Looks familiar? After the vegetarian fried pasta, here comes the vegetarian fried rice with…chips and half of a ‘panggang’, one of the local food here. It was meant to be our breakfast but we kept it till lunch and so here it is. Well, I was the cook for the ahem…fried rice though And the chips too.

The recipe this time is not much different from the pasta’s but I’ve added a special type of mushroom bought in the supermarket. It smells great when fried. The mushrooms come in a properly sealed bag with air extracted from the bag in order to preserve their freshness.

What I did was fried some mix vegetables, pieces of corn shoots and mushroom pieces together. Add some salt, pepper and soy sauce. After that, I fried the rice together with these and it’s done.

I think fried noodles and rices have a lot of room for different flavours. As long as it suits your taste buds, you can have a variety of them such as adding chilli powder to make it a bit hot, add Tom Yam to make it a bit spicy and sour or barbeque sauce and so on. But no meat (including seafood) for vegetarians of course.

I am not a very good cook but the colours look attractive, the smell is great (thanks to the mushroom)…should be mouth-watering Ermm…we’ll talk about the taste some other time.

While standing on top of a hill, while I can see the view of the town or the village or anything at the lower ground, I can’t stop taking photos.

The houses that are very far away become very small compared to nearer objects.

I needed to zoom in my camera in order to see the buildings from far far away, but they still look small and a bit blur because of the haze in the air. The atmosphere become the semi-transparent cloth that make the far object become blur.

The tallest building in this picture is called Saberkas.

This condominium is located about 10km away, can you believe it? I bet it’s true. Why? The answer is called perspective.

This is the road to go up Bukit Siol. I need to use lower gear and press the accelerator very hard in order to move my car to climb up this hill.

Many years ago, I came here with a friend. When I drove down this hill, I switched off my car engine, I found that my car brake was not functioning. My car went down quite fast and before it loss control I quickly shifted into lower gear and pull the handbrake, luckily it stopped. I have learned a lesson from this experiment. I think my friend was frightened.

This story tell us that we should not switch off the car engine even though we are going down hill, because the car brake will not work if the engine is off. You need to believe me for your safety.

The view from a higher place, such as a hill, a mountain or from a talk building can be an eye opener to us. It can open up our feeling, our heart and our mindset as well. Although this hill is not really high, but at least it is higher than other places surrounding it.

Not only every hill is unique, even on the same hill, every angle from different point of view is also unique.

Zoomed in again and I have found broccolis in this picture, can you find them?

SiewPeng and I have just visited a tall building in Kuching, and I have taken hundreds of photo from there. I need to select the best photos from hundreds of them before I post it here, otherwise most of them look similar and you will feel boring. However, every photos, every angle, every composition of photo are all unique.

When we were exploring the park, I cannot stop myself from taking photos at all the angles. Can you see the white colour bridge in the picture above? It is actually the road for cars or other vehicles to reach the DBKU building.

I shifted my camera horizontally to the right, this is how the scenery look like. The road is steep and I needed to press on my car brake on our way down the hill. There are a few parking lots on the half hill, but I don’t think anyone would park their cars there.

Then we walked down the staircase.

I still remember the last time I saw a human-made waterfall behind this hut. But this time it was not operating. May be they turn it off during the weekdays because of not many visitors. It was true, we were the only two visitors in the park (not the cat musuem). I have another guess, may be the waterfall had broken down? :p

We walked around and I kept taking photos.

There is a pond in the park. As you can see the water is very shallow, less than 1 foot. And there was reflection of the cloud in the pond.

Stones are used as border for grass and walking path and it was aligned in a zig-zag line. When I looked carefully from this picture, it seems like there is a missing coconut tree. But when we were there, I don’t have this feeling at all. Hmm… It is proven that when we were in a situation, we may not be able to see things clearly until we move one step back or left the place.

Red palm tree besides the pond.

Stones insides the pond.

Quite a distance away, I found another staircase and a drain.

Is the flower used as a lamp? look carefullybefore I tell you the answer.

…

…

…

The left side of the lamp is actually behind the flower. I took this picture from the angle where I used the flower to hide the lamp. :p If you did not look carefully, you may thought that why one side is a lamp but the other side is a flower. You may also wonder how the flower emits the light since there is no bulb in the flower.

Another picture of stones.

When I look at this picture, I recall my brother used the picture of stones which I have taken in Janapese Garden as menu pages and cover for my Australia photo CD slides show. My brother know how to create slides show from photos which can be played on DVD player. He can also add music to it. But this picture… …

Ha… I am not satisfied with the angle I took the photo of stones, but I could not take too many pictures of the stones that day because I forgot to clear the camera’s memory card, and there was only left about 20+ or 30+ picture spaces in the  memory card which we need to reserve to take photos in the cat musuem after we have visited the park.

The water in the pond look dirty. :p I only want the tiny stones on the walking path and big stones in the pond, but it is not easy to crop the picture unless I jump into the pond to take the photo.

While we were in the cat musuem, we were interviewed by a student who was doing her survey asking us about what can be improved about the cat musuem. We told her that there is a parking problem for visitors. Visitors are only allowed to park their cars outside the building but not allow to take the staffs parking slots underneath the building, but when we passed by the parking space for staffs, we saw that there were many empty space there. We hope that they will allow visitors to park their cars underneath the building, so that next time, I don’t have to park my car so far away and have to walk under the sun and rain in order to enter the cat musuem.

We forgot to suggest her that DBKU should plant some lotus in the pond so that the mini park can look nicer. :p

SiewPeng wrote the first two parts for the cat musuem, now is my turn to write the rest of them because these are the photos that I have taken while we were exploring every part around the musuem.

