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| Perhaps my readers have long awaited from my post from UK?  I apologize! Well, not because I am busy... just that they don't have internet at home, my uncle has just got internet at the restaurant. So, I often time check my emails and reply facebook stuff when I go to the store. I haven't been to the shop for 2 days already; simply because my younger cousin, Queena and I get really bored as we've got nothing to do. The weather here is alright... not that cold as I expected it to be. But it gets kinda chilly when the wind blows, and it obviously gets colder here at night!  But I have adapted quicker than I thought I would..which is good because I can wear short sleeve in the house at least  My uncle and aunty have been trying to entertain me well since I've arrived. It's quite good, but I actually feel that they do not need to trouble themselves as I can perfectly well entertain myself. Everyone has been really nice to me, which I partially feel guilty, because I feel I do not deserve such good treatment from them. They give me money to spend, they gave me a single room (I even get to pick out my wall room colour!!), they pay for my shopping. Life is awesome here.... which I am seriously not used to. At all. My aunt, who loves dressing up my cousin in pink most of the time, bought me a jumper with pink stripes, as well as my new set of pyjamas with pink top and white bottom with pink hearts on them. Gosh. I feel embarass wearing it!! But both my cousins, Queena and Zoe seems okay with it. I need to go shopping on my own to avoid such colours in the future. I was at Cardiff town the second day in UK, and I really like Cardiff town. Things are quite cheap when they are on sale. Books are about the same price though. But the food....oh..the food sucks. Everything taste so blend here!!! Thank God for my uncle's Chinese restaurant!! I really don't like their food. Anyway, I have to entertain my cousin as of now. I will continue once I have my own time...and my own laptop, hopefully..soon! Btw, my camera lens have been freezing!!! OMG..i have no idea why! | | |
| I have this version of Dao Xiang 稻香 (translated: Fragrant Rice/Rice Aroma) sang by Jay Chou which has this introduction by him before the song. In his introduction, he said:
"Hello! How's everybody doing? I am Jay Chou. How long has it been since you last heard the voices of the crickets?....." 
I listen to this song almost everyday, or every other day; because it simply reminds me of life.
My life has its stressful days, but nonetheless, it's good. I have enough to eat, but perhaps maybe not enough of sleep as of now. But yeah, life is alright. I'm flying in 2 days, and people have that I meet up with never fail to ask me these 2 questions:
"So, have you finished packing?"and "Are you excited???"Ermm...well, I would say I'm 95% done with packing. The other 5% would be my personal essentials which I am still using them. 90% of my whole luggage and hand luggage bag is filled with things which does not belong to me. I almost had to beg my mom to leave me some space so that I can bring some stuff. Perhaps I should be lucky, when my parents told me that I should get whatever I needed over there, but I, am quite a sentimental person, I would prefer to brings that reminds me more of home as compared to purchasing new items.  If I were given the chance to pack my own luggage bag, I would've filled it with my favourite books, CDs and photo frames. These are the essentials that would feed my soul more than anything that I could buy over there. Unfortunately, I am not granted such privilege as my mom as been poring over my bags, putting in things in and out, indecisive of which should belong to where. I have given up looking at her pack, and just told her to leave me some space for my personal items, of which I am unsure whether it would fit now that my luggage is about to exceed the given weight. And as for answering the other question, I would say...I'm okay. I do not very much enjoy flying, neither do I enjoy cold weathers. So, go figure  I re-watched Twilight this morning. And was also re-watching Vic's Love Storm couple of days back, while also watching his new series Black and White online. I still 1/5 of HP5 which I have not finished reading (but I must finish reading before I leave!!) I bought a couple of albums yesterday: one of Muse, The Rasmus, Emi Fujita and Damien Rice. They're quite good Aside that, I've been spending my time making frames. Lots of them. And below is a frame I made for my friend and her 3 month old new born baby, Chermaine  And to answer Jay's question; I hear the crickets sing every night before I sleep. I live surrounded by playgrounds since the day I was born, but yet, I did not realize that I sleep every night, enveloped by the voices of the crickets, until I ponder upon his question asked at the introductory of this song. 
(p/s: Have you ever seen a porcupine pao??? Heheh! )So, when was the last time YOU heard the crickets sing?Perhaps it has been long since you last took some time off to relax and smell the flowers? Worry not Just in case you're wondering how the voices of crickets sound, I've uploaded the file and you can download it here. You may also find the translation here. Well, do download and listen to this version with Jay's introduction and life reminders in between...and you'd realize how lucky you are and that you're more fortunate than many other people out there in this world | | |
| I stumbled upon a picture of Jing in McCafe, Taiwan.  and I remember I was at a McCafe, in Shenzhen, China, too   yes, this is pure random. Well, entertain me while I am at it  | | |
| "I know what's true from the neck up, but somehow it doesn't make sense in my heart."I am still experiencing a turbulence of emotions and it pains me sometimes because I do not know how I should react to it. I mentioned a few posts ago, about how I felt betrayed by a close friend of mine, and till today, I have not chose how to deal with it. I remember this formula to forget from a Taiwanese drama: mian dui (to face) + jia shou (to accept) + ke fu (to overcome) + fang xia (let go) = wang zi (to forget)If only it was this easy.
I guess I haven't pass the stage of accepting, therefore I couldn't overcome and let go.
It is because she is someone important and close to me that I felt the impact of the betrayal, for if not, I would've been able to let go already.
