知足, 珍惜, 遺忘

Found this from a friend's FB status, quite like it, hope you like it too.

懂得知足的人找到《快樂》; 懂得放下的人找到《自在》;
懂得珍惜的人找到《幸福》; 懂得放心的人找到《輕鬆》;
懂得遺忘的人找到《自由》; 懂得關懷的人找到《朋友》

Translation:

One will find Happiness if one learns to be content; One will find Comfort if one learns to let go; One will find Fortune if one learns to treasure; One will find Relaxation if one learns to be relieved; One will find Freedom if one learns to forget; One will find Friendship if one learns to be caring.

Dear friend(s),
Have an open mind, and an open heart
to face the ever changing world.

Happy Birthday to me!!

Stepping into another journey of life, it's a happy one to start with.
The most presents that I had ever received over the years, and the most 'red eggs' that I had eaten too, 3 to be exact.
Thanks everyone for the wishes, and thanks to my friends/ buddy/ colleague for the wonderful presents.

Made a wish on the day of my birthday, although it doesn't happen on that day, but it sort of comes true on the next day. Although till now I have no idea where it might leads me to, but I am already satisfied enough at this point.

今年的生日，还算不错啦！
至少不是一个人的度过。有朋友的陪伴。
许了个愿望，没在当天实现，
但总算第二天少许实现吧！
虽然不知道往后会有什么的结果，
但这一刻我还总算满足了！

谢谢！

Tourist or a Traveller?

Read this in one of the guide book while doing research for my next trip. To share with you the excerpt,

" Why on earth should you go out of your way to try some sport or activity you've never heard of or will never do it again? Why bother with the slow, less comfortable modes of transport?.....
Because if you're not doing something new, you're doing something you've done before. If you're not taking local transport, you're taking Western style transport........It's often the inconvenient and uncomfortable elements that give travel its extra dimension, and separate the Sphinx in Las Vegas from the one in Eggypt, ....and tourists from the traveller."

totally agree with it, to travel is to get some new insights rather than staying back in your comfort zone. Just finished my 11 days Italy trip and I had a fabulous time. I haven't got time to sit down to organize the photos yet since I had been busy moving house and planning for my next trip real soon. Please bear with me for a month or two before you got any photos here. I'll try to see if I can put up some kind of sneak preview before I go for my next trip.

September..a busy one...

Someone had been complaining of me not updating my blog lately. Sorry folks as September is quite a busy month for me. Well, it started off with not a very good sign having sweet dreams for the whole night. Friend was curious having me complaining about sweet dreams. All my entire life, things dreamt always happen by the opposite in reality. Although in the dream, everything seems so real; I doesn't wish to have more of it as I wish it is true in reality and not mere dreams. Well, well, I just have to start my September anyhow.

Today, a weird and funny question was being asked when me and my roomie went for house viewing. Yes, I will have to shift, and this time house rather than just room. Landlord is having problem maintaining the flats with only 2 double rooms rented out and suggested that we move to his other flats in another area which is 20 mins walk away or we pay higher rent. Back to the funny part, most double rooms here are furnished with double beds and the landlady just popped up with a question asking "Are you both partners?" when she show us the room with that double bed. I startled for awhile trying to figure why would she asked so before I answer "No". Then only I realized she wanted to say there's only double bed in the room instead of 2 single. Sometimes people just tends to come up with a conclusion too quick on what they see.

6 more days before I fly off to Italy. Getting excited. Can't wait for that =)

60 years....

How could a couple manage 60 years of marriage together? That's the first thing I think a lot of people will be asking. Me too, when I heard one of the regular customer of the restaurant which I part time in having their Diamond Marriage Anniversary celebration over there today. And both of them are still so healthy and loving. Salute to them. There's one thing funny about human relationship. In one end, couple can live together in harmony and lovingly for more than 60 years, in the other end, some couples can't even break through their Paper marriage anniversary! Human relationship can be so strong and yet they can be as weak!

tick tock....tick...tock....

Just realized from the ticker that I had been here for 6 months already.....gosh.... Another 5 month plus before I can't earn money to survive myself here. Finally starting to plan my holiday after all these while. First stop, Italy! After researching, I think Italy is one of the expensive country to travel around. Expected to have a big hole burnt in my pocket. But bother, at least I'm still able to earn now, rather hit the expensive one first and go for the budget one later. days are ticking.....life's short.....time to move on.....

August!! August!!

August have just started and it's already filled with lots of unexpected 'events', sad one, happy one. Let go the sad one, the happiest one is my sis just gave birth to a pair of twin girls yesterday!!! And I'm still yet to have a peek at my nieces. Dad sounds so happy today when parents told me about the happy news through skype today. And I still coping with being an 'aunt' before I stepped into my big '3' very soon. Sigh!!! Suddenly feel very old now. Am wondering whether my nieces will recognize me a not when I see them one year later.

August also should be the month I visit London more often for an internship in a film office which they are running a program for the teens to create documentaries for the Olympic 2012. Unfortunately, things are always not as I wish, or should I said 'never' as I had wish. After being just one day in the office, and the planned called off as they aren't able to afford my train expenses weekly. Now I'm back to square one, having too much free time if I'm not working. Maybe this is a sign to ask me to move on, to start planning for my holiday!!!! Hmmmmmm.......where should I go first? Germany? Italy? Austria?

