№17. My Christmas Gift

Lord,

Thank you for your awesome gift on Christmas day. As I scratch my head to think of what I can give back, I see that there nothing I have that's not already yours. And so, I offer my life again. As the new year approaches, I have not any resolutions, but just a prayer. A prayer to restart my life, to rebuild it to become a pleasing offering. Lord, I pray that:

• Character is changed in Christ's values
• Health is built and given more thoughts
• Relationships are mended, restored and renewed
  
• Strength is given for victories in my struggles
• The white dog will be fed more, and the black dog will starved to death
  

Let this be our project God, our project to change my life into that which you have originally intended. This is not just my new year resolution, for I know I cannot do it by myself. But with you as the project manager, Lord, I will learn to listen and obey.

In Jesus' Name, Amen

№16. Winning Feels Good & Some Self Reflection

Sometimes I wonder, what is my favourite past time? Most of people would say... PLAYING COMPUTER GAMES... And my answer is WRONG!!! That's the impression I give people anyway. It's just a misunderstanding because I must be busy as my brains cannot be idle from the moment it wakes up till it shuts down in exhaustion at nite... My actual past time is actually reading fiction books, especially those on fantasy (like Forgotten Realms, Harry Potter) and science fiction (like Stars Wars) and military/spy fiction (like Tom Clancy). I can stay more focused on a book than a PC game. Well, this kinda led me to another hobby which I indulge in time to time (but again, giving the impression that I always do it) - TREASURE HUNT!!

Started joining it about four years ago, with my first one being the Maxis Hunt 2004, where we went to Pangkor!!! Surprise, surprise, our team got Number3!! That was a good feeling. Well, the rest is kind of HISTORY, with two times a year in the Maxis Hunts, and the yearly TheSun Hunt. Well, this year was a special surprise as we joined theSun MotoHunt 2008. We manage to secure the first position due to a lucky guess on one of the questions (well, in my opinion, hunts are a combination of "luck", "brains" & "brawns"(you kinda run from time to time, or drive 120kph on LDP). It was an exhilarating feeling, beating over 200 other cars, and special thanks to my team mates - CP, Prasath and Raj. Oh, by the way, the prize was GOOD. The photo below shows it, and each of us got one.. :)

Yeap... It was that CROWDED!! 275 CARs!!!

The Dinner

Winning No.1 for the first time in the Open Category
Team Mates (from left): CP Tan, me, Prasath & Raj

Our SWEET booty

№15. Entertainment Overload

Ok, by now, all the series have started, that means a lot of hours of entertainment per week:

Heroes, Season 3: Sylar gains a human heart, while Peter becomes evil? Hiro killed Ando!!!
Gundam 00, Season 2: Setsuna is back and gonna change the world again...
CSI, Season 9: Warrick is dead, Sarah is back...
Smallville, Season 8: Lex Luthor is missing, and Clark now works in Daily Planet!
House, Season 5: House loses his close friend Wilson...
Chuck, Season 2: Chuck is still the Intersect...
Prison Break, Season 4: Scofield & gang now tries to take down The Company..
The Big Bang Theory, Season 2: Still as funny...
One Piece, Naruto, Bleach: Still on-going...

Would you look at that? That's more than 340 minutes (or 5 1/2 hours) of series per week!!! Almost 3.0 GB of HDD space/week!!! On top of that... Red Alert 3 and Fallout 3 is coming soon!!! Wohoo...!!!

№14. Wah loa yeh....

[5.59PM] Can't wait for 6PM. It's another one of those "cold" Mondays. Sigh, sometimes I just wonder why I even bother. Lookey, lookey... It's raining... Arghh... Another day of gloom.
[6.05PM] Got to my car finally. A bit soaking, sighing all the way. I'm quite sure I'm gonna end up dead one day sighing myself till I'm short of breath. Well, little did I know that a grand show was on it's making.

It was a sunny late evening, with light rain. Yes, the perfect combination for a RAINBOW fiesta. I manage to catch about 6 rainbows (well, some of them might the same one, but at different places). And as I enjoyed the show (I somehow took some shortcuts that happen to make my journey longer, but gave me more time), I can't help but recall what Josiah commented about my blog being dead until I see a rainbow. Well, I DID post three days earlier.

I was just overwhelmed as I drove back. One after another. These are the things that remind me how BIG He is. How MAJESTIC. How GLORIOUS. It reminded me that my problems now, even though how GIGANTIC is it to me now, how DAUNTING it is, how IMPOSSIBLE it is now to overcome, well, it's just so small compared to HIM. And I can't believe He took the trouble to display so many rainbows to prove His point...

p/s I know... It's very dangerous driving and taking photos at the same time, so don't try it!!

№13. Six Months Later...

Have you ever seen the way the water in the pool? How still it is when there's no one swimming? Not a ripple. I guess that's how I would picture my life these days. Quiet. Still. Not moving. Well, occasionally someone does jump in, makes a few splashes, but that's about it. How I wish it's more like the ocean. The waves, that brings the ups and downs.

