Merry Christmas

So I'm back from Macau. But my comp is not back... it's still at the repair shop :( Cy's lappie doesn't have live writer so the pics will have to wait.. Cant bear the trouble of uploading and arranging pictures on blogspot.

Blessed Christmas everyone! So much so that the wrold is diverging from its original purpose of celebrating Christ's birth, Christmas is still a season full of love and affection. After this year it's gonna be 3 Christmases away from home. Year after year I'd be secretly longing that someday I could celebrate it out of Kuantan Chapel, where I spent every single Christmas and new year's eve for the past 19yrs. Looking back however, it wasn't that bad after all. Although the church I grew up in is not any whopping assembly, the warmth of it, of just being there, cannot be easily replaced.






Guys if you're reading this I'm so touched that you guys called today, even from the other part of the globe! :D

Merry Christmas everyone, may your day be filled with love, contentment, and blessings. God bless you :)

Symphony for All

Introducing... the YouTube Sympohny! The first ever collaborative online orchestra. It's so so cool... I so wish that I can be a part of some fab project like this, something that I truly love doing, for no reason at all. But now, everything seems to steer away from this direction that I was once passionate of. That I am still passionate of. Should one go after what she likes, even though what she truly likes is not what's the best for her? But how does anyone has any idea at all what's best for her? Whatever. Maybe she'll enjoy peering down the microscope after all.

theme for the youtube symphony

I don't really fancy Tan Dun, but still.. Chinese pride. Enjoy.

Things I Discovered Over The Weekend

1. I can't sleep at 1am

My day starts at noon during hols. I missed out the entire morning, because I sleep so late at night that sometimes my maid's already awake and I've not fallen asleep yet. After being a night owl for almost a month, it is so difficult now to fall asleep even at wee hours.. except maybe for Saturday nights as I'll force myself to sleep so that I won't doze off during morning service the next day.

 

2. Application forms aren't so difficult to fill in after all

Filling in RIT's app forms really cheers me up. It took only 10minutes (minus the essay part). Serious. And believe me I'm not doing it sloppily. The worse part of this whole application thing is all the credentials that you have to submit. Firstly you have to apply for extra statement of results to be released from the office, and you gotta get extra teacher recs from a different office in which they tell you your docs are out but instead they aren't there when you go to collect them. As if that's not troublesome enough, you'll have to go all the way to putrajaya for that single wtf signature, in which only ONE person throughout the entire department can sign it for you, and if he's not around you can just jump off the building and commit suicide.

 

3. The eyes are indeed windows to our soul

 

 

A retinal image like this through the ophthalmoscope not only enables specialists to diagnose patients with common eye diseases such as glaucoma and retinal detachment, one can also tell from the diagram that a patient is diabetic, suffering form hypertension, or experiencing more severe illness like heart or kidney failure. More often, it is even possible to judge the viscosity of your blood just through a simple retinal image. Scaring on the retina is permanent and can never be undone by surgical means, and toxoplasmosis, a very common parasitic disease which contributes to this, is normally transmitted through cats (cats are a natural hosts for toxoplasma gondii and since they lick their butts after shitting and licks you after that, you're at risk no doubt). Beware of your feline!

 

4. Singing loud is difficult

Led the church choir yesterday. It wasn't easy to lead a group of aunties 40yrs older than you on average. It is even tougher when no one seems to be singing in tune, and the music runs 2 bars ahead the choir every single time. I find myself singing real loud, clapping the rhythm simultaneously like a mad woman. And the thing about teaching aunties who watch you grow up for the pass 19yrs is, you can't tell them right in their faces that 'aunty xxx, your key off lar...' or 'aunty yyy, can u sing softer? u think u singing solo ah??'

Chopsticks and A Bowl

Mmm... I miss this...

Although cy and I took a very very long time to find the place, it was worth it. It's located at some very obscure corner in ss2, in between rows of houses.

Look at the amount of clam shells we put together!

