Travel & Living

Tioman Island

2010-08-21T21:12:00.000+08:00

Tioman Island is located on the north east of Batu Pahat, the city where we live. It's not the most beautiful island in Malaysia, but its boat ride is very short, ie. around 2 hours, so we thought it's a good place for us to introduce an island to our 4-year old boy without too much stress as we do not know if he would have any seasick.

We started out early in the morning and stopped by at Kluang Rail Coffee to have breakfast. Than we continue our journey on the windy and hilly road to reach Mersing port after 3 hours.

We were very lucky as the boat was on time, sometimes it can be late by an hour !! We were also lucky as the beach we are heading to was the first stop with the majority of passengers, otherwise we could have spent more time on the boat ride by dropping other passengers to other beaches first.

It was a sunny day and the water looks very clear and beautiful.

Checking in to our room, in Salang Sayang Beach Resort. The room with double beds is better than the room with single bed as its bathroom is much bigger.

The beach is small but it's not crowded in early August.

I had fun going snorkeling although it was cloudy and the wave was bigger on the second day.

There was a monkey who kept plugging fresh coconut from the trees and looking for food at the beach.

I was glad that Tristan enjoyed himself very much at the beach although he was too timid to try and float in the water.

The evening was serene and relaxing, we had a fun trip ....

Until the bad experience in the boat ride back to Mersing port - the boat was late and the crowd waited anxiously for mre than half an hour, than it finally arrived and we thought wow, this is a new and big boat ! But than it started to pick up other passengers from other beaches, one by one, and at the last beach, it waited for passengers to arrived for another half an hour, than we realized that it was overloaded, many passengers had to stand in the aisle, and when it almost reaching the port, it started to rain and the boat was stuck due to low tide which in fact was due to overloading, than some passengers at the back were told to move to the middle of the boat to elevate the weight at the rear and the captain kept trying desperately to move the boat forward, which it finally gave up after 45 minutes !!! Than 2 smaller boats were called to unload some passengers and the boat than started to crawl like a tortoise back to the port, where the boat ride has become almost 5 hours ....... and there's still a minor thing, someone has stolen my husband's toiletry ...

It was really a bad ending and experience to this trip, but our friend who visited Tioman twice a year in the past few years had never experience this type of delay before, the common incidence is a transfer from smaller to bigger boat during low tide when departs from Mersing port or vice versa, but not in such a long delay.

Rolled over

2010-05-02T01:05:00.003+08:00

Quentin rolled over more than a week ago, he was a little slower compared to Tristan, we waited and waited, he finally did it - on the bathroom floor :

Our new born

2009-12-08T22:14:00.000+08:00

Quentin was born last week, weigh 3kg and length 51cm. Here's a snap of him, will update more when I get a chance.

Tristan's First Pet

2009-10-24T08:13:00.000+08:00

We bought Tristan some colorful small fish in August 11th, he liked to feed them endlessly, and he liked to scare them by hitting the shoe cabinet where the fish bowl was placed on top :(

I was thinking of taking the photos of the small fish bowl but I was too late ... The fish died one by one each day and they were all gone after more than a week, I felt so sorry for them, we didn't know the cause of their death, we followed the instructions given by the fish shop helper, we did change water regularly and restrict Tristan from feeding them too much.

I think we won't be buying any new pets for him for a while until we know for sure that we can help him to take great care of them.

New problems

2009-08-16T08:57:00.003+08:00

While I was happily enjoying my second trimester (at 23rd week now), good time doesn't last long for me, I had Hemorrhoid that's getting bigger and very painful, I can't sit properly and when it gets to the most serious condition, I felt extreme pain even with a slight movement.

It was actually my own fault to have dragged it for a few days, I was hoping it will go away but it actually got bigger and bigger. Finally I went to the local gynae who has prescribed daflon for this problem, I didn't want to take painkiller as I thought I should limit the medicine intake, so I had to suffer for another 2 days or so before the hemorrhoid become smaller and less painful.

Then Tristan started having fever, coughing and running nose on Tuesday night, I was so worry that it would be the H1N1 virus, so we brought him to the general hospital the next morning, hoping that they would perform some kind of test to verify it, but the temperature turns out to be below 38 degree C (through ear measurement) and the doctor said his symptoms do not look to be the same as the H1N1's, so no test was performed, instead we were given some medicine to take for 3 days and continue to monitor the symptoms.

The medicine seems to be so awful that Tristan ran for his life whenever he sees them, the fever persisted and we had to bring him to the child specialist the next morning, we did the right thing as the child specialist again confirm that it's very likely not H1N1, and Tristan is willing to take the medicine from the child specialist.

His fever is finally under control, but the coughing remained, we'll have to be cautious and continue to give medicine besides monitoring it.

Now the hemorrhoid is getting very small and almost painless, I hope nothing new pops up in the near future so that I can enjoy a peaceful pregnancy for a while.

Getting Bigger

2009-08-04T15:37:00.001+08:00

Since week 20th, I have more energy and feeling so much better, I can finally go for 30 minutes breeze walking in the evening twice a week, I can take bath for Tristan without the feeling of throwing up. I can eat all kinds of food without feeling ill and I have put on 2kg in the last month itself ! I really enjoy myself in whatever I'm doing now.

But the last visit to the Gynae reviewed that there's water on the fetus' brain. I checked the book and it is called Hydrocephalus, although the Gynae said that it is normal and it is usually gone after 2-3 months, I am worry as the book says it often occurs with neurological defects such as spina bifida.

I thought I had been lucky to skip the amneocentesis and the 3 weeks waiting for its result, now it's even longer to have to wait for 2-3 months for this "water on the brain". However there's nothing I can do except to wait and hope for the best.

Feeling better

2009-07-19T15:15:00.000+08:00

Starting week 17th the morning sickness had reduced substantially, and got better at week 18th. And this week (19th) I am feeling much better except for the tireness, am very glad that the morning sickness is finally going away, it's not easy for me to reach this stage.

In my last medical checkup, we have discovered that we are going to have a boy, in Dec 13th. Although I was hoping for a girl so that I would have an experience of bringing up a girl, but I would be as happy to have a normal and healthy boy who can accompany Tristan and grow up together with him.

We did triple blood test and luckily the result is good, so we don't have to go through the amniocentesis this time.

Back in the last week of June, I had to travel to Petaling Jaya (3 hours journey) for a certification exam, I was still having morning sickness at that time, lucky thing is that it wasn't too bad and I was glad that I did not throw up at public area.

When I was feeling better in Week 18th, I started travelling back to my mom's place by plane (an hour), things went well and I had a great time relaxing at home. Due to H1N1, I tried to put on mask in the plane on the way there but felt very uncomfortable with the hot air being trapped within the mask.

Finally, I get a chance to go for my first 30 minutes breeze walking on Thursday as I haven't done any exercise for the past 3 months and walking is a great exercise for pregnant women, I hope to be able to do it at least once a week.

I started to enjoy different types of food and expected to grow much heavier soon ;o)

Morning Sickness

2009-06-19T13:20:00.001+08:00

This month (at 15th week now), I continue to have morning sickness. This has started since week 7th, and it's been going on every day from morning till night, ocasionally I could throw up at midnight too. At worse time I had to throw up around 3-4 times a day, and in good time, I don't throw up but the feeling of nausea remained through out the day.

Initially, I visited a different gynae at the local town as it's really near to my house, she gave me duphaston due to a little spotting at the beginning of the pregnancy, and insists that I should continue even though I told her about my condition at my second visit, but I stopped taking it as I can no longer tolerate the torture, even then, the vomiting continues and got worse as the pregnancy progresses.

I have tried many different types of food and found that sweet food and big portion are the triggers, I had to exclude food that is sweet, sour, spicy or greasy. I never leave my stomach empty as the feeling of nausea will take over immediately if I feel hungry, but I can't just eat any food that I crave as it can be the trigger of the nausea/vomiting.

I also tried remedies such as drinking lemon juice, or put a few drops of peppermint essential oil in a bowl of water placed in my room, but they only help to ease the nausea a little bit, I was still suffering most of the time.

Then things turned better when I went back to my previous gynae that's around an hour's drive from here, he gave me the medicine which reduces gastric acid and the anti-nausea medication.

At first I just took the medicine that reduces gastric acid, but I was still throwing up once or twice a day and feeling nausea most the time, after a week, I started taking the anti-nausea medication as well and I feel much better, where I only throw up once in a few days.

On the other hand, I discovered more food that helps to relief the nausea such as rice, bananas, eggs, ginger, and dry cracker. I also found some food that I won't feel bad after eating them such as McChicken (weird huh, I had to take off the mayonnaise though), Johor Laksa, Wan-Tan Noodle etc. And when I throw up too much and not able to drink water, I would take ice cube to keep myself hydrated.

I was looking for ginger tea but one that I found was awful, I had to stay home almost all the time and when I had to go out once in a while, I tried to remember bringing a plastic bag with me, my mother-in-law even suggested me to take a few more, just in case ;o)

A Good News

2009-05-20T12:58:00.002+08:00

I am 10 weeks pregnant now. It's really a good news to us, we have been waiting for this for a year now. But on the other hand, I am suffering from the morning sickness, it's worse than my previous pregnancy, and every minutes seems to be so long as most of the time I feel as if I would throw up any time, I am counting the days every day now.

I did some reading and learned that lemon can ease the morning sickness for some women, so I started trying it yesterday and it seems to help a little. I have to be careful not to eat/drink too much in every meal, this has caused me to feel hungry every 2 hours or so, and since I have to start work at 7am these days, I have been eating 8 small meals per day now, and I have ran out of idea what to eat for each meal everyday because some food has become irritative to my stomach so I don't feel like taking them at all !!! I had to stay away from greasy, spicy and fried food to avoid trigerring the bad feelings or the vomit eventually.

Due to this morning sickness which last towards the end of the day, I had to stop my yoga class, I hope to be able to continue doing it in the second trimester, there's no pregnancy yoga class here but my teacher knows what pose to avoid so I feel pretty comfortable to go back after the morning sickness goes away.

