and thus, my wishes won’t come true? I had dinners on the 5th and on my birthday. I feel that I am starting to hate food… I don’t want to eat anymore… Since it is a festive season, it is impossible to reduce “food load”. I received some presents from my friends and colleagues. Special thanks to Christine, Kim Sheng, Khim Foong, Kelly, Hui Shan, Khai, Pei Ling, Siew Ean, Yen Ching, Cheah Jing, Lay Leng, Yean Hong, Cheah Chee, Huey Sze, Queena, Jin and those names not mentioned. After living on Mother Earth for more than 22 years, I have many pleasant and unpleasant memories. There are so many things that I can recall now. When I reach the age of 30, there will be even more! Wonder if my internal memory will get overloaded by then.

December~

December is here! It is the month that I am looking forward the most throughout the year due to several reasons. December is a holiday season and sales is available everywhere, one of the best seasons to shop other than the Shopping carnival around September. As Christmas is approaching, there are beautiful decorations in all the major shopping complex. I am always looking forward to see those cute artificial snowmen and well decorated Christmas trees. They always make me feel excited even though I have being seeing them every year around this season.

December 1, Friday – I rushed to the PC fair at PISA immediately after my work. A heavy traffic jam was expected to occur as there were many events occurring during the weekends. This includes the opening of the new shopping complex, Queensbay Mall. It was raining heavily as soon as I departed from my company. The traffic jam is not as bad as I thought. I met several high school friends there, working as part-time workers for the fair. It is their semester break now. In addition, I managed to get some goodies. It was a satisfying purchase. I spent around RM130 for a webcam, card reader, headset and 25 pieces of DVD+R. I was having a nice time playing with my new 1.3 Megapixel webcam on that night. The video is clear and there is not much lagging from my side.

December 3, Sunday - Last Sunday I took my Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) Level 2. I met some ex-classmates there, Lee Wei and (I cannot remember her name). They were attempting the Level 4 exam. The exam didn’t go well, especially Paper 2, the listening test. There maybe something wrong with the CD as there is a serious vibration for many questions in Part I. Perhaps they are trying to test our listening skills in various situations as well? Overall, I feel that I am going to fail for another time this year, even though I am able to answer more questions this time. God please bless me… After my exam, I went to the steamboat shop at Sg. Dua for a primary school gathering. It was a sudden gathering. Lay Fen message me the night before thru MSN messenger and I was a bit surprise. A total of 12 people attended the gathering. It is good to meet so many people again, after such a long time. Some I haven’t see them for around 10 years. They sure have change (appearance). We finished dining at around 10pm. It feels so weird after the exam, with nothing much to do. It is like losing a direction.

November Events

Festive season is around the corner. It is also a season of food, food and more food. A week ago, I completed my second pot of clay flowers, Hyacinth Heaven. It is a plant that grows during the winter, a perfect tree for this season. The office now is filled with Christmas trees, snowman, penguins and other Christmas decorations. Holiday mood is in the air. I still remember last year, around this period of time, Christoph showed me snowing scene outside of his room using his videocam. The scenery out there is very bright. The whole are was covered up by snow. I felt like as if I had just seen Heaven.

As year end is approaching, there are many dinners. November 22, Wednesday - There was a dinner organized by an extended team as an appreciation of the support we provide throughout the year. It was a luxurious dinner at Prawn Village, a restaurant very near to my company. My favorite dish of the night is cheese and prawns. The first runner up would be the fish dish. The fish slices were “smooth” and delicious.

November 24, Friday - I attended the Waseda Brass Concert jointly organized by Japan Embassy and University Science Malaysia (USM) in Dewan Budaya, USM. Admission was free. The hall was almost full. I was not particularly interested in brass. Since the concert was free and I have not attended any concerts for more than a year, I decided to give it a try. It was raining heavily on that night and traffic jam was extremely heavy around the island, as a lot of places were slightly flooded and many people were rushing to go home on this last day of work for the week. I almost gave up attending concert, but luckily I didn’t. It was a wonderful concert and changed my perceptions towards brass. With only brass instruments, it is possible to perform very wonderful music. My favorite member would be the conductor. Besides being the youngest member of the band, he is a very spirited and funny conductor. I felt like dancing while watching him conducting the band.

