15th March 2011

So, I haven't updated in a while. Reason? Because I'm now a working man and no longer have the luxury to sit back and think about all the trivia in life to share with you guys.

Many things have happened within the past few weeks, but I haven't had the time to sit down and write them all down just yet, since I now only have 24 hours a day - 9 hours at work, - 1 hour in traffic jams, - 8 hours sleep, that leaves me with 6 hours a day for my own stuff, including showering, food, and what else?

I'm not sure if you peeps reading this realize it, but my tone may sound different from before, reason is because I'm in the office right now and using my company's laptop, I can't seem to wrap my head around stuff like I used to when I'm alone.... somehow there's this ... "formality" in the air that makes everything so serious =.=" oh well~

Among the many things that happened, some things are more worth mentioning at the 'spur of the moment' or at least as soon as it's over. But now that stuff like the KK City Run has been a little more than 1 week ago, I kinda lost the momentum to blog about what it was like.

Anyway, for a slight re-cap, here's a few photos for you guys to see what it's like.

Mass Warming-up in the early morning isn't something you get to experience everyday.

And because the podium is so far away.... the Lead Instructor for our warm up only looked like a SPECK from that distance. Yet one way or another, people still manage to mimic the actions of the person in front of them, and so you get this "Waaave~~" formation that radiates from the front of the crowd.

Although it was called 'City "RUN"'..... but looking at the photo above tells me that I wouldn't be able to run that day.

Well, that was a week ago, on the 06th of March.

Now, I'm sitting in the office with my boss on leave for a whole week, leaving me lost and unsure of what to do with my time =) Maybe I'll just blog more, hehe... ~.~" just a thought. If my boss sees that I'm blogging during work hours, I'm done for my probation period.

Monday, 19th July 2010

I didn't put the day and date because something memorable happened, I didn't use it because I wanted it to look cool, but just because, I didn't know what other title to put.

It's been a while since I last updated. It seems my passion for blogging is dying once again.... or maybe it's because I've dedicated too much time to this virtual video animated game called "MapleStory" again =.="


Anyway, it's been holidays for me, and without knowing it, it's nearly coming to an end!! With 2 more weeks to spare, I'm trying my best to enjoy my last days of being able to eat home cooked food and just sit around while my mom does all the housework, heheh *evil smile* coz I have to do everything myself when I go back to miri.

But then again, being in KK, without enough Ringgit Malaysia's so spend, and nothing much to do, is actually pretty dull. So dull that I even spent time to scrutinize the potted plants that's been sitting outside on my balcony for 1 1/2 years..... And guess what? I found this~!

A green creepy crawler eating up all the young shoots off the tip of the plant!!

Upon informing my mom about it, she made the decision to throw it as far as it could fly. But then, me.... having nothing better to do, came up with the idea to let it live and see what becomes of it ^_^

Kinda scary eh... when you look at it closely.... reminds me of Pokemon Caterpie...

So having a fried computer, for those of you who knew, yes, my lappy got fried due to malfunction of the cooling fan... or something.... and I had 1 week with virtually NOTHING to do.... anyway, so having a fried computer and nothing much to do, I inspected the plant and the crawler on it every few hours.... and the very next day, I found it'd moved and gone to the bottom to get some shade.

A night later... while I was sound asleep... it turned into...

PUPA~

Too bad I wasn't around to see it spin it out. I never thought that he'd be doing it during Midnight~!!


Then slowly.... 2 days passed... nothing happened... 5 days, not much change. A week of uneventful happenings for the pupa went pass, while I had already gone for a couple of rounds of Call of Duty, had BBQ fish with friends, and even got my computer repaired.

Then somewhere around day 9, the colour of the pupa changed a bit.

It looked.... darker and.... drier... 0_0 and I thought it was a long way more to until... on the 10th Midnight... I was about to do a quick checkup on it's progress and saw.... ....

It was OUT~

And it was BIG~! Here's a 'Plant to Butterfly' ratio photo for your viewing. Basically, the wings were about as big as the palm of my hand.

And gosh... this is actually the first time I had a close look at a REAL BUTTERFLY.

Just look at those eyes.... and the tongue to go with... or proboscis... or whatever that's called =.=

Another pic... ^_^

10 Days. The amount of time it took to turn from a scary looking greenish trailer-like bug, into a huge (well, I think it's huge), colourful and amusing piece of artwork.