Lost....

Having mixed and complicated feelings while writing this post. Recently had been receiving too many of bad news, sad news around me. And tears just trickled down without me realizing all these while the pessimist in me never stop haunting me. Is this really the symptom of being a middle child? Having split personality, one minute I can be very happy, another minute I can relate to something sad and feel moody for the whole day. Not knowing what's the next step should I take, I'm heading nowhere; I'm lost....

London Revisit 080709 ~ 100709

Revisit to London after two months. Main purpose to London this time was to visit my pregnant friend, Irene and we hold a small gathering in a Malaysian restaurant, SEDAP. It's Penang nyonya style and the food was not bad. Most of the chinese restaurant here in UK follows Hong Kong/ Cantonese style even though some are opened by Malaysian. Hence, it's a blessing being able to taste authentic Malaysia food right here in UK. This trip up to London was fulfilling, in terms of my craving for food. Apart from the Malaysian food, Siew took me to a Spanish Restaurant on the first night. Nice environment and accompaniment with nice food. Siew said I must be a European in my previous life that makes me craved for Western food rather than Chinese food. I kinda agreed with that as even in KL when I was to bring my mum for food outside, I'll choose to go to a Western restaurant, be it Italian, German etc rather than a Chinese restaurant. Just thought that there's a lot more other countries food that I haven't tried. Now, in addition to the long lists, two more down. To-date, I think I had tried Italian, German, Belgium, Spanish food, and hoping for more different one to come =). After our dinner, Siew took me to a special ice-cream shop where they have the ice-cream made to looks like spaghetti, lasagne, fried eggs etc. We had one of the Chocolate Lasagne.
Ah, forgot to mention too, I finally got myself a Starbuck Ice Blended after 4 months. Missed those time in KL that I can easily drive up to Starbucks with my laptop and enjoy my ice-blended there for hours. Got myself a Dark Berry Mocha Blended, something different from what I can get in KL, taste not bad though and the price is almost the same as a cup of coffee in other cafe in UK, around 3 pounds.
To sum it all up, here are the photos.

You make my Day!!!!

This morning, when I was out walking to the swimming centre crossing through the residential area, I got lost. With a map in hand, the first thing to do is to refer to that. Unfortunately, the map is quite a brief map with only the main roads, that explained why I can be lost. Just as I seem so helpless, a voice came up asking if I'm alright. To my surprise, there's a lady in her 40s stop by her car and ask me if I need any help. At that spur of the moment, it was such a great relief. People around here have been so nice. How many a time will you stop at a tourist and ask whether they will need help. How many a times will you smile to a stranger on the road. It's just amazing how a simple human touch make me feel that I'm not alone here, even if I'm surrounded by strangers. Recently, I realized how I can be easily contented. A simple phone call or a simple note of care already can make my day and put a smile on me whole day or even days. I just would like to say, thank you for making my day!!

Have you make someones day today? Or have someone make yours? Tell them and I believe this is contagious and it will definitely put a smile on each other for the rest of the day.

To whom who have been reading this, thank you for giving me the support there and I hope I had make your day too!!!

Desire Path

Just finished reading the book 'Thanks for the memories' by Cecilia Ahern, a sweet and nice story of how two people without crossing paths get connected. In that book, the author mentioned about Desire Line/ rather a Desire Path.

As defined, Desire path: A term in landscape architecture used to describe a path that isn't designed but rather is worn casually away by people finding the shortest distance between two points.

To my interpretation, this should be the path where we ourselves chose along our life, and the path changed every seconds on every decision made. I strongly agree to the concept of this and think everyone should have one on their own rather than letting yourself to walk on the path that had been laid down by someone else. Thinking back, maybe I hold too strongly on my own desire path, maybe you think I'm rebellious. But I wouldn't think I will enjoy walking on a path created by someone else to get to a destination, I could and should choose my own way to get to the point I wanted. Although sometimes you might say those are the proven shortest route to the destination; although sometimes the path I took led me round and round and I might take a longer time; but it's the process that counts more than the results right? I have no idea right now where my desire path will lead me to, but I am willing and ready to take the challenge to pass through every obstacles that occurs along the path......

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

In other words, create your own Desire Path!!

Think...think...think

Working in the warehouse had given me the opportunity to think a lot. Why do I say so? Cos everyday since early in the morning, although the hands are non-stop repetitively working, the brain doesn't process at all on what the hands are attending to. Everything is just like a routine. And this is the best time for me to be alone; with my own thinking, talking to my own inner self. Recently, I had been reading on a book entitled 'Thanks for the memories' by Cecilia Ahern. The words in it quite pictures the situation I'm going through right now. Living in my own thoughts, diving into my own past memories, reasoning out those unhappy ones and moving on, reminiscing those happy ones.....I guess sometimes, things happen for a reason, be it good or bad, it makes us a tougher person. To share with you....

5 days out of reality...

A sneak preview before I bombard you with my fabulous 5 days =) Part of the album here ...

