Gong Xi Fa Cai

Since my husband and his family are celebrating Chinese New Year, as a good wife, I have to be with him for this celebration. Therefore, I would like to inform you all that I won't be able to hang out with you here.
If I have a chance, I'll definitely make sure I hang out here even if it's only for a minute...

After Chinese New Year, I'll be gone to Jakarta (to get more supplies of Indomie, sambal jempol, and kecap ABC ). In Jakarta, as you all already know, it will be difficult for me to be on the net (I have no internet connection at home).

I'll be back soon and will post more stories from Jakarta.

Gong xi fa cai (Keong hee huat chai - hokkien) for those celebrating the new pig year!!

Great acrobatic show

Last week, I went for a window shopping with my husband at Jusco near our house. Inside the mall, we could see all red decorations to celebrate Chinese New Year. The mall was very packed. Oh well, where else can the Ipohans go? They all gathered in the mall every weekend. But that weekend was special. So many people did the major shopping to prepare for the coming Chinese New Year celebration.
It is a big event here in the place I live. To attract more customers, the shopping malls held many events in conjunction with the celebration. For this particular mall I went to with my husband, there was a great acrobatic show by WuQiao from China. I have never watched this kind of live performance before so I felt grateful that I had my N70 handy to take the pictures below and to share them with you all.

Trust me, these people are great! They do amazing things that seem impossible to me. My husband told me these people are trained everyday since they were young and they are very discipline and they always work very hard. Chi (internal power) is the key. It takes alot of practices to be able to use your chi to do these amazing acts.

PLEASE DO NOT TRY ALL THESE ACTS AT HOME!!

In this picture you can see that 1 girl held a table by 1 of its legs with her right leg and her left leg turned a red cloth while her 2 hands also turned red cloths. Her friends (on her left and right) turned red cloths on their hands.

In this picture you can see a skinny girl juggled a 100kg pottery plus a girl sat on top of the pottery. They asked a volunteer to sit inside the pottery!

Do you see the man sitting inside the 100kg-pottery? He weighs 70kg.

Valentine's day and Chinese New Year

Today is Valentine's day. Today is supposed to be day for us to express our love but unfortunately, today, I really feel that I don't have 'love' at all. It's weird I know. I am such a loveable person and today on Valentine's day, I am loosing the love feeling... :-\

Today I just don't feel anything special. Today is just another ordinary day for me. I don't know why. Is it because I'm married already? Is it because I'm just tired of all the rubbish things lovers do to express their love? I don't know really. I even feel extremely lazy to send love greetings to all the people I love. I have received many greetings today though since 4am. I'm glad people still love me. I just hope that they won't feel neglected if at the end of the day, I really don't send any greetings to them. I love them still.

Last night my hubby told me that there wouldn't be any bouquet of flowers to me on the Valentine's day because he has no budget for that but he did ask me to have a special dinner tonite.
It's fine by me. I haven't even prepared anything for him anyway. So, this is definitely not the cause of me feeling sooo ordinary today.

I don't know what makes me feel so flat today. Is it because I didn't have enough sleep (because I watched Valentine's day movie till midnite)? Maybe, because I'm abit dizzy today. I love sleeping so having not enough sleep is a disturbance for my mood.
I really feel sooo lazy waking up in the morning today. I feel like I want to stop the time so that weekend doesn't have to come so soon.

A-ha!I think I know why I'm like this today. Let me repeat the sentence above "I feel like I want to stop the time so that weekend doesn't have to come so soon."
Yeap! That weekend thing! That's damn weekend thing!
This weekend is not just another weekend. It's the Chinese New Year weekend! I think I know why suddenly Valentine's day is just an ordinary day for me. It's because the coming event this weekend is just too humungous to ignore it. Even the decorations in all malls are about Chinese New Year, not so much about Valentine's day. The event is so great it sucks up all the energy I have even far before the D-day.

I have spent 2 days making many house decorations from unused angpao packets (the red packets). I really hope someone isn't going to criticize my decorations saying that hers are far better than mine!! I have bought new red cloths (No! Orange actually) and every member of my family has a new hair style for the Chinese New Year. As my hubby and I are married, we are obliged to prepare the angpao packets to be given away. Though personally, I prefer to receive the angpao...whe..he..he..
Well, who doesn't? It's some money in there...:D

For me, it's my 3rd Chinese New Year celebration. I am not Chinese but I'm married to one so, I need to learn and accept the culture.
Since I'm still learning, I have many things about Chinese New Year that I don't have a clue why I have to do this and that. I did read about it in the website alot! You might be wondering why don't I just ask my other half who is Chinese, right? Hmmmm...yeah..I could..but unfortunately, he is just the same like me, clueless...:D and the worst thing, many times, he just gave me alot of false information about his own culture and I believe him still (because I can't even see difference whether the information given is true or he just made it up)..:) D'oh!

This weekend, we HAVE TO visit my hubby's parents and stay there to celebrate Chinese New Year. This is part of the culture. The traffic has started to slow down because many people go back home to their family and friends. Don't even think about driving in Penang Island! You'll be trapped in traffic jam for hours!!

Yeah...the coming Chinese New Year celebration. If you live in a Chinese predominant place, you will learn to like this 15-day celebration. The celebration is so huge it makes you forget about other celebrations such as this Valentine's day and even my dad's birthday. Luckily, my dad understands my situation. He is happy even if I can only call & sms him on his birthday.

Yeah today is just an ordinary day for me because of what I have explained above, but nevertheless, I shall still greet you all "Happy Valentine's day" and I hope you embrace all the love that you get. Enjoy the heart chocolate cake I made especially for this 'love' day! I hope you like it...;) Oh, you can get the recipe here.

