Frohe Weinachten

Merry Christmas!! Season of love and joy..

In actual fact, I've not really celebrated Christmas before. Just dinner on the eve together with friends and family. Then loiter around trying to figure out where to spend the rest of the night till midnight. Sad but true, although it's does not sound as boring as mentioned.

From this X-mas, what I truly want is not any material presents. Deep down, all I want is just warmth, honesty and sharing the joy of love and sharing. Cuddling in bed with my blankie with a book in hand or watching Christmas movies doesn't seem like a bad idea as well (minus the crowd and save $$)

I noticed that I grow older, the people that I've come to meet is not as what they seem anymore. This might sound like a pessimist speaking but time and time again circumstances have proven me right. One minute they're telling you one thing and the next, they're sneaking behind your back and twisting whatever things that they've said. Why do I say so? Someone knocked my car yesterday and told me 'I'll bear full responsibility for all the damages that I've done etc etc' and within 24 hours, she's making her way to the police station to make a report and ignored me all the way. Secondly, someone picked up my brother's mobile and decided to stand by finder's keeper's principle. Pity my bro. He worked so hard to get that phone. Why can't just some people give back what isn't theirs to keep? And I don't just mean mobiles...it can be anything.

What's past is past. I believe that this will all be a good lesson to learn. Never to so easily trust people anymore. It's no wonder that the world is becoming more selfish...just to protect themselves.

Well, I'm looking forward to watching Sherlock Holmes and Avatar.

Trois Semaines

21 days of

8 days of touring penang
5 meals a day
3 hikes around penang
3 birthday parties
a trip down to kl
And nearly daily shopping but total harvest is disappointing

weight gain - unknown due to fear of knowing the fact that I've gained weight

Blogging

Unknowingly, I've kept this blog for the past 4 years. Surprise surprise. I thought blogging for me was just going to be a fad which will soon fade but I stuck through it for 4 years albeit blogging less often than I used to.

This year is coming to an end. A new arriving soon.

Today was spent spring cleaning yet again. But I am still not done with it and once I cleared something, I find that I lost something in the process. Now, I'm pissed off because I can't seem to find my Ipod cable. Shucks loads. So much for spring cleaning.

My Christmas Wish List (Ranked according to importance) :

Good exam results? I don't wanna flunk any!
New Clothes..lots of them
Laptop Bag
A new external harddisk
New pair of trainers
A Thousand Splendid Suns (I know this book came out some time ago)

Brunei

YES, I'M BACK IN PENANG!!

I went to Brunei before coming back. If I can describe Brunei in a sentence, it would be : Brunei has seen better days and I cross it out of my holiday destination in the future.

No offense meant but I just spent 24 hours there but I've seen what I needed to see. So, can you imagine Brunei. Don't get me wrong. It's not really like jungles and everything, just that there is no zest there that attracts. Car lovers might love it there though. Cars are cheap. You see lots of cars rolling around that you don't often see at home.

The biggest attraction of all is the run-down Jerudong Theme Park. Such a beautiful place but in such a pitiful state.
I saw the Sultan driving by when I was at the theme park. I saw the prince driving past my car as well but it was so tinted that you can't see anything. The royalties drive their own car unless its a formal occasion.

Hmmpphh...not much to say since I didn't do much except driving around to see the entire Brunei.

A week in Penang. Nothing much...Unpacking (behind schedule already) and catching up with friends and watching New Moon. Tomorrow it's back to unpacking

Born Rich

Reporter Persona
Last Saturday, 6 Hong Kong stars appeared in 1 Borneo to attend a fans meeting and the gala dinner premier of the highly anticipated drama. The mall was crowded with fans of all ages and from all races (1 Malaysia??).

The press were busy snapping pictures (so do I). The 6 stars looked beau and belle. Each took the courtesy to learn a few phrases of Bahasa Malaysia while being interviewed on stage.

Keep a lookout for the drama as you can spot all the tourism places in Sabah (maybe my face? spot UMS too!).This drama shall enthrall your minds with its strong cast and watch out for the comebacks like Lu Liang Wei and Gallen Lo.

