It Has Been 1 Year

Tomorrow is 1 Jan 2008. To many, it is a new beginning or a chance to open a new book.

To me, 1 Jan 2008 signify 1 year of laying off the ciggs. It is an achievement, one big achievement, personnaly. God knows how many times I thought of taking a puff since I decided to stop last 2nd January 2007. After having a meal, when I looked around and saw all those people puffing away, the pull to light up was bigger than a sight of a sexily dress woman. There were many occasions when I was so stressed up, all I could think of was having a puff, just 1 PUFF!

I dont know how I did it because the longest I had done this before was 3 months and that was when I was staying in a foreign land where it cost RM25 per pax some years back! But I am glad I stopped as I feel my lung is taking in more air . Somehow, the capacity of my lungs is so much more now. I feel healthy. I dont grasp for air when I took the stairs anymore.

I look forward to another year of cigg free period.

To those who smoke, come join me for a cigg free period.

MOSCOW RUSSIA

I have always wanted to know how Russia is.

Got that chance in august/sept this year when I spent 6 days in Moscow. Its a unique country with its unique architecture and moscow is so alive with activities. Its expensive, its quite crowded (jam at odd hours) and it is full of rich people. I had this impression that moscovites are rich people. They drove luxury cars, for every 3 cars I saw a merc, a lux or a bmw. They have speciality shops, designer shooping complexes and thier security guards in these establishemnts are in coats.

Dont ask me about prices because everything here is so expensive. Got me thinking how do the poor survive in the city.

I went to the red square, took some shots of the famous place,and went to another area which commemorate the WW2 dead, its a kind of TUGU Peringatan. Like I said, I am not much of a tourist but I only took 3 0r 4 pictures in these places that I went.

The women are very sexy and beautiful.
Security was also an issue and was advised not to be too adventouros alone!

I have now a different view of Russia and moscow. Too expensive for me though!

SWITZERLAND

Switz was another first. Its quite different from other European countries. I was in Bern, for the 3 days I was there in that country.

The country is actually beautiful with its vast flats and hills/mountaneous structure and these I was able to capture on the long trip to and fro the airport.

The city of Bern was not that big but the shops are nice and modern. Bought the swiss millitary watch and other locally switz stuffs.

I spent the 3 days just looking and wachting the people, the place and the environment. Not that expensive compared to Finland.

On the way back to Zurich airport, I stopped over at the Bally/other barnd factory outlet. Managed to buy some bally stuffs at a very discount and bought myself another equinox swiss wacth.

I like Switzerland and wouldnt mind going back there again. The next time, I will make it a point to be in Zurich!

Finland

First of all, it was FINLAND and not Norway as per my previous entry. I had visited Norway before!

Of all the Scandinavian countries, Finland had eluded me all these times until recently. Not much different from the others but one thing is common - it is an expensive country. I guess if you have seen one scandinavian country, you have seen them all.

Spent 3 days in Finland, managed to go on a short trip out of the city, do some window shopping, Nokia phones are more expensive there, food is typical of that region but I ate what I could.

Of the 4 scan countries, I prefer Denmark. So much more to do and see, more cosmoplitan and metropolitan!

Visit it again? Nahhh, not if I can help it!

First Times

This year saw me going to a few countries for the first time. It was in Mei 07 that I set foot in Kenya for the first time (for that matter, that was my first visit to the continent). South Africa was just a transit point of a few hours. I was excited before I went there and Kenya was so much different from the others. People walk most of the times. The reason given was because for many ,they are too poor to afford the public transport. No wonder there is hardly any fat people!

On the advice of the Embassy, I didnt venture out in the open like I would normally do when I visited a country because of security reason.

2 days before I left the country, I went to the Nairobi Safari Park, expecting to see thousands of animals. After 3 hours in the safari park looking for animals in the safari van, I only saw 1 hippo in a lake, not moving at all, 8 ostriches, 15 buffaloes, a few zirrafes, a familly of 3 rhinos far far away from the trail, a few antellopes and one whole gang of baboons. THAT WAS IT!

It was one eye opening visit however to Kenya. Kenya made me realised so many things about Malaysia!!!

Will write about those other countries later.

Its Been A While

I know it has been quite a while.

Was so busy, extremely busy. Being out of the country a number of times too.

Went to Norway, Switzerland and Moscow for the first time. 3 days in Norway and Switzerland and 6 days in Moscow in August and September. These are beautiful countries. Then almost 18 days in London in November. Cold? Oh yes!

I will try to pay more attention to this blog in the future.

