thank you

hi people, i am 21 years old already.

i got several small gatherings with friends on the purpose of celebrating my birthday. and throughout these days i have been telling them thanks for putting in the effort. beyond words can actually express how grateful i feel. i don’t think i am a good friend sometimes and not even somewhere close to it but i received swamping wishes from everyone of you. i feel loved during these autumn days, i feel the warmth.

people told me that i gave no response when i’d received those presents. i just want to defend myself that simply because you people’s love overwhelmed me that i lost myself in all the blessings. thank you and i heart everyone of you around me.

for being so blessed, i really appreciate what you people did. with least anticipation for what would actually happen, i thank you for making me feel big during my 21st. really big. i jot no names here, but i will always remember who you are. thank you.

arrhhhhhh!!!! saaaannn kkkiiuuuuu!!!!!

to strip club, join me anyone!?

recently

you know, one period in a year especially holiday, people live slow pace life. so i am, slow to the extreme. and i have started to unwind since last 2 months.

just maybe life is too good recently.

but …

i am going back soon.

^^

 

hi, this carrot thingy is my leg.

i sprained my knee. i thought a new year should be started with a whole new event. on the first of day of 2009, i experienced severe diarrhoea and now a week prior to chinese new year, i got my very first experience of knee sprain. the way this year began was exceptionally cool le.

happy chinese new year everyone! =)

p.s i have to make thing as short as possible because i am leaving to a super rural village. pretty lovely one though. i would like to write a long post about recent life however.

merry election

due to the sudden death of the former deputy education minister month ago, the kuala terengganu parliamentary seat fell vacant. so, here is the kuala terengganu by-election!

it’s changing

ages ago, i used to think that barisan nasional is the only reliable party for us people to choose.

to think that thing have changed so drastically now, my friend and i used to comment around that PAS is a worthless party. when we said “wa, he is pas people”, he would unknowingly receive some hammers slammed onto himself. yea, we used to condemn opposition that much, with PAS party in particular because of its manifesto to practice islamic ruling. our thoughts were imbued with naivety back then. but at present, our BN is undeniably so corrupted. everyone is on the wave of reformation.

terengganu so crowded

because this election is deemed as the deciding ballot for the future of our country, both governing and opposition parties treat this election seriously. to tell you how crowded it is, the police have deployed some 6000 personnel throughout the by-election. apart from that, each state has sent their representatives to assist respective party. all in the number of thousand. imagine terengganu population increased by some 30,000 out of sudden. fu wa!

fanning the fire

i notice that during the campaign, what most of the leaders in both parties have been doing is just pin-pointing each other faults in state administration but of course with so many rumours about our prime-minister-to-be spreading around, the opposition leaders gain the license the make a big fuss with all the issues. yet neglected are the issues our country facing now. education, strategy to cope with global financial crisis such topics were not the enlightened in so many talks they had given.

however, i reckon some of the folks in terengganu are just not ready to discuss those topics in depth. they concern more about their own benefits and welcome only the talk that slashes the BN. i guess only these talks are able to satiate their hunger for change. so i am, i love those furious talks too. provoking they are, especially those by anwar and lim guan eng. they are discreet and careful in delivering the message though. bahaya!

but let me quote this from raja petra for you. lol

saya ingat tanah di terengganu pada awal 80an bernilai rm150 sekaki. itu saya ingat lebih mahal daripada tanah bukit bintang o. sebab itulah orang terengganu semua pindah ke kelantan. tapi sekarang kamu semua tidak perlu pindah. kita sama sama pindahkan umno pergi laut cina selatan sana!

the media

media correspondents can be easily spotted around in the town. first time in my life, i witnessed live interview and half an hour after that, i could see the news on screen already. but being here in kuala terengganu myself, i experience and witness all the election process goings since the nomination day, what brings out my animosity towards the media is their unfair one-sided news. kindly open any mainstream media like tv and newspaper, they fairly give any update about the opposition. while BN has thousands supporters wandering around the town was announced on headlines, PAS who has battalions was made silent to the public. unfair!

