Monday, August 31, 2009

Happy 52nd Birthday, Malaysia!!!

Today, Malaysians celebrated its 52nd Independence Day. However, this year the celebration is not as big and as long as previous year due to the H1N1 pandemic. But, the celebration is still very meaningful and full of 'merdeka' spirit.

This is how it started at 52 years ago :)


Friday, August 28, 2009

Personal Hygiene First...

According to WHO, there were 1799 people had died from the Influenza A(H1N1) as of 13th August 2009. All this started few months ago, in Mexico. From Mexico, it spread to North and South America, then slowly spread to the whole world through the help of air transportation.

The tendency of the virus to be able to transmit human-to-human is startling. Therefore, we must some take precautions measures. Firstly, wear facial mask whenever we go to any crowded places (if necessary) or visit a A(H1N1) patient. This will reduce the risk for a person to be infected with the virus. Secondly, always wash hand after come out from toilet, before put on and after take off the facial mask, after touched a patient with influenza-like symptoms, and after come back from crowded places. Despite hand washing looked easy, but many people usually wash their hands in a inappropriate manner. This could largely due to many people have underestimated the consequences of not practice proper hand washing method. With hands accumulated with various germs, bacteria, virus etc, a person could get infected if he touch his nose, mouth or eyes.

It is not hard to adopt the proper technique of hand washing. Just follow the following steps:
  1. Wet both hands with clean water.
  2. Apply soup until it cover all hand surface.
  3. Rub palm to palm with each hand.
  4. Rub right palm over left dorsum with interlaced fingers and vice versa.
  5. Rub palm to palm with finger interlaced.
  6. Clean the backs of fingers to opposing palm with finger interlocked.
  7. Rub left thumb clasped in right palm in rotational motion and vice versa.
  8. In rotational motion again, rub forward and backwards with clasped finger in right hand in left palm and vice versa.
  9. Washing away the foam through a running tap before dry hands with a clean cloth or tissue.
For more information, log in to World Health Organization website.

Remember, we have the responsibility to contain the virus and together we can win against this deadly virus.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Is "Mangga Runtuh" Time

Last few days ago, I plucked dozens of mangoes with my brother-in-law and nephew. It all started with a single call from my nephew at the morning, asking me can spare some time to pluck mangoes with him or not.

Well, since young, I saw people climb up the mango tree to pluck mangoes by using a rod with a net tied at the end and it looked very easy. Only after I tried, it wasn't as easy as I think. it required some techniques and the angle of the rod must be correct. If not, it would take minutes to pluck a single mango.

We has spent about 2 hours to pluck the mangoes, and we just PLUCK, we did not count. Only after exhausted, we retired to my house and only realise we are too greedy.

Guess how many mangoes in the picture?

After we wrapped up all the mangoes with newspapers, the last mango that I counted is at 95th. My sister and I wonder how are we going to finish them if they all ripe at the same time!!!

Do anyone want to have a mango party?

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Same Old Place, Different Experience

Just came back from a short vacation few days ago. The place that I went to is called Kukup, an suburban area in Johore. The place that we stay overnight is located in a fishing village, which all the houses were built on top of the muddy mangrove soil. Most of the houses are modified to accommodate tourists either from local or oversea.

My parents and me woke up at 5.00am to prepare for the tour and we reached Kukup at about 5.00pm. It should not take that long to reached there of course but we did some touring on the way to Kukup. One of them is the goat farm in Malacca and it was claimed to be the largest farm in Malaysia. The owner of the farm showed us around the place. He introduced the types of goats that were bred in the farm and methods that were used to milk the goats. Also, we were lucky to witness the a female goat gave birth to cute two baby cubs.

The goats there are fond of people :)
The mating space

My mum with the cubs
The worker showed us the economical method of milking goats
It's feeding time for the cubs
A heavy pregnant goat is about to give birth

This is the second time that I visited Kukup. However, this time is different. Firstly, we went there during the A(H1N1) pandemic. Secondly, the rented house that we stayed in faced electricity outage. The first time I went there I did not faced this kind of problem. The electricity outage caused not only discomfort to us, but it also caused water shortage as it was the water was supplied by a water pump powered by electricity. And lastly, we boarded a giant, luxurious casino ship.

Since there is no electricity, we had to had our barbecue 'supper' in a hot-packed crowded area. But thankfully, they have a back up generator to power the fluorescent light bulb for us. If not, we have to eat in the dark.

