Still suffering from jetlag.

Urgh.

Slept throughout the day today again. And eight hours in the day time yesterday.

Will resume travelogue entries soon. Hopefully. Pray hard for me.

I really hate jetlags.



In the mean time, I have some happy news to share. :D

Two weeks ago (before my flight to SA), I received my white valentines present from my baby on our 16th month anniversary dinner.

It's a pair of diamond earrings from him! ^^




*heartz*


Reason being he lost my valentines gift when he was visiting me over CNY in Bangkok, well, not really lost, but kinda got confiscated by the custom officers for bringing in a rare plant to the country.

Stupid officers. T_T

Now I will never see what kind of gift I would receive on my valentines.

Stupid stupid officers. Ruined my surprise.

He got fined for that too.

Sigh.

Sad.


After throwing (quite) a bit of tantrum for losing my gift (valentines is very very very important to me), and knowing that fact that I didn't receive any gift on our first year anniversary last year :((, I was feeling rather affected by the whole thing, emotionally wise (girls do what girls do best).

Afterall, I have nothing physical to commemorate these special days on - something a guy will NEVER understand.

*exhale loudly*


So I guess he tried to make it up to me on our 16th month.

What a weird day to commemorate on. -.-




But it's not how expensive the gift is, it's the thought and meaning behind it that counts.
(Though I'm not disagreeing that diamonds are really captivating)

Btw, baby drew this design himself. ^^


*muaks muaks* my cream puff!

I just got back from the most amazing trip in my life (I think, since I don't remember when was the last time I enjoyed so much on a trip).

South Africa you rocked!!!

Jetlag sucks, just took a shower after my second 4-hr nap of the day.

Never felt clean after a long deserving shower with my loofa. Oh yea~

Fresh!



Anyway, just a short quite update on South Africa, my article about it was published last saturday if you have yet to read it.

Read it here ->

http://thestar.com.my/metro/story.asp?file=/2010/3/27/central/5925621&sec=central


As for this great white shark photo:


Credit: Piyapong, the greatest photographer to travel with
(na, don't say I never credit you nowa)


Ok. Time to hunt for dinner. Ciao

Beautiful view of Cape Town from Table Mountain.




Cookie: "I'm on top of the world! Wheee!"

Having breakfast after a good night sleep.




Cookie: "Yummy. I love eggs and cherry tomatoes."

Cookie: "Sigh.. travelling is so tiring. I hate long-hauled flights. Need my beauty sleep."

I've created a flickr photo set for Cookie, called Cookie Travels.

First of many to come...





Cookie: "Boarding on SIA flight to Cape Town, South Africa in three hours time. Bai Bai Everybody!"

Camwhore session!




I managed to take several close up photos of my new set of nails.




It's been a while since I started doing nail art again. Few years back when I had a full time job and a fix salary, I was spending a good RM300 every month just to get my nails done, that's two sets of nails per month, or one session every two weeks.




There's something about owning a set of pretty nails that shouts: "I'm high maintenance, beautiful and confident!"

It's like wearing sexy matching underwater and bra, no one can really see it but it's how it made you feel as a person.

Sexy, sophisticated and confident.

Or somewhat.

Besides, it's fun. It's like choosing what earrings to wear everyday, instead, you choose what your nails wear every two weeks or so.




I was having french manicure for two months before I decided it was time to go back to the nail art craze, since I won't be seeing myself going into any formal job application anytime soon.

For this set I got my nail artist to put on some lace on my nails and she did up pretty nicely on the 3D flowers with some crystals on it.




Currently she's working on a set of new nails for me. Can't wait for my new set of nails.

I decided not to have the nail art done directly onto my nails, which I used to do, because I couldn't be bothered to sit through two hours in the parlour waiting for my nails to dry. So I got her to do up a new set every time I visit her and put it on straight once it's done.




Which means not far from now, I'm going to have a whole collections of nails I can use whenever I wish all stacked up nicely in my wardrobe, an addition to the 4657 necklaces and earrings I have at home. Wooo!

A different set of nails for different occasion.




Now that's fun. Hehehe....




I know I know. Girls have a weird sense for the term Fun.

Last post we were on our way to Angel's Window - a dive site discovered and named after my dive guide, Angel.




Why is it called Angel's Window? Let's find out.




Diving in Lembeh was a whole new experience compared to all my previous dives in this region (well, I only ever dived in this region).




Firstly, the marine lives I encountered here were different.

Like this crazy colored fish.