random facts i found

1. kuala terengganu is as if politicians star avenue. you can easily meet politicians like ong tee kiat and lim kit siang in kopitiam throughout the past 10 days.
2. however, people like najib can be hardly seen.
3. travel time in kuala terengganu is made threefold.
4. poverty is temporarily eradicated with everyone has money and wonderful meals everyday.
5. hk police more yao yeng than ours.
6. politicians’ hands are so silky! i mean so soft.

although from my observation, PAS members seem outdoing governing coalition party, the winner still remains unknown. but i guess most of the people here have had a taste of sweets given by federal government.

pod pod

no, not ipod. i am talking about tripod. it took me few days to finish browsing the photos from the previous trip because of the distraction of by election here. and i found another lovely companion that was heartlessly forgotten. he is our tiny mini tripod.

haha, sorry if that pokes a "chewww” out from your mouth. i bought this in ap liu street in hong kong on the third day there. it is as cheap as a stalk of celery in australia and it works much more than the price itself would suggest. that is theoretically, with the support of tripod, our digital camera able to have long exposure of light during night time. thus making the photo to be brighter and enhancing the comparative surrounding in one photo shot. kind of glowing effect for the photo.

but when do you need it. like how often. because some of you may not have the interest of taking scenic night view. no worries because sometimes when you are on a trip with bunch of narcissistic friends, you can’t help but the idea of taking group photo strikes you all the time. good enough that almost all of the digital cameras available in market currently are equipped with self-timer function, but when everyone rush into camera’s lens, who is going to lift the camera up to suitable distance from the ground for a better shooting angle? tripod lor.

and occasionally when you reach some random beach that is so rocky to have a smooth surface to place your camera up right, who is going to hold the camera for you? tripod lor.

okay, i didn’t know i am such a poser even during setting the camera. anyway, i know it would not be convincing without a clear comparison. let me show you the vast difference between with and without tripod. this is without tripod. camera practising normal mode with faster shutter speed and shaking hand of mine. slight blur, looks dim.

er, the one below was taken with tripod. night mode. undeniably magnificent!

see how amazing the photo is with simple assistance of photoshop! ops, i mean tripod. lol

hk getaway

to start this, i have to say that hong kong is a place with people. easily thousands wherever you go.

we went madam tassauds wax museum. we accidentally met princess diana there.

took some expensive photos as well there. business-minded hongkie.

also took expensive cable car ride up to ngong ping village. a village which doesn’t have anything like village.

i saw one of the darkest dog in the world i think. from african de.

how rare we spotted a place without people. we took heaps of photos there.

like this.

 

and this.

and this also.

i asked joyce to take this and i promised to make it my facebook display picture because andy lau too did this posture in the wax museum. =.=

then we saw a leng lui. kuan sim said she is pretty. i very dulan.

but then we friend ma. no kira de.

paid a visit to hong kong museum. at tsim sha tsui.

 

i left my trace there. so that my grandson can read something about me in the future in hong kong museum.

we went wong tai shin as well. this was how the temple look like. it’s basically another tourist attraction. people mountain people sea also lor.

and didn’t forget to take album cover picture there. lol

on the same day we went to harbour city. all the branded shops there had customers volume like pasar malam in malaysia. LV free meh!?

went all the way to stanley on a double decker. the driver was way too pro to be just a bus driver.

visited st. stephen beach where couple always stay overnight and found that they had been sleeping on the men’s shoulder whole night long and start to like the guy.

