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ROADTRIP!!!-pt 2
2:59 pm
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So off we went to Camerons using the Simpang Pulai way- the newer part of the highway which was supposedly less nauseatingly windy and more scenic than the old tapah way.
I can say the latter is true but the road is quite windy. Me n kaye had to undergo a sleep induced by motion sickness.

Well... it is better than vomiting.

The scenery going up Camerons.

Mountain ranges = cool air

See the mist?

Weee.... hair is flying everywhere!!

The air was so cool that yen just switched the aircon off and wind down the windows. It was so cold i had to wear my cardigan. And kaye forgot her jacket...

Kaye posing for a shampoo ad.

Finally reached camerons and crossed the Pahang border. On the way to Brinchang, we stopped by a coffee place and it had endless fields of tea plantation behind it.

Beautiful scenery and with 3gb of camera memory to waste, we camwhored :D

Me sitting on the bushes and breaking those tea leaves. Poor tea leaves

Camwhorers. Lol... the plant was part of a tea plant. Now it's drying up in the pages of my notebook.

We then went on to find accomodation in Brinchang town and weended up in a place called Tudor Home Inn which was a newly opened inn. We paid rm170 for a room with 2 double beds. The room was quite big but the bathroom was a bit miserable. Ok rate lo since it was christmas eve in a tourist destination area.

By the time we got bathed and etc, it was night and extremely cold... I pity kaye who had to constantly wrap herself with her hands. The best thing to do at that time was to eat steamboat!

Steamboat with coal... YUMMY!

rm15 per person. Alright since they gave us a lot of fresh veggies, squid, fishballs, prawns, chicken meat, bihun, egg, etc. The meat was surprisingly fresh.

While eating yen noticed a strange thing peeking over the roofs of the nearby shoplots:
What do you think it is...?

It was actually:
Steamboat sign

Then we went to the famous Brinchang night market. Loads of stalls and the pasar stretch a very long way. But most stalls were almost identical- selling fried stuff, veggies, strawberries, souvenirs, flowers, drinks, clothes.

Brinchang night market

The fried stuff- from the left- fried crabs (how did they get the crabs n prawns??), fried prawns, fried mix veggies, fried chicken and some other weird fried stuff.

The next day, we made our way to Ye Old Smokehouse. It's a famous accommodation and restaurant but very overprice. We wanted to see it anyway since it was mentioned in almost every guide.
The place was really a whole new dimension. It felt like i've just stepped into UK or something (apart from the proton cars scattered everywhere to give it away) cause the buildings there were built during the British colonial times
Me and kaye at the bridge which was really for decoration only.

The cottage.

We left when we saw the menu (rm22 per person for breakfast) and when we met the waitress. The waitress was very rude but maybe because there were a lot of customers and she was the only one there serving.

We later went to Raju's Strawberry Store or something. Although the stuff there were also overpriced we were too lazy to go anywhere else. Look at the glorious food:
Tea and scones served with butter, fresh strawberry jam, strawberries and whipped cream for RM10 (cut throat!!!!)

Belgium waffles with strawberry, whipped cream and chocolate sauce- RM6 (or maybe 8)

Total cut throat- Strawberry ice cream which was basically vanilla icecreamed drizzled with stawberry jam and topped with strawberries- RM6

The upside was that the ppl there were really friendly. The person who served us also remembered that there were 3 of us so she purposely gave us 3 cups to share the tea between us and 3 pieces of tissue. She also asked if the food was nice. We said yes (sincerely)

We then ventured off to Puncak Brinchang. One of the highest points in Camerons. The drive up was really... ala Indiana Jones style. One narrow path for 2 way traffic. Each time there were cars coming from the opposite direction, we had to stop and wait at the bend where the road was wider. The roads also had no skirting (fences?) so the car can easily just slid off and drop off to our doom. It was also mandatory (sort of) to honk each time at a sharp corner so oncoming cars can be warned. Yen is a really good driver so we made it there without harm.
Proud to say that yen was the only female driving upwards to Puncak Brinchang at that time. Girl power!

