Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Lost...

I had been lost for a very very long time. Possibly about nine years already.

Everyday, I wake up from my bed, tidy up, go to work, come back, online, sleep. And history repeats itself the next day.

After being here for 10 months, I realised I'm still pretty much who I am before I left Malaysia. I find my peace of mind here in the world wide web.

Should I really open up a studio here in China? Or back in Malaysia?


Or.... someone can enlighten me on the web?

*Probably it is just the time of the month again..... =.=

Monday, April 26, 2010

5 Things You Might Want To Know About My Winter

Howdy people! Today I'm gonna share something with you --- my first winter experience!

Well, these are at least what I'm experiencing here in WuZhou and I would like to share with you. These information may varies depending on location and geography.

So, here are the 5 things about winter you might want to know from my experience:

1) Dry Skin

When the temperature is more than 10 degrees Celcius, it is still manageable and your skin won't go too dry as long as you're well hydrated and expose lesser outdoors. However, when the temperature decreases lower than 10 degree Celcius, it'll start to become really dry and your skin will dry and peel (if not well moistured).

To prevent this, you will be needing moisturing cream and not the normal ones. Normal moisturiser won't lasts more than 10 minutes on your skin before it dries off while the cream one, it can last for quite many hours. Another thing that I experience is that, for winter-first-timer, you might experience some rashes over your body too. DO NOT SCRATCH THEM. If there is wound, you'll pretty much suffer more than what you itch now.

2) Clothing

Unlike other places, we do not really have the house heating system like in the Europes or other places. And especially for me who lived alone, I only have a small heater fan (next topic). So, clothing plays an important role here. If the temperature is above 10 degrees, I can still manage to wear just normal clothing plus another jacket/sweater.

But if the temperature is lower than that, normally I will wear more clothes, or even wear a long John/Thermal Underwear which acts like a second layer of skin that covers over my body. It gives good insulation and heat. Of course, you still need to wear more than that.

Another common problem for people during winter is athelete foot. People tend to wear socks all the time and our foot will sweat. And this is really bad. Thank God I was told to take note about this problem.

3) Heating

There are quite a few ways to heat up your body here. Alcohol will be the first. But I realised it only gives momentary heating and it won't lasts. So, not good. Second way is more people gathering in a room/closed space, body heat generated will make everyone warm but this will also, make the air stuffy when certain level of moisture is reached within the room.

Thirdly, heating devices. There are big ones and small ones and majority of them are electric generated. Here's the bad things about these devices. They consumed a lot of energy. In the most recent winter, China's electric usage exceeded 40% than usual rates and THIS, is really a lot for a population with billions of people in it.

And you might want to be careful if you're sleeping with these things. It generates heat and it took up the moistures in the room. You might feel comfortable because you're warm but you might come to realise that the very next day, you're having nose bleed. To overcome this, you can actually get a humidifier and put it in the room (but hey, I don't see this device in my place LOL). So in the end, I quit using that heater and just use my body warm to heat the bed and slowly fall asleep.

4) Interesting things that happened

a) Body waste
The moment your urine came out from the urethra, or your faeces came out from your body, you'll be seeing steams actually coming out from your body waste, just like pancake out from the oven. Served fresh and hot. HAHA. Someone actually asked me to take a picture of these but I think it would be not so nice if I am posting that kind of things here.

b) Breathing vapour
Hey, it is fun that you actually breathe vapour out from your nose or mouth. I like it.

c) Snow
Sadly to say, my place has got no snow. But it rains. Raining during winter days can make the temperature drop further by 1 or 2 degree Celcius. And this is very cold especially when the weather is already about 3 degree Celcius on average.

d) You'd love the sun!
Malaysian like me, we normally hate the sun back in our homes because it's so hot! But during winter here, you can see people actually bring out their dining table out at the road side and eat. Some of them played Mahjong by the roadside while some are sunbathing on a chair. Sunlight is quite rare here during winter. It warms the body a lot.

e) Gaining weight
I have to admit that it seems to be hard to keep fit during winter but maintaining the body weight is still in the okay level. Why is this so? When you eat during winter, you actually feel warmer. Much warmer. So, people keep on eating and eating.

