Kit Keat Bar - life without regrets, 2011

Swatch - Body and Soul

2012-01-01T20:58:00.003+08:00

Waited for 2 years... finally caved in and bought it today. 1st Jan 2012.

Swatch - Body and Soul... fell in love with it instantly the moment I saw it from the shop 2 years ago... didn't pick it up as it looked a bit small. It's an automatic, skeleton watch (can see the internal gears from the front face).

In an advance age such as today, one really doesn't need a watch to get by as most of us is carrying a smart phone. It has grown from a time telling piece to a decorative item.

I remember where I used to look at my watch every moment I need to know the time. If I forgot to wear watch out one day, I would still feel weird if I hold up my wrist to look.

I stopped wearing my old watch cos I did not remove the strap to adjust the size as it can't fit my arm anymore and felt a bit loose, previously it was too tight that it gripped my wrist till it's all red and sweaty.

After 2 years from then... when I looked at it, I still liked it.. a lot. So, after much hesitation, I bought it. Hopefully it will last me another 10 years. I'm still having the Guess watch my mum bought for me 10 years ago.

10 years, the price is justifiable. :) more pics to come if I can get a good macro lens and snap nicely at home... for now, this is a post to mark the date of purchase.

Happy New Year everyone...

Good bye 2011

2011-12-31T22:05:00.003+08:00

Made 3 version, 1st one is clean from Sketchbook Pro for iPad.

From Snapseed, a powerful photo editing app... adds the bokeh effect around the sides.

Last but not least, with Halftone with all the crazy comic balloon conversation boxes to go.

Bye 2011, thanks for the memories!

End of 2011

2011-12-30T00:35:00.003+08:00

Another year has come to an end. This would be yearly closure blog post I'm doing.

Previous year could be found here. :)

This year was still a busy year for myself in terms of work. Very very crazy year but not with its ups despite all the downs. Let's go through them below.

What happened this year:-

1) Deployed project to Japan! One of the most complicated BU of all.

2) Thus, fight and obtained for opportunity to travel to Japan itself to provide onsite stabilization support - one of the best decision I've made so far in my life, Japan is A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.

3) Travelled to United States for the 1st time with Calvin for CRP 1.5. Ad-hoc crazy last minute plan, obtained all the necessary letters, went for interview at U.S. embassy at KL, booked and constantly revise our flight schedule, hotel booking.. and the long flight there with multiple transit. Hey, at least I've watch the bats at St. Congress Avenue.. ^^ and not to mention carried a few Coach bags back...

4) Nightmarish almost 6 months period of constant work, late night calls, pressure mounted up to my throat

5) Lead a small team of 3 people for the LATAM project...

6) Have minor decorated a Christmas tree at our office

7) Was very very sad when Steve Jobs passed away...

8) Bought my iOS Wacom Bamboo stylus.. hey, finally!

9) Less photography session with the gang as well as myself. I think I took a lot when I travelled to JP and U.S.

10) Built 2 nice Gundam RG grade kit and loved it, cheaper price, very good articulation

11) Brought my mum to nice lunch at TGI Friday's on mother's day

12) Brought my mum to the project appreciation dinner at Rasa Sayang's Spice market

13) Made my 1st Transition glasses!

14) Felt sad and sorry for Japan with the Tsunami and earthquake that devastated the whole nation...

15) Took 1st medical check up in years! the needles weren't that bad, hey.. I'm quite healthy except for the cholesterol meter. Gotta watch that, other than that, I'm doing pretty good! thank goodness for that!

Gadgets owned :

1) iPad 2

2) iPhone 4S

3) Macbook Air 13" Mid 2011 with OSX Lion

4) nice pair of V Jays headphone

This year I took what I've learned last year and really applied them at certain situations in life. That being live life without regrets. So far at almost year end, I'm happy to say I did it. Succeed? Well, I would say yeah. Sometimes, one just gotta take the leap of faith.

2011 came and gone, I loved it. There are somethings that I do not want to put it here but somethings that happened, it started as a sad year but ending at a medium good note I would say. :) looking forward to 2012, I hope it's not end of the world yet... no. Life is still "young".

Looking for more travel next year. Gotta see more of the world before it ends.

Cheers everyone!

The Perfect Bait

2011-12-27T21:12:00.002+08:00

The other day came back from work and found this parcel at my desk.

Upon seeing this address, I know what it is....

Haha, Art work... well, it's something related to art work but definitely not one. But nevertheless thank you for their handling and care on that.. Appreciated!

Here's the book I've been waiting for, from 1 of my favorite artist of all time - Bobby Chiu. It caters mostly for start up artist who wants to be inspired and motivated to attract clients to sell their art work to or even provide service. However, it contained more than that, including years of experience accumulated by Bobby himself and also from the artists he met along the way and their advice as well. All, bundled into a few chapters in this book.

I've finished reading it and thought it's a very nice book, to fully take it into effect one must really learn and embrace Bobby's advice.

Well done Bobby, and thanks for sharing!

Book details : http://theperfectbait.com/about.php

Buy the physical book now and stand a chance to stream the audio book read by Bobby himself at Schoolism.com as well http://www.schoolism.com/

Merry Christmas 2011

2011-12-26T10:13:00.003+08:00

I think I have missed creating 1 piece of Christmas art last year. I don't want to miss it out this year. Painted half way and the app crashed with only partial save, frustrated but picked myself up and continued immediately to make the date.

Merry Christmas to everyone, may you have a wonderful Christmas. :)

Christmas Tree

2011-11-30T21:00:00.003+08:00

You know, from where I work now. I sit on the 1st floor, those people at ground floor will put up nice Christmas deco on month Dec (which is now) yearly. Some of them went a bit extra by putting in cottons on top of cubical wall to simulate snow... very very nice looking. Especially if your whole department is doing it as well. :)

But things are different at 1st floor. A barren land.. LOL. little to no Christmas tree at all, so this year, we decided to change that. :) thanks to uncle Hong who rallied up everyone and collected donation. We headed out to get a white Christmas tree.

These goes at the bottom of the trees... courtesy of me and ah Nee (mostly hers.. )

Can see my white iPhone? ^^

Here's the final assembled and fully decorated tree. Ta Da.. I contributed absolutely nothing to the entire process.. hahaha.. was working.. :)

My art - Apple of my eye

2011-11-28T17:56:00.002+08:00

Well, not exactly the real Apple of my eye but really nice nevertheless. :)

Finger + stylus painted on iPhone with Sketchbook.

My art - =)

2011-11-20T17:47:00.003+08:00

Well, first piece done with the Wacom bamboo stylus for tablet.... fairly accurate I must say though still no where near as natural or accurate as an actual stylus... :)

Wacom Bamboo Stylus

2011-10-16T22:52:00.003+08:00

Finally after a long run, I managed to locate this thing at local Apple re-seller. It was a surprise as I didn't think it would be there. this thing was sold out at their website when it was first launched.

The package was quite neat. Plain white box, the plastic container housing the stylus firmly grasp it waiting for you to take it out. 2 more pamphlet containing some information on how actually twist the top cap and remove it and thus having the option to remove the pen clip off the pen. some people might actually prefer this but I'll leave it as it is for now.

The pen feels solid, I think it's made out of some aluminium or steel materials. there's a considerable amount of weight on it and the texture on the grip feels nice. The tip of the stylus was claimed by Wacom to be one of the thinnest among the stylus that's available on the market today. Having bought 2 styluses before, I can attest to this.

The tip itself is soft rubber similar to other stylus I have been using.

Immediately launched Wacom's Bamboo Paper app which suppose to act like a real notebook for you to jot down some notes or do quick sketches. Overall it feels quite nice and natural, much like writing on a real notebook and a pen itself. Excuse my hand writing here... haha.

The main disadvantage is still there, being a capacitive screen has its disadvantage as well. It senses our touch from skin. Meaning, you have to lift your palm away from the screen when you draw/write. It will register as a touching point and will screw up the pen's recognition as well.

I'm thinking of getting some sort of glove which i can put in and insulate my palm from the screen so that it can rest there. :)

Until then, more tests to come from this baby. =)

Hope it's worth it...

R.I.P. Steven Jobs 1955 - 2011 

2011-10-06T19:35:00.005+08:00

Dear Steve,

I'm typing this with my iPhone 4 originated from the initial iPhone which you have envisioned which have changed the mobile phones forever.

You do not know many of us but I am now a Mac lover and iOS fans who had bought a few of the company's product. I understand and adore the company's vision and beliefs which were strongly influenced by yourself.

This will indeed be a truly sad day but like you said before, truly live your life as though it were your last, someday you would most certainly be right.

Some people can live a longer life, but it's not the quantity that counts, it's the quality of your life.

To cut to the chase, I love  and Steve. Thank you for helping us changing the world and putting a ding into the universe.

Rest in peace.

P/S: I hope there is iHeaven for you, else please built it. :)

BTW: iPhone 4S = iPhone for Steve

Sent to rememberingsteve@apple.com

iPhone - next

2011-10-04T23:15:00.003+08:00

At the time of writing this, Apple's annual iPhone keynote is just 1 hours and 45mins away. As always, I'm among one of the millionth fans from all around the world waiting anxiously/excitedly/nervously, x-x-ly of whatever they might announce.

First of all, I would like to make some sort of prediction based on all the rumors and "leaked" info floating around the net before the actual event.

Looking at the picture above, it's the one sent out to the tech journalists around the world as an invitation. People started analyzing this. All icons are obviously from iOS itself or to be more accurate, iPhone itself. first 3 icons (top left, top right, bottom left) seems to be pretty straight forward.