There is a mini park in front of the DBKU building, with small huts, man made stream, stones, grass, decorating lamp, trees and a walking path. We went in the morning, and we actually walked around the building first before we enter the cat musuem, because the heat of the sun is getting stronger. If we were to enter the cat musuem first and then explore the park later, it would be around noon time, and that would be very hot.

Does it look like an UFO? Let’s have a closer look.

Once again I zoomed to the max to take the picture of its UFO roof. I found something… …

A man was cleaning the building’s windows glasses. He was hanging a staircase with ropes. Are you dare to do that? Hmm… For me I need a safety helmet and safety belt with me while I stand on a high place without things to support. I am not scare to stand there, I wish I have a chance to climb up there (with safety precaution) and with my camera, then I can take as many photo as I like. It’s enjoyable to stand at a very high place and view the scenery.

After we have parked our car, we walked around the building and took the photos from different angle. There is a staircase to allow the staffs to reach their office directly from outside to the middle part of the UFO.

I think I should called it a decorated drain. There are stones and woods in the drain as decoration, and the Japanese garden lamp beside the drain. It surrounds the DBKU UFO building.

I have taken the photo of our shadows again. SiewPeng and me stood beside the drain.

Later we walked down the staircase to the a mini park at half hill, not really far but just a few steps down the staircase. As we walked around I found that I can used a stone as my tripod, I have taken this picture with the DBKU building, SiewPeng and me inside the photo. I did not bring my tripod (again, bulkiness of the tripod was my excuse), nobody was around except few gardeners were working quite a distance away, luckily I have the stone to be used as my tripod. Haha… I am good in looking for things that can be ‘made’ into a tripod. :p The cat lovers couple statue in Part 1 with SiewPeng and me in the photo is another example.

Well, do you think that the above are all the pictures I have taken at the mini park? The answer is no. :p Stay tuned for part 4 and I will show you more pictures of the mini park.

Hi It’s me again.

As mentioned in Part 1, this big cat’s jaw is the entrance to the DBKU Cat Museum. In the previous entry, I forgot to mention about some of the fees that might incur. Therefore, let’s take a look at the picture below.

This is a receipt that we have got after paying RM 4.00 for bringing in the digital camera. You will also be charged RM 3.00 if you would like to bring in a film or mobile camera and RM 5.00 for the video or digital video camera. If you are not bringing any of those, then you can walk in free of charge.

Alright then, let’s take a tour.

Let’s stop here and have a look at these miniature cats. They are hanging to the edge of the wine glass, staring at a miniature fish inside it. I think this displays the typical habit of cats when they become curious about something and want to find out what it is.

However, I have learned something from the cats at home. They like moving things and if small animals happened to be spotted by them, sadly to say that there is a very low probability that they will live.

A legend about Buddha and cat. It is about why the cats are not able to enter Nirvana. I’m not sure how true it is because I have not heard or seen this story in the Buddhism sutra before.

I like this picture. The title is One Hundred Cats And A Mouse. The cats were drawn in an adorable and funny way. They come in all sizes and all sorts of colours! And most amazing of all is that there is a mouse hidden in these cats.

Can you spot the mouse? I actually took a shot at the museum the other day but wasn’t successful. So at the end, Colin pointed out to me where the mouse is. Tell us if you can find the mouse.

This is how the exhibition hall looks like from a higher view. Almost all displays are labelled and attached with information. One can really gain a lot of knowledge from here.

They open every day from 9 in the morning to 5 in the evening. You can spend a whole day here if you are looking at everything in detail. And I think it is worth the time to do that.

There is a stall selling all sorts of souvenirs ranging from clothes, stationaries, bags, accessories for interior decorations and many other stuff. Most of them of course, have cats icon printed on them as a memory of being to the museum as well as visiting Kuching.

A cute sling bag with cats icon sewed on it. I didn’t buy it because I don’t usually use a sling bag. However, it was a tempting moment. Phew…glad that I can resist that.

It’s hard sometimes but we just have to try. It’s an important process and part of our daily lives because we will never feel satisfy with what we have already got so it is good that we can learn to control our desire and always be happy with the things that we have now. And at the same time, be kind and generous to the less fortunate.

These are the accessories for interior decorations. I think they are suitable and look wonderful in all the places such as the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, on top of the TV and so on.

And for couples too!

Hope you enjoyed the tour today. Do come back for more!

This is the famous Cat Museum in Kuching, Sarawak. It is located on a hill overviewing Kuching City called Bukit Siol. It was founded in 1993 and is owned by the Kuching North City Hall (DBKU). The picture above is the entrance to the museum. It’s a huge cat’s jaw but don’t worry, you are not about to be eaten but you are going to have an exciting adventure and gain a lot of knowledge about cats in no time.

There are about 2000 exhibits, artifacts and statues being displayed here. Behind us is a lovely white cat couple statue. It is the Kitsch kitties in love.

This ‘cat’ looks familiar. It reminds me of the orange stranger except this one is much bigger. It even has his eyes. If it were a real cat, I think it could attack and eat human beings.

Aha! A Felis Silvestris Catus or better known as the Tortoiseshell Tabby Cat. There was one wandering in the garden end of last year and eventually gave birth to a few kittens who have now become our cats. We have adopted two of them.

This is suppose to be the same species I guess with the gesture of curiousity.

Ah…the great guardians. I don’t know if they are but I feel so. Our cats now look similar to the guardian on the left of the picture. They have those traits.

Purr…purr…I think I can hear the cat’s purring.

This is the mascot of a well known event in Kuching. It is called the Kuching Festival. It is being held annually for a month and sells different types of food found in Kuching. Some also call it a food fair. There are also other events happening during the festival although food is the main attraction.

