Three More Days.

then it's bye-bye August..

What Directions?

I am so bad at directions you have no idea.

That or maybe I'm just too lazy to think of the routes leading to my destination.

And I do sales for a living.

Such irony of life.

And I love driving.

Hmm.

This is interesting.

In about 1 hour, I will be experiencing for the first time in my life such a thing. No, not tattoo. I'm going to a shop where they are famous for making people slim. I called them, googled and called them again to ask exactly where their shop is. I hope they don't thinkI'm such a noob in this. Burmah Road is really a very long road okayyy! 

And no, I did not pay to go for some slimming course. 

I was selected to get this award. Can't believe I actually used the word award. Heh. Selected sumore as if I need to go for some slimming sessions. No, don't say anything. Haha.

I 'participated' in a 'contest' sort of and was one of their 10 winners. I actually hoped to get selected for the sake of my scar. That horrible 13cm long eh scar.

Even until now, I haven't really want to blog about it because mentally not ready to show the world my scar, and it's been like what? 3 years? 

Okay, more updates on this award.

Hope all goes well :)

Crazy & Tough.

This is seriously insane.

It feels like forever since I last post something. Haha.

Oh, such an exciting month it has been. 

I've always had this feeling when something crazy is about to happen. More like for time kind of feeling.

Like in the year 2010 towards the end of it, I had a feeling that 2011 was going to be one crazy year. It was just a feeling that's inside for the whole month of December 2010. Crazy in the sense that I was going to be challenged to be out of my comfort zone.

True enough, it turned out to be one of the craziest year I've lived so far. Not that I've lived many many years. I'm still very young. 

From having my appendix perforated and infected my whole stomach and intestines to ending an eight years of relationship with an amazing person to losing my grandfather to cancer. These three is enough to make one person go crazy for an entire year. 

Obviously I didn't go crazy crazy. It was a tough year. Toughest year ever so far.

The funny thing was when all these craziness happen to me, it didn't shock me. Not in that sense like I didn't expect it coming. 

Okay, how do I put this into words?

Hmm.. it's more like when it happens, immediately I got reminded back in December 2010 when I had that feeling.

That same feeling came to me in July this year. Just a month ago.

I felt that August was going to be a tough month. I don't know how but I just had that feeling.

Needless to say, August is the most difficult month this year.

So many things happened this month and it's really a mixture of both good and bad. I still have one week left in this miserable month. It would be nice to get out of August and into September. 

Okay, enough of my randomness here. 

p.s I no longer have the desire to continue my candy crush. I found a new game which I super love. 

Welcome Home MH17.

MH17, an international passenger flight was shot down on 17th July 2014.

There were no survivors. In fact, it is believed that the passengers might not even know what hit them. 

This is the deadliest airline shootdown in history and Malaysia Airlines' worst incident. Not to mention just months before, MH370 went missing from the radar and even until now, still not found.

Today, as I listened to the radio and read updates from Facebook, I have goosebumps all day. 

I don't personally know anyone on board this ill-fated flight but I shed a few tears today as the bodies came home.

When I typed the words WELCOME HOME MH17, it really did something inside. I really meant it. Welcome home, passengers of MH17. Welcome home.

This is home. 

Malaysia is our home.

I don't know how to write this post. I'm just everywhere. 

I just read most, if not all of the passengers life stories told by their wife, parents, grandparents, best friends and children. 

It's really so heartbreaking. 

Rest in peace, crew members and passengers of MH17.

Crew members:

1. Mastura Mustafa (F)
2. Ahmad Hakimi Hanapi (M)
3. Hamfazlin Sham Mohamed Arifin (F)
4. Nur Shazana Mohamed Salleh (F)
5. Dora Shahila Kassim (F)
6. Lee Hui Pin (F)
7. Angeline Premila Rajandaran (F)
8. Chong Yee Pheng (F)
9. Azrina Yakob (F)

Passengers:

1. Foo Ming Lee (M)
2. Karamjit Singh Karnail Singh (M)
3. Ng Qing Zheng (M)
4. Mabel Anthony Samy (F)
5. Paul Rajasingam / Sivagnanam (M)
6. Elisabeth Ng Lyeti (F)
7. Ariza Ghazalee (F)
8. Muhammad Afif Tambi (M)
9. Noor Rahimmah Mohd Nor (F)
10. Mohd Ali Md Salim (M)
11. Hasni Hardi Parlan (M)

In Memory of Aunty Ean Beng.

After being silent for a week, I am back.