Top left = Calendar app = 4th Oct 2011 = date of the actual event today

Top right = Clock app = time of the event = 10 a.m. P.S.T.

Bottom left = Map app = Cuppertino office , Apple's campus where the keynote is held

the mystery one would be the 4th icon :-

Bottom right = Phone app = with 1 badge above signifies a miss call.

now people have been speculating about this. some say the number 1 represent only 1 new iPhone model that's going to be introduced. This excludes the model of iPhone 4 which would be dumbed down to just 8GB of storage and would be available with contract for $99 in the States. The new model would be of a new design (be it radically new or just moderately new) of iPhone 4s or 5.

the last part of the invitation reads "Let's talk iPhone". Now, when Apple held its annual keynote during last June 2011, it has a tag line "back to the Mac". When i see that, I read it as "Apple is now focusing its attention back to the Mac lines, not just purely iOS devices" which makes sense. It's still part of the company's product although now their main income mostly comes from the sale of iOS devices. So based on that knowledge alone, this sentence today might not be so straight forward. It could literally means "lets talk, iPhone". Apple acquired Siri - developer of personal assistance app for the iPhone awhile back. Many speculate that they will debut the "Assistance" feature today for the new iPhone which would be astounding. It should be regarded as a fundamental improvement to the way voice command works. Right now, the current version of iOS supports limited voice commands to call a person, dial certain numbers, play song, ask for the song title, artist name but it's all fairly limited. Google's Android allows the user to use voice over to capture and perform search as well (although there's a similar app for that for iOS called Dragon Dictation) but i guess all these still requires fair amount of accuracy and only accepts certain verbs/noun as inputs. If Apple does this right (usually they do), it would be a high selling point, not major, but could be a potential hit.

With that said, looking at another perspective is that iPhone generally is being iterated by Apple averagely about 12 months (plus/minus). This time around, it took them more than 15 months to even announce a new model. Other competing company e.g. Google and Microsoft with their Android and Windows Phone 7 (except this one, Mango a.k.a. 7.5 was just released a few days ago) is already catching up to iOS not to mention about the phone manufacturer for these OS e.g. HTC, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson, etc. These people releases new or reiterates new version of their phones every few months or so and with the rate that they do this, it's already surpassed the mighty iPhone 4 in terms of CPU and ram. They still fall behind Apple's gorgeous ultra high density - Retina display though. So with that said, all eye's on Apple today and if they merely just release a new iPhone with the same housing a iPhone 4 just like what they did with iPhone 3Gs vs iPhone 3G they are going to disappoint a lot of fans and maybe lost a few along the way as well. I would not budge, but would not be that compelled to upgrade to it.

With all these pressure from competition and there's really not much breathing space left anymore in the mobile phone market, wrong move or being ignorance over your success will be costly. think Nokia and Blackberry, they were giant once and look at them, struggling right now to even keep up. They have loyal fans still but how far that will take them in the future? Palm tried, failed, bought over by HP, tried again, failed. Competition is always good, and it's good for the consumers like us.

With that said, here's my final prediction and hope for today's event.

1) new iPhone design (I don't really mind the name, 4S, 5, iPhone HD, whatever)

2) perhaps higher resolution screen (3.7" or 4", currently iPhone 4 has around 70% of iPad's resolution, they could cramp in another 30% if they increase the screen size, which in turn would allow the new iPhone to perhaps run all of the existing iPad apps?)

3) iPhone 4 to be released alongside the new iPhone with trimmed down storage of 8GB and sell for $99 for contract.

4) iOS 5 launch today for existing customers

5) iPhone (new) availability in the states from next 2 weeks or even 3

6) most likely no new iPods holiday lineup (unlikely as they said it's "let's talk iPhone" event)

Okay, here's the final stretch and I'm all fired up for the keynote later.

Let's go Apple. Ball's in your court. your move.

New layout

2011-10-03T12:17:00.006+08:00

It has been a while ever since I last fiddled with my blog layout. Was about to post an entry but noticed that Google said there's a new template designer so I went and experimented with it.

Overall a refreshing new look which I hope would not be too laggy for most users. In case of anything, do let me know by dropping a comment on this post. Tested with iPad and although officially it does not support this theme but then it loaded just fine, albeit without any animation.

Click on a picture for the full post, click on its title or anywhere else from the post (aside from its photos) to hide and go back to main page. :)

p:/s: animation appeared to be choppy on my desktop...hmmm.

中秋节快乐！Happy mid autumn festival 2011

2011-09-12T23:28:00.005+08:00

Had a fun ad-hoc moon cake tea break today as we kinda had a yearly tradition. Previous year's post were here.

Hope you had a wonderful 中秋节，2011. 明年见!

Lego minifig series 4 - kimono girl

2011-09-11T16:49:00.001+08:00

Hehe, surprise collection to my minifigs.

Simple lunch

2011-09-11T14:32:00.001+08:00

Simple lunch :) oh and nice weather too...

My art - Moo

2011-08-31T19:28:00.000+08:00

While waiting for my friend to have his beef noodle....

Happy food collections :)

2011-08-29T22:35:00.002+08:00

Dedicating this post to the small collection of chocolate I received from friends and colleagues during their oversea trip. Most importantly from Japan as you can see from above.

I've just realized they have a lot of different kinds of KitKat over there. We only have like 2 or 3? looking at the pictures here... and they all tastes a bit different from one another. I couldn't really read but some tastes like greentea, some perhaps wasabi, some exclusive local Japanese state/province taste.. LOL..

I forgot where was this from but should be from WH's last biz trip. Mum loves it... i mean the wrapping...

See the main difference apart from colorful packaging of the Japanese KitKat (right one) is the opening cut. U.S./Malaysia's version has the zigzag cutting but theirs have only 1 cut which is both clean and functional IMHO.

One of my fav chocolate brand and able to taste different types of them does indeed made me happy. I kept them in the freezer long enough until this holiday season which I decided to haul my lazy butt to snap and snack them, immortalize this as part of my memories on the cloud. :)

Go KitKat! and thanks to friends and colleagues who brought me these... appreciate it and hope you'll bring me more in the future :p

My art - girl portrait practice 3

2011-08-21T05:10:00.000+08:00

Another midnight sketch/paint series. continuing girl portrait practice.

Sketchbook pro with Wacom.

My Art - caved in

2011-08-09T00:29:00.003+08:00

started my first midnight sketch series #1

time limit : 1hour

Sketchbook Pro with Wacom Bamboo Fun

almost lifeless for a few months now... rushing for project deadlines... T__T no end in sight.. sigh

9th July 2011 - George Town World Heritage Site Celebration

2011-07-10T15:41:00.005+08:00

Thanks to uncle Ng for inviting, though I kinda rejected at first cos I was buried with calls and decided to just take a break at the last minute and just attended this session. It was loooong since our gang organized any form of outing already...

This is in conjunction with the 3rd anniversary of Georgetown World Heritage Site celebration thingy that's happening these few days...

Just followed some schedule and came to this puppet show organized in one of the hotel here - Yeng Keng hotel to be exact. nice looking hotel with nice ambiance, quite a lot of audience i would say, some having dinner in the tables laid out just in front of the small stage for the show.

can see the actors guiding the puppet's movement with the thin piece of rod...

Got some smoke effect as well.. dun play play.. :p

This guy was playing the instrument at the side of the stage, what amazes me was that, the girl is controlling the guy puppet, this guy is performing music at the side of the stage at the same time performing his lines as well. The other girl puppet was controlled by another person but her voice was actually from the girl who controlled the guy puppet... hmmm.. strange but interesting arrangements...

Went over to little India to witness some Indian cultural dance, too many ppl circling the performance area, not liking to fire off my flash so... here's to some blurry but...maybe otherwise acceptable form of motion pic? :p

caught this on the blink of a second...

Went over opposite of the road to this Chinese temple... forgot the name

Not bad but indeed rusty for me... and the weather's warm at nite too... :)

RG - Aile Strike Gundam

2011-07-02T23:00:00.004+08:00

Managed to snagged this up... thx to Julian who spotted it on another store... :) my 2nd Real Grade Gundam - Aile Strike. Hesitated a bit to pick it up, but you know, he passed the squat test of mine so... harder to resists.. :)

Back pack from skygraspher

Shield with beam rifle action

dagger holster

Daggers strike!

Looked slim without his backpack... :)

Usually this decides 70% of the purchase for me, the ultimate test of articulation... he passed most of it.. :)

Dual wield beam sabers

Both RG side by side.. :) another nice collection if i could say so myself... price also cheaper than MG. saves room space as well :p

My art - Golden Pheasent

2011-06-28T10:46:00.000+08:00

finger painted with sketchbook pro on iPad... getting rusty... =___= almost gave up half way... but I've persisted...

Jack Sparrow LEGO

2011-06-25T18:31:00.002+08:00

ahh.. another small collection I spotted in Austin at a local Best Buy store. just 1 single figure in simple plastic packaging.. $9.99. not too bad if I could say so myself, immediately snatched up this excellent minifig!

very nice hairdo.... really authentic Jack Sparrow Lego.. :p

movement of his arms are a bit hampered by his fixed hairdo but nothing major here... worth the trade off... gotta take off his hair piece to shift his face though... notice the individual hair strands on his face as well.. hehe.. nice touch..

Just checked the official Pirates of the Caribbean Lego product page and it didn't have this version of Captain Jack Sparrow.. luckily I've spotted it... hehehehehehe... I am Happy... ^^v

LEGO Cars 2 Lightning McQueen and Classic Mater

2011-06-08T15:56:00.001+08:00

Only bought a few stuff for myself, including these 2 irresistible LEGO cars from CARS 2 from Pixar's animation... :)

never thought they'd release this on LEGO and since the price out of here is cheaper around 50%, just grab it straight away.

