Joe Hisaishi has become one of my favorite composers. Merely listening to the enlighten and melodious music could make me tears. I admire his talents, his works, his conducting style, his humble look 
To know more about him, feel free to visit his FB Fan Page or his official webpage.
The music also makes me miss my violin and the joy moment of being able to perform on stage. I would never give up my music never.ever.
Alright, enough of talking. enjoy the music. hope you like his music as well.
射手座...
射手从来不记仇、因为记忆力很差，心软。
脾气有点大， 性格矛盾、自尊超大！
很没有安全感，喜欢在任何人面前装傻；这可不是一般的装傻能力；
射手是相当优秀的星座！
简单直接，不做作不讨好；爱憎分明！♥
外表成熟内在天真，有时任性有时理性；
内心非常叛逆；喜欢自由，
不喜欢向别人提要求，心态很平静、悠哉，而且不喜欢欠任何人的人情。
平时想问题只有一根筋，常常看见一件事的表面就开始下定义；
想到什么就去做什么，所以也因此会无意间误解或是伤害他人！♥
I don’t usually believe in horoscopes but I do like to read them. It’s amazing how those characteristics of a specific horoscope could truly identify who you are without knowing who are you.
The more you read, the more doubtful you are regarding the texts because you tend to question why those words are describing yourself. On the other hand, this might be a psychology trick. The texts could have been mixed up among different horoscopes and you are blinded with the main title saying the horoscope you wanted to read, no?
Anyway, people will admire you for who you are, no need to be pretentious. Just like the way you are <3
Easter break is almost come to the end. Yet, never has sufficient time to rest well. Although has been enjoying my vacation at somewhere else for the past 5 days, it’s time to do some charity works. Kinda satisfied and happy though, because alas I was surrounded by the beauty of nature once again. Will elaborate more next time. Yeahh! Gonna visit nursing homes & volunteering at Buddha festival during this weekends.
Last Sunday, TzuChi Brisbane organized a 1 day camp for the kids. It was always my favorite task to be a photographer especially it involved CHILDREN. I enjoyed looking through the camera viewer to see the kids’ expressions and the interaction scenes between the kids and their parents. Somehow, it made me smile though I was kinda tired on that day.
I enjoyed observing this small girl and her grandpa. They looked sweet and kind hearted. It made me miss my grandpa too T_____T I hope I could spend more time with grandpa but he is in Msia, I am in Oz. We are far apart
Last but not least, why not try to eat less meat and eat more vegetable for the sake of your health and future? Never try never know! I have been a vegan for more than 4 months and I enjoy being a vegan despite receiving some public critics whenever I say I am a vegan. It doesn’t make me give up on what I believe, in contrary, it motivates me to share the benefits of being a vegan to friends and family. Sharing is caring, never keep good stuffs on your own. Do share the happiness around you
Update more next time. till here. have a great weekends!
Most of the culture stories written here were told by my homestay parents and the local people in HsinChu. So, there is no salt and paper added to the flavor.
FYI, I have been staying in Taiwan for approximately 7 weeks for cultural exchange under Aiesec organization. Thereby, I did some observation, food tasting, traveling which were a worthwhile and fun experience for me.
One fine night, I attended a wedding in Taiwan. It was so random because we were asked to attend at the very last minute for the sake of getting-to-know the wedding culture. The funny thing was we weren’t invited by the hosts and we just showed up without giving any red packets. I think the homestay parent that we followed did give, couldn’t remember though. Normally, Hakka citizens live in suburb areas because by that time they came to Taiwan, most of the city areas were dominated by Minang race (福建). The wedding venue was located in QiuQiongHu, HsinChu. On the way there, we by passed a quiet long winding road and dark jungles which were quite adventurous and amazing to see via the car window.
I was excited by the time we arrived. The wedding atmosphere was quite similar to a typical Chinese wedding culture in Malaysia until I saw something else. Nevertheless, the food was quite unique too.
The arrival of the newly-wed couples. Everyone clapped their hands!
Most of the crowd was upper middle-aged citizens, and were Hakka undeniably
Our plastic bowl, plastic cup, disposable chopsticks and wet tissue
First main course
Salted chicken
糯米飯 I enjoyed eating the rice. It was well-cooked and tasty.
Lobster
Fried chickens
Steamed fish
Overall, the dishes were quite simple but tasted not that bad (told by my friends) as I did not eat any meaty stuffs other than kept on drinking the juice
Now, here comes the differences between Msia & Taiwan wedding culture (in certain regions/races). Throughout the wedding dinner, we were entertained by sexy girls singing different type of songs on stage/off stage.
The singing routines was unique. Firstly, the AA female singer would cover up her body by wearing a cardigan/coat while singing the first song. After that, they will just take off their cardigan/coat leaving with bikinis for the second song. While the AA female singer was singing, here came a BB female singer dancing on the stage(with cardigan on) waiting for her turn.
