Loving for love's sake

Hello Travellers!

There seems to be no end to the talk about natural disasters today. Every corner of the planet seems to be invaded with some sort of tragedy leaving us misery.

From Earthquakes to Tsunamis.
From Tsunamis to floods.
From floods to fire.
From fire to nuclear exposure.
From nuclear exposure to volcanoes.
It never ends.

Just this morning, I heard news concerning the shores of East Malaysia. Apparently, a multitude of sea snails that resided in the sea appeared on the shorelines! Yes, animals are most sensitive to chaos and with that said, is something about to happen here?
How peculiar and frightening. Still, we wonder what is going on in the world today.

Today at about 4:30 pm, another nuclear plant in Japan exploded. This makes it the second one to go out of control leaving Japan even more vulnerable than she already is.

We can't help but wonder what's next.

So what can we do? We can't really stop a fifty feet wave from crashing our land. We can't hide from the nuclear waves that escape into our air. We can't build our city in the air, away from the threat of earthquakes.
But we can stand together. Support each other. Delete all boundaries and differences.

I never understood the concept of lines and how it separates us. Nor did I understand the definition of color that groups us differently. Inside, we are all the same. So why should we think twice in helping others? Not that we didn't. I am fully supportive and thankful for all the efforts made across the world to help Japan out of the bucket. But this would also imply that we should never think about pointing a gun to another human being as well. Or drop a grenade in a foreign land.

Quoting The Beatles, Love is all we need.
Tis true, but not practiced. When will we start loving for the sake of love?

Here's a little song I wrote based upon my thoughts on how we should live, and inspired by the tragedy that the world is facing today.
Hopefully the words strike a bell in your hearts.


When It Comes Down To This: A Tribute to Japan.

Yours Truly.

Failure? Pssssfh!

Hello Travellers,

Apparently, Bill Gates once said:
I failed in some subjects in my exam, but my friend passed in all. Now he is an engineer in Microsoft and I am the owner of Microsoft…!


Pretty epic.
So how does that rate the importance of education versus hard work and determination?

With that said, if you fail your classes, you're not a total failure just yet.
Well, you can be if you don't work your butt off!
But you get what I mean.

The young and cute nerd, 
THE one and only Bill Gates.
Gotta love them glasses.

You're not a Failure.
Yours Truly.

Beach! I missed you.

Hello Travellers!

Today was an amazing day at the beach.
But best of all were the people who went along with me.
The purpose of it all was baptism. And it was a successful one. Of course, despite the occurrence of three jellyfish that were huge (ps: we caught them), we had a lot of fun.

Here's a photograph of the baptized.

Asians. So plenty of food to share. And plenty laughter. And plenty volume. What can I say, we are a loud.
So this beach isn't that amazing. Nevertheless it is still a beach and I've missed the sea so much. Teluk Batik is maintained pretty well and the facilities are wonderful but I wouldn't call the water amazing. There are better beaches out here in Malaysia!

Here's a snapshot.

And a photo of our palm trees.

Pretty green. Another thing that annoyed me was how irresponsible Malaysians can be. When we got there, the place was gorgeous. But when we left, I saw so many plastic bottles and random trash all over. It is really sad and embarrassing at the same time so please pick up after yourself!

Of course, I couldn't resist but take a few personal snapshots. You may already be bored out of your mind seeing these. I always have the same poses. Well, that's because my arms usually only extend to a certain length and a certain angle. You can't do much. Just so you know. Oh, and that's the national flower. No, not me. But the red hibiscus on my head!

And a little artsy one just for fun.

Here's me and my aunt. Obviously, she wasn't paying very much attention!

Photograph with the help of Ezekiel Tan

Like I said, great people! We even buried some.

Aww, how cute. These little monkeys.

Well, for those who have never been to Lumut, you have to try the cendol in Sitiawan. 

What's cendol? Its this sweet desert with coconut milk, shaved ice, sticky rice and beans in it that makes it amazing! And you can find the best cendol in Malaysia here! So refreshing...

Only the best. Served in the King's court and loved by all.

I think that sums up the best of the day. Well, I suppose my one hour nap in the afternoon did. Sleep is so beautiful. And it rained again this evening- really heavily, which made the wind super strong. Oh I love it.

Yours Truly.

Tsunami. Boom.

Hello Travellers,

I'm sure you've heard of the Tsunami strikes around the world today. What can we do?
Generally, we can't do anything but wait and watch. We do not have the capabilities to stop Mother Nature from going wild! However, we could stick together and form a wall of support.
This is when boundaries need to be broken and countries forgotten.
Colours need to fade.
We are all the same.

Obviously, I'm sitting here writing this in the comfort of my home but I'm also thinking about those in the alerted regions, I wonder what I'd do if I were in their shoes.
Would I be running inwards or would I be praying my heart out? Or would I be sitting, waiting, surrendering? At desperate moments like these, one would never know.
Would I be saying 'I love you' to the ones I feared saying to? Would I shun away the thoughts?
We can never predict our actions in distress.

Tsunamis are unpredictable in nature. What happens is they suck in all the water causing the tide to decrease drastically and then boom it hits!
Moments like these. Unexplainable. Unpredictable.

But do we act like tsunamis ourselves?
Hide it all in until the very last minute. BOOM.
Sometimes we don't know until it is too late.

Yours Truly.

What Makes Your Photograph?

Hello Travellers!

What makes a good photograph?
Artistic perspective.
Great lighting.
A message.

