I Won't Give Up - On repeat mode

When I look into your eyes,
It's like watching the night sky or a beautiful sunrise,
There's so much they hold and just like them old stars,
I see that you've come so far,
to be right where you are,
How old is your soul?

I won't give up on us,
even if the skies get rough.
I'm giving you all my love.
I'm still looking up.

And when you're needing your space,
to do some navigating,
I'll be here, patiently waiting,
to see what you find.

'Cause even the stars they burn,
some even fall to the earth.
We got a lot to learn.
God knows we're worth it.
No, I won't give up.

I don't want to be someone who walks away so easily.
I'm here to stay and make the difference that I can make.
Our differences, they do a lot to teach us,
how to use the tools and gifts we got,
yeah, we got a lot at stake and in the end you're still my friend.
At least we did intend for us to work.
We didn't break, we didn't burn.
We had to learn, how to bend, without the world, caving in.
I had to learn, what I've got and what I'm not and who I am.

I won't give up on us,
even if the skies get rough.
I'm giving you all my love.
I'm still looking up.

I won't give up on us,
even if the skies get rough.
I'm giving you all my love.
I'm still looking up.

Bali Day 3 & 4!

3rd day begins with a not-so-impressive breakfast choice for me.

It's basically made up of cheese, tomatoes, bacon,
some vegetable and bread. Not impressive!

So we headed to Kuta beach via the transport provided by the resort. Nice beach with strong waves suitable for surfing. However like Phuket, be prepared to be swamped by locals, asking you to purchase bracelets, drinks, ice cream, rent their surf board, water sports and even spray on tattoo. Just got to respond politely with "no" or hand wave about hundred times and you should be fine :D

That's me and the powerful 3 to 4 meters wave!
No exaggeration!

A pity we didn't head into the sea. Not quite feeling it. We walked around the area, looked at handicrafts which were marked up by about 300% from local price. At a more commercialized area, McDonald, Quick-Silver and other surf shops can be found. Bought a cup of Kopi Luwak and scalded my tongue... Still hurts a little until today.

Went back to villa after lunch, swam in our tiny pool till evening before heading out to explore the area near our resort.

Their very own Apple store!

Interesting lights

Some nicely decorated plants

Went to Pizza Hut for dinner again before returning to rest and plan for the next day! Going on a whole day trip to visit the main tourist attractions of Bali. However, due to limited time, we have to strategically select the suitable ones.

Day 4

We booked this pretty comfortable mini-bus, 9 sitter car or van, not exactly sure what was it, for 700,000 rupiah (SGD$90) from 9am to 5pm. & we were absolutely fortunate to have a driver who was capable of speaking decent English. He introduced and planned the sequences of the places we should visit in order to maximize our limited hours.

First stop was a local priced art house at Ubud! You can find sculptures, paintings, vases, bags, etc, etc, basically anything to do with art! So tempted to buy the vases and paintings due to the attractive prices! But found it troublesome to ship back, moreover house seems pretty filled up already haha! If I didn't remember wrongly, a 52" painting was only about SGD$40.

Don't understand why they sell this.
Some said Japanese tourist like them hahaha!

Oh, anyway, Ubud is the culture and art area of Bali, it is also the place where the film "Eat, Pray, Love" starring Julia Roberts, was filmed. Nice place. Would probably stay here instead of Seminyak for next visit to Bali. Has more Europeans in Ubud due to their love for these arty stuffs. Australians typically prefer Kuta as they are all about beaches and sunshine! Haha!

Next stop, Monkey Forest! If you are heading here, I would suggest not to buy bananas to feed them. In fact, don't even hold any bottle or food in your hands! These monkeys are smart! 1 attempted to snatch a bottle from my brother. We kept the bottle in my dad's bag after that and another monkey saw it. This was the result.

The monkey climbed onto my dad to open the bag!
Luckily a "keeper" saw it and shot something at it
with his mini catapult.

Like a family! But I think they are all family with
each other, hahaha!

They have a common pool! I'm surprised that they
could dive.

Scratch, scratch... & when you see it, you shit
bricks.
Hint: Er***ion!

This funny monkey was sitting like this.
(See below)

And turned to this position when Lynette tried
to photograph it! So funny! & stay like that for
30 seconds.

Sitting like a human.

Traveled up the mountain of Kintamani for buffet lunch while enjoying the breathtaking view of Mount Batur, an active volcano. The food was alright... But seemed delicious to the locals. Forget about the food! The view was truly magnificent! Refreshing air accompanied with cooling highland breeze made me want to stay there! Hahaha!

Mount Batur! Pity we didn't get to visit the crater...
Notice the black stuffs around, those are cooled lava!