Me
I personally saw a bit of the first two episodes during the gala dinner although i didn't get the chance to eat. The drama does seem interesting from the very first episode. Maybe I'll watch it. But honestly, I'm just trying to spot my face or my uni or my uni mates' faces in the drama. hahaha

Tears

Always Keep The Faith

Guten Tag / Bonjour

Just came back from listening to a talk given by the French Embassy about furthering studies in France....hmmppphh....

Since I came to UMS, I've been taking French. Now, I'm confusing my french with my german. Keine achnung. Tu prends?

Only 3 weeks to the end of the semester. Life is getting tougher. Studies are also getting tougher by the day. Would I be able to make it through? I seem to be getting out of my mind..Stressing myself out and denke too much.

Flu caught up with me. Still trying very hard to get rid of it. Consolation ? Rest assured that during final examinations, I won't be falling sick.

Again & Again

Helloo from Singapore ya all...its 12.45am...and I'm still wide awake...

Hmmpphhh....guess how I spent my Raya Holidays here..

Arrived Friday 18/9 - Nothing much
Saturday 19/9 - Batam Island (Pictures coming soon)
Sunday 20/9 - Back from Batam

Here comes the best part
Monday - WINDOW Shopping in orchard, back home dinner, online, sleep
Tuesday-Today- Wake up=online, eat, online, assignment, online, assignment, online, eat, online assignment, online.....

Yup that's the way I spent the entire hols. Hurray for me. Officially a nerd now. My eyes seem to be a lil problematic because I stare at the monitor for way too long.

How much have I achieved/managed to finished? Not even 50% of my workload as I spent 80% of my time watching youtube or reading some useless e-news rather than rushing my assignments. Kudos to ME

Departing Singapore in 3 days' time and still so much to do. And still much more coming when I go back to uni. So dreading the day I leave here.

PS: Internet is evil (Lack of self control 99%)
Nae Ga Mi Cheo (I'm crazy)

Back with Yet Another Celebrity Sighting

Most of you ( that I sms-ed) would already know by now that the latest celebrity that I saw in Sabah is SS501. For those that do not know them, SS501 is a 5 member boy group from Korea. The leader is the second male lead in Boys Over Flowers.

Since I couldn't go online for the past 2 weeks, I wasn't very updated about whose coming to Sabah. All thanks to Ju, I got to know.

Long story short(you wouldn't be interested to know how I found out and how fast I tried looking for a rental car), my friends and I spent an hour plus driving around KK town to look for them. But they were no where to be sighted. So, we finally gave up and decided to go to a korean restaurant that we always frequent for dinner.

When we arrived at the restaurant, there were a bunch of tourist like people at the entrance. We sensed that something was wrong. One friend went down to check out the restaurant. She went and came running out and waved and we knew we found SS501. (very blood vomiting effort trying to look for them around Sabah when they were all along having dinner at the place we wanted to eat at).

Went down for dinner, started sms-ing my friends telling them that I was in the same restaurant as SS501. As I was busy answering phone calls, my friends were already busy looking at them. The first person that I recognised was Hyun Joong as he was facing the door where we stood. Second person I recognised was Kyu Joong. Third person was Hyung Joon. Sorry to the other 2 members but I only got a glimpse of their face.

In my opinion, the 3 persons' faces that I think that they looked manlier but beatiful at the same time. I'm not a big fan of them as I think that from their music videos and pictures that they are too girlish but they arae nothing like that in real life.

But according to my friends that saw all 5 of them, all in unison agreed that real life person better than watching on screen. All 5 had really small faces and all 5 are really really thin.

Not many fans were there. Maybe about 15 including me and my 3 friends. Yes..that little fans. The 5 guys were all but a meter away from me. I even said bye-bye to Hyung Joon which he replied. Hahahaha...I know die hard fans would kill for this oppurtunity. They didn't have their managers or bodyguards excort them to the WC or protecting from us.