When we take self portraits, we only want to record our best sides. Nobody likes to keep their bad profiles. So through the invention of photography, we can hide our real selves so we could look good in the eyes of other people. Why can't we get rid of the masks?

Personally, even I take pride in my photographs but when it comes to the real me, I freak out.
I feel inadequate. Uncertain. Inferior.
My camera makes me look fatter which is much more appealing.
My camera also makes me look fairer which is definitely more attractive.
The way I angle my head helps with my atrocious under-bite and protruding jaw.
Pimples and zits? Editing takes care of that.

But we can't hide for long. Sooner or later, you will discover that carrying these photographs in your pocket tires you and wears you down after awhile. You can't run free. Nor will you fly.

So what's the cure for this disease?
Even I have not figured that one out just yet. All I know is that we can't live our lives in snapshots.
Where does the confidence start? We can all be confident in certain things but there surely is something that can trigger fear.

I always hear the phrase 'Imperfection is perfection' and I believe it with all my heart.
But I need time to face these imperfection and unfortunately, I think I'll have to learn to love myself before I can let love in.

So toss those photographs and start living.

Yours Truly.

Play it Again

Hello Travellers!

I think that lately I've developed this weird obsession habit. When I find a song I like, I'd play it over and over again. And I do mean over and over because I don't seem to stop for hours. It seems really odd but I could never have enough of one thing and I wonder why.

Have you ever felt that way?
When a song makes you feel so alive all of a sudden. Only the power of music.
Sometimes, nothing else seems to cut through but music.

I wish there were a repeat button that I could click on so I didn't have to restart it again and again.
I still wonder why.

Maybe its the exhilarating feeling we humans have always needed and always will need. We need something to cling on to and ride with it over and over again, even though we may never have noticed in the first place.
Whatever it may be: God, your family, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your best friend.
Whatever your prized possession may be, you need that obsession.

Cause in the end, without obsession, we die of starvation.
So play it again.

Yours Truly.

Up in Reality

Hello Travellers!

I just saw this amazing article about hot air balloons.
I've always wanted to ride on one.
If you've ever watched 'Úp', an animated movie released sometime ago, you will find this pretty epic as well.
A bunch of scientifically talented nerds got out and made it happen for real! Fancy that. A house with the colorful balloons and everything including human beings! Oh, I certainly wish I had the opportunity to be on it. Wouldn't that be the best thing ever in the world?

The whole floating house was said to last for about an hour and floated up past 10,000 feet.
Here's a little photograph of the project.

Want to read more? Here's the article!

http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/upinspired-floating-house-14

Enjoy and live life flying high!

Yours Truly.

Of Tickets and Fines

Hello Travellers!

I was watching the news on TV (First time in a very long time) and they were talking about traffic fines in Malaysia. Apparently, it is that time of the year again where fines or tickets have to be settled or else. Or else, what?
According to what was on my TV screen, only about 700,000 Malaysians have paid their fines.
Of course, there are millions of people living in this country. But if we have 700,000 reckless drivers on the road, shouldn't we start worrying? Besides, every one of these drivers probably received 3 or more tickets every year.
Can we not produce better drivers?

Worse still, many of these reckless citizens are motorcyclists. Even though I've lived in Malaysia for more than 15 years, I still don't understand the traffic lingo here.

Here's a big problem with the situation. People are obviously not going to change if nothing is being done. How many people pay up all their fines and how many actually even bother? Sadly, you could get away with paying only half of the penalty by sending in a flattering letter stating that you are sorry. How does it work here? Can it ever get worse?

I doubt that Malaysians understand the purpose of a zebra crossing. Pedestrians, never trust a zebra crossing. They're just patterns on the streets for color. Once I crossed a zebra crossing after a whole deal of looking around to see if there were no cars. Unfortunately, one shot out of nowhere, charging straight towards me. Rather than slowing down or stopping to allow me time for crossing, the driver honked at me and gave me a nasty stare. How despicable!

Double line? What's that?
I also recently witnessed a truck passing a line of cars while driving on the line in the middle of two lanes because of the lack of space and that cars were coming from the other direction too. How impatient!
Not forgetting motorcyclists who ride while admiring the scenic view around them and going at inconsistent speeds.
Or the ones that weave in and out of traffic making it difficult for car drivers to focus or drive consistently.

Well, I guess here we go again. Time to pay up once again but trust me, without stricter enforcements, we are never going to go anywhere.

Yours Truly.

Angel by Jack Johnson

Hello Travellers!

So, I finally gathered up enough guts to publish my first cover video on YouTube. Even though it isn't perfect, (yes, there were a couple of major slips), I decided that people are imperfect and I'll have to accept the fact someday. So why not now?

The reason why I've never put anything officially up was because I've always felt like I wasn't good enough and I didn't want the public to judge me based on my first publicity.

Yes, this is pretty life changing for me!

So here we go. I know I talk a lot in this video. I hope you'll make it through to the actual singing!

This is 'Angel' written by Jack Johnson. And a little bit of my flare.
Do let me know what you think, though! I'd love some insight- the good, the bad or even the ugly.

p.s.: Click on this to view it on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWe6kJxIXwA



Well, I hope that was a somewhat pleasant experience!
Yours Truly.

McDonald's: An International Standard cont'd

So, here's a photograph of a 'to-go'  box from the local McDonald's.
Pretty different, isn't it?

Yours Truly.