& you see this towards the right of the volcano! A lake!

Me & Mount Batur!

Following the volcano, we arrived at the Kopi Luwak plantation! Saw the Luwak, basically a cat that aids in the production of Kopi Luwak. Towards the end of the tour, a selection of tea and coffee will be given for sample, some were pretty good. You can also purchase a cup of authentic Kopi Luwak at 50,000 rupiah (SGD$6.50). Not really expensive, considering a cup costs SGD$30 in our lovely Singapore.

They have a horse! & it bites!

Rice Terraces in the area.

The outdoor restroom in the plantation. Surprising clean and well maintained!

Our last stop was the shops along the route that leads up/down the mountain. All sorts of handicrafts can be found here as well and they are definitely not local price. Bargain and boldly ask for prices 50% - 60% less selling price, its totally possible.

Glittering mannequin

Some photos of the art pieces I took.

That's about it for day 4! Bought KFC, 18 pieces chicken for only SGD$20 on the way back to villa, mad cheap! Stay tuned for the adventures of my last day at Bali!

Bali Day 2!

Day 2 begins with a nice breakfast at the cafe. They actually provide delivery service to the villa upon request, but we figured we'd go there ourselves.

This is my poached egg with ham and melon juice!

White Water Rafting

The van then arrived at around 9am and brought us to Telaga Waja River for white water rafting! The US$25 package includes 2 ways transport, buffet lunch (edible to me, bad to picky eaters) and 2 hours of rafting!

It was fun! There was a 4 meters drop around 3/4 of the adventure and certain parts required us to lay all the way back, almost 90 degrees, in order to avoid bridge, pipes and even tree branches! Great experience!

Things to take note of:

• The drinks sold there were expensive! 20,000 rupiah (SGD$2.60)!!! Cost more than restaurants!
• Bring extra clothes cause its almost inevitable to get wet.
• Wear slippers.
• Our operators provided us with towels.
• Village-style bathrooms available at the end of the journey. By village-style I meant slightly worst than those that we have in Singapore's coffee shops :D

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Went back to our villa and chilled in the pool until evening. Guess we were all too tired and lazy to go out for dinner so we ordered food from the resort.

That's me chilling in the pool! Hahaha!

The dishes we ordered.

Not sure about the prices. My guess is 50,000 rupiah (SGD$6.50) to 70,000 rupiah (SGD$9) for each dish. Took more than an hour to arrive and tasted bad! 

• Pizza crust thin as paper
• Chicken charred and hard like coal
• Amount of spaghetti on the plate was pathetic. 

Tried complaining to the operation manager, but he wasn't around, leaving us with no option but to eat them all! Haha!

Spent the rest of the night watching HBO before sleeping at around midnight to prepare ourselves for Kuta the next day (day 3)! Watch this space!

Bali Day 1!

Went to Bali on 22nd November via Garuda International airline and I must say their service was nowhere near to being top notch. Stewardesses didn't seem enthusiastic to serve, movies in entertainment system were all unknown to me, except Rurouni Kenshin, which turned out to be quite nice. Food was alright.

Anyway, we took a morning flight and arrived at around 10am. The traffic there was killer! A short 30 to 40km journey from Bali Ngurah Rai International Airport, also known as Denpasar International Airport, to our villa (Bali Rich Luxury Villa) near Sunset Point can easily take up to 1 hour! The cab charges were relatively affordable there I must say. 

Our villa was dope! Private pool, huge ass toilet and comfortable bed. The only drawback was probably the limited TV channels, hahaha! But who the hell stays in room and watch TV while on holiday! However, I do enjoy watching 3 - 4 hours of HBO or National Geographic (which they do not have) before hitting the sack.

Here are some shots of our villa.

A path near the lobby leading to the villas.

Me with the door of our villa.

The common area with a fridge, cooking facilities, utensils & a water dispenser.

That's our 1.2m swimming pool!

View from another side.

The huge ass toilet. Bath tube, a separated shower area, 2 sinks, a small room with toilet bowl and wardrobes!

Went to Seminyak Square for lunch. Their local steak served in restaurant was real affordable!

55,000 rupiah / SGD$7 200g sirloin steak!

Interesting restaurant we saw along the street.

View of the street from Seminyak Square.

Had dinner at Pizza Hut in Sunset Point near our villa. It was real cheap! Pastas ranged from 30,000 to 50,000 rupiah, that is like SGD$4 - $6! Forgot the prices for pizzas though.
Thats about it for day 1! Spent the rest of the night chilling in villa, watch TV, rest and prepare ourselves for more exciting new experiences the next day!

Exam is done!

Yesterday marks the end of my semester 3 examination! Yahoo! 