 

and took this photo on one of the trees there.

a week in hong kong. we tried not to miss any cultural event that people there practice. drama was one of them. we didn’t miss out any episode throughout that week.

right after the drama every night, we proceeded to dessert house and after that mong kok night market. this is kuan sim with summer wear in freezing winter.

i went to hong kong and saw one of the densest population country in the world. thus i can envisage how people dots the surface of earth. i had fun! bye hong kong.

that night

that night in aunt’s zinc roofed house, present were only family and relatives. the clock attached to the wall suggested that everyone had probably done with dinner. at the dining table there was crowded with my mother’s sisters. each of them giving others recent snippets. they might not be interesting but definitely intriguing enough to keep the sisters laughing and stayed awake whole night through. but i guess it was all because of gossips that kept the ladies so excited.

at another corner of living room, the elderly were spewing their prevailing dissatisfactions on the current governing party, trying to convince others that to economics hadn’t been improving since ages ago and how the government made the matter worse by pouring false hope on them. but of course, amongst them, one or two were doing more than mediocre financially and being men, they were bound to boasting. i find it really funny when they did that in hokkien dialect. the atmosphere however, was not such merry an hour ago. it was rather silently awkward but with only mere international issue like taiwan ex-president’s embezzlement such topic starters, they were able to drag the conversation miles ahead. and thus caused the house filled with noise. a noise incorporated with kindred.

the kids were indulging in the company of cousins in the same stature. clapping games could always pull them together perfectly like magnet. when they won the games, they burst into peals of laughter, the smiles could be so pure; when it went otherwise, their faces turned angry naturally. the kids were so adorable that the anger and happiness were presented with no other means. the claps and rhymes too somehow reminded me about my distant childhood. almost immediately, the mild sense of nostalgia surged. i used to play that with my friends too when i was still a naive child.

and me in the living room also, trying to mingle with the kids with the inexpensive television showing the singaporean drama “kinship” on the screen. so much i love the ties of family.

at home

being at home makes me feel so good all the time. everything is just so right for me. the same old signboards, the same junction that i have been passing by for the past 15 years and still counting, the typical morning market that i am familiar with, the minor traffic jam during rush hours and the smell of the people here. but not to forget the inefficiency in government sectors. that’s alright for me because perfection might somehow makes me feel wrong here. i have been following mama to market, being early bird, watching the running of our society. other than that just eating, sports, meeting friends. well, they are very much still kt-boys, except hanloong. he has a super hip hairstyle now that makes myself so outdated now. haha. i don’t have his photo with me right now otherwise i will definitely post it here. haha. as a conclusion, the holiday is not as free as i expected.

on the other note, i made a birthday present for somebody. guess what it is people! lol. happy birthday chaiei.

journey back

kiasu not always good
this story started with me trying to be thrifty by purchasing budget airline back to malaysia from australia. because you know, i have been moderate when it comes to spending like going all the way to market to buy vegetables and meats during weekend and cutting down my outing expenses. and also stealing toilet rolls from communal toilet in unilodge, sometimes. we could save a dollar or two in these ways during normal day. not much, because the money you spend is little, the amount you could possibly save would be accordingly little as well. in this flight ticket case, i thought i could most likely, save some hundreds. so, i was with airasiaX though i knew that the transit part to gold coast would be a little arduous. and i got the ticket quite early to get the best possible rate. somewhere around august if not wrong. but right a month after i purchased my ticket, airasiaX introduced kuala lumpur-melbourne direct flight. wan ye ar! my boss said i kiasu. i know that.

tiger airways was a disaster 
so, off i went to tullamarine airport in melbourne this fine afternoon. with two luggage, i trudged to the nearest direction board finding my terminal but in the board, they had all kinds of airlines clearly stately except tiger airways. cham lor. after a while i found out that tiger airways terminal was a separated independent unit. isolated. that’s alright, i got the ticket quite cheap. but things always not as wonderful as you thought. prior to departure, i had checked my luggage not exceed the given allowance. and i brought one hand luggage with me because i knew that laptop bag was excluded from previous experience. but then tiger airways staff told me that laptop bag would be my only hand carry luggage  and i got to pay extra penalties for exceeding the weight allowance. now the ticket wasn’t cheap anymore. however, the worst part was on the plane, the stewardesses were horrible. they were of the size of  small little elephant.

