Mount Kinabalu trip

I came, I saw, I failed to conquer. HAHAHAHAHA....

Just came back from Mount Kinabalu trip. It was a greatttt trip. Even though I didn't reach summit. I was happy with myself because it was really really really tough for me. EK and the rest reached the summit, very happy for her~ I have a bit of a contribution to that you know~ I didn't sleep the whole night at Laban Rata. So when we woke up at 1+am, I chose not to go summit as I was wasn't very confident. EK's shoes was tearing apart. So I let EK wore my Columbia trekking shoes and she conquered the mountain. hehe.. Then when we were trekking back down she had to wear her own shoes, this was what it looked like when we finished all the trekking/climbing, whatever you want to call it.

Amazing right? It's all torn. hahaa.... I didn't reach summit, my shoes and EK reached there for me. ahhahahahahaahha... The irony was, I was the one who exercised the most, yet I was the one who didn't go summit. Hahahahaha... I sort of foresaw this anyway. I am not very strong. But I was even weaker, 4years ago I probably couldn't even reach two third of the trail.

This photo was taken on the first day, on the way going up to Poring Hot Spring, not the actual climb day. Our guide said we were really lucky, for the sky is seldom this clear that we can see Mount Kinabalu so clearly. It's really majesty.

We were really really lucky throughout the whole trip. Our guide said it had been raining for days right before we came, very bad weather. It was sunny and extreme clear sky since the day we reached. There were lightnings on the night they were to climb to the summit but it never rained. On the way back down, it was still sunny but thick fog started to form, allll the way down to the starting point. I guess it rained after that day (on the mountain). It still never rained when we left.

We began our climb the second day we reached Kota Kinabalu, via Mesilau Route, the tougher route of the two (another is Timpohon). The Mesilau Route is about 8km long. At 4km, I already felt like dying. I was already asking myself, why did I pay money to suffer??? At 5km, every step was a struggle. SERIOUSLY.

At one of the rest stop, still nearly 3km to go before reaching Laban Rata, the resthouse we were going to stay, our guide pointed to us where it is. I almost fainted. IT WAS STILL SOOOOOOOOOO FAR AWAY!! It's like one mountain's distance away!

Frankly, at that time, I wasn't confident that I can make it... Every step from now on, I had to tell myself "you can do it". SEriously, every step. At about 500m before reaching Laban Rata, I started tearing. Ek was about same speed with me, it served as an encouragement for me to keep going on. I guess it was the same for both of us. We kept going when we saw the other walked another few more steps... WHen I finally reached Laban Rata, I avoided eye contact with others, cos my eyes were red. hahahahahaha... but can tell from the pic. I haven't got the pic yet, it's in another camera. Will upload it later.

When we were resting and having dinner, I was still a bit overcame by emotion. I said to EK and the rest "I want to cry already." and I cried. Hahaha... Well, not exactly cried, but tears rushed out from my eyes. And the guys took photos of me tearing. hahaa.... I didn't mind. CK asked me how I felt when I reached Laban Rata, I answered "ANGRY.". hahahaha. "Angry why was it so tough" I said. hahahaha... CK said one of his friends who went Mt K with him also felt angry. She even hit the tree with her walking pole. hahahaha.. I said at least she didn't cry, CK said he heard she did. I really should "high 5" with that girl. I didn't expect someone else also felt the same anger. Hahahahahaha... It's unreasonable but hey, I am a woman, I am supposed to be unreasonable. kekekeke....

I forgot how high this was..

Couldn't remember how high this was either.

Sunset soon after we reached Laban Rata. We spent about 9 hours to reach there.
I did some calculation, if I were to try to reach the summit, it's at least another 6hours up the summit and down to Laban Rata. And then another 5-6 hours to reach back the starting point. That's 10+ hours of walking. The first day's 9 hours already took every ounce of my strength, I was worried even if I can reach summit, I won't have the strength to trek back down... So I decided against going up the summit. Also, I was a bit scare of the height, frankly. hahaha. By the way, if you were to be carried by a porter, it's RM400, PER KILOMETRE.

This was taken when they were going to the summit.
I feel that it's a bit "rugi" for me to climb moutain. Because I'm short, I have short legs, it takes more strength for me to walk up the steps which were really high. hahahahahaha... Excuse? No, I don't think so, it's true. Because some steps are knee high.

THis was taken at the Timpohon station when i was waiting for EK and the rest to reach (we trekked down via Timpohon).

Pretty, isn't it? WHen I was trekking on Mesilau Route, I told myself NEVER AGAIN. But now I'm back, I'm not very sure about that anymore. kekekeke....