Loved the cutesy... with big big eyes... Mater even has his cute mouth with the bulge tooth! hehe..

Cute isn't it? so far it has not reached here yet... :) goes into my cabinet to avoid dusts.. :)

2011 端午节

2011-06-06T16:23:00.001+08:00

米饭与包子打群架，米饭见包着的就打，豆沙包，蒸饺无一幸免。粽子急了,把衣服一撕：“看清楚我是卧底！” 端午节快乐！

26th May 2011 - St. Congress Ave, Austin's Bats

2011-06-06T10:00:00.003+08:00

Heard this place from WH that it's a tourist attraction in Austin, well to be frank. I didn't prepare much for the trip aside from the dreaded CRP decks that I have to have in order to present our system to the business folks there.

the last thing I have on my mind is to plan for where to go for any form of sight seeing. mostly just shopping perhaps...

one day, my SL just asked me "hey you wanna go for a dinner?", "sure, why not?" I've answered since it's almost the end of the trip and I haven't had the chance to eat with him officially so... there goes.

Upon hoping in the cab I noticed they mentioned the name of the place, I was very very excited that i get to go, for once I thought i'd missed it. I begged for 5 mins to go grab my gear and the next minute i was in there with them again with my bag, happy, excited, anticipating... bats.

the skies were particularly nice that day, clear, blue, skies... they dropped me at the place where they were having dinner. some sort of pub that served dinner on the other section of the restaurant.

I briefly jotted down the name, and since it's a straight line down the road, i just bid them good bye and started to walk back to the bridge where the cab driver pointed to me a while ago.

and boy, it was a long walk... bout 25 - 30mins with constant fast pace walking and brief running. bags grew heavier as I walked, not to mention the toll it caused my bag last weekend where me and Calvin walked many many miles just to get to somewhere we can grab a cab home.

when i reached the bridge, i was on the left side (standing from this angle), there were nobody on this side of the bridge. I just saw a lonesome bicycle rider and curiously i walked up to him. I asked "hey man, wassup? say, I'm here to watch the bats, can you tell me why there are nobody here but there are tonnes of ppl on the other side of the bridge?" (i roughly know the answer but i want more confirmation from locals).

look at the amount of ppl standing over at the other side of the bridge! well, turns out that on this side, the sun sets and the bats will fly out towards that direction underneath the bridge. So, carefully, i walked over to the other side of the bridge, but not without snapping a few sunset shots. >_^

Loved sunset as much as sunrise... :)

Next up, looked for a good spot and continue to snap a few shots over at the other side while waiting for the bats to come out from their slumber...

UFO?

as the skies turned darker and darker (it was already past 8pm), still looked as bright. more cruise ships with tourist passed and stopped just slightly beyond the underpass of the bridge. these gives the viewer better angle and first chance to witness the bats hanging below the bridge first.

Next, without further ado, here comes the bats.... they came out from the underside of the bridge, swirling around in circular motion... following each other... it was quite dark and cranked up my ISO all the way to ultra high doesn't appear to do any trick. So I resorted to flash... ugly, but my only option... sorry if you were hoping more... I was too... then I've learned something...

for those who doesn't know, the white thing are the bats.. poor thing flashed by me.. sorry sorry... just a few shots... :) noticed the skies turned darker and darker...

but no matter how dark the skies was getting, the water should always be even of a darker color, cos there's nothing there that shines... but the skies, at least the sun still has some effect on it. So if i were to stand off the bridge, somewhere at a lower angle, and shoot towards the skies + the bridge, i can get a better picture of the swarm... :) next time, if there's next time... i will. take this as a lesson then..

the bats swirls out in circular motion, quiet... chaotic looking to me but should be quite organized within themselves. they've pretty much adapted to these for many many years. standing just on top of them for a while can really smell the foul stench that they produce.. yyeeessshh....

after a while, they flew out towards the distant skies, searching for food... i tried zooming in and snapped a few shots.. they're fairly blurry, but pay attention to the faint dark blurry trails.. those are the bats... :)

I left after some 30mins of watching these, just as the skies about to rain, the bats are still coming out from the bridge. Amazing, think there are literary millions of bats there... such amazing sight!

This will provide slightly more info if you're interested...

hard to catch lightning.... till then, this is one of my few few only shots there in Texas... :)

My art - Smile 5

2011-06-04T16:45:00.002+08:00

ahh.. finally hauled my lazy butt to continue painting... hate it when you're pretty much occupied and free time reduced to nothing but rest and just tiny bits of time left...

guess that's no reason to stay stagnant isn't it? :)

hopefully the groove comes back to me.. keep paintin'~

23rd May 2011 - Saltlake Steakhouse, Austin, TX

2011-05-24T12:20:00.004+08:00

Went to this Saltlake Steakhouse in Austin today.. was quite nice. just nearby the hotel area.. by near i mean with car...

See this cute wolf drinking beer... seems to be enjoying himself

what would Texas be without the brahma bull?

bread, hot crispy bread with butter to spread

some chips/nachos with i'm not-too-sure-Mexican style sauce and salad dip

the chicken soup was surprisingly good, thick, tasty with a bit of cheese in it...

My main course, BBQ mushroom with cheese and button mushrooms...

Behold the BBQ chicken tucked under the layer of cheese and mushrooms, the BBQ sauce was quite delicious, sweet + salty

side order of vege... couldn't just take all those meat without any greens...

Nice place overall, nice waiter, nice western/cowboy style atmosphere, cosy place with warm company.. :)

Happy mother's day 2011

2011-05-08T20:08:00.004+08:00

Brought mum for fancy restaurant at TGI Friday's QB for the occasion. Reached early and had a nice meal, mum's main course gets % of discount equaled to her age.. hehehehehehe.... not gonna disclose here... :)

My favorite Lemonade... fizzy style.. yummmm...

mum's Chicken/ Shrimp diablo pasta thingy...

my chicken with mushroom.. hmmmm. so so..

How's your celebration?

Happy mother's day to all mum! :) you are the best... <3

Happy Anniversary to my blog... again :)

2011-04-14T19:44:00.001+08:00

Just an entry to mark the occasion that this blog still functions and is still up and running for now the 3rd years :)

more goodness in life to come... stay tuned.

Happy birthday Kitkeatbar!

9th April 2011 - Q2C appreciation dinner @ Rasa Sayang Spice Market

2011-04-09T23:43:00.004+08:00

Finally, wanna take a moment to thank each and everyone for organizing this dinner for us. Kam siah!

Secondly, thanks to my CFO team for weathering all the hardship that we endure, countless over time ($ not included), dead lines, ETA this ETA that... defects to squash, manual job to run, monitor, printers to troubleshoot, orders to close, invoice to generate... the list goes on and on and on and ..charing endless calls, coordination this n that..

But, it's all over now.. :) good job everyone..

thanks to colleagues from other team who helped out as well, without their dedication, we probably fared even worse...

please pat yourself at the back, you deserved it!

Special shot dedicated to all the children who attended the fun :) cute!

Did some snap for my mum as well... :)

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..... smile~

finishing up with panorama~

Let's climb the next mountain.. :)

LATAM here we come!!!

P/S: click on each art for a large version. If you like this, please click on the advertisement on the right side below under [Please Click Me] & [Pls click n show support~] to follow this blog. Thanks!

new spec - transition

2011-04-02T21:40:00.003+08:00

gotten a new pair of spectacles today.. :) not that my old one was broken no. it's still going strong... just a bit loose.

the weather are getting hotter these day and so does the sun. Shinning brightly is killing my eyes, I can't get a standard sunglasses as i need prescription lenses and i don't like those clip on.. hassle so.. i opt for transition lens.. not cheap.. >_< but hopefully it's worth it in a long run.. good news is that my power only raised about 50 points on the right eye... not much difference for left...

is this a sign that im taking a good care of my eyes? not sure.. there's some crazy OTs going on these few months for JP rollout... or it means that i'm getting old... and the effect starts to kick in? LOL...

27th Mar 2011 - Penang for Japan Disaster Relief Charity

2011-03-27T20:20:00.004+08:00

Earth quake and tsunami hit Japan just 6 days shortly after I depart from Japan from biz trip at 11th Mar 2011.

Devastation everywhere, damage by earthquake perhaps was minimal as Japanese are generally prepared for it. Tsunami basically wiped out the entire prefecture of Sendai not to mention causes trouble at the nuclear power plant.

Helped poured in from all around the world shortly, donations, rescue work, evacuation you name it.

Penang has this charity event which are held today to raise fund for the cause as well and it's a 1 day event. Seeing how my mum likes Japanese stuff, I brought her there.

There were lots of people at the event probably cos it's a one day event only and today was Sunday itself.

Not too may Japanese items for sale though there were some, generally everyone turned up for the event and the whole place was just full of life.

Casual kimono try outs for RM10 for photo session, too bad mum didn't want to try. If I were here, I'd give it a shot :)

Reading the letter from the organizer, touching.. just realized that the event was 100% donation event, self funded by kind volunteers, kudos!

Today's afternoon skies were particularly bright and blue, can't help myself but shot and stitched up a panorama for my collection :)

To the people of Japan, my condolence to you, your family and your people. Do not be afraid as the world is watching and help is coming from every corner. You will recover though not easy, and you will stand even stronger than before, there are hopes, do not give up, we will pray for you. I have seen parts of your country and the place and people are amazingly wonderful, I will return one day in the future to other parts of the country... :) thanks for the hospitality!