My promised past week update

** Gosh, apparently I fell asleep while typing this for the first time and mistakes are all over. Here you go with the ammended one....

19th April 2009 - My first week of volunteering in East End Film Festival started with a very early train to Victoria. Although it had been tiring at work for the past few days, having the first breath of fresh air walking 30 mins to the town to catch the train was indeed a mind refreshing one. Train passed through a few calling stations before reaching London Victoria. The places around south england countryside had weird names such as Shoreham-by-sea, Durrington, Ford, Goring-by-sea, etc.

Some scenic view from the train....

As for the film festival, I had been helping them with flyering and some office work for the first week. Also had delicious Belgium food with Siew which I had blogged before.

27th April 2009 - It's raining hard while rushing time to catch the train to London in town today. Being in UK, although raining here is only drizzling, but it's rapid and dried away fast due to the dry 'air'. This was the first day in UK under the rain that I had to use a raincoat. Reaching the train station, exhausted, then only I found out that the train was delayed due to some technical problem in one of the stations. While waiting, I got a chance to had a long chat with someone on the train who's from Sri Lanka and had been working in UK since 2002. I asked him about the places of interest around South of England and he recommended me some which I will try to make my holiday there. Later on also he told me about how beautiful Sri Lanka is but he can't be able to live there due to the political situation over there. He mentioned that there's one hotel in Sri Lanka that has a pool with water source directly from the waterfall, and you could imagine how cooling and refreshing the water could be. Also there's a place with 7 wells, each with different temperature, some is hot, some are cold, some with different color etc, and best thing is they are not man-made. There's also a mountain that you could climb up to the top and sometimes you can see rain pouring from your feet down to the earth while it's dry up there at the summit. Sounds interesting and makes me want to visit there some day. I was surprised myself that I can actually talk to strangers. I remembered a few years back while I was in Singapore, a friend asked me whether do I talk to stranger when I'm on flight or on the bus. I remembered very clearly that my answer to her was 'NO' at that time. This time, my travelmate asked me again when I mentioned on my chat topic in the train to her. Thinking back, I'm shocked too. I actually did change. But I find it quite nice to chat with someone you do not know without having any commitment putting on each other. I guess I'm also like what rainstorm said, I put trust on someone until someone betrayed the trust, as long as no harm is done during at the point of conversation, why not?
Going into the Film Festival Office for the 2nd time, I got the chance to meet some real Britons and see how they work. I had been helping them in the office for 3 days consecutively with the designing of layout for their closing night brochures. Being in the office environment, see how they solve problems, it's indeed very different. Some of the 'colleagues' seems like knowing the whole festival in and out for the fact that they are also volunteers like me, and they only got into the office 3 weeks ago. It's amazing the speed that they pick up at work. And when problems arise, seldom blames are put on, but instead worked together to solve the problems. It's quite fulfilling also when I was stationed at different cinema around East London each day for different screening which enables me to see different part of the city where I hadn't been before, as those are not tourist attraction places. And isn't that what my main purpose is - to see the cultures and places that is not the main tourist attraction but instead the real Britain. One of the screening put up documentaries of the old London in Rio Cinema, Kingsland, London. The screening is free for all over 50s year old people and the whole cinema was having full house in that afternoon. Most of the 50s were accompanied by a carer/ several carer in groups. There's quite a lot of job opportunities of carer over here in UK in fact, taking care of the old, and some even on disabled people. Even guys in mid 30s become carer. One of the difference between London Cinema with Malaysia's is each cinema is equipped with a nice bar/ lounge for the customer to linger around before they go into the cinema for their movies. During the festival, I managed to catch some documentaries which some are quite good with mind boggling on the question/ issue/ message that was conveyed. I haven't got a chance to snap any pictures as I'm on shift and not able to bring such a big SLR around. Maybe I should start thinking of investing on a small digital camera...

There goes my 2 non-stop busy weeks; work, volunteer, work, volunteer.....tiring but fulfilling one. I'm glad I realized some improvement in me after all these years; I'm glad that I'm able to volunteer at my own expense, which means that I still have the ability to earn =)

Something true - C'est La Vie

转载 : 人生就是这样吗 ?‏

我们一出世，就被教导做个好孩子

拼命的读书，好了读完书了。大学也毕业 了。
拼命的做工，赚 多多的钱。。。
拼命的存钱 ，买房子，车子，保 险
不小心找到了老婆，好了，结婚了，钱也用完了

再拼命的做工，好了30岁了，开始瓶颈。。。
再拼命的读PARTTIME，好了，学位高了。。。
拼命的抚育孩子，好了，孩子读书了。。。
拼命的灌输孩子要努力读书 。。
自己拼命的做工。。。学位高了，压力也高了。。。

回到家，妻子照顾孩子，不得空理你。。
孩子忙着读书 ，不得空理你。。

月头，样样都是钱。
孩子和你拿钱 。
妻子和你拿钱
房子和你拿钱
保险和你拿钱
车子和你拿钱

过年了，更加多钱
除了以上，
母亲和你拿钱
红包和你拿钱
旅行和你拿钱
NIKE，LEVIS，PRADA ，GUCCI，REEBOK ，PADINI。。。和你拿钱
海外天也可能和你拿钱