November 26, Sunday – I went to Gurney Plaza with Queena. The main event of the day was watching the movie “Step Up”. It was a very inspiring and wonderful movie. It was all dancing, classical + modern. The opening of the movie is well down, showing the contrast between ballet and modern dance. It is movie worth watching! In addition, the soundtrack is nice. Before the movie, I had lunch at Food Loaf. We called it as the “high-class food court”. It is like a food court, there are many types of delicacies to choose from – Italian, Japanese, Korean, Western and local cuisines, everything under one hub. The atmosphere is very nice. The view from the glass is very nice. The price there is of KL standard and the servings are a lot. The waiters and waitresses there are very friendly. I am satisfied with my Manhantten Market Platter, with a big piece of fish and chips, mashed potatoes, 3 fried prawns, BBQ squids and some salad. It is a place worth visiting once in a while (unless you are rich enough to visit there for meals everyday).

Last but not least, I would like thank Yushu for wonderful pictures of Korea, especially the fireworks one ^^

Thought of the Month

It’s been around 3 weeks since I last blogged. I am not very busy but getting lazy to update my blog. Many things happened since then and I have being doing some thinking. There are a number of farewells to attend to, including my ex-director and extended team member, Jessie Lim.

Several pregnant ladies around me are going to give birth soon or had already given birth. They shared some of their experience with me, such as their back pain when they try to stretch out when tired, their legs becomes swollen, their babies kicking them in their tummy, food that they cannot eat when they are pregnant, change in their eating habits while pregnant and things to take care of after giving birth. Pregnant can actually be so troublesome. I never think of that at all. The most I could think of is only morning sickness and food to take care of.

On the other hand, I am hearing news on people who passed away due to cancer. Cancer has become so common nowadays. I wonder if my friends or relatives will be leaving me suddenly.

After working, I begin to cherish my school days and the precious moments that I once had with my friends. There are many things that we had always taken for granted and only appreciate it when we lose it. I really miss some of the moments that I had during my university life. Working life can never be the same as university life, no matter how I think of it. I always wish that I could further my studies again so that I can enjoy the life being a student again. However, this doesn’t mean that I will be taking a course that I have no interest in. Perhaps, sometimes, memories are meant to be treasured. That’s what that makes them valuable. We must learn to move forward and enjoy the future, as how we cherish our memories.

I seem to be meeting people who remind me of some other people I know. Not because of their looks, but the way they talk and expressing themselves. It makes me feel warm because I feel like I have known them before that.

There are times that I feel that my “battery” is running low. After recharging, I feel full of energy again and move forward. Even for rechargeable batteries, they will be spoilt one day. But, I hope that all my dreams are fulfilled before it is not rechargeable anymore.

Deeparaya

When Deepavali + Hari Raya, it becomes Deeparaya. Deepavali fell on October 21 whereas Hari Raya fell on October 24 and 25 this year. I wasn’t really celebrating the festival but did visit a friend’s house. Most of my friends who are from other states rushed back to their hometowns. The atmosphere was in the air. I wonder how the celebration is over in Korea. Is there any party? Suddenly I miss the “bah kuh teh”, with a minimum amount of pork and a lot of potatoes. I did not miss the taste, but the fun when cooking the dish. It is like a tradition to have “bah kuh teh” whenever we are celebrating something over in Korea. This tradition seems to remain even after I leave.