There's another issue accompanying this pregnancy, ie. I have a corpus luteum in my uterus that has the diameter of 3cm now, if it grows to 5cm than I'll need to have it removed after 3 months of the pregnancy, otherwise it will be removed when the baby is delivered. There is a hope to this, I read it from a doctor's site, she mentioned that usually the corpus luteum will resolve over a period of time without any special treatment. Life is full of uncertainties, I can only take one step at a time now, but at least I am more prepared this time around, I know what to expect so I am more at peace now compared to my first pregnancy.

Tristan's happy flower

2009-04-17T15:30:00.003+08:00

Tristan came to my office this morning, drew a flower, grass, and some other item, and before leaving my office, display it at my office glass door. I like to look at the happy flower face, and would like to share it with you here :)

My Favourite Vacation

2009-03-25T15:22:00.014+08:00

Mar 14th, we left home in the morning, driving north towards Sungai Petani, where my parents live. We stopped at Damansara for lunch, in Pappa Kopitiam, I had to skip their famous dishes as Tristan's favourite is "fried rice", but he can only finish 1/3 or less so most of the time when we eat out I would order fried rice and share with him, however I managed to try their steam kaya bread which is really tasty and not too sweet, I heard from my brother-in-law that this Pappa Kopitiam has several other shops at other location too, I wish there is one in our town (Batu Pahat) as I really like steam bread for breakfast.

After lunch we continued to head north for another 4 hours to Sg. Petani, reached at around 6.30pm. Home is always the best place for me to get away from stress, I get to see almost all my siblings, nieces and nephews as it's school holiday. We had fun chating, catching up with all the gossips, went for swim in a big group, eating at the delicious Tom Yam Soup/Fried Rice kopitiam, Tristan gradually adapted to the new environment and all the big brothers/sisters/uncles/aunties/grandpa/grandma.

I still remember the last time I brought Tristan to visit my parents in June 2008, he was very uncomfortable with the new environment and always ask me to stay in the bedroom to play with him, this time he's willing to go out and explore the next house where my elder sister lives, and he's more willing to share toys with his cousin who's 3 months older than him, I was so glad to see his improvement.

After 5 days of fun time, we left Sg. Petani on Thursday morning, and drive South to Damansara to stay for 2 days. We went to The Curve to get a Foam Mat for my friend, and just realized that Early Learning Centre has changed to Think Toys, they were having promotion, so we got a Quarry Set for Tristan as he's crazy for Crane now and the quarry set comes with a crane.

We also went to 1-Utama to shop on the second day as that's our favourite shopping place, we spent some money in ToysRus, mainly the Thomas and Friends' trains & toys, Tristan never have enough of them and keep asking for those that's not so popular such as Neville, Rusty and Salty.

There, in 1-U we found a new restaurant called "The Gardens" and we had dinner there, it's quite a nice restaurant, the decoraion looks like a garden, and the dishes were quite delicious, especially the Chicken Chop, we also love its drink - the "Longan Blast" and its sorbet were specially presented in their respective fruit shell/skin, the orange is the best among the 3 that we ordered, the coconut look good but has one kind of taste. As usual, Tristan had fried rice and I was sharing with him, after we come back and he had the 3 subsequent vomits then only I realized that it could be related to the amount of fried rice he had taken during this trip, luckily he's fine now, but we need to control his fried rice intake in future.

Tristan is sick

2009-02-22T17:09:00.000+08:00

Tristan has been having running nose and coughing for a week now, his voice changed due to the cough, and as usual, cried at midnight when his nose was blocked. We then brought him to the doctor last Saturday. Tristan used to fight for his way out when we brought him to doctor's, so we were really nervous and brought along his toy stetoscope and educated him that the doctor has a real stetoscope which would be a black color one and the doctor will place it on his chest, back etc to examine him.

We were very lucky this time to have gone to another doctor who really know how to deal with small children.

The doctor gave Tristan another toy stetoscope as we left ours in the car, she has several toys for Tristan to play with, Tristan really like the toy she has and played happily for a while. She also demonstrated to Tristan how to eat sweets as she's prescribing an herbs in tablets form where one should keep it in the mouth instead of chewing it, the whole process last for about 20 minutes and we were so relief to have Tristan's cooperation.

This morning, Tristan still rememeber the doctor, said he wants to eat the sweets (herbs) that Aunty Tay gave and the way he eats the sweet is exactly like the way Doctor Tay has demonstrated. No wonder the queue in this doctor's clinic is so long, we had to wait for more than 3 hours to get our turn, but we are sure to go back in future as Tristan will be much more cooperative there than the one we used to visit.

Now I am hoping to be able to find a hair dresser who knows how to handle young children as Dr.Tay, then we will have one less headache as Tristan's hair grow really fast ...

Tristan is now 2.5 years old

2009-01-08T17:00:00.000+08:00

It's been 2.5 years now since the day Tristan was born. He has grown into a big boy now physically, but in terms of maturity, he still have many things that he refuses to do, such as brushing teeth, reluctantly taking bath each day, and reluctantly goes to bed each night, worst of all, is the visit to the hair dresser, struggling and crying will take place before entering the hair salon till we exit.

This photo was taken before we went for a family wedding lunch, on Dec 28th.

Before we settled down with the outfit in the picture earlier, we tried to put on this suit for him that my mother-in-law bought more than a year ago, but we think it's too formal for the lunch. However we had some fun taking his picture.

This cute tiger suit is given to us by my sister-in-law, I kept it for too long and had forgotten its existence until Dec 08, it turned out to be a little too small for him ...

The diaper was exposed because it's too tight to be button up.

Tristan's hobby is drawing, he can draw simple things like shapes, and write some numbers and the capital letters A-Z, with N and J the other way around. He likes to show off his skills to visitors, that was how we discovered that he can write from A to Z, of course with the exception of N and J.

Peanut and Winter

2008-12-07T15:42:00.000+08:00

After Tristan was born, I hardly have time for my dogs anymore ...

I used to play with them, took bath for them weekly for a period of time, trim their nails and clean their ears. Also, me and hubby used to read newspaper outside the house at night time to accompany them, and they used to be allowed to come in to the house at a restricted corner during hot days, as my mother-in-law does not like dog to move around inside the house. But after Tristan was born, we had to ban them from coming into the house due to their hair, and occasional ticks.

Here are a few photos of them taken back in October :

Winter, a German Shepherd, at 3 years 11 months (in October).

Peanut, a Golden Retriever, at 3 years 5 months (in October) :

Not long ago I was surprised to know that my nephew and niece in the States who visited us in June 2007 still remember these 2 dogs, my niece's favourite is Peanut, and her brother's favourite is Winter. Now they are having a 3 months old new brother, wonder which one would be his favourite in future.

Both of them loves to play and fight with each other, it is hard to separate them especially for Peanut, Winter is like his big brother, when we had to bring Winter to the vets, Peanut will keep crying, thinking that he won't be able to see Winter again.

We put them together in the same cage when we have visitors, Peanut is the favourite of most visitors, he is more elegant, but Winter is smarter, I wonder which one is your favourite ? ;o)

Chihuly Glass Show at the de Young

2008-10-20T07:48:00.045+08:00

de Young Museum in the morning of September 7th, 2008 (located in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park) :

Saffron Tower — a 30-foot yellow neon sculpture installed in the Pool of Enchantment on the de Young’s east side. :

From the observation tower of the museum, we could see the city view and the area around the museum :

My favourite lotus flowers :

Glass Forest - I thought it look like a Swan Lake :

The Macchia Forest occupied the entire room, I wasn't able to capture the complete picture :

Persians :

Tabac Baskets :

These purple pipes look like water fountain to me :

The boats that full of treasure :

There are more Chandeliers, I just took 3 of them :
The Turquoise Icicle and Ruby Red Chandeliers :

56-foot-long Mille Fiori garden that is packed with creative sculptures :

You can view the more complete pictures here

After the show, we went to a vegetarian restaurant called "Greens" at Fort Mason for lunch. Looking out from the window while we were enjoying the food :
I had a wonderful time with my dear friend - Kathy, thanks so much for an unforgetable trip :-)

Tristan at Singapore Zoo

2008-09-21T02:12:00.000+08:00

We brought Tristan to the Singapore Zoo last month. We joined the membership where our family has unlimited entries for a year.

Tristan doesn't seem excited, but he's happy. I think he couldn't differentiate those animals that he's seeing there versus the ones in his VCD.

We didn't manage to watch the Elephant show as we have to wait for half an hour, and Tristan is impatient to stay still at one place.

He seems a little tired, so we skipped some animals' section such as the monkeys and Orang Utan.

We ended the tour early as Tristan seemed to have enough. While we were having our pizza, which was nasty, it started to rain and we felt lucky to have completed our tour. To compensate for the nasty pizza, we had the Ben & Jerry chocolate ice-cream, and we all love it very much.

Here's the link for Singapore Zoo if you are interested to know more about it.

The Kungfu Suit

2008-08-11T15:16:00.006+08:00

During Chinese New Year back in February this year, my sister-in-law bought Tristan a kungfu suit, putting on this suit making him sweat all over before we switched on the air-conditioner, not due to any kungfu action, but was caused by the material of the suit, there was no detail labeling of the material used, as it was bought from the so called flea market, it looks like cotton but wasn't good in absorbing sweat.

This video clip was taken during the Chinese New Year, which was the only time he gets to wear the suit :

I had to keep this suit in the closet since then. Quite a waste as Tristan has outgrown it now.

Although he hasn't performed any action in this video clip, he did imitate one of his VCD's karate kick whenever we played that VCD sometime back, it was real fun looking at his action. Seems like most boys love the kungfu action, unfortunately I don't have a girl to prove this or otherwise.

Tristan's Second Birthday

2008-07-16T16:12:00.000+08:00

Although I don't have much time to write about Tristan, I do hope I can make short notes about his progress and growth, I am sure I would enjoy these records at my old age :-)

I still have to work fulltime to support my parents, with the limited amount of time that I can play with him, he is quite a fast learner, picked up things that we have mentioned once and can use it at a later time out of our surprise, eg. he said "oh my god" last night when the milk spilled onto his face by accident.