Wished that you were a cat? You can become one here! Just put your face closer to the mask area so that you can get a better picture. A reminder from the admission officer at the front counter.

And you can try becoming lots of other different cats too!

Still remember the water plum flower (also known as “Shui3Mei2″, Wrightia religiosa or water jasmine) that I told you previously? The plant produces seeds recently in our garden. If I am not mistaken, this is the second time I see the water plum seeds, it seldom produces seeds.

I have forgotten how it looked like during the first time because it was one or two decade ago. I cannot even remember when was it. But I have waited it for years. My blur memory about water plum seeds made me unsure that whether this plant got seed or not, until few days ago I discovered this inverted horn-shaped rows of seeds.

Multi-layer-petal Shui Mei.

Single-layer-petal Shui Mei.

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Forgetting and Remembering

Sometimes after we sensed something (through our eyes, ears, nose etc), the memories stay for our whole life and it get faded. But once we see it again, we can remember it quickly and our feeling on it will come again. Otherwise, I would not have waited for years to prove that this flower got seeds. No body ask me to wait, but I believe my internal memory (the eighth sense) make me to have a wish to see the seeds again.

For those of you who do not know about this flower, or never see this type of plant, you may ask what is so big deal about these seeds? For me, it is special because I have gone through the process of digging my memories, and given myself an answer. This is the most important part for me.

Believe me or not? Forgetting about something is more difficult than remembering. We learned our languages, we learned to ride bicycle, we learned to swim, and we also learned to drive, but we will not be able to forget it until the end of our lifes. Therefore, if you want to forget something, for example the person you hate, the things that you do not like, what you need to do is do not remember it or burn it into your brain. Remove it from brain is more difficult than storing it into the brain. We are not able to format our memory like what we did to a computer harddisk drive. Our memory is like a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM, once burned, it will be permanently there, unless accident happen such as scratches and the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM develop bad sectors.

There are two methods to forget the things you do not want to remember, first never remember it at the very begining. Second, if it is very unfortunately that you have already remembered it, what you need to do is do not think about it at all. Just like if you have a CD or DVD that you don’t like, you won’t put it in your computer or DVD player. Everytime it comes to your mind, you have the right to chase it away then you can think about some other things.

Do not remember something that you want to forget later. It’s hard, but we should try.

Do you enjoy Italian food?  We like pizza and we will usually order the Vegi Lover at Pizza Hut if we go there and we’ll ask them not to put onions in it.  Besides pizza, we have tried macroni before.  Well, not the way the Italians cook it though.  It was fried and it wasn’t so bad after all.

So, it was a sudden thought one afternoon plus I have always wanted to try something new so I decided to fried pasta with some mix vegetables.  And…ta-da… What you see above is the outcome of it.  But I think I still need to work on the flavour of the pasta a little bit.

First, I fried the chips and the vegetarian nuggets.  The nuggets are made of soy and they are delicious.  So, why kill if you want to eat nuggets. :p Meanwhile, I boiled the pasta.  Then, I fried the mix vege with some chilli sauce.  After that, the pasta was ready to be fried together.  That’s it.  Simple, isn’t it? If you happen to try to cook it, please let us know about your experience.

I have a 160GB harddisk drive now. Although I always install new huge harddrive for others (160/250/320GB), I never used it myself because I was still using 40GB for my notebook. This is the first time I have a 160GB harddisk drive for my notebook. It is 4 times bigger than my previous harddisk capacity.

Since last week, when I switched on my notebook, it kept on restarting and I couldn’t used it until I got my new huge harddrive and reinstall everything 2 days ago. I planned to get a new harddrive and did not bother to do anything on the old harddrive, first reason is I planned to reinstall the OS and program on new harddisk, and I do not want to waste time repairing the old system files. Second reason is because that old harddrive is almost full, and I needed to do a lot of backup before I can reformat and reinstall everything. Third reason is because the old harddrive have made some clicking sound, I was lucky enough to retrive all the data. I did not dare to access the harddisc too frequently in case the data get corrupted.

Haha … Let me show you the capacity clearer.

I suddenly have no idea how should I use such a big space. I am not going to download movies because I do not have time to watch it, the downloading speed is faster then my watching speed. I also do not like to put unnecessary files on harddisk because it will mess up my files. Hmm… The only thing that I think of now is photo. Yes, I have a lot of photos. I will reload them from DVD/CD to the new harddisk. The rest of the space I will use it to store backups of my important data.

If you are familiar with computer parts, I am sure that you know that there are 2 type of harddisk, PATA (IDE) and SATA. Now SATA is taking over the place of PATA harddisk drive, SATA price is lower, and the speed is faster. Who want the PATA anymore? I want it. I need it. Because my poor old notebook is still using the PATA. I cannot find the converter. When I first searched for 2.5 inch notebook PATA (IDE) HDD 2 weeks ago, my suppliers told me that either no stock or the price was too high. I am afraid that it is the end of my notebook life. I kept on searching. Only recently they have stock coming in. I know that PATA is not going to extinct so fast but soon, and their price keep on increasing, unlike the new SATA harddisk.

Here I made a comparison:-

SATA - Faster transfer rate, Price keep on dropping, 1TG or more available.

PATA - Slower transger rate, Price keep on increasing, smaller capacity available.

If you have an old computer, I suggest that you think carefully how long you still want to stick to it or prepare to get a new computer. If you still want to use it for years, you may need to get ready the parts now just in case you cannot find the parts anymore, or the price of the parts become expensive.