The electricity only return just after we are about to finish our meal =.='

And according to the staff, a naughty monkey messed up the transformer and caused a minor explosion.

The second day was a more exciting and tiring day. We all woke up early in the morning (actually is dawn) to catch the ferry that will fetch us to the casino ship. When we reached the casino ship, I was amazed by the amount of people are gambling. But, I was more stunned by the interior design of the ship and I cannot compare with other ships as this was my first experience in such a big ship. Since it was a casino ship, it emphasized on gambling. For people who not interested in gambling like my parents and me, we can just enjoy the scenery of the sea. But, bad weather prevented us to enjoy it. Another thing that was worth commenting on is the quality and quantity of food that was available there for us. Although not every dish taste excellently, it still tastier than the food that we ate everyday. They served two meals for us, lunch and tea-time. During lunch, we all loved the vegetable cooked by them. It not only delicious, but it carried the natural sweetness which we can't tasted it in Malaysia. Also, their fried fish chip was absolutely tasty, the best I had ate during my lifetime. During the tea-time, they served various types of dim sum and cakes. Some of it were new to me. Also, their bread was tantalising when spread with peanut butter and kaya. There are so many variety of dessert until we can't taste everything, partly due to the free-for-all lunch that we eaten couple of hours ago :P

A 10 storey high ship...
...with golden staircase

Before the weather changed, the scenery is beautiful
The spoiler =.="

We left the ship at about 4.00pm and had our dinner at Senai at 7.00pm. However, I was very full, therefore, I just ate some dishes. I think I ate too many nice food at the ship because everything that I ate then is tasteless.

After finished our dinner, we were on our long way back home.

During this trip, I envy the life of the Kukup people. Their life is so peaceful and easy, not like the city people, always rushing and stressed from work. However, not everyone is like that there, but most of them are like that. But, I cannot possibly conclude that they really life in an easy life as I had seen because I only experience it for 2 days only. For a city boy like me, I must prepare for the future that lies ahead, aim high and achieve the goals set upon on me. And this starts with the upcoming academic year :)

Monday, August 17, 2009

Badminton Fever!!!

Yeap, this post is all about badminton. With the BWF World Badminton Championship just concluded, it showed the whole world the passion, thrill, and attraction of badminton. The best example is the grand finale of the tournament, the men doubles final which managed to excite the crowds on the edge of their seats. The showdown between China's Cai Yun - Fu Hai Feng and South Korea's Lee Yong-dae - Jung Jae-sung is a mouth-watering match, much anticipated by the badminton fans around the world and they battled till death for the world title, gave the fans worth of the money they paid for the tickets.

The final is the result of the defeats of Malaysia's top 2 pair to the respective teams. If not, Malaysia will have a guarantee of a final place. However, with the results that they had against the finalist, it is not a total lost for the Malaysian teams. Talking about entering into final, I thought Lee Chong Wei will be able to make it but he was lost in quarter-final with a three-setter game. I hoped he can do it next year.

The men doubles final is all about power, deception, pace, techniques, determination, and most of all the mental strength to win. Both teams treated each point as a crucial point. In the final set, both teams were stretched to the limits as they entered into deuce and end with the results of 21-18 16-21 28-26 in favour to the Chinese pair. To be honest, I wished that the South Korean pair won the match as they are more aggressive in the final stages of the game, but it was the determination of the Chinese pair that helped then won the game. All in all, with the spirit shown by both pairs, there are no total loser for that match.

Enough of the badminton world. Recently, I bought a new badminton racket :)


It is a Protech Arcstriker 9 and worth about RM120 but I got a discount and bought it for RM100. It will replaced my current Yonex racket which I had used it since Form 4 as a birthday present by my dad :) But, this doesn't mean I will throw away my old racket. Instead, I will use it as a back up racket.

I received this racket just after I watched an exhibition match involving Wong Choong Hann with a state champion. Although it is a exhibition match, both players perform as though it is a real match. They showed us how a real drop shot is, how to play tight net exchanges, and tactics are more important than aggressiveness. As the result, it amazed the audience of more than 60. with some exciting moments. In the end of the game, he won that game in straight set. It was my first taste of a world class badminton :)

Wong Choong Hann with my two nephews (behind is the state player that he will faced later)

Pose with my new racket and the used shuttlecock (it still looked NEW) played by Wong Choong Hann

My nephews and niece with the same shuttlecock and respective new rackets:)