By now he already can recognize A-Z and a-z, numbers 1-20, more than 10 shapes including trapezoid, more than 10 colors, but there are certain things that he's having hard time picking up, such as the spelling of "octopus", "elephant" etc, and if you ask him "what's your name ?", he will said "name." LoL

Here's the link to his first birthday if you would like to see how he looked one year ago :-)

The Leaning Tower of Pisa

2008-06-17T15:32:00.001+08:00

This bell tower is located in the city of Pisa, in central Italy. We took a train from Florence to Pisa, arrived in an hour.

The entrance :

It's 8-storey high, made of white marble, and standing at 183.27 feet.

According to Wiki, this tower began leaning to the southeast soon after the onset of construction in 1173 due to a poorly laid foundation and loose substrate that has allowed the foundation to shift direction.

Piazza del Duomo, dating from 1063 :

The Leaning Tower is just next to the Duomo :

The view from the back :

View from the side :

Closer look at the side :

The top 3 levels at the side, the sun has just come out from hiding :

Inside the Duomo :

The Baptistry of St. John which looks like a Romanesque crown :

Completed in 1363 :

We didn't climb this tower as we had been climbing bell towers and catherals in Florence, needed a break ;o) It's estimated to take 40 minutes to climb up this 294-step staircase.

Sky is getting cloudy, leaving, catching our train back to Florence.

The bath room toys

2008-06-02T16:18:00.001+08:00

Ever since I blogged about "The bath book", Tristan is no longer interested in it anymore :(

Baby/toddler changes from time to time, in terms of their look, behavior and preferences.

He used to love taking bath, I didn't even need to ask him to do it. Everyday after work in the late afternoon, I would take a shower for myself, then prepare the water to take bath for him, he could identify the noise of water running, and would start climbing up the stairs, saying "bath" at the same time.

Now, it's a total change, when I carry him into the bathroom, he would cry out loud and refuse to get in, and most of the time, exhausted and sweat heavily.

So I bought these plastic animals, introduced a few of them day by day, and it works for only a few days, it's getting me headache to send him into the bathroom pleasantly. (The shrimp, starfish and sun were beach toys that I used for the same purpose but he had lost interest to them now too).

Arno River and its bridges

2008-05-20T13:55:00.000+08:00

Arno River is located in central Italy. It passes through some popular places such as Florence and Pisa. It flows from the central towards the west into the Ligurian Sea. This river look so clam and pieceful, but it has flooding record in history and the last one was at 1966, where it took only 24 hours of rainfall to reach 190 millimetres in Florence. There are new dams built to alleviate this problem now. We were at Florence and we could see 2 of its bridges, Ponte Santa Trinita and Ponte Vecchio.

The buildings located next to the river. There's a street and walkway between them where we can walk along to admire its beauty.

There are many places of attractions near this river such as the Palazzo Vecchio, Galleria degli Uffizi, Piazza della Signoria etc.

This is Ponte Santa Trinita.

Ponte Vecchio. There are shops built along it, mostly jewelery shops. It was swept away by flood twice (1117 and 1333) and was rebuilt in 1345.

The bath book

2008-05-08T17:13:00.000+08:00

We got this bath book from the Borders last year, whenever Tristan refuse to take bath, I will bring this book to the bathroom to attract him into the bathroom.

So far it has never failed its mission, because we keep it away from him from time to time, so that he won't feel bored with it eventually.

It's made of water prove material and has colorful tokens with alphabet on one side and pictures on the other side.

These tokens float in the water, it's fun to play with them during bath time. Tristan loves to dig them out one by one and toss them around the house.

So the end result is a missing "S" :(

It's for ages 3 and above, but the tokens are quite big, the diameter is closed to 5cm so we just introduce it to Tristan because he loves colors and alphabets. How do you like this bath book ?

Have you seen such a lazy dog before ?

2008-04-23T16:19:00.000+08:00

Peanut, our Golden Retriever, is going to be 3 years old in May. He's an extremely lazy dog as compared to Winter, our German Shepherd dog. For example, whenever there's a noise somewhere, Winter will rush and check out what is that and will start barking at strangers or cats near by. But Peanut will ignore most of those unless the stranger is standing right outside our gate, which appear to be a good thing to us as we won't need to pay attention to every single bark of Winter.

Then there's this weird habit of his, that he would walk to the water container, sit down and start drinking there, normally dogs will stand and drink their water, that's what Winter does, but Peanut will sit there and drink and then just stay there comfortably LoL

Below is a video of him doing that, too bad I didn't manage to catch the part he walked over to the water container, but I guess this will give you an idea of how lazy he is ;o)

Do you like sunset ?

2008-04-07T16:39:00.009+08:00

It's been raining in the past months and we couldn't go for swimming nor visit the park. It's been really depress at times when we were bound to stay in the house, although Tristan loves to watch his DVD - Barney, Oswald and DVD of chidren Songs, but I don't feel good letting him watch TV if there's a chance we could bring him to do some outdoor activities.

Finally there's some sunny days, and I was so happy to see the sunset, here's a video of a sunset view near my house. I hope you like it :-)

There's a road named Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, USA, I thought it's such a romantic name. It's a famous street that passes through many areas including the Hollywood, Beverly Hills etc ;o) Here's the link if you are insterested - Sunset Boulevard.

The USS Arizona Memorial

2008-03-06T22:42:00.002+08:00

Located at Pearl Harbor, in the island of Oahu, Hawaii. It's a resting place of over 1000 sailors killed on the USS Arizona during the Pearl Harbor attack, in World War II.

Parts from the sunken ship.

Before visiting the sunken ship, we walk around and the blue panels contain names of the death if I remember correctly.

The anchor weighs 19.585 pounds.

Took a boat, on the way to the sunken shi. That was in September, the weather was great & the sky was so bright.

An aircraft carrier parking at the harbor.

The same aircraft but from a different angle.

And a submarine parking there in front of the bridge, can you see it ?

Reaching the USS Arizona.

There she is.

oil slick :

Names of the death in this ship.

Many visitors.

I love the cloud.

This is USS Nevada, another sunken ship, but smaller one.

The Eastern Valentine Day

2008-02-21T16:50:00.003+08:00

Happy Chinese New Year everyone :-)

Today is the last day of Chinese New Year, it's also considered as the valentine-equivalent day for the Chinese, and in a state called Penang Island in
Malaysia, people actually do celebrate this day where the ladies would throw the Mandarin Orange to the sea, hoping to get a good husband ... and the guys
would take the canoe to pick up those oranges. I personally never been to such an event before, but I guess it would be lots of fun doing that with a bunch of friends.

Tristan was sick since last weekend, he has running nose, fever, throat infection, sore gums on the top left and bottom right, cough, and the phlegm has almost caused him to admit to hospital due to breathing difficulty. I am glad now that he's slowly recovering, I will write more when I get a chance.

Have you gone for exercise lately ?

2008-01-09T22:54:00.000+08:00

This is the park that I go for a walk in the morning, it has 2 lakes, one is somewhat polluted - a common scene in Malaysia ... I could see empty mineral water bottle floating around, plastic bags, and other types of junks, surprisingly, the other lake looks much better, I mean cleaner, that's the one shown in the second picture below.

I used to go there at least 3 times a week for almost a month, but had to cut down to only once a week now, because Tristan has started to ask for feeding at midnight ever since I came back from my Crucial Conversation Training.

He used to stop asking for night time feeding since he was slightly more than 6 months old, my friend and sister-in-law really admired my peaceful nights, but the nightmare came back ... haha, just joking, it was a pleasure to feed him at night, just that I can no longer wake up at 6.10am in the morning to go for my walk before started working at 8am.

Now he would arise from his sleep, sit on the bed and demanded : "milk milk". Or he would say "Mee, milk milk", how could I resist such an adorable request ?

Oh my god, it's almost one and a half year now !!!

2007-12-20T09:03:00.000+08:00

Tristan is approaching 16 months now ... He just had his 9th teeth, which is taking its own sweet time to grow.

Tristan doesn't like reading or listen to story I read to him from the book (I guess I'm a real bad story teller), he would just point and read the animals that he could recognized and then lost interest to the book real quick.

He can now call everyone in the house, nai(3) nai(1) - means grandma, ye(2) ye(3) - grandpa, auntie, kakak (elder sister - our maid), daddy and "me" (mommy). He can even called the man who delivered grocery to our house "uncle" without instructed by us, which gave us a surprise.

He loves reading cards, he can identify most of the shapes in the cards - star, moon, heart, circle, square, triangle etc, he can even say "pentagon" which I just taught him a few times as I never thought that he would have picked it up. I'm learning a lot from him, on how a little person grow and learn to know this world day by day.

(These photos were taken back in Nov 11th. Didn't have time to write about them last month).

The Crucial Conversation training trip

2007-12-07T15:17:00.000+08:00

Went to Singapore for a 2-day training last week, it was called Crucial Conversation, highly recommended by my boss. It's a very useful tool for both work and personal life, it teaches us how to get ourselves prepared for or handle a high stake situation, avoid getting emotional and forgot about what we wanted to achieve, which may have lead to sour relationship, or felt sorry later at what we have done or said to the other party.

Our training was organized in the Swissotel Merchant. On the first evening after the training, me and 2 other colleages went to the opposite mall called Central to have dinner, the restaurant is called Pasta de Waraku, this is the first time I tried out the Japanese Pasta, to my surprise, it was very tasty. We also ordered pizza there, a super thin pizza with egg plant and sausage, so tasty that I'm still thinking of it right now :-)

After training, one of my colleage need to get a birthday present for a friend, so we went to Orchard Road, it is so well decorated this year, with the theme of "Ocean", the lights chosen are in blue and purple, very elegant and romantic, the thing is, I forgot to bring my camera with me in this trip .... too bad, can't share with you all here, but, you can always pay Singapore a visit, you will never regret the trip, but the only problem is to get a taxi out of Orchard Road during the peak hour.

