Punaluu Black Sand Beach

In Big Island, after the Volcanoes National Park's visit, we came to see this beach where the black sand was created by the volcanic activity.


It was drizzling soon after we arrived, so we quickly took a few pictures and then rush back to the car. There was only 1 lady out there with her jacket covering her head.



In http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punaluu_Black_Sand_Beach, there was a picture with a sea turtle here, but we were not that lucky :(



It took us only 20 minutes to wrap up the visit here, including going to the wet closet ;o)

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

We went there at night to see the lava, but we didn't bring torchlight, luckily a couple that just finished the trip gave us theirs, it's so wonderful .... We used it to climp up the hills, took us about half an hour if I remember correctly.



The above is the lava, the closest we can get to, it's hot, I can feel the heat under my sandal, and there's a sign to stop people from going further.



Next day, we continue our exploration to the park, to the Halemaumau Trail.



This is the Halemaumau crater. Too bad, our camera can't accomodate the size of this crater, it's BIG ....



It's smoky, dry and scarce, but has no signs of danger even though it's still an active volcano.



Not sure if you can see the smoke behind me, it's coming out of the same crater, The environment is too smoky, so the picture quality is not good ...



Again, some smoke behind me (prove that the volcanoe is alive, hehe), this park is very large -> 1348 km² ! The reference is available at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Volcanoes_National_Park

More yellow leaves, Niagara Falls

There are many trees here, but at this time of year (Oct), some has not much leaves left over ...



I love the color of the leaves, so soothing, I feel very relax here.



This one has some red color tone, it looks special to me.



It's a place that I can wander for a long time, and leave all the worries behind.

Annual Vaccine for Peanut & Winter

Sunday, May 27th, the vets came over to our house to give Winter & Peanut the annual vaccine, it's called 9 in 1, costs RM150 for each dog, so it's a total of RM300.



He also gave them 3 de-worming tablets, but Winter refused to take them this time, we tried so hard and finally put them on his throat, but he spit out 2, and chewing the only 1 left in there, so we had to mix the 2 tablets in his dinner (beef rice).



We need to get them on heartworm vaccine today, another RM200 for both dogs.



These are exclusive of the licenses & the "mad dog vaccine".

Niagara Falls, 2003

The weather wasn't too good, was drizzling on and off, so the sky was gloomy and the result of the pictures are not ideal. These are my collection during our trip there, at end of 2003.






American Falls & Bridal Veil Falls are the 2 falls on the US's side.



So the best time to go there would be summer, where you might be able to see multiple rainbows at the same time.



You can have a picnic there, and listen to the sound of the falls, I'm sure you wouldn't regret the trip for your life time.



If you want to see the rainbow in the falls and to know more detail about the falls, go to Wikipedia for reference, enjoy :)

Monterey Bay & Cypress Tree

About an hour plus's drive towards south of San Jose, this place is a place for relax at weekend, there are many cypress trees around this area and they look very unique.


There's a big golf course here, many antique shops, a fisherman's whalf, an aquarium, and many seafood restaurants where you can enjoy the clam chowder soup. You can also skating, cycling , walk your dog here, or drive along the bay area, there are many stop-over that you can take a rest and enjoy the scenery.



One thing to take note is that the weather can change between the morning and the afternoon, it can be sunny in the morning but the sun can be gone in the afternoon, and it can be quite gloomy without the sun.



It's aslo a place where my diving training took place, the water was so cold in summer, about 60 plus degree fahrenheit in early morning.




We had to start very early in the morning as the tide is normally low at this time in the day, I was freezing and had worst headahce after every dive, that went on for many weekends, it was so painful to get my diving license, should have done it here locally, with the warm water and beautiful corals.

Colorful Victorian houses in San Francisco

In one of my visits to San Francisco, forgot which street was that, saw this beautiful row of houses, I thought they are very special, looks like the houses in the fairy tales, I think it must be real fun living in a place like this :)

Skiing in Golden Peak, Colorado

First time skiing, was a 3-day trip at Colorado, in 2002, with 3 other friends. The learning part was very hard for me, as I have never learn how to skate in my whole life.

We share a small apartment with only 1 room, rise early in the morning to take a bus to the skii place, then we are on our own. 2 friends who know how to skii went their way to find challenging slopes to practice, leaving me and another friend who's also a beginner behind :(

First day, me and the beginner friend took a crash course, together with a big group of strangers, where only 3 instructors were teaching this whole big group of more than 10 persons, after introduction & briefing, we started to try skiing in an area reserve for beginner taking up courses. After half a day of practicing, some people can ski quite well already, but me & my friend were still falling here & there, got many bruices, this is the next tuffest sport that I have ever tried after diving. The class is over after the half day session, we rest for quite some time before starting to practice again at another area for beginners.

Second day, my friend gave up and stayed in the apartment, I had to practice alone, but it was easier today after getting used to the heavy gear, lifting the skii boots is less of a burden today. My friend then came to visit me as it's really boring staying in the apartment, so I decided to give myself a break and went for site-seeing instead.

The last day, I finally has some improvement where I can ski for quite a bit, was enjoying myself without falling, that feels so great.

