9-Jan

 

9-Jan was spent nicely, wonderfully and gratefully,

Thank you to mama, sister and niece for the birthday calls

Thank you sister for the birthday ang pow

Thank you samyi for the birthday message

Thank you my wonderful man for the wonderful birthday meal, the beautiful birthday gift

Thank you all friends for the birthday wishes made to me

 

This year, I want to do something more meaningful

I want to spend more times with my family

I want to learn more to improve myself

I want to be a fitter me and live a healthy life

I want to help the others in need with my ability

Time to contribute more, and spread the love of living to people around me

2014 ~ Happy New Year

It is now 2014, 2nd Jan, happy new year all!

I have had a wonderful 2013, a year with ups and downs, as no matter how a person am I, I am still a human with emotion and feeling. Yet I take things optimistically, life wasn't too hard for me and I learnt a lot again, from the people surrounding me. Thanks people!

Family are all well, papa and mama are with good health, this is the biggest blessing I have for the year! I shall spend more times with them this year! Sister was facing some life obstacle mid last year, yet thanks god that she managed to come across it, things shall be turning better with her and the kids. Brother was doing well with his career, but still need to work harder for his personal life in certain way to be better. Fur-kids were separated last year as found they were fighting. So both will be taking turn staying at hometown or here with me. At least I won't miss them too much! I wish for another good year with good health for my family and let's do more for parent, and we shall seeing each other more!

Work for me last year is like a straight line, a very calm straight line. Think positively, I got my job sustained for another year. The company was able to expand the business by getting some new business. Yet, I need to do better for this year. Change of environment or stay with the same job, I shall do some assessment myself before making any move. I will do better, I believe I can.

Travelling last year were great, been to the places at South East Asia with my loves one. To know more about our neighbor countries for their people, foods, places, cultures, histories... I love seeing the world! For this year, yet to have any solid plan for travelling. Just one or two in mind, still thinking... and thinking.

Personal life is wonderful last year with a wonderful him with me. Spending time together for stuff we like to do, photography, short trips, cooking, exercises... 2013, a year for us to know each other better. That's still a long way to go, and hope things are going to be better and better this year.

Again, thanks all for being with me at 2013, and let's continue doing better in 2014!

Halong Bay

Cruising at Halong Bay for 2 days 1 night

A world heritage to the world, as of it's calmness sea and isles surrounding the bay

At peak season, the bay will have about 400 boats station here loaded full board of tourist

We were here at low peak season which is near to the monsoon season

So not really crowded much with the tourists 

 

Nice scenery, cool weather, a real rest and relax tour on boat.

Hanoi

 Practicing of photography in my trip to Hanoi

This trip, I was using a DSLR, shooting on manual mode

It's fun, and I love photography more and more...

 

Hoan Kiem Lake, landmark of Hanoi. It's near to Old Quarter.

Vietnam, a country with Chinese influence. Chinese temples are everywhere.

Chinese influence buildings are everywhere.

A unique souvenir shop near to Hoan Kiem Lake

 

St. Joseph Cathedral, an Europe influence church building in the city

 

Statue of Jesus 

Oh, this is me... modeling with the bic

 

 Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum

The war flight crashed by Vietnamese military force during war with US

A funny scene in the city, railway in between of the shop houses

Old Quarter Hanoi

 

Old Quarter is the place with streets packed with shops selling all kinds of goods,

each street named for its primary good or service.

Street of shoes, street of clothing, street of hardware, street of plastic bag...

And we stay at the street of plastic bag, Hanoi Old Town Hotel

 

Here, I see many locals on the bicycles or motorbikes, busy with their daily life

Traffic here is messy, you need to be careful while walk on the road.

 

The wiring of the power cables are here and there, forming a complicated route.

I guess while there's power failure with the power cable, they will only tap another wire in

 

Street foods are all around the area here, but it's not cheap.

A bowl of Pho (noodle) cost at least 40000 Dong which is RM6.40 to us

And this is just the street foods, which you will be sitting on a small stool near to the road and enjoying your food. However, some foods are nice and worth trying.  

 

Selling on bicycles are commonly found here

and the bicycle is loaded with lot of stuff

Salute the lady who has to move this bicycle loaded with lot of ceramic stuff 

Shops and houses here are with narrow width and high built up with at least 2-4 floors

And this formed the area with slim tall buildings everywhere

 

Old Quarter, a unique place in Vietnam



Towards a better Me~

 

I have positive energy filled up my mind now!

I wish the energy is here for me forever... lols

Okay~ I always want to be a better me...

So I set some goals for myself in this coming October...

1. To keep fit, work out frequently to cut the fat in my tummy.

2. To read more, read can improve me.

3. To learn cooking, as I want to cut down eating processed food

4. To eat more fruits, fruits detox our body system

 

I want to see a better me in Nov, I can do it!

Well, it's raining cats and dogs out there now, I am going to zzz.

Good night~

 

 

Candi Prambanan

Another not to miss temples to visit at Jogjakarta, Candi Prambanan

We nearly miss this as of some little incident happened...

Yet, we did make the visit to the temples before leaving Jogjakarta.

It was a good one!