Those who are curious. This is their picture(not the most flattering one. if interested just google them up)
From left : Hyung Joon, Young Saeng, Hyun Joong, Kyu Joong, Joong Min

I wonder which celebrity is next. First we had Solbi, then a lot of TVB artists then SS501. Friend of a friend said they saw Aaron Kwok during our semester break. Whose next?

Mid Sem Break

Half of my long awaited sem break is gone. What have I done? Not much actually...except for squeezing out assignments night after night.. I didn't really achieve much. And yet I have SEVERAL upcoming mid term tests/exams which i have not studied for at all. And I still have 2 more assignments on hand and 2 more to edit before handing in nest week.

I finally got my own usb modem. But the problem is in the hostel, internet is still as slow as ever. Only really really fast when I'm using it in the library. Talking about electrical gadgets, I have a funny feeling that my laptop is going to crash for good due to some unknown reasons. It has been acting really weird the past few days. Yes, I know...it's just my luck with electronical items.


ONE consolation out of all these set backs is that I get to sleep more.

Recent

Land beneath the wind
Blown laziness into me
But not yet taken over
Resisting and resisting

Books Reports Classes
All have not synced into my system
Is there a need to reboot my system?
Or add some RAM?

Weather has been moody
Rain one second
Shine in the next
And its taking a toll on this soul

Things haven't been going my way
But they never had and
I don't think they ever will
Just need to bend it my way

Time as always
Never was and never will be kind
Running is all there is do to
To not be left out of the race

Start of a new semester

B-O-R-I-N-G

There is no other word to describe what I'm feeling now.

Why .. Here's a recollection of what I did yesterday

9.30am : Woke Up
9.31am: Read story book
10.31am:Climbed out of bed
10.32am:Brushed teeth and breakfasted while watching variety show on the laptop
12.00pm: Lunched
12.30pm: Story book..yet again
2.00pm : Finished the book. Slept
5.00pm : Woke up without feeling refreshed because apparent my roommate (3 juniors) was talking on the phone non stop for the entire 3 hours.
6.00pm: Dinner and variety show again
8.00pm: Moved stuff and luggage from store room which I kept at the end of last semester

With so little going on and not one day I slept past 1am, my dark circles got worst! WTH!!

Bangkok Day 2

We left really early..at about 8.30am to travel about an hour plus to Kanchaburi to visit Damnoen Saduk, the original floating market and River Kwai..where the Dead Railway linking to Burma is built durinf WWII.

The market is good. Because our driver is affiliated with this boat company, we took a motor powered boat into the market which cost 500baht each. Its very expensive. For the true human paddle boat experience, go directly to the main market and hire the entire boat for only 600baht for not more than 6 person and not more than an hour. Trust me, an hour on the boat is more than enough the experience.

Then it was another 30 plus minutes ride to River Kwai. It was HOOOTTTTTTT!!! The sun was practically burning my skin. Anyways, the railway is just another railway..the exception is the process killed off about 20000 ang mohs and asians (POWs). The price of war and greed. Haven't the human population learned history? Why is it still happening now?

The war museum adjacent to it was more interesting. It houses pictures and relics from WWII itself. Entrance is only 40baht. The cheapest of all the places we visited in our entire trip.

After that it was back to Bangkok. TRAFFFIIICCC JJAAAAMMM yet again.

Then it was my first time seeing TVXQ but from like 100meters away although their van passed right in front of me. It was so tinted plus the curtains that you can't see a thing inside.

Next was dinner then to RCA(Royal City Avenue). Bouncers were so strict that you can't cheat your way into the clubs. They check your passports and i.d. No messing around. So ended sitting at a bar with mum and dad while listening to Michael Jackson because my two little brothers aren't old enough yet. But the clubs were so big and had nice designs.

Bangkok Day 1

We hired a driver with a van to bring us around in Bangkok for 3 days.

After leaving Pattaya, we headed out to Bangkok. So the first place we went to was Samut Prakan Crocodile Farm. The farm is about 62 years old. The first crocodile in Bangkok. The condition is a bit sad for the animals but they sure have a lot of wild animals such as white tigers and hippotamus. The tigers are so so gigantic. The specialty here is that they have crocodile wrestlers.