40岁，男人危机。。。
拼命的工作，保住职位。。。
成了大家眼中的势利同事。。。
开始害怕失去工作，开始留意年 轻同事。。。
想读书，钱，没有了，想换工，薪金高，岁数大，难讨新工
想尽办法，还是不能爬上经理职位，还被一个年轻人上了位。。

孩子开始读中学了，和你拿更多的钱。
父亲节，拿你给的钱，买了你没有用的东西。。。。
房子! 还是和你要钱
车子旧了，开始不听话了。。。还是要给钱! 妻子也是一样和你拿钱，旦绝对没有收条给你看。夫妻要信任

好不容易熬过50了，要退休了，无风无浪。。。虽然压力大，新上司意见多多，不要紧。我顶！

就要拿公积金咯！但是孩子要出国读书-- <>

好了，公积精拿完出来了，一大半给了孩子，剩下的给了妻子

还是回到零。。。退休了，不用做？？？不能
几十年没有呆在家，忽然和妻子相处。。。
妻子看不顺眼丈夫无所事事，命令丈夫开始学做家事，！

扫地，抹地，剪草，洗车，样样都要做。。。

好了，房子供完了。。。车子也没有什么架了。。。

开始觉得人生很无奈，自己从一个提款机，最后变成了一个佣人。

孩子出国回来了，拍了一些照片。。。开始找工了。。。

毕业=失业 ， 工难找! ，最后找到一份只可以养活自己的工作。还是要住在家里。。。吃，交通。去的薪金的一大半。。所以只是意思意思的给 RM100给父母做伙食费。。

3年过 去了，孩子好不容易累计的工作经验，薪金高了。。。但是却开始要买辆汽车代步。。。母亲帮助 + 自己储蓄，给了头期。。。有了汽车，费用也多了。。还是意思意思给 RM200作伙食费

好不容易的工作开始稳定了，但是却认识了一个女朋友。。。开始了人生计划。。。要 买房子了。。。

由于车子+ 女朋友费用太大，还是不能给伙食费太多，而且女朋友说 3? ?计划，全部钱要储蓄。。。

2 年后，终于买了房子，买了房子，开始要结婚了。。。

我终于有用途了，被叫去提亲。。什么都不可以多说，全部老婆讲。自己讲些客套话就行了。。。

摆酒，婚礼，旅行。。。用了一大笔+ 母亲储蓄+我剩下的公积金

我还是回归零，。。。继续的剪草，扫地，做家务。。。

结婚了后，孩子很少会来了，忙着自己的家庭。。。偶尔假日才回来看看父母。。。每个月意思意思的给 RM200 。孩子自己也困难了。要维持自己的家庭

好了，30 年前的计划希望能够开始，旅行！！

大事不妙，媳妇怀孕了，生了个孩子。。。母亲代抚养，因 为媳妇孩子都做工

本来平静的退休生活又再次起了涟漪。。。每天就要照顾孙子，晚上他哭我就跟着醒，开始学习新的技术，喂奶，包尿片，唱歌，拍手掌。。。

孩子每个月意思意思的给多RM300 ，当着是孙子的伙食费 。。。

照顾了5 年后，孙子大了，孩子抱回去了，一切回归平静。忽然想起 30 年前的约定，决定和妻子去旅行。。。。

还是去不成了，妻子年级大了，病痛也多了。。。自己的腰骨也常闹别扭。。。医生说要多休息。。。

惟有呆在家里看电视。。。。一天早上，妻子看见为什么老头没有起来扫地。。。想去房里骂我，但我已经回到天国去了。。。

孩子为我做了后事。。。
最后我成了一张照片。
人生就是如此讽刺。。。呵呵


=========================================================

所以我说，朋友啊，
趁年轻还没什么家庭负担的时候
就要把握机会出国旅游
不要每次那句：＂以后再说吧＂
以后也不懂还有没有机会了

人生看起来似乎很无奈
但我并不觉得如此
心态很重要
一个很富有的人买了一栋大洋房
但他生活得很不开心
因为他一直想要买更大间的洋房
一个小康之家的人买了一间单层排屋
但他一直生活得很开心
觉得自己很幸福
一家大小有个栖身之处
大家都相处得和蔼乐融融的

人生短暂
知足常乐才算不枉此生啊
朋友
珍惜身边的人事物
感恩
愿你健康平安喜乐 :-)

Feeling down...

Yesterday was my best friend wedding and I'm not able to be there to share her happiness. Was still alright while chatting with her online while she show me her wedding videos and photos. Not until the last video that I had seen and it made me cried. Timing is always wrong for me and her on her wedding, and even her registration day 3 years back. I never got the opportunity to be there.

I feel bad.

Let me mourn for a day before I update my blog about what I had been busied on these 2 weeks....

Dearest Mei, congratulations on your big day and hopefully the present that's flying in the air now will find you both love to last an eternity...

Running out of Ideas....

