IT'S AN ASEAN LIFE!

hey guys!!!

i was just thinking of the places we could visit during the summer and i just rmbed that there's the rainforest world music festival from the 10th to 12th July in Kuching every year. Basically it's when loads of musicians from all over the world gathering at the Cultural Village (about 1 hour's drive from Kuching city) for a 3 day performance.
here's a short description I found on the net..

The Rainforest World Music Festival is a unique festival that brings together on the same stage renowned world musicians from all continents and indigenous musicians from the interiors of the mythical island of Borneo.

Its formula of afternoon informative workshops, ethno-musical
lectures, jamming sessions and mini concerts, followed by evening
performances on the main stage has proven to be a hit with the
audience, who come from near and far.

The festival site also sets up a variety of food and drink stalls, an
arts and crafts area as well as a counter for festival memorabilia,
Sarawak souvenirs and CDs by the performing artists, all this
contributing to a fun filled, wholesome festival experience.
World Music plus a country fair atmosphere in the midst of lush
greenery.

The Rainforest World Music Festival, a not-to-be-missed occasion, guarantees a smashing time in the heart of the Borneo Jungle!"

It's near Damai Beach and so can stay at the Holiday Inn resort there during the festival. if you all are interested, have to make bookings early cos it'll be peak tourist season then.

these are some snapshots of damai beach..

and santubong resort (an alternative venue of stay). it's quite near as well - 10 min drive from cultural village.

this is the damai golf resort..which is also nearby..

There are many types of rooms available at Holiday Inn Resort Damai Beach - like pool side rooms, family rooms, balcony type rooms, Bidayuh-Baruk suites (where the rooms are styled after traditional Bidayuh / Baruk houses) and garden view rooms. Rooms are available from RM175 nett per night. Typical rooms are as such..

and there's a pool there as well..

the dining hall..

I onced stayed at their garden chalets (beach front) and it was really awesome. Something like having the luxuries of a 4 star rated hotel but retaining a natural kampung style decor :D For food, there's a nearby fishing village called Kampung Buntal. It's famous for seafood. Last I remember, there was a pond there where you can go fishing and catch really nice sea bass there. There used to be some sort of mini farm as well with a few porcupines and weird animals. can't quite rmb cos the last time i went there, i was 12.

anyway, think about it and if you have any questions, just drop a comment :)

xoxo

Friday, April 24, 2009

Title : Happy Birthday!
Time : 3:04 AM

YI JIET!

Happy 20th! Big boy already... er... I know it's not yet midnight over at your place, but it's already 3.00 am here... so kinda half-half lah. Happy birthday and take care! XD haha

jo

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Title : VacASEAN 2009 : Vote NOW!
Time : 1:46 AM

HELLO EVERYONE ESP RACHAEL TEH!

DUE TO A DEMAND FOR A VOTING POLL, IT IS NOW UP! SO MAKE SURE YOU ALL MAKE USE OF IT OKAY. BASICALLY VOTE FOR WHERE YOU WANNA GO, NOT PLACE PER SE BUT RATHER WHAT KIND OF HOLIDAY YOU WANT - BEACH, HIGHLANDS, ETC BECAUSE IT MAY BE EASIER? WE WILL REFINE THE PLACE LATER ON. IF ANYONE HAS ANY OTHER SUGGESTIONS, DO LEAVE A COMMENT!

SEKIAN, WASSALAM :)

PS: LET ME GLOAT ABOUT BEING ABLE TO COME UP WITH SUCH AN INCREDIBLE HEADING :D

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Title : HELLO GRACE
Time : 4:04 PM

GRACE NEOH!!!!HELLO (:

Okay well so Langkawi???

Anyone who violently objects to the idea??

Or you want to go penang? Haha. We go visit Josiah!! Lol.

Go somewhere north okay. North. I'm sick of the South.

Anw exams are gonna be over in two more days.

Two more days. Two more days.

Two more papers then I'm done. Then it's summer hols. Okay I know it's summer here all year round but we still call it summer.

Hope summer hols will be good.

Anw yes short post. No pictures nothing.

ps grace my shoutout is bigger and more obvious than yours! Haha. and you make me happy too (:

Title :
Time : 1:06 PM

Life sucks. It really does. I hate my life.. :( having a very hard time with life now...

Anyway... Grace! Aiyoh sad to hear that lar... er... to tell the truth I dunno what the law students are like over there. The ones here are all very pleasant and nice and friendly. Hmm... yeah.. friends are the only reason why I like being here. Nothing else.

Hmm... so basically I couldn't get into Raffles Hall... expected it, kinda. Wondering whether to apply to OH or not, probably will. I'm planning to not join NUSChoir next year, or maybe just keep a nomninal membership. I want to join choir cuz I just love to sing. NUS Choir is too competition/competitive-minded. I might join either/both Water Polo or/and Fencing next acad year.