See you, land of the rising sun!

4th March 2011 - Good bye Tokyo, for now :)

2011-03-04T22:01:00.006+08:00

Would like to document another entry into my memories for future references.. :)

Finally, it all comes down to this... end of the grueling 3rd weeks on site... in the heart of the den as I would put it. Man, sitting around and surrounded by your business users certainly put more strain on you more than I can imagine ;)

But thanks to my outstanding team mates, you guys helped me pass through these weeks smoother than ever before. Big thank you to you all! Bravo! let's keep it up, almost at the end already..

I fell sick yesterday with fever so I only went out to grab some bread and headed back hotel, didn't even take my dinner and went straight to bed to hibernate...

Today, when the clock struck 5, I was ready to leave the office. Bid everyone good bye and thanked them for having me. So wonderful to meet them in person as well :)

The immediate thing that popped into my mind was that I want to have authentic Japanese food for the last time until the next time I fly over again.

Went to Kawasaki JR station, I remembered there was a Krispy Kreme Donut store there, went to check it out (other time was closed already since I left the office quite late). Today finally got the chance and ordered 2 donuts (choco something and hazel nut something)

quite sweet as well, almost as much as Big Apple donut... still okay, inside there's no cream filling though. I liked those... and with my favorite drink I found in Japan.. CC Lemon hehehee.. Lemonade soda... nice ;)

Next, to pamper myself, I took the "green car" section of the train again.. hehehe.. for those that don't know what I'm talking about, the trains have little segment that are specially catered for person who seek a little more comfort - hence the Green car.

As you guessed it, it's larger, spacious, have own seats that can recline and basically almost crowd free at night. :)

I didn't pay anything extra though. Checked with my JP colleague here he said that if conductor comes, you may pay, else just take it as free... :)

There's upper and lower deck, I took lower deck last time, this time I took upper deck. Nice and quiet... somehow the journey back to Shinagawa around 6 mins feels shorter. Particularly cos I was reluctant to finish the last ride for now.. :)

I was searching around in Shinagawa area for sushi restaurant... and guess what? It's freaking hard to locate a sushi restaurant in Japan itself.. well, so far in Shinagawa at least.. :p

I walked around the area, mostly are serving claypots, BBQ, pubs, ramen.... there's 1 sushi restaurant eventually but full house.. x_x

Almost about to give up but I saw the sigh of sushi on a building, it was 2nd floor, curiously I gave it a shot... it was a very small and cramped space. But i was given a small corner near the chef's counter. Reluctantly I sat down, beside 2 guys who smoked.. (I hate smokers's smell) but knowing I would blame myself for not having 1 last authentic Japan sushi... I caved in... hehe

Found a guy who can speak a little bit of English, I ordered my usual stuff... pointed a few sushi... and off he go...

nice deco...don't think that's real though..

nice cup of hot green tea... yummm, i actually drank 4 cups in the course of the dinner.. :)

even their tooth picks are nicely decorated, ours are just plain ol stick which breaks easily.. this one looked like can poke and skewer something...

what's this? someone told me it's ginger... mua don't like ginger, i gave it a shot, bite a small piece.. mmm.. me don't like...

Wasabi, by default all of the sushi restaurant didn't give wasabi until you requested... strange.. Japanese doesn't take wasabi by default?

ahh.... sushi.... ok, the one with little fish eggs? i don't normally take those, but did so in Japan... :)

Miso soup, another must have before I fly back... strangely, their Miso soup be it clamp, crab, or fish... they throw the whole thing in for you. I ordered crab, with no fork or spoon or gadget to pry open (although it was cut into some other pieces) but still not enough, gotta use hand.. no no. i just drank the soup :)

one of the nicest cup I've seen here... for..

Okay, 1 last must have... Cawamushi!... see the leaves sprinkled on top? yeah.. me don't like either... smells funny, taste even funnier.. took those out. They seemed to put this frequently... =__=!

okay, last but not least, I went to The Strings hotel's lobby and use their free wifi again. Updated my apps before I fly back tomorrow. It's very very very hard to locate Free Wifi in Japan. I'm sooo surprised...

Okay, thing's packed... all set.. ready to come back now... Japan, thanks for having me... and looking forward to come back next round with my parents.. :) Sakura time! (season starts around end of Mar -> April annually)

One more thing i'll miss... the cold/cool weather.... time to come back n sweat... hahhaa...

nice lunch and special dinner in Japan....

2011-02-16T22:43:00.005+08:00

Dinner

Went to this place for lunch in the same office block. The entire plaza is huge, with tonnes of restaurants. we just happened to settle for this one as they seem to have english menu.. ^^

have to keep your shoes on the cupboards and walk inside rooms...

sits down with legs "under" the leg room...

my fried rice set with.. some sort of shark fin style soup...

Viktor's sea food rice set...

Dinner

we're quite late again today to leave office.. in fact getting later and later by the days... =__=!

walked around Kawasaki station and found this section where they have a few nice restaurants... saw this special "standing sushi bar" and just went in.. :)

and yes, english menu included..

leaves were put on top in front of the counter where we stand... guess this is where they put the sushis.,. ^^

nice fresh sushis~~~~

tuna handroll... ^^

tastes very very very nice.. how do they made it? look below...

burn baby.. burn... ^^

compare this with the fresh salmon sushi a few photos above.. looked different after "toasted"

Scenery nearby... lesser ppl as it was getting late... but nice, calm, cooling atmosphere.. me likes... :)

Nice nice dinner in a small place... special experience...

Good nite everyone.. :)

*Photos taken with iPhone 4 - stock camera app

Happy White Valentine's 2011

2011-02-14T23:02:00.006+08:00

Valentine’s 2011… let’s see. It’s very special this year, it happened to be Valentine’s day as well… and it’s a white Valentine’s for me.

This year, I spent Valentine’s alone (excluding Viktor.. haha) and… it was quite wonderful although it could be better, why?

First of all, I finally fulfilled one of my childhood dream à travel to Japan.. or more precisely Tokyo Japan. Technically speaking, I’m here for business trip to support users but then it counts as well I guess. I’m physically here and I’m very very thankful for this opportunity.

I’m nervous as usual as I’m travelling alone (not something that I do a lot) and I was asking questions here and there, e.g. how to get here, what train to catch, how, where, when, how much, you name it. thankfully, my wonderful friends/colleagues gave me nice instructions (special thanks to Ruslan for the excellent turn by turn photos that showed the way from Train station all the way to Tsunoi-san’s cube! I was floored at how detailed it was and thanks Pei Nee for showing me the place in Google’s street view. :) )

Today was the first day I went to work, took train there, around 10 mins to reach, only 1 station apart from Shinagawa to Kawasaki. Lots of ppl at train station and it was very crowded. Train moved at faster speed than the one in Malaysia, perhaps more than 100km/h. ^^

Reached office area and met up with IT colleagues, Finance colleagues, finally able to meet up with the person you worked with and along side. :) nervous and excited at the same time, I thought time flew by in Penang but this was blasting off like a rocket… I didn’t even have time to go to the washroom.. hahahha… :)

After work, went to Lazona mall nearby to catch dinner… was looking for place to have sushi as Viktor would wanted to try them and boy oh boy, it’s amazingly hard to find a sushi restaurant so far! Gasp… finally we found one, but had to put down our name in the waiting list and waited outside, after 15mins it was our turn.

Ordered some nice sushi, fresh, tasty, even the fish tasted crunchy! And we’re facing trouble with the menu as not a whole lot of them are written in English. Luckily, I managed to snagged up free wifi which is also extremely rare in Japan (double gasp!) and fired up Google Translator FTW!

Communicated well.. sort of 1 way as I can only type and show the translation in Japanese but have no way to ask the other party to translate back in English (it does have the option to speak though but then the environment is not that suitable though not very noisy). It kinda gets the job done in a way, :)

Nice nice food, sushi, green tea, chawamushi, miso soup with crab (at first I thought it was pre-prepared crab meat sticks that we have but it was actually the whole crab cut in half and its meat shredded and mixed into the soup!) nice big bowl… almost like a whole bowl of instant noodle that I have back home! Nice!

I was very very full, translated my thanks for the nice food, requested for a photo of the sifu who prepared our food and bid him good night and good bye… :) wonderful wonderful experience…

When we’re walking back, it was already late as it was 10:30pm… and guess what? It was snowing! Man, like … huge heavy snow! Almost comparable if not heavier than the snow I’ve experienced in Dalian not long ago! Wow…. Very very nice, I’m still amazed at how nice (and cold) snow can be… as I walked, I kinda pay special attention to the floor as I tripped and fell down once in Dalian… *shy and hope not to repeat it again here… and which I’m happy to report I did not fall down at all.. (touch wood, at least so far).

Took the train back to Shinagawa, bid Viktor good bye and walked the moderate (15mins) journey back to hotel. It was snowing heavily still, I had my umbrella opened to shield snow for the first time! Wow, many first time in this trip. Walking back the lonely white snowy path, I’m still concentrating my footings but my mind wanders… it’s nice, as this is a very strange and wonderful feeling.

Picture this, walking at a foreign country, in snow, alone, at night, on a lonely walkway, listening to my fav. Artist’s à Taylor Swift’s songs. Peaceful, calming and just…nice. It could be better, like walking alongside with a partner sharing an umbrella under the snow flakes. Something I never thought of all these while (I only thought about walking in the rain sharing the same umbrella.. hahahaha, I guess this overwrites that as a much more romantic scene, :p) and yeah, today’s Valentine’s so, can’t help myself but having this kinda thoughts, hahahah. Well, this is just another dream that I hope to achieve in the near future J something to look forward to…

Reached hotel, bought a cup of coffee from the convenience store, grabbed my free 500Yen voucher for participating in Greener room service campaign by the hotel whereby for every 1 day of skipping room service, I receive a voucher to be used inside the hotel’s store. The catch is, continuously you may skip up to 2 days but for hygienic purposes, they will clean the room on 3^rd day. J 1^st day, more to go...

