Interloper View

One of the benefits of staying in a multi-cultural country is getting to see and enjoy different festivals. It has been several years since I went to see the Thaipusam possession but I managed to do that this year. Here are some of the pictures I took (I split into two entries to ensure the performance):

This is a story I heard from a good friend of mine. A man had just put up a sign "Puppies for Sale" when a little boy appeared with great excitement in his eyes. He was waiting patiently as the man finish putting up the sign and asked, "Uncle, how much does it cost for a puppy?" The man said, "About 40 to 50 dollars?" On hearing this, the boy face suddenly became sad for a second. He was about to go but suddenly turned around and asked, "Can I see the puppies?" The man said, "Sure!" and whistled. Just then the door open and a lady came out followed by several puppies. The boy's eye lit up as he saw them. One by one the puppies came out. While he was playing with the puppies, one last puppy came out with a slight limp. Apparently, the puppy was born without one hip bone. The boy saw the last puppy and immediately asked the man, "How much for that puppy?" The man said, "You don't want that one, he is cripple

It is an annual custom to turn on all the lights in Kek Lok Si for the fifteen days of CNY. The following are some of the pictures to show how awesome the sight is:

All this while I thought Hibiscus comes in red, then I found the various colors it comes in:

Welcome the year of the Brown Earth Ox. The end of the Earth Rat brought a lot of chaos worldwide. With the strength of the Ox and its ability to work the earth, here is hoping to a more productive and prosperous 2009. The following are some photos of a lion dance and dragon dance I took with my hand phone. Unfortunately, the phone was not able to take the action sequence clearly. The dragon: The Lions: Anyway, my daughter enjoyed the whole thing even though it was very noisy. She has grown since her first encounter (she was terrified then).

Received this in the email today: 1. Take a 10-30 minute walk every day... And while you walk, smile. It is the ultimate anti-depressant. 2. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day. 3. Buy a DVR and tape your late night shows and get more sleep. 4. When you wake up in the morning complete the following statement, 'My purpose is to __________ today.' 5. Live with the 3 E's -- Energy, Enthusiasm, and Empathy. 6. Play more games and read more books than you did in 2008. 7. Make time to practice meditation, and prayer. They provide us with daily fuel for our busy lives. 8. Spend time with people over the age of 70 and under the age of 6. 9. Dream more while you are awake. 10. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants. 11. Drink green tea and plenty of water. Eat blueberries, wild Alaskan salmon, broccoli, almonds & walnuts. 12. Try to make at least three people smile each day. 13. Clear clutter from your house, you

Christmas is celebrated by christians world over on Dec 25. It is a time of great rejoicing to remember to coming of Jesus Christ and to celebrate good will among all people. As a Chinese descend, we celebrate Christmas twice. A few days prior to the Dec 25 - around Dec 21, we also celebrate Chinese Christmas (also known as Winter Solstice ). To celebrate this festival, we typically will make Tangyuan . However, it has been several years since we actually made it ourselves. The preparation is very tedious since we have to grind the rice etc. Nowadays we will buy the dough from the market, we just make it into circle and cook it in sugar syrup. In Hockien language, we call it Ee (or circle - literal translation). It usually comes in multicolor. This year, we bought ones with crushed peanuts and sugar in them. My children call them " Ta Bah Kuih " which is another type of pastry that they are used to eat.

As part of my fastestman training, I have been reading a couple of books . In the book Run Fast: How to Beat Your Best Time--- Every Time , it mentions that we have slow twitching muscles and fast twitching muscles. It got me into thinking, why that is the case then I thought about another book - A mind at a time I read about how our brain consist of short term memory and long term memory. Then I think about how our muscles and bone structure is put together, look at your hand and legs, upper part of the leg is shorter and the lower part is much longer. Same with the arms. Nature is designed that way, and it seems to be the most efficient way for our body to work. So I am surprise that whenever we look at others, we expect others to be the same as us so we judge them by our own standard. Maybe we should stop that, others are there to create a balance. Look at them as pieces that will make our world whole.

