Tioman Sep 07

Another short Tioman trip gone. My friends, Philip, Andy, Alex, Ah Pow and me, we 5 people drove up to Mersing last Sat morning. Philip being the driver had to wake up at 2+am (if not mistaken)... I got out of the house at 3:45am. And the light in my landlord's room was still on! Don't they have to sleep? Hmm... I wonder what they were doing...

We are in Singapore and it's quite safe, but you can't help feeling scared waiting at void deck alone at 4am... Then, a car came, a car with lots of stickers on it. Someone in the car (I can't see the face) was waving at me. I thought... oh man... ah beng car with ah beng in it waving at me, at 4am... what should I do...?? But... it turned out to be Alex..... Whew... hehehe... We then call the car "blink blink car". You'll see why...

We stopped by the petrol kiosk in JB. It's really quite scary to be at petrol kiosk at such an early hour (actually, "any hour.."), having known so many crimes happened at petrol kiosks... But I have 4 big guys with me, I supposed I was safe. hehehe.

We reached Mersing at 6:30am~ Our boat was 7:30am. I want to have roti prata at Mersing Hotel there. Then Philip happily drove into one way lane and didn't seem to realise it. hahaha.. I think Philip thought we were joking. It was super cold that morning! Like, mm..in an 22 degree aircond room. The fog was super thick~ My camera was deep in my backpack... didn't take a photo of it.

We reached Tioman really early too~ Speedboat didn't make other stops and headed straight to Tekek. Reached there before 9am if I remember correctly. We had to share boat with others so have to suit other's timing. Headed for first dive at 10:30am. We have 10 divers on boat, and guess what, 9 cameras!!! Geez... have to really queue for a long time to shoot something. I didn't like to queue... so I rather swim around looking for some other things to shoot. Didn't take good photos this trip.

See all photos here : Tioman Sep 07

The usual nudibranchs.


Visibility at Chebeh that day was great~


This is the only one photo that I am satisfied with. But, colour is not so good.

Alex was very kind to lend me his strobe!!! Even feather stars became very pretty with strobe! I never bother to look at them usually, except when looking for crabs hiding in it.

Tom, the divemaster.

I didn't know Tioman has this whip coral shrimp until Andy showed me!!!! So happy!!! It's bigger than I thought, about 1cm long I think. Only managed to take one photo of it. Andy has got more, and nicer photos of course! (DSLR~~ I will get one if I hit lottery.. hehe)

This is with strobe. But over exposed. Didn't know how to adjust.
Check out the cicada~ First time I saw a real cicada~ They are always hiding among the trees isn't it?

and.... TA-DA!!Blink Blink Car~
Plus me~
Pardon the blur photo... it's difficult to shoot in the carpark.. flash not strong enough, without flash, the photo turns out blur to due hand movement, even with "stabiliser"..

This photo at Tioman was taken in June. The sea looked very pretty that day. Nice blue~ There was a tornado almost formed right in front of us!

It was really funny on Sunday morning. I shared a room with Alex, the air-cond kept on making noise... The noise will become louder and louder, then it went back to normal and then become louder again. On and on. We slept until 6+am , suddenly "BANG"!! Something sounded it has exploded! Then it continued "pi-li-pa-la p-li-pa-la..".... It really really sounded like the very old air-cond has exploded and things scattering on the floor. Alex and I awoken by the noise.. we looked at each other.. I got down from the bed and walked towards the air-cond. Suddenly "PI-LI-PA-LA" again... I got a shock and jumped away from there... so funny.. But it was nothing in the room. So weird.. we continued to sleep.

I told Andy when we had breakfast. Turned out he also heard the same thing. He also thought it sounded like the air-cond in his room exploded, but he chose to continue with his sleep. hahaha... I really wonder what it was.. . I wanted to check out the back of the room where the compressor is, but it's not accessible. It was so funny.

more hours each day.

Time is so not enough. I have to clean my room, clean Miko’s stuff, have to revise Japanese, have to read books, have to do laundry, etc. Recently I had been so diligently revising my Japanese. Takes 2+hours each time, preferably. After that I like to read English books, so as to improve my English. By then it’s usually around 1am. Then I have to hand wash my clothes. By the time I get to bed is at least 1:30am. If only I can have 4 more hours each day.. Some Europe countries knock off at 3pm I heard. How nice, still can go for a evening suntan.. how relaxing. That is how life should be.

My brother said it’s not good to sleep so late. But else I wouldn’t have the time to revise Japanese and read books. My JLPT exam is in Dec. Now only I started to revise.. such a lazy bum………. I said I’ll work hard, from January, but I haven't been, till now, September. Lazy no cure..

Wah, it’s the second consecutive night I dreamt about Africa (reading books about Africa). Nothing vivid that I can recall. Just the Africa country names……

Africa Africa Africa

I had been reading about Africa’s stuff. Just finished the book about a conservationist’s "adventure" in the past 30 years in Africa. Yesterday I started reading The Shackled Continent, about why Africa is so poor. So it’s been Africa Africa Africa for the past one week.