So yeah. I have a final exam on Thursday and I haven't studied at all. One whole sem's worth of material to cover in a day and a half. Yeah right, I can do it. Sure.

Oh well fuck all this. Later y'all.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Title : Memememememe
Time : 3:54 AM

Okay, actually I'm amazed (and very glad) to see such long posts from CC & Marianne. Even if we don't hit double-digit posts, I suppose we would set the record of having super long posts in a month! :D While I'm still doing the 'intro' to my hopefully long post, I just wanna give a shout-out to Rachael for...no particular reason at all :) Lol well HELLO everyone, and I actually wanna thank KY, Josiah and Rach for breaking the silence most of the time in this blog ;)

Anyway, I wasn't meant to do a post but I figured that the comment I was halfway writing for CC's post was turning into something relatively long. So first up, comment on CC's post:

Everyone, this may get a bit nerdy...I'm sorry :P

CC: Hehe, Grace, I still continued singing, just in another form! Oh yeah, just to digress a bit, have you come up with any new songs? Probably different culture and environment can give you more ilham? :D

Grace: hey GOOD to hear that you still continued with singing! :) Unfortunately, no, I've not come up with any new songs because I didn't bring Kenneth along!:( I know, it's super sad. I went looking for a guitar but it turns out that it's all more expensive than M'sia and not very worth it/attractive like Kenneth. Sigh, no wonder they say that first love is the deepest (or something along those lines!).

But ANYWAY! I've learnt that my Mac has a recording programme and I may just come up with something soon enough as soon as I've learnt how to mess with it properly. Right now I've been messing with it just a bit and just started to get a hang of it but I think I shouldn't dwell on it for too long a time because I actually need to start revising :( Hopefully I'll get something done in the month after my exams and before I get back to M'sia! (On an unrelated note, I'm flying back on the 26th of June and arriving on the 27th of June! Rach, you're EXPECTED to be at the airport hahaha)

Well anyway, CC, hopefully I'll get something done. About ilham...hmm, yeah I think/hope there would be some changes/improvement because now I'm starting to get into electric :D Possibly when I'm back for the summer, I'm gonna purchase my first electric and I've learnt some pretty okay riffs so far so I hope to come up with something when I'm better at it! ;)

All in all, I'm really glad and proud of what you've done & achieved, CC. And good thing they transposed the song for you or I'd kick their asses for you :p

Hmm, it actually appears shorter than what I expected. Ah well. Anyway, I suppose everyone is mugging once more but holidays are coming soon so yay! I spoke to Yi Jiet the other day and he said that he was talking to Rach and they said that we should have an ASEAN trip in mid/end July because that seems like the best time for most of the people! Just around M'sia, anywhere from the borders of Thailand to the tip of the dog's nose in the East :p I don't know...Langkawi maybe? Well, suggestion time! ;)

Okay, now a bit on myself. It's my last week of my Easter holidays and uni will commence again pretty soon. It sucks. But it's only 75 days away from home so it's fairly reasonable. I've not done much this holidays in terms of holidaying and mugging. Been to both my brothers' place and gamed a lot. Been to London once and that's about it. Would drop by Oxford but none of them are there anyway :p Should visit YJ in Dublin but I've only got a week to go and both of us are busy so I'd think better not - probably during Dec holidays. That'll be when I'd drop by Manchester as well to visit Seira Ann Ooi cuz she got accepted there to do Mech Eng! (Btw it's Bobby Ong Chong Eu's birthday today so do wish him if you haven't!)

Anyway, back to me...erm, honestly, I've not done much. Oh I just wanna rant a bit atm about how crappy I feel for not being able to do much for CCA. CC's post made me look like a loser la seriously :( Well what happen is..my uni has this twinning programme with Taylor's University College in Subang for Law. So right, my uni has a substantial amount of Malaysians but like 95% of them are Taylor law students, 3% of them are just direct law students and 2% of them are lain-lain degree (that would be me:(). So this big bunch of students are like tailored together (pun intended!) and it's quite sickening because they don't seem to wanna talk to you or even care about you. Basically they are there for 1 or at most 2 years only and they're just ruling the whole M'sian, Singaporean and Bruneian Society. Poor Sg/Brunei people, seriously. They are even more of a minority :(

So this year, the President of the society is this law student girl who is not from Taylor's and most of the board members are law Taylor people. The Pres also slightly dulan about the whole issue la and she aimed to un-tailor the Taylor people (which failed, duh). For the next election right, they said that the Pres SHOULD be a Law Taylor's student just because if it isn't, the whole society will not get any support cuz most of the members don't know the Pres! And among the whole bunch of Taylor people now, only two or three are staying back for another year and they are apparently not very President material. So what do you do? Choose from those three, or let next year incoming Taylor people be Pres? The thought of it is just pissing me off, not that I think I'm a better candidate whatsoever, but it's just because the Taylor people are reigning! Wtf might as well rename the society as Taylor's University College Malaysian Law Students in Reading Uni ONLY!

