Deck the halls.

"the best way to spread a christmas cheer, is to sing a song for all to hear." -Buddy the Elf

deck my halls with boughs of holly.
fa la la la la, la la la la.
'tis my season to be jolly.
fa la la la la, la la la la!

and now, pictures from my penang trip as promised.


clouds...somewhere along the way.


my first dinner(at the hotel). a triple decker club sandwich. yes, it is time to exercise.


a simple christmas tree made out of twigs painted white. creative.


and then your very traditional christmas tree. my kind of thing.


along the streets further down from our hotel.

kek lok si temple. the largest temple in malaysia.


the inclined lift(or willy wonka's glass elevator, as i'd like to call it).


looking down from the inside of the lift.


a part of the temple.




building pillars for a roof to shelter the giant statue of the Goddess of Mercy.




from the top of the temple looking down.

four different statues of Buddha.






my dad writing his name down on a tile(that wishes peace for your family) that will be part of the roof.


other tiles written by tourists from all around the world.

on the streets of Gerogetown.


an entire building allocated to KFC where we had the cheapest lunch.


colonel burger. or should i say, 'private' burger looking at it's size?


Penang Chinese Anti-War Memorial. kinda like our War Memorial Park in the city.


the sadder side of penang.


our second dinner in penang, where i got a bucket of ice instead of a glass of iced-water. i didnt think the food was that bad but my family rated it with an average score of 4.5/10. *cough* they eventually brought it up to 9 because of the wet towels though. haha.


one of the stalls selling shades along Batu Ferringhi's night market. would you like to own an eye condom?

Penang Botanical Gardens.


woaaah. i wonder what the "DOs" are. and someone's really got to put up that missing "P". letter of the day, everybody.




so they cage up the flowers...


...while the angry monkeys were left to run amok.


yea, it's not very clean but i love the effect.


green!

Snake Temple.








can you spot the 5 snakes in this picture?


a shrine hall right behind the temple that we didnt visit the first time we were there.




i'm in china!


Singapore Children Specialist Centre.
"there was a time when people said that singapore wont make it.but we did...in penang."


where we had our last, and the very best, dinner in penang.


the view from our hotel room before the rain.


missing hills during the rain.


re-appearing hills after the rain, bringing a little mist along with them.


the penang bridge.


a base station. also what one of my exam papers was all about. see? one never forgets to learn even when on a holiday.

Kuala Lumpur.
goodbye, simplicity. hello, city.








i just thought that sign looked really cool.




subway!


Times Square in K.L.


and yes, an entire building allocated to McDonalds.


i didnt know they had Tesco in malaysia. colours of the world!


my favourite drink turns 50 this year. SLURP.


there you go. nice, gentle monkeys along the roadside on the highway who gave us a little "show"*cough* while eating their um, fruits.


the view from our hotel room in Petaling Jaya. which sucked. bring me back my hills!


i saw this at the hotel lobby. *rubs chin* in-ter-est-ing.


man-made waterfall.

Melaka.

the insides of the Italy Bakery. a definite stop we make every malaysian trip.

also where we get our supply of yummer-licious, soft-crust portugese egg tarts. mmmm. yes, we bought the whole tray again, much to the surprise of the cashier, again.


check that out. an A for hygiene! see what i mean? with hygienic bakeries come good egg tarts. burp.


the street name right outside the bakery(in case you're interested).

merry christmas, to one and all!

December Boys

i finally caught this.



the December Boys is based on the novel written by Michael Noonan, and is basically about four orphaned boys born in the month of december who set out on a journey one birthday. a journey that they would never forget.

it's really a film about brotherhood, friendship, love and discovery. it does kind of remind me a little of Stand By Me (one of my favourites) with the whole four-boys-on-a-new-journey-thing. i gotta admit that it was a little hard for me to shake off the image of Harry Potter initially when i looked at Daniel Radcliffe, but after 10 minutes into the show, he wasnt Harry anymore. he was Maps. so it's not that bad.

a heartwarming film for me, i'd definitely recommend it to anyone who's looking for a good movie to watch on a lazy saturday night. dont expect anything. just watch it as it goes and i think you'll enjoy it.

i also caught this when i was in malaysia a few days ago.



