Interesting

Tuesday 24 February 2009

This is some interesting findings O.o

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/4797025/Fish-has-transparent-head.html

Money matters

Sunday 22 February 2009

Well a few things lately prompted me to think about money in a different way. Now, for those who might not know me well enough, I've always been very thrifty with money, largely due to my upbringing. Every cent is accounted for, and I almost never spend needlessly.


Anyways, I see one of my friend spending money on something he is passionate about and I look at how I'm still so thrifty even though I'm now earning money. It's the deep-seated mindset to save, save, save!

I'm not saying that is wrong and we should all go out and splurge our money and empty our accounts. Needless to say, saving is important, but the question I find myself asking is, if I save all the time, do I actually live?

One of the reason i said this is because, looking at the money I recieved from ang pao's it hasn't changed much but to me it's such a small amount now (uncles, aunties, HINT HINT lol). Back in the days when I was still in primary/secondary school, that was a huge amount. And where did it go? Straight into the bank. I did't use any of it (ok maybe just an itsy bitsy amount) to you know, splurge on myself a bit.

Now, looking at the amount I accumulated, it seems insignificant. How much joy would that amount of money could brought to me when I was a kid? Who knows. Well, I'll never know lol
Now it is but a small amount sitting in my Maybank account.

Thus, I see that just saving all the time is not a good thing. Even now, spending a little extra on myself takes so much consideration and deliberation. That's why I hope to be a bit impulsive on spending, to give myself some instant satisfaction of spending money. Money kept in bank all the time.. it's like not having money at all. Worse, it gets eaten away by inflation. Like my poor ang pao savings lol


Save save save... sometimes need to spend also lar. As long as it makes you happy a bit, make your short time on Earth a better, spend a bit lar.




That said, it's not prudent to spend all. I mean, look at the prices of houses and cars. And then, consider your children's education, especially if you live in Malaysia and want to send your children overseas (whihc I think is worth it, for the exposure). And then, think about your retirement. Wah laoeh... such a huge sum of money. If we spend what we earn every month, how can we ever do that?






Another thought. I'm becoming more and more selfish. I used to think, when I was younger, about giving so much and so much to charity. Now, if you read my post, it's all about spending money on myself. Lol. Gah i want to be a child once again.


Note to self: Go donate some money this year.

Malaysian Trip Part 4

Saturday 21 February 2009

Hello People!

Right, I shall pick up immediately from where I ended last time. So, I was back in Klang, and we went to far away place (beyond banting)..er can't remember the name. Some place called clam hill (O.o) if translated word for word.

AAAAaanyways, moving on, we were there to try out the famous (heck, all the food we tried are famous wth lol) Beggar's chicken, so called because err.. it's.er.. crap. How do I explain this. Basically, it came from a novel by Jin Yong (well maybe it's the other way round.. who knows) where Huang Rong cooked a chicken for Hong Qi Gong aka the leader of Beggar's clan (right.... I suspect this is no longer making sense to most of you guys) in order to trick him to teach Guo Jing a martial art skill ( I shall not translate the name to English to preserve the very last vestige of dignity remaining). Anyways, the chicken and herbs is wrapped in something, with hot coals around it and buried under the earth to cook it O.o


Okok pictures:

The enterance to the restaurant. Those two lines of words....is that Dui Lian? forgot liow lol

Mud skipper!

With my two aunts. It's supposed to be a candid picture but my aunt managed to flash a smile at the last moment hahah!
More pictures of mudskippers. For those of you who don't know, these fishes have evolved to live on both land and water (well, mud and water). They can hop around with their powerful fins on dry land and thus travel between puddles of water. It's a proof of evolution! Fishes evolving to live on land! (alright alright please don't drag me into a debate about the theory of evolution)

Coconut! This is the sweetest coconut i've ever drank/ate. It's really fantastic! Ahh it is really nice to sip cool sweet coconut water(juice? liquid? Gah I really don't know the correct term) on a hot day. Especially when you're at the beach. wahh.....................................................
Sweet and sour Pork's leg! Not that great. I've tasted waaaaayyyy better pork's leg before... with mantou! Wahh... I'm starting to make myself hungry.
This is how they cook the beggar's chicken (and that pork leg, or so I was told). O.o
Beggar's chicken! Well, not that tasty. Nothing special. It tasted like any other chicken with herbs, and it's not that nice also. Hmm dissapointed.. I was expecting some sort of earth-ly aroma soaked into the chicken, complimenting the chicken's taste (at first I didn't know they cook it with herbs lol)
Chicken soup! Wah.. damn lots of meat man... luckily we could take away the leftovers for my brother. Wahhaha he kinda served as the rubbish bin for the day.

