Life, Travel, GRACE

Location: Kiara Hill Walk Could this be the world’s largest unbranched inflorescence? Or the world’s largest flower? Also known as corpse flower. According to Wikipedia, the plant can reach over 3 metres. And it requires 7 years before the first bloom. By now, the plant should have finished blooming. Blooming (8 May 2021) . Finishing blooming, 10 May 2021

Rise up early in the morning and discover that there are two bright stars in the east. The "stars" turn out to be Venus and Jupiter. Venus is the larger "star" due to its proximity to Earth. By the way, this photo was captured on early 11 January. Mercury should be visible on the horizon if I have waited longer. By now, Jupiter should have slowly shifted above Venus. Interesting astronomy.

This year I've found my favorite program: TED Talk. Occasionally I will watch some TED Talk clips on YouTube. But most frequently, I listen to it broadcast from radio or podcast. I even envision to be a speaker in such event one day. Attending the event is another personal wish. Fortunately there was a local TED event organized on last Saturday. With a small fee, I quickly registered for the event even though the event would be conducted in Chinese / Mandarin. Well, there were at least one speaker whom spoke in English. Not too bad. Some of the talks were informative, some were just a mere personal publicity. Overall it was just an okay-value-for-money event. Probably will attend overseas TED Talk if there's an opportunity.

For the past two weeks, we were following the medal tally of the SEA Games. After all, Malaysia is the host for this round. I've been attending the matches in ice rink. Ice hockey, figure skating and speed skating were the official event there. Ice hockey was interesting. Though Malaysia didn't get gold, they've shown a good sportsmanship spirit. The official cheering team was great as well. Probably there would be less winter sport games in future SEA Games, unless regional countries invest in such sport. The ice hockey rink is dubbed to be the best in the country Malaysia lost by one goal point to the Philippines in men ice hockey event Victory ceremony for men figure skating event

While I was away from home last November, number 1 son had decided to give a surprise by completing the Sydney Opera House. Indeed, patiently, worked day and night, he completed the set within a week. It's quite a huge set.

Follow up from the bootleg Lego Creator, we managed to complete the brick building after I changed the strategy. Well, we started by segregating the bricks according to their colors. That took us 3 days over the long weekend to complete it. Mission accomplished. Satisfied.

As published in The Star paper... We already have the world's second most expensive beers' prices. Now cars also? By Alan Tan IN about 3 weeks’ time, we will be celebrating the New Year.  Each New Year comes with new resolutions and new goals. Some would plan to own big ticket items such as a house or a car as part of their resolution. If your plan is to own a new car, finish reading this article before nailing down that resolution.  Owning a car in Malaysia is expensive. In one of my previous articles, I highlighted that Malaysia was ranked second in the world where owning a car is expensive.  But what many do not know is by how much, relative to homes. Yes, homes in Malaysia are expensive too, but relative to Australian homes and cars, our cars are 10 times more expensive than those sold in Australia compared to homes. Let’s do some simple math together.  Khazanah Research Institute (KRI) reported that the median house price in Malaysia is about RM250,000. T...

While most of us buy commercial moon cake, this year we made ourselves. We made the easiest one - "pingpei" moon cake. No baking required, just chilled and served.

A year ago, the backyard of our condo started to show sign of collapsing. Well, it was not the main building that would be collapsed but the fence and the ground near the river. This was due to soil erosion on the river bank. Things got pretty messy after a few heavy downpours. Some people brought this issue to the press and assemblymen. Soon after, the restoration began. The restoration was completed last December. Today the structure is still intact. Below are the photos of the backyard based on timeline. April 23, 2011 April 30, 2011 May 16, 2011 May 24, 2011 June 30, 2011 July 14, 2011 August 12, 2011 November 15, 2011 December 26, 2011

Can you guess how long does it take to complete a 15-storey building? 2 years? No, the Chinese did it in SIX days only. This accomplishment has put most of the builders in shame. On the other hand, how safe is a building which is completed in a super short time frame?

Apparently, the cream tart which I mentioned previously had been featured in Astro channel few years ago. Well, at least we know how it is made. Basically, the tart consists of three parts: base, egg white and egg yolk. Sounds like tiramisu recipe except that you don't mix the egg white and egg yolk together. Anyway, please ignore the presenter in the video - very annoying indeed.

Have not had this type of cake for almost a decade. As far as I know, it's only available in Sandakan. Maybe they have it in KK too? Somebody in Singapore is selling this there. Local people called it "cow dung tart". It's actually a baked cream put on top of a sponge cake. Twenty years ago, the sellers will put the tart in a cigarette carton box (the long type) for take away purchase. Now they use plastic tray. Used to be my favorite snack. Sadly, it's not available in PJ. Or maybe there is, which I may not know.

Went back to Sibu last weekend. Attended one night of ceramah organized by the opposition party. This time around they came out with a mascot. And came out with a good marketing material - the Ubah bird. Well, can the bird make the change in this round of election? We'll know soon.

Every year moon cake packaging design has becoming more and more creative. These are some packaging designs for the year. Needless to say, the price also increases every year ; as an effect of increased raw material cost. . After all, moon cake festival is held once a year,

Went back to Sibu last week. There's CNY mood around the town. This is because part of the town was flooded. Common sight during CNY. But this time around is no CNY. Must be La Nina effect.

Colleagues of mine went to Shenzhen lately. Unfortunately, they were conned by street man. What appeared to be an iPhone 3GS was actually fake, not even a phone. Here's how they constructed it. The LCD background was made from a black card board! The whole construction was just a few steel bars and a cardboard. And it only cost RMB400. Well, we should know the Chinese are very cunning and smart. Beware of imitation products when you shop in China. Good luck!

Effective praise can motivate a person. ...Dweck did (a series of experiments) with four hundred new York fifth graders...It's goal was to see how much a tiny signal - a single sentence of praise - can affect performance and effort, and what kind of signal is most effective. First, Dweck have every child a test that consisted of fairly easy puzzles. Afterward the researcher informed all the children of their scores, adding a single six-word sentence of praise. Half of the kids were praised for their intelligence ("You must be smart at this."), and half were praised for their effort ("You must have worked really hard"). The kids were tested a second time, but this time they were offered a choice between a harder test and an easier test. Ninety percent of the kids who'd been praised for their effort chose the harder test. A majority of the kids who'd been praised for their intelligence...chose the easy test. Why? "When we praise children for their int...

Will anyone do the same slide for Malaysia's Navigators?

It's bad if you are in China... I was disappointed though when I was there this week. You will not be able to access your Facebook. You will not be able to follow your Twitter. You will not be able to see free video in YouTube. And last but not least, you can't blog. So Malaysians in Malaysia are lucky to have freedom of information access. Global censorship scale.

Since we've been going back to Sarawak quite often, and almost every time got the chance to taste the local kampua noodle, and not sure if we've eaten too much stuff in our life, the local kampua quality is not up to our taste. So we decided to do it ourselves. Here it is..... Though it didn't look presentable (partly due to my crappy amateur photography technique even though using a fast prime lens), it did taste good. Dare to say it was comparable to the best of the local stalls. Haha...