We also went Lok Kawi Wildlife Park after we went back to the city. It was great fun. Also went to the night markets, tried seaweed we never saw before, and ate HUGE tiger prawns. I don't have a lot of pics now as I mostly took videos. I will be editing the videos and make it into a short movie. Along with other friends' photos. Watch out for it soon~!

The Ren Ci saga

Everyone in Singapore knows about the Ren Ci Hospital saga that is going on now.

I donate to Ren Ci every month. People are not happy to know that Reverend MingYi was being charged with 10 counts including forgery and misuse of funds. I feel cheated as well, at least in the beginning.

I do not believe he is an evil person and that he used donation money for his own pleasure like the NKF saga's "leading character" TT Durai (gold plated water tap in his office!) who was jailed in the end.

I believe like he said, he trusts people too much to do the right thing and he himself never checked.

HOWEVER, for the record, he likes Montblanc AND Louis Vuitton.

I'm like... WHAT??!

His arguement was :
*Quote*
Ming Yi's explanation for his lifestyle was: 'I think we are living in a modern world.'
When asked what he meant by that, he replied: 'The modern world. I think the world is different, right? The world has changed. It's different.'
He added: 'A lot of religious people, not only myself, are very different now.'

and :
Justifying his preference for brand-name goods, Ming Yi said: 'You may say some of these things really last for a long time.'
*Unquote*

Yeah, the worlds is different now alright. It is alright for monks to have mobile phones and laptops because he will need these things to communicate with people faster and do thing more efficiently. But LV???!!!!

A monk is supposed to be 六根清净 and 四大皆空 (something that means free of desires), isn't it??! That's the basic understanding of being a monk! Granted people are not perfect. A monk is a human too. He might have times where he succumbed to the temptation of this material world. But still, I cannot agree to a monk carrying a LV on the street. It is NOT a necessary item.

I think we should have LV robes. He'll definitely be the first to buy them. Like those all black robes that Arab women wear which could cost up to thousands, stitched with Swarovski crystals, hundreds of crystals.

Anyway, Rev Ming Yi is not what I want to talk about here.

Some people and friends are saying to me, it's ok for monks to have branded goods. That, he is a human too. He, is NOT just a human. He is a MONK. A monk is not a normal person like us. Why do people think that it is ok for monks to have branded goods? I have to repeat myself here, I know monks have temptations too but as an outsider, why there are people among us that see nothing wrong with it?

Yes, I am opinionated. But this is such a common sense! Is it not? That a monk should try not yielding to temptations! Whether he successes or not, is one thing. But why are we agreeing to him need not try??

If it's perfectly ok for a monk to own branded, materialistic stuffs, he might as well go and get married and have kids (a buddhist monk does not get married).

Half of each slippers

I finally went salon to have my hair trimmed a little. It's too long and doesn't look nice anymore. I went out and after I parked my car, I realised... I wore half of each slippers.. LIke this :
Gosh... So embarrasing. I didn't want to go back and change... I walked as fast as possible to the salon. And I said to my stylist, "Look at my slippers!" LOL. I told him the first thing after I entered the door because I don't want him to realise that by himself and then laugh at me in his heart. kekeke...

NOTHING justifies robbery

Was telling Calvin about the robbery. I told him the robber deserves the beating. He then told me about this movie (Austin Power or something), where heroes kill bad guys. And when every bad guy was killed, the scene will change to show the bad guy's family, wife, kids. Guess the movie is trying to tell there's always 2 sides of a story. And when you kill the bad guy, his family suffers as well.

If you were to say that the robber has his reasons for being a robber, and that if he were beaten to death, his family member then suffers, I STRONGLY disagree on such sentiment. NOTHING, absolutely nothing justifies robbery. If the bad guy dies because of the bad things that he has committed, then his family has himself to blame. The wife can only blame her husband, the kids can only blame their father for landing them in such a situation.

What gives a person the right to snatch someone else's property from their hand?! People work to earn money, everybody works. We are not in Africa, we are not Sudan, we are not Somalia, whose country is a complete chaos. We are MALAYSIA. We are a DEVELOPING COUNTRY. People WORK. I do not think people here are in such a devastating state that they have to resort to robbery. People here rob, because it is an easier way to get money. Not because they are in extreme poverty.

You cannot tell me, maybe they couldn't find a job so they resort to robbery and we have to look at it from their situation. If the general public were to accept such thinking, our society will be chaotic. Numerous robberies will happen everywhere and when caught, the robbers will tell you "I can't find a job. I have a family of 6 (or 7, or 8, or whatever) to feed so I have to rob."

You can tell me, people should not beat him up, as we are not law enforcers, we should not take justice in our own hand. I agree with that. But I cannot accept the thinking that "the poor guy probably has his reasons".