友爱 Noodles - SS2/10. Me love.

Welcome to The Zoo!

Few weeks ago, our biology class had a field/research/community service trip to the National Zoological Park. I remember when I was a kid, I used to make my parents bring me there every single time we're in KL. But the last visit to the zoo that I can recall was around 10 years ago I guess. -_- However, I find that visiting the zoo is even more interesting now than back then! Animals like lions, tigers, hippos, elephants, you wouldn't thought they're so fascinatingwhen you were younger.

 

 

We were volunteers so of course, we need to do volunteer work. But who knows got so many things for us to do la! My group was directed to the bird park immediately after briefing. And before everything started, the zookeeper at the bird park warned us that whoever is sick or coughing or having flu should just stay back, cos it is easiest to get infected in the bird park. We infect the birds or the birds infect us I don't know lar but I was kinda freaked out to hear that cos I was really coughing badly that few days -_-

 

lol.. the birds are more afraid of me than I am afraid of them

After dunno how many hours of cleaning, we proceeded to the research part of this project. And gosh, this was boring too. If it was not because of the live porn animal copulation I guess I would have fell asleep... which brings me to the most interesting part of the entire trip - observing monkey sex. Well... although they didn't practically copulate, although it was just masturbation, but how often do you get to see monkeys masturbating right.

Wtf. And those are seriously horny monkeys! I was only responsible for observing one baby monkey, so basically the entire hour was spent looking at the so boring monkey who attaches to her mother ALL THE TIME. But Sandy, who observed the adult male monkey, has a report which consists of 'masturbating itself', 'penis erects', 'licks female monkey's anus', and 'sperm on face eaten by other juveniles'. I swear. This monkey not only masturbated himself for quite some time, but he actually asked his children to masturbate for him -_- And they even groomed him and ate his sperm after he ejaculated. Seriously, that's how the monkey world works? Child masturbates father, eats father's sperm as protein shake so they can grow up faster izzit? -______-

 

Look at this erected, self-indulging maccaca!

More pictures of us so diligently and reluctantly cleaning...

 

Bird poo -_-

So close to the emus!!

So sad... they actually feed the birds with expired bread

Bird pedicure! :D and she's 40yrs old can u believe it?!

More pictures of the animals....

 

 

And lastly, our zoo keeps homo sapiens too! =)

 

Seeking

I am lost. In my own vision.

陆

Upon request by ms lumjiNyan, who blogs even though having the all-important sam finals, here's a review on JJ's latest album - SIXOLOGY 《JJ陆》.

Look at his lips! Too much gloss... lol

In mandarin it's 陆 instead of 六, which also means 6, not ground or land in this case . Here's the song list:


01Sixology
02不潮不用花钱
03小酒窝 (feat. 蔡卓妍)
04黑武士
05醉赤壁
06由你选择 (feat. 农夫FAMA)
07Always Online
08街道
09主角 (feat. MACHI)
10我还想她
11点一把火炬
12期待你的爱 (feat. 金莎)
13Cries In A Distance
14爱与希望 (feat. 重庆市青少年宫银杏童声合唱团)


Among this 14, a few of them were released way before the dawning of this album. Firstly there's 期待爱 featuring 金莎 (again... -_-) which was one of the theme song for the drama he was in earlier this year, 原来我不帅. Another one would be 爱与希望 - a piece he did expressing his empathy towards the SzeChuan earthquake victims. 点一把火炬 is the song he wrote in conjunction with the Beijing Olympics, which then got shorlisted as one of the many theme songs of the Games.