It's the most tiring time when it comes to meal time. Living in UK now, I have to prepare my own meal for each and every meal as still can't afford to 'pack' from outside as it's very very expensive. Most of the time during lunch at work I'll just prepare sandwiches with ham and sausages. Simple and easy. But when it comes to dinner after work, I hang out quite long in the room, not knowing what to cook for myself. That explain why I only had my dinner at 9pm or 10pm everyday. As everyone knows, I'm not someone who like to cook...haha, Having bought some frozen vegetables, some ham, chinese mushroom, tuna in a can, most of the time, I'll just fried rice, or cook them with pasta and mayonnaise. Or even porridge with vegetables pickles. Now that I have had those food rotating for 2 months, I'm starting to get bore with them. Arrghh....now I need to think what to cook tonight.

Volunteering...

These 4 days off are so far the most fruitful one I have had since I came here. Had been volunteering in a Film Festival Office in London from Monday. Met up with some locals British, interact with them, I quite enjoy it. Frankly speaking this is my first time in England that I had truly interact with the local. As I told you, most of the time, friends that surrounded me are either my primary school mates, or colleagues from Eastern European.
The first day I was there, I was to help them flyering leaflets and putting up posters on a busy streets. They gave me their film festival shirt - a short sleeves t-shirt to wear during the flyering. And that's the very first time I had ever wore a short sleeves t-shirt in London or even UK. Although it's already spring, with sunshine, but it still colds when the wind blows. Surprisingly, I survived. Maybe because there're a lot of people on the streets that make the surrounding warmer. And the next two days, I am in the office helping them on whatever the team needed. The actual film festival only start this coming Thurdays and volunteers will have to be involved in the front desk, ursherer etc. Hopefully this is a good start for me to gain industry contacts in UK.

Besides, Siew gave me a treat in a Belgium Restaurant in Covent Garden called Belgo Central. According to Siew, their mussels are the most popular one. Both of us had Fruity Belgium beer (4.3% of alcohol). I had the strawberry flavour and Siew had her banana flavour. It's just like fruit juice and doesn't taste like beer at all. Didn't get drunk, but feel very sleepy after that. We shared a main course of Lamb Shank and it's delicious. Tried parsnip, a turnip like vegetable (the outlook of it). Love the taste (it taste a bit sweet and a little crunchy) and will get that for my next home-cooked meal =) Waiting for Siew to pass me the photos on her phone and I can upload them. (Click here for the photos - 5 mins after I type this I got the links from her, we have telepathy don't we? heee) Hmm...now I owe both you and Irene quite some meals...keeping finger cross hopefully I could be able to give you a big one soon.

Can't wait for the actual days of Film Festival next week now. London here I come again soon!!!

Devil's horn growing!!!

This morning, our supervisor asked all new comers to be at the front stations when doing checking and packing of products as he wanted to evaluate how fast we can check (scanning of products and putting into different packs according to order). The target is 220 units per hour. Before this, I had never achieved this rate, the most I achieved was 180+ units per hour.

Let me explain the checking process. One boxes is one order. And each order includes a few customers orders. When doing checking, we scan each products and put them accordingly into assigned locations. One location is one customer. After sorting the products for each order into locations, we had to pack each locations into one bags each. And those bags are to go into one big boxes to be dispatch to the main consultant (it's just like direct selling with a consultant selling products to customers at home). After a few weeks there, the tips to get that 220 units per hour is to do orders with as much units at one time. Normally the packing process is slow, depends on how many bags we need to pack into one big boxes. Hence, to have a higher checking rate, it will be good if we can have more units in one order and fewer locations. And only the front few stations people gets to choose which boxes they wanted to do, as the boxes reached them first. And all this while I am always the unlucky one to be assigned at the last few stations. And those boxes that came to me, were usually the 'unwanted' ones from the front stations, which were mostly only few units per order with many locations.

Well, since I need to survive in UK with a job and some money at the moment, today since I get a chance to be at the front few stations, no matter how unwilling I am, I have to become one of them to "snatch' the big order boxes. And for the first time, I got a check rate of 219.39 per hour. But it's definitely not a good feeling for the whole day. So sorry for those who are at the stations after me. But I have no choice, I can't afford to get kick out from the job at the moment, not until I get a proper one.

I feel so devilish.....the horn will continue to grow for the next few weeks until i pass the challenge.......ish.....

Easter Monday

Went over to Brighton this Easter Monday. Easter here is not a big celebration here. Without any public festivals celebrations. According to a friend, easter is just for the kids, to hunt for hidden eggs/ chocolate. However, it's a long holiday for all British including the weekends. Bear in mind, UK has a lot lesser public holiday (they called it bank holiday over here) as compare to Malaysia. Hence this 4 days are regard as long holiday for them. Also, living in a small town, I had to bear with having less access to public transport. There's only one bus running from Littlehampton to Brighton daily at an interval of 10 mins. The cursing part is on Sunday and Public Holiday, the bus only come once in an hour. And the last bus from Brighton back to Littlehampton is at 4pm. Obviously, I didn't manage to catch the last bus. And there goes my journey taking bus to Worthing (half way of the journey) and train to complete the other half. Luckily the train still operate till late, and most importantly it operates during Public Holiday.