Somehow, I'm happy with the decision of not throwing it out the window. ^_^

Happy Belated Tiger Year!!

Every now and then, I forget about this blog of mine. This is one of those now and then's.... Seems I have once again found myself more busy in games and sleeping, rather than blogging. And right now, it's also one of those nights where insomnia strikes and I can't sleep again. It's 4 in the morning, and honestly speaking, I think my mind works best during midnight, coz it just can't stop spinning right now~!!!!

Well anyway, I guess it's also because of the last couple of weeks being pretty merry and noisy with the Chinese New Year right now. It's not that I've been out frequently or anything... (or wait... maybe I have been out quite frequently... never mind) Most of the time I was just sitting at home trying more new games and saving money. Hehehe


The Chinese New Year this year was a noisy one. 3 days before CNY, fireworks were ALREADY playing! I wasn't surprised at first...

But then the eve before CNY, things started getting a little craaaiiiizzie....

BOOM~~ BOOM~~ BANG~ BANG~~... and there was even the *Prrrar-prarprara-PrrarratttataTatt-tatataT* ones that were like 30 seconds long. Again... and again... and again...

I was thinking.... did the government lift the ban on fireworks or what??

*Kkkrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccckkkaakakakaka* were the only sound-sssSS I heard outside my house since 10pm onwards.... together with *BOOM BOOM*-sssSS as a kicker.

Or did the government just announce the 'end' of recession?? Cause I don't remember hearing such a news.... It seemed like everybody suddenly had all the money in the world to burn fireworks this year.

It's been a long time since I saw so many fireworks go off at once. The one like above are the ones that go *BBOMMMMMMmmmmm* ... ... and rocks your heart.

It definitely was a splendid view...




On the other note. My 'series' of photos for Valentine's Day basically went to the dogs ~.~
Reason for this is because I didn't have enough equipment, ideas.... AND motivation to do it. I only did a couple of photos, which didn't turn out very nice in my opinion. I guess I'll just save the ideas for next year ^^

Hope you guys still had a good "Gong Xi Fuck Cai" this CNY + Valentine's.



Btw, here's a photo I'd like to share. It's not mine, but I really salute the photographer who took this pic.

Happy Year of the Tiger 

by *HeWhoWalksWithTigers on deviantArt.com

I seriously like this pic soOOoo much. Anyway, please don't steal it and give credit to the author if you wanna share it ^^

Trip to the Summit

The next time someone tells you Mt. Kinabalu is a trip through Hell. Believe them. Except this hell is a freezing Hell.

So I've actually been back from my Mt. Kinabalu Trip for quite some time now. It's just that I was too tired and uninspired to blog anything about it yet.

As Sabahan's, I bet nearly everyone of you have been asked the question "Have you climbed Mt. Kinabalu before?" at least once. And from now onwards, I'm proud that I can actually say "YES!"


So what's so special about this Mt. Kinabalu, for those who HAVEN'T climbed, you might ask. Well, first of all, the peak is 4095.2 meters high; the journey to the peak and back down would take you 2 days and 1 night; it cost me a bloody RM550++ (price as of 2009); and lastly, if you ain't from some country that snows.... lemme just say you could keep your fruits and veggies perfectly fresh all the way up to the peak if you brought any.


My trip however was a 3 days 2 nights one. That very morning on the 21st before I left my house... I looked out my window, and saw

and I looked back at my 12-kg packed backpack and double checked my jackets....... and I said... "nah... It can't be that bad"... ... ... I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

The first night was a stay at the renowned Kampung Mesilau!! Where we spent most of afternoon time having a foot-massage in the blisteringly cold river....

which made your toes feel like they were missing, and your feet feel like... cold penguin feet....

But of course... us little children couldn't care less about having our feet frozen and kicked off our shoes to the side.

Owners at Play

Just to take pictures...

Well... after about an hour and a half of getting our feet numb, we trotted back for a cold shower 0.0 ... .... Cold + Cold = Hot ^^ just like negative + negative = positive ^^ ... ... ... okay... nevermind me...

The cold shower after a cold leg dip was seriously a WRONG idea. Having a 10 degrees celcius shower would practically make girls scream and guy's balls shrink into nothingness.


Having paid more than 500 bucks to freeze our asses in some wet river though... there IS... of course... something good that comes out of that. And that is buffet meals~! We had a filling steamboat dinner that night, and an even more stuffing breakfast the next morning. I have to say that the most enjoyable thing about this trip I had...... is that I did not have to worry about FOOD!!