RAM is a good example. New faster DDR2-Dimm 2GB costs around RM100, but the old slower PC133-SDRAM 512MB costs about RM 200. The capacity is 4 times less and slower, but the price is double. But those who still use the old computer need it. So another suggestion, if you have budget, it’s better to get new system instead of upgrading old type of system.

This is my old 40GB notebook harddisk drive. I wanted to show you my new 160GB harddisk, but I cannot wait to used it and I installed it into my notebook right after I brought it home. :p I am not going to say bye bye to this harddisk yet, I connect it using an external USB connector. Haha… it funtions as a 40GB flash disk. I have a big flash disk now.

Another tips for you if you plan to buy computer. Never buy a secondhand old computers which cost hundreds. They are not upgradeable, or their parts may be expensive. The old computers usually have no warranty too. If you can double or tripple your budget, you actually get 8 times, 10 times bigger capacity, faster or more benefit. Some new part now is offering life time warranty.

When I talk about IT, I can have a lot of thing to share with you, but I have to stop it here. This blog is talking about nature, but I do not think it is out of topic, because computers have merged into our life and we may not be able to deny that it is not part of the nature. :p

My housemate and I went cycling one evening and came back wet because it rained. I saw drops of water on our spectacles, and I immediately had an idea to take the pictures of our spectacles. I forgot either we went out for just riding or doing grocery. It was 5 years ago… … when I was in Australia.

#2

Do you think that these pictures of spectacles look like an advertisement? I used my old FujiFilm FinePix 2300 digital camera to take these pictures. This camera did not allow me to control anything such as shutter speed, aperture and so on, but the only thing I can do was to switch to the close-up mode so that I can get closer to the spectacles, the bottle of eye drops and the lamp. I supposed to use tripod but I did not have it at that moment, luckily the subjects were just right under the light of the lamp, so I still managed to get the picture sharp.

#3

#4

#5

Another Memory… …

I recalled another session when I helped a friend to take the pictures of stationeries to make catalog, it was about 200 types of different stationeries. It took me few days to finish taking those photos. From there I learned that arrangement of subjects, composition and lighting are 3 most important skills in commercial photography. Hmm… … It was 7 years ago while I was still using my old DSLR SLR Canon EOS 500 - a film camera. My friend bought the films for me to take the photos, he sent the films to develop and printed out the photo on his own, but he did not pay me as he promised. However I am happy with it because I had got a chance to practice advertising photography.

It was not his mistake not to pay me because at that time I was about to go to Australia to continue my study, I did not collect from him, and we both had forgotten about it. But today I recalled it… … may be I am now really poor and need $$$.

He was also interested in photography, before I went to Australia I passed him the whole set of my SLR, a fish eye wide angle converter, remote shutter control, a tripod, and a camera bag. It was early 2002, when I started to feel that a SLR is bulky and inconvenient for me to travel around, and I was aiming for my first compact digital camera, that was why I did not want to bring my SLR to Australia. Another reason was the cost to develop and print out the film is high which make me stop using my SLR until now. I think I had only contacted him few times while I was in Australia.

When I came back to Malaysia, and I got my camera bag from him, I discovered that the fish eye wide angle converter, remote shutter control, and the tripod connector were missing. He also stopped playing with camera because of the high cost of printing film. What I heard from him was he lent my camera to another person. He returned my tripod but without the connector to screw the camera so that the camera can sit on the tripod, so the tripod was useless. I could not find the replacement for the connector. Finally he gave me his big bulky tripod which cost him about RM500 as a compensation for the tripod and other missing items.

That is why I am now using a bulky tripod although my camera is small. :p It seem not balanced and funny. And I am looking for a smaller, thinner, lighter tripod.

He is still my good friend, and we never mention about this matter anymore. I think he had forgotten that he once bumped himself into photography. His bulky, heavy and expansive tripod is still with me, and I prepare to returned him anytime once he remember that many years ago he did interested in photography.

I have learned not to be calculative, I learned to forgive and forget (:p although I still remember, but I did not keep it in mind), I learned to handle others things carefully, I learned that lending other’s thing to another person without the owner permission is not good, I also learned that there is no right or wrong for some matter.

:p He does not read my blog. :p

Chinese are always good in naming things especially naming for plants and flower for example “turning Your Luck“, “Flower of Prosperity” etc.  Here I show you different type of Flower of Prosperity, or known as “Fu4Kui4Hua1″ in Chinese.  I have shown you the seeds of this plant quite some time ago, now I have collected different varieties of this flower.

#2

Let me give some facts about this plant:-
   English name:  Desert Rose
   Scientific name:  Adenium obesum
   Chinese name:  Fu4Kui4Hua1
   Origin:  Tropical, Subtropical Eastern and Southern Africa and Arabia
   Propagation:  Seed and Stem Cutting
   Soil and watering:  Same as Cactus
   Sunlight requirement:  High
   Flower diameter:  2-8 cm
   Number of petals:  5
   Poisonous:  Yes
   Common usage:  Plant as Bonsai, coat arrow-tips for hunting

#3

#4

In Chinese, “Fu4″ means Rich, “Kui4″ means honour, “Fu4Kui4″ put together means prosperity, and “Hua1″ means flower.

If you want to make this plant into a Bonsai, it’s better to plant it from seed, because the root will become swollen caudex which is excellent for a Bonsai.  I have a pot of Flower of Prosperity with swollen caudex root.  I will show it after its leaves have grown properly.

The plant exudes a highly toxic sap which is used by some peoples, such as the Akie in Tanzania, to coat arrow-tips for hunting.

#5

Tell me which colour you like.

As the example above, if you were born on 8/8/2008, You are 74 days old today, and on Chrismas day of the year 2035, you will be 10000 days old.

