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...

I'm going to China again

With the same people, I'm off to Shanghai again tonight (or tomorrow morning) at 2am. I'll be back on 11/12.

I may post some photos here if I have the time there.

My new camera phone

I can't believe it. But it is true. I upgraded my mobile phone from the Nokia 3315 which I have been using for 3 years to the SonyEricsson K800i. I got it on Tuesday afternoon, posted straight from Hong Kong, after I bought it off ebay a week ago. Yeah, from winning the bid to getting it takes 7 days. I thought it's alright.

It's bundled with an extra battery, car charger, 512MB M2 memory and a plastic case that makes it looks like it can go underwater. And it is brown colour instead of the normal black.

I'm happy with it so far, the camera is freaking awesome! And it's pretty light too, comsidered it's a 3.2MP Sony Cybershot camera. But the battery only lasted me playing with it for a day and needed to recharge. Recharging takes about 2 hours from 10% to full.

Heaps of features that I haven't got around playing with them yet. But I'm excited and pretty happy with it. :D

Haven't got the software and drivers installed with my computer yet, so I can't judge how good the picture really is on screen, and I can't transfer any songs to it to enjoy yet.

Daylight saving for WA

Western Australia is introducing daylight saving for a trial period commencing December 3, 2006 for 3 years, with the period shown below:

2 a.m. on 3 December 2006 - 2 a.m. on 25 March 2007
2 a.m. on 28 October 2007 - 2 a.m. on 30 March 2008
2 a.m. on 26 October 2008 - 2 a.m. on 29 March 2009

Note: Both the start and end time are specified in standard time, so the end time is 3 am daylight saving time.

So Perth will be 1 hour ahead of Malaysia during daylight saving time. And there'll be more daylight in the evening.

For people in WA, here's a link to fix up your MS Windows system clock.


Update:
Just stumbled upon a post last year that I actually wished for Daylight saving:

It's almost summer now. It's broad daylight by 5:30am! It rather strange to be driving on such a bright day and have very light traffic. W.A should have daylight saving!! Then I can play basketball or go jogging till 8pm and still see. :P
posted by Tzu Yen at 3:50 PM Saturday, November 19, 2005

The 25 Funniest Analogies

Thanks to Phil for the overdose of my daily laughter today.
The 25 Funniest Analogies

I really like the contrast between the serious and elegent language usage the first half and then the analogy that follows which I can totally relate to but just so wrong in the context. Good laugh!

PhD comics vs nick

Haha! This reminds me of Nick's last year Yanchep Talk - You found out someone did the research you're doing and "cry like a baby". Also couple of months ago I got comments from my supervisors that my research results seem like good screen saver, I must be close to finishing based on Nick's talk again. Haha!

Sad truth about Malaysia

My fellow Malaysia countrymen should read this:
While Malaysia fiddles, its opportunities are running dry
by Michael Backman. Thanks Albert for pointing it to me.

Bank bale outs, a formula one racing track, an entire new capital city — Petronas has paid for them all. It's been an orgy of nonsense that Malaysia can ill afford.

Why? Because Malaysia's oil will run out in about 19 years. As it is, Malaysia will become a net oil importer in 2011 — that's just five years away.

So it's in this context that the latest debate about race and wealth is so sad.

It is time to move on, time to prepare the economy for life after oil. But, like Nero fiddling while Rome burned, the Malaysian Government is more interested in stunts like sending a Malaysian into space when Malaysia's inadequate schools could have done with the cash, and arguing about wealth distribution using transparently ridiculous statistics.

That's not Malaysia "boleh", that's Malaysia "bodoh" (stupid).

Update: Michael Backman had a follow up that gives a bit more of context of where he was coming from.
Read here

One twenty is back with new cleaner look

Planet onetwenty is back with new cleaner look. I like it. And finally my blog is rendered properly without all the tags being exposed.

There is a feed that Nick put together as well. Mostly graphics or techy stuffs. I thought PhD comics should make it to the feeds.

What The Bleep Do We Know

I was looking at an email about What The Bleep Do We Know and google ads on the side lured me to these sites:

Know that by which everything else is known. Maharishi University, USA
Maharishi University of Management
Watching What The Bleep Do We Know? Change the world with us on Zaadz!
http://www.zaadz.com/


Interesting sites, but I'm a bit skeptical though. Transcendental Meditation on MUM is interesting. There are good pointers to good enlightening books on zaadz, and movies like Matrix, V for vendetta are among the most liked movies in that community. Cool.

Wikimapia

Danno pointed this out to me. It's really cool! Now the map really comes alive!

And I'm delighted that my search on my hometown Yong Peng returned the correct place. And I quickly added some places I can make out from that birds-eye resolution.

Fantastico!

Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments II - The Domino Effect

The guys from EepyBird are back, with 251 bottles of Diet Coke and over 1,500 Mentos mints. In Experiment #137, they did a mint-powered version of the Bellagio fountains. This time, it's one giant Coke & Mentos chain reaction that has to be seen to be believed.

See here for the science behind.

Hobart live webcam

Live webcam of Hobart, Tasmania.



Oh, so much memories there.

Are you a pig that can work

I got this funny sms from my girlfriend.

Human = eat + sleep + work + enjoy
Pig = eat + sleep
Human = Pig + work + enjoy
Human - enjoy = Pig + work
Conclusion:
Human who cannot enjoy = Pig that can work

Sadly, I'm a pig that can work most of the time, and a human sometimes. :(