Free Hugs

Sometimes, a hug is all what we need.
Free hugs is a real life controversial story of Juan Mann, A man whos sole mission was to reach out and hug a stranger to brighten up their lives.
In this age of social disconnectivity and lack of human contact, the effects of the Free Hugs campaign became phenomenal.
~Free Hugs Campaign

Saw this Free Hugs video from zpingw's blog. Inspired by this story, he has his own project as well, called the smiley face project - to collect 500 notes of "Who is the last person that made you smiled?" and put them into a huge smiley face. Very inspiring too.

The Free Hugs campaign is such a touching deed. Why can't we human just love each other? We have all the same fundamental needs and problems, just different version. Why do we let our survival mechanism get wild for what we need? Where is the spirit of sharing with love, without fear of another human being? I want more love in the world.

And a guys with the same name as my brother took it to Taiwan! Haha! So, Ko, are you going to take it to Malaysia?

Photo pop up for UWA

Jayjay (our school manager at CSSE) sparked the idea of making nice 3D walkthrough for the entire UWA campus. And he asked me to create this photo pop up of UWA after he saw this in my presentation to highschool students at the Siemen Science Experience at UWA.

So here's the page:
Photo pop up for UWA

Note: Most of the tests turned out to be totally rubbish. It really requires nice clean ground, nice clean sky and rigid walls (at least that's my limited experience of using it). UWA has many trees, the algorithm doesn't seem to like that.

Photos from my phone

I loaded some photos from my phone again.


Vegetarian PadThai at Subiaco Station Street Market. Very nice. Where else can you get $6 Padthai in Perth? I will come back again.


Cherry is in season, well almost over... I bought some top grade cherry last week. It is good. I think it's the same type that I brought back from Tasmania to Malaysia some 5 years ago. Heart shape, dark red. Yummy.

I tried and succeeded in tying a cherry stem knot in my mouth.

Drought appeal - Shop at woolworth today

Woolworth is donating its entire day's profits today to Australian farming families in need.

Support for Drought Relief at Woolworth

Movies are meant to be watched

Found this "March of the Emperor (Penguin)" on Phil's blog. Thanks. Hilarious!

Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank for the poor

I stumbled upon this very interesting and noble deed of Grameen Bank for the poor. The founder Prof Muhammad Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.

Shop at woolworth on 23 Jan to donate for drought

Woolworth is donating its entire day's profits on 23 Jan 2007 to Australian farming families in need.

Support for Drought Relief at Woolworth

Apple "reinvents the phone," unveils iPhone

MacNN | Apple "reinvents the phone," unveils iPhone
The descriptions sound sweet!

Update:
There's a iPhone demo on Apple website. That's so so cool!! Thanks Jim for the pointer.

The father of instant noodle

Momofuku Ando, the founder of Nissin and inventor of world's first instant noodle passed away on 5/1/07. PhD Comics has a comic strip in memory of him. Well, the Ramen is arguably one of the main character in the comic too.


I don't take much instant noodle, probably less than 10 meals a year. They taste great though. Hmm... Thinking twice about it, it's more accurate to say I don't take much instant noodle with the flavour pack. I quite like those 10 biscuit of noodle in a pack Ayam Brand instant noodle. They are convenient and taste great. :P I usually make my own soup.

A quote from Albert Einstein

A friend sent this to me, I think it's worth posting. From Albert Einstein:

“A human being is a part of the whole called the “universe”, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of ……consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons near to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in all its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievements is in itself part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.”

Have we set our food priorities right?

A very good article on Malaysiakini on 29/12 last year by Nick Josh K Karean.

Think about this. They are 20 billion ‘slaughter animals’ on our planet. What do they eat? Forty percent of the world’s grain harvesting lands is for the factory farms of industrial nations. Thus, in order to ‘produce’ one kilo of beef, you need nine kilos of grain.

If the massive quantities of grain, soybeans, corn, peanuts etc. that are now fed to farm animals like cows, chickens, pigs and so on were freed up, there would be plenty of food for the entire world’s starving people.

The production of one kilo of beef generates approximately 15 kilos of liquid manure. The nitrate contained in it pollutes the groundwater. The ammonia fumes from manure and slurry is a major contributor to the development of acid rain and dying forests.

Fifty percent of the entire consumption of drinking water is accounted for by factory farming. For the production of one kilo of meat, 100 times more water is used on the average than for the production of one kilo of grain or vegetables.

My question now is, have we really set our food priorities right? Or do we rather take the easy way out by selfishly blinding ourselves from the truth?

Read the full article here.

That's why I choose a vegetarian diet, apart from health concern.

Photo with my prime minister

Abdullah Badawi was in Perth again last Saturday. Fiza from the Malaysia consulate called me on Thursday to invite me to the Hari Raya Haji celebration with Abdullah Badawi as the guest of honour. I was delighted.