Here is the trick:-
0.  Open a new excel files.
1. Enter your birth date (in cell B1).
2. Enter today date (in cell B2).
3. The answer for the number of days until today since you were born is =B2-B1.
4. The answer for the date of your 10000th day birthday is =B1+10000.
5. [for B3] After doing the plus and minus operation on date, excel may display number in date format because the answer is not formatted properly. Therefore, the next step would be formatting the cell B3. Change the cell format from date to number.

It is very simple and easy if you have the basic skill on Microsoft Excel.

I have a feeling when I look at my age in the unit of days. I have only been living in this world for 10700+ days. If I have a long life and can reach 100 years old, it would be only 36500+ days. I feel that life is short.

I should not waste anymore time, and should work harder to pursuit my happyness.

The lamp has been switched off when the sun rises. Do you think it is the beginning of the day for the lamp or it is the time for the lamp to start sleeping?

I seldom wake up so early in the morning. Thanks to our friends from Penang, we bought them to visit a temple very early in the morning and I have had a chance to take this picture at the temple. It was about a month ago… …

Today I wake up very early again… … Actually I like to wake up early in the morning but most of the time it is not easy because of the tiredness carried forward from the previous day. I asked myself why I like to wake up very early in the morning where staying on the bed may feel more comfortable. My answers are I like to enjoy the morning breeze, I like to enjoy the cool air, I want to listen to the bird songs, I want to watch the sunrise, and I want to see the sky turn its colour from black to dark blue, then orange (sometimes) then light blue, and finally totally bright. I also like to see the quiet street start getting busy by the increasing number of cars passing by. I like to see the changes.

Sometimes an important event may overcome the tiredness to make me wake up early, such as an early morning flight, or an appointment at 8am or earlier. Willingness is another issue. I like to wake up early does not mean that I am willing to wake up early. If you ask me which one I prefer, the comfortable bed or the nice bird song and beautiful sunrise, my answer would definitely the second option. But most of the time tiredness and the comfortable bed win the battle. I believe that if I have stronger will, I would be able to wake up early everyday.

Well, what is your answer for the question on the first paragraph above? My answer is that the lamps never sleep and wake up, each lamp take turns to give us brightness… Because… we should not forget that the sun is the brightest lamp in the morning.

This is a true story and Chris Gardner is now a multi millionaire.  His son in the film is the real son of Will Smith.

I have never come across this film, never knew about Chris Gardner until our last journey from Ipoh back to Kuching where we watched it on an express bus from Ipoh to LCCT.  Thanks to the bus driver that introduced us a good film.  Unlike what I normally do, I might have snapped and awaked, snapped and awaked again and again most of the time in the 3.5 hours journey, this time, I stucked my eyes on the TV… …  Last night I watched this movie again on DVD even it was very late in the midnight at 2am.  I wanted to learn again carefully what happiness is and how to pursuit it.

My heart was touched by Chris Gardner.  No matter how difficult his life was, he never gave up.  He put even more effort to pursuit his “happiness”.  He needed to sell 2 bone scanners monthly to different doctors in order to cover his monthly expenses, but he had not even sold one for quite some time…

Here comes a few scenes that inspired me on how to pursuit happiness:-

1. He told his son, “Don’t ever let somebody tell you you can’t do something. You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can’t do something themselves, they wanna tell you you can’t do it. If you want something go get it.”

2. He attended an internship program where he received no salary for the first six month.  He need to be selected out of the 19 other candidates to get the job as a stock broker.  He put more effort than the others.  He need to make lots of calls in a day, and he said that without hanging up the phone but just use fingers to quickly cut the line between calls can save 8 minutes a day.

3. While he needed to read a thick book for the exam, he also needed to take care of his son alone (his wife left him) and he brought his son with him every evening rushing to queue up for a public shelter while he was broke.  There was a time he was behind the queue and failed to get the public shelter.  There was a time too where he and his son stay overnight in a train station washroom, and he locked the washroom.  He dropped his tear.

4. He was always running from one place to the other place in the film.

After struggling for months, he finally got his job and here comes the end of an almost 2-hours movie. 

I felt that I am luckier.  You can gain back your confidence after you watch this film.  He was broke, homeless and have to take care of his son, and he can overcome all the problems.  What else can’t you do?  What else can’t I achieve?

I suddenly thought of a blogger called homelessGuy, he did not update his blog for quite some time, I wonder how his life is now.  This guy was also homeless and stayed in his car for months.  Now do you think that you are lucky?  Go and get what you want and pursuit your happiness.

We need to protect our dreams.

Network cable and the jack.

After the network cable is punch down into the jack, it looks like this.  This is not a difficult job, but concentration is important, because the colour code must be followed exactly.  Each network cable has 4 pairs of copper wires which means there are 8 wires:
1. Blue
2. Blue + White
3. Green
4. Green + White
5. Orange
6. Orang+ White
7. Brown
8. Brown + White

While I was doing the termination, I check it at least twice before I punch the wire down.  My mind is full with colour code.   Blue, White Blue, Brown, White Orange… …  :p

Usually you can find the network jack on the wall, where it allows you to connect your computer to the wall jack using a network cable.  Have you ever seen and have a close look at it?  I am the the person who make it work behind the scene by connecting it from one point to another point such as to the server.

Next, this is a RJ45 plug on a network cable.  With the tools, I can make any length of network cable.  However, if the wire is not crimped properly into the plug (for example wrong colour code or wire not inserted properly), the network will fail.  That’s why I need a tester to confirm that each cable is working properly.

This is a new type of RJ45 plug where the wires are aligned in upper and lower rows.  It is more challenging to crimp compared to the old type.