The haze here is on and off. The situation is not so terrible in Penang due to the frequent down pour. It does not affect our view sight at least. Some people were still barbecuing despite the hazy weather. Some buses, motorcycles and trucks are emitting black smoke and I wonder why they are still on the streets, polluting the environment. The authority should really take some actions to improve on the current situation. At least, they should educate the public on their responsibilities to keep the environment free from more pollutants.

I watched “The Prestige” on the first day of Hari Raya with my brother in Prangin Mall.

The synopsis from Golden Screen Cinema is:
In 1878 two young stage magicians clash in a darkened saloon during the course of a fraudulent seance. From this moment on, their lives become webs of deceit and exposure, secrets and revelations, as they feud to outwit and destroy one another. Their rivalry takes them both to the peak of their careers, but with terrible consequences.

There is a lot of suspense in the movie and a lot of flashbacks. Even though it is a bit confusing mixing flashbacks and current happenings together, we managed to get the whole picture of the storyline. The story is somewhat unique, about the life of 2 magicians, the sacrifices that they made for their careers and the ending is unexpected. This is a non-action movie. I cannot tell for sure if the ending is a good one. But, the morale of the story is, it is better to forgive than to revenge.

Team Building at Traders Hotel

Finally, the annual team building is here. This year, we had seafood buffet in Traders Hotel, which is formerly known as Shangri-La Hotel. This buffet cost more than RM90 per person and was sponsored by the company. There are around 40 people in our department. We occupied a small area in the restaurant so that it will be easier for the games section later. The seats were decided by drawing lots. I was sharing the same table with Lay Leng, Ewe Chong, Ismah, Jacqueline and Chai. There were a few sections, such as the dessert corner with cakes, custard and ice-cream, sushi, fruits, barbeque food, “lok lok”, normal dishes and salad. Everyone was excited on the guessing game. Someone will read out the description of a person and the person with the paper of that person’s name must say out the name. Else, there will be a penalty of eating wasabi. The dinner met its objective to bring everyone together. Here are some of the photos taken during the dinner:

Photos

Quarter 3 Birthday Lunch Photos

Here are some of the photos taken during the Q3 Birthday Lunch at Cherry Blossom Thai Food Restaurant on October 9, 2006 (Monday). There are around 11 dishes, including the dessert. Too lazy to upload all of them. Thus, here are some of the selected yummies of the restaurant. Enjoy!:

Photos

Lantern Fest Photos

Here are some of the photos taken during the lantern fest in Penang:

http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a146/dellachew06/LanternFest/

Pig Mooncake!

Mooncakes can be quite dull with the same old design and shape. However, this little pig mooncake is irresistable! Check out the pictures below, courtesy of Lay Leng sis:

http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a146/dellachew06/PigMooncake/

September Weekends

September 23, Saturday – It was Japanese Film Festival. Kelly managed to get 2 free movie tickets for the film, “Heaven’s Bookstore” at Gurney Plaza. The movie is quite interesting. I like the piano pieces in the movie. It’s wonderful. I feel like as if I am attending a real concert.

September 30, Saturday – I had dinner with Kelly, Hui Shan, Khai and Xiao Chan in the seafood shop at Paya Terubong. Khai likes the barbeque fish there. He even plans to pay a second visit there next week. The steam fish here is not so nice though. Then, we went to the lantern festival in PISA, in the open air. There’s a lot of people and nice lanterns. The fountains were on. It’s a really great view. There’s stage performance was great. We managed to see the “change face” show. It was amazing. We couldn’t even notice when she changed the mask.

My Colleagues’ Birthday

Cheah Chee and Chuen Kar’s birthday is next to each other. We had a joined celebration with the transactional team last week. Chuen Kar is also an ex-MMU student, a telecommunication student in Cyberjaya campus. For Cheah Chee’s birthday, we had lunch at Ichiyo, which is near BJ Complex. As for CK’s birthday which was on a Friday, we had dinner at E-gate’s Sushi King.

Here are some of the photos taken:
http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a146/dellachew06/Colleagues/