I want to convey my deepest heartfelt condolences to Pastor Heok Cheow, Judson, Joyce and Jesher in the passing of Aunty Ean Beng.

One of my fondest memories with Aunty Ean Beng was back in the days when we would always hang out at Pastor's house, have dinner and just coffee. Aunty Ean Beng will always sit at the steps and we would always share Judson's embarrassing moments. I've known Jud since 10 years old? 

Wow, it's been 16 years huh. Crazy times.

We will always laugh at Judson because of the things he did last time. I guess that made me talk to Aunty Ean Beng more. Knowing her more than just a Pastor's wife.

Once, she saw that I was taking some cili padi on the table and she asked if I love having them in my meals. I told her that it wasn't only me, both my parents are also crazy over it. Since then, everytime her cili padi plant had its products, she would always give them to us in a small see through container. 

Oh! Not to mention how delicious her homemade peanut butter is! 

Also, the day when we visited her at the hospital, she remembered everyone's names and what they do and stuff. On the way home, Koay told me that he was very shocked to see that Aunty Ean Beng remembered him. Someone who doesn't see her often at all. Maybe a few times only. 

I miss you, Aunty Ean Beng. It's still very surreal that you have gone home. I know we have never say this to you but we love you. My family loves and prays for you. We are glad that you are no longer suffering. Thank you for being the person you are. Your life have wowed so many people. Mine included. 

I don't know how it must have felt like to lose someone so close to you. I cannot and don't want to imagine. 

Judson walked to the coffin and as he lay the flower on top of it, his hand remained on the flower a while and I saw his lips moved.

"Bye Mom.."

This scene is engraved in my mind since. Everytime I think of it, my eyes get wet a little, like now..

I know they probably have heard "Be strong!" many many times. I wanted to say it but I guess it's not going to be that easy..

To Pastor Heok Cheow, Judson, Joyce and Jesher,

Know that we are praying for you everyday. For comfort, strength, peace and joy. Know that we love you and we will always be there anytime you need us. ANYTIME. 

Till I see you again, Aunty Ean Beng.

2 Broke Girls.

I decided to start on this comedy.

Like today.

Apparently, it's very entertaining. 

I can't judge yet since I've only watched the first episode.

So far so good.

Looks like I haven't totally given up yet in planning for a holiday. Hah.
Looks like KL is going to happen, hopefully.

:)

My Two Angels at Work.

Remember about three months ago I had this incident where I had to pay RM150 to get my car back? Nah, go read first.

Since that incident, I learnt my lesson and I no longer park at places where people are not supposed to park.

Because of that, I had to park behind my office at the lorong and because I start work at 9am, the usual slots that are usually still available are the back ones. The ones most far from my office.

Of course I learnt also to not mind walking that distance if that means that I don't have to be worried when I'm at work about my car. 

So, all this while I have been happily parking at my usual spot with no nonsense.

Of course there are more parking spaces nearer to the office but they are usually taken care of by people. There's one chinese uncle who's always angry and shouting at people and then there's one indian uncle with sour face also most of the time. 

I don't want to park at their territory not because they are rude and always asking for money, but the fact that I always go out of office to meet clients so when I park my car, it's usually for less than 3 hours.

Despite them being rude (at me once), I constantly smile and calls them 'Uncle' just to show respect. 

Then, this weird thing happened last week. 

Oh wait! The chinese uncle also somehow expanded his territory over the years and the front part of the lorong (nearest to the office) are also reserved by him by putting his plastic chairs on them. 

Okay, back to the story. As I drove past the 2 uncles in the morning last week, the chinese uncle waved at me to stop my car and wind down my window. I was a bit puzzled because I wasn't gonna park at his area. 

To my surprise, he went on and asked me to park at one of the plastic chair reserved slot. I wasn't sure of it but he kept insisting. So, I did and I said thank you. That was when I saw one of the biggest warmest smile from him. My heart was filled that morning. 

After few hours, I was on my way going out and there he was again smiling and waving to me. 

Not only that, every morning after that, he would always ask me to park there. Now, its sort of became my parking slot and I didn't even have to pay for anything.

Story is not over yet.

Then, there's this one security guard who works in One Academy College. He usually takes care of the back door. He's new because I haven't seen him before.

Ever since the chinese uncle asked me to park at his reserved slot, this security guard has been the nicest ever. Everytime he sees me, we talked a little. Usually it's the basic things like, "Sudah makan ah?".