I have cut the cable where it was too long, I used it for… … 

Hmm…  It’s time to relax my mind by creating some artistic things with the wires.  Does it look better than the messed up cable? :p

This is not done by me but we found this messed up electrical cable in front of a Kopitiam (Café).  The first thing I thought about it was its safety, and the second thing was their artistic shapes. :p

Recently we have been lacking of updating this blog because we have been dealing with cables (Not the cable above, but network cable for computer).  When this project started, my heart was also messy like the cable above because I need to allocate and use all my resources, time and man power wisely.

Now what I am doing is to turn the messy mind into managed and organized state.  Hopefully everything will be over soon.

Hmm…  Tonight I will post how the managed and organized cable look like, which the one that I am dealing with now.  (If I still have energy to switch on my notebook tonight :p)

Let’s go shopping!

Aren’t they nice? These are some knitting handicrafts given to me by a colleague. Her sister made these small knitted toys. They are called Amigurumi and originated in Japan. According to some findings on the Internet, Amigurumi is the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small stuff animals and anthropomorphic creatures.

Here I have got the strawberry round-layered cookies, vanilla rectangle-layered cookies, eggs, a mushroom and an adorable little cloud.

This is an egg. It has been perfectly fried and ready to be eaten If you can eat and digest it It looks happy.

I also did a search on this long word, anthropomorphic. It turned out that anthropomorphism is the attribution of uniquely human characteristics to non-human creatures and beings, natural and supernatural phenomena, material states and objects or abstract concepts.

The cloud. Is it a good day for shopping?

The result or the search added that the subjects for anthropomorphism commonly include animals and plants depicted as creatures with human motivation able to reason and converse, forces of nature such as clouds, winds or the sun, componenets in games, etc. Well, almost anything can be subject to anthropomorphism.

Assorted cookies! Yummy! It’s true that looks can be deceiving because I have tried offering these cookies to someone and they really thought they are real until they touch the cookies. I was caught too when my colleague showed me these cookies for the first time.

Mr. Mushroom Since we are vegetarians, we have discovered that mushroom is really a good companion in cooking. You can fried mix vegetable with it, marinate and cook it in one piece and they make marvellous porridge too!

I hope that one day I can make some Amigurumis too!

These are the red-lantern-shaped chillies.  Each of them is as big as a table tennis (ping pong) ball.  Their shapes are not exactly rounded but randomly curved.  They can be planted locally in Kuching here, and in Chinese we call it “deng1long2jiao1″ (lantern-shaped chilli).

From Wikipedia, I learned that chillies are actually the fruits of the plants from genus Capsicum.  We wrote about Capsicum earlier this year, you can read it here.  There are many different species and varieties of chillies.  I am not sure about the name for this variety.

These Chilli taste extremely hot, but one of my friends who can’t have his meal without chilli said that it is not as hot as “Cili Padi” (Bird’s Eye Chili Pepper).  He said that if he sees chillies, he saliva will be drooling.

Arrangement #1.

Arrangement #2.

Arrangement #3.

I have arranged this chillies in different ways, which arrangement do you think look nicer?

ColinJong is one year old now. This is the first birthday and we are very excited. We would like to thank our readers for all the supports given. Thank you for boosting up our stats.

This is the Birthday Box created by my brother, Clement. Thank you Clement. I like it very much.

Actually, if you notice carefully, this blog is maintained by 2 persons (Colin & SiewPeng). Throughout the year, we are quite relaxed because we can take turn to write for this blog. For the coming year, we will put more effort to update it more frequently.

We hope you like our blog and keep supporting us.
We also hope that no more down time from the web hosting. Otherwise … …

Most importantly, we would like to bring the nature and harmony even closer to you while you are enjoying our art and photography outcome.

Happy Birthday to ColinJong.com

This is a special dictionary for me. It is 20 years old now. It is a gift from my primary 3 form-teacher right before she retired 20 years ago.

The poor dictionary is crumbled now.

It is broken into 2 pieces.

But, I will never throw it away. I will keep it forever.

Dear Teacher Huang
You were my form-teacher from primary 1 to primary 3
You taught me a lot of basic thing
You taught me Chinese, Math, Physical Education etc…
which is useful and important for my whole life
And I will never be able to pay you back

I would like to thank you from the deepest of my heart
Thank you my dear Teacher Huang
I am sorry about the condition of the dictionary now
But I will always remember you
when I see the dictionary

I have lost your contact since you left school
May be you had forgotten me
Since you may have thousands of students
I still hope that there is one day… …
I can meet you again… …

P.S. Also to all the teachers that have taught me in kindergarten, primary school, secondary school, college and university, I hope to see you all too someday…

From Feb 2008 onward, this site has been showing a consistent increment of visitors number, which is giving us a lot of encouragement.  We would like to thank all of our readers especially to some loyal readers.  I can identify some of you but not all, so do leave comment, then I will know that you read our blog frequently.  From time to time, I will think of something special to rewards our loyal readers.

From the graph above, you can ignore from Sept 2007 to Jan 2008, and you should start to read it from Feb 2008 onward.  This is because I did not turn on the ignore myself feature in the earlier days of this blog, and during that period of time, this site’s layout and theme had been modified heavily, and I had tested it on different types of browser and different types of OS quite frequently.  That’s why the stats cannot reflect the actual number of unique visitors.

You can notice that Sept 2008 is still not showing positive growth yet; will it be able to shoot over Aug 2008?  It is all depend on your mouse click.  Hmm ……  Has anyone ever tthought of showing appreciation to search engines?  I would like to thank them as well because they are the main source of traffic to colinjong.com.

I prayed and really hope that this month the stats will not show a negative growth.  6.5 days to go, I believe there is still a chances.