I just knew that for Japanese's culture, it's girls who are buying chocolate as gifts for guys.. wow, so wonderful to be a Japanese guy :p and they sell tonnes of nice looking chocolates as well...

Well, intended to be a shorter post than this, guess i just have more to say for this entire day itself. I have more shots of the place and sushi in my camera but was too tired to process them this round, will have it either here or in my facebook account next time.

Lastly, wishing all the love birds out there A very Happy Valentine's day :)

Cheers and good night!

My art - 福兔

2011-02-05T17:03:00.002+08:00

1st painting for 2011 and just in time for Chinese New Year 2011 - year of the rabbit!

wishing all readers a wonderful and prosperous year ahead and stay healthy!

My Aussie trip 2010 Part#3 - The Caribbean Garden Market

2011-01-23T09:58:00.003+08:00

Virginia brought us over to a market, hmmm The Caribbean garden market. Reminded me of Pirates of the Caribbean :p.

Not a big fan of touring market (at least at my place anyway) but I won't mind giving it a try since this is foreign and their market should be cleaner (without the slaughtering of animals) and stench free.

They sell all sorts of stuff here, fruits, vegetables, flowers, and... my favorite.. roasted nuts! WH reminded me to get some Macadamia nuts from AUS and I saw it was one of the nuts that are being roasted and packed for sale. We tried some sample and they were very very tasty! roasted with honey mind you. but it's not cheap, 1 pack goes for AUD8 and we bought only 2 - 3 packs.

Next comes the usual stuff that one would see, kitchenwares, toiletries stuff, souvenirs, toys, even pirated discs! gasp.. didn't thought they'd have it there in AUS.. haha.. bought a bunch of smaller stuffs.

Photoshoot in front of the market... haha..

Again, she likes flower, oh ya. It would be wise to ask for permission before snapping away...

There's a nice lovely lake just beside the market... nice view, cool and cosy and relaxing

there's a few ducks on the lake itself.. and eventually some flapped their wings and took off.. I was like.. huh??? .. the ducks here can fly? then I thought about the classic game i used to play.. Duck Hunt... oh yeah... some ducks do fly... :)hahaha.. silly me..

My Aussie trip 2010 Part#2 - touched down, settle down and some time with Mi~ran-da

2011-01-01T22:12:00.005+08:00

Was very excited the moment the plane lands, aside from not able to switch on my phone's cellular data. I didn't miss too much of the action, we walked towards the clearance point and went to collect our baggage. As we brought some food over, needed to be checked in a separate section. They are very strict which I fully understand and this only benefits the whole residents.

Virginia was waiting for us when we proceeded out towards the exit. :) Waited for Alan, I stepped outside of the door to feel the weather, man it's cooling. Not too cold, but cool enough for me. The skies were gloomy as if it was about to rain, felt like Genting (10 years ago). haha...

I saw in front of the car, whipped out my camera.. took some shots here and there. A little bit like what they say 阿牛下城, like someone from village venturing into a big city. hahaha, mostly I'm just thrilled to be here, after all it's my first visit to foreign country and also temporary leaving behind work duties to my trusted colleagues and friends.

Was quite excited to see this lamp post, of which the signs are in English. Back in hometown, it's mostly in Malay and some in Chinese language. This was quite refreshing. :) Reminded me that I'm in a western country.

We went pass Melbourne city, there's like no car around. Turns out that it was the racing day. Sorry I forgot what specific name it was but it's like an annual event whereby ppl will go see race horse competing it out for prizes. So the city looked deserted...rare... :)

Home at last, I loved this type of single store house... wish I can get one in the future...

Mum just loved flowers... "fast fast, take for me" she said. "aiyo, you see the flowers, so nice, so pretty, fast take some shots for me"... little do I realize, I'm her private photographer for this trip already starting at that very moment...

Who do we have here? ooh, Miranda... she really grew a lot since early this year's Chinese New Year when I last saw her. Quite cheeky too... I snapped her, and showed her my camera's screen and asked her.. "who is this?"

"Mi~Ran.da" she said, excitedly and laughed. I then asked her to hold the ball and tried to get some shots again. She's quite patient enough to let me compose a few shots, and each time I showed her the end result she'd smile and laugh excitedly... :)

After a few days staying there, I soon come to realize that she is quite playful (well, normal for her age) and sometimes went a liiiiitle bit overboard. Her parents will bring her to 1 special corner for her to stand (by the name ..... yes you've guessed it.. the Naughty Corner)

Well. what's so special bout the Naughty Corner, nothing. it's just a small corner by the small staircase, but to her it signified that she's naughty at the moment and she would cry when she was put there. :p

And this happened quite a lot.. hahaha.. dare I say at least once per day? But it's cute, everything, the sight of seeing that, hearing that... :) well, might not be so for her parents but we as "outsider" in this ordeal find it to be funny.. she meant no harm, just a bit..well, naughty.

She's quite friendly, likes to lift up her hand and say "Hi~~" to people. Said hi to me a couple of times, I would hi back, even taught her to hi-5! my mum taught her to sing children's song - 客人来.

it goes like this...

客人来，看爸爸，爸爸不在家

我请客人先坐下，再敬一杯茶

Oh, 1 more funny thing we've discovered. She would say, "Kitkat".. then me and my mum was like, what kitkat? there's no kitkat. Virginia corrected us that she meant 这个, zhe ge, not kitkat. hahahahhaa.... :p silly us..

Hope to see you again in a month's time... Mi~ran.da!

hi 2011

2011-01-01T00:00:00.000+08:00

hi, hello 2011. nice to meet you. This would be a welcoming post for the new year and for myself to refer back end of the year around Dec 2011. :)

by no means I wanted to make any personal resolution as I'm pretty darn sure making a few of these and checking back end of the year would make me looked like someone who can't live up to his own words. Instead, I would just like to set some expectation for myself, which I hope I could carry out gradually, consistently throughout the year.

learn more new things constantly
fully make use of my personal time to do the things I liked which I think are productive
healthy eating habit (cutting down on spicy, oily and sweet stuffs)
better temper management
trust myself more and expect less from others
no/minimal regrets when I check back this blog at the end of the year

2011 is going to be an exciting year I'm pretty sure bout that, from all angles. I thing's for sure, I wish everyone a very healthy year. Health enables us to stay strong to pursue whatever that we wanted.

Till then, sit back, take some deep breaths and embrace yourself for 2011.

End of 2010

2010-12-30T02:22:00.002+08:00

Wow, just wow. The other day I was digging through my previous year's year end blog post.

Going through that post seems to me that it was still very fresh and I couldn't believe that an entire year has gone by. this to me has only 2 possible explanation, either the year was very busy for me or i don't have much going on this year. hmmm, 2nd point probably not true.

going through this entire year's blog posts to trace my adventures...

I'll keep this strictly as a closure post and post another one for the opening of 2011 and expectations and resolution and stuff. :)

I noticed that...

this year me and the gang went out far fewer outings compared to 2010. not sure why? less planning and probably because of the global project as well...
I had far better art posts than photography posts which I strived for, let's keep up the trend. as much as I would like to have both, I just couldn't and will have to minimize the other one
first time for the following :-

went to Air Itam damn with the gang even though I lived here for almost 30 years
went to see the majestic Kuan Yin statue on top of Kek Lok Si temple
joined Earth Hour campaign
went to Bodhi heart sanctuary with the gang
went for photoshoot at local Chinese Opera show in 7th Lunar month
co-planned and organized and participated in team building at Hard Rock Hotel Penang
boarded airplane for cross country flights!
went to Australia!
went to China!
experienced snow and cold cold weather!
traveled to foreign country on my own
missed my flight and slept at Shanghai airport

Gadgets owned :-

iPhone 4
iPad

gosh, so few... i gotta start pamper myself more next year.. :p more... i-devices! muahahahahha

thing's I've learned this year :-

worked with different types of people from across the world, different culture, different slang, different expectation, different habits, different behaviors, enriching, exciting, exhausting, extreme!
time is limited, when u want something just go for it, live a life with as few regrets as possible
learn to have some little goals in life for yourself to look forward to everyday, gives you the extra energy and lift when you open your eyes to face a brand new day
a lot of people passed away this year, nothing is permanent and so are people around you. not necessary passed away but friends or family could be leaving us to pursue their dreams/goals. cherish each and everyone as much as possible.
working hard towards a goal doesn't mean you will succeed in the end, it gives u 50% fighting chance, but if you did not work towards it at all, you have 0%.
I don't believe in luck but i do believe that if it were to exists, it would meant that you're prepared and able to embrace the situation to take advantage of it.
I had the best relative relationships ever and I cherish my relatives very very much. thank you guys for being the most awesome relatives that a family could ever have!
time is catching up to me... my goodness.. i'm.. hitting the big 3-0 already... =_=
some that i couldn't think of at the moment... :p

I wanted to express my gratitude towards friends and family members who helped out throughout the entire year. both mum and dad for their support in everything I do, thanks dad for printing out my paintings for me to stick on my wall (for free.. muahahahaha), thanks to mum for carrying out most of the house chores and cooks for us (shy), my uncle and especially my auntie for fetching my mum to hospital for regular checkups and also fetch me whenever I need to travel (thank you thank you thank you guys so very much!). thanks to my colleagues who battled alongside to achieve the impossible! C.F.O. ROQX! (this statement could be contradicting depending on what time you ask me.. :p) thanks for my friends, especially some close ones that chat with me, listened to my stories throughout the entire year (ups n downs) and really needed you guys else I would be consumed in utter madness in the confines of my room. thanks! thanks to Pek Kong for giving our family protection and blessing throughout the year especially while I'm in the cold cold weather in China, Kam siah!

what's your thought about 2010?

