Bali Spirit

Dont know exactly the name of this figure, but its beautiful!
just a random temple me & Peter found along the way while we biked up to Ubud frm Kuta

Tegalalang - off Ubud, famous of its multi layered paddy fields! Breathtaking! View taken from a Japanese restaurant just by the hill









Sunset by Legian!











Entrance to temple.. 

Nice smile!

It's quite obvious now that i worship this man! Just wanted to share a nice picture of Peter taken in Goa - one of the hippy night market! 

All walks of people

In the short time given to us this lifetime, we meet all sorts of people. People that surprises you - in a good and bad way.
When we were all children, we could be friends with just about anyone. It was a matter to be proud of – to make acquaintances, to have friends you can brag about to your parents – a sign of social acceptance, maturity and acceptability.

In your world of bliss and endless playtime with your friends, you are rudely awakened from that wonderful feeling to find a nasty friend. She teases you; makes you feel sad, embarrassed or even gang up with others to not be your friend anymore! Wait a minute, you tell yourself. Friends are not supposed to do such things! Oh Boy they do! And they can be really good at it.

Slowly, your curtain starts to draw; you start to build walls around you. As the years go by, you meet more and more people that surprises you, disappointing how you’ve always romanticized the idea of a friend.

Not long, you only have a handful. People whom has stood the tests of time. People who has been with you through thick and thin. People you can trust whole-heartedly. They can then qualify to be your best friend, buddy, etc

You learn your first lesson in life from friends/people. They come in all different shapes and sizes. Avoid or confront the mean ones, stay close and cherish the good ones.

You then move on to the next phase of your life - you start to work. The quality of people gets almost immediately weirder! It’s like a zoo out there! These people amaze me daily.
From your past experiences, it tells you to stay away from the ‘evil’ ones. Somehow, they find their way to you. No matter how much you try to dodge them, they are everywhere. Constantly spreading their ‘evilness’, their bitterness to the world by commanding respect (not much given most of the time!), power (they best stay near the power generator if they’re so in love with it!) and supremacy. What is it with these people that they are so unhappy with their lives? Did they really have such a bad childhood? Maybe they got tortured really badly as kids? (I like to think that anyway!)

My husband to-be always tells me to stand up and fight against these people. I do make my stand but it disgust me to see the way they take on other people to make themselves feel good. They belittle others and make them feel insignificant to feel important in return.

How do you fight evil? Its not that we can settle this at the backyard and fight it in the mud! It’s not that I can complain to my mum or teacher to get the kid punished. We are dealing with adults here – who coincidently act like kids. Tough one, eh?

I don’t have the answer. I’ve developed too much Zen to fight them anymore. Still I don’t give up….
While scrutinizing ways I could administer courage to stand up to them, something interesting happened today. The ‘weak ones’ whom the ‘evil’ ones was torturing today taught me an interesting lesson.
They were being belittled in front of the whole world. They did put up a constructive argument, but of course evil will be evil. What can we do with such screwed up minds? Interestingly, they walked away gracefully and smiled at their silliness with beauty and charm. That moment seemed like a National Geographic moment, beautiful! It was classic – they smiled, said their thank you and left.
The amazing part of it all is – after that bad encounter, they didn’t even seem moved by it at all, and in fact they forgot about it the moment they left the room.

How shallow I have been to try to administer ways to counter them. I even secretly cursed and hoped that they will fall one day! But today, I learnt that the only way I will learn to have courage to stand up to them is to ignore them. Use my own power to suppress these evil people, make known to myself that they don’t actually exist and their existence is not worthy of my attention.
It’s not about being affected by them, as each time we are – they have won. We can win in our own ways if we just learn that we are all born different. The earlier we come to terms with ourselves, the happier we will become. And one way to start to be happy is to see through the evil in them…

It’s easier said than done. But I figured it takes more effort and energy from these evil people to do what they do to others daily than us to ignore them.

With Olivia Zhang, frm Leo Burnett Beijing. Cool girl, we call her the 'Model' since she has a hot body and beautiful face!










With Grace from Leo Burnett Hong Kong. Small, ambitious but highly capable girl! Very articulate and full of passion












With Ayako from Beacon Communications, Japan. The perfect personification of a true, pure Japanese girl! 

me trying out my new Nikon Coolpix S2, Causeway Bay - Hong Kong 

The moment we touched down at Lantau Island, the excitement mounted. All my days of watching Hong Kong dramas are finally realized – now I get to experience all the places you hear and see on TV = Wan Chai, Mongkok, Causeway Bay, Kowloon, Lan Kwai Fong, etc. Hong Kong (so far) is an exciting place.

Its less regimented than Singapore – there’s mess and chaos amidst their unbelievable planning and structure in buildings, roads, transportation; its far more realistic and competitive than Malaysia – people in the service industry greet you because you have to, not because they mean it; its also rather less trendy than the weird fashion sense you see on TV, those of which the HK singers and actors don on.

I somewhat feel at home but also not. I can fully understand Cantonese when they speak but cant as much articulate fully in Cantonese back to them without them detecting that I am not a local. Where I stay in Causeway Bay, you hear Bahasa being spoken very widely from all the Indonesian maids who works here. Interesting!

Every corner, there seem to be 1 million people buzzing around, talking, walking, and pushing. No one takes notice of other people but themselves. When we met with my colleague’s friend who has been working here, I was quite surprised the way he handled himself at a local restaurant. He was blunt, quite rude and very upfront – not a very Malaysian behavior. He rationalized that the Hong Kongnites (apparently, they hate to be referred to as Hong Kies) are quite pushy and aggressive people. The only way to get around them is to be like them. (Hence the saying, if you cant beat them, join them)

Slowly as my day passes by here, I start to see more and more of my fantasy being merged into a realistic, competitive, rude picture. It’s not picture perfect for sure but at least now its more real than Hong Kong dramas of glamour and fun.


 

How Deep is your Love?

Everyone tells me that long distance relationship is really difficult.
“How can you keep it up for so long?” (WHAT DO YOU THINK?)
“How do you communicate?” (PHONE, EMAILS, SMS, THANK GOD FOR TECHNOLOGY!)
“Don’t you miss him?” (DUH!)

Sometimes I get tired of answering that question. Most of all, I am surprised people are such skeptics towards long distance relationship.

My answer would always be the same. There are no secrets to making a long distance relationship work. The fundamental thing is: how much do you love your partner?

I don’t want to sound like a lost, love puppy. If you think about it, it is true. How much are you willing to sacrifice for the person you love? Would you wait for him/her for an undefined time? Do you have faith that 1-day you will be together?

Peter and I had this conversation while we were holidaying in Bali. The beauty of our relationship is, we never cease to fall in love with each other all over again each time we meet. It’s like meeting him for the 1st time, going out for our first date, experiencing things together all over again. While we talked about this, we also had some common friends who are going through some tough time in their relationships. They were close to getting a divorce; some already had one and moved on. We gathered that when our time comes, no matter how difficult it will get with us, we would learn to make things work. The point is, the harder it is for you to get something you want to so badly, the more you will cherish what you have.

I may be preaching the obvious, but practicing it is another ball game. Each day I look forward to endless sunsets on the beach with him, long talks about what we believe in, kissing for the 1st time all over again. Sure there is a big chance when the time finally comes for us we get sick of each other in 1 day, but for what its worth, its not happening now and it will happen to us!