Tea plantations everywhere on the way up. I do wonder how the workers manage to go tend all the tea plants.

The drive up. Looks like a scene from some adventure movie.

The top was exactly 6666ft from sea level (not an auspicious number for those believing in the book of revelations though) The air there is super cool and kaye was freezing. Me with my long sleeve and cardigan also managed to shiver a little. But i am slightly cold blooded. ahhahaha

There were some jungle treks that can be followed to reach the other summit but without a guide... it's best to stay away from the dense jungles.

Because of her fear of heights, kaye couldn't follow us up this watchtower sort of thing. Me and yen went up anyway to view the scenery.

The peaks of Camerons... see the gradient of colours?

Me posing. I gave kaye my cardigan :D

Yen looking lost in the beauty of the peak.

Later kaye did join us at the top but she only did that cause i guess she wanted to try to overcome her phobia. At the top she wasn't really relaxed and another group of tourist came so we went down.

After the travel down the puncak, it was the end of our trip to camerons cause we were finally heading to penang. We did stop by Blue Valley- a place with vegetable and flower plantations on the way back to Simpang Pulai.
Disappointing. Better to save the fuel for something else.
Blue Valley- you can find this sort of place anywhere in camerons.

Penang- cont in the next entry.
ROADTRIP!!!-pt 1
3:56 pm
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On the 24th I went on a roadtrip with yen2 and kaye (sort of).
super spontaneous trip and planned in just 4-5 days!!
So we set off at 10am (cause stupid car rental company kept delaying us and we finally used yen's parent's CRV which we were really grateful for) and it was kind of exciting to get on to the North-South expressway with 2 buddies (and no parents.. ahahahhahaha)

The nice morning sky. No rainy clouds that day :D

Driving along the NSE

So we first stopped in Bidor to get lunch.
Ate rice with fish and vege. The guy there cold only speak hokkien and with our half past 6 hokkien, we couldn't make out all the ingredient names in hokkien. Then yen called her mom to make the order through the phone.
It was the weirdest thing.... another reason to learn hokkien.

Then we went on to Gua Tempurung near Gopeng in Perak.
GUA TEMPURUNG!!!

We went for the 2nd tour which costs rm9. There was a grand tour of the whole cave which involved waddling into the underground river and exploring the parts of the cave without proper stairs, etc.The grand tour starts only at 9am while the one we took starts every 30 minutes until 4pm i think. We had to wait so we wandered around the cave and camwhored and we found...THIS!!:
Dead baboon with loads of fur

After that we got freaked out to camwhore anymore.
Anyway...we finally went in at 2:30pm. The way we went had nice stairs and was dotted with spotlights everywhere to help us see (or not it would be in total darkness). We also were lucky enough to get a guide with great sense of humour.
The cave's entrance

Along the way the guide just showed us random rock formation which resembled a goat, duck, pregnant lady, etc. Really interesting. Too bad i can't take good photos in the cave cause of the limited lighting. Flash can't work too cause there's too much dust in the cave and the camera's flash just bounces of them.

StalagmiteS.... or was it stalactites?

It looks like some museum display right?

Cool... just noticed the rock on the right looks like a smiling dinosaur head.

The steps were really steep and it really saps your energy. Slippers maybe used but sandals would have been more ideal. The guide joked and said because of walking up n down the cave so often he became so thin (and he was really thin) Lol... no need for slimming centres anymore

OOooo... the spotlights looks like stars

The walkway at the wind tunnel. It is called a wind tunnel because air from the entrance flows thru the cave and gets concentrated here so u can feel like you're in an aircon room. The guide claims that he can tell the weather condition outside the cave by being in the wind tunnel

Back to the entrance

Sunlight!!!