Now this, is a very interesting dish! It looks like any ordinary deep fried fish, but look carefully! Lo behold! It's innards is fish ball material! They took out aall the flesh and bones of the fish and used it (well, not the bones of course) to make that.. fish cake paste (ahh that sounds better than fish ball material T__T) and put it back into the fish.. and the they deep fried it!
Whoa... sounds like something from science fiction/horror story T__T
That's my first time seeing it and it's so damn cool!!!! Don't you think so!? Even the bloody head is still there! When I first saw it I thought it's a real fish.. walaoeh.. Gengz

Unfortunately it tastes ordinary T__________T

More mudskippers

Well, in conclusion, besides the novelty of Beggar's chicken and that fish cake fish thingie, it's nothing that special, taste wise. So I wouldn't really recommend going that far to try it, unless you want to brag about trying beggar's chicken once in your life. Well, at least now I can brag. Wahahhaha! More life experience! Muahahha!


Nah, photos for my dad and Yee Huai who like these olden days settings

Old enough?

Hohoohoh... this picture.... Well, ladies and gentlemen, this roadside stall sells a drink which... unfortunately I have absolutely no idea how to call it here. It's made of mashed pears, salt, water and left to err ferment for a couple of days. It's very nice.... and also, it's hard to find this drink being sold nowadays. It's at someplace near Port Klang, and I still remember how I used to cycle here with my brother and also my father to drink it wahhaha! It's about 6km away from where I live T___T
Oh, I even cycled to the North Port with my brother before... not sure how far that is but it took us more than an hour to get there lol! Probably more than 10 km. Just remember that we have to cycle back T___T (and we did that in pouring rain lol!)
Now that's one memorable experience. Ah, I digressed.

Moving on! After the drink we went to the err..South Port to watch the sun set.

Sunset in South Port

While we were there, we saw lots of people "balik Kampung" to Pulau Ketam to celebrate Chinese New Year. I was beginning to feel the "spirit" of Chinese New Year then lol. Watching the people go back with their family for a reunion... and also the huge number of kids walking back home happily I saw on my way to try the Beggar's chicken as it was the last day of school (it was a Friday, and I think the schools are closed for 3 days for Chinese New Year.. ahh.. how nostalgic, I used to count down the days to Chinese New Year since December lol)

Going home!

The Sun

Unfortunately, the sun was hidden behind clouds so it wasn't such a beautiful sight. Nevertheless, quite beautiful. I've never really like sun sets.... it often makes me down because it's the end of the day. Everything's getting dark and everyone's going home. Well, just makes me a bit sad somehow.Nonetheless, I've seen some really spectacular sun sets that are really beautiful.

Yeapz. DURIAN! This particular breed is called the red ant... or something that sounds similar to that in Hokkien hahaha! Very tasty!

Well we kinda had durian for dinner because we had a very heavy lunch. After that, we took a stroll in Pandamaran to soak in the CNY atmostphere. It was all hustle and bustle but there wasn't that much of CNY atmostphere.

Lanterns an decorative stuff

Which kind of reminds me, I didn't take any picture of those decorative stuff my family put up! Darn... that was the first time we put red lanterns up... gahhh.

Anyways, after that I rushed to a mamak stall to meet up with my old buddies from my secondary school days. I was really suprised to see so many of them there! Can't believe I met Hao Shen there lol. I thougth he was suppsod to be in Australia. Who else... Yik Chuan, Wai Loon, Horng Tat, Kenny (were you there? I think so.. wahhaha) Ian... and some few random guys I can't remember. Or was that all? whahahha

So we kinda spent the whole evening bitching about Min Soon who kind of dissappeared to the unknown. LOL! Min Soon if you're reading this reply to me!

Lol. Anyways, that's it for now. I shall write a post on CNY eve soon.

Malaysia trip part 3

Sunday 15 February 2009

Hello all!