 

Candi Prambanan was titled as the world heritage site too

The temples history is made up of the combination of Hinduism Empire and Buddhism Empire

How they have fought for their empire, and how they have combined the power of both empires

To sustain for the most powerful empire at that time.

 

Entrance to the temple: 125,000 rupiah per person

Temples will be closed by 5pm everyday,

there's Ramayana Dance performance in the park at the evening, costing 250,000 rupiah per person

we didn't manage to watch the performance, due to our time arranged was out of schedule

and we didn't feel like watching it after viewing some comments from TripAdvisor.

We know the temples history quite well, as we hired a great tour guide, Mr. Subarto

He did much study and research on this temple and the Candi Borobudur too 

 

There are many temples here, which some were collapsed due to earthquake

Now, they are still in the progress of re-building some of the temples.

So we could see the fallen stones lying on the ground, waiting to be re-built.

The main three of them are Brahma Temple in the north, Vishnu Temple in the south, and the biggest among the three which lies between Brahma and Vishnu temples is Shiva Temple

 

A closed up on the collapsed temples.

It shall be taking a long time to re-build, as it's not easy as just build but to join up the stones based on the crafts made to the stones, it's like making up the jig-saw puzzle.

Another place we can see the great ancient masterpieces of Hinduism and Buddhism architecture

All stones were crafted and stacking up to form the temple 

 

It was a hot sunny day when we were here.

So coincidence, there are school activities conducted at the park near the temples

So there were many school kids found visiting the temples too.

 

School kids with happy faces.

This is the most happy times of every kid

I knew it as I came across the times like this too!

 

The kids were so happy while taking picture with me!

I have no idea what made them so excited.

May be it's purely the happiness they have at their age!

Kids are adorable! I am happy too!



Candi Borobudur

 Candi Borobudur. A world heritage at central of Jawa.

A temple of Buddhism.

 

Despite of the lamp cum speaker pole, I love this picture much.

Love the combination of color that made up this picture,

The cloud at the sky, the tree, the layer of hills and the stupa.

 

Awaiting for the moment of sun rise, the moment of feeling awesome.

The sun was slowly crawling up... what a good morning to all~

Orange sky, great mountain with the misty landscape, plus stupa of the temple formed a good picture.

 

I have witnessed the great sun rise at Candi Borobudur. Fantastic!

 There were tourists clapping their hands applauding this wonderful moment.

 Amitabha Buddha.
The Buddha statue is inside each of the stupa in this temple. Unfortunately, some of the Buddha head of the statue was being stolen away which formed a head-less Buddha in the stupa.

 

The Amitabha Buddha in the stupa

 

 Nice stone craft surrounding the temple. It told the story of the temple.

 

The temple shows the great workmanship of building and construction of old times.

Amazing works that could not be found in nowadays.

It was found that Buddhism existed at the land of Indonesia before the Muslim.

The temple was built by stone, stacking up one by one, and joining up without a piece a nail.

 

Amitabha Buddha. This is truly a holy ground of Buddhism.

 

Candi Borodudur. Awesome World Heritage Site worth your visit here.

Entrance fee as follow:

Sunrise Package - 380,000 rupiah (starts from 0430 -1700), enter from Manohara Hotel

Normal Package - 190,000 rupiah (starts from 0600 - 1700), enter from Borobudur Park

 

 



Saraswati Borobudur

We have a wonderful trip to Jogjakarta mainly for photography at the world heritage sites,

the Candi Borobudur and the Candi Prambanan.

Landed at the Jogjakarta Adisucipto International Airport,

which is named after the hero of their national air force team.

We hired a taxi to send us to Borobudur, which took 1.5 hours for us to reach there.

It cost us 250,000 rupiah for the transfer from airport to hotel with a pit stop of  having lunch at the local famous restaurant for the famous ayam goring (fried chicken) and gudeg (boiled jackfruit with egg and cow skin)... which we found both dishes tasted moderate to us only.

 

Saraswati Borobudur, where we have stayed in for 3 nights here.

 

Quiet atmosphere in this boutique hotel

 

Luxurious classical interior of the hotel  

Statue found in the hotel, believe it would be the god of Saraswati

 

Swimming pool in the hotel, water of the pool is chilling cold. 

 

The corridor with a strong of colonial style

 

2013 ~ Year of visiting Jawa Tengah

Borobudur is located at Jawa Tengah, a small town that is not really fully developed

Tourists here mostly will be staying in the hotel, as there's nothing great and attractive in the town except for the world heritage temple, Candi Borobudur

Foods commonly found at the warung (food stall) are the Mie Ayam (chicken noodle) and Bakso (meat ball noodle). Hardly found the restaurant with tradition Jawanese dishes on the street, so we mostly dined in the hotel.

 

We hired an andong (horse buggy ride) to visit places  in this small town,

and we named the macho horse of our andong Pak Jonni (Johnny)

Andong is one of the main transportation in this small town.

My first ride of andong was interesting... while we stepped on the buggy, I was worrying that the horse won't cope with our weight and would have the buggy upside down while the horse would be whining... I was wrong, think I watched too much of cartoon! lols...

Beautiful kampong (village) scenery in this small town. 

 

I would describe this small town, a quiet and peaceful town.

It worth a visit for us to break away from the busy city life, and enjoy the quietness here.