written in stone

It's 2011... the end of the world is next year. Now read this.

2011-03-08T23:16:00.006+08:00

Where do we go in 2011?

First post of 2011.

I'm tempted to wish everyone a "Happy New Year" but it's more than 60 days in, so the greeting is more or less redundant. It's already even futile to be wishing "Gong Xi Fa Cai" or "Happy Valentine's Day" right now. Maybe a happy birthday well wishes to those who and who but you know who you are and I probably would have greeted you in person or on FB already.

Perhaps, more realistically, I should do a head count of how many of my regular readers are still getting updates from here. I must admit that I had been totally off the blogosphere radar of late and had decided to learn how to live my life away from the blog but I landed into the atmosphere of microblogging (read: Twitter!), and was weighed down by the gravity of "short-attention-span-ness" and into the universe where you are forced to express your thoughts in all of 140 characters. Yes, if you noticed, my Twitter's been active where my blog had grown mouldy oldy and dormant though many months of neglect. And I don't blame those who were my followers then if they had chose to follow another path. I subscribe to the whole, romantic "If you love them, set them free..." notion.

Almost.

Truth be told, and I know to some it would be the same old excuse: "I've been busy".

Don't believe me? Read the previous post which was done in Nov 2010 and the one before which was like what... half a year ago?

Well, be that as it may, I'm not going to make anymore excuses to you all, and I shouldn't be as well. Just hop on for the ride, read the words when it comes (no pressure on you, and no pressure for me to continuously update as well), and enjoy the pictures along the way.

Sure as hell,... this blog is alive.

Only just.

Welcome back you.

A season, a semester goes by...

2010-11-22T09:39:00.003+08:00

Well, would you believe it?

One entire semester without an entry. If there's one thing I can sum up is this: the workload has increased. No doubt about that. This has been an immensely busy semester and even when I am typing this now, I am waiting for some documents to be sent my way so I can start working on them again.

And there's still some reports and minutes to write and complete as well.

But I suppose I'm doing a lot better than what was mentioned in the last post. On the whole, this has been a difficult year and I hope things are looking up from now on. I am so pleased that Christmas is round the corner, but on the other hand, I have to teach through the whole December 2010 to January 2011 period. We call this the monsoon semester aka "the short semester", and I'm so glad that this is the final monsoon semester. Ever.

I hope to get some travelling done soon. That short trip to Singapore in July is too short. I need a longer break. After this it seems like there's no break from December 2010 right up to Nov 2011. It's going to be a long, long year ahead. Even this year seemed long. But it also seemed short at the same time. I sit back and think, "Where the hell did this year go?"

And somehow I feel I am not the only one who's feeling this.

A closed chapter is the opening of a new one with endless possibilities

2010-08-20T05:17:00.017+08:00

at Marina Bay Sands Resort

This entry took a long time coming.

So much has happened on a personal level: many highs and lows which has happened in the last two months which had shaped how this year is going to turn out for me. As cliche as that may sound, it really has been a challenging year so far.

There were so much to write about, but clearly it wasn't the season to sit and put my thoughts down as much as it was a season to first experience, feel, learn, understand, reflect and to be strong enough (and knowing to be strong enough) to carry on despite the circumstances and the weight of expectations that follow.

For a start, this episode started some time back in mid-June this year, when one of my students sms'd me to tell me that her mother was in the final days of the final stage of her cancer. The thought of walking into the hospital--which was all too familiar to me given the type of work I did back a few years' ago--all seems so clear to me today, although nothing of which felt remotely familiar on that day. I had left my Cell group early that night just to be by her (my student's) side and to provide whatever support necessary, although I'm not sure if I really had done anything significant at all. I hope that despite the adverse circumstances, I had done whatever I possibly could.

Of course, I think most of you who are readers of this blog would probably have realised that what happened the following day on 17 June was one of the darkest days of the year especially for those who are in or are closely connected to the Taylor's CF. We had lost our brother and friend Joash Wee in a terrible car accident which also claimed the lives of his father, grandmother, and two younger sisters. When I had received the sms from Nicole in the morning, I wasn't certain if the news was a sick joke from whom the original source was unknown or the truth. I didn't know to react neither did I want to believe the truth, even if it was. By the time I had arrived at work, I received a phone call from Cheryl and to my horror of horrors, the news was true. I believe that most, if not all, of us were in shock for days knowing that his untimely departure affected us so deeply in so many ways. This was a young man who was loved by those around him and--according to one CFer which I agree with his statement--had in his short life, left a legacy for us to follow. So instead of recollecting the thoughts of his sudden loss and to evoke the pain relating to it, I would like to thank and appreciate God for blessing us with Joash despite the short time we had with him and I believe God has His timing and had called him back once Joash's purpose on earth had been fulfilled. Once again, we miss you bro and we'll meet again soon.

Joash Wee (RIP 1987 - 2010)

(photo courtesy of Taylor's CF)

Then there were exams for my students which I had to prepare them for and that short span of time was a much-needed distraction from the shadowed valley. Shortly before this there were also the assignments that I needed to mark and cleared before the final assessment.

Of course, there were some high moments in between as well. In fact, there were some high moments which involved my brothers from my former church and former band (Qrown) -- Stephen and Keng.

Stephen and Joanne presents baby Talia

Stephen, who now works at Singapore, together with his missus, came back to KL for a short holiday--as a father. Eleven weeks prior to their return, Joanne (the missus) gave birth to a healthy baby girl, Talia, and they decided to come home to present the baby to all their family and friends. It was sweet that they had invited their closest friends to share that moment with them. I had posted up Stephen's testimony on video at Facebook earlier, so those of you who actually watched the video would know that Talia was really a gift from God and also there were some adversities that she had to survive through during the early phase of her life. But all is well now. As a friend, I am so proud of this new family and it's such a joy to be a part of their life (I know Stephen for quite many years now) and, like Stephen said, also a part of Talia's life now as well.

Keng, on the other hand, took the brave step to the next level and married his fiancee, Majorie. But before that, of course, the bachelor's party. This was the first time I saw the teetotaller Keng drink for the first time. However, this guy's got a pretty good threshold for alcohol. It doesn't mean that just because he doesn't drink, he can't drink. He surprised us all. Anyway, this was the first time I get an sms telling me of the stag night at 7pm and to appear at the venue at 11pm. Very spontaneous albeit last minute, but I think most of us had fun trying to get Keng wasted, but somehow despite numerous attempts, this guy totally stayed firm. Good guy this Keng.

Boys will be boys and longtime friends (l-r): with Keng, Mark, Seng, Shel, and Stef.

Keng who is a professional musician and plays bass for the band Seven Collar T-Shirt played and recorded his own bridal march theme which was really original, very atmospheric and surreal at the same time. Cool nonetheless.

The church ceremony

(photo courtesy of Keng's official wedding photographer)

... and the dinner.

A few days after the wedding, something else happened which was a major miscommunication with a cell member, but that's all water under the bridge now. All had passed and we are firm friends again, but at that point, it was difficult for both of us.

And then came the new appointment at work which was a new challenge I was looking forward to and relished, but it was something for the next season.

Some time after that, it was my mid-term break which, in many ways, was the close to this roller coaster chapter. I took a trip down south of the border to the city state of Singapore, which up till last month, I had not visited in seven years. My cuzzie, Brenda, kept asking me last year when I would visit, but I kept postponing the dates much to her chargrin as I couldn't find the time. But this time, it was much needed. And timely. And intentional. I wanted to catch up with my extended family and (re)building the bridges with them, and also to reconnect with friends. I had a great time at Stephen's, and also catching up with Jin Ye, Su-lin, and my cousins -- Eugene, Diana, and Brenda--with their respective families. It's good to finally get to know my nephews on a more personal level and I hope, looking forward, to also connect with my nieces whom I didn't get a chance to meet during the trip.

with my cuzzie Brenda

Something I thought which was very uncharacteristically of me and very untypical of anyone who visits Singapore, I didn't get much time to do shopping. But above and beyond it all, I am pleased and dare to say that I had re-established relationships and friendships during the trip. Not even two stolen pairs of shoes could derail me. It was disappointing, yes, but sometimes we need to understand what we value most in life, and at this moment, I know what I value in life and more than ever or anytime in my life, I am certain and reaffirm that all of us were born to relate to each other.

I eventually got another pair of shoes and that was as much shopping I did with the time there. The rest were spent sightseeing with friends and just catching up.

with the Cheongs -- Stephen, Joanne, and Talia.

When I got back from Singapore on Monday night, I had to prepare for the orientation program the following day when the new intake comes in. Immediately, I was thrusted back almost immediately into the new season. With that new responsibility from the new appointment.

But before the semester started in full swing, there was also the staff trip to Penang and Pulau Payar.

Pulau Payar Marine Park

(two hours by boat from Penang and at the waters of Langkawi)

On the ferry boat with Wei Haan, Rachel and Molly.

And the traveling party from my respective School

But I regard this staff trip as a start to the new season rather than the end to the one which this whole blog entry is about.

Pauciloquence

2010-06-14T11:57:00.002+08:00

Decisions...

Stereophonics at KL Live (28 April)

2010-05-21T17:10:00.007+08:00

This is the 700th post in this blog (which is about six years since I started it). Not bad eh considering I'm not a full-time blogger? Another milestone.

Well, nothing to be proud of. This entry should have came sooner considering that it is about a concert which happened here three days after Kelly Clarkson's.

I bought the ticket (yes, ticket, read that as ONE) to Stereophonics' show the same time I bought the tickets for Kelly's. That really dented a hole in my wallet for a while. But it was all well worth it. One thing I learnt from this whole week though: never go for two concerts within the span of a week. Other than being costly, it can be very tiring (for the throat especially) and dehydrating. But like I said, well worth every penny.

On the ticket it was printed showtime begins at 7:30pm, so I arrived at a comfortable time of 7:30pm. There was a queue... a long queue. Wait, the doors are not opened yet? Why not? Looks like I didn't have to wait so long compared to some of the rest who I reckon were waiting there like for God knows when. While queueing there were some girls from some tobacco company doing some research and were giving away lighters in exchange for personal information. Typical. Within 15 minutes, I met Roy and he was accompanied by his colleagues one of which was Jian Loong, a former neighbour of mine. Amita, I was told by Roy, was also coming for the gig. If I knew they were also going for the gig I wouldn't have had to go buy tickets all by myself. Anyway, I was already prepared to go to a gig on my own. It's cool, but it's not as fun I suppose. Amita agreed with me in admitting that we were not really big Stereophonics fans and we only knew a few songs.

We only got in at about 8:30pm, I think. After getting in, it was more waiting. While waiting, Amita and I got a beer each at RM10 per pop and were surprised to see that the beer they served were Tiger Ice. It came in a bottle reminiscent of Corona but tasted like Tiger Beer nonetheless. It tasted lighter than the usual Tiger though, not too sure how high is the alcohol percentage in comparison to standard Tiger. I was quite surprised to see that gweilos made up more than nearly 30% of the crowd (I could be mistaken about this figure but there were quite a lot of Caucasians in the crowd).

By the time the band took the stage it was already 9:20pm. So much for 7:30pm, and they didn't even have an opening act. Stereophonics started the night with a song from their latest album Keep Calm and Carry On called Live 'N' Love. It was loud and lively enough to kickstart the night.

After the first song, they proceeded to play A Thousand Trees and some songs which were more familiar to me. "More familiar" in this case means songs that were in their greatest hits compilation, Decades in the Sun. Some of the favourites that they played that night were My Own Worst Enemy, Pick A Part That's New (the one with the cool Italian Job parody video!), Maybe Tomorrow, Superman, Mr Writer, Have A Nice Day, Local Boy in the Photograph, Just Looking (... I'm not buying!!!), The Bartender and the Thief, and their very very smashing and rocking UK #1 hit, Dakota.

I made sure I charged my camera battery so that it could last me till the end of the night; I somehow knew that Dakota would be the last song of the night. My battery lasted me till the end of the night. Problem was the memory card didn't. So midway through Dakota, my greatest fear came through. I ran out of memory space after shooting all the other songs that preceded the encore. Bollocks! So I had half of Dakota in my camera and the other half in my iPhone, and I still haven't got round to editing the videos and somehow mashing them up together. But damn! I need a memory card with a bigger memory.

I had one other complaint though: when Kelly Jones took out his acoustic guitar and played a slower, intimate number, I was annoyed to find that so many of the people upstairs (I'm not too sure about downstairs) were talking among themselves like some pub with people more preoccupied with their own conversations over beer than listening to him belt out a song about red star, or whatever. And it was getting quite loud too, till at some points the voices from conversations nearly drowned out Kelly's voice from the speakers. I mean, we all paid good money for the show, so why couldn't they just STFU and listen? Yes, maybe the song was unfamiliar to many but this is no pub band. This is a paid-for concert, and the rest of us want to listen to the artist as well. It seems like as if the audience only responds to loud, heavy distorted guitars.

But there's no doubt about this one thing: Kelly Jones, like his namesake Clarkson three days' earlier, can sing live and can hold his own amongst the best British vocalists for a rock band with his famous whisky voice.

Check out the vids for yourself...

Kelly Clarkson at National Stadium, Bkt Jalil (25 April)

2010-05-12T18:10:00.006+08:00

Kelly on stage

It took me nearly half a month from the last entry to finally put this up.

Some of you had already asked me in person.

Yes, Kelly Clarkson's concert was awesome, other than the fact that, from where we were seating, she was just a this little speck on stage. Well, that's what cheap tickets get you. According to Paul, she said that we climbed up the 'mountain' (referring to the seats we had which were the RM98 ones) and looked down from the mountain towards the stage. Realising that there were some truths in what she said, I noticed that we were even seated higher than the roof of the stage. We sat so far from the stage and so high up, trust me on this. But still we got an unobstructed view after we switched to others seats considering that our earlier ones had a RM98 view of the railings. Too expensive to be having a view of the railings. I could see that at the workplace or better still at home. But I guess that's the beauty of "cheap" seats... their unreserved/unnumbered seating status meant that we could move around from one seat to another.

So much zoom till the pic became so blur.

Anyway, just to backtrack a little, we arrived shortly before the 8pm start time, and it just was the right timing. We didn't have to wait long after getting in through to the parking. We sat for about 10 to 15 minutes and then it was over to the two opening acts -- Jaclyn Victor, who sang a medley/compilation of the hottest Malaysian hits (including Lagenda, Isabella, Sejati, Suci Dalam Debu and etc); and Suki Low (the winner of One in a Million) who sang one Chinese song and also played violin for that song. I never watched an episode of One in a Million before, but I can understand why lots of people tuned in to it previously. Suki is quite easy on the eyes, isn't she? Oh yes, and she's got that talent thing there going on too.

There was a short break after the two performed, then suddenly two vans came in through an entrance in the stadium -- one, a white van that looked pretty standard, and another one which was silver and had black tinted windows--and parked at the side of the stage. The crowd obviously noticed, not that it's very discreet anyway, and screamed. Alright, had to be her in the second one.

By 8:30pm, Kelly has taken the stage and the concert was in full swing.

Needless to say, she played all her big ones, after kicking off with the title track of her latest album, All I Ever Wanted.

A screen capture early on, with her hair still down.

Midway through the concert (no, she didn't ran out to the washroom like she did at Germany, see video below), she tied up her hair resulting from the warm humid night. It can only be a girl to noticed things like these and it was Paul who brought that to my attention.

Her crowd interaction was pretty good making every attempt to keep herself down to earth and not seem like a big celebrity that she is. You can see she really adores her fans who adore her in return (I saw on YouTube that she once fired her guitarist on stage because apparently he was messing with a fan... oh well, so much for trying not to be a big celeb, but then again, she was protecting her fans, but that's a different story and I don't want to speculate on that).

With her hair pretty tied up.

Other than her hits, she did sing some covers as well -- I think there was one by Alanis, and then she also medleyed her song If I Can't Have You with Kylie Minogue's Can't Get You Out Of My Head, and then near the end, she did White Stripes' Seven Nation Army.

She disappeared after Since You've Been Gone, only to reappear again after the encore cheers from the crowd to finish off the night with Already Gone, that White Stripes song, and the finale, My Life Would Suck Without You.

One thing is for certain: this girl can sing live.

No doubt about that.

But then again, do we expect anything less from the first American Idol winner, given the fact that the contestants sing live week in week out?

