Insert random post.

Saw this and want to share.




Haha.

I've been wanting to show this video to you guys for a while now, I recorded it during one of my muck dives in Lembeh.

It's a video of this male dominant clown fish trying to protect his nest where his wife and baby were resting.

In the video you will see the clown fish keep charging at big old me and the camera to try to fend me off and protect his home.

Couldn't resist staying on to watch and record because the little bugger was just too cute!


(just posted the video, so if it's not loaded yet, wait for 10 mins and load again)


The shakiness (diving and recording at the same time is not an easy task) might not show it, but Mr Husband was charging back and forth at me. I've never seen a tiny clown fish being so brave in front of a human before.

Awe....


I left them alone in the end. Too cute to resist, just wanna tease the fella a bit by staying on for a bit.

I think my mood is getting better.

Finally.

:)

I think I might have the found the place.

As in THE place.

It's quite pricey. But the place is so divine!!

Spacious, tastefully furnished, and really clean.

Love everything about the place, wanted to stay there the moment I walked into the place.



Let's see if this time nothing will go wrong.

Pray hard guys.

No bad lucks. Shoo shoo bad lucks, go away.


I've seen the agents, I know his office location, so no more running away.

The owner can't MIA either cause I know where she works. Hehe...

Seems to be trust-able source. Enough communication establish.

So cross your fingers guys. If I'm lucky enough, you will get to see my new place by next week! OMG!

Just in time for my birthday. ^^

Right.

So I managed to call out to @#$$^@xxx numbers of agents and owners for the past two days and later I'm finally heading out to view more units.

Episode of the never ending search of a home in KL continues.


So apparently the landlord of which previous unit I wanted to rent really went MIA. Now trying to get a refund of the lawyer's fee of the tenancy agreement. Stupid landlady.

Okay. Be back tonight. Will let you know what I think about the places then. And maybe some nice updates then.


Ciao ciao!

I feel like drinking tonight. Though I have been on a very strict diet recently.

Partly due to my two back to back diarrhea incidents, I have to be more careful with what I put in my mouth.

On top of that, for the past two months I have also religiously been taking collagen and placenta extract on a once every three and two days respectively. Not sure if it's working.

But I've been losing weight, though that could have been resulted from the two cases of food poisonings which resulted in continual lost of appetite, and my complexion has been better, I doubt I have changed my nocturnal insane sleeping pattern much, and I haven't experience water retention after my period (which normally would happen) for the past month so I guess something is working, right?

What's more impressive is that I've been really emotionally stressed out these weeks and normally that would affect my appearance tremendously, but no dramatic changes have occur, thank god for that.

Let's just keep drinking and see how it will work out.

Maybe I might even reach my ideal weight in half a year's time and by then would, hopefully, have a way better complexion than how I was a year back.


Back to wanting to drink.

I know I shouldn't.

But I haven't for a long time and I feel like I really need a drink, and a company at that. One of my best friends has returned from China recently, which is good news, though my best bud Gerald has just returned to Brunei, I had wished I could have stayed back in Malaysia during CNY just so we could catch up. It's sad when you can only see your best friends twice a year. Sigh.

I miss our drinking sessions. Though normally we just drink and talk about nothing. It's those sort of friendship where you know what either one of you is thinking and words are unnecessary. Gerald preferably loves the ocean to do these sort of drinking sessions, probably because our friendship (and his first real backpack trip, or his first taste of freedom even) blossomed at one of the islands overseas, by the beach.

My third best friend is a Muslim, so drinking is out of the question. Apart from the fact that she's a thousand miles away from here. sigh

What I'd give to be able to wake up seeing this...




and sleep at night with views like this..




That was what I would say if I were single and young.

How I craved those days when I have nothing but me and my own to worry about. Nay love nor responsibility.

A day of instability was a day of comfort for me. Come as I go, meet and greet and later part. I have nothing but I to worry, to think, to take concerns in.