5) Things that I hate about winter

This is the topic that actually motivated me to write up this post. It is the days after the cold winter. We callled it "回南天" (Hui Nan Tian) in mandarin but I'm not sure what you called this in English. This happen when the cold surroundings suddenly heated up and moistures in the air were condensed and become water droplets.
Just look at this! My clothes are hanging outside. How can you expect clothes to dry in this kind of situation? No, it don't dry.

The only way to reduce the moisture in the house is that, to close all the windows and doors. It stuffs the house too. If you're aren't lucky enough, molds might grow.

A shot at the window in my room.

And this is the worst of all. Look at the ceiling and floor. Water drips from the ceiling and forms on the floor. It is always like this and I REALLY HATE this part a lot.


Well, I think that's it from me at the moment. Will share more with you guys if I have something else. Oh, you might be interested in seeing how we BBQ during winter too.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

With My Colleagues

Just a random picture upon request by boss, a picture with my colleagues in China. = )

Sunday, April 11, 2010

I DID IT! I AM PROUD OF MYSELF TODAY!

Today, I am proud to tell you that, I AM PROUD OF MYSELF!


The story:

These few days I had been starting to push myself  to move my ass more rather than just sitting in front of my laptop and Facebook 24/7. My weight had been really pushing it to the edge of 100kg already. LOL. A few days back, I weight about 98.5kg. Hmmmm... THAT'S A LOT.

So I started a little bit of exercise like push ups. It had been at least 2 years I never did any push ups, so I thought, giving it 15 at a time for a few days should be good. IT IS DIFFICULT.. after resting so many years not moving a muscle. I always almost give up when it reaches 10. But the inner coach screaming at me, yelling at me and asked me to finished it. I did.

Today morning, like usual, I did another 15. Suddenly, I saw ray of light shining into my house! It had been daysssssss I missed sunlight as the weather here is kind of terrible! This is it. I am going for hiking at Baiyun Mountain! My initial plan was to hike until half (so called half way) and snap some pictures then go home and rest.

I had been staying here for almost 10 months and I had NEVER CLIMBED TO THE PEAK of that mountain. I believe it's about 800m or higher but lesser than 1000m in height. There's no map. No altitude sign. People said it's not too high. So I thought to myself, "Why not give it a try?".

And together with me, I brought my wife along (about 5kg in total) and myself (98.5kg) and I started my hiking bearing about 103.5kg on my foot! The last time I went hiking to such altitude was back in my Wataniah training and this one, is really random and no mental preparation at all.

I don't know which way to follow. I don't know how high is it. I don't know HOW FAR is it. I climbed and climbed. I hiked and hiked. Many times, I almost give up and wanted to turn back. Then I remembered when I was back in the boot camp. How I were pushed and tortured but remained confident and never give up. I continued.

On the way up, I met some hikers as well, I asked for direction and they always tell me this: "Oh, very  near only. Another 2 curves you're gonna be there!". But thank god they "lied" to me. LOL. It is NOT AS NEAR AS IMAGINED.

I started approximately 0930 hours and I reached the peak at 1111 hours sharp. I did it non-stop and it's really a long long hike for a person like me who had not been in training to do this kind of hiking. I can only motivate and motivate myself all way up the road.

Finally, I am standing right at the peak of the mountain. I feel that,  it is not a waste that I went for Wataniah training that trained me not to give up no matter what; and, I was wearing my Taekwondo pants too. It gives me another boost of energy.


This is the proof I'm standing on the peak of the mountain and the proof why this is the only picture I took today. LOOK AT THE HAZE!

I AM PROUD OF MYSELF TODAY! Even though I might not feel my legs tomorrow morning. XD

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

祝我生日快乐

Well, since I foresee I will not be free on this Thursday, hence, I celebrated it a bit earlier. This post was written on Monday (holiday) HAHAHAH.

Enjoice the cake.



Oh, this is Tiramisu, and it doesn't taste like tiramisu at all. And the despite what you're seeing, it's actually smaller than a credit card 2D size.