Usually, the AA female would walk down the stage and shake hand with ONLY the gentleman while singing with solely her bikinis on. From my observation, those men would keep eyeing on the singer while their wives/girlfriends who sat next to them looking at the singer with a skeptical angry look.
After AA female singer finished singing, the BB female singer would sing the third song on stage. For the fourth song, the BB female singer once again would take off her coat and walk around the dinner tables while CC singer dancing on the stage. This routines kept repeating with different sexy singers appearing on stage.
See the distance between the sexy singer and the newly wed couples. I wonder why they were facing behind the singer. Normally wedding couples sit facing the stage so that they could see what’s going on the stage.
My homestay parent told me the wedding program was even worst during their time (many many years ago) where the strippers would wear NOTHING and some of them would even sit on the bridegroom's lap. I couldn’t stop imagine what would the atmosphere look like back on those days.
He told me the program was meant to be like this to entertain the crowds. If not, the crowd would easily get bored (mostly strangers on each table) and most probably would end up with undesirable matters to deal with.
The kids felt embarrassed when the singer approached them
The mini coat the girl has could barely cover her tops
Spotted someone took picture of the female (not me). She quickly hid behind the other girl. The reason was she’s still single and not married, would not want to expose herself in bikinis to the public (via internet)
Last but not least, a usual scene we could see during Chinese wedding
All in all, I enjoyed my time with my friends at the wedding, not because of the sexy girls, I am glad to be able to expose myself with others’ culture/lifestyles. Every race/place has its own unique identity that we ought to respect. As a Hakka myself, this event intrigues me to learn more about Hakka, the people and the food.
Hope you guys enjoy reading this post. Feel free to leave a comment as you like.
Have a nice weekends. xoxo
Hi guys, I am in Taiwan now. My 1st week here is ending soon. Doing fine here and gonna blog whenever I have the free time and internet connection. Currently, I am having an internship under Aiesec worldwide organisation with a community in Hsin Chu City (新竹市). I would say it is some kind of community work where my tasks are recording everything that I see, I eat, I play and I think about Taiwan from my own perspective. Besides, the most important element about my job is to introduce my home country - Malaysia’s cultures & lifestyles to everyone here and get to know more about Taiwan’s cultures at the same time. I am glad that I have the chance to expose myself to something completely new to me. It widens my horizon and most importantly, I got to know more about myself, my own country and stories about other nations too.
Solely on this first week, my timetable was fully packed with activities. Although it was really tiring by the end of the day, I was happy to learn more things everyday. 學無止境嘛! Currently, I am staying in an abandon big house alone without internet connection as my home stay rooms are fully occupied. Kinda creepy though especially during the first night. But now, I think I am more brave >< I am looking forward to shift into a Hakka family :) They are so nice. Anyhow, my current home stay parents are very nice to me too. They prepared 3 meals per day and brought us sight visiting around the city ^^ Guess where I am going tonight? =.= okay, cut the crap.
Wanna know how’s my timetable look like?
Suddenly, I feel like I have become a superwoman for being able to do all the stuffs during working days. I was so amazed to know that some of the interns have a more relaxing and flexible working hours & jobs in other areas. Envy max T.T Anyhow, I do accept my job tasks as a challenge and it’s actually a golden opportunity for me to grow and learn how to adapt especially improve on my EQ :)
Plus, I can’t wait to go travelling with all my Taiwanese buddies & Msian friends who are coming over soon ^^
Alright, some of the random pictures taken throughout this week. Have a nice day everyone
All the pics below are not edited. Bo enough time ><
*were taken with DSLR/digital cam*
It was actually my 6th times travelling alone by flight. Was welcomed by 2 lovely Tw Aiesecers once I reached the terminal
This is my pretty TN manager. She is very friendly and nice to get along with'
Followed my TN manager to attend her English class. My 1st day as part of Taiwan Uni student
Some wonderful work arts
This is the map of the wetlands that I would be helping regularly. It has a pretty amazing history behind the creation of this park
Some beautiful flowers planted in the park (preview)
Another good news is I am fonder of cats & dogs. They could actually staying together quite well under the same roof
My wonderful host family members
This is Dan. He is an Aussie guy who studies in University of Monash, Melbourne. He works under the same project like me
The classroom
What do you reckon this place is? It is a big hall of a secondary military school where the band get to practice their songs
This is the map of the housing area of Hsin Chu. It called 八卦圖. Could you see the shape of a spider web? does it look like what we watch in the ancient war movie?
Hsin Chu city is famous of its MIHUN (a kind of noodles). According to my Hakka home stay father, he told me that the noodles is famous because the dough they made needed strong wind to let it dry. Hsin Chu city’s wind is always strong and windy. That’s why it helps the noodle to dry quickly and somehow, it has become a unique characteristic of Hsin Chu.