I didn't think so.

Anyway, here are some videos I took to keep you occupied after all that I had written.

Over the next five days...

2010-04-23T17:55:00.005+08:00

And I await...

April 25 (Sun)... Kelly Clarkson

Yes, a pop concert! Kelly Clarkson, no less. Oh well, aren't we all guilty of certain guilty pleasures sometimes?

Anyway, read somewhere that Jaclyn Victor (MI1) and Suki (OiaM) will be opening for her.

April 28 (Wed)... Stereophonics

I hope Stereophonics won't get stuck resulting from the volcanic ash incident... oh wait, they're coming in here from their Australia / NZ tour.

Nah, shouldn't be a problem then.

A(nother) day in the working life of...

2010-04-23T17:39:00.005+08:00

... and I'm fully migrated from the old centre to the new campus.

This is my new workstation.

Yes, Alice, Christin, Nadia, and Vinny, your pic in the nice cute frame is still on my desk.

A little corporate looking innit?

I could have sworn it looked like I was working at Microsoft or something...

What a load of hot air... balloons!

2010-04-20T08:22:00.007+08:00

Balloons taking off in the morning

These photos were taken some time back during the Putrajaya Hot Air Balloon Fiesta in the middle of March (18-21 Mar).

I know, it's one month overdue but I like this collection of photos, hence, I have decided to put it up here anyways.

When I first read about this event (some time in late February) which was going to be held in March at the nation's administrative capital , I was sold on the idea. No further convincing was needed. I made arrangements with J, who was equally sold on the idea, to go together to catch this experience. So we decided that Saturday was the best day to go since both of us were free on that day--no church activities, no working weekends, not too much work to catch up on, nada. The timing just seemed perfect for us.

(This event took place only a few hours after my post on St Patrick's Day at 1 Utama).

So we woke up early on Saturday--very uncharacteristically of us... for me, at least--to catch the event. I guess we were fortunate to arrive just about 8am, otherwise we would have missed the entire balloon fleet's take off from Prescinct 2 to another part of the city. I heard from some friends who went later that they missed the flight and were only resigned to see those tethered ones which were tied down for those RM10 ride.

Talking about the tethered RM10 balloon rides, to be honest and in my own humble opinion (your opinion may differ but that's ok), it's not really worth the price considering that the balloons didn't really go up very high. Maybe just about the height of up to a third or fourth floor apartment level and that was it. So we didn't bother although the queue suggested otherwise. Plenty of people queued up to get on the balloons regardless.

Still, it was a breathtaking experience to have seen hot air balloons for the first time in our soil. My first time too. Didn't manage to see them during my time at Australia.

Anyway, I shan't bore you so here are the pics:

Before they inflate and fly off, quick grab the camera and create a photo-op

The vendor and his merchandise

Up in the air

The Empire Strikes Back... the head of Darth Vader floating away

One of the Dutch balloons. Interesting one with multiple balloons

What do you call this?

The tethered ones for the rides

Hanging out at Putrajaya away from the park area

At the footsteps of the Palace of Justice

PM's office

Checking out for the very last time

2010-04-16T22:35:00.004+08:00

Everyone checked out... for the final time

Exactly a week to the day after I had assigned my newest batch of students to develop their blogs and work on the topic for the week "A New Beginning", here I was today about to start a new beginning of my own (and with all new beginnings, comes an imminent end to the previous chapter in my life).

Without trying to sound all melodramatic, the School is finally moving to its new campus. Today is the last day we had classes in our recently vacated campus. Having had six hours of teaching load on Fridays, I had the honour of teaching the last class for my School (I had been teaching the graveyard shift at Fridays 2-4pm the last couple of months).

We had gradually cleared out our staffroom the last couple of days and today we came in to complete that task. One by one, as the hours passed, more and more lecturers vacated their rooms and surrendered their keys over to our trusted security officer/administrative assistant, Uncle Nava. Some of the faculty members left for home, some left for classes and disappeared for long spells, while some headed to the new campus. I think there were a few who stayed and relished their last moments in the peaceful solitude of their own rooms.

Some time just before lunch, the few of us gathered at Phua's room to have our group photos taken at the "old" campus. I call it the "class photo moment". Justin Lopez (J-Lo) has the photos so once I get it from him I'll reproduce it here (so, watch this space again!)

I turned down an offer to have lunch with a bunch of students today just to have lunch with my colleagues for the very last time at the campus. It's goodbye to affordable and value-for-money food. Our final farewell to our regular hangouts. Our last supper figuratively speaking, except that it wasn't supper per se.

After I finished my final class, I surrendered the keys to my room to Uncle Nava and took a nice last look at the room, now devoid of any furnishings, books, or stationeries save for the built-in cabinets. I took a look outside where the door was and had a last look at our "In/Out" signs. Hence the picture above: everyone is OUT for the very last time in this campus.

I was surprised to see that--other than Uncle Nava and some movers and cleaners--I was not alone. J-Lo, Ed, and Philip were still around. We threw out some boxes, salvaged a few things here and there and just helped each other clear out the rooms and the boxes. Then we headed down to have tea (our second session of the week) and took a breather and did some male bonding after all the packing.

To my amazement, there were lots of students--some from our School while others aren't--still lingering around as well. Of course, it was the last day of official classes for the semester. And why not?

As it stands, we will be moving to the new campus come Monday. Am I looking forward to it?

Well, to some extent, it is long overdue.

Doesn't answer the question if I am looking forward to it.

I know that I was contented in the "no-longer campus" campus. But now with the change, I guess it comes with a certain degree of ambivalence and with it, adjustments and challenges. And like all human beings, we are resistant to change. But changes are necessary evils that we have to live with.

Ambivalence.

St Patrick's Day @ 1U (19 Mar)

2010-03-20T21:33:00.005+08:00

The Guinness pint made of black (and creamy beige) balloons with stilt walkers

I have always remembered it to be 17 March, but I somehow forgot about it this year and let it passed by me. Not that it's much celebrated here anyway. But still, it gives Malaysians an excuse to party and have a drink of Ireland's greatest export to the world.

There are differences in the taste of the Malaysian-made Guinness from the ones I tasted all around the Ring of Kerry, Ireland (presumably from their Dublin plant).

At least the stout was cold that night.

Since Mar 17 was a weekday, the organisers moved the event over to the Friday night which was two days after to have it on a bigger scale. There were merchandise (mostly Guinness related), games, foodie stalls by some of the notable eateries in KL/PJ, prizes, fire-eaters, stilt walkers, balloons, and live stand-up comedians. The only thing that was missing at the time I was there was music. There were no good pumping music to set the mood. When J and I arrived, it was all stand-up comedies--while they were entertaining on its own and had drew a sizeable audience--which without some bit of music in the background didn't quite work for me. J and I stayed for a while until Doug Lim finished his standup, and then waited and waited but they were still setting up the stage. Oh yeah, and I did see a few people from church there as well, and a certain student called Julian. Generally, it was an event which wasn't too bad. Music would have made all the difference. Maybe it was the timing of our arrival.

J took this pic with my camera of the St Pat's leprechaun's hat

Check out also my St Patrick's Day outing in 2008 at Plaza Mont'Kiara.

Placebo at KL Live (16 Mar 2010) -- (2nd update 20 Mar)

2010-03-19T10:22:00.007+08:00

The banner outside the venue

The gig venue

Yes, been there... done that.

KL was their first stop at South East Asia. And after their stop at Singapore and Bangkok, they will be heading back off to Europe and then prepare for their South American tour come April. And we were a very fortunate bunch. It's not everyday an international act comes to play in that 'country between Thailand and Singapore'.

Vocalist-guitarist Brian Molko

Placebo played stuff mainly from their latest album, Battle for the Sun (like For What It's Worth)--which I am not entirely familiar with, but they were still good rocking tunes--but they also played a handful of their older classics such as Every You Every Me, Special Needs, Special K, and Taste in Men.

And they rocked.

New kid and drummer Steve Forrest

The band opened with For What It's Worth, played a good (no, great) set, ended with The Bitter End, came out for encore with Special K, one other, and Taste In Men and wrapped it all up in nearly 100 minutes (or more).

Stefan Olsdal, guitarist/bassist

And it was good. All was good.

The people I hung out with during the gig that night ie. Ed + Co.

Here are the some of the clips from the night's performance.

Band update #1

2010-02-20T13:38:00.009+08:00

Stefan checking out the lyrics and adding his part to Alive

As I had mentioned to a few close friends in the last couple of months, we are currently in the songwriting phase for the new band.

And here it comes again: our notoriously long and tedious songwriting process. We have set ourselves the target of writing five songs -- so far, we only managed one.

One.

Alright, as of this moment, I am working on another one which still needs lyrics; so it's all riff and humming tunes at this moment.

So yes, we are still at that phase.

A more scaled down pedalboard without the Chorus, and volume pedal.

Donations heading our way for more funky pedals are greatly appreciated.

Having completed writing Alive (which is written by Stefan and yours truly, our first collaboration since Qrown's Faith in 1991 and hopefully many more to come), our infamous work ethics is setting in again. I don't like it. We take months and months just to complete a song. We took a month and a half on Alive alone. Without assigning blame on anyone or myself, I guess we have to take into consideration that we're much older now and have other responsibilities (our dayjobs, spouses (where applicable), financial commitments etc), so I suppose we're playing it cool and slowly working on one at a time.

During that time we had recruited the drummer.

We're still looking for one more muso to complete the band: the bass player.

Your questions at this stage would probably be, "Why are we doing this all of a sudden? Aren't you guys a bit too old to start over?"

I did give those a thought but the best answer I can give to that was, "Why not? For the love of music."

And while roping in our drummer, I welcomed him and said that this would keep him occupied through mid-life crisis. Of course I said it as a joke, but who knows? We the current three are already in our 30s.

I feel it's never too old to start over if you still have the passion for it. I mean, it's only writing songs, singing, playing guitar or drums or whatever, arranging, jamming, gigging here and there once in a while. Nothing that taxing neither life-threatening really. It's not like it's bungee-jumping, whitewater rafting, or Everest climbing.

But I am loving every single minute of making this band happen. The last band I was in was like four years ago and its been too, too long.

A simple entry on expressing and receiving that all-powerful big L

2010-02-20T03:21:00.007+08:00

Pic courtesy of open.salon.com/blog/sandra_no_longer_miller

"All you need is love... love is all you need" -- The Beatles (in "All You Need is Love" (1967))

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken." -- C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (1960)

Just the other day, about less than a week before CNY, I had a discussion with a friend regarding the Five Love Languages as proposed by Dr Gary Chapman in his bestselling book of the same title. Tucked away in a nice quiet little corner of a Starbucks close to home, the pair of us were engaged in this topic as she was keen to explore this subject a little further having heard someone presented on it not too long ago. I too had a student who recently commented on her blog about this topic as well. If I memory serves me well I believe Ps Chandran spoke on Love Languages as well during the Kington-Jessica matrimonial ceremony last year. It's nothing new, but to those of us who had learnt this in one way or another before, I am hoping that none of what we've went through decline to a state of neglect brought about by time.

According to the author of the book, there are five categories (or love languages) that we can demonstrate our fondness to those around us. Although the book was written in the context of husband and wife, I believe that everyone shows and receive love in very different ways. Sometimes we show our love, affection, and appreciation one way while we ideally like to receive them in other ways. Dr Chapman suggests that although we may display aptitude in multiple love languages and appreciate all of them, we primarily speak only one love language. However, I'm not too sure if these five are exhaustive and has covered every aspect and 'dialect' of speaking love. Maybe someday the author might add another one or two more (like how Stevie Covey added another habit to his existing Seven).

The five categories are:

Words of Affirmation
Quality Time
Receiving Gifts
Acts of Service
Physical Touch

Words of Affirmation: Verbal appreciation speaks especially strongly to persons whose primary love is Words of Affirmation (WOA). Verbal compliments are one thing but another way one can communicate through WOA is by offering encouragement. Some examples are like reaffirming others that they had made the right decisions, acknowledging a person's perspective on a topic, or giving credit when progress/success has been achieved.

Quality Time: QT involves sharing experiences (including thoughts, feelings, etc) in a warm, friendly, uninterrupted context. It is about focus: the attention is wholly on the person whom you are spending time with. A person who speaks QT feels loved when they spend time doing activities together as the activity brings them closer. QT is not only about offering time to listen but, whenever necessary, offers advice and response to assure their friend/partner.

Receiving Gifts: Some respond well to visual symbols of love. A person who speaks this language are highly likely to treasure any (read: ANY) gift as an expression of love and devotion; they will feel that lack of gifts equals lack of love. Easiest love language to learn, according to Dr Chapman. It's easy for a natural spender to express this, but it is something that needs to be learned by those who are savers or investors that it is an investment into deepening relationships. He went on to say that the "gift of self" is an important symbol of love. By being physical present and going through the same experience, the person's being becomes a powerful symbol of love.

Acts of Service: Household chores (eg. ironing, cooking, cleaning, tidying up room) can be an expression of love as it require planning, time, effort, and energy. For this love language to become workable, these simple acts are to be done out of love and not obligation. A chore/task done out of guilt or fear is devoid of love and does not speak the language as well as it will if they were done out of kindness.

Physical Touch: For some reason, some (not all, thankfully) people seem to associate this love language only in the context of sexual intercourse. Yes, it does play a part in there somewhere, but it's not the only thing. Many mates feel most loved when they receive physical contact from their partner. Ok, let's talk about sex then. Yes, sexual intercourse can make many feel secure and loved. But consider this: many parts of the body are extremely sensitive... the key is discovering how your partner responds to these touches. Not only physically but psychologically as well. There are the intercourse, hugs, and of course there are also the smaller physical touch gestures like a pat on the back, or the hand on the shoulder. People who speak this language would much rather you hold them and be silent than to offer any advice. But then there are also the annoying, irritating and uncomfortable sort of physical touch (but you already know what they are like).

We discussed about what sort of language we use in showing love, and then, in how we would like to receive love. After nearly half an hour (or was it? I lost track of time a little here), we went on to talk more about love, and how much the word "love" has lost its significance and meaning in that simple, oft-used, four-letter English word.

Examples:

"I love you and wanna spend the rest of my life with you."

"You're my best-est friend and I love you."

"I so love watching Gossip Girl and Glee."

"No matter how much he hurts me, I still love him. He's my son!"

"I wanna spread love across the world by donating to Haiti".

"Let's make love."

"I'd love to go to Tahiti with you."

See how diluted that word has become?

Love can mean so many things at once, and nothing altogether if you were to consider the context of how the word is used in the variety of ways as demonstrated above.

In the Greek language, "love" is expressed in four different words -- storge, phileo, eros, and agape. As further explored by C.S. Lewis in his book, The Four Loves, he categorises the L word into: affection, friendship, erotic, and charity. Our discussion got to the point where we were exploring and exchanging our views on the concept of "unconditional love".

We discussed unconditional love.

We ended at unconditional love.

To love someone regardless of his/her actions or beliefs. It separates the person from what he or she does or has done.

You've seen this phrase earlier: "No matter how much he hurts me, I still love him. He's my son!"

That is unconditional love.

It doesn't keep record of wrongs. So no matter how much he has hurt the sender of that message, the sender will continually and unfailingly love him.

It's not what he has done or what he beliefs, but rather for who he is.

It's not in the doing, but in the being.

Everyone--young or old, rich or poor, healthy or sick, male or female, black, white, brown, yellow, red, green, or purple--has been and IS loved unconditionally.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, you can do could make Him love you more.

And nothing that you've done could make Him close that door.

L-O-V-E.

This is NOT a Valentine entry, but if it fits the occasion, then why not?

References:

Chapman, G. (2010). The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts, Reprint Edition, Northfield Publishing

Lewis, C.S. (1971). The Four Loves, Harvest Books.

Klang Food Experience in December (Part 4)

2010-01-23T11:41:00.006+08:00

This will be the last entry on the Klang food experience since I ran out of December, and as I type out this entry, we are already well into the new decade. Plus, there's so many other things to talk about and there's been plenty since.

Again our eating tour took us to Telok Gong, this time we chose the neighbour to Telok Gong Seafood--the Coconut Flower Seafood Restaurant, which obviously is also in Telok Gong.