The years have not done me kind, and freedom has all but become a liability than luxury. Youth the keys to true freedom. Yet at this turning point, I'm seeking a sort of stability, the sort of comfort zone that one at my age yearns to establish. I do wonder if I'd owed certain people in my previous life. For these people has done me poorly as of recent years. They might not have realised so, but like a curse, they're poison to my happiness and peace of heart.

They come and think they can intrude someone's personal life like they own it. And use whatever logic and so called wisdom to "teach" and manipulate others. I'm sick of these words and sayings, or their so referred as "teachings", all of which to me were but mere pointless angry disapproving words.

Speak of love for all and praise of god, yet they spit vile to those they claim to love. Manipulate their hearts with words and twist their minds with "reasons".

They can own all the branded goods in the world, and be satisfied with meaningless worldly competition among their peers, but they will never gain satisfaction from loving another, giving another, and providing what even god cannot provide - care for others. They use thy words and pass on to others, yet never really implementing the actions, mere words I'd say, and see.

Then they accuse, base on no grounds, only personal judgment, for they think they wise enough. for they think they solely can love, think, and care. What selfish act, for they couldn't see themselves, and no amount of mirrors can help them reflect the image as they are. They are blinded, ignorant of their own eyes and thoughts, and thought no better of others but themselves.

What has the world come to?

Believe in karma? Believe in good prevails? or stand to fight?

I no longer believe in waiting for miracles to happen. Karma is but for the weak to seek consolation in.

I'm tired of waiting.

I'm trying to get this accommodation sorted in KL so I can move in asap and this stupid landlady is playing MIA at the moment. Can't call through to her phone, text also no reply and the RM400 lawyer fee has been paid to draft out the terms contract bla bla bla...

In fact, I've been trying to move in since mid last year, and for some god knows what reasons, shit keeps happening every time I try to move in.

The previous case involved this incompetent agency company who gave the keys to the electricians to fix the electric box which broke down two days after moving in, and the Malay electricians brought the keys home for Hari Raya, yes! They freaking brought the keys balik kampung! which rendered the house vacant for two weeks despite having paid FIRST month rental!!

Then there was another case of this condo which has also already paid for first month plus all the deposits, half an hour before moving in, the agent texted (not call, but text!) to inform that the unit has been rented out by the owner to other agencies. like WTF?!

Really. For money, Malaysian property agencies are willing to do anything. Professionalism? What is that eh?


~*~*~*~

Today I have been struck again by diarrhea. God knows what food Malaysia serves us, but this is the first time in years that I am puking and suffering from diarrhea at the same time.

Which explains why this blog has been left un-attended for quite a bit now.


If I stay in this country long enough, I think I might even end up a skinny stick.

Thanks to copious amount of dirty food and numerous food poisonings.

The funny thing was, I didn't even go out to eat at mamak or random hawker places. Despite being cautious, food just gets more and more dangerous here.

The last diarrhea I had was just but half a month ago. A yearly occurrence of food poisoning has just been reduced to a monthly case. Hail Malaysia and its wondrous delicious food. *gag*


Maybe tomorrow when I feel better, I'll write something happier. For now, I'm going to try to rest.

Sigh. Stupid landlady, faster show up! Shit man. This sucks.

Back from Thailand and managed to catch one last day of Chinese New Year celebration with all my relatives before coming back to reality, and of course, this blog. Keke


Sorry I've been absent. But I bet so was everyone else.

How's Chinese New Year for you? Lots of Ang Pows?

Anyway, just a quick one.

Saw this really funky thing in Bangkok Airport yesterday.




It's a spray bottle of an Absolute Vodka Peach flavour! With test paper for you to spray on!

How quirky!




I know the idea of letting people have a "smell" of the vodka flavour, but this idea of a perfume-style tester is just so cute!




I wonder if I can drink from it...




er... I mean.. spray from it.

Kakaka

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Okay. Gonna go out to play mah jong with mom and brother.

Gimme back my RM35!!!! T_T

Chinese New Year last year, my whole family went to HK for the first time in many years as a family, it was the first true family trip since I became an adult.




Well, we're not going to break that flow this year. Tomorrow all four of us are flying to Bangkok together, a place that I am more than familiar with and there will be some part of the trip where I'll play host to my own family.