And first thing I did today was hit the gym with YL! Feel as weak as usual, maybe even weaker... But I will work hard these 2 months and achieve as much gain as I can. The next thing I did was clear up my desk, and looked through some sentimental stuffs.

My precious collection of items with sentimental value.

- 2 birthday cards.
- 1 project from secondary school where we were supposed to write the personality of our friends. I still have the one my friends/classmates wrote about me, haha!

- Many wishing for Christmas, friendship anniversary, from Sophie!

- 1 tiny Christmas card from Deon.
- A post card from Wan Jun when she was in Vietnam for internship.

- Tickets from the 1st overseas trip to Phuket & Zoo with my beloved Lynette.

I'm totally showing off here! Muahaha!

Here is the before and after photo of my desk! Dope huh?

So I was bored the other day while studying for MR and decided to spend 45 minutes taking photos of my watches. Hope I don't do badly for that paper because of this... I don't see myself doing any better anyway, since I didn't study much and that paper was pretty tricky, hahaha! That's the problem with last paper of the exam.

Let me do some review of these humble watches since I'm such an enthusiastic of wrist watches.

This is a digital with hour & minute hand Armani Exchange 44mm (without crown) watch with a huge 26mm lug. Having trouble finding replacement haha!
I believe it has normal mineral crystal as you can see I accidentally got it scratched... Heartache but after awhile I understood the meaning of "wear & tear". So its pretty inevitable, considering the mineral crystal.
Great daily beater with alarm, countdown timer, chronograph, dual timezone and blue light. My only concern is the battery life. Must require plenty of power to run both digital screen and movement hands.
Oh, its also a 21st birthday present from Alvin, KC & Pei Lin! Sentimental value yet again :D haha!

This is a popular low-end Seiko diver watch. Also an entry level automatic watch, without hacking and hand-wind ability.
Pretty common dimensions, 40mm case excluding crown, 22mm lug with a see-through back case. Its bezel can only be turned counter-clock wise.
Equipped with the Seiko in-house hardlex crystal which is said to be better than mineral and "weaker" than sapphire. Not bad in my opinion, had some knocks here & there but no visible scratches so far.
The lume is definitely great. Still considerably visible at the end of the movie "Skyfall" when I watched it last night.

This watch is my 23rd birthday present from beloved Lynette :D
It has a 44mm excluding crown and 22mm lug with mineral crystal. Check out the crown guard, its the unique feature of this watch & that definitely made it stand out among its class.
Has a classy black case, not sure if its PVD but the white dial, black case and light brown strap appeared to be a beautiful combination. Pity there isn't lume on the hand markers though.
& of course, has the highest/greatest sentimental value :D

Lastly, I'm looking forward to getting my Seiko Monster this holiday! Still considering though... But its a "must-have" watch for all diver-style lover! Hmmm...

We only live once

Down with Marketing Communication, 3 more to go! AMCA is seriously a pain in the ass... 

Anyway, I read the article about Dr Richard Teo. Got to admit, I didn't know about his existence until last night when I read the article and it has probably gone viral by now; over Facebook and the net.

Do read up the article or passage, whatever you want to call it, if you see it on your wall, can even do a Google search, totally worth the time.

Towards the end of the article, he quoted this, from the book, "Tuesday with Morries",

"Everyone knows that they are going to die; every one of us knows that. The truth is, none of us believe it because if we did, we will do things differently. When I faced death, when I had to, I stripped myself off all stuff totally and I focused only on what is essential. The irony is that a lot of times, only when we learn how to die then we learn how to live."

The hard truth. 

RIP Dr Richard Teo.

Body sculpting is an obsession!

Never walk pass the mirror after working out cause you just might end up posing and taking photos for 15 minutes. Well... At least that's what just happened to me...

After 30 minutes intensive abs and obliques workout with  about-to-cramp maximum flex. Hahaha!

Alright back to AMCA! 

"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out." - Robert Collier

Examination is on!

Hello! Once again its the end of semester examination's study break! Seems like there are too much to study. Can't afford to repeat any modules though, else its going to mean real trouble. The modules I'm taking are Advance Marketing Concept & Applications, Market Research, Service Quality and Integrated Marketing Communication. Real pain the ass.

Life's been good; a cute girlfriend, handful of buddies, couple of friends that surface once in a while, financially "stable" - meaning at least 3 full meals a day, don't have to wear torn clothes, can even afford supplements! What more to ask for?
Its not that I'm too easily contented and complacent with life but because I've got it figured out. No point admiring or getting envious with what others have, we have our own paths to walk, just got to focus on our own; don't compare but take reference and be motivated, keep walking and build our own paths.