We arrived really late this time, after making a last-minute decision. Hence, we didn't take a good photo of the signage of the restaurant but it's not difficult to find during the daytime. At night, it's a different ballgame, but you shouldn't have any difficulties either. It's the big one!

Anyway, we arrived hoping for some good eats. The place that night was crowded, but still we managed to find a good table. Arriving late has its perils: when we ordered we realised that they had sold out their crabs. OMG, it's the end of the world! Well, not quite. (Excuse me for my dramatics). But disappointed we were. Still we manage to put in a few orders and what we got were pretty awesome as well.

We wanted to do a comparative study on the lala mee hoon, so obviously we ordered that:

My verdict: The lala mee hoon in TG (see previous entry) was more generous with their lala and looked more well presented, but the one here had a more defined taste to it

Again, mantis prawn kung pou style

Bamboo clams cooked in ginger and spring onion.

The size of the clams here are in comparison huge to the ones I had in the past but tasted brilliant nonetheless.

... and since the star of the show wasn't the crab this time, the star for the evening was the very palatable tomyam prawns in coconut.

I think it must be the crowd that night in that I think they ran out of sufficiently-sized coconuts and hence had to serve our tomyam in a smaller coconut which couldn't entirely contain our tomyam soup and prawns. So we had ours served in a coconut and then some (in a separate bowl). The tomyam prawns was excellent. I read raving reviews about the prawns done this way in some foodie blogs, so we decided to try it out. I was clearly satisfied with it, but was still left unsatisfied that crabs were sold out. I still shake my head in disbelief thinking about this trip, but all is not lost.

So ladies and gentiles, here are the details:

Coconut Flower Seafood Restaurant

702 Jalan Udang Galah

Telok Gong, Port Klang,

42000 Selangor.

Tel: 03-31341218, 31342886

(Opens at around 10:30am or 11am, last order is at 10pm, closes at 10:30pm)

This place has a very tropical feel to it with plenty of nipah leave roofs and coconut trees within the vicinity of the restaurant. Also has a wide open space but the tables are more closely placed together. From the look of it, this one seems to be a favourite with the locals (even Zhao Wern made a mention of it some time back after seeing my FB album on Klang food). However, a point to note here: this restaurant is very commercialised. You can find some smaller shops within the restaurant area which sells snacks and other small kiddie toys. Still, it's the food that mattered and did they make it matter.

But, damn, sold out crabs. Pffft!

Klang Food Experience in December (Part 3)

2010-01-23T10:59:00.005+08:00

More of this.

Sorry DJ if this makes you hungry.

More affordable seafood.

This time our search took us to Telok Gong which we got there using the KESAS Highway from the USJ-KESAS interchange (the one outside Summit).

We were pretty unsure of the route as this way my first time since 2001 or 2002 making my way there. Thanks to the trusty Google Maps we got there almost fuss-free.

We ordered four dishes.

To make sure we lined our stomachs with some carbs before overloading it with the uric acid found in seafood, we ordered the...

Lala mee hoon

... comes with a generous serving of lala

We must've been pretty famished when we arrived at Telok Gong, I suppose, judging by the next picture and how we managed to salvage a photo of our next dish. We went straight for it totally oblivious to the fact that we wanted to get a photo of it first. Anyway, here is the...

half-mauled oh chien (fried oysters)

The next one arrived which is the trusty kung pou mantis prawn...

Most restaurants, for some reason, seem to be able to cook mantis prawns quite well and TG Seafood is no exception to the rule

Of course, the star of the show is usually (though not always) the crab...

The high cholesterol crab in duck egg yolk... but damn yummy!

Writing this entry in here is already making me hungry. I really shouldn't be making this entry first thing on a Saturday morning when my stomach is still empty. Unnecessary temptations.

Anyway, here are the details, boys and girls...

Telok Gong Seafood Restaurant
705 Jalan Udang Galah

Telok Gong, Port Klang
42000 Selangor, Malaysia
Tel: 03-3134 1918

(Note: opens at 11am, closes after lunch, reopens at about 5 and last order is 10pm, closes at 10:30pm)

They take reservations, so if you ever get stuck in a jam, give them a call (which we were and we were very tempted to call) and they might just hold a table for you. But in any case, there are lots of tables with lots of people, and yet there are still lots of empty tables.

What I like about Telok Gong Seafood Restaurant is that although the ambience is nothing much to shout about, the place is spacious and you don't really have to worry about people eavesdropping on your conversation as the next closest table is about 2 meters away. Service is usually quick, usually less than 10 minutes wait and your first dish will be on your table. But try not to go in heels, ladies. The parking is not a tarred road parking but a gravel one. If you're Hokkien speaking, you should have no problem. Otherwise, Mandarin or Cantonese works too. And some English helps. Anyhows, we ordered in Mandarin?

Klang Food Experience in December (Part 2)

2009-12-29T10:57:00.004+08:00

This is an exercise in gluttony.

Maybe it's just wrong to use the words 'exercise' and 'gluttony' in the same sentence.

Right after our seafood lunch, we sat around and relax for a while, then took a drive around Klang town (is it a town or a city?), got lost a bit but that's ok at least we took in the scenery, found the place, arrived a bit too early and waited for the shop to prepare for their evening/night schedule. We walked around the town checking out the shops nearby and also finding out where the other bak kut teh (BKT) (literally: pork rib tea) stall was... the one they called "The Old Stall" at Jalan Stesen 1. We more or less guessed its location, as it was only opened in the morning.

At around 6pm, we were already heading for the BKT dinner. Talk about indulgence.

Our chosen BKT restaurant was the famous one which is half under the bridge, next to the railway tracks, a stone's throw away from the Klang railway station -- Kedai Makanan Seng Huat.

I must admit that I won't consider myself a very passionate porcine eater, but this is worth trying after all the hype surrounding the iconic Klang BKT.

The BKT restaurant

(note: The bridge. There is an eating area for the restaurant right under the bridge)

Overlooking the mosque

We ordered the extra spare ribs one. A bit more costly but since we made the trip we might as well go for the gold standard. Plus, I don't eat pig intestines, so this is the goldest I would go.

We got to choose our own tea.

We chose ti kun yum.

At Jalan Besar near the train station.

Apologies for not taking any pics of the yu char kueh (Cant: yeow char kwai; English: deep fried flour sticks).

Kedai Makanan Seng Huat

9 Jalan Besar,

41000 Klang,

Selangor.

Opening hours: In the morning (until 11am?) and from 5:30pm onwards

It was good but I am keen to give the others a try. I read from food blogs (please note, mine is not a food blog but a blog belonging to someone who's a foodie nonetheless) that other than Seng Huat and the Old Stall at the next road, there is one on the Fed Highway (called Yeoh's), another one near Jusco Bkt Raja (called Telok Pulai), another near the bus station at Jalan Cox off Jalan Batu Tiga (called Sheng Li or Victory) and a couple more further in.

Note to the Klang girls (ie. JQ, Mei Fong, Yvonne, Zhao Wern, Lee Yee, Michelle, Christine, Evonne, Dionne): if you could verify the opening hours with me, it'll be good. Then we make a trip there.

Strange point to note: I don't have any male Klang students, do I? They all seem to be girls.

Klang Food Experience in December (Part 1)

2009-12-29T10:20:00.009+08:00

Now to do some catching up.

Here are some of the things I was up to during this blog's silent streak:

While in between marking those CCS assignments, there were the trips to and fro Klang for seafood and bak kut teh (yes, there were more than one trips... two actually, with a third one in the works), of which I had already put out the photos on FB.

On 5 December, we drove down to the port city for a makan-makan trip. We headed all the way to Pandamaran (special thanks to Google maps for getting us there!) for a gastronomical seafood experience.

That seafood restaurant at Pandamaran

Mantis prawns with dried chilli ('kam heong lye liu har').

The one that kickstarted our Klang seafood experience.

I'm not good with my veggies... is this 'choy sum'? Yeah, fried in garlic.

Lala in some herbal soup, which turned out a lot better than expected

(I saw the next table and another table and both ordered this as well, must be their speciality)

Klang seafood rice noodle ('tanghoon/tongfun')

Crab in salted duck eggs

Fresh and delicious seafood. Five dishes that costs us about RM 68 and food enough to feed four souls. I think it was worth the money and the trip down.

I don't normally do this because this is not a food review blog, but here are the contact info and opening hours if you should want to go try it out for yourself. For directions, how about trying Google Maps. I got there fine.

Klang Seafood

(Kedai Makanan Laut Klang Sdn Bhd)

1330, Jalan Nipah, Pandamaran,

42000 Port Klang, Selangor.

Tel: 03 - 31680171

Fax: 03 - 31678705

Opening hours: 11am - 3pm; 5pm - 10:30pm

Coming up next: the bak kut teh on the same day!

Season's greetings for 2009

2009-12-29T09:57:00.004+08:00

Sunny Christmas at The Curve

I find it increasingly more difficult to update my blog but I will endeavour to keep it going.

Somehow.

I wrote something a few weeks' back and left it just there -- as a draft. I didn't put it out and publish it. It wasn't the most pleasant of posts but it captured my frustrations at that moment. I have learnt that if it is not something nice to say, perhaps I should wait a few days, work things through, before publishing it. I must say I'm quite pleased with the 'cooling off' period. After finding my way and sorting the solutions out, I don't think that post will see the light of day. Ever.

Well, after reading through again, it wasn't all that bad a post. A little dramatic, yes, but nothing malicious. Just a bit too much complaining and ranting even for my own good. To cut the long story short, blue skies are here again and there is no point dwelling under the grey clouds.

I am currently on leave now... on that well-deserved break for a very busy and challenging year. Even till the very last day before going on leave, it was work, work, work. But I had a few days now to enjoy the Christmas shopping, the Christmas holidays, hanging out with friends, the Christmas activities at church and my (limited) involvement in it, and lots of eating. Need to get sweating again before Chinese New Year rolls by again before I get too tubby.

It's not too late to greet you all since I subscribe to the belief that Christmas lasts for 12 days (as in the song, "On the first day of Christmas... on the twelfth day of Christmas)...

Happy Christmas, happy holidays and

here's looking forward to an interesting and better new year.

Thoughts and opinion on WC2010 draw

2009-12-05T10:18:00.006+08:00

Courtesy of fifa.com

This is my much needed distraction from my work.

After returning from supper and what seemed like an almost endless drive last night, I was in time to catch the World Cup 2010 draw.

Full World Cup 2010 draw (seeded teams denoted in italics):

GROUP A: South Africa (seeded because they're the hosts), Mexico, Uruguay, France

GROUP B: Argentina, South Korea, Nigeria, Greece

GROUP C: England, USA, Algeria, Slovenia

GROUP D: Germany, Australia, Ghana, Serbia

GROUP E: Holland, Japan, Cameroon, Denmark

GROUP F: Italy (holders), New Zealand, Paraguay, Slovakia

GROUP G: Brazil, North Korea, Ivory Coast, Portugal

GROUP H: Spain, Honduras, Chile, Switzerland

My early prediction (as at 5 Dec 2009) of the teams that would qualify for the 2nd round is this:

Group A: South Africa! (yeah right! Not looking down at them but I doubt their chances)... it's gonna be France and Mexico for me. I think France was very lucky in the draw. I'm not a fan of the French team and Raymond Domenech but I think the draw favoured them. Uruguay was lucky to get in from the CONMEBOL qualifying group being the playoff winner while South Africa was the lucky host.

Group B: Argentina and one other. The Argies have too much talent on their side led by the talents of Lionel Messi. I would think Nigeria would nab it, but Greece had pulled similar surprises before and turned the tables around. South Korea had a great 2002 but repeating that feat would be difficult.

Group C: England and USA. Despite being a de facto England fan, I think USA might go on to top the group. Gut feeling. England has been known to start major competitions very slowly but perhaps Fabio Capello may give orders to go for an early kill. But don't write off Slovenia either; they defeated both the Czech Republic and Russia in the qualifiers.

Group D: This is a tough group. I would think that lady luck wasn't on Germany this year. Still the efficient Germans will go through with one other. Australia's Socceroos golden generation is behind them now and I'm not too sure how they will fair -- they will look to Tim Cahill and the rest who are playing in the BPL for experience. Ghana will be quite a tricky team with the tireless Michael Essien in the team. Serbia had an impressive run in the qualifiers but I think they lack the experience save for that MU defender right at the back there. My pick: Germany and Ghana.

Group E: Holland, the underachievers, will go through this one plus one other. Japan is too dependent on Shunsuke Nakamura while the same goes for Cameroon with Samuel Eto'o. Can't say I know a lot about the current Danish team except for the former Chelsea Jesper Gronkjaer, Stoke's Thomas Sorensen, Blackburn's Lars Jacobsen and Christian Poulsen of Juventus. If I had to choose between the three, I'd go with Cameroon. The Cameroonians are a more physical team and they may even top the group.

Group F: Italy and Paraguay. Now why did I chose Paraguay and not Slovakia? (of course, we all know NZ would not have a sniffing chance, let's be realistic here). I would be generalising but my reasoning is this: I think South American teams have better chances playing outside their continents compared to Central and Eastern European teams (wait, Europeans team in general for that matter; someone highlighted to me the fact that European teams have not won a World Cup outside Europe before, can someone verify this?)

Group G: In my opinion, this is the group of death. Brazil, Ivory Coast, Portugal and North Korea. North Korea is an unproven quantity but you'll never know (remember 1966 when they defeated fancied Italy). Brazil is never short of talents and they have an unprecendented and unsurpassed history in the World Cup. Ivory Coast boasts an impressive line-up of high profile players -- the Toure brothers (Yaya of Barca and Kolo of Man City), Arsenal's Emmanuel Eboue, and the Chelsea duo of Salomon Kalou and Didier Drogba. Would be interesting to watch the Ivory Coast vs Brazil game. Who would dare write off Portugal with the talents of Mr Ronaldo on their side? It would be good to see Real Madrid teammates Kaka and Ronaldo go head to head. Because it's going to be played in the African continent, I'd go with Ivory Coast. At the expense of Portugal.

I didn't bother mentioning Brazil because they are expected to go through.

Group H: Spain, widely regarded as the perennial underachievers despite boasting illustrous clubs like Real Madrid and European champions Barcelona, will have their best ever outing in the World Cup. They are strong in attack (Villa, Guiza, Torres), midfield (Xavi, Fabregas, Alonso, Iniesta), and defence (Pique, Arbeloa, Ramos, Marchena, Puyol). Casillas isn't a slouch either and in any case he has capable backup in Pepe Reina. (Ok, I'm biased because Spain forms the spine of the Liverpool team!). I don't know about the other three teams -- Honduras, Chile, and Switzerland. So I'd go with Chile because they did better than Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay in the qualifiers.

However, individual talents don't make a good team. It just makes more conscious audienceship.

I might analyse and see how the route of the draw goes and who plays who in the next round but for now, I don't have much time to do that.

Oh and I like the Germany new kit with gold trimmings and all.

The Germans always have the nicest kits.

Ok, I'm late for my lunch appointment already.

Shifting focus

2009-11-16T14:14:00.003+08:00

Done with marking the ICC exam scripts for this semester.

Now to focus on marking CCS.

Submission of report this Friday, which means more work come this weekend.

Mimaland re-visited

2009-11-02T13:19:00.015+08:00

This old photo from 1991

Just yesterday as I was browsing through some old photos with a friend of mine, I came across a photo which took me back to 1991.

I was a teenager back then, and the picture was one that had been taken when I was a camp committee for the youth group way back when...

The photo had been taken at Mimaland.

By friend, being a few years younger than I was asked, "what is Mimaland?"

I paused for a minute and then replied a question with another question, "You haven't heard of Mimaland?"

"Nope".

So I went on to say, "Before there was Sunway Lagoon, there was Mimaland."

She then got the idea that it was a theme park or something.

Then for a quick silent moment, in the deep recesses of my mind, I was taken back further in time.

I had the vague recollections of my folks taking me to Mimaland when I was somewhere between 5 to 8 years of age. What I remembered most clearly were the replica of dinosaurs made of concrete (well, at least I think it was made of that). Being a child born in the 1970's and had spent my childhood in KL it was needless to say that I had felt a tinge of nostalgia reminiscing the past glories of the 70s and 80s and this was clearly one which I had fond memories of.