What would you have felt, if the robbery happens to your own family?? If that particular girl ran across the road and hit by a car, paralysed, or died because of it, what would her family have felt??! Ask yourself, if it happens to any member of your family, would you still say the same? Would you still think, there's always 2 sides of a story??! Would you still think "Oh, poor man beaten up by so many people.." ??!!

We don't even have to consider the situation if that girl dies because of that robbery, she was definitely shaken but otherwise unharmed. When she goes back home and tell her family what has happened to her, what will the family members feel? Anger of course! Try telling her this : "Oh, he probably is very poor and couldn't find a job." She'd probably sever all relationship with the family member who tells her that.

If you feel sympathy towards people who commit such a crime because of poverty, then you are saying that we should sympathise the pirates from Somalia. But do we? No, we don't. Millions of people are in extreme poverty, you don't see millions of robberies happening everyday. The Somali pirates are so rich now that they can buy state-of-the-art weaponry to seize more vessels, super tankers, etc. People everywhere in Somalia are heading to the pirate town Eyl hoping to join them as pirates. They live in such unrest that the risk of being a pirate is nothing to them. So do we sympathise them? If we sympathise them, who sympathise the victims who were killed? A man was travelling the sea with his wife in his yacht and pirates came and killed the husband. So what do you make of this?

If I were so poor that I have to sleep on the street, if I were so poor that I might die of hunger tomorrow, I will NEVER rob or kill anybody. I will beg, I will dig the trash, but I will rather die to rob or kill. You can say that's because I'm a chicken. You can say I'm narrow minded. But there are some things that is totally unacceptable for me. Robbery is definitely one of them.



p.s. To be fair, there might be robbers who committed the crime because they are in extreme poverty and really couldn't find a job. But if you condone such thing, then where do we draw the lines?

Robbery

I just witnessed a robbery. A girl yelled and ran across the road from the bus stand at CIQ side to City Square. She shouted something like "JANGAN AMBIL HANDPHONE SAYAAA!!" (Don't take my handphone!) She ran across the main road, oh my God, thank goodness nothing happened to her, there were so many cars on the road.

She shouted really loud and immediately grabbed everyone's attention. And the robber stupidly (but thankfully) ran into the hands of the many people outside of City Square. I think I saw him threw something into the drainage before that, later on it turned out it was the handphone. The girl grabbed him and shouted for him to return her handphone. Then everybody started beating him up. There were a lot of people and people inside City Square heard the commotion and keep on coming and joined the beating. Serves him right! God damn it!

I made a comment to my brother that why the girl cried so much for the handphone (her bag was not robbed) but I regretted immediately after saying that. That was a cruel thing to say. But my thought at that time was, thank goodness it was not her bag. But still, it was scary of course, for the victim. I stood there and watched, it was pretty scary, the whole thing. And I was quite shaken by the incident, let alone the victim.

What's really comforting is that people were so readily helpful. Two Chinese who came to help and probably has a "share" of beaten up the robber were so angry about the case. They even came over to me and told me what happened and kept cursing the god damn robber. They were really really angry. The fact is, everybody is angry. Fucking bastard doesn't wanna earn his money properly by working and robbed others' property. He deserved the beating. That fucking son of a bitch is lucky that he is still alive.

Oh by the way, the 2 Chinese men, were so happy, or rather, "satisfied" that Malay people helped beat up the Malay robber too. Kind of amusing.

We saw someone, should be City Square's guards, took him away. I presumed they will call the police then.

My super big iris

I went and order custom make contact lense. And I've changed 2 times. I'm waiting for the 3rd pair.

The problem is, I have bigger than normal eyeballs. BIG. The boss of the spec shop said that I am the record holder in his shop, I have the biggest eyeball or rather, iris, ever. I am, unique, so to speak. But this uniqueness, is not good in this case. I can't wear normal ready made lenses. They are just too loose and glide down on my eyeball when I wear them.

Some time back, there're some new lenses with bigger diameter which I can wear although not 100% comfortable. But at least I can wear them when I go diving. They still sometimes glide down on my eyeball so I blink more frequently.

So I thought since I can wear these, custom make ones should be more comfy. I still haven't found the answer yet because the first 2 pairs were not good. The first one still glide down. The second pair, stay too high on my eyeball. The lense's lower edge touches the lower edge of my iris. And that affects my vision, blurry on the bottom. That makes me feel like I'm about to cry like, teary eyes.

I forgot how big is my iris, but the lense's diameter is 14.5mm. I asked the boss is there any bigger ones and he said no... hmm....... it's just not really big enough to cover my iris (as when one blinks the lense will move a little, so preferably to be a bigger diameter ). If I were to wear those lenses (with a black rim) which are designed to make one's iris look bigger, it'll have no effect on my eyes whatsoever.

I have bigger than normal eyeball, YY and SL have smaller than normal eyeball. Urgh... troublesome. We can't just buy the lenses off the shelves. It is really annoying. I am praying my 3rd pair is good, good, good!

