Title: Minna, Shin nen ha omedeto: Everyone, congratulations on the new year (Direct translation?? o_O')

I really hope my title is gramatically correct.. Well even if it isn't... oh well.. *shrugs*
Anyway, as the title says!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!

Hope everyone had a nice year end party, I sort of had one.. and well.. new year resolutions.... aahh.. sounds like something I make each year only to forget I ever made them.... I don't think I really make any resolutions any way.. .so that's that.... Maybe to try to get back to improving on my Japanese, finish translating the Ghost Hunt Manga, and well.. try to learn more at my new job..... be a better person?? Yeah, that's the reason why I don't exactly make new year resolutions.... We can make those kind of resolutions anytime we want :p

Anyway, here's to wishing that everyone had a wonderful 2008 and hoping for an even better 2009 for us... And some good luck in whatever you do!! cause we all need a little bit of luck in everything we do.. :)

-Oracl3-

cross posted to my LJ.

31st October 2008 was halloween.. although this country of mine doesn't widely celebrate it as in like the west, Mel decided to organise one for our university mates.. so we did.. and on the 31st we ended up at TGIF at the curve for dinner and to well.. just be what we aren't haha..

Well.. there's nothing much to say here.. the pictures will say it all, when blogspot or maxis.. stops being such and ass and allows me to upload pictures.. so await an edit to this post...

Edit

Here we have Terence as the Joker from batman.. Me as a Japanese School girl... most likely from Tokyo haha.. Xian Ai & Wei Li the devil... Some waiter from TGIF posing as grim the ripper and Marlyn as some vampire...


after dinner we headed to Quatron near KLCC for some clubbing.. it's anew club with the concept of having 4 seasons.. hence the reason of my post now... If you are the kind like me, who goes clubbing for the dancing part and not the drinking part.. then please spare yourself the misery of going to Quatron..

That place is for people to drink!! There is no dance floor.. I reapeat... THERE IS NO DANCE FLOOR. The place is horrid if you hate ciggeratte smoke like me.. and well my allergies thank you to it.. My eyes sting like mad.. and well.. strangely enough.. I didn't cough that much as I thought I would.... Well in return I got a headache.. guess the people nearby must have been smoking... ermm.. Dunhills I think... Well, if I recall correctly that's the brand that gives me minimal cough but a huge headache... sigh..

Well, the smoke was horrible for my eyes.. and I suffer the effects still... one day after that.. And I've washed my hair twice and it STILL STINKS OF CIGGERATE SMOKE... Woe is me.....

Listening to Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture..... fitting?? Watched 2 movies today.. The Holiday and 21.. Yesterday I watched Just Like Heaven.. all 3 are nice movies.. shall review them later when I get the chance... Since I start work this coming monday... =.='

And also speaking of which.. when the club asked for contact details I purposely changed one of the digits of my handphone number to avoid getting spammed by them.. and woah... they still managed to send spam to me... =.=' horrible.. totally horrible...

-Oracl3-

Another really delayed post.. this was from Chinese New Year this year.. & it's all dinners, dinners and more dinners... [don't ask me why.. I don't know either.. Eat, drink and be merry?]

I don't know in what order the pictures goes either.. I'm just posting for the sake of posting??? O_o'

But anyway here goes... not much of a commentary.. Since I don't know which picture is for what? the Reunion dinner? Dinner on the night of Chinese New Year? I don't know..

All I remember was.. as usual it was dull for me.. and so boring.. and I didn't get any mahjong this year... sigh..... Not to mention it was hot as hell. Hence you see me, in spaghetti straps most of the time. I was practically melting and wishing for UK weather...

At Indah Rasa...

Maybe it's the reunion dinner.. But not everyone was here yet....

Ermm dinner on the night or second night of Chinese New Year? Because this is Aunt Penny and she usually comes back at around that time...

Well, parents & I.. This is at Siong Hei Lau..

3rd uncle and family.. beats me why I'm loading pictures of relatives.. when this is my blog, and should be pictures of me.... but well... it's related...

relatives, relatives...

more relatives...