Visited Brighton Museum and Art Gallery. Nice sunny weather. It's getting a lot warmer but at times when there's wind blowing, it's still cold.

Got this from one of the art book found in the Gallery.

"The way we see things is affected by what we look at"

"To look is an act of choice"

Do you choose to

look?
to perceive?
OR
to understand what lies beneath?

before you came to a conclusion on what you see?

Ignorant. A bliss or a Curse?

People always say ignorant is a bliss. But to me, it might be a bliss to you but it is definitely a curse to the others. Because of someone ignorance, another had to clear up the mess for the someone. That's why I think it's a curse to the others.

I love my name, Yikyu!!

After all these years, since I'd graduated from the Uni, I am glad that there's someone who can actually pronounce my name right and use it to call me. Yes, call me by my actual name and not my nick or initials, and in fact he's an English. He's my supervisor in the warehouse. Today he told us (me and my friend) that our names are the easiest to memorize and pronounce as compare to the others. For your informations, the other colleagues mostly are Polish. Hence, you can imagine the weird english names they have, even I can't pronounce them properly when I read their names on the sign-in sheet.

So, friends out there, can I have my name back?
Don't ask me again for my initials or English name/ nick name,

can ah?

I lost an hour time!!!

Daylight's saving started today, meaning we had to move our time an hour later. That means yesterday night I lost an hour of good sleep. Now UK time difference with KL is just 7 hours behind.

Had been starting on a part time waitress job in friend's chinese restaurant for the 3 days. Find it hard memorizing the dishes in English, at the same time to put it down on order for the chef, I'd to translate them to simple Chinese. Hence, having hard time translating between them. Also, as I'm not a regular drinker, I find it hard to learn all the wine, liquor name as well. There's a lot to learn. But I'll take it slowly, but learn it fast in order to be on track.

Oh, I still missed my 1 hour time !!! =)

Life.Journey.Life

Does the person create the journey?

OR

Does the journey create the person?

A journey is life itself.

Can't recall where I found these quotes. Something worth pondering.

More sense of gratitude = less suspicious in mind?

Came across this sayings from Jing-Si Aphorism


It's so tiring when you are surrounded by suspicious freak, which not only putting stress on you and at times making you pissed off at some point. I myself trying hard not to be one, and trying hard to have more sense of gratitude from now on. =)

Today is the officially first day of Spring but it's still windy and cold. At least it's not as cold as a month ago now. Also, today is the last day of my work training and on Monday, I'm starting officially as a warehouse picker packer. This is not a stable job for the moment, but I won't be moaning over it here, as I'm already glad at least I got some income for the time being (remember, some sense of gratitude? ). On the journey home from Kent today, scenes of Spring arriving can be seen everywhere - farm starts to be ploughed, sheeps, cows and horse are grazing at the open field.



It's definitely a lovely day for a new season to come by.

Lovely weekend in Oxford

I had a fabulous weekend in Oxford with my primary school friend, Siew throwing her 'advance' 30 year old party. It's a 1 week in advance to suit the guests timing due to next Sunday is Mother's Day (March 22nd) in UK. And I took the chance to spend a day earlier in Oxford to explore the city. We reached Oxford around mid-day, and it's nice of Siew and Stephen to meet us up and took us for a short tour walking around the city. Travelling and photographing has no meaning when you doesn't understands the histories and stories behind it. We are lucky to have Stephen, who is a historian to explain bits and there about the places/ building that we walked past. With the half day on Sat afternoon and half day on Sunday morning, we managed to explore around the city, except going into museums (we can't get the time to go into that as most of the museums only open after mid-day on Sunday) . We gets to visit the famous Oxford Castle, which was used to be a famous prison since the 16th centuries, capturing photos around the cities of different architectures in Oxford colleges were interesting too, also the picturesque Christ Church Meadow with the serene scene along River Thames that flows past it. Overall, Oxford is full of Colleges with unique architectures and lots of churches as well. It's not a very big city but it's a very interesting and busy city with scholars all around. Photos and description can be found here

Siew made us nice Italian dinner with Italian Chicken cacciatora(Chicken stew in tomato puree) with Risotto rice with the guidance of her fiance. Stephen loves to cook and we for the first time gets to eat traditional western food other than the usual 'chinese' food we cook in our flat. Forgot to take pictures on that though.

The BBQ party was great as well, with catching up of old primary school friends. It's just like a mini-gathering shifting from KL to UK. Life's great....

Quality vs Quantity

Have you ever wonder this question when you travel? This just came up into my mind when I was on foot today. It's weird that lately I found myself thinking a lot when I am walking on the street, talking to myself about stuffs around me. Today, I'm asking myself, when ones travel what will they be thinking about, to get to as much places as they can but just be there without understanding what you are looking on; OR to visit one or two places one at a time, taking time to understand the culture, histories etc behind it? The same applies to whether you are getting something at the same prices with more quantity less quality or more quality but lesser quantity. And I realized something too when I'm at training last week doing checking of stuffs and packing them. As this position will be the last stages of preparing the individual packs for the customers, it should look organized and nicely pack. At The Same Time, we are expected to meet certain target by getting to have at least 220 units pack in an hour. And use your imagination when one need to meet that target at that hour restriction, how good can they pack the stuff without having the paper bags get crumpled or stuffs not putting properly with that speed?