The main purpose of this update is actually to share the results of my workout so far. Not yet impressive, but I know I'll be there someday, just got to keep training.

""Get shredded or die trying."

Alright, back to the books, peace out!

"It's my birthday!"

Hello! I had a great day! Firstly, I'd like to thanks my beloved girlfriend for bringing my friends together and the beauful watch! I love you! & of course my family members! Thank you all!
Next, to those who had lunch with me at Red Star and this goes out to those who wanted to but time or schedule didn't allow, thank you my dear friends! Especially Alvin for the meal, big thanks!
And lastly, to all those who wished me through any possible means, thank you all!

The weather is so damn warm! Gosh... Maybe it's time to get a nice skin color ton...
Heat better beat Thunder later(NBA)! Arghhh!

Keepin' this alive

Hello, I'm here to do a little lame update after 2 months. Been studying for exam, won't say I studied hard, else I wouldn't feel so unconfident everytime I walk out the hall. 1 last Consumer Behaviour left on coming Tuesday, hope I can excel. Hahaha!

Becoming a lazy dog these days, don't even workout no more. Sleep till 11:30am daily and had plenty of junk foods. But no worries, this lifestyle is coming to an end in approximately 3 days! Can't guarantee about the junk food part though... Mind just keeps having the desire to eat, eat and eat...
Shall go shower and make myself a nice cup of teh peng(iced milk tea) and continue with... the "Browsing-through" of textbook plus notes. Ciao.

Siao Kia

Act of Valor

"So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.
Trouble no one about their religion;
respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours.
Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.
Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people.
Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.
Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend,
even a stranger, when in a lonely place.
Show respect to all people and grovel to none.
When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living.
If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.
Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools
and robs the spirit of its vision.
When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled
with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep
and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.
Sing your death song and die like a hero going home."
- Tecumseh

Happy New Year!

Hohoho! Merry Belated Christmas & a Happy New Year! Had a homely Christmas celebration at Sophie's house. Tons of good food, almost stuffed me to death! I'm no picture all talk though :D

We had:

• Soba from Lynette
• Jelly from me
• Honey Glazed Chicken Wings from Sophie
• Fried Rice from Ser Chin
• McDonald's Nuggets from Xing Lun
• Popeye's Fried Chicken, Salad & Mashed Potato from KC & HP
• Soft Drinks from Kenneth
• Cordon Bleu from Alvin

I guess that's about it, haha! Well... Not superb delicacies, but it's the people & not the food that count right!? Wahahaha!

Beijing tour! After 2 long months!

Hohoho! I'm back! Plenty of things happened in these 2 months!

Firstly, I went to Beijing in November! Well, must say that the country was indeed heavily polluted & their traffic control was insane! Crossing roads at traffic lights and jay-walking made no difference, the cars held no concern about whether red or green lights! Here are some pictures from my iPhone & Lynette's camera.

On the way from airport to hotel! We stayed at Novotel Peace Hotel.
(iPhone)

A street near our hotel selling all sorts of food!
(By Lynette)

All sort of meat, intestines and...
(By Lynette)

From top left: Something of the bee, centipede, beetle & beetle.
From top left: Silk worm's cocoon(which we ate), larger centipede, snake & sheep's penis! Waha!
(By Lynette)

Ready for day 2!
(iPhone)

That's us at 天安门广场!
(Lynette's camera)

The Forbidden City! 紫禁城!
(By Lynette)

Another view
(iPhone)

This is where the Emperor would chill during moon-cake festival for moon-gazing.
(iPhone)

This tree is 300 years old! In fact, there are plenty of trees this age in there!
(iPhone)

At Temple of Heaven! 天坛! This was where the Emperor would come to pray!
(Lynette's camera)

Everyone will have a shot like this if they ever went there.
(Lynette's camera)

Day 3 at Great Wall of China! The view wasn't as magnificent as I thought. Guess our tour guild sucks too much, didn't allow us much time to walk.
(By Lynette)

Went to the infamous "bird-nest" stadium for Olympic 2008!
(Lynette's camera)

This is the "water-box", where all the competitions for water sports were held.
(Lynette's camera)

These are the main attractions of our Beijing tour, the rest included going to the silk, jade and... 景泰藍 factories, where they encouraged us to buy stuffs.

Not forgetting a Dr. Tea, where we were taught the correct ways to drink different type of teas, as well as the advantages of drinking tea to our health. We went to have lunch at one of the normal peasant house too & it was definitely much better than those arranged by our guild.

The 2nd last day was basically free & easy. We went to this mall somewhere which sells super over priced stuffs! We were told to bargain and reduce the prices to at least 30%! That's how much they marked up!

More updates to come! Stay tuned!