When I stayed to take photos the guide stayed back to make sure we won't get lost in the cave so yen was chatting to the guy. Lol... and he showed us some x-rated rock formations (cause we joined a family during the tour and the family headed out first) The guide was really funny and I guess the tour was only fun because of the guide.
He did say that the other guas have no walkway, etc so gua tempurung is the most convenient cave for tourists.
We left the cave and went on to Simpang Pulai to go to CAMERONS!
(cont in the next post)
Winter solstice- TANG YUAN
2:43 pm
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Today is the Winter Solstice that we chinese celebrate to mark the winter solstice or dongzhi festival. (dongzhi- extreme of winters). Supposedly on this day, the day is the shortest and weakest. (though in M'sia i don't think we can notice a difference.)
According to my mom, today is where they have a family reunion and get together to eat tang yuan, glutinous rice balls dunked in ginger n sugar syrup (though other variations do occur). Our family also eats this on Chinese New Year eve after the reunion dinner and during weddings (my mom says this is only our family (hakka) tradition. her family (hokkien) only eats this during the lantern festival and winter solstice la)


This year my mom somehow was determined to make tang yuan. Which seems kind of ironic since this year our family members is reduced to 4 from the original 6 (+1 if adding the maid). We made 2 colours- red for luck and white.... cause it's the original colour. Uncooked stuffed tang yuan (with peanut n sugar!)

I tried making the stuffed one. Mine pecah until i had to roll another piece of dough to patch it up. lol... mine is the ugliest tang yuan in the above pic :P
This is what i was forced to do later by my mom when she saw my ugly tang yuan- plain smaller tang yuans with no filling inside
My mom also told me that her mom (my grandma) used to make 12 stuffed tang yuan to symbolize 12 months. cool eh. My mom just cincai made as many as she could
Boiling the balls

Ta dah! Cooked tang yuan!! My pic is kind of ugly thanks to the cacat camera phone so here is another pic to show you how delicious it actually looks:

Thus ends 22nd dec cause i' m going to sleep.
Sleeping at 2 and waking up at 8 is really starting to backfire now
lol... finally!
10:04 pm
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as expected... i had a troubled night.
my mom was talking to my brother on skype until 2am so i couldn't sleep till then. when i tried to sleep... all i could think about were all nonsensical thoughts (which included: how cinderella would have turn out to be if a dose of reality was added into the story, what i was going to do the next day, visualizing myself painting my room, etc) and rolling about in bed.

what seemed like the longest time.. i fell asleep
then in my slumber, i was awakened by shakira's latortura... i practically jumped out of bed.
hahaha... i couldn't even recognise my own hp's ringtone then. after picking up the phone, i heard sabrina's excited voice telling me i can check the SAM results now.

i can say that i was super nervous. But if i hesitated any longer i probably will get more nervous. So i just log in and just clicked on the link.

hahaha

i can say i'm happy with my results. gahhh.... but it would be nice to get one particular subject a bit higher- BIO! that would have made my day :D cause i tried to study as hard as i could for that subject.

going to taylors later to collect my certs n meeting up with old classmates :D
results!!! soon
2:50 pm
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mannnnn.... ssabsa is so stupid.
y didn't they change my bday?
i tried so hard logging in until i realised they terbalik my bday causing me to be born on 7/12/89 rather than 12/7/89. and what the heck... my surname is cheng.

proof (copied and pasted):

Details for CHENG, CHIN SOOK

SurnameCHENG
GivensCHIN SOOK
Registration673925J
GenderFemale
Date of Birth7 December 1989
Student Code59687
AddressTaylor's University College
1 Jalan SS15/8
47500 Subang Jaya

SuburbSelangor MALAYSIA

arghhhh.... hopefully it can be rectified fast.

results are out tomorrow at 5:30am. i expect myself to be having a troubled sleep tonight only to open my eyes at 4am. hahahhaa... anxiety is catching on to me now already.
hope to see any crazy sam-ians online at 5am tomorrow if i'm awake. at least can past time which is already passing like the slow trickle of water....
new template
3:40 pm
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finally changed my blog's layout.

sooo... what do you think?

oh.. images above are credited to various ppl around dA.
should i put their names under credit... i'm too lazy. someone needs to force me to do it
secret recipe... yes i do have one
1:19 pm
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lol... i went to parade a few days ago to buy the secret recipe cake when they had their buy 1 free 1 promotion.
me n kaye went there at 9:40 around there n though we were early....