The first day in Bangkok was not much exploration. After the crocodile farm, it was too late to do any more sight seeing so we went shopping at MBK. What did I harvest there? NOTHING!!

Pattaya

Since AirAsia canceled our morning flight (no surprise there), we arrived at about 9pm in Pattaya and a day was gone just like that. There was nothing much to do. So we had late dinner and walked around sight seeing.

Pattaya seemed nice enough at night until the moment we walked into the club area. The clubs are rained in pink flourescent lamps that the entire square district is shining in pink. Girls, Ladies and Grandmas are scantily clad and trying to woo in customers (farangs..ignoring Asians) Farangs are like gods to them...but the Farangs there are just old desparate uncles. If you are a lady, you'll feel strong icy cold eyes staring at you as if you are threathening their business. No pictures taken though. Picture taking task was placed in my brother's hands and he was afraid that he would be bashed if he took pictures there.

Anyways, after walking around that area, we went to Hard Rock Pattaya. The scene there is a totally different. It was very quiet except for the band. After that, we decided to call it a day.

The next day, we went to Noongnoch Tropical Gardens about 20mins outside of Pattaya. It's about 600 acres?(hectares?) big. There are lots of gardens (as you can expect) and tigers and elephants and orang utans and one leopard. The's this mini stonehenge and mini Borobudor replica thing. Lots of tourist here as well. Entrance is 650baht for adults. The entrance fees includes transportation to and from the gardens, the cultural show and the elephant show. Others like elephant rides and train rides, you still have to pay.

Before Noongnoch, we went walking around. Walked at Jomtien Beach.

Night time, we went for the infamous Tiffany's Show. Entrance ranges from 500baht to 900baht. Pattaya does produce the best looking ladyboys around the globe. Many of them won the Transexual Universe title. Before the show, they come out parading around the fountain and you can take pictures of them(for free) or with them at 40baht per person but the price is negotiable if you wanted to take together with more people. My brother and I took with 2 ladyboys but they only charged us 40baht. The show was entertaining but don't expect much. It a lot like a cabaret show. Their lyp synchings were very good. The costumes are very extravagant. The theme at the moment is around the world I guess. They were performing Chinese, English, French, Russian, Korean, Italian songs and their national costumes. It must have cost them a fortune for all those costumes and stage backdrops.
And that was 2 days at Pattaya.

FINALLY!!#$%$#@$%^&%^* TVXQ

Finally I saw the people that I've been watching off from youtube and read on almost daily basis and keeping me sane in uni.

26th June. Press Conference. Saw them for the first time after much struggle and wait. But my view was so far away because, again, I was late because I went sight seeing outside Bangkok but the boys arrived even later. There were at least 10k fans waiting for them.
Just part of the crowd at the press conference. Just the back part of the stage.

27th June. Concert Day
I was so excited + scared because I went to the concert alone.

4pm : Arrived right after sight seeing around Bangkok. I thought the traffic jam would make it worse..but luckily it didn't. I was not surprised at all when I saw the swarms of fans that were already there. Made a beeline for the ticketing counter. Saw many Japanese, Chinese, Malaysian, Singaporean and Philippines fans queuing up as well. It was about 4.40pm when I got my ticket. Went around wandering to see the official goods and took a look at the fans that were already lining up at the gates.
The concert ticket. The good that I bought. Very expensive. SM Ent very good at making money.
The crowd waiting for the gate to open.

5pm : I went into the Arena. The security was so strict. No cameras allowed. There were a lot of fans that were taken outside to safe keep their camera before being allowed back into the concert arena. Some escaped but had to take pictures as if they were hiding in mice holes. Some got caught while filming and were also dragged outside to be taken away their cameras.
I met these fans from Soompi. Really nice people. Kwan and Kim

Picture before the concert started.
Insa. The first song that made me noticed TVXQ. Put into my ipod by Eve.
This was how close I was to each and every one of them.
Love in The Ice. My favourite song of all time. They sang it very well. Amazed at Junsu's voice.My favourite guy of among all 5 members.