Mimaland was a famous recreation park located 25 kms from the city at the northern suburb of Gombak right at the tip of KL en route to the old Bentong road. The theme park was a favourite with Klang Valley residents who needed a quick retreat from the hustle and bustle of the city. Like I mentioned in the previous paragraph, there were replica of dinosaurs (eg. tyrannosaurus, pteranodon, stegosaurus, triceratops, etc). If I remembered correctly, there was a water park there as well, and also a lake for boating activities and also lots of greeneries surrounding it.

I located some old photos from the Web and a big special thanks to those who had managed to preserve these photos and had brought back so many memories to those of us who were privilege enough to live through the "Age of the Dinosaurs". I don't think I am the only one out here in cyberspace that had, at some point, thought about Mimaland.

Dinosaurs used to walk the earth here in Malaysia

(Photo source: http://shw.25th-anniversary.fotopages.com/12352672)

Mammoth (not Court's!)

(Photo source: http://shw.25th-anniversary.fotopages.com/12352672)

I'm surprised some people actually have photos (scanned or otherwise) of these dinosaur structures in their collection

(Photo source: http://shw.25th-anniversary.fotopages.com/12352672)

Water slides... like I said, before Sunway Lagoon

(Photo source: ksdr.org.my or myenthusiasts.org)

The water park

(Photo source: 9teen87's Postcards at flickr.com or myenthusiasts.org)

What happened to Mimaland?

I googled it and found little but precious visuals and information about it. I had even used Google Maps to locate it, but it cannot even be found on the map. Clearly, it's long forgotten even before Google Maps started on the Web hence no such labels were identified.

I had read in the Star article on 25 January 2008 that the park ceased operations in 1993 and had officially closed in 1994 due to landslides. 15 years on today, I checked to see some images of the place and was shocked to see the once-glorious park is now just left abandoned in a very sorry state of disrepair.

Here are some visuals that I managed to retrieve from various sources:

The front entrance to Mimaland with the overgrown resident creepers

(Photo source: eddie.lau via pelita89.blogspot.com)

According to The Star, this was the office of Mimaland

(Photo source: The Star Online)

The road into Mimaland -- a shadow of its former self.

Now broken beyond recognition.

(Photo source: The Star Online)

The bus stop that used to carry many a crowd to and fro Mimaland at 11th Mile, Gombak

(Photo source: The Star Online)

Apparently, the land is owned by someone who is waiting for the right price to sell it off. But before that, my question is: how did it come to this?

At the rate it is decaying away, the future of this place looks uncertain. I can think of so many things that can be done to this place but would they? And when?

There is no happy ending to this blog entry because there is not a foreseeable future that holds for this place which is akin to a ghost town, as The Star calls it.

There is only a happy past we can look back on which brings a quiet smile to our faces and somehow cringe in the embarrassment of guilty pleasure that we had enjoyed Mimaland and had lived through it -- but only if you're in your very late 20s or above.

How simple our lives were back then.

Michelle's wedding - 18 October

2009-11-01T19:56:00.012+08:00

On a much milder scale, the day following Sheldon and Tiffany's wedding was Michelle and ML's wedding.

I had slept in after the partying at Sheldon's wedding the whole morning. The call time for our practice was at 2pm; wedding was at 4pm. I was playing the guitar for this wedding at Eastin. Anyway, there was ample time in the morning to relax a bit.

The wedding is markedly different from Sheldon's the day before. While Sheldon's wedding was spent with many of my guy friends, I had spent Michelle's wedding predominantly with the gals. So the whole mood and vibe was very different.

Arrived slightly late for the rehearsal but still not the latest. I think Chee Mun was a little worried as I am usually one of the earliest to arrive. However, we got rehearsal started once the keyboard player arrived.

The hotel had a partition which provided for the couple one-third of the entire ballroom to have the wedding ceremony which was quite nicely done up. The colour theme according to Michelle was ivory and red. The team of musicians chose a dark shade of red, almost maroon I might add.

with Yen Ling -- just before the wedding

with Chee Mun, Ruby, Huay Phing, and Yen Ling

The AJ team was out in full swing. King, Jess, Pauline, Apple, Yen Ling, and HP did the guest table; while Ruby, Chee Mun, and I did the worship music. Wilson was working the sound system and Desmond was appointed to be the MC at night for the dinner (together with the other Michelle). Janice had the unenviable task of translating the wedding message by Elder Koon Tatt but she aced it despite this occasion being her 'maiden voyage'. Mi Me took the lead role as the very patient wedding coordinator to which she produced a good job as usual. Not too sure what the rest were doing though.

with Paul, Apple, CM, Ruby, YL, Jess

I was quite taken with both Yen Ling and Huay Phing's dresses though. Yen Ling wore a corset-ish strapless dress. I said corset-ish because she had those ribbons at the back which tightens to enhance her figure with the top half being black while the bottom half was black and grey horizontal stripes. To give it the finishing touches, she had a pearl necklace on to tszuj up the whole appearance. Looks pretty gothic but still quite sexy. As for Huay Phing, she went for the traditional and always-in-season black dress that was cut very, very narrowly (ie. figure-enhancing) with a low plunging neckline. Good amount of cleavage -- not too much to make her look slutty, and not too little to make her look like a prude either. To prevent herself from those 'oops moments' of course she had a sheer black shawl. But hot, hot, hot! Both of them. Of course, this is not to disregard the rest, but like I said before, there is so much a girl can do to dress up for a wedding, and there's only this much a guy can do to without looking tacky and cheesy. Generally, the girls did dress up well.

The bridal procession started at around 4:30pm I think. Aunt Alice walked Michelle down the aisle which was very unusual but given the circumstances it was sweet nonetheless. Weddings as weddings go, you can roughly figure out the programme. So...

Bridal procession

Ps Chandran doing the solemnization

Once the wedding ceremony was done and the photo session has been completed, we quickly vacated the room so that the hotel crew could remove the partition and extend it as part of the banquet hall for the dinner. While Michelle and Mian Loong were doing the tea ceremony with their relatives, and since we had about 2 hours to spare, YL, CM, Ruby and I went to grab a quick bite at the mamak nearby. Some of us didn't have lunch as we had to be there for the rehearsal so it was our opportunity to fill our stomachs for the time being and to ward off the hunger pangs temporarily until dinner. We share two plates of maggi goreng between the four of us.

Yen Ling and me. I heard she got her make-up done professionally. Nice?

I was seated with YL, Pris, Calvin, Mi Me, baby Isaac, Pauline, Apple, HP, and umm... ok, forgot who the other two were. Sorry whoever you are. I'm quite certain it's someone I know. The rest of AJ sat on the next table.

with Priscilla

with Janice, YL, Pris

Oh yes, if I might add... the wine was good.

So that makes two nights of drinking. But I certainly drank a lot less for this one.

I need to keep tab of that liver and not damage it too much anymore. But that too is another story...

But I have this one nagging question though: how did Yen Ling made it to so many of my photos? Tsk tsk tsk.

Sheldon's wedding - 17 October

2009-11-01T18:14:00.010+08:00

The heng tais

(l-r: Mike, Kenneth, moi, Keng, the groom, Yu Son, Terence, Stef, and Eric)

Yes, as the title suggests, this entry is a little late but that's ok. Even right up to today, Sheldon's still tagging us on Facebook.

17 October, Sat: Needless to say, as heng tais, he had to get up early. Call time was 8:45am at Sheldon's. Just the night before we were at his place having dinner together under the canopy and just hanging out and goofing about. We--his heng tais and our WAGs (wives and girlfriends, where applicable)--had checked out his "first night" room. I must admit, it was quite well done up. All Sheldon's Pantera, Megadeth, and his other gory death metal CDs (with not the most romantic of graphics on the covers) were properly stored all too neatly away, with the bridal pic well mounted on the wall and on a side table. He then dispensed his bridal studio photos to his beloved "brothers". The WAGs were more particular on the photo they received so they had first pickings.

Ok, anyway, back to Saturday morning... we arrived quite punctually by our standards. Sadie, Kah Jin, and the parents of the groom were the great hosts again after the night before and served us nice breakfast. Once done, we chatted for a while, took some pics and... took some more pics. Then it was time to leave Bandar Sri D'sara for D'sara Jaya to "collect" the bride.

With the WAGs

Once arriving at the bride's place, we came to our first hurdle--the front gate. This was when the ji muis (with their HABs ie. husbands and boyfriends) got into their jual mahal mode and made life difficult for us. The sister of the bride was the head honcho behind this devious plan. She asked for one heng tai to step up. Looking around, we were not sure who would go first... so Terence stepped up to be the first. They passed a full wine glass of yellowish liquid over the gate and asked him to drink up within 10 seconds. For a moment, KL and I feared the worse. We thought it was piss. Well, the good thing was... piss it wasn't. T downed the big first gulp and had to swallow which took some time, but he eventually finished it to much applause. I later found out from Terence it was a mixture of thick honey with another thing added which he too was unsure. Once cleared, the gate was unlocked to allow the groom's party in. But we were again locked out at the front entrance and they now required two more of us. Up stepped S and E. The rest of us were locked out while the two were let in to do their "task". Both of them had to dress up and re-enact the proposal scene. It was vicious what the bridal party did to them. After dressing up and re-enacting the proposal, they had to do two dances in front of the bridal party. Real nasty. Photos were removed from here to protect the identity of the said persons.

Arrival at the bride's gate -- Level 1 cleared!

Waiting for our 'punishment'

(Photo courtesy of the official wedding camera)

Then they called the next three: this was when KL, YS and myself stood up and be counted. We were given seats. Ok, this was too good to be true. Next we were told to roll up our jeans and exposed our legs. The bridal party decided to stick some plasters to paste on our legs. I reckoned we were getting a waxing then. I was quite right really. Another two of the guys stepped up and had the easy job of dipping their foot into a bucket to pick up keys of different colours--white or red. Questions will be asked to the groom based on the colour of the keys. If the two guys didn't pick up the keys on time. We kena. If Sheldon answers wrongly or not within the 10 seconds. We kena. Bad deal, huh??? In other words, we kena. Yes, what little hair I had on my legs were now removed from me as well. When the plasters ran out, they "punished" us by making us eat biscuit sticks... with wasabi.

Not my most glorious moment

(Photo courtesy of official wedding photo)

The wasabi moment: check out Keng's face

Once cleared, the groomsmen headed for the final hurdle. The bride's door. Sheldon had to sing something romantic to the satisfaction of the bride. Not the best of singers among us, Sheldon struggled but did so with gusto nonetheless. There was no stopping him at this final stage now. We helped him sang "Stand By Me". Then he had to say something romantic... and he did his best, "I WILL LOVE YOU UNTIL THE DAY I DIE!!!" (ok, three exclamation marks is not enough for this... here's more for good measure!!!!!)

The door clicked open.

The bride sat there waiting for her 21st century knight.

He said it one more time, "I WILL LOVE YOU UNTIL THE DAY I DIE!!!" because she wanted to hear it again.

What followed the "I WILL LOVE YOU UNTIL..." moment

Shel+Tiff

Our job was done, now it was his turn.

Then there were the tea ceremony on her side followed by photos.

The newlyweds with the heng tais and 1 WAG at her previous home.

(photo courtesy of bride's official collection)

When they were done, we headed back to Bandar Sri D'sara. Now it was the tea ceremony for his side and lunch for all of us. I retired from lunch early so I didn't really know what happened after that. I had a lunch appointment elsewhere.

Much later, when the sun has set, we were out again for the dinner at the Golden Phoenix, Equatorial Hotel KL.

Needless to say, the groom expected all the heng tais to dress to the nines in our suits and ties. He gave us a task to do: we were to be on standby for the 'table to table' yum seng sessions. Our job was to prevent him from getting too drunk. Apparently.

Food was pretty good as expected from Equatorial. I was seated with the usual bunch. Eric gave for the groom's side a humourous speech with the multimedia presentation. The bride's side did a more emotional thing which brought the bride to her teary-eyed wedding moment. Aww...

The yum seng arrived. By that time, T was clearly drunk when he was giving the toast. I think we toasted about 5 times which is the record for any wedding I've attended so far. Bride's dad was up for it as well and did the 'bottoms up' for EVERY toast!

Hmm.... check out the expression on his face

After the yum seng, our call of duty started. There were 10 of us so we were wondering whether to "work" in shifts moving from table to table but we thought it was best to keep the spirits up (pun intended!) and to make it more celebratory. So all 10 of us accompanied the bride and the groom and went table to table to join in the toast. If anything, just to keep the mood up with the volume. We played the number game. The more the merrier. So went table to table. We drank the wine, we refilled our glasses. We drank the wine, we refilled our glasses. We drank the wine, we refilled our glasses. We drank the wine, we refilled our glasses. Repeat.

I don't glasses how many know we had.

We kept refilling.

Any bottles nearby--regardless of whether it was opened or unopened--were used for toasting.

At one point, one of the guys was holding a Glenffiditch and I was getting worried. Then he realised what he was carrying wasn't wine but whiskey. He then put it aside and picked up a wine bottle instead. Between him and another guy, they kept refilling our glasses. Terence also had a bottle in his hand on standby.

We did like what... 24 tables?

One of the 24 tables

(photo courtesy of the bride's personal collection)

One thing I like about wine: you don't get drunk, but it makes you happy.

But we had a wildly good time.

As for Terence, I think he had more than just wine. By the end of the night, while I was talking to him, he lost his balance at one point and had to grab on to the groom's mother who happened to be right behind him. There was also an incident when Terence while posing for photos with the newlyweds in one of the table photos accidentally spilt the wine from the bottle he was carrying on none other than the groom's white suit. WINE ON HIS BRILLIANT WHITE SUIT!!! Then while the newlyweds and their parents were shaking hands with all the invited guests who were leaving, Terence was shaking hands with the staff who were cleaning up the restaurant--one by one. We enjoyed ourselves definitely.

At our own tables... the heng tais were spread out between two tables and this was us.

(photo courtesy of official wedding photo)

Then we got round for a group photo... ok, more than one.

(photo courtesy of ???)

Us clowning around.

Can you see the stain on the groom's suit?

(photo courtesy of official wedding photo)

We sat down for a while to relax and made sure our blood alcohol level normalised first. I guess all of us were/are responsible enough not to drink-drive. Keng the teetotaler was as usual designated driver. He made sure we went back safely.

Then there was the part where we met up again for a mamak session but that is another story...

"Breathtaking"

2009-10-31T08:46:00.005+08:00

It's finally out!

After countless hours of singing ourselves hoarse and not getting the desired number of hours of sleep that a human being should, the live worship album "Breathtaking" has seen the light of day.

Even though I'm only one out of the many people involved in this project and though my contributions are somewhat by even my own standards miniscule, I am nonetheless very pleased to have worked on it and at the same time humbled by the whole experience. Thanks be to God.

The album in CD format comes with 3 extra studio tracks and 1 bonus DVD which captures the live recording moments at the church.

(I apologise if my scanner did not produce a clear enough pic of the album cover.)

Sheldon and his merry(making) men

2009-10-19T21:21:00.007+08:00

The boys and their drinks

"The boys are out to town".

The date was 14.10.09.

The event: Sheldon's stag night

The participants: Eric, Terence, Kenneth, Stefan, Keng, and myself. (Kenneth only came for half session ie. only for the dinner but skipped the drinking; nevertheless, the party goes on in full swing).

The six

This was part 3 for us: Part 1 was Eric's stag night, and Part 2 was Stefan's.

Somehow it gets a little sleazier all the time. That seems to be the case from Part 1 to 2 to 3 as the years go by. This time, we started with dinner at around nearly 9:40pm at Sri Petaling. Then we took a short drive to Kuchai Entrepreneur's Park for some drinks. We decided to 'open bottle' so we opened a Chivas. Oh yes, there was Coca-Cola and water too.

Apart from Sheldon, why so serious?

It didn't end till close to 3:30am or so I was told. Some of us who were working the following day didn't stay any longer than 2:15am.

Yes, it was a weeknight.

Still we got a few good drinks in.

That's all. Whatever happened there, stays there.

Sheldon and his 1Malaysia / 1Wife / 1Whatever pose.

Thank God for designated drivers who are teetotalers.

This is the one about the cell trip to Kuching

2009-10-19T19:14:00.011+08:00

Poser maximus

(photo courtesy of either HP or Janice)

This is way long overdue.