And ya, because I get pretty easily sore by this kinda thing, I'm just not actively involved at all. You just get possibly unnoticed because of 'I don't know you before I came to the UK. And are you a law student? No ah? Oh okay.'s.

I'm pretty disappointed with it actually because I had higher hopes in a Msian soc before I came here but it turns out to be bad. My next choice was to join a Singaporean soc but guess what - it's merged with the Msian soc :(

Right now I'm considering joining the Chinese Society - people from HK and China. Requirement as Pres: Must speak Cantonese. Feels like HK TVB drama hahaha. Anyway, people are less unfriendly there :)

I really wanna join a CCA but if the one which resembles your home the most is halfway rejecting you, it would just be more difficult joining something else (especialy if you've got no credible skills like me)

So in short, that wraps up my CCA life and in the bin it goes! Well...moral of the story is, enjoy your CCA because they don't suck as much as mine!

PS: Remember to suggest places for ASEAN trip! :)

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Title : Long time no see!
Time : 11:09 AM

*Edit: anyone wanna see Dance Unsensored photos can go here (includes other halls of residence as well):

http://137.132.179.253/gallery/main.php/v/AY0809/culture_month/Dance_Uncersored/
*I have placed some photos here too!

Well, I guess Josiah might be surprised how I made this blog when my computer has been certified dead on Wednesday, 8th of April, 2008. My asnwer is: just visit the central library. :D

Yeap, this has been my routine ever since the death of my laptop. Morning go library, have lunch, go back to the library, and go back to hall for dinner. Since CCAs have stopped I have been living quite a boring routinal life. So nothing much to talk about life after CCAs..

Probably what was interesting would be during the period of hectic CCA activities. It is one of the most foolish decision ever to join two CCAs at the same time that just saps away all your time and energy (but no regrets though, I had a lot of fun. :-)). Over the period between mid-January to end of March I was completely 'dissolved' in both dance and choir. (Hehe, Grace, I still continued singing, just in another form! Oh yeah, just to digress a bit, have you come up with any new songs? Probably different culture and environment can give you more ilham? :D)

For choir we had a stage performance on Amplitude, one of the events that are created for the choirs of the 6 halls of residence to perform. I was involved in both acapella and choral singing (but I don't sing well though, just that they don't have enough people. Hahaha!) For the acapella, we sung 2 chinese songs, Tao2 Wang2 by Sun Yan Zi, and Bei4 Pan4 by Cao Ge. Whoa, I tell you when I was told to be the backup singer for bei4 pan4 I almost fainted. That guy's pitch is almost twice higher than mine, confirmed GGed. Luckily (and happily) to accomodate to me they transposed the song (just like what you usually do Grace, when we were singing back in JC? :D). So the effect was not bad, hehe.

For the dancing one, I mean for Dance Unsecensored, just like Amplitude, its an event for the dance group from the six hall of residences. I guess looking at my facebook pictures would be more than sufficient. Seriously, I wasn't suppose to be in the mummy dance group, until my friend sabo me. (I was already in another dance item, both under my hall.) Most of the pics on facebook showed me in the mummified costume because we took bulk of the time to dress me like that (The two items had an interval of about 1 hour, so we took that 1 hour to dress me up.) The other dance item was about Mr Bean meeting his destined lover, quite a funny one. :D Once I got my hand on the video (as well as having a new laptop), I would post the video up here. Oh yeah, and gimme face a bit la, just started dancing for less than one year, actions quite stiff. :D

My senior Liren as Mr Bean.

Part of the 'About a Bean' dance item

RH Dance chairperson, Thomas.

Part of the 'RH Museum of Danceversity' item.

It may look brief, but basically that's what have been going on for the past 3 months of my life. I left out a lot of details cause, well, there are really too much to talk about. Those stupid things like practise until 4-5 am... It's just insane, hehe, never thought that I would be living such lives, such drastic change since I was in JC. And Marianne bear witness of the hectic life... Sorry Marianne, for not meeting up with you while you were in Singapore.... :(

But now I am back to my old-self. Looking at my schedule, well, I have to revert back to my old-self. 18 chapters for physics, 7 chapters for maths, 13 chapters on materials, 15 chapters on programming, 13 chapters for economics (yes, I took economics once more! And I was thinking of minoring in that field). Lol, so much work, so little time left! Wish me luck guys! Gotta go back to study now.

And yeah, for those who are having exams, good luck to you guys too!

P/S: Wei Ken, how's your Jap Language learning process? Everything going well?

P/S: Josiah, seriously, you CAN do it. I have known you for 3 years, and all this while, when you say you want something, you get them. So this time no exceptions. Waiting to hear good news from you.

P/S: Hehe, sorry for being long-winded, can't help but notice the fall in number of posts between the month of February and March. Let's keep our double digit posts every month, shall we? :D