U know which is my favourite? The choice is yours. No i'm not telling you the choice is yours you moron. I mean the song The Choice is Yours (由你选择). I guess this song was the earliest broadcasted cos it was the backgroud music for the JFJ webpage like, ages ago. It was only the music and rhythm then, without lyrics. I really loved the melody to bits. Even before any lyrics were added. When I first heard it in the album, omg... the song! And I thought the world had gone mad because I thought it was JJ rapping in Cantonese. -_- But anyway, it's a breakthrough for him, really, to collaborate with FAMA and all. Not to forget, 醉赤壁! Very Chinese, very euphonioius, very pleasant. And 方文山? No wonder the lyrics sounds so much like those of Jay Chou's. -_-

A Sa is featured in the other duet in this album.. at least a change. JJ, we're bored of 金莎! But I'm kinda disappointed with 小酒窝. It lacks the... the x factor that perennial duets have. Maybe bacause there's not much harmonization between the vocals to make it sound like a duet. Another notable song is Always Online, the chinese version of Cries in The Distance. Actually you can't call it the chinese version of it cos it's not a translation. It's simply two altogether different lyrics incorporated in one same melody. It's been so long since JJ recorded an english song in his album. The last one in my memory was Now That She's Gone? or Endless Road? or Down? Which one first?

The remaining of songs are plain jj-ish. Cant find a better adjective to describe.. hehe.. just like how one can tell instantly when hearing a Jay Chou song.

Apples: 7/10


p/s: Kudos to Barack Obama for the historical win in the presidential race. America's 44th President! Finally a democrat after 8 years!

Holiday mode - off

Home sweet home.. it never felt more true. I have a whole 2 months to myself now. All the application forms, the dramas, the novels, the keeping-fit plan i had in mind, they finally can be done! I'm soooo elated. Life was more dreadful than bio class for the last 2 weeks. I can snap anytime, at anyone, anywhere. Seriously, anything can happen during exams... like say, taking your dirty bowl into the toilet instead of the kitchen. I swear.

Ok so last weekend cy and I went for the Sarah Chang concert. Since no more putput car... we took the lrt instead of a cab. And God knows why it was having technical problems. By the time we reached it was already approching 8, and we hardly have the time to swallow dinner. Anyway, we made it to the concert just in time, after peeing.




And even that was disappointing. She played only one song.. which I already knew but still... ONE! Sigh. And she had this habit of placing her right arm on her waist while she's not playing... and there was no encore :( Many of the audiences left after the first half. Personally, I thought it was a rather disgruntled sight cos those people who left, they practically show no respect to the mpo performers at all. Is it so difficult for them to stay for just another half an hour? Seriously.

When she entered, my heart gave a thump. wow. She totally exudes that aura of a celebrity violinist. Although it was only one piece, but that one piece was all it needed =) During the autograph session, I was shocked that a few of the audience actually know her personally! omg.

2 Sarah Changs in a pic

Life as a slave

Sigh.. College have been so lifeless recently. It lacks the vibe, the noise, everything. Or maybe it's only me. I don't know. There's just so many unexpected distractions! Just when you've planned a good afternoon for revisions, calculas-ing.. Something will crop up and rob away your precious time. And so many redundant assignments! Seriously, I can't be more pissed and sloppy while completing them. I really don't see the point of having presentations or assignments when they know that during these few critical weeks, everyone will just result in plagiarising from online sources, or better still, copy amongst ourselves.

Stop me from ranting! Calm down calm down... *breathes in breaths out*

I thought slavery was abolished. I thought human rights existed. I need a turnaround for this helplessly assignments-driven mundane life. NOW.

Sleep, eat, watch

A typical holiday at home begins at 1pm. Just like every other day at home, I slept at wee hours and awaken by revving motors of the workshop right behind my room. After lunch, I did some Bio work, and spent an hour or so sorting and cleaning up files in my laptop that was all over on my desktop. Everything looks so tidy and organized now :) After dinner would be tv time, in which I loyally fulfill my part-time holiday vocation as a couch potato. What a quintessential example of my time spent at home. I tend to go out more during college days than holidays. It felt so comfortable to be at home, at the sight of everything just at your fingertips.

Oh yar, I watch 2 movies yesterday. 2 very contrasting movies in fact - Eagle Eye and Painted Skin. The former was really zippy, whereas the latter was slow as a crawler.