This time I stayed in Swissotel The Stamford, next to City Hall, a place with lots of shopping to do and plenty of food to eat. It is so crowded even during a work night, we had to queue up in one of the restaurant to get food. The hotel has a drinking place called City Space at level 70, where there's a life singer and a glass view of the city. It was a great trip and I would like to do it again in future.

Approaching 17 Months

2007-11-17T10:20:00.000+08:00

I was extremely busy lately, accompanied by Tristan not feeling very well these few days, and am still on call from 8am - 4pm until this Sunday, didn't realize that it's been 16 days since my last post ...

Lucky thing is that I still have my time with Tristan, which I don't miss each step of his development, and almost always able to stay by his side. Here's a very short video clip that I would like to share with you, hope you enjoy it, and have a great weekend :-)

Hearst Castle

2007-11-01T23:35:00.000+08:00

Hearst Castle was built by newspaper tychoon Willian Randolph Hearst.

It is located near San Simeon, California, on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, about 250 miles (400 km) from both Los Angeles and San Francisco.

It's built on a 40,000 acre (160 km²) ranch that he inherited from his mother, which was purchased by his father in 1865.

This is the Neptune Pool :

The young Hearst wanted to built his own castle after his long Europe trip with his mother when he was at 12 years old (if I remember the age correctly). So he started the plan on the same year his mother died, in 1919.

The castle has 56 bedrooms, 61 bathrooms, 19 sitting rooms, 127 acres of gardens, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, tennis courts, a movie theater, an airfield, and the world's largest private zoo.

The castle itself is five miles (eight kilometers) inland. Access is only allowed by a scheduled tour bus.

The tour guide brought us around the castle. I was quite surprised when he mentioned that the main architect is a lady - Julia Morgan from San Francisco. They faced many difficulties such as moving materials up the hill etc.

The Gothic style study :

The indoor swimming pool :

The pool uses the gold mosaic tiles :

The main house :

I forgot how much we paid for the ticket, but according to Wiki, as of 2007 it's USD$20-$30 depending on the season and time of day. Reservations are recommended during busy periods such as summer, weekends and holidays.

Port Dickson

2007-10-23T10:52:00.000+08:00

Brought Tristan to Port Dickson during the Hari Raya Aidilfitri holiday, I was hoping that he would have a great time playing with the sand there.

The beach was dirty and I didn't really want him to get down there, but it was too late, he just rush himself down and start walking towards the water :(

Next thing I know, he already started digging the sand using his hand ... So I had to provide him with the tools we brought along.

He really enjoyed himself playing with the sand, but the sun is getting too strong that we had to bring him away, which ended up with a cry ...

At one stage he used to pull the sunglass away, luckily he's accepting it now, at least his eyes are protected against the sun.

He loves playing in the water, normally it's not easy to get him out of the pool.

Took a few photos before we left the Legend's chalet.

Tristan is almost 16 months now, he loves to imitate adults languages and actions, I like to hear him talk continuously in his own language, sometimes sounds like Vietnamese, and other times like Hokkien.

Sedona

2007-10-12T23:40:00.000+08:00

Sedona resides in the northern region of U.S. state of Arizona. It's not far from Grand Canyon, so we went there on our way back from Grand Canyon. Sedona is famous for its amazing red sandstone formations, which is refered to as the Red Rocks of Sedona.

Some red rocks there resembles things like Snoopy (when he lies on his back on top of his dog house), another Peanut comic character Lucy, courthouse, coffeepot, devil's kitchen etc. But we didn't manage to see all of them.

We did see something like Snoopy but the front leg were missing :( See the bottom left of the picture below :

You can see a drawing of the Snoopy red rock that's published by the Sedona City's Website here.

We stayed over for a night, and went ahead to the the Red Rock State Park the next morning.

We didn't follow the guided nature walk, instead we just did a free and easy nature walk.

It was all quiet, we were the only 2 human being in the wild.

Some people go to Sedona for spiritual pursuits and others are there for hiking and mountain biking. For me, I think it will be more fun to go hiking there with a group of friends.

David

2007-10-05T13:38:00.000+08:00

David, a copy that stands in front of Palazzo Vecchio.

He's my favourite statue, I think you can tell from these pictures I took.

The original is in The Accademia Gallery. I insisted to go there, just to take a look at David.

It was sculpted from 1501 to 1504, by Michelangelo.

Hope you like David too, have a great weekend :-)

Jerry's Tags

2007-10-02T15:13:00.000+08:00

Owed Jerry 2 tags :

1) If I have a million dollar (should be RM kua since I live in Malaysia)
2) 38 Q&A

The million dollar tag was received quite some time ago, but before being tagged I have never seriously think about this and after I draft out what I wanted, it sounds so boring that I thought I'll probably get it done "some day" when I have a way to make it interesting, but that has been left untouched until today, when I received a second tag from Jerry, so I thought I would just do both tags in 1 post now - Jerry, here's the 2 in 1 :)

For the first tag, these are my wishes (3C) :

1. Continue to work but only 4 hours or less a day, 4 days or less a week.

2. Create a fund for children who needs help, eg. those who's in hunger, who has lost their parent, abused, who needs education and shelter etc.

3. Create a "travel fund" for myself where I would be able to travel at least once every quarter.

It's that simple.

And the second tag :
(did most of the Q&A on Sunday but before it was completed Tristan woke up)

1. Name one person who made you laugh last night?
Tristan, my son - who's constantly learning languages these days, said things like "habis" in a very funny way. ("habis" is a Malay word for those of you from China, Australia & other parts of world)

2. What were you doing at 0800?
Sleeping, Tristan slept at 12am last night, and kept crying during the 5-6am period.

3. What were you doing 30 minutes ago?
Reading Jerry's post.

4. What happened to you in 2006?
Gave birth to Tristan.

5. What was the last thing you said out loud?
"NOOOOOOO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!", when Tristan fell from the bed 3 nights ago.

6. How many beverages did you have today?
Just one.

7. What color is your hairbrush?
Don't use one anymore nowadays.

8. What was the last thing you paid for?
1 car loan, 2 house loan, online.

9. Where were you last night?
Home.

10. What color is your front door?
Brown. The common front door color.

11. Where do you keep your change?
Toss into my handbag, sometimes my jeans' pocket.

12. What’s the weather like today?
Extremely HOT.

13. What’s the best ice-cream flavor?
Bitter sweet chocolate.

14. What excites you?
Many things.

15. Do you want to cut your hair?
Why ?

16. Are you over the age of 25?
Way too much ;o)

17. Do you talk a lot?
Depends.

18. Do you watch the O.C.?
No idea what this is.

19. Do you know anyone named Steven?
Why Steven ?

20. Do you make up your own words?
I think I may have done it before.

21. Are you a jealous person?
sometimes.

22. Name a friend whose name starts with the letter ‘A’.
Agnes. An old colleage.

23. Name a friend whose name starts with the letter ‘K’.
Too many, don't know who to start with.

24. Who’s the first person on your received call list?
Should be my husband.

25. What does the last text message you received say?
“Want to go to kara-forever-ok ?”

26. Do you chew on your straw?
Not anymore.

27. Do you have curly hair?
A little bit.

28. Where’s the next place you’re going to?
Swimming pool, if it's not too hot for Tristan later on.

29. Who’s the rudest person in your life?
Don't remember. Doesn't matter to me.

30. What was the last thing you ate?
Instant noodle, no cooking today.

31. Will you get married in the future?
Invalid question.

32. What’s the best movie you’ve seen in the past 2 weeks?
Haven't seen any movie in a long time.

33. Is there anyone you like right now?
Of course, my parent, siblings, and my son.

34. When was the last time you did the dishes?
More than a year ago, before Tristan was born.

35. Are you currently depressed?
No, but I was 2 nights ago.

36. Did you cry today?
No, but I was 2 nights ago.

37. Why did you answer and post this?
Because I didn't complete the million dollar tag after Jerry tagged me for so long, I thought it would be nice to do both at this time.

38. Tag 5 people who would do this survey.
Everyone has been tagged, so I'm going to give this a pass.

Flowers

2007-09-29T17:40:00.000+08:00

Some flowers around our house in September, hope you enjoy them :)

East Coast Park

2007-09-25T17:28:00.000+08:00

East Coast Park is located on the southeastern coast of Singapore, it has an abbreviation called ECP. It is the largest park in Singapore and it's build on reclaim land, with a man-made beach.

There are many people bringing their dogs or kids there for a walk, running, rollerblading or cycling. There is a food centre with various types of food and another seafood centre, with huge crabs, if you like crabs.

There's a water ski facilities available, many youngsters and even kids are taking up the challenge. If you can see the tiny skier in the left, sorry I wasn't intend to blog about this so I didn't take the good picture of the facilities.

We went to ECP briefly in the evening of Sept 14th, 2007, let Tristan played around with the sand for the first time, he really loves it and refuse to leave later.

He didn't like the water so we just stayed at the dry side.

You can tell he enjoyed himself so much there :)

Things to take note : if you are driving there, don't forget to put coupon as the charges starts at 8am and ends at 10pm if I remember correctly, including weekends and public holidays.

My little corner

2007-09-20T22:13:00.000+08:00

Jenny has showed her home office today and since she's interested to see mine, I finally has the motivation to clean up and share some pictures with you here. Welcome to my little messy corner ;o)

I think I don't have to elaborate anything, you can see everything here. It's still quite messy though :

The 5x5 book rack is full of junks, I have a bad habit to keep everything, so this is what it ended up with (you may say what a waste) :

A sofa bed that I can take a short nap at tired weekend when Tristan sleeps :

This small space used to be a living room for the second floor, we partitioned it to make a home office since it was hardly used and we have not enough room to convert to an office :

We relocated Tristan's electric cradle here from downstairs when my sister-in-law visited us back in June - August and has stayed here since then. And the mess on the floor was created by Tristan.

