less than one week before cny...

and one more working day before i go on leave! i think this will be my longest cny leave yet...

that being said, the cny mood, or rather the holiday mood has taken a firm grip on me. so even tho i've tons of work to finish before i go on leave, i'm moving at such a slow pace! and having my work external drive crashing on me is of no help at all! what better excuse to procrastinate than running recovery on my external drive, which stores ALL my documents? *note to self: backup all my files during the holidays*

anyway, i myself am also on recovery mode. the past few weeks have been a flurry of practices and rehearsals, that even tho' it's all over (well, momentarily, at least), i'm still so burnt out. ok, so part of the reason for my exhaustion is caused by the hk series gem of life, but it's also because i missed my 'hibernation session' the past weekend! *note to self: to make sure to sleep away my panda eyes before my trip home*

speaking of practices and rehearsals, our performance at the klpac open day last sunday was ok lar... not fantastic, but we didn't suck either (i hope!). oh, check out these great photos taken by adrian, a fine arts student, seen lugging around a big equipment with humongous lens that day. and see if you can spot a shot of me in action! hehe...

read also:
1) what i've been up to lately

what i've been up to lately...

hmm... what have i been up to ar? mostly work, work and more work... cny coming, so need to get all the pending job out before the long break. i hope i won't need to turn on my notebook once during the whole duration. keke... fat hopes lar!

other than work, been ingesting the latest and hottest TVB drama series --> the gem of life. blame it all on N for getting me hooked! coz she's my official supplier lar.

but even though i'm watching so much of drama series lately, my hands were not idle ok? i've been crocheting! hehe... lately i've been itching to pick up the hook again. so watch this space for my latest project, ya!

oh, and i've been bz with practices... first was for the new year performance. then immediately after that, we started practicing for a performance for this coming sunday --> klpac open day. so we've been practicing hard, even tho' it's so near cny and all other gakkai activities have stopped.

ok, just a short 'report' for now... gotta get back to the grind!

new year gift...

see what N made for me as a new year gift!

tic-tac-toe coasters...

while i like to work with yarns, N is more of a felt person. below is the 1st coaster she gave me, abt 4 months back... this is her first few attempts and i think she used too much fabric glue on this. so the edges are a bit jagged. but i still love it. cute, right?

tree and flowers coaster...

ah bao's baby booties...

actually i finished making this for ah bao more than one month ago, but was just waiting for N to buy the buttons. coz she said she'll take care of the buttons mar. but until now, i've yet to even get a whiff of the elusive buttons, and i think if i wait longer, baby ah bao's feet will no longer be baby feet anymore!

so i went to buy the buttons myself and finally completed the booties yesterday night. red and pink buttons are to make the booties more colourful.



as i sewed on the buttons quite late last night (2 am!), i did not have time to look for a nice paper bag to put them in. and anyway, i dun think any normal paper bag will be suitable. so i fashioned out one that has a broad base so that the booties can be placed side by side. i did it in the office, using whatever resources i have --> coloured A4 papers, cardboard, green ribbon (from our new year performance, still tied to my cello case), double-sided tape and paper clips! nice effect?



read also:
1) new project...

short weekend getaway: my gopeng resort - day 2

free & easy

woke up bright and early at 8 something... looked over to N's bed and saw that she's still there, despite announcing loud-loud the previous day that she would wake up early to watch the rubber tappers at work (despite me warning her that they start work VERY early, as early as 5am!).

ah... nothing like breathing in fresh, unpolluted
morning air away from the hustle and bustle of the city!

this is the 'pondok telefon' (malay: phone booth) of the resort.
serious! see those polystyrene plates at the roof of the booth?
they have "you can make your phone calls here" and "celcom, digi & maxis"
written on them. apparently, the connection here is the best!

N lining up for breakfast

one more before we go!

after breakfast, we didn't want to depart for KL so early and thought we can squeeze in one more activity before our journey back. among the list of activities offered, we were only interested in 2. my 1st choice was the wet abseiling, where we abseil down along the waterfall. sounded like fun! but too bad we were the only 2 who wanted to do this and their minimum pax is 6 person. so we had no choice but to go for our next option: white water rafting. turned out to be not a bad choice!

N saw this 'hermit crab' walking by the briefing area...

waiting for the start of the briefing...

traffic jam at the starting point...

as there were quite a number of rafters that day (8 rafts from our group alone!), the organisers told us to body raft down the river so as not to jam up the starting point. basically, body rafting means we float down the river with just our life jackets on and the guides will 'rescue' us by throwing ropes to us and reeling us in. it was blardy fun, i tell u!