“… I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering it things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.” --- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini pg. 359 It is easy to forgive, but difficult to forget. Forgetting is the toughest thing to do. And I'm having a hard time with it.
If I choose to let go, I could do it. But I might end up nice. Yet, at the same time, I couldn't make myself to do this to her. Because it might hurt her as much as it is causing me to suffer right now.
Am I able to forget the bad, but remember the good? I guess I am able to hang on more to the happy times and bury off the sad ones. But that just means I am avoiding it, not dealing with it.
Sigh.
I don't know.
I've been holding on. A lot. To the words and pages of the Bible.It helps calms me most of the time, though.
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds." --- James 1:2 "We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope." --- Romans 5:3-4
And of course, I do know He is faithful; as He will not let me be tempted beyond what I can bear.
Let's just hope I am able to make the best out of things.
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| I've been up and down KL every week since I've graduated. Which means, it has almost been 12 consecutive weeks that I've been doing that. Real enough, I've fallen sick. The lack of sleep for the last few days in KL was perhaps the main cause. And it is flu. Well, not swine flu, I hope. If it is, the only thing I feel regrettable about would be not contracting it from Australia
Anyway, it has been a tiring week. I have been trying to prepare my stuff for UK, and it's great because of the sales that I managed to get some of the things I needed.
I got a new backpack.
I chose one with a laptop compartment because my laptop bag has spoilt.
And a new cap too.
Apparently I'll be working under rough weather; so hopefully the cap will help a little.
And of course,
wool socks!! 
See what it says:
Smartwool: Seriously comfortable walking socks.
I hope they are serious about it, too. And look at the bottom right corner, part of the socks money goes to supporting breast cancer
I got another pair, because pink wasn't really my colour
And this one says ultra comfy-socks.
Did you know I missed Lee Hom's concert, which was held on the 2nd of May this year?
Nonetheless, Khian got me this goodie bag
She asked a friend to purchase it for her
This is what is inside:
Hand-waving-clap thingy and a Lee Hom fan!
This is the back of the Lee Hom fan..looks nice, right?
She told me there was also a key chain together in the goodie bag, but she dropped it in her car So, I'll have to wait for her to pass to me sometime soon.
Since I have less than 2 weeks here, I took the opportunity to meet up with people. I had lots of dinner and lunch invitations; and I tried my best to attend them all. My first meeting was with Theng, Pearly, and Pearly's boyfriend, Lawrence. We had this steamboat-barbeque buffet at Talipon. It was great to catch up and discuss about future plans.
The next day, I met up with Sharon. We had lunch at Subway, KL Central.
She insisted to give me a present. And asked if I mind book gifts. I told her, "Of course not! I love book gifts! It's a present I can open again and again!"
She told me it's her favourite book, but now she's giving it to me.
She said, hopefully I do not mind that it's a second hand book. Well, definitely not. A gift is still a gift.
I felt touched, because she gave me her favourite book. As you can see, she has own it for almost 2 years.
The same night, I met up with my ex-Starbucks-colleagues. Theng, Mummy, Rudy and Diana came and we went to 1U for the Japanese buffet, Shogun.
This is a hand made gift from Diana. The box is from an exclusive version of coffee called Sumatra Siborong-Borong.
I own one of these boxes too. But I never knew what to do with it.
But of course, Diana used it well.
She customised it
and added things on it.
She also made a little something for me
which I really like.
It reminded me so much of my days in Starbucks
and how much I missed it.
I love handmade gifts!
Because nothing counts more than sincerity and effort. And I truly thank her for the time she took to make me this.
My mother's friend's husband, who is a tour guide, gave me this Oyster Card.
It's like the Touch 'N' Go card in Malaysia.
But in Hong Kong, they call it Octopus Card.
I wonder what's with the sea creature names on traveling cards?  I appreciate his thoughtfulness because this card would obviously be very useful.
I had dinner with my family the last night we were in KL.
And during dessert, it was when I had my first mooncake of the year.
Mooncake with just pure lotus paste - my favourite - and the only kind of mooncake that I'd eat, actually
These are the ones with egg yolk.
I was trying to get another pair of star earrings because my previous pair of black stars came off. And I accidently found this:
The Little Prince necklace!! If you know me well, you'll know how much I love The Little Prince! It's slightly pricey, but I thought I'd get it because I've never found it's merchandise anywhere else before.
It has been long since I watched a Taiwanese drama. But I got hooked on this new Ming Dao drama titled Knock Knock Loving You.
Trust me, this drama is awesome! It got me hooked for 2 days and 1 hour. I didn't say it's awesome just because the awesomely handsome-smart-cute-Ming Dao is in it, it is awesome because the plot is good, and Ming Dao's appearance appear to enhance the drama more
But you know what, the ending sucks. big. time.
I don't know why, but the ending was really bad. Well, do watch if you have time. It's worth watching although the ending is rather disappointing.
I really like the opening and ending theme song too! It is sang by this new Taiwan idol called: Zhang Yun Jing.
I know you might be confused of her gender (like I did initially), but she's a girl.
She looks (and acts) very much like a guy. And even sound like one too.
Nonetheless, she's a really good singer. Really.
She looks very much like a guy, doesn't she??? Worry not though, she's not gay.
And she's eating a mochi here!! Mochis' are my favourite!!!
Curious of her ability to sing? Download her album here.
See, I'm a good girl! I've updated my blog!! With so many pictures somemore!!
I'm off to watch Vic Chou's new drama: Black and White.
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I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
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