If it were bread, it would've expired and gone all mouldy a long ago. But since they're photos, and photos serve as memory keepsakes, here are the Kuching photos from 12-14 September.

The cell, AJ, went for the cell outing at Kuching, Sarawak -- home of Kian and Jasmine, former workplace of Desmond, and birthplace of Yen Ling. All in all, there were 12 of us who took this well-deserved timeout--Huay Phing, Pauline, Joyce, Janice, Wilson, Ian, Kington, Jessica, Kian, Jasmine, Desmond and me.

Like I said in the last entry, not many good photos of me but these are among the least horrible ones.

Highlights of the trip:

5 of out 12 people in the team missing their flight to Kuching (you might think this is me being dramatic but it's true... that many didn't get on the plane for one reason or another)
Visit to Kian's organic chicken, mutton, and vege farm at Siniawan
Organic BBQ following the farm visit
Sarawak laksa and kolo mee
An expensive entrance free to the Sarawak Cultural Village at Santubong
The tuak (rice wine) and raisin wine experience at the Bidayuh house
Shopping for souvenirs (but of course)
Caving at Gua Pari-Pari (Fairy Cave)
More shopping for souvenirs

Just arrived at KCH Int'l Airport.

Ian looking like an AirAsia flight inspector.

(photo courtesy of either HP or Janice)

Janice excited over... well, just excited.

I was, however, getting ready to go.

(photo courtesy of HP)

This was our base during the trip--Basaga House

Rented a van and arrived safely at the Sarawak Cultural Village at Santubong,

where the Rainforest World Music Festival is held annually.

(photo courtesy of either HP or Janice)

With Joyce at the Iban longhouse

Friendly-looking decorations at the Iban longhouse

(shrunken skulls... too bad not for sale)

Rumah Tinggi Orang Ulu

At the mural found outside the Orang Ulu house

I can't remember what culture this was (Kelabit? Melanau?) but this was a guy balancing on a pole with his stomach during the cultural show.

This is Janice (spot her!) joining in the dance at the end of the show

This is sarawak laksa.

Take a good look at it. Not easy to come by in the peninsula.

The team regroups for a game of Taboo

Janice and HP doing some retail therapy at the morning market

Team arriving at Siniawan for the visit to Kian's farm and organic BBQ lunch

Wide open spaces of the organic farm

but somehow they like to eat from the same patch

Light coming into the cave

Arch at Kuching Chinatown

Amazing thing was we ran out of time on our flight from KL-Kuching but we had more than enough time to spare on our flight from Kuching-KL. The flight was delayed. Such extremes.

Oh yes, I believe that organic food don't always go well with everyone. While I am totally in support of Kian's endeavour, my eating experience at the organic farm didn't go too well. I had diarrhoea that evening. Apparently, I wasn't the only one. My roommate had diarrhoea too. Perhaps the food was too clean and this was a way for us to detox. Maybe.

Kuching start-stop

2009-10-13T00:23:00.003+08:00

I just realised I have yet to put up any photos from my recent Kuching trip in September here.

But then again, it was a good trip with bad photos of me.

Alright, maybe I'll put up photos of sarawak laksa instead...

But I need to find them first.

The Media Carnival that was...

2009-10-12T21:54:00.012+08:00

Now that the event has passed and after maintaining some form of silence for a week or so, perhaps it's high time I put some comments in here as the Chairperson of the advisor's/organising committee about the now concluded episode called the SOC Media Carnival 2009.

I'm so glad it's finally all over.

Not to say that I didn't enjoy it. To be honest, I really did enjoy some parts of it. It was downright challenging especially when the gaffer decreed that we had to take matters in our hands and build the entire carnival from scratch within a month. I did thrive on the excitement and thrill of it but then that resulted in sleep becoming a luxury. Working with a team had their initial teething problems as well, but I'm glad that most of it were weathered together despite the many disagreements and conflicts. Anyone who's been at this long enough knows that conflicts are part and parcel of working in teams, and we can't please everyone with the decisions we make. And in all honesty, while working in this committee I was never interested in making popular decisions; I wanted to make the right decisions. Even if it was disagreeable and unpopular to some. That said, I was pleased that most of my decisions--while not being totally perfect--were usually spot-on and had been done with a sense of urgency and of excellence with minimal repercussions.

But to be fair to all who had toiled to put this together, I truly appreciate the effort of all concerned especially in putting together a bigger and better carnival than the one the year before. While size is not always the measure of success, the quality should improve as the years go by. A big thank you to all those who had been a part of this and for being part of the committee and, of course, not forgetting those who had attended. Thank you to all my partnering fellow lecturers in this -- NMH, KK, Azmyl, TK, TY, Ed, NMY, and Philip, who in varying degrees had helped me shoulder the weight of all this. And to the student committee, you know who you are... thanks for your courage, dedication and belief that this project would eventually see the light of day despite the initial hiccups. Thanks especially to God for seeing me through this and for sustaining my health and the extra strength through it all and for increasing my capacity to anchor this event.

But like I said earlier, I'm so glad it's over because now I can get back to my life and do the things I enjoy doing. At one point, I must admit, the Carnival did suck the life out of me. Its demands took its toll on me -- week in, week out. There was this one point when I was juggling the Media Carnival and the regular teaching by day, and the Breathtaking recording rehearsals by night. That was certainly energy-sapping and I was living on three or four hours sleep every night. I'm not kidding here.

Now that it's over, it is not without its pleasant and fulfilling memories. As I was telling some of them who worked closer with me: I believe as we were getting closer to the carnival, we could see the handiwork of our labour coming to fruition. Our work was starting to bear fruits and we could see some results happening in the last two weeks preceding the carnival.

And now it is all said and done.

So now let me present you: the pictures from the Carnival on 3 Oct.

One of the SOC academic staff and management with Allan Wu

(photo courtesy of Raffi/SOC Media Carnival 2009)

With Cecilia, Sue Lynn, and Emily

(photo courtesy of Sue Lynn)

Messing up an otherwise nice pic.

With lil Serene, Miki, and Jerrica.

Charming bunch! ;)

(photo courtesy of Sue Lynn)

with Chenny

(photo courtesy of Sue Lynn)

with Allan Wu, SOC ambassador and host of the Amazing Race Asia

with colleague and local indie artist Azmyl Yunor and Liyana of Estrella, together with NMH and Arul

(photo courtesy of Bryan Lim/SOC Media Carnival 2009)

A B&W one of me and the girls: Tasha, Serene, Cecilia, Catherine and PY.

I have a feeling a lot of guys would have loved to be me in this pic.

(photo courtesy of Sue Lynn)

A lollipop, a pair of drumsticks, a bottle,... so Cat and PY what are you holding?

(photo courtesy of Sue Lynn)

Our post-release article in The Star R.AGe on 7 Oct 2009

(click to view a larger version to read)

(special thanks to Michelle for writing and submitting this)

Caution: Peculiar roadsigns...

2009-10-10T10:50:00.003+08:00

... only at Bangsar.

Such was/is the high rate of snatch thievery in Bangsar that they had to put up new and original roadsigns like this along the business and commercial hub of this suburb.

This will be the new tourist attraction of Bangsar -- the "never seen before" roadsigns.

As Ruby made the remark, this roadsign will not be taught to you in your undang-undang (mandatory preparatory classes for Malaysian drivers licence) classes.

Maybe it might be included in the new syllabus.

Desmond's birthday dinner

2009-10-05T19:14:00.001+08:00

We had dinner at d'Italiane Kitchen at Jaya33 for Desmond's birthday, which was during the Hari Raya break; shame it took me until now to post the pics up. As you guessed it, the menu was Italian but with a few more Mediterranean-ish dishes slotted in between those Italian ones.

The food was surprisingly good; not that I expected it to be bad, but it exceeded my expectations. I mean there are Italian food and Italian food, and sometimes you can differentiate the good ones from the mediocre ones. Desmond's a good guy to have for dinner, he always knows what to order. How does he find all these good eateries? The crowd that came in also looked very much like discerning diners themselves. Until this dinner, I had not heard of this place and no one had bothered to mention to me about it. It's either the best kept secret or I've been eating the goodness of homecooked food. Either way, I must say I'm a blessed bloke.

Here's the salad: I'm not too sure if it's Caesar's but according to Des, it is

Risotto

Angelhair something something with scallops

Spaghetti marinara

Erm... kinda forgot what this was. Anyone can help me out here?

A cheese stuffed-beef something with mushroom, onion, and some thick brown sauce which tasted magnifico

Gladys and Yer Li

with Joyce

Group photo

Desmond with his bff, the Digi Yellowman

Yes, most of the dishes (I'm not entirely comfortable calling Italian food dishes, as that normally conjure up memories of Chinese cuisine served in a family-sized platter in eight or nine-course dining) were excellent.

Anyway, following Desmond's birthday was Gladys' which happened on 4 Oct. Happy birthday to you too, Gladys. Gladys is a nice lady I got to know not too long ago but her dinner was to be held at Euro Deli. I hope they had a great time. Shame I couldn't attend it. I heard lots of stories about that place as well... from Desmond, of course.

The "Breathtaking" studio sessions

2009-10-02T06:53:00.003+08:00

Here are some photos from last Sunday. We were at the Ark Studios laying down the choir vocal tracks for "Name", "Only", "Make Me New" and "Adonai". I worked only on the latter three due to space constraints in the studio. We took turns sitting out though, so for me, it was "Name" that I took a break.

I'd like to upload a video of us singing inside the studio, however, since the album is not out yet, I wouldn't want to be the one responsible for the leak although, of course, the songs had already been sung at the church a couple of times.

But then again, studio and live... very different. Like I said before studio recording is hardwork. Done that couple of times since the Qrown days. I still think it's hardwork, especially if you were on worship duty a few hours earlier.

I'm loving every minute of this "Breathtaking" project though.

A photo of the ladies just as Jennifer arrived

Taking a break while listening to the tracks under the watch of chief songwriter

We held up "Adonai" for piccies

One for the boys: with Douglas and Mike

"Breathtaking"

2009-09-26T11:56:00.008+08:00

Praise be to God for a busy yet surprisingly fulfilling last two months while culminated in the live worship recording that happened on both last Saturday and Sunday.

Last weekend was AWESOME.

I am truly blessed, honoured, pleased, (fill more positive superlatives here)... to be a part of the project. I was blown away. Indeed, His love endures forever.

Here are some of the photos from last week's recording of the live worship album "Breathtaking" that was happening at my church.

(All photos courtesy of SIBKL)

The worship team with the new backdrop

I like this one... silhouettes and the cross

The frontliners, secondliners, and musos.

Chief songwriter and worship leader Chris Chew

Jasmine airborne while Melody and Sara enjoying themselves.

This gotta be Sunday's recording.

The choir... Spot me!

A nice, classic B&W one of Pastor Dan

Worship leader Joanna

Frontliners and secondliners

My rehearsal makeup artist and vocalist extraordinaire Jade

The choir again... I'm not too sure which song this was but everyone's looking happy

Stage and congregation

Still the same song, I think

... and one final one.

Wait for the album.

Coming 24 October.

A moment of silence but this blog is not dead

2009-09-26T09:21:00.003+08:00

It's been an awfully long time since I last posted something up here.

If you noticed, I haven't even finished my log on Australia yet.

Right now, as you can see in my blog, I'm still stuck at Sydney and had not even returned to Melbourne yet.

In reality, this can't be further from the truth. I am home back in KL safe and sound. I had travel to Kuching within that time and had came back, but most of the time I'm too pre-occupied with the things that are happening at work. Big project coming up as well as the usual day-to-day operational task of teaching.

Rest assured, I will be posting something up here (really) soon. Allow me one more week of silence and then there's plenty for me to update you lot. And yes, photos too.

Just that I'm not too sure if I still want to put up the Aussie photos, considering there's so many of them and the local broadband service has been nothing but inconsistent of late (so what's new?). It may just consume so much time putting up the pics, I'll just re-direct you all to look at them at Facebook instead.

But yes, I will return to blogosphere pretty soon.

Sydney (Part 1)

2009-08-12T09:41:00.004+08:00

Day 5: Errol St, Melbourne Avalon Airport (AVV), and... Sydney

It was the day I was to leave Melbourne albeit temporarily. Just before leaving via Avalon airport, I had an appointment to keep. I had made arrangements the day before to meet my friend of 25 years, Dreyen, for brunch, which I did and she recommended this place called Auction Rooms. Yummy food but a little pricey. She brought her cute little daughter Hannah with her. The last time she came back to Malaysia, I was not around to catch up with her. That must mean she either came back late 2004 or the first half of 2005 when I was still a postgraduate student at the UK.

Dreyen said she would drop me off at Avalon and spend some time with me catching up before that. Apparently, she said lives near Avalon. I think not. I didn't felt like it. But then again, in Australia everything is so vast with the wide open spaces and it's no surprising everything that is not within the city is scattered. So relatively speaking, yeah, I'll give her a benefit of a doubt.

Hung out at her place which was pretty much out of town and relaxed a bit there until I panicked a little when it was so near check-in time for my flight to Sydney. Dreyen was so relaxed about it but I was getting more than a little worried I might miss my flight.

Worse, when I arrived at Avalon, the counter for the flight to Sydney had closed. Panicked, I ran to the counter--all ready to press the panic button--hoping I was lucky. I asked if the flight was still open and to my surprise the lady at the check-in said it was my lucky day; I had just made it since the flight was delayed.

Day 5 (late) and Day 6 (Sydney, Leura, Three Sisters, Jenolan Caves)

Eventually, I arrived at Sydney. My friend of 20-plus years at Sydney whom I had known since primary school, Kenneth, picked me from the airport. I crashed over at Kenneth's for the entire duration of my time at Sydney.

I arrived at Kingsford Smith Airport and Ken came to pick me up from there and then his missus from home. We headed to a grill place at the Sydney Olympic Park.

The following day, it was to the Three Sisters via Leura and then on to the Jenolan Caves.

So here it is--me allowing my photos to do the talking instead. This is Sydney (and its surroundings).

The cranberry and chocolate scones I had at Cafe Josophan's at Leura, this quaint little town en route to the Three Sisters, Katoomba.

The chili hot chocolate at Cafe Josophan

The Three Sisters

With the Three Sisters and the trusted reliable Sydney Lonely Planet in hand

After arriving there, somehow I just couldn't get enough pics of it

The hills and mountain ranges at Katoomba

"Ruined Castle" which is not really a ruined castle though it looks like one but a rock formation which resembled exactly that

with Dr Ong and Dr K Lee.
I had been truly blessed by their generous and warm hospitality

Inside one of the network of Jenolan Caves called the Lucas Cave

This one looked very coral or jellyfish-ish

Does this one resemble a rhino's head of something?

This stalactite and stalagmite used to be connected to make a column.

But since there is movement under the earth over the years the column has broken off and it is now not directly below each other anymore.

"Bishop" rock

Sunset on the way back from Jenolan Caves

Got back to Sydney in time from the Jenolan Caves to have dinner with Adrian, another doctor, also from the old primary school at this French restaurant. Amazing to note that I've known both of these guys for almost 25 years.

Day 7 (Bondi Beach, Five Ways, Circular Quay, Aroma Festival (The Rocks), and Hillsong City Campus

Day 7 was a Sunday: so it's off to the beach after a day out to look at rock formations the day before.

Bondi Beach...

Bondi Beach

The apartment homes overlooking Bondi

Doing the touristy thing at Bondi Beach

After Bondi Beach and Five Ways, Ken dropped me off at the Circular Quay/The Rocks to meet Shereen. The day before, Shereen and I made plans to go to the Aroma Festival. At first I didn't know what the Aroma Festival was or what it was about but was game to see what it is anyway. But when I arrived there, it needed no further explanation.

with Shereen and that famous building at the background

Aroma Festival... one day only (19 July)

This is what it's all about...

Chocolates on sale

This looks glorious... strawberries dipped in dark choc, milk choc, white choc, and no choc.

You know what this is

The crowd of people at the Rocks with Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background...

was heading to the Ken Done Gallery

View from the Circular Quay of the Circular Quay

(well, it's somewhat circular, hence I could capture this picture)

Australia Hotel... where they had some exotic pizzas...

kangaroo, crocodile, etc (ok, no koalas)

Shereen with her bestie Lydia (another guitar geek like Shereen and moi!) at Australia Hotel waiting for our kangaroo pizza and our sweet Asian sauce duck pizza. I had a Pure Blonde and they had a Victoria Bitter while waiting... wait, or was it the other way round?