Recent years, mooncake manufacturers have become more and more creative in making different types of moon cake. We have found this Koala Bear Mooncake. We finished our last piece of our moon cake just now. We do not know how, where and which part should we start eating this koala. Finally we turned it over, and ate it without looking at the koala bear’s face. Poor poor koala bear.

Besides different shapes, there are endless new types of flavour for the traditional mooncake fillings. Lotus seed flavour (Lian2Rong2) is my favorite #1 choice. Besides the traditional filling such as red bean flavour (Dou4Sha1), I have found at least 20 other different types of mooncake fillings. Let me list out a few.

1. Cheese lotus seed.
2. Pandan.
3. Dragon fruit.
4. Peach.
5. Coffee.
6. Green tea.
7. Peanut.
8. Chocolate.
9. And many more… …

Since SiewPeng and I are pure vegetarians and we do not eat egg, our choices are limited. This year we only bought three types plus the koala bear as you can see in the pictures.

We bought the mini round-shaped mooncake, which their size is smaller than the traditional round-shaped moon cake. Their diameter is only about 3 cm, where as the traditional moon cake has about 6 to 10 cm in diameter. We can finish each mini moon cake in 2 bites.

Mooncake tastes delicious, but it should not be taken too much because it contains high sugar. It is dangerous for those who have diabetes. I forgot to mention the mooncake with egg yolk, double egg yolks or 4 egg yolks inside the filling, it is even worse because it contains high cholesterol. So remember, do not eat too much.

We thought of doing the same things again as the apples and brinjals in our previous posts, but we worried that we cannot finish the moon cake if we get one for each flavour, that why we only select a few types here. May be we will do it next year. :p

Before the moon cake festival, our vihara group member went to a hospital for sharing the happiness of the festival with the unfortunate.  We let them play lantern.  Some of the Chinese old man refuse to play, but most of them enjoy it.  Some of them experienced playing lantern for the first time because they are not Chinese.  They enjoyed it very much.

Have you ever ask yourself a question, are we too old to play lantern?  One of our friends like to play kids toys, of course, she won’t miss to play the lantern.  I see her enjoyed very much.  Actually I like to play too.  :p  Therefore, I don’t think we are too old to play the lantern.

Our Penang friends will be going back this evening.  I am sure they enjoyed this Kuching trip joyfully.  They are going to carry few kg of Paku and Bidin (local vegetable growing in the wild) back to Penang.  Amazing.

I like moon cake festival because of the beautiful lanterns.  But it still one more year to go for the next moon cake festival.  Although it was five days ago, but the stories is not ended yet… …

I received this SMS from a friend as the Mid-Autumn Festival greeting.  The rabbits are cute, aren’t they?  They are made of ASCII text, and had traveled from the moon and reached my SMS inbox.

This SMS in Chinese means the two rabbits from the moon are for you. If you keep them as a pet during the mid-autumn and they will bring good luck to you.

Wish you have a happy mid-autumn festival!!!

Are we talking about adjectives today? No, we are not. Nor are we talking about lizards. Those are just some elements that I am going to use to express some of my humble thoughts. Why lizards? Well, it is because I find these two lizards rather amusing.

The photo of the bigger lizard was taken outdoor and the other one of course was taken indoor as you can see the switches. Don’t worry. He got away. He was not electrocuted or hurt in any other ways.

Everybody has a different definition of big, enormous, small and tiny. So do I. Are you going to take more precautions against the big green lizard or the tiny brown one here?

However, if you are in the lizards’ shoes, you might be taking a lot more precautions because human could be an enormous creature to you.

It is fascinating how we could judge. We are able to judge because we have opinions and different mindsets. If we get to a more serious stage of disagreement, people could end up fighting and never talk to each other anymore.

They are both lizards. They might look different in colours and sizes but they are the same. Now, if we could have the mindset of everything and everybody is the same, do you think the world would be a better place? In that case, all living beings would be able to live in harmony then.

To my friends from vihara who went to Penang last month.  Can you guess where have I taken this picture?  I am sure you know the answer.  I missed it this year.  I hope that I can go there next year.  This picture was taken in 2007.  I believe you guys had a wonderful and unforgettable time there while purifying your mind and sharpen your thoughts there.  This window was lonely but not on the last month.  I wonder if it still looks the same this year.

Windows are great subjects for photography.  I saw many photographers taking the pictures of windows especially with the old building.  Beside doors, gates, roof etc, windows is one of the main features for a building.  There are many types of windows, with different type of glass / wood attached to them.  The curtains sometimes make it even colourful.  No matter how it looks like, good looking or ugly, big or small, clean, dusty or rusty, all of them can become pictures through the lenses of cameras as long as you have story to tell about the windows.  This is not the best photo of windows, but thit place is the best place to achieve ultimate happiness.

Human need fashion, buildings need fashion too.  Windows are building’s fashion.  … … And I believe most of you while reading this blog you are also facing a window named Microsoft. :p

I posted the Light Burst Text Logo above 3 minutes after the post of ugly toad and with no text because I guess that the toad picture may not be accepted by majority.

Yesterday, right after I post the light burst text, we went out to start our busy Sunday.  I planned to write the text after I came back.  But we feel surprised because there is a comment faster than me writing the content.  Thanks hiimeimei, you gave us great support.

I intended to create light burst text for 3 persons who request and comment on this post with the text of their choice before I tell you the method of creating it.  Anyway, the method can be found on other website and you can google it and photoshop it on your own.

Brinjal is also called eggplant.  Its scientific name is called Solanum melongena.  Chinese call it Qie2Zi3, and Malays call it Terung.  A hypermarket in Ipoh named the fat one as eggplant and the smaller size one as terung or brinjal to differentiate their types.  But actually eggplant is another name for brinjal and it means all types of brinjal.