Even the squirrels had to take the chance to have breakfast with us.


At 9:00 am of the 2nd day.... locked and loaded, we headed off

The first day's walk is an 8km walk uphill.... I have to admit that the road climbing up is actually very EASY.... especially for a person like me, who only did serious training 1~2 week prior to the climb.... and who usually sits at home only playing COD and O2Jam.... all it takes is 1.5 litres of water, 1 bar of chocolate, 1 lunch pack, and LOTS and LOTS of REST along the way... ... You'll feel as if your brain was going to explode and your heart would stop any minute... and if it rains, bravo~, you just got yourself some natural air-con that's pre-set to 12 degrees C and cannot be turned down.

But don't sweat it =) because there's always a resting hut within an hour's walk from where you are. And if you EVER happen to run out of water along the way.... and you're like in the middle of the whole journey and nearly half dead from thirst, and you expect to re-fill your bottle on the road... there's always this:

It really does make soOooo much sense when you're in the middle of nowhere and somewhere... with no water left... to be informed that you should've brought more water doesn't it? Thank you for your Understanding... Oh sure... I DO understand... ~.~


Anyway... it's a good thing I didn't run out of water myself. But pity the other people who thought they could get some water along the way... uh-uh.... too bad for them.


Honestly though. If anybody were to ask me where was the Best place in Sabah to have a photoshoot. In all honestly, my suggestion would be: Mt. Kinabalu.

Besides the challenging surroundings and backgrounds to take photographs with, there're still much insanely beautiful scenery to take pictures of. If you're not so interested in the scenery, you could even try some of this.... ....

Looks like some kind of album cover page if you ask me ^^

Of course... for serious photographers.... carrying your full set equipment, tripod, and lighting could break your back in 101 places. You'll need so many lenses from wide angle to telephoto to macro to cover the whole heavenly sky to the tiny squirrels and spiderlings which made Spiderman spiderman.

Cutting off from photography talk... we arrived at mid-mountain... or so-called Laban Rata in the evening.... 8 hours of climb, rest, eat, talk, photo-shoot..... I guess we did fine ^^ But the worst was yet to come....

That night. None of us bathed. We stayed in Gunting Lagadan, which didn't have a heater... so the water was like... ... 5 degrees?? But it seemed that Laban Rata wasn't doing much better =)

We continued our climb at about 2:30 am midnight. Climbing in pitch-black darkness. The darkness was one thing... the steepness of the mountain is another!! and the COLD WIND is the worst part~!

Unfortunately, since my camera flash is out of order, I don't have any pictures of the climb T.T

To cut the long story short... we climbed 3 hours in the Cold Night... walking on without a clue where we were going (of course the only clue was.... the peak)... all we did was walk along a the white rope which our whole journey depended on. In the middle of the night, 50 Meters LOOKED like a 100 meters!! But FELT like 500~!!!

Your Life Line

It was more of a test of Mentality that physical fitness I'll tell you:

"Your Body is about to collapse... your lips are nearly frozen... you are 2 kilometers more to the peak. You can choose to walk 500 meters downhill back to your warm room... or you could walk uphill till your eyes froze for another 2 kilometers... Which do you choose...."


Somehow... I managed to make it in to the peak in time for sunrise ^^ But I was already too tired to be taking photographs... so I just watched... while my face was blown dry by the icy wind.

To sum it all up... I'm pretty satisfied and proud of myself for actually reaching the peak... because it wasn't only once, that the idea of turning back and just giving it all up came to mind.... but I thought that if so many others could've made it, I can too, and I pushed on...

**I'll give a hint to those intending on climbing and haven't climbed before.. Looking at the photo on top.... and all other photos taken by people at Mt. K's peak... it seems small doesn't it?? I'll tell you that... from the place I was standing when I took that photo, to the tiny person walking there.... is about 100 ~ 150 meters of downhill walk.... which would take you about.... 4~5 minutes to walk... ^^


If you asked me if I'd want to climb again.... my answer:

I'd love to. But with better camera equipment, a flash... and a tripod.
When? Not anytime within a year's time, haha.
And this time I'm gonna train harder and further so that I won't have to be bothered with being tired while making my way up...
Oh.... and if I didn't have to worry about the price =.=.... RM600 a year.... no thanks... that's gonna blow my pocket.