Sun setting on the Opera House

After finishing lunch with Shereen and Lydia, they walked on the Harbour Bridge to get to the other side for their church service while I had made plans to visit the Hillsong Church City Campus.

Hillsong City Campus

The night wrapped up with a Thai dinner with Kenneth and Chu Tih at this place called... well, I forgot the name of the place but according to Chu Tih it was listed in the Lonely Planet. Great, I left my Lonely Planet at Sydney with Fudge and Debs on my way back (exceeded luggage limit) hence I won't know the name of that Thai restaurant until maybe a month from now.

After dinner, we headed to Max Brenner for dessert. I had a suckao which was a DIY hot chocolate where they gave you a plate of chocolate discs, a small jug of milk, and a mug with a tealight on the underside to warm the milk. You then had to melt the hot choc in the milk using the heat from the tealight under the mug. So how thick and rich you want the hot choc is up to you. You then had to drink up the hot choc using the metal straw like stirrer device.

The suckao... I had a dark chocolate one, which was really awesome.

Melbourne I (Part 2)

2009-07-29T09:45:00.000+08:00

This is post #666 since starting this blog in 2005 but I promise you that there's nothing devilish or evil about this entry. Wicked, maybe. Evil, no.

Day 4: Melbourne CBD and across the Yarra to the south

Day 4 started as just another usual morning except that I had to return the car to the car rental place. Went to return the car with Debbie and then decided to sit down and absorb the cafe culture that was so prevalent there at Melb. I had a latte and a focaccia something something at this cafe outside Queen Victoria Market and sat down and spent some time with Debbie catching up on some matters.

GPO

We decided to walk on a little from there towards the city once we finished breakfast. We split at Melbourne Central where I walked on to further to the State Library for a scheduled meeting with ex-student Kartika. Kartika has been in Melbourne for a year now after leaving college to do her Master's at RMIT. Kartika had availed herself for the day to be my specialised tour guide. Wow. I felt really blessed and honoured to have had her for company the rest of the day. We walked down Swanston Street towards Flinders Street Station. Once we had arrived at the renowned train station, we walked across the bridge past both the train station and Federation Square we walked across the bridge to the other southside of the Yarra river. We then took to walking by the riverside and headed towards Southgate, a smallish shopping mall overlooking the CBD. Great view though nevermind the size. Considering this was only my second day out to the CBD, it's great to have crossed the Yarra to see the sights on the far side of the river.

The buildings on the south of the Yarra

View of both side of the Yarra from the bridge

So Kartika and I walked on the riverbank towards the west heading towards the Crown Casino and Entertainment Complex. I was told the Cruises (that's Tom, Katie, and Suri) are staying at the Crown from early July for about six months for Katie Holmes' movie. We went into the Crown hotel for a while and came out to get some sunshine again once Kartika had her caffeine fix. We could see the Aquarium from where we were on the other side of the river. On the southside, there were plenty of swanky and trendy restaurants. From Crown we walked to the Polly Woodside Maritime Museum and saw nothing except the Polly Woodside ship which was sitting pretty by the riverbank. Nearby was the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre which was pretty much it on the west side. We backtracked towards Southgate and further on to the Victoria Arts Centre via the Eureka Towers. Eureka Towers just a few years' back trumped Rialto Towers as the tallest building in Melbourne and, like Rialto, also boast of an observation deck.

Some artistic sculptures on the south of the Yarra.

Note: joggers taking full advantage of the sunshine.

Bees at the foot of Eureka Towers

The dizzying heights of the Eureka Towers, Melbourne's tallest

We spent most of the day at the southside of the Yarra. From Eureka we walked through some back lane and arrived at the Victorian Arts Centre (VAC). The VAC is the building with the peculiar modern spire jutting out from the Melbourne skyline and usually houses most of the performing arts productions eg art festivals, theatre performances, ballets, etc. Next to it was the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). We were trying to do the camwhore thing while at VAC to try to capture ourselves with the NGV at the background. Didn't quite work out.

Kartika and I attempting at the VAC, attempting to take a photo of the NGV at the background.

The Victorian Arts Centre

After an hour or two of sightseeing architecture of buildings and structures which could be an overkill and probably reduce appreciation for them, we decided to walk to the nearby greens at Queen Victoria Gardens, passing through the Sidney Myer Music Bowl (an outdoor performance amphitheatre I think owned and managed by the VAC) and on towards the Royal Botanic Gardens.

QV Gardens (or was it Royal Botanic?) with the Eureka sticking out at the background

At the Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG), there was an Ornamental Lake there, a garden to which I forgotten its name and, of course, the masterpiece war memorial called the Shrine of Remembrance which was built to commemorate the Australian and NZ Army Corp (ANZAC) soldiers who fought the two great wars. A very solemn monument equipped with an eternal flame burning at the foot of one of the statues. On a cold winter's day, the eternal flame provided some comfort to the both of us.

We went into the Shrine of Remembrance which although had many visiting tourists but it was awfully quiet in there (probably as a mark of respect) and there were lots of war memorabilia from flags of Australia and NZ with their squad and regiment numbers and a few hardcover books which were encased in the glass boxes showing the names of the soldiers who perished at the two World Wars to weapons displays. We then walked down to the crypt and there was a walkway with all the medals that were awarded, each medal signifying every 5 men, I think. I asked Kartika how she felt when she was inside, and she said that she didn't really feel anything maybe because Australia is neither her country nor were the British her former colonial masters (she's from Indonesia hence they were under Dutch rule) . I'm not Australian either but somehow I felt a strange feeling. My dad used to serve in the British Army during the early years of Malaysia's independence. At that time, the British still had some presence in the early formative years of Malaysia by 'loaning' and training the military and later handing over full reins to the newly formed Government. A feeling of pride, sadness, nostalgia I suppose. A strange feeling like I said to see all these people who had served together with the British Army being commemorated.

Further deeper into the crypt, there was a room which was showing a video on everything about the Shrine of Remembrance; from its building approval to the first ANZAC day held there (and the many people who thronged there), from its location map to testimonials from children and descendants of the ANZAC warriors.

Kartika and the Shrine

I do strange things after long walks

The medals at the crypt of the Shrine of Remembrance

From the crypt, we walked the stairs upwards towards the balcony where it overlooks the city from the RBG. Here's the view from the balcony of the Shrine which I thought was quite breaktaking nonetheless:

We had been up there for quite a while, say 15 minutes, just taking photos and in quiet reflection of both the scenes that we had just seen at the crypt and also of the city view. Of course, I had some photos taken up there with its many sculptures at the balcony while Kartika was making a video for a special someone, M.

Before long, we were accompanied at the balcony by a tour group which consisted of men who were in their 50s or 60s. A lot of them, say about 30 or 40. I can't make out what nationality they were but I think they sounded American. Could be Canadian. I sometimes have difficulties telling the two accents apart. But somehow they looked like they all knew each other from somewhere before. They were all talking, some not as discreetly. Maybe they were retired servicemen. It just got a bit crowded at the top and just as well we were nearly done.

When we finally decided to leave the RBG, it was nearly 4pm... time for lunch. We had pre-agreed that we were going to have an Italian lunch at Lygon Street. RBG to Lygon Street? Every Melbournian can tell you that it's no walking distance from the Royal Botanic Gardens to Lygon Street which is north of the river and further on towards Carlton. So we then hopped on the tram to get there, my first tram ride since arriving. After arriving at Melbourne Central, we changed to another tram and eventually got to Lygon St. There were plenty Italian food to choose from at Lygon St but somehow Kartika had in mind which one she wanted and we both ordered a linguine salmon something something. While waiting, Kartika and I had a very interesting conversation (don't ask!) about certain matters. Hahahaha ;)

Kartika smiling to herself while waiting for her pasta

After pasta, we headed to the nearby gelato shop -- the Il Dolce Freddo (again!). I had a different two-scoop combination this time; still with the Rocher but now paired with the Fredo white chocolate gelato. Wow... my second one in a matter of three days. By the time we left Lygon St, the sun was almost setting and I was due for my next appointment. Just as well over lunch, my next appointment was delayed by half hour as she had a delay coming in from the Burwood train station. So Kartika, being so kind that she is, accompanied me from Lygon St all the way back down to the Flinders St Station and Federation Sq and again to Southgate to have a view of the night skyline. I think Kartika really likes coming down to the city, I could tell. She lives nearly an hour away from the CBD even though she studies at the city -- like some one freaking hour away!

Flinders St Station at night

On the St Kilda Rd bridge

From just outside Southgate

Eventually, the next appointment arrived -- Pei Yin, another former student, but this time from my previous college. I introduced Kartika to Pei Yin, and Kartika "surrendered" me over to Pei Yin. Kartika had been a wonderful tour guide and such a bundle of joy to hang out with. Thanks, K.

Pei Yin (PY) brought with her her housemate (I forgot her name; didn't I tell you I was terrible with names?) and it was a walk towards Chinatown to exchange something at the DVD shop that her friend had bought earlier, and then it was time for dinner. Nearly two and a half hours after lunch! While at the DVD shop at Chinatown, I noticed that they didn't only stock Chinese DVDs but also Japanese and Korean ones too, with a sprinkling of a few popular English titles in between. I noticed a few familiar Japanese artist names; Ayumi Hamasaki, Glay, and umm... L'Arc En Ciel.

PY and her housemate took me to this Chinese food joint which was quite dark on the inside but the food wasn't too bad. It was full of Chinese people. Must be good then... a Chinese food joint frequented by Chinese people is normally testament to the food there.

Over dinner, PY started talking to me about her assignment over the dining table. I think she must've been really ignorant of the fact I was on a holiday and I really didn't want to "talk shop". But anyway, no hard feelings. Since she was my ex-student from two years' back (keyword: ex-, meaning not a current one), I gladly provided her the necessary 411 on her assignment.

After dinner we walked on the southbank towards Crown Casino where we stopped to look at the pyro display of the Crown Entertainment Complex which I am told happens at certain intervals. We eventually walked back to Southgate and had more gelato there. If there was one thing about this trip, it probably has to be defined by my gelato moments, or so I thought (once I arrived at Sydney, there were new indulgences, but we'll talk about that later).

with Pei Yin and Rialto Towers between us

We then arrived back at Flinders St Station which meant goodbye for us. Decided to take the tram (since the two-hour ticket was still valid) back north of the CBD. Got back, packed, and set aside all the necessary documents (actually only the printout of the flight details) for the following day which was my flight to Sydney.

I had sent and received text messages in spurts on my mobile couple of times throughout the day making an appointment to meet a friend who was more than willing for me to visit her at her home and then to send me off to the airport the following day. I had know this friend for nearly 25 years and I had not seen for nearly 10 years.

End of Day 4.

Melbourne I (Part 1)

2009-07-26T13:32:00.019+08:00

City skyline

(Note: None of the photos required any Photoshop treatment. The skies were really that blue and therefore the pics did not require any touching up. That's how good and clear most days were when I was there)

My luggage was overweight! The much dreaded moment came at the airport when I was checking in to leave Melbourne back for KL early yesterday morning. I had to re-pack. Alas, the three travel guidebooks I took with me and one kilo bag of nougats (Golden Boronia) had to be left behind with my friends--scheduled only to make its way to Malaysian shores with them in September. That's alright, not too long a wait. Thanks, Debs & Faj. Couldn't have managed the re-packing on my own without you guys.

Day 1: Flight Into Melbourne

Rewind: 11 days earlier... the luggage went through KLIA LCCT with no issues at all. My checked baggage weighed at a decent 15.5 kgs while the cabin luggage was quite light as well (in hindsight, I had clearly been shopping too much from the look of it). The flight was a direct one from KL - Melbourne (Tullamarine), and it took approximately 8 hours. Arrived at Melbourne at close to midnight and then quickly caught the Skybus from the airport to the Melbourne Central Business District (CBD) to Spencer Street. Once arriving at Spencer's, took a cab to Pearly's which didn't cost me too much (around AUD20) considering I still didn't know my way. Got there, caught up with Pearly and that was pretty much it for Day 1. Called it a night after having some instant noodles at Pearly's.

Day 2: Melbourne CBD

Followed Pearls out to the closest attraction to her place -- the Queen Victoria Market. Since it was a Tuesday, most shops/stalls were opened (QV Mkt apparently closes on Mondays and Wednesdays). Since I was on holiday, whenever there was a photo opportunity I would grab it. The best thing about being on holiday is that it allowed me to play the tourist quite shamelessly. I neither worked nor studied at Melbourne--although I had and have many friends there--so I felt I was entitled to do the touristy thing there. Therefore, if there was anything, and anything at all, that I wanted to take a photo of, I just had to swing out my camera. (Shereen commented during my time at Sydney (which will be mentioned in later entries) that I was the epitome of a typical tourist--with a camera in one hand and a copy of Lonely Planet on the other). Ok, back to QV Market. Apparently Queen Vic Market was built on a former cemetery site. Not many people know this fact, but this fact was pointed out in the Melbourne's Lonely Planet. Took some photos while Pearls did her meat shopping. I treated myself to a 90 cents doughnut which I too had read in the Lonely Planet. On a cold morning, a hot doughnut was yummy. When she was done, we went back to her apartment to put her groceries down and headed out again. She then took me down Swanston Street--the main thoroughfare in the Melbourne CBD. We started from the edge of it starting with the City's Public Baths.

City Baths

RMIT Building 8

State Library of Victoria (well, part of it!)

Florist along Collins St

A few metres down and into the CBD, was RMIT's Building 8 which was featured in the Dorling Kindersley Australia travel guide noted for its modernist architecture. In fact, that row of RMIT building on Swanston could boast to having among the most modern looking buildings in the Melb CBD (with perhaps the exception of Federation Square). At the end of the row, we came to the Victorian State Library with the peculiar half sunken structure. Pearls also showed me where to get on the free City Circle tram which is tourist-oriented at that corner of La Trobe & Swanston Sts. Pearly had a few calls along the way down Swanston St reminding her of a yum cha session she was to attend, and she invited me along but I refused preferring to take a good day out to walk the city instead since the weather was quite good (and was enjoying the chilly change from the tropical heat I came from) and told her to go ahead with her plans without me. Didn't want her to feel obligated to take me around as I think I am more than capable to go around on my own with a good travel guide and a street map. She pointed out to me Melbourne Central--a favourite meeting place for Melbournians--and the other shopping mall called QV Centre (was supposed to check out this clothing store called Mooks there but ran out of time). We went into the QV Centre to get a prepaid SIM card for my mobile during my time there. So we walked around for a bit more before we parted ways. Walked my way down to Lt Bourke St to have a look at the Chinatown, then continued on the path down to Swanston St past the Melbourne Town Hall, towards the City Square, and looked up towards Collins St to look at the Regent Theatre and continued on my track down towards the Yarra River on Swanston St. Arrived at St Paul's Cathedral on the Swanston & Flinders Sts corner.

Interior of St Paul's Cathedral at the corner of Swanston and Flinders Sts

Stain glass windows in St Paul's Cathedral

One of the things I like about travelling in Europe is visiting religious structures such as churches, cathedrals, ruined temples, synagogues, etc. The thing about Australia though is that most of these religious buildings are many centuries younger than their European counterparts since Australia in its current state is a relatively young country having been settled by European explorers (and convicts) as recent as the 18th century and had only been a country in 1901 (if my memory serves me correctly). Once I had visited St Paul's Cathedral, the great Melbourne icon stood before me -- Flinders Street Station (well, actually I noticed it from my walk down but I decided to take a look at the church first).

Flinders Street Station

One of the modern architecture buildings on Federation Square

Needless to say, I spent quite a great deal of time here taking photos of the many angles of Flinders St Station, Federation Square, St Paul's Cathedral, and across the southside of the Yarra River towards the Eureka Towers, the Victoria Arts Centre. I had apparently completed the whole Swanston St CBD stretch. Until today, Debbie is amazed with me accomplishing this, which I thought was no big deal at all, but according to her, many Melbournians including herself prefer not to do this choosing to go on the tram instead. Well, since I was a tourist I figured it would be better to travel and experience the sights on foot.