This could be fun. Hehe

Some of you might be expecting another travelogue entry now but I just can't find myself sitting down editing photos and typing something of a past travel trip when I'm quite hyped up about the New Year, correction, CHINESE New Year.


Part of me is, part of me isn't. Something has happened recently and to be honest I'm quite disappointed with myself, with the outcome and with what was to expect for this year. It wasn't what I was hoping for in the new year, but then again I wouldn't know what I expect I would feel IF things did go my way.

It's complicated.

One thing for sure though, I am changing my style and way of blogging if you have noticed. More attention has been directed to my personal life, focusing to pursue a better personal value rather than putting a lot of my focus on this blog.

I find it more and more annoying with commercialized blogging and has adopted a more personal approach, spending less time worrying about updating and more time in well, figuring it out my life, living it, learning to love it and finding a new scope.

Part of the reasons why I was so disappointed with an outcome that wasn't part of my expectation recently. But let's move on from that topic.

As with every blog topic was covering when the year turned 2010, I stayed behind and wondered about my new resolutions and goals. It's a little more complicated than just wanting to lose weight. First I know I have gotten rid of habits (bad ones) in the past year without meaning to or intentionally doing so, and has seen the world in a more mature way than I have ever before.

One could see it in a pessimistic way or a realistic way. It really depends.

I have taken more concerns in my personal health, in the food I eat and my sleeping hours (something I'm still working really hard on). I started drinking collagen and placenta extract to keep myself, how should you say, young? Afterall, I am finally in my mid twenties, an age I never thought would come so soon.

For the first time as well, I found myself in the longest relationship I've ever been in this lifetime and together with the dilemma of going through the rather-often hardships couples go through. Probably more on my part.

It has been excruciatingly difficult to keep walking on this unnecessary mental torment and insults. No. I decided to withdraw from that source of nuisance, or at least I thought I was doing so.

There were days I'd ask myself if these are all life has to offer, are there more? Am I more than this? This state of in-betweens. Like how I asked myself if there was more to life years ago and I got my answers a year or two later, yes, there was more to life, and I was living the high and thinking this could only get better.

Then as to every turning point in life, we face downfalls and heartbreaks. Hope was permeated from my life and I was plummeted rather cruelly. It has been more than a year since that happened. And with that, I found myself standing on this blurry seemingly straight path, asking myself the same question I asked myself years ago.

"Is there more to life than this?"


I'll get back to you, and myself, on that in a year's time.

Till then, Happy Chinese New Year all. :)

The happiest dog in the world has got to be a diver's dog.





This fella here is a healthy bitch that loves her daily morning swims in the ocean and chills out with the divers in the evening.

I met her on a beautiful island in North Sulawesi, Indonesia.

Which is exactly where I (this blog) will bring us next.

Stay tune. ;)

Just woke up. Spent the whole night watching drama.

No time to blog.

Kakakaka.

Went to Singapore two weeks ago and saw this "Hi My Sweetheart" showing on TV and kinda got hooked.

Initially I thought it was just some typical Taiwanese drama (well it IS a typical Taiwanese drama) with pretty actors and actresses prancing around. But it's SO DAMN FUNNY!!




Rainie is just so cute and Show Lo damn funny.



I'm such a bad blogger.

Okay la. Two more episodes to go, after that I'll blog. Yup.

Toodles.

Village Life by Nicole

My collection of photos taken with SLR 500D.

If you realise later in the post that the genre of things I like to take are very different from Gerald's.

While he fascinates himself with still objects and colors, which I do take sometimes, like this one,


flavoured colored ice sticks


I find myself taking more photos of living things: humans, animals, etc.

I guess it's been a really self-realising trip for either of us in terms of photography aspect.

So here's my collection. :)


child and his ice cream



duckling



chick



child with chicken



deck life



village kids fishing



a hook!



harvest



fishing village



sea life



shy girl with fish



kid



mini human cart



jump



That's about it.
There are a few more on my flickr but if you follow my facebook, they should be there on the album for viewing soon. :)

Since I'm on a roll, these following two posts are going to be all photography as well.