The event was at Puteri Nasi Kandar at Victoria Park, just couple of shops away from Makan2. That street will be a great gathering place for Malaysians, if it hasn't already been. I got there at 12pm, sat down with a table of other AMWA committee. Badawi arrived at about 1pm+, I took some good photos. He gave a short speech wishing all Malaysians to do well here in Perth. Then the lunch started.

I got to know several young Malaysians there during lunch, including an English editor of a new newspaper ASIA TIMES. The Malaysian food is not bad too.

And I caught this photo with Badawi when he was walking out.


Delighted and honoured as I am to see my PM, I'm not quite so satisfied with the team and the state of governance in Malaysia. This accusation that "many ministers (esp. of Johor) are on holiday overseas while some 80000 flood victims of Johor state hit by the worst flood in 37 years are needing help" was chewing the back of my mind. How many politicians really care more about the people and the integrity of the country than their career? Also, it's funny that the Australians newspaper has a full page interview with Tun Mahathir on that day.

There are more photos on AMWA photo gallery.

Photos from my phone

I like my phone. The convenience of having a good camera built in to the phone is just great. I took some photos with it when I don't have my big Canon S3IS with me, and it recorded some of my life adventures.


This one is when I was transitting in Changi Airport, took a photo and tried the phone built-in image editing tool. [1/12/2006 8:47AM]


A flyer in the hotel room in Shanghai. Funny English. [6/12/2006 11:06PM]


Kelly was leaving back to Taiwan for good, so me and Michael caught up with her for a lunch and coffee. [13/12/2006 1:46PM]


Yeeting was flying back to Brunei for Christmas and New year Holiday. I sent her off to the airport. [21/12/2006 11:53AM]


I bumped into Eleanor couple of weeks ago and we decided to find one day to catch up. So we did 2 days before Christmas at the beautiful East Perth waterfront. [23/12/2006 4:43PM]


Nola invited me to the St George's Cathedral for a mid night service on Christmas. Very old Gothic style building, beautiful choir and music. Nice!
[24/12/2006 11:12PM]


Bloody Summer! My cassette converter melted in my car! Cost me $20! :`( [27/12/2006 1:23PM]


I found this big sun clock at Cottesloe Beach when I was jogging there. Cool! And this is the kind of photo I will not get without the convenience of a camera phone. And it was almost 8pm then, still pretty bright, I love daylight saving! :D [28/12/2006 7:45PM]

Python ate a whole pregnant ewe in Malaysia

Another piece of (old) news about Malaysia that I picked up browsing the net.

Python ate a whole pregnant ewe in Malaysia

On National Geography

Bosnia pyramid search

I came across this possible pyramid awhile ago when it was first discovered. Now Malaysian has role in the Bosnian pyramid find! And as I follow the link to the official website www.piramidasunca.ba, I found more interesting video and coverage about this exciting discovery.

Personally, I think it's very possible that there is a pyramid there. And hope that the discovery work won't destroy the energy pattern and the very reason why it is there. I'm sure ShihChing will be very excited to know it's progress as well.

And under the Daily News tab of the website, the team is now in Malaysia meeting many prominent Malaysians there.

Winter Solstice Festival Today

Thanks Wilson for letting me know that it's Winter Solstice Festival (冬至) today.

I'm going to get some glutinuous rice ball (called tang yuan) now. :)

China Trip log

If you're waiting for my China trip log. I'm afraid it won't be much. It was almost 95% working. Not really stressful for me but I didn't get to have much time for sightseeing. The only time I had was about 1.5 hour after 9pm to walk around my hotel. Only food places and 24 hours convenient shops are open at that hours. Anyhow, I still got quite some amusement out of those places. The kind of stuff selling on the shelves, the super cheap prices, fried chicken wing or sausages on the road side (I didn't try any, I was too full)....
I passed by a florist, it was cold that night. The boss saw me looking around and just asked me in and started boiling tea, and we had a nice chat over some tea. That was surprising. He couldn't tell I'm not from China at all, Haha! I haven't met anyone in Shanghai who could tell I'm not a mainland Chinese, I guess my Mandarin accent is close enough.

The highlight of this trip is probably food. It's so cheap to eat in China. 8 people, in a VIP room with 1-2 dedicated waitresses, 8 entree cold dishes, 8 hot main dishes, soup, sweets, complimentary fruits, and beers - it never got over RMB600. So it's like about AU$100 for 8 people. A simple Penang fried horfun cost $6.80 in Broadway Fair here in Perth. A super posh dinner in Shanghai cost two hawker style lunch here!
Oh ya, I saw some small restaurant selling hawker style dinner for RMB6, that's like a dish pour on top of rice. The same thing probably costs $7 in Northbridge.

So much about the food, I think it's only fair to post a photo here to capture the variety of it.