Hence, comes again the question --- Quality or Quantity? To me, I rather prefer to go for Quality rather than the latter during traveling or at work But to go for Quantity at times when it comes to food/ things selections.

What's yours?

I'm a Warehouse Picker Packer now...

Yes, I'm a warehouse girl now with safety boots on everyday......It's not a hard job and I started training today at a warehouse for a supply chain logistic solutions company. Bodyshop is their main client, where UTI is responsible to pack the products according to orders. Bodyshop operates like direct selling over here in UK where members order stocks from Bodyshop and also there's online orders as well. Hence, our jobs as a picker packer is to get those orders, pick the products and pack them accordingly to order for the customers and consultants. All jobs has to be done by human, there's no machine involved in the warehouse. Jobs is not that boring as compare to factory process (I think so, though I haven't been in a real factory before) since it's rotating between picking products, packing products, and checking of product packed before it's sent for despatch. 2 weeks of training and after that we'll start working in real. At least there's cash flowing in now while waiting for a better one....well, if there's chance I'll get you a photo of my steel toe safety boot...it's so clumsy walking with it every morning to work. Luckily, I stay just opposite the warehouse. Oh, did I forget to say I have shifted out from London, and now staying in Littlehampton, a small seaside town.

I've found a job...I hope so...

Yes, after 2months and 20 days jobless since from Malaysia, I finally got a temporary job in a small town called Littlehampton. It's a job in a factory doing picking and packing. Went over to the small town yesterday going on the train all the way down south out of London for an interview. Got it straight away without much interview, partner say since it's just labour, normally they don't question much. We are due to start the job training for 2 weeks on next Monday. So, our initial planned trip on Brighton didn't work out, since we need the next day to secure a room in Littlehampton for us to shift in before our job start next Monday.

On Wednesday, right after the job offer, we tried to ask around seeing whether the locals know anyone renting out rooms. The locals are extremely helpful and they gives us lotsa suggestion, asking us to check out from the agents, from the local newspapers etc. Since by the time we finished the interview is already 3.30pm and we have to be on foot for around 30 mins before we can reach the town center to collect all the information. Can't find much from the letting agencies as all of them only rent out whole properties which is out of our budget. Most of the shops closed around 5pm and we can't get much infos. The only thing we did was popped at the shops' window and trying luck if there's any notices pasted. At that night, we got hold of two appointments to view the rooms.

The next morning, we had to sacrifice our Brighton sight seeing plan and went back to Littlehampton to try to get hold of a room to rent. The two appointments that we made, turn out to be quite good, just that it's a little far from the factory. Fortunately, we remembered one of the helpful local told us to try at the town council where they had housing development board. Hence there we went to try our luck. Finally we found one which is near the factory and includes all the bills plus with broadband as well and best thing is it's the cheapest among the 3 options we had got. Got some deposit paid and told the landlord that we are moving in this Sunday.

And there goes my little story on job and rooms search. At least it's still not too hard and worth sacrificing the sight seeing plan in Brighton. Since we are working on shift, I had 4 days of work and 4 off days. And I'm going to utilize that 4 off day for a short trips all around UK and maybe Europe....Keeping finger cross...

It's XTRA Windy Today

Following my previous post, today weather is extremely cold and very windy. It drizzle all evening till night non stop. Although raining here is only drizzling, you can easily got soak up also if you stay out there for 10 mins and above. And the strong wind make it worse which can really chilled me down the bone. Newspaper predicted that the weather will turn colder and London might have another snow falling towards the end of the week.

Visited Victoria & Albert Museum today. An interesting museum to visit and it's free. It's so big that I can only manage to finish two sections. Partly because I love to learn about the history behind all those displayed antiques and stuffs that make me progress very slow when visiting the museum, reading the captions for each items.

Tomorrow I'll be heading off to Littlehampton and stay overnight in Brighton. Brighton is a very popular tourist attraction during summer situated at the south of London. Lots of people visited here for its beaches as well. I wonder how would the place be during winter time. Will update soon.

the Window

Every morning when I open my eyes, the first thing that I would want to do is to run to the window and pull the curtains - to check what lies beneath the window, whether it's a blue sky or a cloudy one. It had almost been 2 week plus since I'm here and I had only seen 3 days of blue sky.

This morning one the sky is extremely blue and sunny. We re-visited St. James Park & Trafalgar Square before heading to National Gallery. And to our surprise, the park is filled with flowers blooming all around. Though it's still windy and cold but it's so happy to feel that Spring is arriving soon!!

Anticipating what lies beneath again tomorrow....I'm anxious!!

What If...

Saw this interesting words on a wall in Portobello Market today.

"What If We are all Living in Someone Else's Dream"

Something worth spending a minute to ponder. As usual, there's always two ways of seeing this.

1st: Wouldn't you feel great if you are able to live on the life that what others have been dreaming on?

2nd: Why would you want to live on someone else dream rather than your OWN dream?

Life's always contradicting, don't they?