HECK NO

when we got there our mouths went like this: O
let me illustrate what we saw....:


we were number 100 and something... and that was at 10am (cause before that we gave up n wanted to meet xx in the gym but kaye's sis called and said to go back to the queue)
lol.....
the queue got longer and longer and suddenly me n kaye felt kiasu n didn't want to leave our spot. we r typical m'sians... the queue eventually reached the world of sports (which means the queue spanned the entire width of parade)

luckily we meet jun keet there who gratiously allowed us to "potong" and saved us a time.
we waited 2 hours anyway for the cake :D

kaye got classic cheese while i got chocolate banana. i wanted chocolate indulgence but too bad it was sold out.
mel came to see us but didn't want to wait so she got 2 slices of cake... hahahahha
we met xx soon after but luckily we were already at the end of the line so he didn't need to wait so long
no pics cause after we got the cake we went straight back and went to mcds for lunch.

and now... the cake is gone. finished it yesterday... hahahahaha
quite worth it. 2 hrs and rm35 for a 2.2 kg cake to be my family's indulgence for the past 4 days. hahahahhhaha

other than that, i went out a lot with kaye, yen, xx, yeen and leo.

have yet to go out with hui xian, su yen, sab, yuki n chirunu.
but i'll be meeting pei chern n yik meng + yeen again tomorrow for comicfiesta, cf.

hopefully tomorrow will be a nice day :D
tagged
1:06 pm
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tagged by yeen
The Rules:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. List eight (8) random facts about yourself.
3. Tag eight people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they've been tagged.

1)i wear those free shirts given out during running events to sleep
2)i know how to take a chest xray
3)I can sleep for 12 hrs straight
4)I am usually half asleep most of the time
5)i watch 4 types of medical drama now. freaky
6)i think i looked mighty pissed off at the interviewers during the IMU interview. oh no
7)i watch the hokkien series everyday looking at the subtitles. gahhhhhh.... i think i'll be belasah by my ancestors. heck... hakka is out of bounds for me
8)My Japanese rotting liao...need to study!!! (same with yeen)

tensed moments
5:18 pm
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my friend just reminded me the sace results will be out somewhere next week.

oh ****

after nearly 1 month of holidaying i nearly forgot the feeling of having to wake up at 6 and stare at the bleak dark sky outside the window.

Walking alone to the college and hoping there won't be any loonies hiding in the lorongs.

checking my pencil case millions of times to see if my exam slip is there

studying nearly the whole day and sleeping for only a few hours

the feeling like all hope has been lost when you realise you only have 2 more hours to study before the exams starts and you have not slept for nearly 24 hours.

the sweaty palms and butterfly stomach i get before stepping into the exam hall.

ah... time flies. I felt like all those are events took place 10 years ago.
now it's all coming back to me (i sound like the celine dion song)

nooooooo.... next week.
to check or not to check online.
anyway i heard that eventhough the results are released at 5:30am, most of them can't get thru the main website due to the traffic and some of them only managed to log in after 5 hrs.

sounds like the jpa scholarship thingy.

hahahhahahhhaha
google helped me cure boredom
3:24 pm
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i remembered i stumbled upon a forum where they were trying to kill boredom by googling their own name and posting funny stuff that google comes up with.
You know when you google something, an excerpt comes out with a brief sentence containing the words you googled right..... these are some of the hilarious and weird sentences that I thought was stupid:
(ps: i got 1120 hits for "sook cheng")
actually got many other interesting results... lazy to post them here. I didn't know so many ppl named sook cheng. What the heck does it mean anyway? My grandparents gave me that name and i still dunno what it actually means.

Ok... boredom ended.
hours spent doing this: 2