gold coast ulu place
once i touched down at gold cost international airport, to my utter surprise, the airport resembled very much like the one in kuala terengganu as in poorly built. low cost terminal it was. so called international airport. i thought it would be at least with the transient travellers and visitors kept flowing. but the truth went otherwise. now then problem came, i had to wait for another 12 hours to my next flight back to malaysia which means i had to stay overnight at the airport, but by judging the condition in the airport, i doubted they would let me stay there. so, i went around looking for security, because you know, security could be hardly seen there. as a conclusion, i resorted to a backpackers’ hotel at some 10 minutes away from airport because they would shut the airport down by 11p.m. with the two luggage i travelled alone in the dark.

backpacker hotel is good
travelling alone in the dark is not a good thing at all. i was so exhausted by the time i reached hotel. got taichi again there. i was short of few dollars due to all the unexpected expenses before. i talked to the receptionist and he was kind enough to let me stay. thank you. the rate was pretty affordable however. after all the hectic mess before, i finally settled down at the backpacker’s. i spent the night on the phone and departed to kuala lumpur the next morning. here people i’m back!

p.s my hand phone had just been stolen. #%(*&@! how could they welcome me back in that way. diu! by the way, i just realize that i haven’t given my phone a name. maybe !xobile because it is black in colour. bye !xobile

back

tonight in this room again. i am not alone this time. sitting around me around are silences. i look into the mirror, it reflects pictures of me. they make me remember.

i remember how i hope to touch on the land down under before coming here. yet there was surge of reluctance to board on the plane on the very last second due to some reasons. i appreciate overseas learning opportunity but i even heart my family more. for the moment like that, how could i leave everything without giving an effort. everything, however, turned out to be fine at last.

i remember me being a stranger to everyone in that long prevailing exuberant university society the first day i stood at gate 11 in melbourne university. with my unfriendly-to-strangers nature, i struggled lots in getting new friends. the days when lunch partner finding obsessed me much. the days when a greeting from stranger could pull a smile deep from my heart.

i remember attending church on weekly basis as part of my life for 5 months. meeting people from church is always great indeed as they are so friendly and to my utter surprise, so happening at all time. i’m glad that i was there but unfortunately i didn’t make it to visit them for the last time of year 2008 this morning. good bye!

i remember then me and darryl always took a good 34.56 minutes to nearby train station during auntie joyce’s absence. we talked everything under the sun and even sang our lungs out with sharing a pair of earphone. this sounds gay but through these times i knew more about him and even myself. true friend he is. sorry if i had done anything wrong to you during that period or after the days i’d moved out. i know there are few, but you are not the person who keeps grudge. thank you so much and i love you. remember to bring back your pants in my room. lol

i remember me trampling the result papers i got from my assignments. how disappointing to know the result went otherwise when i thought it was a brilliant job of mine. haha. and i am getting used to it now which is really bad. i am still wondering whether the result will meet up to my expectation this time. you know, anomaly always there.

i remember the arrival of kengwei to melbourne in a fresh morning in july. the days started with him sending a text to him and me meeting him at southern cross station. the next thing i knew was we carried his broken luggage all the way back to unilodge. how pathetic. lol. we normally share common thoughts for most of the time except in the kitchen. i always insisted to have less flavouring added into the meals and he would show his unfavourable expression but we did tolerate with each other. *shake hand*. i am looking forward to the next year.

i remember meeting new bunch of people in second semester with most of them truly deserved the year most diligent student award. i was lazy but our chemicals worked so perfectly that it reached a balance point where i became slightly hardworking and they no longer clenched their fists so hard when exam came. while you think hardworking people are kind of geek who bore people to death, they could be so extreme in the sense of enjoying life. experience of all sorts. you name it they will bring it to you. happy to know them. by the way, i just realized that people call us “environment gang”. i love you all too!

ups and downs of whole year through. i have learnt something new. time to go home again.

已经一年了。时间，还真的不等我呢。

p.s honghong i review the video recorded at airport. i failed to accomplish your task to kao ang mo. they are too hard for me. we are unable to communicate. haha