Eagle eye features some extreme, impressive computer surveillance systems which went cuckoo. I love the pursuits, the cutting edge technology manifested, and of course Shia LeBeouf. :D With more than half of the movie being police pursuits, the plot moved on meteorically without leaving time for you to take a sip of your can of soda. This was also the essence of the movie; the fact that innocent people are chased about by police simply makes you want to watch it more, no? Apples: 7/10

On a lighter note, Painted Skin was um.. to be honest kind of a waste of time in my personal opinion. After watching the trailer, I expected it to be something scarier, deeper, darker. It turned out that the most spine-chilling part was already depicted in the trailer, which appeared to be quite comical in the sense that, it was not so scary after all. And the music! Gosh, it was as though I'm playing some Nintendo game. Pairing up a supposed-to-be horror movie with gaming-like soundtracks were rather weird. It appears that this movie has its predecessors way back in 1993 and 1966, both named 'Hua Pi". Anyway, this doesn't make it a bit more worth watching. Apples: 4/10

p/s: Langlang's concert is off! hah why am I so happy. :P

Moonlight Resonance

I'm finally done with Moonlight Resonance. In 3 days. What an amazing drama. All the characters, the vibe, the bickering. Although I do get a tad annoyed with the fact that they have to inject all the argy-bargy conflicts in every single episode, the drama has indeed been very enthralling.

With some of the most experienced veterans in TVB, the show just got better and better as the plot develops. After this, it seems that I don't have any series to look forward to at the meantime :(

Raya break is almost half way through by now. In the midst of indulging in canton and taiwan dramas, a pile of ruthless assignments are threatening to kill. Save me!!

Idiosyncrasies of Ramadhan

It's Rahmadan! Ramadhan has never meant anything to me at all back in Kuantan, although the East Coast is indeed denser with Bumis. It's the second Ramadhan month over here, and I have to say, things so different during this fasting month.

One thing for sure, we can't munch on biscuits freely during lectures, or drench in gulps of water without feeling guilty because there's just so many people who are fasting within my college. It is almost as if we are awfully discourteous towards the Malays, without expressing any consideration if we eat in public. Well.. being the lousy person I always am, I still eat in col wherever I like. In fact, I am now gleefully sucking tubes of Choki Choki in the library :D

Another aspect I find unbearable during puasa moths is the amount of people in restaurants during dinner time. This, might be a different story depending on areas. In shah alam, people literally enter restaurants in throngs by 6.30pm. The whole restaurant then transform into such a chaotic situation that you have to wait an hour for your food to be served even you secured yourself a place. As if the situation wansn't bad enough, many went to the extent of booking tables, invisibly occupying the already jam-packed eatery, just to ensure that they can have that bowl of rice in time. Austinians - remember the Atusa buka puasa dinner that we were conned by Tim into attending? Anyway, we did have a great time despite waiting for an hour for 3 dishes. :D

If there's something that I like about fasting month, that would be the Ramadhan Bazaar. Ngek. It amazes me that how Ramadhan Bazaars are all around the place, it seems that they've come mushrooming out of nowhere. What do these people normally do for a living? Anyway, RB encompasses some of the best Malay food and snacks that you can get, my favourite being the murtabak and the wide array of kuih-muih that normally one can only get from morning markets. As an added bonus, prices are usually cheaper in RBs.

People in the States, I wonder how is the bulan puasa climate over there. Do you miss the Ramadhan Bazaar? ;)



p/s: I breathed a sigh of relief. The Bio report has been submitted and finally, I am ready for a break.