Happy Birthday, Buttercup. 母亲受难日.

Of course, it's not as bad as the lyrics. HAHAHA

Sunday, April 04, 2010

我要结婚了! I'm Getting Married!

*Please scroll down to read English Version*

这时的我,是一个非常成功,来自马来西亚的宝石商人。时不时会在梧州逗留几天找找商机。前些日子,认识到了我的老婆。碰巧的是,她也是马来西亚人,由于她干的也是家族的宝石行业,我们就这样在梧州认识了。

终于想要跟她求婚了,所以我今天特地抽空到几家婚纱店去看看市价,看看我有没有本事在梧州拍个结婚照来留恋。

因为年底才结婚,所以我有的是时间,可以慢慢的从几间婚纱店选出最好的那间和老婆一起照个在马来西亚照不到的结婚照。价钱不是太大的问题。



我们再看看这张面孔。对大部分的人来说,这可是乳臭未干的臭小子!但对他们来说,这,已经是当爸爸的面孔了!

就这样,我得知了现在的市价是多少,人家的质量到达什么程度。相对之下,我还得加把劲!在这里开家像馆还真的不容易。人家的店面,真的真的好大!

虽然说谎是不好的,但是,这善意的谎言应该赢得我奥斯卡最佳男主角的奖项!所有的故事,都是我当场编出来的!我的演出真是太出神入化了!


Who am I know, is a very successful jewelry businessman from Malaysia. Sometimes, I'll stop by WuZhou to find if there's any good opportunity for my business. Not too long ago, I got to know my honey. Coincidentally, she's also Malaysian! I got to know her in WuZhou because she's helping in her family business there too! This is how we got to know each other.

I think it is about time for me to propose to her and hence, I took this opportunity and went to a few local wedding shop to see if I am afford to pay the bills to take wedding pictures here.

Since I'm only going to get married end of the year, I have the luxury of time to choose from, which is the best deal for me. Money is not a big issue.



Let's take a look at this face. To the majority of us, this face is still too young to get married! But to them, it's old enough to become a father to two, at least one.

Therefore, I got to know the local market price and what kind of standard people are up to. I really need to put in a lot more effort, compared to them. Their shops are really really big.


Even though it is not good to lie, but this white lie should really earn myself an Oscar Best Leading Actor. I came up with all the ideas on the spot itself when I was questioned by them. My acting is outstanding!

WuZhou Tea Festival


Not too long ago, my boss and I went to an exhibition called the "WuZhou Tea Festival". In this exhibition, it exhibits all kind of tea leaves from all over the place (not inclusive of Europe countries of course). Let's see what's inside.



Actually, I did not take too many pictures because, nothing much that interests me.  XD

2. Always full of people

3. My boss reading a description of a kind of tea that is rare. Enlarge to read too if you know mandarin.

4. Tea testing sessions

5. Toys

6. Tea pots

7. OH! This tea leaves costs RM 980/kg! Expensive?

8. This tea at the most right, costs RM 15000/kg. Hmmmmm....

9. We spotted some not-so-chinese-tea-related-decorations.



Doing business in this kind of exhibition is very easy actually. The better you can blow water, the better your sales is. Simple as that!

My First Wedding Dinner In WuZhou

About 2 weeks back, I attended my first wedding dinner in WuZhou. The groom's dad is my supplier here. That dinner can be considered as a big thing there. They occupied the big hall with proly 40 tables (and still not enough), and we (my boss) were a bit late so we were arranged to be seated in a smaller room some where baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack there.

Anyway, I managed to take a few shots before the dinner started. Enjoice!

1. Bride: "Aiya, faster pick it up!"

2. The Brother, Groom & Bride

3.

4.

5. When you walk into the hall, they gives you some sweets, some fruits, nuts.

6.

7.

8. They even hired a band

9.

10.

11. Oh, something that we don't see in Malaysia. They offer cigarattes at the entrance too!

12.

13. Entrance decoration

14. I like this deco very much.

15.

The end. Also, it's the night the mission failed.
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