It's the day where the Lunar calendar starts anew again

I know the title is long :P but I kinda like that instead 1st day of CNY. This is a day where you'll definitely wake up with a good mood, happy for sure. The Chinese believe that if you want to have a pleasant year you should start this day positively therefore no arguments, no breaking things and also no sweeping (that's because we believe you'll sweep away your good luck). Every year I wake up, get dress, snap photos with my parents giving the red packet/'ang pau' to my sister and I. After that we head over to my grandmother's place. This year we wake up, get dress and go downstairs and everyone is there.

Although this year my sister and I woke up later than usual, overslept because of sleeping late the previous night. My grandparents have already given out ang paus to my cousins and I'm late. But still we followed our tradition of taking pictures of the ceremony by reacting the part of giving ang paus. All the elders "gave" the youngsters (people who are single) their blessing in a red packet and snap snap.

After that we just spend time playing with my cute baby cousin brother, he is born on the year of the Ox which was 2009, and I'm 2 Ox cycles before him, that's a big gap >.<". He is so cute and adorable and after lunch he normally takes a nap so this is the time to play with him and bond a bit. For a baby he's already quite smart as he knows how to eject DVDs from the player and insert what he wants to watch. Other than that, he also knows how to play a bit on the Ipad. He knows how to get out of an app and return to the main screen. He even used my finger to press it for him, so so intelligent.

After lunch, some visitors came and it was my grandmother's sisters. My grandaunts have been staying in SG for a long time and occasionally during CNY they will travel back to KL visit all their sisters which includes my grandmother. So this year they need not travel to KL to visit my grandmother but of course they still will to visit other sisters. The elders all chit chatted and the so called youngsters all spend their time playing Monopoly. It was kinda a messy game as all transactions involved a credit card. It's not a real card, just  a plastic card that has dots at different spots to identify the players. Basically there is a machine that keeps track all the credit you have in the card, so you insert the card to deduct/add credits and the memory in the gadget will be updated. It's messy because all the children want to take turns clicking the thing.

After our guest leave, I manage to nap awhile before we head out to Sentosa Resort World for dinner and a circus show. When we reached our destination there was so many people queuing up to take the bus or taxi to leave the place. It was really crowded since there's a casino and I guess most go and try their luck. We had dinner at Hard Rock Cafe and the pricing if not converted it's cheaper than Msia's I think. The food price range from 20+ to 30+. The sodas are all refillable but only the mocktails and cocktails cost more. I find that it's reasonable because in Chili's those type of drinks normally cost a lot anyway.

As for the circus show, the act was called "Voyage de la vie" which is a production done by Sentosa resort world. It consists many circus acts chained into a story. It was funny, exciting, and scary at the same time. In every circus act you'll normally have the "clown" which is the magician for this show. He is the funny man that makes people laugh. Then there are other acts such as the acrobatics up in the air, rope and cloud swing acts, I was worried for the performers themselves as they were so high up in the air without any netting at the bottom. It was a 1 and 1/2 hour show and we all went home happy and tired. Everyone went to sleep after a long day and looking forward to the next.

Below are some photos of my "adventurous" day  =P.

I was absent because.....

I noticed I didn't blog anything this month, it looks like I've been lazy and not keeping my promise of one post a week. The reason was it's the festive season, New Lunar Year or some may say Chinese New Year. Being Chinese this festive is very important to me and my family. Every year I would spend the eve and the first day with my grandma and then travel back to my mom's hometown from the second onwards. What we do is we visit my mom's brothers,uncles and aunties. What the youngsters do is we collect "Ang Paus" (red envelopes with blessings/money) and eat lots of cookies :P.

This is different, my grandparents moved to Singapore with my uncle and family, therefore my family spent our first CNY there. My aunt and my cousin brother also went together, we took a plane there instead of a bus this time to avoid traffic congestion on the highways. Unfortunately we didn't visit my mom's home so I didn't see that side of the family this year. I heard spending CNY in SG is much more quiet than KL and it was quite true. We touchdown in SG on the eve of CNY, ate lunch and my uncle took the day off and brought us to Ion Orchard and 80% of the food courts are closed.