So this is my home office, very basic and simple but comfortable work place :)

Palazzo Vecchio

2007-09-17T17:58:00.000+08:00

Palazzo Vecchio (the "Old Palace") is the town hall of Florence, Italy. Its projecting crenellated fortress-palace is among the most impressive town halls of Tuscany. It was supported with some arches where some of them can be used for dropping boiling oil or rocks to invaders.

The front part of the rectangular tower (height 94 m) was under restoration when we were there, sometime around Mar 2004.

The ceiling of "Salone dei Cinquecento" consists of 39 panels constructed and painted by Giorgio Vasari and his assistants, representing Great Episodes from the life of Cosimo I. A partial view of the large painting in the bottom right is one of the battle scene of victories by Florence over Pisa and Siena.

Most part of this palace is now a museum. Below is the picutre of the First courtyard. The Second Courtyard contains the massive pillars to sustain the Salone dei Cinquecento on second floor. And the Third Courtyard was used mainly for offices of the city.

A more detail view of the ceiling :

I missed the Victory by Michelangelo, only managed to take the photo of this sculpture, and not sure if it's the statue of "Charles V crowned by Clement VII", can anyone help ?

Palazzo Vecchio is also one of the most significant public places in Italy, next to Piazza della Signoria and Loggia dei Lanzi. (I will put out the photos we took from Piazza della Signoria in my future post)

There are many cafes where you can sit outside to admire the statues in Loggia dei Lanzi and the crowd. Oops, caught eating desert and drinking coffee, that's one of the most enjoyable thing to do in the trip ;o)

Gallery of statues

2007-09-13T15:30:00.000+08:00

Loggia dei Lanzi, in Florence, Italy, is a building with wide arches open to the street, that has a sculpture gallery of Renaissance art.

Benvenuto Cellini's Perseus :

Wiki Says : It shows the mythical Greek hero holding his sword in his right hand and holding up triumphantly the Medusa's decapitated head in his left. Benvenuto Cellini worked almost ten years on this bronze (1545-1554).

The Rape of Polyxena, a fine diagonal sculpture by Pio Fedi from 1865 :

The Rape of the Sabine Women by Giambologna :

Wiki : This impressive work was made from one imperfect block of white marble, the largest block ever transported to Florence. The original is now in the Galleria dell' Academia. This is the first group representing more than a single figure in European sculptural history to be conceived without a dominant viewpoint. It can be equally admired from all sides. This marble and bronze group is in the Loggia since 1583.

The less celebrated marble sculpture Hercules beating the Centaur Nessus (1599) by Giambologna and placed here in 1841 :

Finally, I thought this is an interesting facts from Wiki :

"At the side of the Loggia, there is a Latin inscription from 1750 commemorating the change of the Florentine calendar in 1749 to bring it into line with the Roman calendar. The Florentine calendar began on 25 March instead of 1 January. Other inscription from 1893 records the Florentines who distinguished themselves during the annexation of Milan (1865), Venice (1866) and Rome (1871) to the kingdom of Italy."

I hope you enjoy the series of sculptures and do share your comment with me :)

Archery

2007-09-09T23:00:00.000+08:00

More than a year ago - a few months before Tristan was born, I saw an archery place in the town I live, I told myself I would go there to try it out "one fine day". Yesterday was the day I finally got myself scheduled for it, unfortunately it has closed down, although I kind of expected that because it was almost always empty, I still feel disappointed because I finally managed to allocate time to do things that I like but I have no where to go for it now. I mean within half an hour's driving distance.

I got myself enrolled for a ten hourly archery class back in the States, at end of 2003. A coworker and I had been talking about going for it but no one takes the initiative to find out the detail, when we finally did it, I only managed to go for 3 classes because not long after that, I have decided to move back to Malaysia.

This is the bow that I purchased there, now sitting at home collecting dust. Until there's a new archery place open here, it'll have to continue collecting some more dust. I think I'm the only one living in such a small town that you can't find many things to do, this is the flip side, but still, I like it and would find other activity to do such as going to karaoke.

Bern

2007-09-05T15:28:00.000+08:00

Bern is the capital of Switzerland. It's the forth most popular city in Switzerland after Zürich, Geneva and Basel. Bern was named after a bear which was killed by the city's founder Duke Berthold V, in 1191.

(For some reason, after my Grindelwald's post, I forgot about my other trips in Switzerland and moved on to Italy, I guess I was just too tired LoL)

We made a stop in this city before visiting Grindelwald.
The clock on the floor is a reflection from a clock in a shop that sells watches.

We didn't have any plan in this city, so after checked in to the hotel, we took a walk around the city before dark.

It's a very pieceful & quiet town.

Houses that built on the slope, not exactly like the one in San Francisco.

Weather is chilly, there was ice on the river.

The Münster of Berne, a cathedral that you can climb up its tower for a small fee and stand right next to the bells when they ring at noon & 6pm :

The Federal Palace of Switzerland, looks a little similar to the Victoria's Parliament Building :

Next morning, ready to leave, took a picture of the clean, quiet & empty street.

On the left is the hotel we stayed, a little old, looked clean but smell smoke.

Zytglogge, a medieval Clock Tower, which according to wiki, aided Einstein to work out his theory of relativity :

Saw a BMW 5 Series on the way to the train station, back in Mar 2004 :

Then the first time I saw the Smart for 2 :

Waiting in the train to Grindelwald, the train was excellent, clean, spacious, comfortable, fast.

Florence Duomo (Cathedral) & Campanile (bell tower)

2007-09-01T14:10:00.000+08:00

Santa Maria del Fiore is the cathedral of Florence which was designed by an Italian architect, Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 - 1446). The cathedral was well known for its dome's polychrome design.

On the left is a partial view of the cathedral, the dome is hiding at the back, and on the right is the Giotto's bell tower :

Complete front view of the cathedral with the dome hiding behind :

Side view of the cathedral & the bell tower :

The cathedral was built to surpass its Tuscan rivals, Pisa and Siena. It was the largest in Europe when completed, with room for 30,000 people.

The dome. It has various shades of green and pink bordered by white but the green is not obvious probably due to old age :

Completed in 1436, it was the first 'octagonal' dome built in history without a wooden supporting frame. The picture below shows "The last Judgment" painted on the dome :

Don't remember how long it took us to climb to the top of the bell tower, only remember my legs were very tired :

It's extremely crowded looking down from the bell tower :

There are three huge bronze doors below built between 1899 to 1903 :

They are decorated with scenes from the life of the Madonna :

This is the first time I'm seeing such a cathedral that's so well decorated :

Have you visited any similar cathedral before ? Do you mind sharing it with me here ?

Tristan at 14 months

2007-08-28T13:37:00.000+08:00

Tristan has 4.5 teeth now, his teeth seem to take forever to grow, but some said it's a good thing because the tooth decay will come later.

He's still in crawling state now, although he can walk with support, but he seems to be timid to take the challenge of his first few steps, he would stop after his first step.

He can say some words now such as bear, bird (he read it as burp), clock (read as cog) etc, he would pick up our cellphones or any remote control devices and say "hello", today he even act like talking to someone over the other side of the line. And oh, he can also say a malay word "apa" but doesn't say any Mandarin words although my parent-in-law speaks Mandarin LoL

He loves to play inside the car, switching on all the buttons, turning up the volumes, playing with the steering, and would refuse to come out of the car.

He likes to hit people's hand (oh no no no, he's not picking this up from me). He loves our dogs and would crawl freely in the front part of our house with the 2 big dogs trying to lick him, he doesn't like to be lick so he would use both of his hands to protect his face when they come near him, like a kongfu baby, that was quite funny.

He loves bunny's DVDs, we would play those for him when we feed him porridge. He will move his body to the left and then to the right repeatedly whenever he hears music or song, he even does that when he's in crawling position, but he has very little interest on the xylophone I bought for him.

He has only 3-second span on most of the toys, but he would spend more than 15 minutes repeating the action of plugging and unplugging an ear piece to my old walkman.

He started making dreams nowadays. He said a single word twice during his sleeps, and once he was waving both of his hands like what he used to do at day time when refuse to be carried away from me, and he laughed this morning in his sleep.

Grindelwald

2007-08-24T10:38:00.000+08:00

This is my old post but I'm redoing it to add more pictures. Grindelwald is a well known winter tourism spot in Switzerland, located in the state called Bern, within the disctrict of Interlaken.

We took a train from Interlaken to this place, we found it so quiet but we really enjoy the piece here.

We took a walk here, built a small snow man, took some pictures and playing with the snow.

The snow was so thick, other than the Colorado ones, this is the second time I have seen such a think snow.

The 2 skiers seemed to be looking for the good spot to ski.

No birds chirping, only snow quietly covering the trees.

After a good hour or so, we finally see a car passing by.

Then we met a French couple, a 70-years old businessman and his young girl friend, they were playing with this sledge and offered to lend us while they were having a break, so we did and it was quite fun.

It was so cold out there so we went into a cafe here to have some coffee, met the French couple again and joined them for drinks.

First time seeing heavy snow fall, it was a wonderful experience.

Before leaving, took one last photo at the neighborhood area. The 2 trees at the back looks all white with the snow covering all their branches.

This is the Swiss Hotel that we stayed in Interlaken, cleared from snow. It has internet access for an hourly rate, no breakfast, the price is affordable in winter and is close to the train station.

The small building on the left side behind me is the train station, and that's the station we took the train to Grindelwald, passing through all the snow mountains with great snow view.

Sleepless in Seatlte ?

2007-08-20T12:33:00.000+08:00

Have you seen this movie called "Sleepless in Seattle" ? That was the first time I heard about this city, which is located in Washington State of America. It's also the place where the first Starbucks Coffee was opened, and the home to the world's richest man - Bill Gates.

This is the Space Needle, a tower which is the major landmark and a symbol of Seattle. It was built for the 1962 World's Fair, stood at 605 feet (184 m), with 60 stories.

With a ticket, you can get to the observation deck to see the Downtown Seattle skyline and many mountains such as Mount Rainier. It also has a SkyCity Restaurant and a gift shop.