Half Light. it's kind of a thriller, and seems incredible in a way. unbelievable in a sense, even though i quite got the gist of it. i never quite got to the ending because i was out by then, but i did read the plot summary and the ending definitely painted a clearer picture of what was really going on. still strange, but nonetheless, a pretty interesting movie.

watch it if you wanna feel the chills from the story, Demi's classic acting or her plastic body.

back to the future

i'm back.

for 3 minutes every night over the past four nights that i was gone, i would shed a tear and curse a bad word in the hotel room without fail. you see, i have a huuuge ulcer on my lower lip so every night, i would dump salt on it to try to make it heal faster. then the pain would be so sharp that tears would roll down my cheeks as i curse a bad word when it would hurt. much to the amusement of my mom, of course. haha. that's all.

other than that, this was probably one of the best family holidays i've ever had over the years and i've enjoyed it thoroughly.

my dad reckoned that we went back to 30 years ago because everything was so simple and the road system was um, kind of whacked. but it's also because of that that i truly felt stress-free and relaxed. it also had something to do with the location that we were at. the entrance of the hotel in penang(same one we went to last year) faced the sea and having breakfast at the cafe every morning seemed so refreshing.

we met quite a few new people this trip. one was a young waiter who served us at the hotel's cafe. a 17 year old chinese-siam mixed boy. he was smiling all the time and was really friendly, we started calling him my mom's boyfriend. another was a young thai lady selling shorts at the pasar malam at Batu Ferringhi. my dad first spoke to her in malay(to ask for a little discount), and then later found out that she was a thai(who grew up in penang). so he dished out a few thai words(he'd learnt the thai language before) and before we knew it, she replied completely in thai. reaaaaallly quickly. the 4 of us just stared at her, and i went "woah." my dad didnt understand a word. it was pretty amusing.

speaking of the pasar malam, we had to drive through about 38 bends from our hotel(in Georgetown) to Batu Ferringhi to get there. dont ask me why we counted. heh.

also, when i said that the road systems were kinda whacked, i'm not kidding. just drive around Penang and you'll know what i mean. one lane can be splitted into 2 without warning, the no-entry sign means nothing, cars dont signal as they turn, they dont stop at the bends, and there were alot of angry cars around, as my brother would call them. hilarious. we started out as cautious Singaporean drivers and definitely left as Penangites.

in fact, we kind of grew accustomed to the place, that when we went down to Petaling Jaya and Melaka, we would tell people that we were from Penang instead of Singapore. *cough*

hotels. the beautiful Evergreen Laurel in Penang was affordable, clean and classy. and the service was amazing. Crystal Crown in Petaling Jaya was...um, affordable, and um, maybe the room was slightly bigger. but yeah, it wasnt so bad. i mean, they gave us a few free cockroaches in the toilet where the flush couldnt work. who could compete with that right? :)

laugh. while having dinner on our third night in penang, my bro and i watched a cop on a scooter ride past, spit into the ground, look at us, and then ride off. *laughs my ass off* the highlight of our night. speaking of dinner, i asked for a glass of iced water one night, and i got a bucket of ice. no, literally a tin bucket of ice. LOL.

ah yes, the botanical gardens. a beautiful green place. the only problem was that the flowers were being caged up, while the monkeys ran wild. hell yeah. angry monkeys, alright. cool concept. haha.

i'll put up the pictures soon.
by far one of the most amusing trips ever.
amusing, and so, amazing.
this is what i call a real holiday.

if only i didnt have to come back to the future so soon. sigh.

Break It Down 2007

last night, anna and i headed down to The Arts House to watch Break It Down . no, it's not a new movie. it's actually a dance performance show put up by the graduating students of LADC's dance scholarship. but really, i was there to support my friend, and my bitch, Fifi, who was one of those 15(i think) students performing.



holla!

the show turned out to be really good.

what i liked about it was that instead of solely focusing on the dancing itself, they provided alot of comical relief as well. and there was alot of audience interaction throughout the show. well, i guess a part of it probably had to do with how small the place really was. i mean, it would be kinda weird to just dance throughout with people watching them on their left, right, and front, and not interact at all.

now it's not like i've never seen fifi dance(mostly in the lab), but it's really strange to see him under a different light. being the annoying and loud joker he is in school, one would've expected him to be part of the group that provided the comical relief.