Yesterday before I slept I thought about how it must feel like going to Africa, talking to people I don’t know, looking at wild animals in their natural habitat, etc etc. And what should happen? I dreamt about "Botswana", "Tanzania", "Zimbabwe", etc. But I forgot what the actual dream was the moment I woke up. I only remember these names. Pretty amazing. Hehe.. but how come I didn’t dream of Harry Potter that easily?

The Shackled Continent is very interesting. I didn’t want to stop reading it but it was already 1+am. If only I don’t have to work today… dont' like working..

I feel the earth moved

I finally felt it! For the first time~ Finally experienced how it feels when the building shakes due to earthquake in Indonesia.

I was in class yesterday when my classmate behind shook my chair and asked “Hey, do you feel we are swaying?”. Then yeah, I felt it… Then everybody started saying let’s evacuate. I haven’t really felt much and we hurriedly went to first floor. A classmate who stayed a little while longer said the painting was shaking quite badly. After 10min or so we went back to class. The painting later shook a little bit again.

When we returned to class, the students who didn’t evacuate saw us. A guy said loudly “Those who ran for their lives came back~” How rude!! Bastard! Yeah, such a “hero” is he? Just don’t complain if the building ever really collapse with him in it. Oh wait, if the building collapse, he’ll be dead! So he can’t complain! wahahahhahaha…. It’s not kiasi, it’s about doing the right thing in risky times. Even the experts say we should evacuate to open space on ground floor.

Then this morning, my alarm rang at 7:50am. I turned it off and still in bed, refused to wake up as usual. Then I felt my bed swaying from side to side. It was just like how I felt the first night on land, after I’ve lived on a big ship for 4 or 5 nights. As even in big ship, there’ll be gentle swaying. So I thought, I haven’t been diving and haven’t live on a ship leh… Then my next thought was : Ghost is shaking my bed! So funny. If it is still ghost month, I’d probably scared to death. I thought it was like in Exorcism… though the bed should shake more violently if it’s the devil at work. Hehe…

Then I look at the big bowl of water of the air freshener. The water is moving quite badly.. So I realized it’s earthquake again. I didn’t know what to do, I was still in bed with my pyjamas on… Yesterday was “interesting” as I was with other classmates and we went out the building. This morning.. I was still in bed then it felt scary. It shook quite a long time..

But quite an experience that was~

Books~

After about one and a half month reading Harry Potter over and over again, I finally put it down. I am guessing my dvd player has spoilt because I watched Harry POtter too many times. hahaha...

Went to Kinokuniya and got myself a couple of new books to stop myself from reading Harry Potter again. Well, I will STILL re-read Harry Potter again for sure, but now I should read some other stuffs.

There are soooo many books about the state of our planet, conservation, how to do our own bits to save the planet, lots and lots of them. Not that I don't care about that I just don't think it'll be interesting reading.

In the end, I chose "A Wild Life", it's about an "accidental conservationist" in Africa. It is very interesting, I am now into the first couple of chapters. And I love it. I imagined how the view and animals would be like from the description of the author. And I hope I could just fly to Africa now.

The second book, "The Shackled Continent", it's about Africa too. Talks about why is Africa so poor, and how a few countries, for eg, Botswana has advanced and not in the typical poverty state like the rest.
Then today my brother and I went to Harris in JB. And we bought "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea" and "The Swiss Family Robinson". My bro has read these before. I know these are famous classics but I haven't read them, believe it or not. So I thought I should read it.
There are different publishers for these classics, some are very cheap. I wanted these two cos their covers look very pretty. hahaha... I am a big sucker for nice packaging...
It feels so good to buy and read book. I prefer buying books than borrowing books from the library. Cos I like feeling of owning the books.

By the way, anybody has any idea about getting rid of some unwanted books? They are new ones. Some are fictions, etc that I think not worth to keep the book. Yet I can't possibly throw these readable, new books into the dustbin, such a waste! I hope I can pass to people who wants it and after they read it they can either give it to other people or keep it. My bro said just drop them in the library's "book drop". But I feel like it's not right...

Recently I read about Book Cross in the paper. Maybe I can donate the books to them.

Negaraku=Mamula Moon!!!

OH.MY.GOD. What a shock!!!!! Our national anthem was from a Hawaiian song!!!!!!!!

Check this out : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negaraku
Read it. You really should. But bear in mind that Wiki's article might not be 100% correct.

In short, what happened in the history is this (I extract from Wiki) : At the time of independance, the officials wanted a national anthem. They held a competition for it, there were over 500 entries, all of which were rejected. Then they invited famous international composers to compose the songs. All were turned down too. In the end, they chose the state anthem of Perak.

But the thing is, how this state anthem of Perak came about. The then Sultan of Perak was living in exile in Seychelles. There he heard this song "Mamula Moon" that was very popular at the time. Then, when a member of Perak royal family was invited to a reception and was asked what the state anthem was. There wasn't really a state anthem then, but to avoid embarrassment, he then hummed the Mamula Moon. So it became the state anthem of Perak...