Just kidding. I edited that one from the feisty clown fish.


But on the more blurred note, it was my first time coming across a ghost pipefish.


so blurry, like a ghost.


It was tiny and with the digital compact I have, it was difficult to capture from a distance without scaring it away.

But basically it looks pretty much like this up close.


taken off the internet


Quirky right?

They always swim with their heads down.

Cardinal fish are among the rarer fish I came about.


little nemo hiding among the soft coral


Then there's sweetlips, quite a few of them on this one single dive.

These little cuties are TINY.




And they get tinier each time I spotted one.




The third one I found was so tiny, I thought it was a speck of dust fluttering with the current on the seabed. It took the dive guide exactly 10 minutes and 10 cm distance to convince me there was something there, and another 10 minutes it convince me it wasn't a plankton. @_@

Obviously something so small couldn't be captured by a petty camera.


It likes to flutter like a butterfly, really cute, and from a respectable distance, you wouldn't know how the fish really looks like with all that fluttering.

But this is how it looks like if you use a macro up close.




Pretty ain't it?


Now let's play photo treasure hunt.

Do you see any live organism in this photo?


apart from the corals, of course



Anything? Found it? No? Yes?



Well, here's the answer.







Ta-da! Coral shrimp.




This bugger kept running underneath the coral when I was trying to take a photo of it. Hold still you!!


Then there was my favourite fish diving in Lembeh.

First time encountering a Leaffish!




Leaffish, in my opinion, is the most mesmerizing beautiful fish ever.




This particular white leaffish was so serene and settled that it allowed me to get really up close to it to take these two rather close up shots.
(keep in mind I'm using a digital compact in this, so in order to have this shot, I was REALLY close to the fish, like in-your-face kinda close)

I was tempted to hold my breath taking these shots but we all know photographing divers shouldn't do that.


Oh look, scorpion fish.




Such a big difference from the beautiful leaffish. This fish looks kinda delicious. Yum.*cough*


Oh, look at the time...




I mean gauge. Not much oxygen left.

Let's move on quickly to our main topic here shall we?


Now in order to know the true beauty of Angel's Window, watch this video.







That's right.

The dive site Angel's Window consists of two natural cave-like "windows" that divers can swim through. It's like a little wonderland underwater.




It's quite fun actually, going around, down and through circles and holes. It's the perfect place to play hide and seek, underwater style (I wonder if divers here have ever done that before on their leisure time).

On second thought, it could get pretty scary getting lost here.


Moving onto the last chapter of this entry.


I want to show you a little collection of nudibranch photos I took on my first day of diving.




The owner of the lodge I was staying in showed me his collection of nudi branch photos, being an underwater photographer himself, his pro pics of these underwater slugs got me really enticed in the vast variety of the species.

On occasions, I saw one or two not-so-pretty nudibranch here and there.

But more often that not, I would come across cute flabby ones like this.




Or really pretty ones like these.




This is my favourite shot of all nudibranch's I have.

Not only were they colorful, they have this fake coral on their backs as they slide through the corals and stones to act as a camouflage.




Don't you think they look like two mini-cows with horns on the run (a slow run, ok that's cold).




Photo Treasure Hunt number 2.




Spot the marine inside.



Can you see a nudibranch hanging off at the side?




Some of these nudibranch have hairy tentacles all over them that they look just like part of the coral.




This one's not poisonous so it won't harm you if you brush over its back to feel the tentacles, though I strongly not recommend you to touch simply if you're not familiar with a certain creature's nature and characteristic.




They're pretty aren't they?

I think I'm beginning to form an adoration toward nudibranch. :)

#%#$^^&%#

half way uploading my video my laptop batt died.

when plugged in to charge, the video stopped uploading and refuse to continue.

reupload takes another 45 mins. F... dome internet sucks.

Going for meeting now.

Will upload when I get home


hmph.

Thanks for commenting on my facebook and my blog. Now I know what fish these are. Cardinal fish. Right. *mental note*




Responsive readers are the best. ^^


So yesterday I just got back from Melaka after spending a nice weekend with my parents. We went out for dinner to "kinda" celebrate my Chinese birthday (birthday according to the lunar calendar).

Then they gave me a load of items for me to bring back to my new home in PJ, items include toaster, oven, drinks, ham, chocolates, toilet washing liquid, pail, snacks, cookies, etc. Parents are the best. ^^

Yesterday I also went to collect my blinged up nails. Instead of staying in a nail parlour for hours on end to do my nail, I've asked my favourite nail artist to do up a set of nails two weeks back and I was ready to try them on when I collected them yesterday.