Then, he became even nicer. Everytime when he sees my car turn in from a corner to park, he would stand up from his chair and sometimes out of the college just to remove the chairs for me. Then, when I leave sometimes, he would put the chair back to the slot so that no one else will park.

It's crazy because I don't even remember talking to both of them before as I parked very very far from them usually. 

Just two days ago, he even told me that he will take care of my car when I'm in office, just in case when the MPPP people come and want to tow cars away. He continued telling me that last week two cars were towed away by the MPPP.

I don't know what I did to deserve all this.

The funny thing is it happened at the right time.

I was having so much difficulty at work for the past two weeks, feeling really demotivated and just unhappy. Not unhappy with my work but just the whole concept of waking up at 8am every morning to go work. Yes, sleep is very important to me. It could be that I was really having very less sleep lately too. 

So, when this happened, immediately I was reminded that God is taking care of me. He is interested in my everyday life and He knows best. 

It's nothing big but these two men who was once strangers to me now became my angels because what they did changed everything. 

Thank You Jesus for everything.

That Kind Of Day.

I thought August was going to be a challenging month. 

Just never thought it would be this difficult and it's only the second week, sort of.

Oh goodness.

Every week this month is fully occupied with things to do.

Once August is over, I'm going to treat myself to a nice meal, go to the beach, soak my feet in the sea water and do all the mani pedi I want. Heh.

On a not related thing, people around me have been coughing a lot lately. Jayden, Sha Lynn and Kelly. All children some more. Please get well soon and stay healthy.

On another not related topic, I think one of the most challenging aspects of my job is having to deal with the pain when I see clients confirming on their flight and hotel bookings for their one-week holiday. Seriously, it's probably one of the toughest thing to do.

Do what you like, right? 

Imagine you love shopping for clothes, and so you thought by working in a clothing boutique/store, you will feel better because you are 'kinda' like doing something you love.

WRONG!

Although I really do feel sincerely happy for those confirmed on their holidays, it's remains a constant struggle for me. I would like to always imagine I'm in their shoes. 

Two weeks honeymoon in the Europe, one month backpack trip around Asia, one week family vacation to Australia, eight days to Ireland with a group of friends, 12 days to London and Paris with the lover and 25 days to the U.S.

These are all dreams that can come true :) Though the above are not all my dreams. Heh.

On another note, there seems to be two wedding dinners happening from next month onwards. Ah, I love wedding invites. I love the kind of food they serve in a typical Chinese wedding. It's all good :)

Okay, I better go and get things done now.

No more mumbling nonsense.

Just Look at Sharon.

One Year Three Months.

I think if I continue to post photos or blog about this baby, people might just start thinking that she's mine.

But I cannot tahan. Such precious ball of cuteness.

Actually, she's mine. 

My sister says we share share. Hahaha.

She haven't reach two years old and sometimes it felt like she's already pass that age. 

She walks really fast now and she doesn't really cry easily when she hits the wall or something. Back when I was at her age, I cried at everything. I kid you not. I don't remember it but so I've been told about my childhood times.

Anyways, I love that at this age she is beginning to understand what we talk about around her. 

She knows:

that we're going out when we come out of the room wearing nice clothes. Her own interpretation of nice clothes I guess. Once I walked out wearing a dress and she came to me immediately and said, "Kai kai" and pointed at the door.

when she is full and do not want anymore food. This may be surprising to many of you but yes, there are times she will say, "No" when you offer her mam mam. Next time, observe her lips when she says "No" cutest I tell you.



where her belly button is. She is obsessed with it. The photo above shows that her hand is searching for it. 

how to smile with her head tilted to the side when you hold a phone in front of her as though you taking her picture. TRY IT!

where grandma is when she couldn't find her in the living room. In the kitchen. 

where the food is. Everytime when she's hungry, she would walk to the front part of the kitchen and slowly try her best to get things from the shelf. That or she will keep repeating "mam mam" and calling us at the same time.

how to ask for the iPad, but that happens once in a blue moon thank God. That also she watches max 10 minutes of cartoons singing and that's it. She herself has no interest using this electronic. So good.



and understands most of the things we say to her or ask her. At least that's what we think lah. 

where her shoes are kept because "kai kai" is like her favorite thing to do now.

how to wait when we ask her to wait while we settle some things.

how to differentiate hot things and cold things. 

how to take selfie with our handphones. No kidding. Give her your handphone and then ask her, "How to take picture?" and "How you smile?". She will immediately turn the phone back and look into the camera and say "Smile!" 



how to listen to you when you speak to her. I love this attitude of hers. She will look at you and listen until finish saying d only make her noise or walk away. Haha. 

 my name when you say "ee ee". 

that Kelly is the only one in the family that she can bully. Haha. This one you have to witness in person. It's probably more kids out there that she bullies. Such a big bully.

that she is loved by many. My grandma didn't want to come to our house because she found out that Sha Lynn was at Cameron Highlands earlier last week. What is this.