SO! That means our national anthem is a Hawaiian song!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Who could have imagined that???!!!

Oh by the way, listen to the Mamula Moon here .

From Wiki : "In 2005, an antique disc collector found an old song (whose music is identical to the Negaraku) from his collection.[2] It later become a news headline for local newspaper. The song was a Hawaiian Song call 'Mamula Moon' believed the record dated back to the 1940s."

I didn't know this news.....
I tried the link from Wiki http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2005/8/30/nation/11901369&sec=nation But......... "Access Denied".

Another article about this : http://cmorbutt.multiply.com/journal/item/32.

Why couldn't they just pick any of the entries fromt he competition or any of the anthem which those composers had made???? At least it is original... Geez....

Funny kitty

Look at this funny kitty.......

I can see her almost every morning at the same place. Most of the time she will spread her legs and sunbathing like this. She just look sooooooo comfortable in that posture, soooo relaxing. Sometimes she'll lay against the wall like this, sometimes she'll sit on one particular taxi. It's always that taxi. One day I saw the taxi driver gave her cat food. So no wonder. I wake up later and later each day to work... so nowadays by the time I was around that place, the taxi driver uncle already out to work. So I couldn't catch her laying on his cab but most of the time is on the floor.

This kitty has a disproportionate head compare to her tummy... Her head is small but her body is fat. It just look so funny lah I tell you.

I wanted to take a closer photo but she was alarmed by me and wanted to move away. I thought that was very bad of me to disturb her so I moved away quickly and she continued to sunbath.

When I came back from work, I can see her sitting in the middle of the road (HDB open carpark). Cats always like that. It's so funny.

Wonderful

Well, I said in previous post that I hope I'd have great dreams. And I did!

Many people appeared in my dream the night before, Andy Lau, Jackie Chan, 曾志伟. AND on the same night, Voldermort and his death eaters!! Ohhohohoho.... so fun~! And yesterday, I dreamt of Snape!!!! ha!!!! but why haven't I dream of Harry Potter or Ron Weasley or Hermione...

If I can transform dreams into real life... wah......

Vladimir Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin made headlines across the globe lately for his bare-chested photos. He was having a vacation in the Siberian mountains with Prince Albert of Monaco. He is 54 years old, a 54 years old with 6packs ab~~ Cool.... and by the way, he is a keen judo practitioner and holds a 6th-dan black belt in the Japanese martial art.


I've always like his strong, manliness look, albeit a bit on the serious side. But hey, he was with the KGB you know.. He was a spy in Germany.. And as the result of watching too many "beautified" spy movies, I'd really like to have such a boyfriend. hahahaha.. just kidding.

But he looks really good, doesn't he?

Oh the mountains are really really pretty~~ We can only imagine such places.. Even if we get to have a holiday there, it's a different thing altogether. Living there, going fishing, walking in the streams... Gosh...
Oh but I had just had a dream in my nap this afternoon ~ The other day I dreamt that my house was built on the sea. And today I dreamt that my house was built against mountains! whoaho~ how cool is that? And those were some magnificent mountains with alpine trees, not very much different from the background in Putin's photos~! hahaha... Ok, now I am going to hit the sack and hopefully I'll have great dreams in great places~!

Remembering Steve Irwin

It's been almost a year. Steve Irwin died on 4/9/06. I miss him.

Extraordinary peaks

I was reading about Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain (5,895 metres) in Africa and I came across this link: Kilimanjaro climb 2004 . It is someone's climb report. It's very interesting. I have a friend, a girl, who climbed Kilimanjaro before. Extraordinary, she's a very tough girl. I've yet to see her photos though.

These photos were from the link above. See this, a toilet above the cloud. An extraordinary sight, I feel.

And having meals above the cloud, with marvellous view. HOw many people in the world can experience this. I am really envious of them. The only possible mountain for me to climb is maybe just Mount Kinabalu.

Some other breathtaking photos :



I searched Wiki for our very own Mount Kinabalu (4,095 metres). It turns out, Mount KK (Kinabalu) is the 3rd tallest in Southeast Asia, not the 1st. Did you know that? I didn't. The first being the Hkakabo Razi (5,881 metres)of Myanmar and second, Puncak Jaya (4,884 metres) of Indonesia.

Strange, these other 2 mountains are hardly known..? I have never heard of them until I read in Wiki. According to Wiki, Hkakabo Razi is rarely climbed. Go read about it in Wiki, it's really interesting. I searched the photos of Hkakabo Razi and saw this link http://www.stephenbrookes.com/features-index/2006/11/20/first-ascent-ozaki-summits-burmas-highest-peak.html. It's about the first person to reach the summit, Takashi Ozaki. The journeys were extremely hard and it's an interesting read.

This is how Hkakabo Razi looks like.

And this is Puncak Jaya.