Too GREEN

I do travel to foreign lands quite regulary. In most of the countries that I have been to, I noticed that plant and trees have more colours on them. Although I am not into nature that much, I like what I see.

In Malaysia, green seems to overwhelmed the whole plants. As much as I am flattered when tourists to Malaysia look in awe of how GREEN Malaysia is, I wish we have more colours!

It is just too GREEN for me currently.

Cherry Blossom

I arrived in Tokyo last sunday morning. On my way to the city from Narita Airport, I noticed blossoming trees of a particular kind. The flowers were pink and white. BTW, the temperature was around 17 C.

I was then informed that those are the sakura trees. They were due to blossom that very weekend. Unfortunately due to the cold spells, the flowers shrunk back. Only a few trees blossomed here and there. Even with those few, it was really a wonderful and beautiful sight. I asked a number of Japanese as to how many colours do these flowers come in. Never got the answer. Some said white and pink. Some said pink and various shades of pink i.e. there is only 1 colour.

To those who dig such event, I was advised that the trees will finally blossom in 2 weeks time. Some people are known to "chase the cherry blossom". I am not into such thing. If it happens , it happens.

Came back home last night.

OH WELL...

Its the same old story. Some bloggers think they have all the right to write about anything about the government, soceity, politics, religious, racial issues etcetc.. Ofcourse some of these are also hardcore fan of Freedom of Speech in the WWW. They make it a cause to HENTAM when they write.

The sad thing is, when thier views and writings are challenged , or people gave dissenting views, they get all upset. Its ok to hentam others but NEVER challenge them! If you do, out comes the DELETE key or the BLOCK KEY. Recent BLOG incase is whatalulu.blogspot.com

MY comments are no longer visible there! LOL

Oh well....

TO SOME, ITS PERSONAL

One of the main news item since yesterday was those SPM high achievers.
Some of us have problem with those students with thier strings of As. Some thought that it was a ridiculous and stupid thing to strive for. Some said that parents should not put thier children in such a situation where getting those As was a must, regardless what! Some thought that these students must have gone thru hell. There are many other negative thoughts.

I have this view that only the low achievers will have those thoughts about these high achievers.

They dont see that to some of these people, its personal. It is about personal challenge. It is about achieveing a target. It is about doing the best and getting the best outcome. It is about having that satisfaction of been a success. Its about so many personal things!

I have great admiration and respect for these high achievers!

Enggang sama Enggang, Pipit sama Pipit

Somehow, at least in term of finding a life partner/couples, I do tend to agree with the above title. From my own experience and my observations over so many enggang and pipit years, I find that if your partner is quite the opposite of what you are, your make up, your background, whether you were a science or arts based student (amongt others), the chances of living a wonderful and blissful life with each other is slimmer.

People say the opposite attracts! That may be true for magnets but not for humans!

Think about this and observes your surroundings. You may yet agree with me!

Ofcourse you dont have to.

RM 1 VERSUS 30 MINUTES

I bet you have seen this scene of people queing (a long Q) at a particular bank`s ATM when just beside that ATM, there is another ATM of a different bank where there is nobody using it. I have observed many times that people just dont think of moving to the other ATM and get thier business done there. Because of the long Q, a person will take, on average, 30 minutes to get to his/her turn. (TIP: do not Q if there are more women than men infront of you)

NOW, of course when one uses a different bank`s ATM, one will be charged RM1. The only reason that I can think of why one dosent use another bank`s ATM other than one`s bank own ATM is because of the RM1 charge. I assumed that it is a conscious decision on the part of those people in the Q not to move over to the other ATM.

I have always wondered whether 30 minutes (sometimes they can be longer) of one`s life is worth RM1?

PEOPLE WACHTING

I am quite a traveller. Have been to many countries and places, many of them repeat visits. I am grateful for that oppurtunities.

There is one thing that I enjoy doing when I am in foreign land, I like to wacht people. I will just sit in a cafe, in a park, on a bench somewhere, just anywhere and wacht! I can do that for hours at a time.

I have learnt so much doing that. Smilling and quarrelling young couples, old couples holding hands, famillies and their many antics when together, kids and babies, people reading books, groups of friends just hanging around and many many more sights. These are sights that enriched me. They told me `things` about them, thier life , about thier culture and about thier country.

I will forever cherish these memories of them! To those whom I have wachted, THANK YOU for being my teachers. Thank you for teaching me.

I Quit Smoking

It has been 54 days since I last had a ciggarette.

I feel so much better now. I eat better as food tastes better. I sleep better. I dont smell as busuk as before.

I dont know whether I will go back to smoking but que sera sera!