We just walked around and enjoy the breeze as there weren't many people around unlike when my sis and I came nearing Xmas. We went home and got ready for dinner. CNY eve dinner is very important as it's called the reunion dinner. In the olden days children of a family often work elsewhere and didn't visit their family often, the reunion dinner is where all the children come back and sit together for dinner. It's a good tradition to me for eating together with family is fun. 

In KL when it was nearing 12am, you can hear fireworks and in SG there wasn't any, and that I missed. I'll continue my story for the next day on a new post. Below are some pictures taken on the eve of CNY.

The Magicians

 

Quentin, James and Julia walked together in the cold. James and Julia held hands and it has always been this way. As Quentin felt sorry for himself James asked what's his strategy for his interview to Princeton to change the mood. As they near the destination of interview, Julia says goodbye and good luck to the boys.  Quentin rang the bell of the old building and they waited, 5 minutes later he knocked and pushed lightly and the door opened with a crack. The house was dark and he slowly made his way to the den. He looked around and saw a big cabinet with lots of liquor and then he saw a dead body lying on the floor.

15 minutes later the paramedics came and a woman confirm he was dead. She slipped him an envelope and after they have left the scene, James went to meet up with Julia leaving Quentin all alone. While walking he opened it, there was a notebook inside and on the first page handwritten in red ink: The Magicians - Book six of Fillory and Further. As far as Quentin knows he has not heard of this book at all in the series. He turned the page and there a piece a white notepaper and the paper slipped off with the wind. He chased after the paper and ended up in a place where the green lawn is perfectly leveled. The sky was blinding blue  and in the distance stood a house. Fifty feet away there a thin teenager leaning on a tree smoking and Quentin called out to him. He asked whether is he in Fillory and the young man answered no, it was upstate new york.

And so the journey of magic begins for Quentin, he was tested whether he was qualified to enter Brakebills College to learn magic and stay there. Of course he passed and got in. He asked to stay there until the new semester started and spend most of his days hanging with Eliot the boy he met at the tree. In his journey he met interesting people, had a dangerous experience in class where a monster showed up. He also joined a certain specialty on his third year there where there is a clubhouse located for them. It doesn't end just in college, it carried on till he graduated where his friends and he found out a secret which leads them to the most dangerous journey they have taken.

The Magicians by Lev Grossman is a combination of Harry Potter and Narnia but in a much more darker side where magic is very dangerous. The "Harry Potter" part of the book is during Quentin's college days but not much details in term of schooling as in Harry Potter books is one book per school year. Everything is cramped up and sped through. Of course it's hard to compare the two where Harry Potter purposely written in a way where the whole school year is detailed. The Magicians is a book more concerned on the main character's interaction with his friends in school. What kind of people his friends are. There are some interesting parts in the middle of the book and towards the end. Towards the end of the book, it is more related to the dark side of Narnia where he is not as pleasant as Narnia was and the world was more damaged and corrupted.

I picked up this book  because of the title and the reviews that were printed on the book. Surprisingly it's not what you expect but sadly not that exited to me. I merely sped through when there was not much conversations and it was all descriptions. When it was interesting it was really interesting and when it's bland it was boring. In my opinion it's not a well balanced book kinda like a movie having climaxes all of a sudden and then when it's subtle it bores you. It's a good exposure for me because I usually stick to certain authors when it comes to fantasy books and this is a different type for me. It's the kind of fantasy that incorporates reality at the same time and powerful magic is not always rainbows and it comes with consequences. The way magic is done in this book is definitely different where a lot more studying is required and a lot of logical thinking.

Overall I rate the book as a one time read book, not something that I would pick of the shelf in 2-3 years time to read again. It's just interesting to explore the darker side of Narnia and magic but not interesting enough to get me hooked on for long.