Some cute students :) *yeah* pose somehow has become my signature
Having an interview with student reporters yesterday. The guy sitting beside me came from Japan
After the group interview, here comes individual interview. Was bombarded with lots of questions from different perspectives. It practiced my impromptu presentation. Not bad huh :D Furthermore, I am happy to share my experiences, education, climbing mountain experiences, Australia + Msia culture, current Taiwan adaptation, etc etc
Group pic before leaving Hakka College
Attended Aiesec Welcoming Party yesterday. Kinda fun though. I am having massive headache now. argh!
that’s basically an overall introduction of my current community work in Taiwan. Till here, see you :)
Friends in Msia, Taiwanese from Australia or anyone in this planet who are interested, if you are coming to or currently in Taiwan. Do contact me through fb or email, I wanna meet up with all of u :)
OMG, I am slacking for the whole day. But who cares, it’s time for me to blog again. Looking at the Veni Vici Vidi column on my blog’s sidebar which you could see right now is the list of the mountains I have conquered so far with the dates on it. I just realized that I never blog about my experience on climbing Mt Kinabalu, Sabah. So, decided to blog for the sake of remembrance for the future.
Well, when I was almost having my finals of SAM in 2008, I came out with a crazy idea of climbing Mt Kinabalu. Don’t ask me why, the answer would be aiks, it’s complicated to explain :D
Since it’s hard to find kakis to climb together at the very last moment, the easiest way is to search online for kakis. In the end, I knew a woman from the net who was interested to join me at the same time, without thinking twice, JOM d. Here, I would like to thanks heaps to my parents for letting me to go to this trip alone with a total stranger. Their mentally supports is always helpful for me no matter what situation I am in. Plus, so happen one of my friends, ZhiYong, boyfriend of my dear friend, Mei Ying would be there at the same time, I invited him to join us. Here goes our journey.
I met with my climbing partner for the first time @the airport. Once my dad saw her, he was relieved as well. Well, old sayings said, never follow a stranger home. This was true, but the risk that I have taken was worth it at last :)
Firstly, we went to the agent office to finalize everything. Will tell you the contact at the end of my KK post. After that, a driver drove us to the Kinabalu Park which was situated deep in the jungle. It was raining heavily at that time too.
This was my temporary accommodation for Day 1. When we were there, it was freaking cold as I was not used to cold weather.
Some souvenirs shops that you could find at Kinabalu Park. The area was surrounded with lots of trees and not to forget, the freaking tall Mt Kinabalu that I was going to conquer on the next day. Basically, we walked around the park and it was kinda relaxing though.
Freaking awesome right? so much mist some more
The very next day, I was so not prepared to climb *takut* as basically I have not been training on my stamina. Not at all other than frantically swimming for 2 days at the very last minute. When thinking it now, I totally have no idea why was I so brave and naive few years ago. But, at least, I experience it with no regret for the climbing part :)
We boarded a mini bus up the winding road to the main entrance for the climb. We were welcomed by a freaking amazing sign board. OMG, how could those ppl climb up and down on this mountain for less than 3 hours. This is insane. (2 x 4095m) But it’s the fact.
My partners for the climb and of course, the great guide as well. I guess he has been climbing up and down for dunno how many freaking times. He even helped my friend carried the heavy bag. Other than the guide, while on our way up the hilly slope, we saw lots of women, especially were carrying “look_like_it_was_a_heavy_basket” on their head and climbing up the mountain like nobody’s business. This is truly amazing. I was astonished to see how fast they could walk with the heavy burden on it. *Salute*
It’s true if you have heard ppl saying that climbing Mt Kinabalu is actually climbing up the staircases & easier than climbing Mt Tahan. but this is true only for the first half part.
This was the food that we received earlier before the climb ><
Because my other partner, the woman, Sarah couldn’t climb up the hill at our pace, the guide told us to climb up on our own.
Easy? Medium? Hard?
Personally, everything is about your mentality, not much about phsycial capability. Of course you are fit to climb if you choose to climb at the first place. I actually kept telling myself that I could do this. If not, you definitely will give up easily. Trust me!
The air was damp and my hair was full of droplets
I dunno the exact time I reached Laban Rata. Let me recall. hmmm. We started to climb around 8.30a.m. And reached Laban Rata at 3pm something if not mistaken. This means the journey took us approx 7 hours to finish HALF WAY. Anyway, I was delighted because it mean, I can eattttttttttttttt.
The temperature was approx 9.6 celcius plus the never stop blowing strong wind plus the wet clothes I were wearing making myself totally helpless and it was freezing cold
The must do thing is to order a hot chocolate/milo. Yummyyyyyyyyyy.
My other partner reached Laban Rata around 7 something. We were too exhausted and the scary part was, we have to wake up at approx 2.30am the next morning. I hardly doze off because of the scary weather ><
Till here now. have a great day everyone :)