But I think I won't go back to ski anymore since I'm no longer fit for strenuous activity, may be a snow-shoe walking would be more suitable to me.

Arc De La Defense

This place look so different from the rest of Paris, the buildings here are so advanced that they don't match the rest of the Paris. It's not too far from Arc De Triomphe, we walked from there, going through the Champs-Eleysees.

Eye Mask

When I was in Singapore for 5-days training back in end of March, 2 colleages of mine introduced this economic & efficient eye mask to me, it's the eye masks from Guardian Singapore, they carry 2 types of eye masks, one is collegen eye mask and the other is a puffy eye mask. They told me that for optimum result & for some severe cases, the best is to use everyday for first 2 weeks, then reduce to 3 times a week, each packet has 4 pairs. So I bought a few packets of collegen eye masks, although I wasn't able to do it every night, I find that the result is quite good, but after I finished those packets, I can't find it locally in Guardian Malaysia, the stuff in Guardian Batu Pahat said "no, we don't carry this product, we are not the same as Guardian Singapore", so I'll have to wait for my next trip to Singapore to get it. If you have been looking for a good eye mask that's value for money and happen to be in Singapore, try out their collegen or puffy eye mask, depending on your needs, and don't forget to share the result with me :)

Have you done backup lately ?

I have an external hard drive that stores some data and all my precious photos. Today, when I was accessing a folder from this hard drive from my laptop, the hard drive went dead half way through !!! I was really panic, thought I had lost all my precious photos ... Then I recall I had done some backup to DVDROM around 2 years ago, lucky me, found the backup, yeepee :)

So, this is the lesson of the day, if you haven't done any backup lately, you might want to do so to prevent losing precious data.

Arc de Triomphe

Choosing to come here in winter was because that's the time I had left with, before moving back to Malaysia, and of course, the good thing is it's less expensive, and less crowded, where we can still find some decent hotels by just "walk in".

Depression

Have you ever had depression before ?
What did you do then ?

For me, I :

- get more sleep as I'm constantly in sleep deprevation
- listen to music
- do yoga
- call home, talk to mom & sisters

I want to go travelling but Tristan still doesn't know how to walk, so it's going to be more burden to bring him around then relaxing, therefore this plan has to be postponed until he has learnt how to walk, unless I'm really desperate.

And of course the answer I would like to hear from you is "NO", but any answer is welcomed, and don't worry, this is not a survey ;o)

USB Happy-Kid Web Cam

Tristan is teething !!!

Finally, Tristan has his first tooth showing up on May 5th, no wonder he was VERY cranky the night before. I was so excited to see his first tooth poking out of his gum, but poor thing, the gum was soring. Luckily the soring went away the next day, but ... so far no progress, the little tiny bit remain the same until today, I was wondering how long it takes for the tooth to be completely cut, so I went to read about teething once more time, confirmed that there's no fix time as to when it would be fully cut, so meantime, I would try to enjoy his toothless grin ...

Happy Mother's Day :)

To all the mothers, in this special day, it's time to reflect our loves to our moms, at the same time, I personally think that it's also time to take care good care of ourselves. You may have already known this very well, just in case you were too busy :

1. Sleep well,
2. Eat well,
3. Drink more water,
4. Do some exercise regularly, preferably 3 times a week,
5. Keep sometime for yourself, listen to music, go for a movie, gather with friends or do some reading.

Of course, there are many other things we should do from time to time such as travelling, but the above are just things that we can do without too much planning and do not cost a lot. I have also read about some "feel good" food in the newspaper and megazine, such as banana & egg, whenever I see them, I'll remind myself to have some. Finally, hope you have a wonderful day today :)

Clouds

Somehow I just like to take pictures of the sky if the cloud looks good to me, I like to observe the pattern of the clouds, it's so enjoyable doing that. Simple thing can make me very happy sometimes. What's the simple thing that makes you happy ?

Yellow leaves, in Niagara Falls

The fall here is all yellow color, very soothing. I was hoping to see the red leaves in the east coast but they were all gone at that time, it was around October if I remember correctly. The season changes very quickly, I was told by the tour guide that the red leaves were still there about a week ago. So, up till now, I still haven't seen the red leaves in fall, will definitely visit a place with red leaves in future.

Grand Canyon

Visited Grand Canyon the second time, first time was a camping trip. We hiked down to the bottom and camp there, it was SO hot down there, I remember it was a summer end, and it's still above 90 degrees Fahrenheit at night, I couldn't sleep because it was too hot, and we have 3 person squeezed into a 2-person tent (wrong estimation because we measured without the sleeping bag), it was so pack in there that our hands were touching each others' and I could hardly make a turn !

One of the guys who did more study for this trip kept mentioning how dangerous a rattlesnack can be, so when there's really one approaching our tent, we were scared to hell, and we dare not go out of the tent until the next morning ...

Second day, hiked up to Bright Angel Trail, about half way back to the top, and camp there for another night, it was so creepy hearing many rattlesnack through out the night, I felt like I didn't sleep the whole time.

Finally, we went back to the top on the 3rd day, it was such a wonderful experience ... I'll have to look for the pictures and scan them in order to post it here, but I think this is not going to be accomplished any time soon, cos I have trouble locating my stuff after moved back from the States as well as Singapore.