Piano Solos for Malaysians?

i feel like yelling. and bawling. and stomping my feet on the hard cold tiles. at the same time. tickets for the one an only langlang performance this season are sold out! less than 3 weeks after this season's ticket sales are opened to the public. ok maybe 3 weeks is quite a period. but since when malaysians are so smitten with langlang concerts? and says who piano solos are boring. i even heard people saying that eager music enthusiasts started to crowd the box office at 25th of aug - the very first day of ticket sales. no wonder i cound't check for seats online even 2 weeks back. i bet tickets sold out within a few hours.

seriously, pay the mpo box office a visit anytime, anyday. you hardly encounter any people, let alone a queue. a loooooong and annoying queue who fights over the best seats in this case. is it because of the celebrated appearence at the olympics opening that people start turning the spotlight towards him? ARGH!

the all time favourite

the airina's all time favourite

luckily i managed to get tickets for sarah chang's. if not i swear i'm gonna boycott mpo for life.

A Spoonful of Salt Brightens Your Day

Hm.. most of you know that I enjoy snacks more than proper meals. A pack of unhealthy, lip-smacking pack of chips makes studying bio and doing calculus seemed like a breeze, no? Recently I have some new found snacks which I will be munching off for a couple of weeks from now before I get bored and never buy them again.

1. Crispy Seaweed!




It's actually very very salty. But nvm lah... what is junk food without salt and sugar right! Let me try to describe it. It is unusually crumpled and unlike normal sea weed packaged, their sizes are not uniform. And they taste unusually salty too; and I mean, really really salty -_- You know what? Never in my life did I bought a pack of sea weed. I detest the weird odour that normal sea weed exhudes. The only times that I actually ate sea weed is when it comes with sushi. But this is totally different! Anyone of you who are not fond of this green grass should give this a try. Maybe you'll like sea weed after all :)


2. Koh Kae peanuts!



Once you start eating it, you'll have to sellotape your mouth to stop eating it. It's just so addictive! Especially while studying, one of your hands would keep on putting it into your greedy mouth and before you knew it half can's gone. After googling it only I found out that this snack originated from Thailand. It comes in several flavors - coconut, chicken, tomyum, coffee etc... my favorite being the chicken flavor =)


3. Twiesties Chipster Potato Chips!




This is a tad over-priced in my opinion. It costs around rm5++ for the large pack, and all of us know how potato chips are package I guess. You get more AIR in the bag than the CHIPS. Anyway, I prefer this over Mr. Potato because the sour cream flavor simply tastes better. Sadly at the meantime it only comes in 3 flavors - the hot & spicy, sour cream, and the original flavor. Hopefully they'll come out with some quacky flavors real soon!


p/s: Other personal favorites include those small bottles of asam, Mars Bars, Hersheys.
p/p/s: Yes I do live an extrememly unhealthy life.

Sec18's Genting

If you observe close enough, you will find that there are significant resemblance between Cemara/Akasia in Sec18 and Genting Highlands.

 

Most of the economy hotel rooms in Genting are not pre-installed with air conditioner. You only get ceiling fans. So does C/A.

Genting

C/A

 

You know what, Shah Alam has been so crazily hazy this few weeks that I thought I would suffer early death if I stayed out longer.

Genting

Sec18

 

 

Whenever you're in Genting, be it in the middle of the year or during cooler months, you'll see people walking around with jackets, jumpers, cardigans.

Genting

Intec

 

-_-

Pang Pang Pang

Today I had the longest haircut ever. Maybe because my mind wasn't wandering off to places, or fantasizing about how life would be in the States when I get there next year, or planning how to get all the assignments done by the end of this week, or contemplating what movie/drama to watch next. That is why, the haircut seemed to take forever, as I watch the stylist cut and trim, trim and blow, blow and trim again and again like what seemed an endless cycle.

I hate the fact that I have a book in hand but I don't read it. It's even worse now because instead of allowing my mind to roam free, I just stared at the mirror and occasionally dozing off. For the past year, I've been adhering to a tight policy of no studies, no work during weekends and holidays, unless exam's tomorrow and I'm sure to fail the subject. I'm not sure if I'm doing well in my cgpa, but I'm positive that it's decent enough for me to live with it.

But maybe it's time for me to chance the policy. Maybe now is the time. I need a pang of realization that hits me real hard and tell me that a plant morphology assignment is more important than the gymnastics final; that final exams is more important than Sarah Chang's concert; that I'm so gonna be obese if I continue having supper every. single. day.