The Climb's Eve

Actually I had a few things to update and talk about. But lately have been a little more busy for me since we were busy 1. Preparing for Mt. Kinabalu, 2. Yam cha and yam cha, 3. Left 4 Dead 2.

So right now it's after my midnight shower, sitting in front of the computer, with a cup of warm honey drink, and taking a rest after packing my backpack for tomorrow's Mt. Kinabalu climb =)


Considering that I've been in Scouts for 6 years and gone through all the journeys necessary to actually become a 'King Scout' (though I didn't actually manage to become one due to time limitations T_T), I'll consider myself quite experienced with packing for hiking and going on journeys. Except THIS time, it's going UP.

Of course this isn't everything...

And as I was packing.... I had a dilemma choosing between this....

and this

Well, I was thinking that the Desa's Finest milk could help fill my stomach.... while Mr. Walker could help keep me warm.


But in the end, I brought neither =.=

Catching Up with Life

Sorry that I haven't been blogging lately.... for those of you who might have been waiting and waiting for me to post something. But life has been a little busy lately...

So I'm back in KK and flippin, and during the day I'll be home with my mom, and then I don't feel like blogging when she's around cause she always breaks my chain of thought....

At night lately I've been out with friends going shopping, yam cha, movies... and more yam cha... so when I reach home, it's already past 12 at night and I basically don't know what's going on in my mind other than the thought of my comfy Bed.


So here I am now at 2:30 in the morning with a can of 'Pringles' beside me, and a glass of coke + chivas on my left, thinking of what plans to pull out within the next few weeks I'll be in KK. I've spent so much money lately, and spent even more time on wastage... but I think its one of those times in life that you feel everything around you is so surreal and... stuff.....

Maybe you won't even understand what I'm writing up here but who cares.... I just........ ..... thought that I should post something after such a long while....



Though sometimes.... I feel I'm like this tiny red ball of heat sinking into the ocean.... waiting for some time where I can come out again....

Ah shucks... wth am I talking about...... I guess it's the Chivas konk-ing me out.


Later guys.

Free week doesn't sound so free afterall

Just after coming down from my flight at Terminal 2 a few days back, I suddenly came to the realisation why I couldn't afford to just CANCEL my whole trip back to KK and stay in Miri instead.

And that is because........










I have an EXAM!




And what exam was that?? An INSURANCE exam.

Sounds shocking? I thought so too...... but I couldn't just skip it and stay in miri or fail the exam...... coz it already cost my mom a friggin RM300 just to register for the test.


So for the past few days, I've been busy studying for my exam, coming this Saturday. It's not that I wanna sell insurance, or work in the insurance industry of course, but I had to do it for my mom.... since for most of you who know, my mom's a West Malaysian, and the oh-so-kind-sabahan-government now requires all Insurance Agents to have a Trading license in order to sell insurance........ being a W. M'sian herself, it would be hard for her to get a license, and so......


she sent ME!.....

You know what..... commerce subjects turned out to be harder than I thought..... and the fact that it's INSURANCE doesn't seem to make things any easier..... and not to mention that my homework suddenly turned from a stack to a pile just by receiving an SMS from my coursemate forwarding my lecturer's instructions....

Btw, they say that if you can sell Insurance, you can sell Anything.... I wonder whether that's true but.....

I know that you'll never be the best sales person until you can sell a Comb to a Monk.

**********

At the same time, I'd like to introduce everyone reading this blog to ANOTHER blog of mine..... which will be my "Mobile Blog"........ which I'll update using my mobile phone.

I just came to realise that I have a camera phone, and full GPRS and MMS functionality, but have never used those functions.... so I just thought that I'll update some posts using my mobile once in a while instead...... for those moments when I don't have my DSLR with me ^^

I'm not sure how long I'll sustain that blog, since it should costs me RM0.50 per post, haha, and I already have THIS blog to take care of.

But anyhow..... introducting http://mobilebird.blogspot.com/

***********

Take it or Leave it

When was the last time you faced a hard-to-make decision and you literally didn't know which to choose?


Yesterday Afternoon, I was at the Miri International Airport, with another 2 friends, checking in for my flight back to KK, and just as I put my baggage onto the check-in counter's conveyor belt, the guy at the counter told me that he couldn't find my booking and asked for my booking number. I was like "Great..." and had to tell him I couldn't remember it.



He had me walk over to the AirAsia counter to double check my booking.......... and so I did.... only to have me find out.... That I was supposed to be on the MORNING flight!! Simply said, I'd missed my flight.