旅遊了 28 國才知道的

Got these courtesy from a multiply friend: esther
Kinda true and funny , enjoy =)

p/s: I'm too lazy to translate, any taker?

1.到了中國，才知道只生一個孩子好。

2.到了臺灣，才知道罵祖宗還可以面帶微笑。

3.到了香港，才知道明星都戴著口罩。

4..到了日本，才知道死不認帳的人有時候還會很有禮貌。

5.到了韓國，才知道亞洲足球使上帝都差點瘋掉。

6.到了泰國，才知道看見漂亮妹妹先別慌著擁抱。

7.到了新加坡，才知道為什麼四面都是水，還向別人要。

8.到了印度，才知道多貴重的人都得給牛讓道。

9.到了印尼，才知道為什麼華人夜裏睡不著覺。

10.到了阿拉伯，才知道做男人是多麼的驕傲。

11..到了法國，才知道被人調戲還會很有情調。

12.到了西班牙，才知道被牛拱到天上還可以哈哈大笑。

13.到了南斯拉夫，才知道為什麼有人不願回到祖國的懷抱。

14.到了奧地利，才知道是個乞丐都能彈上一支小調。

15.到了瑞士，才知道開個銀行帳戶沒有十萬會被人恥笑。

16.到了丹麥，才知道寫個童話其實可以不打草稿。

17.到了義大利，才知道天天吃比薩臉上都可以不長膿包。

18.到了希臘，才知道迷人的地方其實都是破廟。

19.到了梵蒂岡，才知道在其境內任何地方開槍都可以打著羅馬的鳥。

20..到了美國，才知道不管是誰，亂嚷嚷都會中炮。

21.到了加拿大，才知道面積比中國還大的地方，人比北京還少。

22.到了巴拿馬，才知道一條河也代表了主權的重要。

23.到了巴西，才知道衣服穿得很少也用不著害臊。

24.到了智利，才知道火車在境內拐個彎也很難辦到。

25..到了阿根廷，才知道不懂足球會讓人暈倒。

26.到了南非，才知道隨時會被愛滋吻到。

27.到了撒哈拉，才知道節約用水的重要。

28.走遍非洲，才知道人吃人有時候也是一種需要...。

extra
到了马来西亚，才知道牵手也会接传票

Alive and kicking...

I know it had been almost a week before I updated here. These few days, I have been thinking how I would like to set this blog to be; finally I decided to settle down with having this as a space for me to share my experience in London with occasionally some photos to it rather than updating everything I did day-by-day.



Have been busy with the settling down and shifting from hostel to my friend's flat. I'm lucky that I have a friend traveling together with me and also have friends here locally that help me bridged the gap between the local culture and what I am accustomed to. Hostel is good, clean and cosy. Highly recommended for those who are visiting London, affordable for the price we got. We have to stay in the hostel for the first 3 nights as my friend whom I'm renting rooms from was out for a camp. The first night in the hostel we stay in a single bed in female dorm and the 2nd and 3rd in a mixed-dorm with double bed. Parents are worried when I mentioned about mixed-dorm but it turns out to be good as most of the room mates are couples or either travel buddies like us.



The first day as we were here, we went out of the hostel, walking past the streets with maps in hand, strolling past Regent's Canal in order to reach Camden Lock Market. We saw lots of British walk their dogs along the canal, there's even trace of dog buried at the bank of the canal.

Tourists use the waterbus service to get to Camden Lock Market while locals who have their own boat can moored at the bank for maximum of 7 days free.



Reaching Camden Lock market after quite a walk and it's filled with tourists. The markets are full of foods, ranging from South Africa's food, Chinese food, Italian food; most of which are 4 pounds which you could mixed anything you like into one small bowl. Food here are cheap, you could easily filled up with a meal with merely 2 pounds or less. The only thing that's expensive here is transportation and accommodation. Went over to their local market as well, they put those fruits, vegetables, onions, garlics into a bowl separately and each bowl cost only 1 pound. 8 small apples, over 10 medium size tomatoes, 4 medium bunches of brocolli and even cherries, all for just 1 pound each basket. We could buy our groceries with only 5-8 pounds each by sharing which lasts us about 5 days for our lunch and dinner for two.



Got our first experience boarding on a London double decker, didn't notice that the bus route is not like back home which have to-and-fro routes. Hence, the first time experience, we ended up terminating at the last stop without having gotten to our destination.

Life's great to see London, such a big and huge city. Everyday is new to me and everything is new to me. Every morning when I open my eyes, I ponders - I wouldn't be here if I am in that Piccanto; I wouldn't be here if I'm still waiting and I'm glad I decieded to take that big step forward although roads in front is an unknown.

Went to the National Potrait Gallery today and saw this scholar Edward William Lane, who was the translator for "Arabian Nights". He describe Egypt when he first steps in:

"As I approached the shore, I felt like an Eastern bridegroom, about to lift up the veil of his bride, and to see for the first time, the features which were to charm, or disappoint, or disgust him. I was not visitng Egypt merely as a traveller...I was about to throw myself entirely among strangers; to adopt their language, their custom and their dress."

A quote that help me express mine when I first step out from that MH004....