The city view.

A big metal statue outside of the Art Museum.

The entrance of the Art Museum.

We don't have much time for the museum, just took a few pictures & left.

The Pike Place Market, where fresh food, flowers, antiques, fruits etc are sold here. The first Starbucks Coffee shop is near by, and there's an Italian Bakery Shop that serves excellent coffee and bakery's that's irresistible.

The downtown area. There's almost at least 1 coffee shop within a few blocks of shops here, and I remember finding at least 1 Starbuck coffee shop in every streets. Other than the first Starbucks coffee, we also tried the Seattle's Best Coffee, Tully's etc, I ended up drinking 5 to 6 coffees a day, partly also due to the cold weather. Personally I love Tully's the most and wish that I would have the chance to try it again.

Brooklyn Bridge

2007-08-17T10:22:00.000+08:00

This is one of the oldest suspension bridges in USA, connecting Manhattan & Brooklyn. It took 13 years to complete the construction, opened in 1883 (124 years ago !).

It soon become an iconic part of the New York skyline, and was designated a National Historic Landmark later in 1964.

With 5,989 feet long, it was the largest & longest suspension bridge in the world (50% longer than any previously built), it is also the first steel-wire suspension bridge at completion.

The bridge has a Gothic style architecture and is built from limestone, granite, and Rosendale natural cement.

Washington Roebling was the one who cotinue to build the bridge after his father died soon after the bridge has started its construction, but later he himself got a decompression sickness called caisson disease after 2 years, his wife then started learning engineering and communicating his wishes to the on-site assistants. When the bridge opened, she was the first person to cross it.

This is one of the visiting spots in our East Coast Tour, these photos were taken while we were in a cruise, in 2003.

Victoria's Cathedrals

2007-08-14T02:53:00.000+08:00

As promised in the Victoria post, I have included the 5 pictures of the cathedrals that I saw in downtown area, and 2 night shots of the Parliament Building.

I just happened to see the Parliament Building's night lights on my way back from downtown so took down these 2 pictures, they should look better if I took them in a closer range :

Gothic style cathedrals :

The 2 pictures below are the Christ Church Cathedral.

What do you think about these cathedrals ? Do you like to take photos of buildings with different architectures ?

Thank you, my dear readers

2007-08-10T08:37:00.000+08:00

I had been busy lately with eBay, trying to sell unused items in my closet. I managed to sell off my second item, a knee-length skirt, and got 2 positive feedback from my first 2 buyers, I was so thrilled but then Tristan had a fever and I was so worried about it, I took off work earlier to take care of him in the past 4 days and thankfully he was fully recovered yesterday.

I want to take this oportunity to thank all my dear readers who has paid my blog visits from time to time and spent time to give me great comments (some of you send your comments to me in emails) :

1. Jenny How at eBay Tips Blog
2. Kuan Hoong at Kuanhoong dot com
3. Kathy
4. Tat Oon
5. Jamy at her Kopitiam
6. Jerry Lee at 38 blog
7. Emila Yusof and her Illustration
8. Shantanu Ghosh and his Travel Tales
9. Bee Ean at her France Blog
10. Jo and her Vee Vee Waa Waa Blog
11. Walter Lim with his Cooler Insights Blog
12. Janice Ng and her Miracle Blog
13. Random Thots of a Blur Mommy
14. Sook Fang
15. Yoke Ping
16. Ben
17. Tuyen
18. Elaine
19. Chee Koon

Victoria, British Columbia

2007-08-05T23:26:00.000+08:00

Victoria is the westernmost Canadian provice which is located south to the Vancouver Island. The statistics from Wikipedia showed that it's capable of drawing 3.65 million visitors a year which have contributed to more than one billion dollars into the local economy.

British Columbia Parliament Building

There are many tourism attraction and landmark such as the Empress Hotel, the Royal British Columbia Museum, Christ Church Cathedral, Chinatown, Victoria Butterfly Garden, Pacific Undersea Gardens etc. (I'll share the Cathedral photos in my next post because this post is getting too long)

The city is so quiet that I wasn't aware it has hosted several sports events such as the 1994 Commonwealth Games, 2006 Skate Canada etc.

It's a place for retiree, probably that's why it's so pieceful there. And I found this in Wiki : An historically popular cliché about Victoria is that it is for "the newly wed and nearly dead!" ... But I went there alone LoL

The Empress Hotel

The 150-foot vessel to get to the Pacific Undersea Gardens

the Royal British Columbia Museum & the IMAX theatre

Wawadit'la, also known as Mungo Martin House

Chinatown

What do you think about this map ?

In downtown, there are many small art galleries, and there are many English Tea Cafe that serves delicious cakes, desert that I had to make a stop for them. There was one that I went in even sells many exquisite teapot, cups, tea leaves etc.

There are many other tourism attraction in this place such as the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Pacific Undersea Garden that I haven't been able to visit. If you happen to visit these places, don't forget to share your story with me ya :)

First eBay earning !!

2007-08-02T03:21:00.001+08:00

I mentioned in My First eBay Adventure post that I had a blouse listed and that someone had placed a bid on it, so what happen to it ?

I considered myself lucky as I have received the payment from buyer on Tuesday night. So I went ahead and sent out the blouse yesterday morning, not sure if she will receive it today, I do hope that she will receive the blouse today and that she's satisfied with the quality.

The reason for her delay payment was because I have only 2 bank accounts and she doesn't have account on either of these banks, so I offered a RM2 discount for the wire transfer fee and she made the payment immediately. I guess when it comes to selling, if we can offer a little more to the buyer, they will be happy to get what we are offering, do you agree with me and do you have a similar story to share with me ?

Alcatraz

2007-07-29T00:33:00.000+08:00

Alcatraz was named by a Spanish Explorer, it means "Island of the Pelicans". I'm sure you know this place, it has a pop-culture name - The Rock, ring a bell ? It's a small island located in the middle of San Francisco Bay, you can take a boat that leaves from Pier 33, near the Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco.

Alcatraz used to serve the region with a lighthouse, later it became a military fortification, then a military prison followed by a federal prison until 1963. When it became a national recreation area in 1986, it was listed as a National Historic Landmark.

Since it is isolated in the middle of the bay, surrounded by freezing waters and strong sea currents, it has the ideal criteria that made it the best choice for holding captives by the U.S. Army.

The prison population at Alcatraz was made up of inmates who had histories of unmanageable behavior or escape attempts, and high-profile inmates who had been receiving special privileges because of their public status.

They served very simple food here :

The photos of infamous inmates.

Have you watched "Prison Break" ? If you did, this would look familiar to you ;o)

Most escapees never made it to land, and usually turned back to be rescued from the freezing waters. Those who failed to turn back died because of the cold water.

The main corridor of the cell house was named "Broadway" by the inmates, and the cells along this passageway were considered the least desirable in the prison.

We spent around half day for this trip, then we were back to the Fishermen's Wharf for a hot clam chowder soup :)

My first eBay adventure

2007-07-26T13:03:00.000+08:00

I have been reading Jenny's blog with information on eBay for the past 3 months, I think I'm her last reader to register for an eBay account, (just end of last month). So then last week, I finally started selling my first 2 items from my closet, you would have guess what they are :)

But no they are not mini skirts !! They are a pair of jeans & a blouse.

Immediately 2 person asked for the type of jeans cos I forgot to mention the model, provided feedback to them but they just watch it & not bidding :(

Then few days ago someone put a bid on the blouse, I was sooooooooo excited that day. But the excitement subsided as it stayed quiet after that, now I'm waiting for the bid to end and hopefully it's a genuine buyer :) What's your first item sold or bought in eBay (if you still remember) ?

National Air & Space Museum

2007-07-23T22:50:00.000+08:00

A museum in Washington D.C. & the only museum that we have visited there. It has the largest collection of aircraft & spacecraft in the world. It is also a research center for planetary science, history, science & technology of aviation & spaceflight, etc.

Almost all space and aircraft on display are originals or backup crafts to the originals.

We were given only a half hour here, including getting a bio break :( (Remember I mentioned in my Washinton D.C. post that we were following a tour ?)

So what we did there were basically taking some pictures, & make sure we go around the whole museum in half hour's time.

Lesson learn from this trip, never follow a tour if you can. It was not fun at all, & was quite wasteful since we don't get enough time to explore what we like.

If I have a chance, would like to visit this place again, since there are other museums here that we didn't get to go at that time, back in 2003.

KuanHoong dot com

2007-07-17T00:00:00.000+08:00

In KuanHoong dot com, you can find many
"WHAT IS" the new technologies, gadgets & online tools, &
"HOW TO" tips including how to use many different online tools, how to make money online, how to improve blog traffic, and many other tips in blogging and make money online, etc.

I came across KuanHoong's name in JennyHow dot com, and noticed that his comment were sharp & funny at times. So after a while I started to visit his blog, I found that he offers many useful tools & tips to help people in making money online, I learn a great deal from reading his blog.

Although I only know him through reading his post, I have an impression that KuanHoong is an interesting person who know how to have fun (the segway ride), enjoy life (spend USD10 for a watermelon), release stress (singing) & appreciate the beauty in life (a flower lover), besides being a very good technology blogger.

If you would like to find out more about making money online or at home, here are the top 5 posts that you shouldn't miss :
5 simple steps to drive traffics to your blog from Twitter
Tips for Make Money Online with Google AdSense Part 2
3 simple ways to drive more traffics from Flickr
Submit your site to get traffics and make money online
Make Money Online with AuctionAds

Personally I like most of his non-technology related posts :
Are you a flower lover?
One watermelon for USD10
Weekend at Nagoya, Japan
The Histchhiker guide to Nagoya, Japan
Tanabata Festival

Right now, KuanHoong is offering a USD100 contest for reviewing his blog, the duration is 3rd July - 2nd August 2007. It's only another 2 weeks+ left, do check out the Rules of Review here, hurry up :-)

Corning Museum of Glass

2007-07-14T22:53:00.000+08:00

The museum is located in Corning, New York. It's a place that allows you to explore every facet of glasses. It's also home to the world’s most comprehensive collection of glass where it has more than 45,000 glass objects, spanning 3,500 years of glass making history !!!