Today is a very grey day, both the weather and what I feel inside T__T. I have no idea why, but I suspect having too much sugary food could be the culprit T__T.

Nonetheless, life goes on. Tommorow's going to be yet another Monday, and I can finally wear my new shirts now that I bought my cuff links!

I can't wait to go to the gym.. and possibly martial arts training later this week. That's like the highlight of my week T___T. See, no life once you start working. Treasure your student days. These words never sounded so true (well, it doesnt' apply to my final year in Uni though)

Alright, Pictures pictures!

If you noticed, I've blogged about one day of my trip in one post. Now, this is the last day in Penang.

First, we start off with the pictures of the cat. hahah

So manja

*Scratch scratch

*Posersss lol

Kuey Teow soup! Not the best, but its still making me crave for it now

Alright, a bit more description about the pictures. My dad, brother, and I decided to do some jungle trekking (soemwhere at the north west of the island). My aunt told us about it, roughly half and hour's trek to this place called Monkey's Beach and we being such outgoing nature loving guys (well you won't believe it if you only read the previous posts about food lol) decided to give it a try.

Anyways, we decided to stop by at the Hotel Rasa Sayang because the beach there is very beautiful. I still remember long ago when I went there there was quite a lot off ppl there, horse ridding, paragliding, at a very beautiful beach.

So, we masquereaded as hotel customers and casually strolled to the beach (you need to pass through the hotel) and even used their toilet T___T

Anyway,s pics:

They have quite a good landscaping done

aih.. looking at the grey skies outside.....*shakes head

A line of trees.. i still don't know the name of these trees...Pine?

The beach was quite empty because we were there in the morning. Not to say that fantastic after all, compare to this beach i went to on the East Coast.. ugh.. can't remmeber name..starts with C

Anyways, we continued our journey to the..er.. apparently it's a nature reserve... err.. monkey beach. So, we signed in, got some biscuits and water, and started off!

LOL magnify this picture and read the words.

It was a very nice trek, as we had the jungle on our left and the sea on our right. We could hear the sound of waves breaking upon rocks throughout the trek. From time to time, we get a view of the sea like this one here:
And this:

Army of ants marching

Oh yea, the trek was quite challenging as well. At a few points, there were ropes to hold on to because it was too steep or there wasn't any good footing. exciting!

Strange berries that would probably kill you if you try them. Just kiddng.

Spider and it's prey.

The sea!

At one part of the route, we had to walk at the beach. It was near a.. err.. something research centre.

Straight road ahead

We saw some ppl trying to light a fire...

Monkey see, monkey do. Monkey fail. Miserably. AHHA

Dead...clams?

Hmm couldn't really capture the transparent leaf. Gotta photoshop this picture one day.

Big roots.

So, we finally arrived at the Monkey beach! It took us about an hour! The estimated time was one hour and 10 minutes so we weren't that bad after all. lol.

The beach wasn't that.. well spectacular. So. no picutres.

Cool eh?

So, since we took a more time then we expected, we kind of rushed on our way back. That's why there isn't any pictures taken on the way back.

Monkey seeing us off.

For lunch, we had some Indian fried noodles. Not too bad.



Afterthat, it was a drive to somewhere near Ipoh for dinner. We were told to look for some big peanuts (that area is famous for it's peanuts lol.. something...er Menglembu I think haha)... we thought it would be a big picture of peanuts.. it turned out to be a sculpture T__T. Got lost a coupla times before we found the restaurant.

Anyways, we found ourselves in a restaurant where thre was a wedding dinner going on. T____T They still served us nonetheless lol so we ate, surrounded by the wedding dinner guests.

Ohhh we tried the prawns and it was nice! The sauce, is very fragant! I think it's the smell of the salt, fried till it's fragrant.
And we had some dear meat cooked with black pepper! The meat is very tender! One of the most tender meat I've ever tasted.. yet my dad said that he has tasted deer meat that is even more tender than that!
The.. ginger and herbs chicken wasn't that fantastic though. It was supoosed to be the restaurant's best dish but turned out to be so so only. Dissapointment. However, the kangkung belacan was fantastic! Tastes very good!
Anyways, that's the end of the Penang trip. We all arrived home at about 1 am, stuffed and tired.

I too, am quite tired of blogging now.. too many pictures, and not really in the mood too lol.