Finding Nemo in Kuala Lumpur

Almost everyone in this world knows and has watched Finding Nemo, a visually stunning, best Animated Feature Disney-Pixar movie about a clownfish father who loses his son, Nemo, to a dentist scuba diver in The Great Barrier Reef.

My son and I have watched this movie thousand times. My son even remembers what scene will come next. He also remembers the name of the characters. He watches it almost on every meal time.

From 6 - 12 April 2007, Nemo's underwater world will come to life in a very colourful and wonderful costumes and dances of Disney on Ice at Stadium Putra, Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur, thanks to Maxis One Club as the title sponsor of this show.

There'll be a life-sized blue whale, creepy jellyfish and vivid-coloured moonfish in flourescent blue, green and pink costume accompanying the aquatic journey of Nemo, Marlin (Nemo's Dad), and a funny and forgetful fish named Dory (Dory is my favourite character. It reminds me of myself...).

Disney on Ice producer said that Finding Nemo is their most innovative show. Disney on Ice promises to bring humour and adventure underneath the Great Barrier Reef to life in a visual masterpiece. So, get ready to be amazed by them just like other familiar shows of Disney on Ice.

It is highly recommended to bring your whole family to watch this show. I have bought the tickets and am very exiciting to bring my son who adores Finding Nemo so much to watch this 3D stunning production of Disney on Ice. I can't wait to see his expression on seeing his favourite characters out of the television box...

I hope he won't be afraid or sleep during the show .

Get your tickets today! The special ticket prices for Maxis Customers are valid until 28 February 2007.

For more information, log on to http://www.maxis.com.my/moc_new/disney/nemo.asp or www.disneyonice-asia.com.

The Holiday - the movie

I went to watch The Holiday by myself yesterday because my husband wanted to watch Blood Diamond and I don't feel like watching any cruel movies at the moment. I just want to watch a movie which I can relate myself to and not to use my brain too much. I just want to relax basically so I decided to go watching the movie alone.

In my opinion, The Holiday is great! I love the movie. I love the simplicity of the story line and the funny script, not to mention the cool main actresses and actors acted on that movie (the gorgeous leading ladies: Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslate, of course the handsome and sexy Jude Law plus the cute and funny Jack Black).

The story is about 2 broken-heart ladies who agree to swap their houses for 2 weeks during Christmas holiday so that they can forget about the men who broke their heart and try to move on with life.

The story is simple and you can guess what will happen but still I like it. I absolutely adore the British accent too!! It's very contagious. In fact, the moment I came out of the cinema after watching that movie, my accent suddenly changed to british accent!!..Wha..ha..ha.. :D
Honestly, this movie reminds me of the old feeling of being rejected, heart broken, and the sort. It also reminds me of how to love and how to fall in love again. Now that I'm married for 7 years, I kind of miss those feelings in me. I know it sounds rubbish. You'll do rubbish things anyway when you are in love. So, yeah...I do miss acting foolishly in front of the man of my dream, do rubbish things or crying feverishly over the man that broke my heart to pieces. Though I still do the latter recently... :)
A good romantic comedy movie like The Holiday has been rare these days. The last good romantic comedy I've watched is Notting Hill. It's been ages ago, I know.
This is another reason why I like this movie so much. This movie does remind me of the same movies of its genre such as You've got mail, Sleepless in Seattle, etc.

I do recommend this movie for your Valentine's day movie.

Flood in Jakarta

I've been sick for the past 1 week, coughing and sneezing. I went to visit a medical officer at the hospital near my house last week but up to now, I'm still not cured yet.
The cough medicine is useless. It makes my throat extremely dry after taking it. I had to drink many glasses of water and it really disturbed my sleep.
The medications for my running nose is quite powerful. It stopped the 'leakage' on my nose but the problem is, everytime I took that medicine, I could hear my heart pumping so fast as if I just drank 2 glasses of black coffee. I could not sleep at all. I became very restless and anxious over anything. So, I decided to stop taking those medicines on the second day. I return to my Panadol to help me to sleep and rest. Up to now, I still cough and cough. Everytime I cough, I feel pain on my chest. I hope I can get well soon. I have so many things to finish.

Since yesterday, I've been receiving bad news about flood in Jakarta. The situation has worsened in the southern part of Jakarta. Many families are trapped inside their flooded house and the water level is reaching the second floor of their 2-story houses.
Click here to read the news from detik.com.

The latest news I received that the phone lines are disconnected and the mobile networks are jammed.
Luckily I managed to talk to my parents on their mobile and they are ok. Thanks God!!
My dad informed me that the flood is as bad as the flood in February 2002. I was in Jakarta in 2002. I experienced and witnessed the worst flood in my life.
Oh...it is always like that in Jakarta every February each year. The flood is getting worse every year because of the bad drainage system in all parts of Jakarta plus the 'tidak apa' (never mind) attitude and definitely the never ending corruption.
I can only pray so that the situation will improve and the flood water recedes. I hope by the time I have to be there, Jakarta will be back to normal.

Johor (Malaysia) is still recovering from the big flood and so is Medan (Sumatera, Indonesia). Now Jakarta has its turn to deal with the flood.

I think this is more about the enviromental issue than the weird weather pattern.

I really do hope people starting to pay attention on how important it is to love the Earth and have a good drainage system in your area. Please do not clog the drain! Do not throw rubbish to rivers and drains! Do not even try to cement your drain to get extra land for your parking area! Love the environment! Recycle as much as you can!
I've got people starred and laughed at me and thought that I am cheapskate trying to recycle stuffs at home. Never mind! I will get my turn to laugh later. I know I do something good to green the Earth.