The galleries contain objects representing every country and historical period in which glass making has been practiced. Can you imagine this ? It started off with only 2,000 objects & two staff members !!!

This is a portrait of a man blowing glass :

It has a library with the mission to acquire everything published on the subject of glass, in every format and language. There are more than 300,000 items that includes publications in more than 40 languages.

One of the product made of glass :

It also has a Studio that offers beginning to advanced glassblowing and cold working classes that are held throughout the year. The Studio also provides a half-hour Make Your Own Glass workshops for Museum visitors, as well as group glassmaking experiences. Both include activities appropriate for children as young as three-years-old !

A creative-looking chair :

The museum was founded in 1950 by the Corning Glass Works (now Corning Incorporated), and continue to exist as a non-profit institution that preserves and expands the world's understanding of glass.

A tower sculpture that consists of 600 glass bowls :

Below are a few more objects made of glass :

And finally, if you don't have time to join the workshop, you can simply experience the demonstration of their Hot Glass Show :)

First Birthday

2007-07-12T14:13:00.000+08:00

Tristan turned 1 year old 2 weeks ago. It feels like he was just born not long ago ... 2 friends asked me sometime ago if my life took on a new meaning, I didn't realize that until recently. I guess it's because we have more interaction now, as he can understand me more & express himself better now.

He now has 3 front teeth, 2 at the bottom & one on top. He doesn't know how to walk without support yet and doesn't talk our language, he will say "papa" or "mom mom" but it has no meaning to him yet. He would imitate some of the words we speak, mostly not accurate, but he can imitate "burp" quite well, surprisingly.

He knows that "no" means he can't put the thing onto his mouth, he'll look at me first and if I didn't say no, there goes the thing to his mouth.

That night, we let him taste a tiny bit of this cake without the chocolate, as we don't want him to develop sweet tooth.

He received 3 birthday gift, a Nike sandal from hubby's friend Lai Jing, an alphabet learning school bus from his aunt, and a red envelope from his grandparent. His dad bought him an education plan, and me, only the Secret Recipe cake. BUT, I got him a car seat, a potty, some handkerchiefs, a pair of shoes, 3 pajamas, a growth chart, a xylophone, and a wooden puzzle from last week's shopping, I just love to shop for his stuff LoL

Washington D.C.

2007-07-10T22:33:00.000+08:00

It was in 2003 when we visited this place, and it was drizzling so we only took a few pictures ...
Washington D.C. is the capital city of USA. "D.C." stands for District of Columbia. (The city is named after George Washington).

The U.S. Capital.

There are many memorials, monuments & museums in D.C, but we were given very limited time for each site because we were following a tour, we did't get the chance to visit the White House too :(

Lincoln Memorial.

Jefferson Memorial.

It was raining & the sky was so dark, this was our best shot ... & the one we took for Washington Monument was very blurry, too bad, can't share it here ... To sum up, this trip was merely looking at what's out there that the tour guide brought us to & took some pictures for memory, it felt like taking instant noodle :(

8 Random Facts ?

2007-07-06T12:33:00.000+08:00

I was tagged by Shantanu to tell people 8 random facts about myself.

It took me a while to come out with this list (which I hope won't bore you to death) :

1. I love Dark Chocolate, Desert, Coffee & Beer.
2. I cried really hard after I was forced to get my long hair cut at 8 years old.
3. I went into a shock during one of my blood withdrawal, which I thought I was going to die.
4. I used to work in United States for 4 years.
5. I slapped a classmate at Standard 6 & felt sorry until now.
6. I hate to go for an interview.
7. I have an adorable 1-year old baby boy now.
8. I had been addicted to blogging since I started, but had to cut back recently due to lack of sleep ;o)

It took me ages to come out with the following list :

Jenny's Ebay Chronicle
Jerry's Lab
KuanHoong's dot com
Jamy's Kopitiam
Dede's Diary
Emila's Illustration
Alex's Selfhelp Spot
Cool Insider's Cool Insights

Ladies & Gentlemen in the above list, would you like to share your 8 random facts about yourself with us ? If you do, don't forget to tag another 8 person to do the same thing ya :)

Empire State Building

2007-07-03T17:30:00.000+08:00

The 102-storey skyscraper in New York. It remained the tallest skyscraper in the world for a record of 41 years, & was surpassed by the North Tower of the World Trade Center in 1972.

The building actually has its own zip code !!! & approximately 20,000 employees work in the building every day ........

The 86th floor observation deck offers a 360-degree views of the city, it's so dense looking down to the surrounding. The amazing thing is that it took us less than a minute to get up there smoothly.

The Statue of Liberty can be seen here, it was far out there, below my blog URL, you may be able to see it in the next picture with the zoom.

Hope you can see it, the tiny bit in the middle of the picture below :

& this is the lobby's entrance that features the building with an aluminum relief :

The building was featured in movies like King Kong, Independence Day, Sleepless in Seattle etc. This is definitely a must-visit building if you are going to New York :)

A bib that costs more than RM20

2007-06-29T17:34:00.000+08:00

My brother-in-law bought a bib for Tristan from his business trip in Bangkok few months ago. When I asked how much it costs, it came to me as a shock that it actually worth RM26 !!! A piece of cloth that costs as much as a T-Shirt for an adult ?

This is the packaging, a paper envelope with very nice printing :

Searching for "Jim Thompson Thai Silk" online :
Jim Thompson was a former U.S. military intelligence officer who has saved Thailand's vital hand-woven silk industry from extinction in the 1950s & 1960s. Says he: "It disturbed me that production of this wonderful material had stopped." Jim's business has expanded very quickly but he disappeared in 1967, in Cameron Highlands !!! His disappearance has become an unsolved mystery ...

Now back to the bib, it's cute but it came too late, Tristan had started to pull off bib whenever we put them on for him, so this bib would be kept as his first souvenir. Personally I won't buy this for my baby but it may serve as a good gift for bosses' babies, or a Christmas gift, what do you think ?

Ground Zero

2007-06-25T11:17:00.000+08:00

These are the new towers built to replace the destroyed Twin Towers., but they are not as tall. They were brand new when we visited in 2003.

We could also see the towers from the coast.

I was in California on Sept 11, 2001. I was still in bed at 7.xx am when the disaster happened. I heard the bad news on the radio when driving to work, it was a horrible feeling reaching office where everyone was shocked & sad.

That night, the TV was overwhelmed with this news, the video clip of the plane crashing onto the building was played over & over again on CNN, I felt so depressed & had to switch off the TV.

I never seen the Twin Towers in person. I went to work in the States in Jan 26th 2000, but I didn't take the chance to pay them a visit cos I thought they would be there anytime I feel like going to New York.

Sometimes we take advantage of things that we thought would be there for us forever ... I learn the lesson & now I try to do things that I like & can afford whenever possible instead of keep delaying the plan. Do you have any similar story to share with me ?

Horse Back Riding

2007-06-23T10:28:00.000+08:00

Have you tried horse back riding before ? I had a chance to do
that when I was working in the States back in 2002 (can't
believe it's been 5 years !!!).


We went to this place called Spring Down Ranch in the Bay
Area (California), get a private lesson which costs $40 for a
half hour ... (yes, it's USD). That includes rental equipment,
ie. helmet and shoes.

Actually you can choose to wear your own shoes with a heel
(about 1"...not high heels). You need a heel so your foot
doesn't slip through the foot ring.

The horses there are quite friendly and docile. What I learn was
very basic things like how to make a turn, stop, & how to
start moving, but I was quite scared at one point when the
horse refused to move & seemed unhappy.

Anyway it was quite a fun experience overall. What are the fun
thing that you have tried ? Mind to share it with me ?

More Grand Canyon pictures

2007-06-21T07:54:00.000+08:00

While some parts of the canyon were covered with some snows, there are other parts that were totally clear.

The Colorado River :

Hope you enjoy this series of photos, have a nice day :)

Shampoo Shield

2007-06-18T17:30:00.000+08:00

Tristan refused to lay down on my lap to get his hair wash lately, he insists on sitting position so it was a disaster whenever water flows down his face during hair wash.

Luckily we got this "Shampoo Shield" over the weekend, it's a flexible cap that protects the eyes from shampoo suds.

Tristan refused to put this on for more than a few seconds so I had to use his soft toy as a model.

The hair part is available for shampooing & it really works for me, except that he will pull it away real quick, so I had to wet his hair first, apply shampoo, put this on with lightning speed & rinse off the shampoo at the top part in few seconds.

I'm so glad that such a thing was invented as now he's less agitated during bath time :)

Snow, in Grand Canyon

2007-06-14T16:22:00.000+08:00

We were very happy to see snow there, we are from tropical country which never snow, so we tend to like snow very much ...

The snow could not cover the great canyon, it's so huge ...

There's a hotel at the top in the picture below (top right), there are other hotels too around this area, it's convenient to stay here but we didn't manage to make a reservation.

The weather was cooling. The sun was not too strong but very bright, it was so pleasant to be there ...

What does fat in Nasi Lemak mean to you ?

2007-06-13T07:50:00.000+08:00

On the way to Grand Canyon

2007-06-11T17:25:00.000+08:00

In winter, the North Rim of Grand Canyon is closed, but South Rim is open. Spring is a better time since the weather is not too hot, in summer, it can be burning hot there.

After landed at Phoenix Airport, Arizona, you can choose to fly or drive to Grand Canyon. But we were not lucky as the airport in Grand Canyon was closed due to snow.

We had no choice but to drive, and chose to put a night in a hotel on the way there. Guess what we see the next morning ? It's SNOW everywhere, was really surprised, excited & happy :)

So it wasn't a bad thing after all, to visit in winter, you just need to know what's there & what's not and make your choice to get the most out of your trip.

How to go to bed early ?

2007-06-10T08:37:00.000+08:00

If you have problem going to sleep earlier than your normal sleep hour, what can you do ?