My Aussie trip 2010 Part#1

2010-12-27T09:31:00.008+08:00

Australia - the land down below, land of kangaroos, koalas, Tasmania? Decided to make a small trip there accompanied by mum.

1 trip 2 destinations.

Took some time to get this blogged and will do it in short series so there are gonna be short posts about the places I've been to and I feel this is easier to do than doing it all at once.

Starting with the beginning, actually my first flight to a foreign country. Quite excited at the same time worried as well, travelling a vast distance (well, some of you might argue places you've been to has to fly further distance but this is not the point)

Having a decent amount of imaginations (sometimes good and bad), travelling high high up in the sky has its fair share of risks. 1 slight mistakes and it's mostly going to be a bye bye, sorry hahaha, started out with such grim sentences, couldn't help it every time I board a plane but statistic wise, it's still the safest means of transport available. Fascinating isn't it?

I tried to keep my mind occupied by either sleeping or turning on my phone (in flight mode) to get a crack of a few games. When we're almost there, I slide out the win blinds and noticed breathtaking views outside... simply.... amazing...

I even managed to capture the moon on top right corner..

Sun is slowly crawling upwards on the far horizon...

Rarely I have the chance to be above clouds...

busy busy year end 2010

2010-12-26T16:27:00.002+08:00

Well, I know I've been busy. busy with my job mainly.. everyone (most) people involved in the project are... most were not spared. Busy day, busy night, well just plain busy that's all.

I knew that I haven't post anything in my blog lately, but it was kinda shocking when I see the last post was early Oct. wow, just wow, almost 2 full months have I not posted anything. This blog to me is like a journal. Keeping track of my life, happenings. A few more stuff has happened during this 2 months and they're not just work though, but life.

I've just realized how much the current job has taken up my free time, mind and energy that I'm almost exhausted everytime I got back home with little to no energy left to do the stuff I liked.

Hopefully 2011 turned out to be a better year in terms of work-life balance. Let's see how I juggle my time in the upcoming year. :)

Until then, I'll do slowly post back some photos I've taken during this past 2 months, stay tuned.

My art - Smile 1

2010-10-02T14:04:00.000+08:00

Created with a new app -> ArtRage for iPad. so far is the most powerful painting app available for iPad. including unlimited layers, blending modes, unlimited undo, a lot of brushes and the first on iPad - paper textures. haven't really explored all yet and the app does perform slowly in some areas e.g. when opening layers, I fully understand as given the amount of features it would really push iPad to the max and the app does crashed 2 - 3 times during the creation of this painting... I think future updates should make it more stable ^^

anyway, going to explore more but so far sketchbook pro is still my fav app.. ^^

My art - Gaze 2

2010-09-27T18:18:00.000+08:00

Originally I started sketching the eye... thought I'd practice more.. then slowly.. I've added hair.. then nose.. lips.. etc... then it became a portrait.. :)

sketchbook mobile on iPhone 4

My art - Dark lord Vader

2010-09-21T20:43:00.000+08:00

muahahahhaha... feel the power of the dark side!

sketchbook pro on iPad... suddenly felt like sketching this bad dude... somehow, as I grew older I think he's funny. Back in the days when I was a kid, i used to be frightened by the sight of this guy... tall, shiny black armor... force choke the living out of under performing lackeys... hehehehe.. blows up planets with his death star...

ah... those were the days... :)

i've got it... ^^

2010-09-20T22:10:00.000+08:00

Finally, after months of waiting, weeks of stalking and days of planning... I finally got it....

Rounded metallic buttons replacing previous volume rocker

aluminium bands around the side of the phones... picture here the so called "antenna gate" death grip.. haha...

Headphone jack, what's that tiny hole beside it? it's a 2nd mic for noise cancelling

Ah... finally... flash.... ^^ haven't used it yet...

Delicious retina display... one of the main selling point of this phone for me

Macro lens zoomed all the way in to discover the pixels... look at the density... it has around 70% of iPad's 9.7'' screen's pixels all fitted into 3.7'' screen of the iPhone... iMPRESSIVE

Example of an app whereby developer updates the app to support retina display's high rez. Check out that icon of Pano app. And the update doesn't just stop at the icon's appearance, in app graphics are also high res. :)

And this one, freshly updated to retina display support. click on each image if you need a larger picture.

Safari, on older models of iPhone

Safari on iPhone 4

Overall, I am happy... ^^ of cos there's a whole new set of improvements in other areas as well such as the CPU and memory but not going into detail here. :)

FY11 Team building - 17th Sep 2010 @ Hard Rock Hotel Penang

2010-09-19T21:46:00.006+08:00

Finally we had the long awaited team building for FY11, this time at HardRock Hotel Penang which I never been to as of yet.. ^^

Had fun, laughter and joy throughout the 3 rock events... :) one particular note, whoever has phone that can access the internet had upperhand during the "treasure hunt" style games.. needless to say, my team with 2 iPhones with 3G connection came out.. :p sorry guys... a little bit of help from technology when your knowledge lacks... :p

Elvis painting in the bath room... this is hardrock after all...

My team... Spice (cheesy also.. wahahhahaha)

Winner!

WH posing in front of the guitar

Tallying the scores...

What would a team building be without a group photo? actually we had a couple but I will just post one.. :D notice the joyful face behind...

Pretty gals with evening wear...

hehehee.. wanted to try something under this famous lights...

Thank you to the co-organizers and attendees in making this a success! Hopefully everyone had fun and filled their stomach as well ^^

My art - Mech walker

2010-09-19T17:00:00.002+08:00

an attempt on mech... inspired by Ben Mauro's painting... ^^ sketchbook pro on iPad.

My art - Gaze

2010-09-13T08:12:00.001+08:00

hmmm... a gaze...

Chinese Opera shooting @ 27th Aug 2010

2010-08-28T20:04:00.004+08:00

Went for 7th lunar month Chinese Opera shooting with a small gang of 3 ppl. First time shot these though, it was hot, not much wind at night, not many audiences (mostly old folks and small kids) a few photographers and the actor/actresses. But it was a nice experience as I rarely watch these show even when I was a kid.

I did not climb up to the stage to shoot the preparation/make up process as I felt weird, only managed to snap 1 or 2 shots.

Then came the actual show, these shows are meant for the special "buddies" who've been said to come out during the 7th lunar month. The actresses's costumes are actually quite pretty..

My art - Nightmare

2010-08-22T18:47:00.000+08:00

nightmare.... the creature i first knew from the card game Magic. hmmmm.. not sure if it's a common creature in the fantasy world or not.. but it's kinda like a nightmarish horse that haunts your dream.... hopefully this one does a good job of that.. :D

Happy Fun Fair @ 10th Aug 2010

2010-08-21T09:48:00.005+08:00

this year finally went for a fun fair shoot... last year they were here once though. It's the one beside the open air car park beside Queensbay Mall.

Nothing too exciting but nice to be able to snap the spinning rides with the crazy light trails with slow shutter. ^^

wanna try the top-gun thing... maybe next time... hehe.. here's 1 spinning away...

My art - Leaf o Droplet - for my grandpa

2010-08-02T21:18:00.003+08:00

Woke up this morning to hear the news from my mum that my grandpa passed away. Painted this halfway and decided to complete it tonight.

There's nothing which I can relate him to this painting... but just something to dedicate to him and for me to remember him here, in cyberspace. I hardly really know him in depth as he lived in mainland and the only time I ever go there is during every Chinese New Year where I see him once for a few hours. He would eat lunch, then went back to his couch to rest and watch TV show on the tiny CRT TV.

He still looked okay on last February but his hands were noticeably shaking when he held the spoon to feed himself. hmmmm... I received the ang pow (red packet) from him... but never would have thought it would be the last time I see him standing. The rest of the time during these few months... he was laid on the hospital bed, gasping desperately for air through his mouth which was almost entirely sealed with his saliva. It was heart breaking to see him like that. Saw the sign on the back of his bed says... 79 yrs old. hmmmm, guess that qualifies to be old. He looked old, and tired. Perhaps this was the best way for him... each of us, relatives.. took turn to visit him. I went trice with mum. So I guess this is it...

May he rest in peace.

Good bye grandpa, we'll miss you always. :'(

My art - Eye see you 3

2010-07-18T19:30:00.000+08:00

3rd practice... finger painted on sketchbook pro on iPad. ^^

My art - Eye see you 2

2010-07-13T20:46:00.001+08:00

My 2nd piece in the eye series... more to come... ;) keep an 'eye' on this blog..

My art - War for Cybertron Optimus Prime

2010-07-05T20:30:00.001+08:00

I loved Transformers, I loved Optimus Prime.. this here.. is Optimus Prime from War for Cybertron design. It's Optimus in his Cybertron futuristic truck design. The story is pre-G1 (generation one)

Really liked this design, might consider to collect the figure when it's here.. ^^

My art - Eye see you

2010-06-20T20:01:00.003+08:00

Felt like starting an eye series... or eyes... ^^ here's one...