So I backtracked and decided to walk on Collins St this time. Conquered the all the way down hill towards the business hub which my walk ended at the mighty Rialto Towers; stopping along the way to look at 333 Collins St (apparently a tourist attraction too); passed the Immigration Museum which was a detour into Market Street and back up towards the Block Arcade and Royal Arcade which was adjacent to it. Found myself at Bourke St and in front of the GPO. Went in to the GPO to take a look but then decided to backtrack and complete Collins St first. However, there is this thing outside the GPO which is clam-shaped. As I walked closer, it actually is in the shape of a purse.

The giant purse outside the GPO

So came back to Collins and went to look at this shopping area called Australia on Collins (dammit, the things in Collins St is definitely upmarket and since it was only Day 2, I wanted to remain tight-fisted and conservative with my spending money. Walked past the Swanston St junction and walked uphill towards the Scots Church and the St Michael Unity Church which was a stone's throw away from the city's Louis Vuitton outlet. Walked back towards Swanston St as I had finally received a call from Debbie and we were to meet at Melbourne Central (MC)--our first meeting in 2 and a half years, I believe.

Melbourne Central's shot tower

Arrived at MC, and had to wait for Debbie who was making her way from her college which was far out from the city. Decided to take some photos of the shot tower under the glass roof in MC and also took a video of the clock which plays Waltzing Matilda every hour. It was already 5pm then. Debbie arrived we walked around in MC for a bit and caught up with each other for a while then headed back to Pearly's. At Pearly's, we booked a Hyundai Getz for the next day's Great Ocean Road trip. Cost us less than AUD 40 for the whole day which I thought was not too bad. Refreshed myself a little, then Fajar arrived. We went out for dinner at Lygon St. Lygon St is the little Italy of Melbourne but it's also a good place for eating other food, must mainly Italian. We had Thai. Unlike London, you can still have dinner alfresco in mid-winter in Melbourne. That's what we did at Ying Thai. The food there was affordable and authentically Thai. Nothing like a good dose of chilli and spicy soup and gravy during winter. To put out the fire, we had Il Dolce Freddo gelato shop, probably the most popular gelato shop in Lygon St. I had two scoops: one was Nutella and the other was Rocher (as in Ferrero Rocher!). They were excellent... so good I went back there with Kartika two days' later. To my surprise, they even had durian flavoured gelato there as well which I think some group of Asian students were eating; I could smell the distinct scent of durian (which I don't particularly like). You could smell it a mile away really. Everytime the lady behind the counter slided the glass panel to dig for gelato in the same panel as the durian's, you could smell the whiff of it in the air. Durians aside, the gelato was absolutely fantastic. The texture is smooth and yet not too sweet, creamy and yet generous with the ingredients. They're not cheap though: they cost a good AUD5 for two scoops.

with Fajar enjoying a gelato

After dinner and desserts, we hung out at Fajar's place for a while which was smacked right in the city amongst office blocks. The three of us--Fudge, Debbie and I--watched TV for a while and warmed ourselves with the radiator for a while. Then it was time to go home: it was a long day ahead the following day. It was our Great Ocean Road day. So then I stayed up to read a bit about the long drive I was going to have the following day and called it a night shortly. End of Day 2.

Day 3: Great Ocean Road

Probably the biggest and longest day of the traveling calendar has arrived -- the Great Ocean Road drive.

There's one thing I had noticed during this trip about Australia and Australian tourism:

People (ie. tourists) would travel great distances from various Aussie state capital cities around this continent-island-state just to see rocks. Most of the major tourist attractions in Australia revolves around looking at rocks. Don't believe me?

Here are some examples:

The Twelve Apostles is a six-hour drive from Melbourne. They are rock formations.
The Three Sisters in the outskirts of Sydney is two hours drive away from the financial capital. They are rock formations.
The Pinnacles in the Nambung National Park in Western Australia near the town of Cervantes is nearly four hours bus ride from Perth (I done this before and my ass hurt from the long ride). They are limestone formations ie. rock formations.
The Wave Rock, also in Western Australia, in the town of Hyden, is about 340 kms east of Perth. How many hours drive is that? They are granite formations ie. rock formations.
And arguably the most famous of all the Australian rock formations, Uluru (formerly Ayers Rock), the mega standstone formation in southern Northern Territory is right in the middle of... nowhere. According to student's favourite Wikipedia, it is 335 kms southwest of the nearest town Alice Springs (which you need to fly in by plane) but to drive there from Alice Springs it's 450 kms. Straight line distances and road distances can differ greatly. Yes, they are desert rock formations.

Ok enough of geography and geology, but you get my point right? While Melbourne may be an architect's or a culture vulture's heaven, then the entire Australia must be a geologist's nirvana.

Started the day waiting for Debbie to finish work and then both of us made our way to the car rental place at Franklin St to pick up our car. We had booked the car for 11:30am but we only got our car about 12:30pm. First, we had to wait behind a queue. And then, we were told you could go across the road to get our car collection done (as the car rental company across the road had bought over the one we booked from but are still separate entity). You know, all those administrative crap. And then all the necessary evil worth of paperwork that needed to be done. And then just as we were ready to drive off with the white Hyundai Getz we signed up for, we were told that the white car had already been sold by the car rental company to another buyer. So we were upgraded to a Hyundai Elantra at no extra cost. Wow... much better, bigger and faster car with the price of a Getz rental. And then, more admin matters since we were changing cars. By the time we left Melbourne CBD it was closing in on 1pm. However, the Elantra drives really well and it was really quite a stress free car to drive. The only stress was trying to find my way through the Melbourne traffic and out of the city and into the freeway. But I had Debbie with me and she was constantly on the phone with Fudge to get us out of town.

We drove from Melbourne to Geelong. It was only at Geelong did I notice how far Avalon airport was from Melb city. I was to take a flight to Sydney from Avalon in the next two days. I was told Avalon airport is 55 kms away from the city. Bless me. From Geelong we took a way through to Anglesea bypassing Torquay which is quite a big town at the Great Ocean Road too. From Anglesea, we decided not to stop for lunch as neither of us were hungry and drove on to Aireys Inlet.

At Aireys Inlet, we decided not to do lunch altogether and stopped for tea at Split Point where the lighthouse was instead. The air was crispy cool and fresh and the sight of the sea was refreshing. I didn't even know we've been driving for about two or three hours plus when we arrived at Split Point. That's how pleasant the drive was despite the frequent winding road. We took our respite and just took in all the sights. Debbie had been a great travel companion throughout this trip. We basically caught up just like old times while making new memories from this trip. There was never a dull or a sleepy moment throughout the course of the journey. A combination of good friendship which ensured good conversation, good clean air, good sceneries and the anticipation to reach the Twelve Apostles before dusk sets in.

One of the many view between Anglesea and Aireys Inlet

Debbie with her fist-sized scones at the tea place near the Split Point Lighthouse

with a cappuccino and a macadamia nut cookie

A cuckatoo on a tree in Split Point

Split Point Lighthouse at Aireys Inlet

Once we had our break, we realised the need to chase after the fading sunlight. The sun sets at about 5:30pm and we had about 2 and a half hours or so to arrive at the Twelve Apostles at Port Campbell national park. So the race was on. We were time-conscious but more importantly we also wanted to enjoy the drive and to do it safely. So we paced ourselves out well and got driving on.

After Aireys Inlet, the first town to catch was Fairhaven, which we arrived in about 10 or 15 minutes from Aireys Inlet. A short drive later, we came to the Memorial Arch. We stopped for photos of the arch, the plaque which was set in stone to remember the soldiers who had built the roads leading to the Twelve Apostles and Port Campbell National Park.

Seaside by the Memorial Arch

Great Ocean Road Memorial Arch -- as a tribute to the soldiers who built the road; me doing the Churchillesque victory sign

We then drove on, uphill, downhill and reached Lorne. From Lorne we made our way to Wye River then Kennett River then Skenes Creek and the other big town of Apollo Bay with its many wondrous houses overlooking the ocean. The town is caught between the bush and the sea. I was told by Debbie that two or three years back, some of these beautiful houses were wrecked by the bushfires there.

From Apollo Bay we reached Marengo and from there the Great Ocean Road took a turn inland instead. So for about an hour or so, there were absolutely no view of the ocean at all. It was all bush and grasslands where we manouvered through the Great Otway National Park. When the ocean view disappeared, I must admit, so was my enthusiasm. Suddenly, not so inspired anymore. But I knew I had to soldier on. Sunlight was quickly fading. Must make it to the Apostles by sun set at best. Obscured from the ocean by hilly terrains with the occasional peep of the ocean when we were on the hilly route, we arrived at Lavers Hill which was the furthest point form the ocean we had been all day since the Geelong - Anglesea drive. After Lavers Hill, we conquered Princetown which was the last town before the Twelve Apostles. We knew we were near.

Before heading inland again. This was somewhere uphill.

We drove on and on until we saw the sign "Twelve Apostles viewing area" followed by an arrow. We followed the arrow and found an open parking space. There were easily about thirty other cars, vans, and trailers there. Thank God there was a toilet there too. After relieving ourselves, we followed the path and walked through the underpass under the Great Ocean Road and we had arrived.

The scenery was just so surreal the first time I saw it.

I've seen the Twelve Apostles in postcards, books, magazines, travel guides, and advertisements before. But there's nothing quite like seeing it with your own eyes. Nothing beats that feeling. It's just larger than life.

That. Moment. Was. Magical.

I leave you for a moment to enjoy the pics below.

The Twelve Apostles

After driving six hours, one photo would not suffice...

One with me...

And another...

Yet another...

One with the road crew together

And one just before the sun faded into the sky. Notice the tide was coming in as well.

We watched, we waited for sun set. Thank God we had arrived on time to catch the best and most mystical moment of the Twelve Apostles. We posed for photos, took many, many photos from all angles and with different settings on the camera, some zoomed in, some zoomed out. We took a walk along the cliffs which had railings of course to the one piece of rock which was still attached to the mainland and noticed there were another two pieces on the left side of the lookout point (where the video of the previous entry was about). The sea, the sky, the rocks... everything was just amazing. Most of the tourists that were there stayed on until sun set. Some were enjoying sea breeze, some the sunset, some were reading a book, some taking photographs, for some others like myself, time just stood still... suspended for the moment although the sun was the indicator that time was actually moving after all.

We moved on to the Loch Ard Gorge but too bad it was already too dark by then. But the masterpiece, The Twelve Apostles, had already been done. So we didn't want to risk walking on the paths in the dark for fear of falling to our death in the gorge. We retreated further out to Port Campbell for dinner where I had a delightful seafood platter meal. At about the 7:30pm when it was already very dark, we got into the car and headed back to Melbourne.

Having done the coastal route, we decided to bypass the whole lot and took the inland route for the fastest way back. So it was Port Campbell to Princetown to Lavers Hill to Gellibrand to Elliminyt to Colac to Winchelsea to Geelong and from there to Melbourne in a shorter but more difficult four hours.

It had been a ten-hour drive by the time we reached Melb with about an hour or two in between. The longest I had driven was from Kota Bharu to KL in about 8 hours. How did I managed 10 hours?

Must be the fresh air and the scenery and the company and the excitement (before) of seeing the Twelve Apostles and the euphoria (after) of having seen the Twelve Apostles.

And these were the account for the third day.

End of Day Three.

PS. Apparently Pearly sms to informed us that there were reports of a tsunami over the news which would hit the shores of Victoria. By the time we got the message, we were inland and need not have to worry about it. The tsunami I was told was a relatively smaller scale and harmless one.

The Melbourne Trip Teaser

2009-07-26T13:02:00.005+08:00

I had just returned from a holiday at Melbourne and Sydney.

It was a blast!

While I sort out my photos and decide what I want to write in here, here's a quick video I took in our most important stop points while on the long drive out to the Great Ocean Road (it took us 6 hours out to see the 12 Apostles, and 4 hours back).

So here's a video which includes a conversation between Debbie and I on how the Twelve Apostles may be crumbling in years to come. So better go visit it soon, guys.

And this is also the teaser to my forthcoming entries on my trip to Melbourne and Sydney. Watch this space. If you've been there before or live in or near any of these cities, you might want to move along. The next couple of entries may be too touristy for your liking. Otherwise, stay to read on as you please.

4 July: Musings on Weddings #3 and #4

2009-07-10T22:46:00.019+08:00

4 July.

Two weddings.

Same day but both held contrasting moods and vibes for me.

One was passionately celebratory, the other was a little more nostalgic.

One was a collective effort which required the Cell's involvement for a somewhat new friend; the other my personal journey to the familiar south for a dear friend on her wedding day--a very dear friend.

Wedding #3: Kington & Jessica

The bride and the groom had asked me two months earlier to see if I was available to lead worship on 4 July for their wedding. I couldn't really give them an answer as I was scheduled to attend Stephanie's wedding (see Wedding #4). However, after making some adjustments, I could accommodate both weddings into my schedule. Best thing was we had Chee Mun back to help us play guitar for the wedding too--two weeks after his own wedding. Poor guy! Great guy nonetheless.

The garden wedding venue before the guests arrived

The wedding was held at Mariott Putrajaya at 5pm. I arrived earlier than I usually do most weddings so that I could recee the place out. The whole venue where the wedding was to be had been dolled up. All it needed was people to fill it up.

Soon people started coming in little by little. When our pianist, Bee King arrived we did a quick rehearsal just to refresh what we did the Sunday before, which was incidentally our first rehearsal. When we were somewhat done with the short and sweet rehearsal, I looked up behind me (I had my back facing the rest of the crowd the whole time) and there were more people seated and waiting than I imagined. Chee Mun and Ruby got lost on the way which worried most of us since he was supporting Bee King on guitars. I think he eventually arrived like 10 minutes before the bride showed up. He quickly got his guitar tuned, did a quick soundcheck and was good to go.

The bridal procession was accompanied by "The Prayer" played by a three piece band consisting of a keyboardist, a flautist and a double bass player.

Jessica and her dad during the bridal procession

Calvin gave the opening prayer. After the opening prayer, the MC who was Jessica's brother introduced yours truly who led in a couple of worship choruses--"I Could Sing of Your Love Forever" and "How Great Thou Art". While I was trying to get the crowd to get off their seats and join me in singing, I forgot the name of those paper documents that the ushers hand out during weddings. That word eluded me right at that moment. So I ended up saying something like, "The lyrics to the songs can be found in your.... (pause).... handouts".

This was the "handout" moment.

So typical lecturer.

By the way, they're called bulletins (the word "bulletin" was in my head and did cross my mind, but I had always associated bulletins with those given out at church on a weekly basis, so I was caught in two minds and hence kept it in).

Otherwise, programmes would have been a suitable word nonetheless.

Handouts. *gasp*

Ps Chandran spoke right after I completed leading the two songs. He had based his sermon "The Love Languages" on the bestselling Dr Gary Chapman's book The Five Love Languages. I thoroughly enjoyed his sermon having read the book and I thought that it was an appropriate sermon and yet a short one. He proceeded to solemnise the wedding which, of course, reached the climax with the "You may kiss the bride" consent which promised to deliver some cheers and whistles from the guests. Ps Chandran then passed the time over to the pastor who is a licensed marriage registrar to do the signing of the marriage certificates. Ps Chandran then led the couple to take the first Holy Communion together as husband and wife. After that the couple lighted the unity candle.

Then it was done.

Mr and Mrs Kington Koh.

The recession march happened and it was done.

However before the wedding ended, I saw from where I was sitting an old friend, Ai Leen, from college. She's not old but our friendship went back many years to my college era (to be specific, the era when I was still a college student!) She went to study in the US after college and married a guy over there and the rest is history. She came back for a holiday which coincided with the wedding. I was supposed to be heading off for the other wedding shortly after but I stayed to catch up with Ai-Leen and the rest of my cell, Absolute Joy, a little. A little took a while and then I went up to change to a different set of shirt and tie combo. The bride in the other wedding insisted that it was a "black tie event".

By the time I left, it was nearly 6:50pm.

I had to be at wedding #4 of the season (wedding #2 of the day) by 7:30pm.

I was going to be late.

Getting to Seremban from Putrajaya was simple and quick enough. Manouvering into and in the town itself was a little trickier with the weekend traffic.