Here's how you could achieve your goal :

- Set alarm clock to wake up earlier than normal, eg. 2 hours earlier
- Do not nap during the day no matter how tired you are
- You should be tired enough that night to sleep earlier, don't worry about things that haven't been completed
- Repeat this until your biology clock is tuned to your ideal time to go to bed

If you still have problem, then try the following :

* Do exercise in the morning, or at least 6 hours before bed time
* Take a 3-minutes' warm bath 2-4 hours before going to bed
* Listen to music, read something that keep you relax

Or eat some light food that relaxes muscles, keep you calm or helps induce sleep :
# Banana
# Warm Milk
# Whole Wheat Bread
# Wheat Cereal
# Potato
# Almond
# Turkey

Do come back and share with me your progress :)

Tristan at 11 months

2007-06-09T10:10:00.000+08:00

Tristan turn 11 months more than a week ago, he can understand "no" and some simple words now, but still don't know how to say a proper word yet, he likes to chase soap bubbles at bathe time, and he's still having his only 35% tooth, which seems to take forever to grow ;o)

Sometimes he'll pick up the book & flip the pages, as if he really knows how to read, it's fun watching him doing that.

These are only a quarter of his toys, but he gets bored of them very quickly, I have to store some of them away for a while and reintroduce to him later to keep him interested on them.

This is a chocolate that I bought in Singapore, it's a UK brand, and is very costly, I got 3 pieces of dark chocolate with nuts in this box, and that costs me around $14.xx Singapore Dollar ! I'm a dark chocolate fan so I was willing to pay the price to taste the different types of chocolate.

Anyway this proved to be a good buy, not only the dark chocolates taste excellent, Tristan loves this box so much compared to all his other toys, that he'll play with them every night, before going to sleep.

Bondi Beach

2007-06-08T07:38:00.000+08:00

Pronounced "bóndai". Located in Sydney. We went there in early summer, 2004.

The wind was still chilly, I had to look for a cup of hot coffee, but as you can see here, people already enjoying themselves in the beach.

Bondi beach is very popular in Sydney, the crowd is there. Wikipedia mentioned that this is the world's busiest beach.

If you want to try swimming in winter, there's a swimming pool with blocks of ice in winter, it's called Bondi Icebergs, the picture is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bondi_Beach#Bondi_Icebergs.

You may also choose to have a beer here, this is considered one of the best located drinking spot in Sydney, with live band in Jan & Feb.

A hike up Diamond Head, Oahu

2007-06-06T07:31:00.000+08:00

One of the popular tourism spot in Oahu, it's a volcanic tuff cone.

Brief history on the name from Wikipedia :
The English name was given by British sailors in the 19th century, who mistook calcite crystals embedded in the rock for diamonds.

I know, I should be standing behind the board ...

The city view when we reached the top.

And the Pacific Ocean.

The sky looked great here, but not in the previous picture, it was too cloudy.

Now that I reached the top, let me relax a bit. Forgot how long it took to get up here, probably half an hour or so.

Did you see the lighthouse here ?
In Half Moon Bay (California), you can stay in its lighthouse and see the whale migrating (if you go at the right season & managed to make a reservation), we didn't get a chance to do it, but I imagine it would be a very unique experience.

Another angle of Waikiki city view.

This is where we started hiking up.

The trail.

Ready to leave.

Wait, the clouds.

Sport shoes should be the correct footwear but my sandal is very comfortable, just need to be cautious.

Looking towards the back of the cone.

On the way down.

You can see the entire shape of the Diamond Head cone here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_Head

Kailua Beach, Oahu

2007-06-05T22:41:00.000+08:00

According to wikipedia, Kailua Beach has been repeatedly ranked among the best beaches worldwide. It was ranked as #1 U.S beach in 1998 by coastal expert Dr. Stephen Leatherman, and then "retired" from subsequent consideration

Many people doing windsurfing there, we didn't manage to catch the sight where multiple surfers gathered.

Again, we thought that this may not be the nicest place we are going to see today, so we took a few pictures and went on.

We did find the ideal place, but I can't believe that I lost the pictures !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't know why it's not in my laptops nor my archive DVDs .... Gosh ! That was such a wonderful place, it's called Hanauma Bay, it has a very exclusive area, not too big, but not overly crowded, water is great, and we had a great time snorkeling there .. too bad, can't share the pictures here, may be next time, if I ever have a chance to go there again ;o)

Waimea Bay, Oahu

2007-06-03T10:22:00.000+08:00

Waimea means "Red Water" in Hawaiian, but I was glad that the water isn't red, phew !!!

I'm sure that you would agree with me on how clear the water is, I was going to jump into the water then, but we still have a few more stops to go, so ... I ended up just standing there taking some pictures.

I never get tired of the blue sky & sea.

And I thought this picture is very nice, without me blocking the view.

Waikiki Beach

2007-06-01T12:46:00.000+08:00

Popular beach in Hawaii, resides in the island of Oahu.

This part of the beach looks like a regular beach in Penang ... In fact the water is not extremely clear, the color of the water is not appealing, and it's too crowded, we came here for the sake of its name, just to see how it look like.

But at sunset, it does look romantic.

There are many restaurants around, where you can have your dinner while enjoying the beautiful scenery.

These coconut trees remind me of my 6-years' childhood in Penang island, Malaysia.

Punaluu Black Sand Beach

2007-05-31T17:00:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-31T00:16:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-30T00:02:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-29T12:05:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-28T17:17:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-25T16:19:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-25T07:55:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-24T00:29:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-23T07:49:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-22T00:48:00.000+08:00

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 ?

2007-05-20T17:08:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-20T15:45:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-20T00:48:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-17T01:15:00.000+08:00

Tristan is teething !!!

2007-05-14T23:24:00.000+08:00

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 :)

2007-05-13T13:48:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-08T23:22:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-07T23:16:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-06T00:23:00.000+08:00

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.

Tristan at 10 months

2007-04-29T23:40:00.000+08:00

Ok, finally has some time to write about Tristan ... We managed to bring him for hair cut today, it was a disaster, after we went in to the shop for a while, his eye became red, seems like he can recall what happened to him last time, I sure hope this is not true because I won't want him to have resistance the next time we go there. Anyway, we always ended up with a short but "only ok"so called hairstyle, and just like the previous time, the grandpa & grandma both commented that it should be shorter etc.

Tristan learned to clap hands (without sound, left hand is closed and right hand open), when he's happy, such as hearing a nice baby song, or enjoying his food. He also has some little tricks that he invented, such as rubbing the back of his hand against his mouth left -> right -> left -> right over and over again with a "ba-ba-ba" sound, so whenever we want him to do this we would do it first with the "ba-ba-ba" and he will follow suit if he's in good mood.

He can crawl fast now, he used to refuse crawling, but I guess it was because we limit him to his little corner only, we prohibited him from crawling to the carpet, the area he's most interested, when we set him free later on, he started to crawl to every corner in the house now.

He also able to stand up with support, and has managed to climb up stairs. Whatever comes his way would go into his mouth, just like any other babies.

One thing that gives me headache is he's going to bed very late now, it's between 10.30pm - 11.15pm, he's tired but just keep going and going, refuse to be rock, just keep playing until he's exhausted, like an energizer bunny.

That's all from me about baby, it's time for me to go to bed, good night everyone :)

Tristan with Sun Glass

2007-04-28T00:47:00.000+08:00

This sunglass was the biggest we could find in the shop ... his head measurement is really big, so ended up with this huge glass. He wore it for a short period of time only, now he would grab it and put into his mouth. I receive an email from my TAR College's coursemate, Lee Yu Fei, I told her I would write about Tristan tonight, but I'm very tired now, hopefully I'll get a chance to do it tomorrow. Oh, and Tristan turns 10 months today, still toothless though.

Found Adsense Tips, Online Selling, and Skype !

2007-04-24T22:04:00.000+08:00

There's this adsense tips in the first Malaysia blogger's page, I don't have time to go into the details, but if you are interested, you may visit http://www.liewcf.com to check it out.

Also, if you are interested in online selling, then http://www.jennyhow.com has some useful information as Jenny is a Power Seller in Ebay.

Oh .. and I just started using Skype last night, have seen my ex-roomate in US using a similar free internet call tool (but not sure what they used at that time because I wasn't interested), and I have been told for closed to 2 years that I can use Skype to call anywhere with no charge as long as the person I'm calling also login to Skype, but I was just too lazy to explore it.

I was so excited last night, because a relative and a friend from US both called me with Skype, the connection was so good, no delay at all, sound is loud and crystal clear, one of them have webcam installed so I can see him and his daughter quite clearly, that triggered me to start installing my webcam which has been sitting in the rack for a year now, I never knew that it's so much fun to do these.

If you already have a Skype account, do give me your id so that I can add you to my contact list, if you haven't, go to skype.com to download the program and set it up, saving money on the other hand is earning money :)

Happy B'day Tat Oon :)

2007-04-24T00:03:00.000+08:00

Wanted to write something for you but was running out of time ... Think we have known each other for close to 20 years now ? Wow ... thinking of this is scary ... how did we spend the 20 years with just a blink of eyes ?

We had great time in Form 6, those are sweet memory, I still remember we sang together in one ocassion, the "Ni Zhi Dao Wo Zai Deng Ni Ma". I'm so glad that we still stay in touch, I have lost touch with so many old friends now ...

Hope you have a wonderful time today :)

Waimea Bay

2007-04-22T21:30:00.000+08:00

Waimea Beach, in Honolulu. Taken back in Sept 2003, during our honeymoon trip. We drove around the island to check out a few beaches recommended by a book, the water here is great, but the beach itself is not so much different from other beaches so we just stopped to take a few pictures and move on.

Niagara Falls

2007-04-20T13:19:00.000+08:00

This was my second visit, still, the falls are just so overwhelming ... touched my soul deeply. This is on the US's side, if I have another chance to visit this falls, I would go to the Canadian side, heard that the view is wider from there.