Lego minifigs collection

2010-06-06T20:11:00.000+08:00

Ah.. Lego, the block most of us chew when we're kids... well, not many of my friends played with it. I for one.. was seriously in love with the thing when I was a kid. I use to bug my mum to get me a few small boxes whenever we go out for shopping. I was particular interested in the sci-fi themed version... ^^

Fast forward many years today, I no longer actively collect, well i still pay attention every now and then.. but not that frequent anymore. Tried to get a few small boxes.. i couldn't get pass the initial models that they give you. Last time, i could play with 1 small boxes for ages... it truly is a

new toy everyday..

So I went out just now and saw this.... minifigures.. the yellow characters for toys aged around 8 - 12 yrs old. they came in all sorts of varieties. last time they used to have the same facial expression, but nowadays they comes in all sorts of emotion. some even have beard. hahaha... and hair for helmet...

I couldn't resist, so I bought 5 packs for now. It has a total of 16 different figures to collect. Due to the packaging nature, it's random. I'm still lucky i got each different ones.. but as i progress further, I reckon i'll eventually collect a few duplicates.. =_=!

Open up the pack reveals the minifig in seperate pieces, it took less than 8 secs to put him up actually, 5 if you're quicker. haha...

It's not bad... RM9.90 per pack. :) seen any you liked? i particularly like the kid with the skateboard, because of his hair.. haha...

Bodhi heart sanctuary @ 29th May 2010

2010-06-05T10:24:00.006+08:00

Last week we had Friday as public holiday so someone suggested that we go out somewhere to shoot. So hence, Bodhi Heart. The place is situated somewhere around Tanjung Bungah.

click this link to go to the official site.

Not too deserted, but not too easy to find. We did ask an uncle for pointers. haha... not good to get lost along the road in the cemetery area.. yep, the road leading to this place is along the road where the Chinese cemetery is.. :p

Arrived at the place and shot around, sorry I didn't snap the area around the main gate. should have to give you guys a glimpse. the place is mainly for meditation, a lot of greens.. a few Buddha statues... and more greens and flowers, meditation center up around a small staircase leading up a small hill.. it's very tranquil. :) good place to visit for you to clear your mind and perhaps participate in the meditation session to further calm your mind.

caught this spider as Calvin saw it. It's camouflaged inside the flower petal, waiting for small bees to come in i think. It's also a pretty convincing camouflage if you ask me. Most of us wouldn't even realized him... thanks to sharp-eyed Calvin.. ^^

water lily...

a small frog resting in one of the concrete decoration in a pond... way way inside the covers of leaves.. heheheh...

Splashes of water 'caught' and 'frozen' by spider webs on top of grass field

a future pro! Iverson teaching Nic boi how to snap...

credit goes to Iverson again for teaching Nic boy to use the small pebbles around a field to form his name... hahahahahhaa... a kid teaching another kid these things.. :p

My art - Morning breakfast

2010-05-30T21:23:00.000+08:00

Suddenly had the urge to paint something cute... well, i hope it looks cute to you guys.. :D

he's up early in the morning to chew his breakfast.. ^^

Genting Trip @ 15th May 2010

2010-05-22T20:02:00.000+08:00

I have not been to Genting for quite some time already, let's see... 7 years? since college. Been wanting to go with different groups of people, but nobody really wanna go there. They much prefer Cameron. Finally, this year... our gang decided to pay a visit and 10 of us formed a group and headed out.

We took a bus and reached there quite early in the morning, we can't check in yet as the time had not arrived so we hang out in Starbucks. The rest went to wandered around while I ordered hot choc with Calvin and started painting away...

Soon after leaving our baggage at the counter, we went for breakfast at First World Plaza, in Marry Borwn restaurant. Had a hot bowl of porrige and waited around...

We went to purchase the outdoor theme park tickets for unlimited 1 day pass of RM44 per adult. We shared the amount with friends as we can get a free ticket with every purchase of 1 more courtesy of Digi! always the smarter choice ;)

Skies was bright throughout, not hazy at all.. moderately cool.. was warmer compared to 7 years ago... global warming perhaps? managed to snap rainbow... :)

I skipped this cos the queue was too long, instead, I snapped them... tried out a panning shot.. was too dark so I PS-ed it to look brighter.

I challenged myself to ride this towering "Space Shot" ride. Rode with YS and ah pang. the thing is there's 4 rows of 3 seats strapped to each side of the tower. it will slowly lift u up... upon reaching the top... it will push you down very very fast. I thought I'd be fine.. but when i'm on top of the seat high up there... my heart raced... like mad.. and i can't control but let out scream.. hahahaha... YS screamed beside me as well... (blush..) but it was scary for my "old" heart.. :p but better than the rest who opt not to ride it.. ehheheheheh.. ..:p

Had our lunch at this Shanghai 10 restaurant... I'm not objecting but im not looking forward to it.. hehehee..something tells me it looked fancy but lacks substance..

weird tasteless cold dish...jelly fish thingy?

fried rice... hmmm. so so ....

Xiao Long bao.... i've tasted better ones...

weird salty cakes...

crunchy outside... yam stuffed inside....

Went to Ripley's believe it or not museum too.. featuring wacky collection and items from the man himself.. RM27 if not mistaken... looked exactly the same as before except a few small sections were closed off.. and the magic gate got broken... sigh...

Sunrise... managed to take a glimpse of perhaps the nicest sunrise i've ever seen so far... beside a mountain.. looked out in the horizon... endless horizon.. featuring golden color saturation from the setting sun... nice.... nothing blocking the view... just us and the scene... and cold breeze.. can you imagine that? :)

Well, what do I think of this trip? it's not bad going out for a trip with a bunch of nice people... but the trip itself was not what I have imagined it to be.. it looked.. too familiar. I thought given a 7 years gap there'd be a substantial change.. but i was wrong..will i ever visit this place again? you betcha... in the near future? no... LOL... :)

P/S: Special thanks to Iverson for solely organizing the whole trip to us! Kam Siah you very very muchy!

Pacman @ Google @ 22nd May 2010

2010-05-22T19:47:00.000+08:00

Google homepage has seen some weird logos... but this has got to be one of the most interesting... to pay tribute to the Pacman video game... today's logo is made up of the game itself... and.. it's actually playable.. LOL... try it! @ www.google.com

My art - Hot choc

2010-05-16T23:11:00.004+08:00

Had a sip of Starbuck's hot chocolate while waiting to check in to hotel last Saturday morning.. ^^ it was deelicious!

Illusion

2010-05-13T20:18:00.000+08:00

interesting illusion...

Sunrise shoot - Nautilus bay @ 9th May 2010

2010-05-09T21:12:00.003+08:00

Went for a morning photoshoot with Felicia somewhere near my place. ^^ when I reached there, the sun's not out yet but the skies are filled with rich golden color layers..

Here it comes...

An overall zoomed out shot..

shoot around the area after sunrise, managed to capture this big honey bee buzzing around ^^

Unique looking tree where it has 2 color flowers

Finishing off with a nice panoramic view... ^^ Long have I purposely woke up to snap sunrise... but it's good.. ^^ looking forward to this with the gang next round...

QEII sunrise and Clan Jetty photoshoot @ 3rd May 2010

2010-05-04T20:05:00.005+08:00

The outing on 3rd May was in conjunction with our 3 days holidays (1st May replacement) hehe, organized by WH. First time shooting sunrise in a long long time and first in QEII.

The sceneries that morning wasn't great, we were a bit late for sunrise shoot and the sun was already rising as you can see from the pics. the skies wasn't dramatic so I had to adjust a bit to turn down the brightness.

We had our braekfast nearby and then proceeded to the 2nd spot, the clan jetty. This was also the first time that I have shot there, in the recent local made film by Ah Niu (Ice Kacang Puppy Love), part of the scene was shot here and some other part in Penang Island as well.

First stop, "Chew Jetty". These were the villages whereby the household's surname was Chew (周). The houses were built on top of wooden foundation and most of the houses are made of wooden planks.

One of the houses were engulfed in fire before and hence the charred remains on one of the wooden wall.

Small hand painted road sign along the road...

Penny bought this from one of the small mart along the road, it was actually emptied chicken egg shells filled in with jelly. RM0.50 a pop! :)

We can see some fisherman's boat nearing the end of the jetty, guess most of the villager here are fisherman?

Nice bird... he was very very scared when i'm pointing the barrel towards him.. or her? hehehe... quite hard to get a focus on him with all the cage's bars all around. plus, i'm lazy and slow to do manual focus...

My art - 叶问

2010-05-03T21:04:00.000+08:00

One of my favourite movie of all time, comes in this sequel. it's amazing and here's my rendition of the movie poster's master of Weng Chun. Ip Man (pronounced as Yip Mahn)

Finger painted in all its glory large canvas... ^^

The Arrival....

2010-04-24T21:21:00.002+08:00

I am :)

Stayed tuned for more info in the coming weeks..

My art - Rose

2010-04-18T20:30:00.000+08:00

Found a nice rose photo and started painting... altered a bit by adding some finishing touches like glow around the petals and also the light ray as the source.

kinda like hidden rose feel somewhere in the jungle... :) realized that I haven't been painting for the past 2 weeks.. =_= gotta get back on full gear...

Kit Keat Bar 2nd Anniversary!

2010-04-14T20:23:00.002+08:00

Wow, a quick check of my phone's calendar reveals that today is the 2nd anniversary of my blog~

Happy birthday!