We like to eat brinjals although it is a bit sticky like the ladies finger.  The long shaped brinjal is the most common and can be easily found in Kuching where as the other types can hardly be seen here.  We were excited when we saw so many types of brinjal in Ipoh.  Same as what we did to different types of apple, we bought one or two brinjals for each type.

Brinjal contains small and soft seeds which are edible.  Botanically the fruit of a brinjal plant is classified as a berry.  When I did some research on wikipedia, I finally know that why I get addicted to it.  It contains a very insignificant amount of   nicotinoid alkaloids, and that is why it tastes a bit bitter.  Do not worry too much about this because you need about 9kg of brinjal to have the same amount of nicotine as a cigarette.  No one is going to eat 9kg of brinjal within a day.

On the other hand, Brinjal is effective in the treatment of high blood cholesterol.  It is also a source of folic acid and potassium.

[The raw fruit can have a somewhat bitter taste, but becomes tender when cooked and develops a rich, complex flavor. Salting and then rinsing the sliced brinjal (known as “degorging”) can soften and remove much of the bitterness. Some modern varieties do not need this treatment, as they are less bitter. The brinjal is capable of absorbing large amounts of cooking fats and sauces, allowing for very rich dishes, but the salting process will reduce the amount of oil absorbed. The fruit flesh is smooth; as in the related tomato, the numerous seeds are soft and edible along with the rest of the fruit. The thin skin is also edible, so that the brinjal need not be peeled.] – quoted from Wikipedia.  :p

A fat brinjal labeled as eggplant in a hypermarket.

They are labeled as Terung Bulat which means Round-Shaped Brinjal.

Small White Eggplant.

Terung Merah-KG (Red Brinjal).  I don’t know what does it mean by KG, can you tell me?

Short Brinjal.

Long Brinjal or Terung Panjang.

This are the price tags for the brinjals above.

Even they are all brinjals but each of them has different shape and colour.  Just like human, even all of us are human but we have different colours of skin and eyes.  Basically everybody is the same.

There are still photos in our camera that we will be putting on this blog here to tell you our new discovery in Ipoh.  Give you a clue, you can expect to see brinjals pictures in the coming posts.

Anyway, just a quick update and we will be back on Wednesday.

Wish Malaysians a Happy National Day.

While we were in Ipoh last week, we went to a park somewhere near where we stayed.  We found this romantic bird couple enjoying their time with each other happily.  We were touched by their romantic moments therefore we took the opportunity to capture this lovely shot.

They were sharing a tender kiss.

They didn’t seem to mind being observed and their photos being taken.  What does love mean in the world of birds?

I find that cats often have interesting sitting postures.  Personally, I am quite fond with the one above.  It feels like that he is wrapping himself up to keep warm or to stay comfortable at where he is.  I feel a sense of happiness in me when I see him bending his front legs inwards like that.  This one with the eyes closed added some speculation “flavour” to his deep thoughts again.  He does that all the time.

This is the same posture but with his eyes half opened.  This one seems like he has got an idea on what he was trying to figure out.

He lives in the balcony and he sometimes roams on the platform.  This was taken as he was forbidden to enter the house.  He laid down and put his head on the sliding door mechanism hoping that we could let him in.  Well, Mr. Yellow, you have got to learn to co-operate if you want to come in.

Sun bathing?  Barely not.  The coldness from the tiles is soothing.

Now, I like this one too.  It could represent quite a few circumstances.  Well, we could start with “Hey, don’t disturb me when I’m sleeping/having a nap!” or “What’s that noise?” or would it be ”What do you want from me?” or possibly “I’m ready for this fight!” and then he raises his paws and reveal his sharp claws.

A picture tells a thousand word.  I do agree to that.  :)   

We have observed cats eating grass before but never understood the reasons why they do that. And we caught Mr. Yellow having a grass feast the other day so we quickly took these shots. And of course, we are definitely going to clear our doubts on cats eating grass this time!

Well, from some researches, it turns out that there are a few reasons for cats to do that. It appears that grass has become some sort of laxative for cats to pass hairballs lodged in their intestines. Therefore, after a grass feast, the grass will make cats vomit up hairballs.

Mr. Yellow sensed that he has been spotted. A bit startled there.

Sometimes when cats feels sick, they eat grass too. This will make them vomit as well and get rid of the poisons in their bodies. Eating grass is also a way to relieve inflammation of their throats and stomach ache.

Nevertheless, it didn’t disturb his grass feast. Whew~~

Speaking about eating habits, grass eating is also to add roughage to the cats’ diets.

He has finished his grass feast of the day. He looked away as if he was waiting for the grass to do its job in his stomach.

Seemed like the elimination of hairballs has begun. He looked tensed.

“Back off…I need some air.”

Well, he did vomitted not long after that. Hope he is alright.

There is no backdrop used when this picture was taken. In fact, the following pictures as well. The cat was sitting on the platform of the fifth floor of the building when these shots were snapped. It was in the evening. As such, the street has become a natural backdrop for the cat, Mr. Yellow.

He wasn’t seem to be disturbed by the clicking sound of the camera even though he made some slight movements. He was enjoying the wind and the sunset.

Once in a while, he will close his eyes to venture into some deep thoughts. Nobody knows what is on his mind. He has been living for more than ten years. It a wonder to know his thoughts.

Sounds and noises from the street interrupted his “meditation” of deep thoughts sometimes.

He flattened his ears to show a bit of dissatisfaction. But was still trying to concentrate.

He gave up. He took a look at the source of the noises.

He decided to ignore them instead.

Do you notice anything special in