Some of them are noteworthy:
[7,5] BBQ duck Lower jaw including tongue - so weird! Not much meat but taste good.
[5,6] duck head from the duck and bamboo shot soup [3,3], no one actually ate that head lah.
[7,6:7] wheat bun with hole to be stuffed with fried meat+vegies, 'westerners' seem to like that. Not bad for me too.
[1,6] another 'westerner' favourite - make your own burger.
[3,4] lotus root stuffed with sweet sticky rice. I like it very much.
[2,2] Horse Bridge (马桥) Tofu, Horse Bridge is a place not far from Shanghai I was told. Very tasty tofu.
[2,6] corn slab, very sweet and juicy.
[2,7] 梅菜扣肉 dried salted vegi with fatty pork on top (can't quite see the dried vegies). Taste great! Like mama used to cook at home.
[5,3] Pagoda vegies (塔菜). Very green, tasty. It's like a pagoda when alive, a bit like the purple gourmet lettuce but flatter.
[4,5] Pumpkin pudding with coconut milk on top. Yummy.
[6,4] Fish pudding with salty egg yolk on top. Yummy.
[6,7] Australian scallop. It's huge! 5cm diameter.
[7,1] One of my favourite soup. It's like shark fin soup without shark fin so it's not as thick and gluey. The white strips are very thin tofu, silky smooth. Very nice!
[7,3] Another one of the best soup. Fish head seafood soup. It's milky white and taste like all good stuffs are in there. Very very nice!
[5,7] seaweed that looks like centipede. Taste like seaweed.
[6,1] One last one, Chili chicken (辣子鸡丁). It's very difficult to find the chicken. So much chili I can't believe it!

Chia and Joanne's ROM

Ah Chia and Joanne are engaged! Congratulations!!!

The Registration ceremony was held on last Sunday in Singapore and now only I get the photos together and post it here.

I was in transit back from Shanghai to Perth in Singapore then, my flight arrived at Changi airport at 5:30am, met up with YongQin and KokWee at around 7am. They brought me to have some Roti Canai and zuige (rice cake with fried salty radish). KokWee thought the Roti is really bad quality, but it was enough to satisfy me as I haven't had it for a long time. :P
Then we hanged around at their flat and the water front area not far from their place before we headed to the place Chia and Joanne's ceremony took place.


The ceremony was simple and sweet. They both look great! Black and red, classic! I took heaps of photos, the two models are great! :) After the ceremony, we went to a nearby park to took more artistic shots. That was nice too.


And we had a group photo for the University of Tasmania alumni presented there. It was a pity that Albert didn't make it.


We had a buffet lunch after the ceremony, then YongQin, KokWee and myself went to a nearby Fire museum, a digital superstore, and a camera shop. By then we were all exhausted. We went back to their place to rest a bit, loaded the photos into their computer and then it was time for me to get back to airport again.

I got back to Perth at 1:40am, took bloody half an hour to get my luggage and long queue at quarantine. My housemate waited for me for almost an hour, by the time we got home, it was 3:30am! And it wasn't bad enough, my housemate was leaving to China at 10am that day. So I sent him to airport at 8am and really struggled to kept my mind alert to drive home safe. I really had to make every effort to move my body every couple of second so that my eye won't close. It didn't feel that bad at that time, but thinking back, it was rather tough.

Let Christmas be a season for giving to the most in need

I found this Oxfam Christmas present website through Nick's holiday wish list.

I think it's a brilliant idea. Give the right gift to someone in need is the best gift. Will I receive a card like that too?

Dec China Trip Day 1

I got on to the flight at 2am 1/12. Singapore airline. There was no drama from Perth to Singapore. I watched a Chinese movie "Dragon Tiger Gate" and got 2 hours of sleep. Then we were in transit in Singapore Changi airport for 3 hours. Spent most of the time in the transit lounge, enjoying some foot massage and reading my book. I gave couple of friends and family a call, free call in Singapore, why not? :P We hopped on to the plane again at 10am to Shanghai.

The S'pore-Shanghai flight was more of a drama. The Shanghai Pudong airport was having some military exercise and was closed when we arrived. So we could not land then and had to detour to Nanjing and landed there to wait. So I'd been to Nanjing too, haha! Anyway, we were in Nanjing for about an hour before we flew back to Shanghai airport when they are open again... Altogether 3 hours delay. And I got a lot more sleep because of that.


We stay at Ramada hotel. Not bad. RMB450 a night. We had dinner at the restaurant in the hotel. I like the food too. Good that there's no sharkfin tonight and have plenty of vegies. The Nan2ru3 fatty pork is very tasty too, very fat, but yummy.... :a

I didn't take much photo today. I was busy at the dinner table as we've been 3 hours behind, so they tried to get some things sorted out during dinner. But I still managed to eat to my stomach's content. :D So full now...