Another dinner at Indah Rasa??? I ran out of spaghetti straps? but it's air-conditioned there so it's fine...

Ain't my grandma cute when she smiles hehe

5th uncle & family with grandma...

3rd uncle and family...

The food? okay.. it doesn't really look that artistic.. but it tastes good.. never judge a book or in this case.. food by it's cover/look..?

Nothing much for this post, [I don't recall much, maybe because I was bored half to death then..] and the pictures does all the talking.. this is only the paternal side of the family.. I don't know why, and don't ask.. but the maternal side seems to be lacking in a whole lot of pictures...

I need to burn all these pictures into a CD for my paternal side of the family.. So I'll have to scavenge for the DVD in which I burnt it all in... if there is such a thing.. I hope.... =.='

-Oracl3-

The 22nd December 2007, was the date my brother arrived with his girlfriend. If I recall correctly, he arrived in the late morning or so.. Hence , right after his arrival we headed back to Bentong for a family dinner, as it was the Winter Festival [It's a festival to celebrate the coming of winter, though Malaysia has no winter...]

We came back in time to see my Grandmother [Paternal side] making Tong Yuen [It's little bite sizeed balls made out of rice flour, I think, with fillings inside, usually Sugar is used as it's core, though other things such as peanuts may be used. Cooked in Ginger water.... It's traditional to have it during the Winter Festival, and I don't know where this came from, but apparently the amount of the balls one eats, is equivalent to your age, eg if you are 20 you eat 20 balls. but we don't do that haha.. Also the eating Tong Yuen, if I'm not wrong, signifies that you are a year older, which is a good thing? Because in olden days.. Living itself was hard.. you know, diseases and famine.. etc...]

So, we taught Junko how to make them and we all sat down together to roll the balls [Usually the children enjoy doing this, and I must say, I enjoyed doing it when I was a child :p ]

Here are the ladies seated together rolling the balls, My grand ma was making white and pink ones.. and I taught Junko that we can actually combine them, and make them look like pretty little marbles :p

When that was done, and after lazing around for a bit, it was time for dinner.. The winter festival, is another excuse besides Chinese New Year, for Chinese people to gather with their family...

We headed to... Siong Hei Lau? One of the restaurants in Bentong, and sat down to nothing else but a Chinese dinner :)

My family & Junko :) enjoying the food... [Since when, don't we enjoy food? Most of us LOVE to eat..]

My 4th uncle and his family.. they live down the road from me.. convenient in some sense :)

My fifth uncle and family, his son isn't in it.. can't remember where he went, for camp maybe.. and at the corner is my grandma..

This isn't the whole family.. it's only 3 [including my dad, my dad has 6 siblings.. so only half were here.. we don't want to talk about my maternal side... it's double the amount..] of my grandmother's children that came back.. although it's preferable if the whole family came back, but the modern world dictates our life sometimes.. and people have to work...

Here we are again, with the Shark fin's soup [Though whether it's real Shark's Fin or not.. I'm not very sure... =.=']

And that's all for the dinner.. the next day we headed up to Genting Highlands as can be seen from the post below.. So we just ate and was merry.. And went home to bed...

-Oracl3-

Sadly, my 4th guitar string broke.. and it was new too, not even a year's old.. sigh... and the packaging proudly advertised itself as being of the best quality.. liars!!

Title: Red Cliff

二零零八年七月二十五日：金曜日

Today I went to Bandar Utama to watch the movie red cliff with my parents.

I've always been one who has been sort of fascinated with our Chinese Legends and History and all, though laziness, prevents me from doing further research and I usually except what falls into my lap.. haha.. but well as Dave said on his blog before.. it's the effort, have to put in the effort for whatever we do [I recall something about a fish to big for the pan, so the fisherman let it go... haven't that fisherman heard of knives.. and something called, cutting the fish up to fit the pan? =.=']...