The bride and groom with Absolute Joy Cell Group.

with Ai Leen

Notice the change in the tie and the shirt from the previous photos.

with Mian Loong, Michelle, and Huay Phing

Wedding #4: Stephanie & Alex

I got lost getting to Royale Bintang Seremban. I had followed the map which was printed on the invite most of the way, but I lost my sense of direction when we were passing through the A&W at Seremban town. It has been almost 10 years since the last time I had a proper drive through town. It was already 7:28pm when I arrived at the toll. Another "race against time" situation.

Somehow I took a wrong turn and headed on a bridge which led towards Rasah Jaya. Dammit. Wrong way. Luckily for me, I found a U-turn and got my way back on track. Miraculously I found my way on the right track and saw some road signs with the Royale Bintang signage. It pointed here and there and then it didn't point anywhere at all. One wrong turn at the roundabout and I was back to square one. So I took one huge round and by some stroke of chance found myself at the hotel's front entrance. Best of all, parking was free. On the downside it was already 8:01pm when I arrived at the parking. I rushed up to where the ballrooms were and saw the waiters all lining up with their platter and preparing to make their way in to the hall. But they were held up for some reason.

I saw Jennette who was on reception duty getting ready to tutup kedai (close shop) and asked for my table number and handed my angpow over. When I got to my seat, the groom and the bride were still on stage giving their acknowledgement speeches. That's odd, I thought: acknowledgement speeches before dinner. But I wasn't complaining, so I just shrugged my shoulders a little almost like reflex action, adjusted and smoothen the creases on my suit a little and got myself seated... next to my former church's elder and his wife, Uncle Tee Fatt and Aunt Hariett. Min Fook and Ann; Francis, Mabel and their kids, and Gary were seated on the same table. Alright, familiar people. Just as Stephanie had promised me.

Once I was a bit more settled, I looked across the room and saw some familiar faces. Michelle, Uncle Colin, Aunt Mandy, Aunt Anna, Aunt Doris, Uncle Fred etc. Looking at them all did bring back some memories, mostly great ones from 10 years ago. Midway through dinner, Desiree came over to say hi. A while later, Michelle who was seated at the VIP table recognised me and gave a wave. Later, the bride herself paid a visit to our table and she dragged her groom over to introduce me to him--for the first time.

Newlyweds about to cut the cake

Mr and Mrs Wang pouring the champagne

with Aunt Anna and Aunt Majorie

with Michelle and Aunt Anna

with the bride

I believe this was one of those weddings where I stayed till the end to mingle with old friends and just kept myself up to date with what's been happening in their lives. Once the desserts were served, it was already nearly 11pm but I decided to hung on for a while to catch up with Aunts Anna and Marjorie, Michelle, Desiree, and then much later Uncle Colin and Aunt Mandy, who were the parents of the bride themselves congratulating them for the auspicious occasion. I was about to leave but Steph showed up, at that time in a white cheongsam and we stayed to talk for a while. Somewhere along the conversation, I had mentioned that we knew each other for about 10 years and she was surprised and asked if it has been that long.

After some time, I said my goodbyes and promised to not disappear so long without keeping in touch. By the time I left S-town it was already close to 11:30pm. It was some distance to travel back to KL. The other folks from KL had already left. I dragged a deep breath and breathed the cool night air into my lung. The thought did cross my mind though: "How did I managed to be at two weddings on the same day?"

End of Part 1 (2009 edition)

2009-07-10T22:19:00.007+08:00

Finally it's all done.

It appears that I had been marking assignments for months (I never noticed until Yee San and Li San brought it up on separate occasions)--it started with the ICC and IMCOMM for the Diploma which semester started in January and then the CCS which started in late February. After completing teaching the Diploma and also with the marking of the two subjects, I dived head in to mark the Assignment 1 for CCS. With no break at all, once Assignment 1 had been completed, I again dived into marking the final report. Thank God there was Yoges to mark Assignment 2. So yes, it's been a long January to early July.

So it's only in the wee hours of this morning that I had completed all 113 (minus a few of the non-submissions) reports worth plus-minus 2,500 words each.

Today at the office, I tabulated the marks for the CCS and, together with Yoges, we selected the assignments to be sent for moderation -- the best, the worst, the middle-of-the-way. Then we packed it, and handed it over to the Sophia.

After hundreds of hours, it's finally done.

There were times during this episode of the "battle" that I had felt extremely weary. The human side of me kept asking how close to the end are we, but the other side of me knew that it was nowhere near yet and that I had to keep going. I needed to put my head down and plough through. I won't comment anymore about it but, yes, it's been months. I don't want to gripe and moan about it (no point!); I don't believe you want to read it here either.

And so the burden is finally lifted.

Now I can go take a vacation...

Reboot: written in stone (2.0)

2009-07-06T20:44:00.007+08:00

Time for a little change in the background and the general look of this blog.

But that's all the time I can afford for now. This whole activity of changing the background serves two purposes:

to keep myself mentally fresh so that I can continue marking while taking this diversion
to keep this blog fresh... it has been six months since the last change.

I know of a lot of people who had changed their blog layout in a much shorter period of time but six months' once works for me.

I decided I wanted to get a little more minimalistic for this season and allow the pictures to come alive instead and hence opted for a more subdued and milder backdrop against the main cast of photographic frames captured in time and space.

Let me know what you think, do you prefer:

the previous one (the green one) which was also called "observe/preserve"; or
this one (the ecru one) which is called "written in stone v2.0"?

Another key reasons why I decided to revert to using back the "written in stone" was the result of Michele's remark over dinner last night. She reminded me of the time when I once used this title. She loved it for its subtlety...

Can you figure out the cryptic message behind the title? Not difficult to spot it...

Ok, time for me to get back to work...

Janice's birthday

2009-07-04T12:23:00.008+08:00

The party: Joyce, Janice, Des, me, Gladys

Before I shoot off to Putrajaya this evening for wedding #3 and later from there to Seremban for wedding #4 today, let me just quickly put in an update here on what happened last Saturday (yes, I know I'm a week behind and this entry is not much of an update anymore, but still it's noteworthy to deserve a place in this blog).

Already Joyce is asking me enthusiastically for the photos from Janice's birthday last week, so here it is.

Five of us--Janice, Desmond, Gladys, Joyce and I--met at Victoria Station for Janice's birthday dinner. The rest of the cell had one thing or another, but as for me, it was a good diversion from all the marking of the CCS assignments. Naturally, I was more than a willing participant. Plus Janice is a fun person to hang with and a good friend. We wined and dined. Janice and Gladys ordered a Chilean merlot for us all, not too sure what year it was but I think it was 2006. It was a nice and drinkable wine but I reacted a little to the sulfites in the drink. Itched a bit here and there but nothing too big of a concern. I think this is only the first or maybe second time that I am having some minor forms of sulfites sensitivities. (For more info on sulfites, click here and here, here, and here.) For some reason, South American wines seem to have some amount of sulfites. Oh well... Anyway, most of us had a good piece of steak, some of them had surf and turf combo or something like that. Cake followed of course.

After the dinner, we were deciding what to do. Hang out in Kota Damansara area? What about the Curve? How about Solaris Mont'Kiara? SS2? After a while they decided they wanted to go watch Transformers 2. I had already watched it with Felicia, Stefan and his sisters but wouldn't mind watching it again since I was/am a huge Transformers fan since young. We headed to the new Tropicana City Mall to try to get tickets. Needless to say that on a weekend, the cinema was so full most of the cinemas had less than 10 tickets and I was sure they were all those loose seats of ones all over the cinema. So we decided to take time out and go play some arcade games.

Yes, four thirtysomethings (sans Gladys who went home early), went to the centre next to the GSC Tropicana City and spent some time and money tar-kei-ing ("playing machines" as the Cantonese call it). We played the shooting shooting one (I forgot the name but it's the one with the gun and all); the basketball shooting one, the table hockey thing and in Janice's case the drumming drumming one (ok lah, I played it too).

Janice and Desmond engaging in table hockey thing.

I don't even know what's the proper name for this.

Janice the enthusiastic while Joyce and Desmond watches

The video of Janice drumming

We came out from gaming all sweaty at about 11:05pm and to our good fortune, the cinema just released the tickets for the 11:30pm movie. It was selling fast but the queue wasn't that long anyway. To our better fortune, we got good tickets for Transformers!

An impromptu hang out after the dinner turned out quite fun in the end.

Alright gotta go soon. Need to go get a few things done before the two weddings this afternoon/evening.

Reconstructing / Deconstructing Bosco

2009-07-03T18:09:00.005+08:00

Hi people. It's me taking a break from all the CCS assignment marking which had kept me from updating the last couple of days.

Here's a little bit of diversion.

The other day, I think last Thursday it was, Yings and I met up for some drinks and some catching up after work. Our rendezvous point this time was at Kimgarry, The Curve.

After some food and drinks and while we were talking, she asked a question out of the blue, noticing earlier that my hand had reached out and grabbed the pencil which was used for ordering the food that we so fondly mark on the order sheets in the said restaurant:

"Are you the kind that used to draw when you were a kid?"

"Yeah, how you know ah?", I replied.

"Can see one la... the way you hold you pencil and draw as you talk... it's different. It's comes so natural and so fluid the strokes, and when you do one thing, go on to another and come back to it later, you look like you know what you are doing one la".

Apparently, she was taking note of my work of art while I was talking to her about anything and everything.

I paused for a while, thought about it, and took it all in.

After a few seconds had lapsed, I asked her if she was a drawer.

She said no, she was not a drawer, but an artist.

For a moment I forgot what drawer meant and then it dawned upon me.

Anyway, here's my work of art. My "modifications" to the Kimgarry table liners.

Note: If you're a Bosco Wong fan, the following pictures may offend, so please proceed no further. I am neither a fan nor anti-Bosco, this is just an artistic (mis)expression.

From this (I had to put this here as the control just so you know how the original looked like)...

To this...

Well, it's nothing great... just a few sketches, but I liked the fact that I touched up Bosco's face with: a bit of guyliner (which looked one part Egyptian and three parts Prince or the artist formerly known as Prince or whatever he calls himself these days) and made him look more real with eyebags (what Photoshop takes away, Wins give back); two hoops -- one on each ear (could have done a few more, but I thought it would had stood out more if there were only one on each); that designer stubble (in the mould of George Michael, Danny Gokey or even Joel Houston) that so many Chinese would probably longed for; thicker and fuller eyebrows--well groomed and all; a more 80's-type fringe ala Duran Duran to go with the whole look. Oh, I also gave his jacket some creases and made it look more military with some special French-type cuffs with buttons and all, aviation wings on his right arm, and three stars to give him that general status.

Actually, it all started with the stubble just to see if Chinese men looked any good with a full pricky follicular growth on the southern region of the face.

Anyway, the point of this entry is just to highlight that some people do grow up learning through drawing, sketching or even just doodling.

And when trusted with a pencil, some times the unconscious slips through and some glimpse of the past is revisited.

Tribute to the "jantan tulen" (Part 2) (aka Musings on Wedding #2)

2009-06-27T09:34:00.011+08:00

A group photo with the groom

(l-r): CM, Ian (head obscured), me, George, Janice, Joyce, Michelle, HP, Pauline, Mi Me.

Woke up extra early last Saturday. Not extra as in extra early, but early by weekend standards.

It was the jantan tulen's wedding day!

Chee Mun weds Ruby.

The first Absolute Joy (AJ) Cell Group wedding since I had became a member of that cell.

I was, however, excused from hengtai "duties"... this is due to my role as a musician in the church wedding ceremony. If I were a hengtai, I would have to wake up perhaps two hours earlier than the time I woke up which was way, way too early for me. So I could still wake up at a decent hour and made my way straight to church. Just as well: later that night when I looked at the Powerpoint presentation during the wedding dinner, I thought I saw a pic of Ian "kissing" CM! Made me cringe a little.

Ok, a lot.

(Sorry, I'm not homophobic but I still need a little getting used to to visuals like these)

9am: arrived at KL Gospel Hall to tune up and set up the guitar, amps, and ran through the songs couple of times to familiarise our parts.

It must have seemed like we took a while to practice but before we knew it, the groom's party had already arrived while the bridal party is somewhere also in the church grounds getting touched up or just chilling out.

Chee Hong (best man and brother to the groom) with Chee Mun

Huay Phing and Pauline

with them both

Pauline and Huay Phing were already well positioned at the doorpost as ushers while Joyce and Janice were handling the corsages. Wilson was doing the audio sound systems; Desmond, George and Ian were working on the traffic control, while Calvin was one of the photographers. Mi Me was the person in charge of everything and coordinating all activities at the church wedding while Jasmine and myself represented the musicians from our cell. The Cell and some of his close friends really came out in full force for the wedding.

HP, Pauline and Jasmine

I liked the wedding though: it was quick and went straight to the point, no BS. I think the entire wedding took like less than 75 minutes which is considerably a short duration for a wedding. As soon as the bride came in and the procession had ended, Chee Mun gave a surprise performance and sang a song to Ruby, right at the altar. I thought that was a sweet gesture from a sweet guy. I guess it was not surprising from a guy like CM but no one thought that it was going to happen nonetheless. Fair play to the groom. Pas Chee Wai gave a very quick and effective sermon and did the solemnization, the couple lighted the unity candle and then had their first Holy Communion as husband and wife, Pas Lee Choo gave the prayer of blessing and introduced the couple and it was all a done deal.

Oh yes, we had the tea reception thereafter.

Dinner Ceremony (Spring Garden, Tropicana):

Absolute Joy

The usual dilemma: didn't know what to wear for the wedding. A whole closet full of clothes but nothing to wear to suit the occasion. A tie would be too formal, a suit would be nice but can get a bit too warm. What about the shirt to wear? Any other accessories to give it that tszuj it up a little? Perhaps just to give it that va-va-vroom factor?

HP and me with the next in line:

Jessica and Kington (Wedding #3 -- 4 July)

Another Absolute Joy cell wedding

The next one after the next in line (but not one of the four this season):

Michelle and Mian Loong (Nov/Dec 2009)

The would-be third AJ wedding of the year

Suit was good but the air-conditioning there was left wanting. Somehow, it wasn't cool enough. I wasn't the only one complaining about the air-cond though. A few people kept asking me if I was warm and I said yes but I couldn't remove the blazer. It would've looked ugly with all the sweaty bits and patches on my shirt. So what to do? Kept it on, looked smug, but was dying inside. "Mati tak apa, gaya mesti ada!" Guess the suit suited the occasion but the air-conditioning didn't. Well, it was out of our control so had to live with it.

The guys in table 5 (Calvin giving Wilson the Statue of Liberty look)

(l-r, standing): me, Calvin, Andrew

(l-r, seated): Mian Loong, Wilson, Ian

Anyway, Calvin and Ian did the MC-ing for the night but by the time they took the stage I think they had a little too much to drink. Ian, Calvin and I (all seated on Table 5) had some Johnny Walker a little earlier. I could tell by the way they were improvising their scripts on stage, (either that or they were ill-prepared; but I'd like to believe it was the former). But you can always count on Ian and Cal to charm their way through with the audience. Michelle and Pauline thought it was pretty humourous too after I had pointed it out to them. No major hiccups, just the expression on Cal and Ian's faces and their improvisation.

Yum seng!

Paul, Apple, Michelle, Joyce

I was seated on Table 5 along with Ian, Calvin, Mi Me, Little Isaac, Andrew (who performed a song item, N'Sync's This I Promise You), Wilson, Mian Loong, Michelle, Apple, and Pauline. The other half of AJ were way back at table 26 where Jasmine, Kian, Little Nathaniel, Janice, Desmond, Huay Phing, Priscilla, Kington, Jessica were seated.

Three kids: Desmond with Nat, Pris with Josiah, and Ian with Isaac

(none of the kids are any of theirs!)

with Pauline

with Priscilla

with Paul and Pris

The boys "molesting" Ian: check out Desmond's hand and it looks as if Calvin is reaching for something real low

with Andrew, HP, Paul and birthday girl Janice

This looks like a family photo. I like.

As you can see, we took lots of photos.

We were talking and wondering whether or not we should go partying thereafter since we were all so dressed up and it was also Janice's birthday. No follow up on it and everyone decided to go home.

So once again, congrats to Chee Mun and Ruby and happy honeymooning.

God bless you on your wedding and also best wishes for a long and fruitful marriage.

(For more photos, you can go check out FB but the ones here had been touched up a little to give it better "lighting".)