I received the following stories from two colleagues and thought I would share it here: First story Once upon a time, an old man lost his horse, his neighbor consoled him. The old man said : Good or bad, hard to say. After a while, the male horse bring back a group of horses from the jungle. His neighbor congratulate him. Old man said : Good or bad, hard to say. The old man's son upon getting so many horses, rode on the wild horse and fell down, with a broken leg. His neighbor consoled him. Old man said : Good or bad, hard to say. Then comes the recruitment for rookie/soldiers as it was war against the neighboring country, the old man's son was not called upon due to his broken legs, so the old man can have his son live together with him, while his neighbors' sons, most of them died in the battle. Second Story Once upon a time, there was a king. The king liked one of his followers very much because he was very wise and always gave very useful advice. Therefore the king to

Not sure how true this is, just received it from a colleague. Do not the recent Chi Jiezi ah! Sichuan this year, the Orange suffered a disaster of the parasite, called Orange maggots and parasites visible to the naked eye. Far from clearing the light orange skin can not see, it is necessary that each of the orange outside of the skin layer is also Bodiao can see! It is said that the Government catty to a few cents of the purchase price of orange fruit in the hands of the disease and then buried, but there is still secretly Caimixinqiao fruit of the disease out of the wholesale orange! So now the market's orange-chuan to be careful! Huaxi Dushi Bao is said to have written this, does not know the truth, but we still pay attention to what you "I Changzhemeda, has not seen in the orange of the flap of meat hidden in so many maggot Yazi, really strange ... ..." 3 pm, the Jiachuan in the town of Guangyuan Wang Cangxian cock of the mountain orchards, Dan Qiaocun Six groups of 67

Received the following tip from a newsletter in my mailbox today 1. Make a list of what you need to do the next day, write it all down and keep that paper and pen near your bedside in case you think of anything else you need to do. When you write things down your giving your brain the signal that it no longer needs to think about those tasks. 2. Don't watch television or listen to the radio (especially the news) before retiring for the night - and certainly do not fall asleep with the TV or radio on. 3. Read some inspirational or self-growth material for at least 30 minutes prior to bed. Your goal is to fill your mind with inspirational thoughts before falling asleep so that the last thoughts you have before drifting off are uplifting thoughts - as opposed to the stressful thoughts that most people fall asleep thinking about. 4. Make sure the room that you're sleeping in is as dark as possible - the body is made to sleep when it's dark out - the darker the room the mor

Here are some pictures of Penang Twin Tower (courtesy of a colleague of mine) taken during the last Penang Bridge Marathon: I think it is pretty impressive architecture although not as high as the KL Twin Tower.

I received this in the mail today and had it translated from Chinese using Google Translate: Wan Shui consequences of the state Some people have always had good health, but few stay up late at night in a row, all of a sudden to get up the next day will am very tired, I wanted to sleep with eyes closed, and will be back pains, but a good spirit of the evening up! Do not think this is trivial! According to Chinese medicine's view, is due to fatigue caused by an imbalance of yin and yang organs in the body, is the organ in the body from internal strife, fighting each other, the final result of organ failure and died. Sleep is the body's self-adjustment time, it's time for you aggression, aggression, it's your health, we should guard ourselves to the following rest periods. Night 9 - 11 Points for the immune system (lymph) detoxification, this paragraph should be quiet or listening to music. Night 11 - 1 am, Liver detoxification, to be carried out in deep sleep. The ea

I recently visited the tropical fruit farm in Penang. It was interesting place to visit however a bit costly - charges RM 25/- for adults and RM 17/- for children. I guess they have to do that because they needed to pay the workers to conduct the tour, the gas for the van to take us up to the farm (short distance from the entrance) and of course the all you can eat fruits at the end of the tour. The tour lasted about 20 minutes where they showed us various tropical fruits some which are not local in Malaysia - imported from neighboring countries. Here are the pictures of the fruits they introduced us to: Scenary from the top.  You can see the dam and a nearby fishing village - Teluk Bahang. Coconut tree: Other fruits:        Fruits from cactus:          Dragon Fruit which is now getting very popular in Malaysia.  There are two kinds - with white content or purple content.                  This is the entrance - with shop and where y