Six months since the rainbows. Wow, I know it's such a cliche, but time does fly. Have I found the light at the end of the tunnel? The crossroad to this never-ending road? The end of the merry-g0-round? I guess not. Not that I'm depressed, well, far from it. I'm still smiling, well, most of time in irony or cynically, but guess there's still a lot thoughts behind every smile.

What's the solution? What's the meaning in all these? Where does it all lead to? Oh how I wish I know, how much have I thought over the last four years, or in the larger picture, the last 13 years? What's the road that God has set for me? Am I walking it? Or have I wandered far from it?

№12. Another Rainbow

7AM. Groggy. Woke up to Pastor Lui's place to take the van for today's event. Looked up. Wow... Another one... Hm....

№11. Two Weeks of Loneliness & Rainbows

Ah... taking a break after training, here am I writing again... Was in Penang the whole week last week, and ended up in KK this week to conduct training... Well, sad to say, it kinda felt a bit lonely at times, especially end of the day when you're tired and back to the hotel room.

Talking about hotel rooms, my rooms are pretty special... In Penang, my room's entrance light will randomly switch on at night. Meanwhile, in KK, my room's power supply wouldn't cut off even if I took the card out. Talk about spooky...

Anyway, over the last one month I had a fair share of rainbows, the first group being a "double rainbow" in Blue Mountain, Australia, and the second one is two rainbows in a row while driving up to Penang. Hm... In the Bible, after the great flood, the rainbow signifies God's convenant to His people. I've seen so many rainbows in my life, sometimes in the football field, sometimes when driving home (saw about 5 in a row while on the way to Sunway to work on a rainy morning), in the office in Sentral... Sigh, looks like I've really got some "seeking" to do know what is God trying to remind me...

[small rainbow on the way to Penang]

[double rainbow in Blue Mountain]

[rainbow seen on 12th floor in Plaza Sentral]

Sydney - Part 2: The Rocks

Oh dear... It's been such a long time since the last post... My bad... Haha... Been travelling here and there for work purposes... Penang, and now in Kota Kinabalu... Well, gonna hope to post more, but with the slow upload speed (sad as I am as a telco engineer), doubt will be posting so fast...

Once we got of George St., we decided to go for a tour! Ya, a tour! It was a walk tour, costed us AU$25... Well, it was quite OK for me, since we manage to get a bit of Sydney's history...

The Rocks
This is supposedly where it all started. In summary, the Brits wanted to put their prisoners some where (apparently they were having a shortage of prisons), and the American was getting their independence, so, they were looking for a new place to "relocate" their felons... And to cut the story short, they found Sydney, and hence it became a place for the prisoners to be "shipped" to. The Rocks is basically the place where to prisoners community (yes, they had their own community) was, while the officials, wardens & colonists stayed on the other side of town. Kinda hard to imagine, a prison town....

[a wall drawing showing the history of Sydney]


[Right pix: The prisoners stay on the right side of the street, hence the older buildings while modern ones are on the left]


[Top left: A wharf converted to business building; Other pix: Sculpture depicting the three main group of Sydney's early residents - the colonists, the warden and the prisoner]

We also stopped by this old military church.. Which kinda nice looking stained glass and pews...

[Right pix: Each pew has a number engraved to it]


[Right pix: "I AM THE GOOD SHEPHERD" - JESUS]

[to be continued...]

Sydney - Part I: YHA Central & Walking George St

Wow... It's been a loooong time since I've last written a blog. Guess nothing much been happening till I finally booked a ticket a went to Down Under with my friend, Lucas! After one whole year of deliberating... Hahah....

Well, over the next few days, hope I'm able to share my experience down there. Basically, I went to Sydney for about 6 days and hopped on to Melbourne for 4 days...

The MAS flight was ok, except that it was a night flight! Which usually means they give you your meals at 12am and then wake you up at 4am for breakfast. Can't really complain because that's actually the best way to go as you can go out exploring upon arrival in the morning. Manage to catch Enchanted on the flight movie before dozing off. Upon arrival, it's the boring CHECK OUT-GET LUGGAGE-GO THRU CUSTOMS-YES, I'M ASIAN routine, before finally - I'm breathing Aussie air! Then it was straight a cab to....

YHA Central
Located near to George Street (seems to be the MAIN street across Sydney town) and fairly near to Chinatown, I would say this is a good place for AU$40+ as a backpacker's accomodation. Best is the bathroom! Has to be one of the best baths I have ever seen in this kind of lodging.



After finally getting to check in, we headed out towards the Rocks by walk along...

George St
Quite a few sights to see even along this road, namely the Queen Victoria Building (otherwise known as QVB) and a string of shopping complexes. There's quite a fair mix of old & new architecture. Also, I'm quite surprised there are a lot of Asians in Sydney (well, my perception was that only Melbourne was like that). Well, we could have simply blended except the fact I was acting so "touristy" taking my camera and snapping photo every where (I don't own an SLR, probably never will and hence the so-so photos)



[to be continued...]

№10. Melaka Food Marathon

Melaka Trip

°Chicken Ball Rice °Chendol °Stadhuys
°Dataran Pahlawan °Mahkota Parade °CJ7
°A Famosa °St Paul Church °Satay Celup
°Fish Ball Noodle °Jonker St °Aussie Shiraz
°Hassan Mee Goreng