N did this before in sabah, so she went first with me at a close 2nd. i didn't do so well on my first go, coz i think i leaned back too far, sort of like lying on my back in the water. that was y at the first rapid, i was engulfed by the waves and kinda lost my bearings. but it was dem fun! as we were the first 2 to go, we had to wait for quite some time for the rest of the participants to body raft down one by one. nearing the end, the resort boss, Mr. Lim (forgot to mention that he joined us on this trip too) asked N and i if we wanted to do it a 2nd time. of course we did!

my 2nd attempt was better, coz i tried putting my body upright in the sitting possition (with my legs straight out paddling the water in front of me). i managed to keep my head above the water, even at the rapids, and was able to keep my bearings and see where i was going. after that, we all climbed onto our rafts (4 or 5 to a raft) and were on our way!

this river we were rafting is the sungai kampar, with 14 rapids along the stretch. on a good day, this river can produce class 4 rapids. but as the water levels were quite low that day, we only had about class 2+.

oh, and i'm proud to announce that i fell into the water at one of the bumpier rapids! i was paddling at the back right position and at one of the rapids, the front left of the raft bumped against a large rock, tilting the raft. i think i was leaning slightly out of the raft, busy paddling and didn't anticipate the tilt. so i just fell head over heals overboard! my first thought was, "Oh shit, i fell", but said in a calm manner. my 2nd thought was, "better grab hold of the rope". the 'rope' is tied along the rafts as a handhold for rafters during bumpy rides. but as we were in the middle of the rapid, waves after waves kept pushing my head underwater that i couldn't see where my hands were grabbing. then i felt the guide grabbing my life jacket and pulling me along with the raft, so i just went along with the ride and only concentrated on keeping a firm hold on my paddle. it was only after we passed the rapid that the guide pulled me back on board. but anyway, it all happened so fast, like maybe 15 seconds, that i did not have the time to be afraid. instead, after i got on board, i thought it was loads of fun! hehe...

at one of our pit-stops...

we were allowed to come down and rest and play around in the water

at one of the pit-stops, Mr. Lim asked N and i to follow him across the river where there was a tree with a branch overhanging the water. but halfway through, even though the water is considerably calmer here, the currents were still very strong. most of the time, the water just came up to our waists, but we were still not able to stand properly! when we tried swimming against the current to get upstream, we only managed to stay where we were, without moving an inch forward! and once we stopped swimming, we were swept away by the currents so fast that the guides had to come rescue us before we were carried away too far downstream!

but on our 2nd attempt, we managed to cross the river (with Mr. Lim's help) and get to the said tree. once there, Mr. Lim climbed up to the overhanging branch and jumped down into the river! apparently, the river bed below that tree is quite deep and they (Mr. Lim and the guides) are used to jumping down from it. so N and i climbed up behind Mr. Lim... with shaky legs!!! it's not really a high branch, abt 2 meter up, but just because it's over the water, we were overcame by our own mental weaknesses. imagine, i was not an ounce afraid when i fell into the river in the middle of a rapid, but was shivering like a wet puppy out of the drain on top of a low tree branch! anyway, N and i jumped twice from that tree, the second time jumping together holding hands, and less shaky! hehe, i'm sure the mother is gonna scream if she saw me! :P

all in all, i think this rafting is the best activity out of the 3 that we did in gopeng, even though it's the one that gave me all the scratches and bruises (not to mention sunburn. even my ears were burnt!). so now we're looking forward to our next wwr trip! haha... from caving to wwr! such thrills!!


going home...

after getting back to the resort via the transfer lorry again (this time we weren't so lucky; we had to hop onto the back like the rest of the "zhu-chai" [canto: piglets]), we had our lunch, bath and then checked out. before we go, we took a walk around the area surrounding the resort.

the afternoon session of rafters setting out...

been there, done that...

as gopeng is actually very near kellie's castle in batu gajah (only 6km away), we decided to drive over and check it out. i won't bore everyone with the details of this castle here... any of you interested in reading more abt it can click here.

view of the castle from across the moat...

the corridor at the ground floor...

view from the roof of the castle...

N: "i'm scared of heights..."
the opening on the roof from where the stairs come up...

ok, really going home...

saw this swamp full of lotus flowers along the road not far from kellie's castle,
so we stopped by the roadside and got down to take this photo...

detour at tapah...

me: ling, remember to stop at the tapah r&r wor.
N: y ar?
me: i wanna buy jambu air and seedless guava. can ar?
N: u asked oredi, takkan i won't stop for u!

but on the way to the jambu air stalls,
something more tempting lured us from our path!

who needs jambu air when we can have baskin-robbins? yums...

but in the end, we bought our jambu air also lar... hehe...


end of the journey...

taking our own sweet time coming back, we only reached kl at abt 8pm. it's great that the next day was a public holiday (awal muharram). we do not need to rush back to prepare ourselves (mentally and physically) for work the next day... and to close off our trip (and after all the simple kampung food, and also because i was craving for chicken those few days), we decided to treat ourselves to kenny rogers! yummers!

we can eat a lot! see, i got coupons!

read also:
1) short weekend getaway: my gopeng resort - day 1
2) caving at the dark cave