Well, I'm that kinda person who keeps tab of such "special" days.. just like the day before this.. my iPhone purchase day.. hahaha, weird? nvm.. it's just me. :) I bet there's more to come...

well, this year's post has been reduced as of late. lesser outing photos.. the gang were busy with our important global project. Kinda impacted all of us in some ways or two, to me especially these few weeks. Very very tired to even start something to paint.. well, i'm pretty sure.. nothing is permanent.. not even these harder times.. so let's keep pressing further guys..

as for this blog, i intend to keep it up forever and ever more. In the future i might even redesign or choose an entirely new domain. But that's in the future. not now... :)

So keep blogging guys, let us all keep tabs of ourselves aside from updating facebook huh? :) Happy blogging guys... ^^

iPhone - 1 year anniversary

2010-04-13T21:47:00.004+08:00

Those who are around me.. know how much i'm excited about the iPhone and how much I wanted one.. hesitated... held on... eventually..grabbed it when one of the local telco reportedly carries it last year...

How's the experience like after 1 year? Changed from my original 3G to 3Gs a while ago. I need the extra speed and because sketchbook mobile apps supports up to 6 layers and a larger canvas... :)

it's a reasonable logic. It might be expensive... and insane to some of the people.. but get this, to me.. if you used the device a lot.. frequently...and it serves u good... well, it's just worth it.. as oppose to buying something that you only use every so often.. (hmmm.. looking at my D90 right now.. haha) ...

well, no regrets, i've already gotten pretty excited about what Apple announced about iPhone OS 4.0.. the next major release... and thing's are just gonna get better from here onwards. I'll most probably be getting the next iPhone as well...

Nothing much to say here but to note down a page in my blog that this day last year, i'm a proud proud owner of Apple's first product.. iPhone 3G.. and today.. 3Gs... if you haven't already gotten one... drop me a line or two.. i can explain just a bit more to see if it's really a phone for u for your next purchase... and no.. i'm not paid by Apple in any means at all.. just one of their fans...

Unless Apple really screws up.. i see no reason I should change to other phones.. :)

My art - Laevatein

2010-04-04T21:00:00.000+08:00

This is Laevatein, no i'm not a fan of this robo but the figure looks kinda cool so I purchased it a while ago... and here's a painting of him in one of his pose.. ^^ noticed also that he has some sort of glowly hair at the end of his head...

Finger painted this last week and completed today on a slow and calm Sunday afternoon.. :)

Earth Hour 2010 @ 27th Mar 2010

2010-03-28T00:58:00.004+08:00

I heart about Earth Hour last year but I was informed by WH that there will be an event that involves some 10,000 candles lighting at Esplanade field but what i have in mind was everyone will be given a candle and stand on the field and perhaps sing some songs or listen to some speech by some guess... but turned out I was wrong.. haha.. in a good way. ^^

On the field they have this little plastic cup which contains the circle shaped candle. Participant are given a candle and a cup for you to light up those cups on the group and your cup as well.

There's a few patterns and lettering which were made up by those candles in the plastic cups. EARTH HOUR 60 2010 WWF and some other letters which I have forgotten. and a few circle shapes scattered across the fields. It was a wonderful sighting to behold...

I lit a few and then proceeded to snap photos and videos as well.

At 8:30, the surrounding lights were turned off, and so were the spot lights around the field.. leaving only the candles in cups.. ^^ it was truely a good scene to see and the overall feels is calming... a few ppl cheered... glad i spent the Earth Hour this way and here writing this to share with you all.

The MCs at the stage talked about how we should take care of the earth and it is suffering now with global warmings, random earth quakes of various magnitudes, tsunami, all types of natural disasters. These were signs that the Earth is sick and greatly need each of our attention and care. They then sang a few songs particularly Louis Armstrong - what a wonderful world, Michael Jackson's - The Earth Song, etc.

What puzzled me was, they have ppl distributing papers which contains printed lyrics and some paragraphs of wordings the MC read out earlier. 3 - 4 pieces if i can recall, all printed on nice A4 sized paper and single sided... =_=!!!

Please people, this is against the theme which is to protect the earth, I'm sure people can sing along the song if they know the lyrics and even if they do, they can just hum along or some like me.. couldn't be bothered with singing songs.. real actions are needed, so let's all do our part starting from today.

Penang government imposed restriction so that shoppers are not given free plastic bags from Mon - Wed each week, I have been practicing this for quite sometime even without this restriction and for start its weird but seeing that the government even impose this just signifies that what i was doing all these while is correct. :)

Click here to see my previous post on how you can or may bring along your folded plastic bags.

2009's Earth day

Last but not least, I leave you with the panoramic scene of the field with most of the candles. Too bad there wasn't a high enough spot that i can climb at that moment to enable me to take the whole picture.

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, people! for mother earth!

My art - War Machine

2010-03-21T22:24:00.000+08:00

I have been eager to paint Ironman ever since I watched the movie last year. Well, I saw War Machine appearing in the upcoming sequel and can't help but gave it a go.

I liked black and white painting.. :p without too much emphasize on the colors themselves. here goes... the final painting.. used up half of my precious Sunday for this. Painted in SBM on iPhone while listening to my favourite tune from the first movie - Driving with the top down by Ramin Djawadi.

Hope you guys liked it, I'll be anticipating the movie this May.. ^^

My art - Midnight Owl

2010-03-13T23:30:00.000+08:00

Been wanting to paint an owl for sometime now, finally the idea struck me again and here goes... ^^ finger painted on my iPhone with sketchbook mobile.

A day out with... macro lens

2010-03-06T23:20:00.004+08:00

Borrowed a macro lens from my friend and snap away, I have always wanted to get a nice macro lens.. but currently budget is not allocated to this yet... but in times.. i think i will...

Macro lens has a very shall depth of field.. and takes a while to get used to.. but anyway, here's a few shots of the macro lens... :)

Due to the very very hot scorching sun, I think i've been fried... so we went over to Gurney to catch our lunch in cool cool air conditioned place.. :D

Noticed the above food? hehehee.. a frequent patron of fast food will spot where these food are served. :p

My art - Face Painting

2010-02-28T11:15:00.000+08:00

Chinese Opera face painting, in conjunction with last day of Chinese New Year 2010. ^^ something related to Chinese.. haha.. Finger painted in sketchbook mobile with iPhone!

My art - When

2010-02-27T21:28:00.000+08:00

Completed another B&W portrait piece... ^^ this time a portrait of a girl, finger painted in sketctbook mobile on my iPhone.

My art - Lion dance - CNY 2010

2010-02-21T21:00:00.000+08:00

Wanted to paint something extra in conjunction with Chinese New Year this year, so came up with this piece.. lion dance!

Again, Happy New Year everyone.. have a prosperous year ahead!

KuanYin statue at Kek Lok Si temple (极乐寺) Penang @ 19th Feb 2010

2010-02-20T11:09:00.005+08:00

Finally went to Kek Lok Si temple for the 2nd round this year during Chinese New Year, this round with WH. Felicia couldn't make it in the end so there's only 2 of us.

the highlight of this year is of cos the Kuan Yin statue... there's a enormous roof covering her this year which is held by a few giant pillars.

There are the usual nice seas of lanterns hanging here and there, each donated by someone which will see their name written on the piece of paper below the lantern. a nice atmosphere it is to see these yellow and orangy lanterns.

We took cable car onto the top where the statue is located, there's a lot of people, we had to queue up in a long queue and a packed cable car ride, but it was worth it... to witness the magnificent statue :-

A photography trick.. hahaha...spinning lights... ^^

At the back of the statue written there, built by China Aeropspace Engineering Corp. Nicely done..

My art - Happy Chinese New Year 2010!

2010-02-14T09:05:00.001+08:00

Would like to wish all of you a very Happy Chinese New Year 2010 which happens to be the year of the tiger hence, the white tiger here to greet all of you. :)

May this year brings lots of health and wealth and success to everything you do.

Fingerpainted in sketchbook mobile on my iPhone.

My art - Mini!

2010-02-06T22:05:00.003+08:00

Tried out 2nd painting not using air brush and in black and white.. first vehicle painting. :)

My art - Music Man

2010-02-05T20:30:00.000+08:00

Someone asked if I could paint this talented guy... which i tried with using a different method and also... followed the original B&W style of the original image.

Somehow painting a guy produces less pressure than girl..LOL.. but i kinda like the end result.. what do you guys think?

Keracut beach outing @ 23rd Jan 2010

2010-01-24T12:18:00.005+08:00

Never been to Keracut for a really long time, i would say around 9 years to be precise. A lot has changed, I have absolutely no memories of the previous hike and certainly the beach itself but 1 thing remained unchanged, it's a really tiring hike! or maybe I'm just too old for this? hehehee

After we have registered ourselves at the counter, the hike begins with walking and tonnes of stairs climbing.. =_=. took about 1 hour plus to get the to destination point. We stopped a few times to catch our breath and took 1 group photo.

Here it is~

Mr. 100Plus advertising for his favourite drinks again! recharge and ready to go!

Be careful of this camera man, he's not any ordinary camera man but a paparazzi in disguise. snaps pictures of unsuspecting victims and post them up on the net.. =_=

As usual, when there's nothing interesting to shoot, Ishtar is selected to be the model... :p

Which I think from this pic shows that she enjoyed it... :p

I didn't managed to snap anything nice really, i'm all tired and exhausted and super ultra thirsty... we did bought some light snacks there and a few of us actually ate them. I only ate the egg tart Yik Pei kindly bought for the gang because i'm too thirsty to eat anything and i ran out of water.. nobody sells water there... =_=

Went over to see a small tank of sea turtles... they're cute! see this little guy? when he's not swimming and just enjoy floating? he'll put 2 of his frontal fins at the back of the shell to relax... hahahahhaa..

Last but not least, I leave you with a panoramic view of the beach itself... :)