So since it's the holidays for me now.. maybe I should.. the internet is vast... but I prefer to read books.. maybe I should go and look for those old picture books, and well, though my Chinese is crap.. they usually have those little English translations at the bottom :p

Okay... I went to watch that show, for those who don't know, it's based on Chinese History, and a novel which fictionalised that history called the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, it's based on the time before China was united into what it was, and it covers our ever legendary God of war Guan Gong, the red faced warrior.

As a child, I do watch those TVB shows [relying on the Malay subtitles then, to understand what is going on, because they use the old formal way of speaking in such shows.. and I don't understand... sadly... even now...the old way of speaking, can be really confusing... plus the proverbs and all.. haha] and from there, I know of our Chinese Legends, plus some reading as well, and lucky for bananas like me... who can't really read Chinese, there are some books with some simple illustrations and English translation.

I like reading all those old stories, the Tales of Liao Zhao, of fox spirits, the monkey king, the goddess of mercy, the eight immortals.. I basically read what I could get my hands on... [no internet at that time yet.. and well. .the internet wasn't that popular at that time..] and watched whatever they showed on television, though I must say, sometimes TVB likes to exaggerate, but guess that's for the ratings...

But anyway, I deviated off the topic... as I was saying, since I'm into stuff like that [though my memory is fuzzy on the storyline and all, I didn't finish the story, as I couldn't find the rest of the books at my relatives place.. I was just left hanging there... maybe I should go out and buy them myself :p] and so is my dad... we went off to catch it..

The movie seems to centre around the epic battle at the red cliff, hence, obviously its title... And if you don't know the story at all. .you wouldn't know how all the generals and all met up etc.. Wouldn't know their relations and all with each other... I sort of remember cause of the television dramas... but I prefer to get my hands on the books.... it's been years.. and I was but a child when I read and watched the story.. so I've sort of forgotten most of it..

But the movie overall... it's ok, too much fighting scenes... there were some funny moments, and some brotherhood/loyalty to friends [sorry, don't know how to describe yi hei in English] scenes.. but overall it was ok.. the battles, especially the use of the ba gua [ermm, 8 formation?] tactic was good, but when I read on wikipedia, apparently in REAL history such a move wasn't used till after that period.... but oh well.. movies are movies... they need the ratings to rake in money.. still, it was impressive... A real good war tactic...

However, I will say that.. I want to catch the next one... because the cinematography is beautiful, and well, I want to see how they fight it out.. though I roughly recall how it will turn out, seeing it on screen is another matter... but that's about it... it was okay

And I don't know why, this past two days since after the exams.. I feel so tired always.. I haven't even watched an episode of anime yet.. but I am trying to catch up on my manga downloads haha.. so that's all.. I'm going to try and turn in early tonight.. hope the green tea from my Japanese dinner, don't keep me up the whole night.. :p

-Oracl3-

P/s: anyone interested in the new "The Mummy" movie? it opened today.... :p

the Chinese all know what this is about, going to the graveyards of our ancestors to clean their graves, give them offerings and pray..

it's an amazing thing the chinese culture, seeing that we have been a society since 5000 years ago.. the culture that we have developed, the respect for our elders and the dead..

it's festivals like these, that leads us back to our roots, to know who our ancestors are, to learn where we came from.

although i must say it's tiring, having to hike up a hill (before the break of dawn), at least i was spared the hard part of grave cleaning, since i'm a weak little female haha... it was good exercise though...

one thing which i'm curious about is the burning of offerings.. in most religions, burning is a way to purify...but it seems that for us, it also sends things down to hell for our dead relatives to use.... interesting right? how on earth did such an idea come up?

another thing that i noticed is that, our practises for our culture aren't really environmental friendly.. what with all the burning of stuff.. it's pollution.. i mean all the chinese in the world are doing it!! don't we have any alternatives i wonder... but oh well culture is culture... and i love oriental culture :p

but that's all, just went up to the graves, met my dad's cousins... (as well came from the same ancestor so naturally we would meet each other at the graves...)

it wasn't my first time going for ching bing.. but nevertheless, i still felt that it was an interesting event.

people grouping together.. socialising in a graveyard of all places.. haha.. but oh well.. guess that's just life. :)

-Oracl3-

Unfortunately, i don't really have any pictures of the tea ceremony as PK and the professional photographer were taking the pictures, and from my stand point, it was very hard for me to take the pictures. (The pictures from the professional, wasn't very nice so i'm not using them...)