Gloomy weather? me?

All of a sudden I feel like crying. It's been months since I last cried. And I hate the weather now. Gloomy everyday, just like my life.

and you said you will love me forever.

..and you said you will love me forever NO MATTER WHAT.

Not even a birthday present.

Butt naked

I had the wackiest dream ever.

I was going in a building, before I enter, there were men walking around. And I saw a man's back, walking away from me. Another man was standing beside me. I wasn't paying attention to this man who was standing beside me but the one walking away from me. There wasn't any clothes on him. I stopped dead in my path and... jaw dropped and I said to the man beside me, "He was, BUTT NAKED!"

And the man beside me, sort of took offence. Because, he was sort of butt naked too! Well, the front view, he was wearing a groin cloth that sort of thing. It was of bright yellow. I'm sure from the back he was butt naked too.

So he took offence of what I said, they were actually distributing something, like promoters of some sort, and he threw what they were distributing to me, "BUTT NAKED YA?!". I didn't catch it, I just ducked.

Then I walked along the pathway beside the building, another man who dressed in the same way was walking towards me. He didn't know what I said and was friendly to me and gave me one of the thing they were distributing. I had thought it was a condom filled with something, water, or jelly or whatever. But it's a mm... like the flavoured ice frozen in plastic tube we used to eat when we're little.

So weird.. but very funny. ^_^

Good Friday, my birthday~

EK was the first one to wish me happy birthday today :D Like last year, she "dedicated" her msn title for me : "Happy Birthday to Wei Li". HOw nice of her~ I hadn't been able to do the same to her because she was not in town, not in msn, but taking a holiday in Phuket. Her birthday this year, we will be on Mount Kinabalu~

Yesterday after work, I checked the bus status using IRIS (SBS Transit) and it showed my bus was coming in 3minutes, the next bus is going to be 17minutes later. I was three to four hundred meters away from my bus stop... I'm short, with short legs, I can't reach the bus stand in 3min.... So I half ran half walked... (sometimes the bus comes a little later than the predicted time, I was hoping for this) I had my 7kg bag with me (laptop and all other stuffs). 100m away from the bus stand, the bus was already there!! JESUS..... I dashed towards the bus stand. I didn't want to wait for the next bus which is 15min later. GOSH.... with a 7kg bag on my back, I ran like a tortoise... But I WAS RUNNING.

*THUMP*THUMP*THUMP.... Painfully ran towards the bus, almost couldn't make it. Totally "no image" left. That's why I always change to pants and shirt on Friday night when I am going back to JB. Need to rush to get to the checkpoint as early as possible to avoid the time where factory buses are coming. Factory buses won't move until all the workers got on it and the whole world stops spinning because of them (other buses can't get pass them). Speaking of this, I salute all those girls who wear high heels going back and forth JB and SIngapore everyday. REally salute!

WHen I got on the bus, my heart was beating like crazy, it almost stopped! hahaa.. And I couldn't catch my breath loudly... the bus was quiet and there were people in front and at the back of my seat... GEEZZZ.... I guess this is good training for my Mount Kinabalu expedition, eh?

EK and I (and 4 others) are going to Mount Kinabalu next next Friday~! I hadn't been training hard... just usual exercising... I hope we can make it to the summit~ :D

I'm in love with raw fish!

WOW. I never knew I can like raw fish this much.

Went dinner at a Japanese restaurant called Akira, a-la-carte buffet, $30++ per person. Previously I had raw fish at Sakae Sushi, after a while, I feel sick with it. So I don't really eat that much. But here at Akira, the fish is sooooooooooo fresh and sweet. I never know I can tell the difference of the quality of the raw fish as I only "learnt" to eat raw fish just about one, two years ago. After eating a few slices in Akira, I was like, "Man... THIS is GOOD~~". I will never touch the raw fish in 鱼生again. hahaha...I kept eating and eating and eating, 90% of what I ate was raw fish. kakakakkakaka..... And I never felt a tint of sick feeling for the raw fish.

I've discovered, "yellow tail" tastes very sweet and equally delicious as the salmon, if not better. I've only eaten raw salmon and tuna. This is the first time I ate "yellowtail". According to Wiki, yellowtail is the Japanese amberjack. There's also swordfish, it's very "crunchy", very nice too but yellowtail tastes better.

Every time we order, they give you 3 pieces (there're 3 of us) of yellowtail and swordfish... They give you more for salmon.

I'm soooooo satisfied with my dinner tonight yet I wasn't overly full, because there was no carbohydrate. Soooooooooooo nice.

I also ordered fried oyster and it was kind of... weird. hahah...

This is much better than an expensive dinner at Sakae or any other conveyor belt sushi restaurant!