Concert review :

Over all the concert was good. Except that the audios were not very good in terms of the music was so loud because the music was too loud that it covered the members' voices. They performed very well though. The solos that they sang were exceptionally good. and Micky rapped the part for Junsu's solo. It was a surprising match up. The best and memorable part was Hug, bossanova style and Wrong Number and their solo songs. Oh..and I forgot....Junsu flew right above me!!!

However, there is one thing I hope to get from their future concerts. I hope that they would rearrange their songs so that I don't have to listen to the exact same cd versions..I like how Lee Hom produces his concerts...he rearranges everything and shows you all his talent. TVXQ's talents are all over shadowed by mainstream concert genres. If only TVXQ would do a full acappella concert sans fancy costumes and dances.

There were too much fan screaming though. Sometimes, it is a bit annoying when all you wanted to do was concentrate on their singing.

Individually

JaeJoong - Very good vocals. Shone very well in his solo song. Can see that his vocal range is really big and very stable. His skin and complexion is also very good, very fair. Better than mine. Can't really see his face because his hair kept so blocking out his face but it was his voice that mattered.

Yunho - Tall and thin. Thinner than I expected. Fair as well. Very good dancer. And interacted alot with the fans, even posed for the fan to take his picture. Voice is better than in cd. His live is better than recorded cd.

YooChun - Singing Love Bye Love was great. His new interpretation of the song is good and there's more life to the song than compared to cd as well. Real person is also tall, thin and fair. Alot of interaction with fans as well. He is always teasing the fans.

Junsu - Best vocals among all 5 members. Stage performance and presence also the best. Less interaction with fans. But very good looking. The pictures that I've seen all this time does not do him justice. Tall and thin and fair also.

ChangMin - The rumoured high pitch vocal is no joke. He can really sing all the high notes with much accuracy. He is really tall and good looking, just as everyone said after seeing him. Very little interaction with the fans as well.

My observations are very unobservant compared to other fan accounts that I've read.

PS>These pictures were taken with only my mobilephone! I too can't really believe that the pictures that came out are actually of good quality.

Lastly, I'll include excerpts from a musician.

Marty Friedman, former lead guitarist of heavy metal band Megadeth and Japanophile recently shared his thoughts on TVXQ / DBSK / Tohoshinki:

(translation cr: mandasoh@iscreamshinki.net / sharingyoochun@wordpress)

"They would sell even if they weren’t good looking! TVXQ’s singing ability is worth its value in money.

TVXQ, an accapella dance group from Korea, and who attended last year’s Kouhaku Uta Gassen, can be said to be the representative of “Global J-pop” with their impressive harmonizing.

Maybe fans will say it’s b*llsh*t, but to me, if you can sing, you’ll be able to sell even if you weren’t good looking, right?

Their song [Bolero], is a great ballad that showcases their super vocals.
What surprised me was that compared to other J-pop ballads, the feeling for this song is dark. The beat is slow, and there was no usage of guitars etc. Even so, the song gave off a dark and haunting vibe to me.

Leaving on A Jetplane...

or Airbus to be more precise
Later this evening I'll be taking off to Siam for a week...

Things to look forward to (in accordance to ranking) :

1. Mirotic Concert!!!
2. Temples and Palaces and Historical Places
3. Food
4. Pattaya Beach
5. Tiffany Show
6. Tigers and elephants...lots of them
7. Shopping
8. Muay Thai...(I hope)

See you guys in a week!

Schrei!!!!

Schrei!!!!
Schrei!!!!
Schrei!!!!
Schrei!!!!
Schrei!!!!
Schrei!!!!
Schrei!!!!

Click & Snap

Flash - Flash

Click - Click

Pose

Click

Flash

See you next week!

Truly, Madly, Deeply

Seems a bit blurry,
Couldn't recognise it,
But it was there,
Truly there all this time.

Madly difficult to acknowledge,
Its growing from within,
Can't be deterred,
Its fearsome shadow.

Finally, an image,
A figure,
So Deeply etched within,
Within the frail frail heart,
A figure that enunciates evil,
That shudders that frail heart.