It's so pretty!




photo doesn't do it justice and the color is much better than it shows here. More shine too. I asked her to add on the lace, and she did the 3D flowers for me, so creative!

Totally love it!

But last night when I arrived back home (PJ), I was carrying the stuff and it's been a long time since i have to handle delicate nails, so I was kinda being rather "rough" with my fingers, *pluck*, one fake nail came off, the right thumb.

And now it is no where to be seen. T_T

No fear, I just called my nail artist to make me another one (she still remembers my thumb nail size and length) and have her delivered it up to me by poslaju.

Woo hoo! I love my nail artist. She's the best.


Anyway, while at home, I looked for my blackberry everywhere but still couldn't find it. I'm beginning to wonder if anyone took it during Chinese New Year when there are a lot of relatives and people coming in and out of the house everyday, and my whole family was in Bangkok holidaying. (yea, we gave out our house for my sweet relatives to stay even when we're not there)

SIGH.

Damn emo ok.

I think I need to call in the SWAT team soon. Or spend an entire week upturning my room just to look for it. I know I kept it somewhere. It's there. damn it, I know it's there.

Just like how I know my lost nail is somewhere in my room. Unless there's a blackhole in there. hmph~


Speaking of Blackberry, last update about the Blackberry Access and its freaking big sale.

Pay RM2.50 per day (by subscribing it through SMS, type BB ON and send to 28882) for unlimited data on your Blackberry for 5 consecutive weekdays and get the weekend off for free. So I suggest you do this on a monday, then by Saturday, you can use your data for week till Sunday 11.59pm.

That's like paying RM12.50 for a whole week's of data. Quite affordable.

Best part is when you want to stop, like travel or something, you can just stop your usage for a week or two until you get back, it's prepaid, so there's nothing more convenient and cost saving than that.

Man, this makes me more emo.

Time to call in SWAT team.

I was editing some photos from Lembeh when I got stuck at naming one of the fish photos I came across in my folder.

I saw this fish in a reserved marine park in Krabi years back, and I was so struck by its beauty and delicateness.

Then when I dived in Lembeh, I saw this same bunch of fish swimming next to a soft coral where a clown fish was snuggling comfortably inside.




Does anyone know what fish these are?




I've been scratching my head all night, googling all over the web but have no idea what I really should be inserting as the search keywords.

Is it an angel fish? It looks like nice but I don't want to jump to conclusion because you know how easily misleading these fish are sometimes.

It's so pretty it's a pity if I don't know the scientific name of this fish.




Any diver out there? Fish experts? Owner of such fish? Whatever title you want to call yourself.

Anyone can tell me the name of this fish?

I lost my Blackberry Curve. You know, the one which I skinned not too long ago before I went to Europe?




Actually misplacing it would be the more accurate word.

Thing is I kinda kept it somewhere before I went to Europe late November last year, because I didn't have roaming on it and I rather bring an older phone there in case anything were to happen to it.

So the problem now is that, I kinda forgot where I hid it.

T_T




The other major problem is: I'm always good in hiding things.

Too good.

So good I can't even find it.


I looked everywhere.

My baby looked everywhere.

My maid looked everywhere.

My mom looked everywhere.

And there's no sign of the pink little bugger.


I'm sure it's in one of those drawers somewhere.

Or maybe inside an insignificant box in a hidden corner of my twenty or so drawers at home.

Or maybe inside a shoe box amongst the hundreds of shoe boxes I have in the house.

Or perhaps it could be hidden between two piles of clothings stacked among thousands of clothes in my wardrobe (ok, maybe only 500 or so pieces).

It's like looking for a needle in a haystack.


And it sucks because I can't use my bbm when everyone is asking for my BB pin.
I can't even use the sale they have on Blackberry Advance data plan for Xpax users on Blackberry phones.

This is about the off peak rate offered by Xpax, check info here.


Basically, if you're an Xpax, U.O.X or S.O.X users, reload and use RM20 during the weekdays (Mon - Fri) and then you are entitled to 50% off call rates during 10pm to 10am until that Sunday of that particular week.




Condition is that you have to use up the first RM20 in the week. So if you use up RM20 on Monday itself, then for the rest of the week, you get 50% off off-peak call rates until Sunday.

Check out www.channelx.com.my to check out available content



Sigh....

BB BB please come out.

Where did I hide you my Pink Blackberry?