Caught up with Nintendo games

This is my mandatory post for the week, =P. I know I'm suppose to work on my posts that I said to be coming soon but instead I spent my free time playing games on my favourite console, Nintendo DS lite. It has always been a joy playing games that were created for this console. I had my first game boy when I was in high school, it was the big fat yellow one. The game that I played and spent lots of time on was Pokemon Yellow, and also assorted mini games.

And then I got an upgrade to Gameboy Colour, it was so cool because it has colours and I played pokemon Pearl on it. I didn't have much games to play on it because it was costly to buy the game cartridges.

               

Many years I stopped playing the gameboy colour and when I was 21 I asked my father for a DS Lite as my birthday gift. Of course I got it, it was such a beauty to me. I was captivated by how much creativity the games had utilizing the touch screen below. The first game that I bought to play was Mario vs Donkey Kong 2 : March of the Minis and I loved it.

It was a game about solving puzzle, getting the little mechanical Marios to collect coins, items and arriving at the door to march on to the next level. The point of the game is to use your brain, start the minis on a route that reaches your target of destination while collecting items. As a gamer I always try to get the highest score and earn the awards before I move on to the next level.

Lately I wasn't paying attention to what new titles are in store  for Q4 of 2010, so I didn't take note of this game until I was surfing last weekend on reviews for another game. Surprise, surprise another titles was out for this genre. I was excited when I got the game and the new title is "Mario vs Donkey Kong : Mini-land Mayhem".

Trailer : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO_h9OJ_B90

The concept is the same but it's still fun because it's a new set of puzzles, new minigames included and also Special stages are unlocked with the amount of Mario coin you have collected from the levels. There are a total of 8 attractions with 8 levels to play, and after those 8 levels there will be a level where you need to defeat Donkey Kong. I'm currently in attraction number 7, there are many levels that needed more of my time to solve it so I decided to look for FAQs and walkthroughs but I couldn't find a good one. Therefore I looked for it on Youtube and there really was video walkthroughs for it. The walkthroughs were nicely done, and all of it scores the highest possible score for each level. This group of people also do walkthroughs for other games and it's a good job. So nice of these people to share and help weak gamers like me.

The walkthrough link: http://www.youtube.com/user/mikey11190, just search for the miniland and it will result those walkthroughs.

After I'm finished with this game, probably 2 more days to go, I'm going to play my favourite game franchise, Kingdom Hearts: Re-coded. I hope it will be good.

Adults Movie in Carrefour???

One fine day I did a little grocery shopping in the said place of this entry's title. After passing the sections for electronics, car accessories I think it was the videos section. It shocked me when from far I saw Top 10 Adults Movies. I know they had made a mistake as it's not legal to sell these in this country.

As I approached closer I couldn't stop laughing at the titles that I saw displayed there. They should have placed the movies according to categories/genre.

You will have a better view if you click on the pictures. It was really funny to see that Barbie was a movie for adults and not children instead. I also don't get why Karate Kid is for adults too. Most titles displayed are definitely for general view.

I get that Carrefour doesn't really care how they label their sections or categorize their products, it doesn't matter because most people who shop there don't bother reading labels. They just walk in every aisle until they find what they need. I bet some don't even read English at all. I wonder how this country is trying to improve literacy when these major hypermarkets aren't even advised to properly label things. This can cause so much confusion to the illiterate people. 

Facebook closing down??? Nah it's just a Hoax

Facebook the social networking site that triumph over others such as Friendster and Myspace. Facebook has more than 500 million users world wide and it's increasing by the hour. The know the story and how it came to be just watch the movie "The Social Network". People use it to connect with family and friends around the world, some play games, some use it to make new friends, some even use it for bad intentions. I don't think I need to stress how widely use, many who uses the internet do own an account.

Few days ago a website states that Facebook is closing down, Here is the link to the story :Facebook shuts down. The link was widely spread on Facebook itself.