And as you all know of the cheap-skate AirAsia, you CAN NOT reschedule your flight, you CAN NOT pay a penalty to change your booking time, and you'll NEVER ACTUALLY get a FREE flight from AirAsia (even if they say FREE tickets.... you definitely have to pay something).

Then what made AirAsia even more sucky was the fact that the more you wait, the more you pay. And being in the current situation, which was both lucky AND unlucky, I COULD still buy a ticket back to KK for that very same flight...... but I only had 5 minutes to decide...... and it'll cost me a whopping RM221.50 ! ! !


I was stuck....


4 minutes left to decide..... with only RM250 which was actually for my April's room Rental.... My mind raced as fast as it could.... I didn't know whether I should take the ticket, or get another day's ticket.... or just stay in Miri. But then after checking with the counter, I came to the realisation that even if I booked my flight for one of the next few days, the price would only be like, RM200, RM180, RM150....

After 2 minutes of discussion with my furious mom, and a frantic exchange of conversation between me, my mom, the booking counter, and my friends, I quickly came to the conclusion that the ticket was Take it or Leave it.... RM221.50 or Stay in Miri, so to say.

With that being said..... I finally opted for taking the ticket, paid RM221.50 in cash, and rushed to check in my luggage....



I knew that I couldn't actually afford spending money like this.... and that I could've just stayed in Miri for a change..... but I guess that for my mom's sake, for KK's sake...... I just had to postpone my plans on getting a new Lens for my camera and a new phone...... to a later time frame, haha.


In the old times when we made mistakes, we paid with a punishment;
This time when we make mistakes, we pay with RM200;
The Next time we make mistakes, we pay with our job;
And the Last time we make a mistake..... we pay with our lives.


Nothing else to say.

Intermission Break

*Quite a long post ahead* or is it the pictures that make it seem long......

While I was planning to finish my updates about KL as fast as possible, the last 2 weeks of my stay in KK had other plans for me instead..... to keep me away from my blog.

So..... I've been busy with quite some stuff the last week........... namely.... visiting Tshung Tsin during it's Sports Meet.... gone to a House Warming Party.... planned and went to Pulau Manukan... and watched 3 movies at the cinemas.

It's such a nostalgic scene going back to school and see that though some things have changed... it reminds you of what it was like years before.......

The sports meet this year...... of course, was just like it was years before.... Besides the fact that it only consists of 5 houses (compared to the previous 7)...

And Nature didn't seem to have mercy on this year's students

Digiman Mr.Yee looks like he was fully equipped for the weather.



Oh... God spare the maids and kakak's of these children....

Who's next to jump?



Mr Lai was still in Business



And the school still duped our money by inviting this uneccessary animal

Nevertheless....... going back to TTSS always reminds you of the 6 years you spent there....... seeing

This!! reminds me of how irritating the 'after-recess' bell sounded till we were forced to 'silence' it..... (let's have a closer look)

See that white disgusting thingy?..... that's chewing gum.... Though it's pretty much hardened by now.... but the bell definitely isn't as loud and annoying as it once was

This.... reminds you about the 'Leong fun susu' that cost us only RM1. (It's 1.50 now... and taste a lot worse....)

This.... reminds you of the days and nights we spent 2 years ago doing the same things........

And THIS! Reminds us of our glorious moments back then........







Moving on..... the next day's night..... we had good food and fun at Pheobe's House Warming!! Thanks Pheobe.

Then came our pulau trip again.... organized by those who didn't make it last time, haha.

There weren't many people... only 7, but we had fun ^^

We tried the banana boat......

Everybody was so happy!

While Shaun was over-excited about it and.............. .................

You get quite a scene, hahaha.....

Then we tried the Jetski..... which was NOT how easy I expected it to be...... it's like riding a bike... but on water......

The instructor was supposed to sit behind..... and what happens when he sits in front is.......

BUSSH!!!!!

Later when we were back on the beach......

Shaun tries his luck


As the next James Bond.........

Feeding the fish can be fun........ when you try to do it in 'exotic' ways..... like

Hahaha.......



Well, that's all for now....... I thought I wanted to review about the 3 movies I watched, but..... I thought I didn't want to overdo my blog post. Btw, the 3 movies were "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", "Pink Panther 2", and "Valkyrie"..... all which were pretty good movies I would say.

So long.