But I'll make it really short. Two posts in two days.


This set of dozen photos are taken by Gerald with his G10 powershot.

The guy's always fascinated with colors, and hence most of his photography tend to still objects of different color themes.


I name this set: Colors by Gerald

He doesn't know I've taken his photographs, edited a bit here and there and converted into a collection. But that guy's a new talent even without an SLR.


red flower



blue tropical fish



white cat and white wall



brinjals



girl in purple blouse



blue sky



blue boat



orange and blue



red shirt kid



boats



rocks



bananas



clothes



pink girl



Tomorrow will be my collection.

Making fools out of ourselves, having fun and snapping lots of photos of course.




I wonder if the word Bandit has something to do with Bandana.




Gerald looks scary when he squints his eyes.




Well actually when we're not diving, we sleep.




Or suffer from severe seasickness.




Well, not really.

We (particularly I) do get seasick a lot of the times when we get out of the sea, but that's just one part of the journey. No big~

*though I did cry one time after surfacing* @_@


hoho~


No la, actually when we're on land, we took the chance to snap lots of photos around islands. It's actually quite amazing what three cameras can do combined together.




But before that, just to prove that we were there at Sipadan, here are some classic photos with the ol' Sipadan sign.




Which, btw, has been moved from the wood platform at the resthouse to the sand.


Proof:

A photo of me and Gerald in Sipadan in 2008.


Gerald failed his open water hence he wasn't diving *holds breath from laughing*



Then this was us in Sipadan in 2009.


I had to do a weird heel because there's no more platform for me to sit on.


Don't think we've changed much. Heh~




Though this time we were there with more friends.







(the girl of our group at that point was still taking her open water license :p)





Now to just photos alone.

These are pretty amazing. They're not taken by me.

So sit back, relax, feel the breeze.

Enjoy the scroll.


Start.

Now.





















































oh look it's me.


This particular set of photos are all credit of Raymond. I didn't realise he was such a great photographer till I went through these photos. Wow!

So what do one do when one is taking a break between dives. Plenty, and nothing really.




Normally out here there's no signal whatsoever, so you can't do your callings, sms-ing, internet-ing, etc. Hence it's the nature, you and your camera alone. oh, and your curiousity.




On one particular trip, we were dropped off at this secluded inter-connecting islands.




There was NOTHING on this island, all we could find were sand and trees on it.

and me.




Just Kidding.




So what I did was that I sat down on the beach, waddled around in shallow water, and watched a couple of starfish mated.




No actually I put them there that way. LOL. I don't know how starfish mate.




The top one then got irritated and not knowing what to do (obvioussly a virgin), it slowly moved away.




So I picked it up again.





"ma can I bring this home? "


And found that there are a lot of mini tentacles wiggling underneath that seemingly hard shell on top.




Seemingly hard because when I put it on my hand, after a while, the starfish just kinda slumped down.

You know, all its little tube feet sagged towards gravity.




I better put it back into the sea before Raymond eats it.





*flops*


Meanwhile, Gerald was doing a funky ninja while me and Westley continue exploring the sea.




Then I started exploring taking different kinds of photography with our underwater camera.

You know the sort of photos that's between air and water.







Well, found out that it's kinda hard when the camera lens is a tiny lens from a compact digital.

This was the closest to the possible effect I wanted it to turn out.







Oh well.



Be cautious when you're out there, you know that darn sun can be vicious on your mind when you expose yourself under it for too long.

Look what it did to Gerald.





Gerald pretending to be a floating log. Westley wetting his burnt head in the back.


Look what it did to us.







When you find yourself doing pointless things after taking a break from diving for too long. Get out of the sun!!!


Raymond caught us doing funky pose in action



"Hi Raymond!!" Waving frantically from a distance


Other places we had breaks was Sipadan island itself, which was nice because there's a shelter where you can have lunch (bring your own la).




Or just hanging about at sea (in the boat la).







Right. End of my on land documentaries. Time to head back to the boat,




and continue my ninja action underwater




Hai-yah~!!