Of course this is just a hoax, who in their right mind who earns billions would decide to shut this down to have his old life back. Even if he did want his old life back, he would have sold the company away. If facebook closes down, it affects all the game makers of the social network. Many of their incomes are generated from it, example EA acquire Playfish games and expanding into social networking games. Story of acquisition. What's funny about this is the comments that were started in the thread. The picture I've captured below shows the latest comments where some people have already realised it's a hoax. When the thread was just started may thought that it will be gone and most of them are really sad.

Facebook being shut down has it's good and bad. The good it reduces crime where people were stalked using Facebook, people announcing their suicidal attempt, and also increases productivity because many employees spend lots of time on it. The bad it connects people around the world, friends and families separated by the sea which will cause many to lose methods of communication.

I like Facebook because it's one way I reconnect with my old friends and keeps me updated about their lives. Occasionally I enjoy playing the flash games that are available. If Facebook is gone it wouldn't make too much of a difference in my life unless I do business with it.

Starbucks 2011 Schedule Diary

As the title says I'm writing about this year's diary that Starbucks Msia has offered. To obtain this you'll need to drink 12 grande size drinks, 1 of it has to be Toffee Nut beverage, another would be Peppermint Mocha. The rest could be any drink that you like. If you don't want to drink so much coffee or tea, just pay RM 55 for the book.

Here are some pictures:

 This is how the diary comes, with a small bag.

Front view of the diary

 Inside - 1st page, coupons on the left side

Starts with all the months  in this format

The design for each month

Places to write notes for each month

The last page of the book, with a small space on the right to put papers.

Overall I feel last year's one is much better with sectioned areas for each day of the month. This year it's just pages and pages of lines and I would usually draw lines to separate them myself just like year 2009's diary. Oh well just a bit more work for me to do to organize things nicely. At least I get to enjoy their xmas season drinks and get a diary out of it. I know Kinokuniya have nicer ones, or even Moleskin have some nice ones but its all too costly. If I can utilize it very well maybe next year I'll purchase one instead of getting the Starbucks one.

It's a new year!!! 2011

New year, new beginnings that's what everyones says. Though many things will have new beginnings, some things are just the same so I'm gonna improve on it and make it better. One of the things that I will try to do is to post once a week about anything or everything about my life, other people's life (just joking), mostly random stuff. I have a few things planned for this year, to keep me busy.

Plans:

• Read 1 book in a fortnight and review it.
• Travel to Singapore and visit Universal studios (hopefully I will dare to sit on the roller coasters)
•  Finished my Nintendo DS games that was released since 2009
• Continue learning Japanese myself ( pick up from where I left off last year)
• Share my learning experience on blog as often as I can
• Gain weight ( a big challenge for me)
• Stay fit (eat well, drink less cold drinks/ soft drinks)
• Take more photos and learn photography

These are just some of the plans I have for myself, I hope I can really put some hard work into it and show some results.

This year could be another dull year but I hope not, there are some things that I'm looking forward to. I will be spending Chinese New Year in Singapore (grandparents can't travel back to KL), my family, my aunt and son will fly down on CNY eve and we'll spend 5 days, 4 nights. It's gonna be fun because we're spending 5 days together under one roof. Normally each year I will spend my CNY eve and the first day at my grandparents' and then travel to Segamat, Johore to visit my mum's side of the family. Unfortunately, this year we will not be visitng them but they'll come to visit on one of the weekends. I will take lots of pictures for sure, it's close just one months time to go.

The only movie that I'm looking forward to watch this year is Transformers 3 and there isn't anything that excites me so far. I saw the "Thor" trailer but it didn't interest me that much, let's hope more trailers are out and we have more action movies coming. During mid year I plan to visit Universal Studios Singapore and I will challenge my fear of heights on the coaster rides =P. Let's hope I won't puke, it will be shameful because my cousin who is 8 years old is even more daring than I. 

Well sometimes things come unplanned too and I will be ready to take on those challenges and improve in person, grow more in life (adding 1 year of age doesn't count). I better not make too much plans and goals, and then fail at them. Let's try our best this year and stay happy all the time =D.