Hence what i have here are the pictures that I took, while waiting for the groom to come over, to begin the tea ceremony....

The groom was staying in the apartment next door, and i guess we were waiting for the auspicious time to begin the ceremony, the improvements made, to satiate our chinese customs were really interesting....

For example, since the groom did not have to drive to the bride's house, instead of getting the youngest male member of the bride's side of the family to open the car door, they replaced that with the door of the apartment...

and well, i think because space was constricted, the bargaining at the door instead of being done by the bride's best friends (zhi mui, sisters? girl best friends?) it was done by the bride's brothers.. haha.. totally interesting...

anyway, here are the pictures...

Ling and i taking in the view of the golf course while waiting for the ceremony...

Uncle Robert and i, striking a pose for the camera, it was during this time that i learnt a few new tricks about using a camera, since my uncle likes to take pictures..

Three cousins, braving the morning's chilly air to take some pictures together... tsk, tsk, those two don't have very good standing postures... then again, i think i look like some lady from the 18th century, with this posture.. (with my hands clasped infront of me..) haha :p

The bride in her pretty green cheong sam and i... waiting ever so patiently for the groom to come over, for the ceremony to begin... i like the way my hair falls over on my shoulders on this picture hehe :p

The boquet of roses for the bride..

The boquet of roses for the bridesmaid..

Since i had nothing to do while waiting for the ceremony to begin, i decided to put into use the new found knowledge taught by my uncle :p the effect is quite nice, as the florist had sprayed the flowers with some water to keep them fresh, the way the water captures the flash of the camera, (especially for the red roses) makes it look like there are daimonds on the flower, doesn't it? :p

Photography could really become a hobby of mine, haha, but it's only a fluke that from time to time i manage to catch beautiful pictures, thanks to the angle of the lighting at the time.. i sitll remember a picture i took in St. James Park, London. the sunlight was at the right angle, that it looked like a beam of light was shinning down..

Well maybe it's a fluke, maybe it's instinct.. or maybe a combination of both.....

-Oracl3-

On a late morning, of the 15th of September, after the tea ceremony in the morning, all of us bundled into the car, to head to the St. Mary's Catholic Church for the wedding Ceremony, Between my cousin Magdalene & Glenn..

The church on the outside, and the father of the bride, waiting for the bride, to walk with her into the church..

The ermm... booklet for the ceremony, stating the bride and groom's names, the date and the church name.. i.e St Mary's church. click to enlargen and read..

After the ceremony, everyone was happily grouping around to celebrate the new happily married couple :p

me standing next to the sign, so that i will remember what is the church called.. though i was dressed like that.. but excuse me, i can be vain too.. because it was freaking cold!!! it drizzled/rained somewhat, resulting in the drop of tempreture..

So much for the church wedding.. Now, on to the Wedding Dinner, which was held in a golf course's (i think) ball room...

it was really romantic, with the chandelier, and all the candles.. it had a quaint feel with all the barrels stocked by the side..

Yen Ping, Me, and Yen Ling, i'm like some mamasan hahaha
which girl do you want? the one on the right or the left? haha :p

The Lim Family at the wedding dinner..... i should be standing at the back, since i'm kind of tall, and therefore will block people.. but i didn't have time.. as i had to pass my camera to someone to help us take the picture...

Yen Ling and i posing in front of the heater... it was kind of cold in there.. :p

A cousin Picture!! Yen ping, Yen Ling, PK and me.. why am the only one in red? i wanted to wear black, but i heard that some people were against it (pantang...) so i opted for my red cheong sam.. ceh.. or i would have wore my black dress, seems we all like to wear black.. :p

it wasn't a bad night.. though i noticed that compred to lorena's (my sister's ex-collegue in Prague) that asians are kind of shy to get onto the dance floor to dance, which resulted in me dragging my cousins out to dance..