instead, both his segments were Contemporary. wow. the girl he was dancing with was gorgeous. everything was so solemn, heartfelt, and painful. it was kind of beautiful.

damn, that boy can dance. momma's proud.

but just in case you're reading this, we still got the broadband report to do. *cough* ohhhhh. i'm such a party-pooper. hah.

anna and i danced our way home. no, really. for the most part where we had to walk, we danced. twirling each other around as we past by the big gates of the Supreme Court,




and doing the robot as we headed futher down to the beautifully lit Parliament House.




actually, we were really doing the robot every five minutes. cars zoomed past us continuously. i couldnt care less. it got to a point where this old man who was walking in our direction smiled and asked us if we were having a good time(to which i then replied that we were), and then told us to enjoy ourselves. SWEET.

hey, dont look at me. we dont do drugs, and we dont take alcohol, but for some strange reason, we always get high. it must be in the blood. yea, it probably is. deedum.

malaysia tomorrow and i wont be back til next thursday(if i make it back seeing how JB's flooding and KL's protesting) so ciao for now, people.

happy holidays! *does the robot*

where on mother's earth is my handbook?

recently, i was scribbling some random chinese characters during some lecture(ok so i wasnt exactly paying full attention to the lecturer) when i realised how out of touch with the chinese language i was.

how out of touch? thiiiiss out of touch.

i couldnt even remember how the words "ai4 (love)" and "niao3 (bird)" were supposed to be written. yes, i know. thaaat out of touch.

correction:

love.


bird.

noooo. this is so wrong. as much as i dont listen to chinese music or speak alot of it, chinese used to be my best subject(as compared to my pathetic scores for social studies and science) in secondary school. for some strange unknown reasons(seeing that we dont speak chinese at home), that is.

i was so appalled by the fact that i couldnt even write those simple few words, that i told myself to study the shou3 ce4(handbook) when i got home...only to find out that i didnt have them anymore.

gone. without a trace. okay, this is bad.

yikes. i guess it's really time i resort to reading the dictionary. tsk, seige. tsk, tsk.

dear me, the term tests are officially over. please jump for joy and rejoice.

the holidays are finally here. my holiday. *gasps for air* slap me twice and tell me it's true. a temporary 2-week hiatus from busting whatever limited braincells i have in this hard nut i carry on my shoulders. woohoo. time to be stupid again. :) woaah, reports? what reports?

and what better way to start off a holiday than to receive a sms telling me that i've won KT Tunstall's "Drastic Fantastic" cd? nice. looks like christmas came early for me this time around.

now watch me as i strike this cd off my albums-to-get list. *strikes*

ho, ho, ho-liday.

leave the whine at home.

"A sibling may be the keeper of one's identity, the only person with the keys to one's unfettered, more fundamental self."

-Marian Sandmaier

sometimes, i wonder.

if the world just sits back, take a deep breath, and look at things from a different perspective, save the pettiness for never, with no dramatization, no wallowing in self-pity, none of this making mountains out of molehills crap, what kind of world would this be?

better?

no. incredible.

slap me.

"Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education."

- Bertrand Russell

thought i was really tired. and really, i am.

i dont know what the hell i'm doing being awake and blogging at this hour.

finally, it's over. something that i've been doing for the past 8 months. over in 15 minutes. with a whole load of crap squeezed into the presentation, and nothing but potential junk coming out of my mouth. i was ready to end it. once and for all. i tried looking for a bucket to puke in before the judging. i mean, there's really nothing that spells confidence quite like puking into a bucket before a presentation, is there?

relieved? you bet i am. extremely. and yet somehow, kinda worried. not a tad bit. kinda worried. i just have this strange feeling that something's gonna happen after the deliberation. did i mention that potential junk was coming out of my mouth?

but wow. it's really over. someone slap me and tell me it's true.

now i can burn down the lab in peace. :)

"Tolerance is the oil which takes the friction out of life." - Wilbert E. Scheer

and for that, i shall. on another note.

oh well. 2 more days of break and it's back to the books for my term tests only 2 weeks away. *jumps for joy*

nobody call me before 12pm tomorrow today.

to the 5 young, national dragonboat rowers who drowned tragically in Phnom Penh last friday: may you rest in peace.