Love you, Sha Lynn.

My Onsen Experience.

So, I have finally blogged about my trip to Japan and you can read more about it here, here, here, here and here. Total of five wonderful days :)

People: "You go all the way to Japan and if you don't do onsen, it's a waste"

People: "No one will look at you. They all have the same thing as you do"

Then, other people say, "You must force yourself to go for it"

Thank you, people, for saying all that. Thank you also for "forcing" myself to go for it. It was one of the best things I have ever experienced in my 26 years of life. Serious. No kidding.

Since it's quite a thing that I love so much, I shall share on how it goes and stuff.

Most hotels that are not in the city will usually have onsen facility. They are mostly separated, men and women. I have yet to see any onsen that has both genders combined. That is one thing I definitely do not want to experience, thank you.

So, in your room, you will have this Japanese cotton robe called Yukata. 

Okay, I think I shall say from how I experience it, with advise from people whom I went with, of course.

After dinner, I went back to my room, did some unpacking to pack again properly the addition flyers that I got, sat on the bed and rested a while. Must let my food be settled down first.

Then, I put on the yukata with nothing else underneath. Nothing. I made sure I tied it correctly and tightly. I wouldn't want any "accident" to happen on the way to the onsen place. 

Once I was at the onsen place, I chose a locker. It's at that place where I need to keep everything. Room key, handphone, watch and yukata. YUKATA. The distance from the locker place to the onsen area is far. More than 20 steps. Far.

We were given one normal-sized towel and a small hand towel. No one is allowed to bring in the normal towel. Only the small one can.

So, want to cover what? Cover top then bottom how? Cover bottom then top how? SO, COVER YOUR FACE! Hahaha. Straight malu betul.

So, yukata are gone and towel gone. What I have is just my whole self and a mini towel and 6 ladies in the place. At that time, I was still feeling very not myself. I just want to run to a corner and hide. 

Anyways, I took photos of how onsen place looks like. This is not the one I went at Hotel Rosa Blanca (Day I), which is by far the best. In these photos, the onsen is at another hotel where there were no guests using it so I just took some shots.

The first thing to do before going into onsen pool is to clean yourself. Another word is shower. Open shower. Hah.

This is how it looks like. A small cubicle. There are about 10-15 of these cubicles. That's why no need to bring the big towels in. After the shower, straight go inside the pool. How convenient.

My first time trying it felt a bit awkward. My second time onwards, I felt like I own those place okay. No more shy whatsoever. Mini towel also holding like a boss. No need to cover anything. It was such a nice feeling. Such empowerment kind. Not really but kind of. 

Then, after that, I made my way into the hot water. Feet in first test water. Really hot. Then go knee-deep. Then waist deep and then slowly full body in till neck. The first 20 seconds, it will feel like as though you going to faint because it is super hot. Like boiling water hot, but surprisingly it becomes very bearable after that 20 seconds. 

One of the onsen that I went to had a cold breeze blowing at the mini garden kind and it was just a perfect combination. Cold on the outside and hot inside. It was perfect.

When you realized that your heartbeat is beating faster and faster and feeling a bit light-headed, that's your body telling you to come out and enough onsen for the day. 

Once, I refused to listen to my body and wanted to dip inside longer, I almost had a blackout when I came up. Lesson learnt: listen to your body. They never lie. Hah.

Then, as you enter into the room, you wrap yourself with a normal towel and proceed to make-me-beautiful corner. This is the place where most of the beauty stuffs are provided. You can blow your hair, put on your make-up or just sit all day long looking at yourself in the mirror. 

I remembered the last onsen I went, there were so many things on the counter that we ended up trying. All the Shiseido products. 

Then, you put on your yukata again before leaving to your room. My room in this case.

Oh one more thing about onsen. The moment you go into the water, your skin immediately feels smoother. It must be the minerals that's in there. Locals recommended us not to wash our body after onsen. Just wipe dry and go sleep in the yukata.

That's what I did exactly. 

Best sleeps ever after onsen.

More onsen experience to come.