One thing i don't share with my cousins is my love for dance, and my not so love for alcohol.. :p

-Oracl3-

✿✿My White Day Sweetheart is Oliver Davis✿✿

I'm sure that some of you must be having question marks (?) flying around your head like butterflies... So allow me to explain, for those who do not know.

First, White Day.... (Click the link, but I'm about to state the information here, anyway..)
It started in Japan in 1978, but is now celebrated in South Korea and Taiwan. Traditionally White Day is held exactly a month after Valentine's Day. (i.e. 14th of March)

Valentine's Day in Japan, if you asked me is unlike Valentine's day worldwide. Worldwide, on valentine's day, couples regardless of the male or female counterparts, will exchange gifts. The guy may give the girl flowers, the girl may give him chocolates.... etc

In Japan it's different. On Valentine's day, the guy gives nothing. Instead they do all the recieving, mostly they get chocolates. For those who don't like sweet things, the girls may give them something else.

Usually the girl gives chocolates to the guy she likes, signifying that she has special feelings for him. Thus, in Japan, Valentine's Day becomes somewhat like a popular vote for the guys. The more chocolate a guy recieves, the more popular he is with the girls. Hence, the gloomy, sad depressed looks we see on Japanese Drama, Manga and Anime on the characters who don't even recieve a piece of chocolate.

Actually, (this isn't on wikipedia, but based on my observations of Japanese Drama, Anime and Manga...) besides giving chocolates to the one she likes, some girls take the oppurtunity to thank friends as well, and give out what is called "obligatory" chocolates.

These are usually given to the girl's father or brother (if she is close to them, or any other male relative that she is close to, and doesn't mind receiving the chocolates..); to her guy friends (close ones, and always in the presence of the other recievers, so that he doesn't get the wrong idea), and to girlfriends/bestfriends (same rule applies as when giving to guy friends.)

So basically, the girls may exchange chocolates with the other girls on Valentine's Day as a show of appreciation of their friendship.

Now, isn't it unfair that only the guys receive? --> Thus, the birth of White Day!

On White Day i.e. 14 March, It is the turn of the boys who have recieved chocolates to return the favour. If you had clicked on the link above, (or may do so after reading this post), It's already explained that, usually guys will have to buy back something for the girl. Usually more expensive.. They may give chocolates back to the girl, or buy her jewellry etc.. But those usually apply to guys who are reciporating the girl's feelings..

For the guys recieving "Love" Chocolate, They may choose to reply. If they reply by giving the girl something in return, he is replying her feelings, if he doesn't.. She has been rejected...

So basically Valentine's Day is like a Love confession day. Though there may be shy girls who give chocolates anonymously, or maybe because the guy is the "Idol" of the school... (Following manga, anime and Japanese Drama, this sort of translates out as, he belongs to everyone in the school) being popular sure is hard...

For the obligatory chocolates. The male friends (as stated, female friends exchange chocolates on the same day), if they aren't too shy (which most of them are.. So many girls don't really expect a return of gifts from them) They may return the favour by giving the girl chocolates, or maybe other things such as, ribbons for the hair..etc small little gifts in return, to show that they appreciate her friendship as well.. (But I personally think this is rare, because guys in Japan are very shy, and they don't want to give the wrong impression that they like the girl. Even if they return the gift, it's usually, personally done in private...To avoid misunderstanding from the other guys, who may tease him endlessly...But I wonder if he returns the gift, saying it's just thank you for the obligatory chocolates.. Does he like her too?? maybe that's the reason girls don't get much back on White Day...)

Also I think, that maybe they don't take it seriously or importantly unless they are in love with the said girl...

Thus that is about it on my explanations on White Day, You can google it yourself for more information.
You know it's interesting to note that the South Koreans have an alternative celebration called Black Day on March 14th.. For the poor singles who have no chocolates...
~~
Now we are going to the little pinkish words at the start and end of this post. I was suppsoed to post this before March 14, but I was busy and forgot.. But better late than never..
Now this little link, is not the 'obligatory' one More like a fangirl's "Love"

For the fans of the anime Ghost Hunt, if you were a true fan, you would have searched the far corners of the internet to find more information about the anime, and discover that the Ghost Hunt Story actually originated from novels..