Everyone needs a pang of realization at some point of their lives don't they? Mine is now. Someone please slap me.

Massive weight gain @ Jogoya

Despite reading so countless reviews from food blogs, cy and I finally decided to give ourselves a treat and pay a visit to this celebrated restaurant. I was anticipating it so much that I even planned to starve myself for the entire day until dinner. Too bad the plan failed, so much so that I don't even feel really hungry during dinner, let alone ravenous.

Ironically, Jogoya is not from Japan. It's a Japanese Buffet Restaurant from Taiwan, which explains why it's more steered towards Oriental food than Japanese cuisine. The company opened its first flagship store in Malaysia only 2 years back, located in the Relish Floor of Stahill Gallery. Believe me, even before you set foot inside, you would have got a first taste through the alluring aroma of food... We entered around 7 and were told that we have only 2 hours left for dinner-time dinning. So for any of you who plan to go in groups, I suggest you start starving yourself make your way there as early as you can. Dinner starts at 5pm.

The place exudes a rather mysterious ambience... and I thought it was rather dark inside. Food counters were everywhere and tables nearly all around the place. Differing from other Japanese buffets is that over here, you don't need to stand around the food counter to wait for your food to be cooked. There will be samples of food in front of the counters, and you'll just have to place the small clips given into to bowl of food of your choice. Ordered food will then be served to your table after a few minutes. And I must say, they are rather efficient in this.

Seafood are in abundance here. Although I'm not a huge fan of raw food, but the fresh oysters here are simply superb. What's more it's free flow! Another highlight would be the fresh coconuts, which I guess both of us drank nearly 10 altogether. lol

Some of the stuff we ate... in random order.

Stuffed crabs

Buttered prawns + some cheese baked no-idea-what shells

I don't know what you call this in English but in Mandarin it's called "溏心蛋", and sweet pumpkin.

Steamed cod fish

And yes, we had plastic too -_-

Some of the food that I really recommend besides fresh seafood are their tempuras and the tepanyaki.

Unagi

Lobster salad. Mm.. this was good.

This was something special. Cheesed baked prawns in a tomato. Bliss.

Tepanyaki chiken + beef!

Cheese baked escargots

Tempura prawns

What I like about the place is that all the seafood displayed are placed on ice, which makes them look really fresh. And it adds appeal to the food when all the ice exudes white vapor trails. =)

Japanese claypot if I've not mistaken.

Tofu

Ah this I never try. It's also some clay pot thing which take ages to cook.

Shabu-shabu-like thingy on paper! You can chose your won combination of food and soup.

Curry crabs

Tempuras

Fresh mussels

Selection of Sashimi

Bamboo oyster (that's what I call it)

Time for desserts! Frankly, at this point we don't really have much space left for desserts; which was quite a waster cos, how often do you get a free flow of Haagen Dazs?

A close up look on some of the desserts we had.

Cy's bday cake =)

Longan and Suetyi dessert

Red wine

Chinese herbal jelly! I love this because they serve in honey rather than white sugar.

Spot the hidden Mickey

Fruits fruits fruits...

Cy doing the 'scorpion' style -_-" lol

Hm. I guess tat's about all the pics I have. The outcome of it would be...

p/s:

Jogoya
T3, Relish Floor
Starhill Gallery
Kuala Lumpur
Tel No: 03 - 2142 1268
(Halal)

Prices are RM78++ (Lunch - W/day is 11.30 am to 1.40pm, W/end is 11.00 am to 2.00pm), RM68++ (Late Lunch - W/day is 1.40 pm to 4.20pm, W/end is 2 pm to 4.20pm), RM88++ (Dinner - W/day and W/end is 5 pm to 9.30pm) and RM78++ (Supper - W/day and W/end is 9.30pm to 1am). Kids are charged RM10++ or more depending on their individual height.