If you have a Facebook account head on over here --> Ghost Hunt to review the information that I managed to hunt down online..

For a little information for those who have yet to watch Ghost Hunt.. (I've posted about this anime before, but I'm sure most of you didn't read it.. so here goes..)

Ghost Hunt is an anime based on the supernatural. It basically follows the life of Taniyama Mai who came across a Ghost Hunter (Shibuya Kazuya).

Her school principle had called the Shibuya Psychic Research (SPR - Which is also an acronym for Society of Psychical Research, It's HQ located in London, whereas it's research Labs are located in Cambridge.. They investigate Psychic & Paranormal activities)

It's really intersting, especially if you are like me, a person who tends to search and read things online after watching a show.. (That's why they say watching television is educational, if only you do things like me, that is..)

Anyway, back to the main point about Oliver Davis (If you want to know more, just click on the provided links,or search for it yourself..)

WARNING SPOILER!!

Stop reading if you don't want to read a spoiler.. Which actually, wikipedia already revealed (somewhat), and if you had clicked on the facebook link...

Anyway, the aforementioned Kazuya Shibuya is/was actually one of a pair of twins. He was an orphan and was adopted by and English couple who gave him the name Oliver Davis, (nicknamed Noll, and in Japanese Noll can be mistakenly pronounced as Naru [ナル], due to the heavy japanese accent. He was given the nickname Naru short for Narcissism, watch or read the manga to find out why...) and his twin brother (who is a splitting image of him, and sound the same, and totally indistinguishable if they are both emotionless..) is called Eugene Davis (nicknamed Gene)

Gene had died in something that looked like an accident,(suspected murder) and Noll has come to Japan to look for his body. Noll found out about Gene's death through parapsychology, where he touched Gene's clothes and was placed at the scene of his death.

Both of them, though they look and sound similiar, they had different personalities, and somehow.. Though most people would have choose Gene's personality (Nice, talkative, expressive, smiles easily) I somehow am attracted to Noll instead (quiet, sarcastic, rarely smiles.. often described as a "stick in the mud idiot scientist"...) I really can't describe it, i guess you really have to go watch the anime or read the manga, both which i possess, so you may get them form me, if you wish.

Oliver Davis, just attracts me.. could be his gentleness, his love for his friends, his intelligence, his cool demeanor.. I mean though he is sarcastic he is nice in his own way.. (I love the way he treats Mai, She's like the only special one.. I love their interactions, NaruxMai fangirl here haha... He understands her so well..) Haha, maybe it's because though he acts like a cold insensitive jerk most of the time, but he is still sensitive, (sorry for being contradicting, but that's just me..) and... (I don't know?? ) since more people would chose his twin brother over him, there's no competition (?) just crapping [なんてね？じょうだんです，じょうだん]

But oh well, just to explain that, I've written another long essay, I would really love to write a really, long essay about Ghost Hunt but I digress. Too lazy and besides i have class later in the evening at 6pm

Anyway, not everyone shares my love or interest, so if you are interested you may click on the links provided...

The best way still, to understand my reason for 'choosing' Oliver Davis "Noll" out of sooooo many anime characters.. is to watch the anime...

*I could have choosen Syouran (Cardcaptor Sakura/ Tsubasa Reservior Chronicles), Alzeid (Hatenkou Yuugi), Tsukimori Len (La Corda D'Oro), Train Heartnet (Black Cat), Kudo Shinichi (Detective Conan, or maybe Kaito Kiddo ), gosh the list is endless, since I've watched so many animes.. But I guess for the time being Naru-bou is my favourite :)
Just a little warning, don't watch the anime at 2-3am it scares the shit out of you!!


-Oracl3-


✿✿My White Day Sweetheart is Oliver Davis✿✿
I think i've figured out the Html Codes for the sakuras haha, maybe i can use them in the future for other posts...