Arrive at Hershey & Culture Shock

Finally, we arrived at Hershey, Pennsylvania after 26 hours long flight. We thanked God that He made our journey smooth. For all the flights were delayed. However, somehow, all flights arrived at the destination earlier than schedule. So, we managed to get on all our connecting flights.

Our rented place here is fully furnished and has a big garden. We like the place. It’s very convenience for us to walk the supermarket to do our groceries and also for me to walk to faculty to work.

Anyway, hopefully the novelty of new place and doing new stuff will not wear out. Did I mention that we can see rabbits, squirrels and fireflies in our garden. They are everywhere, especially the squirrels. Hopefully, this will not be a pest later on.

Anyway, we learned new things too that we are here and some of those which give us a ‘jolt’ to our system.

Firstly, almost all Chinese food is is sweetened. Fried noodles is sweet and they eat together with rice. I can’t imagine how sweet the ‘Sweet and Sour’ pork will be.

Secondly, most American products are salted. Bread is salted too. How to eat that? I wake up so many night thirsty for water. AND their Chocolate powder is salted too!

 

How to drink that? Imagines drininking milo with salt in it! Yucks!

Thirdly, the Chilly sauce…Gosh...American take ketchup only. We are so happy to see Chilly sauce and bought one.

However, later we found out their Chilly sauce don’t have Chilly as one of their ingredient. But guess what they use to produce that? TOMATO puree!

Why do they need to call it the Chilly sauce when it’s sweet and not a hinge of spicy-ness too it and it’s made from TOMATO! We ended making our own by adding Tabasco sauce to our ‘Chilly sauce’!

Fourth, the whole house is carpeted. I know we will need this later on in the winter and we have to get used to it. However, being an Asian, first thing I thought of when going for our initial shopping is to buy a mop so that we can clean the house. But, where can I mop now except our kitchen. However, now we clean the house using the vacuum cleaner.

Oh…they wear their shoes into their home. How can you do that when you wear your shoe everywhere you go and you step on God-knows-what and then, you just walk into the bedroom which is fully carperted with shoes on?

Sun here during summer rises around 5am and set at 9pm. We are still learning to adapt to that especially in the morning when we wake up too early. But we like it at night when we can still walk to the supermarket at 7 and it’s bright when we come back.

I think there will be more to come as we learn to adapt and stay here. But every moment of it, we are also missing home so much.

Moving

Soon, we will be moving to US. Well, Hershey in particular. I don’t like to call it migrating, well, it is not. We hope to come back here in another few years. However, as the date draw nearer, more and more stuff is cropping up for us to settle. Anyway, I know we are having a mixed feeling about everything now.

For once, a lot seems to be a lot mores sentimental. I start to have the ‘this-will-be-the-last-and-don’t-know-when-will-be-back’ feeling now. The last time I am going to cut my hair in this barber shop, last time dining in the various restaurants, last time meeting up with our friends in Malaysia. A lot of last time, at least before our trip to US…

Packing. The number of bags seems to be increasing and the weight too. It doesn’t help especially when ‘this also I want, that also I want’ and keep asking question like, Do you think I can get that there? Let’s be safe!

Family members. It’s always the hardest to be away or part with them. Close friends too. Have been praying hard that we don’t cry on the day.

Trying to expect what to be expected. It’s an exciting but scary experience to go to a new place. It’s always very easy if it’s for a month or two, but when you know it’s for a long term and you don’t have your return ticket, it’s scary. How will be people be like? How will your colleague like? how is the working experience? How will be the weather? a lot of uncertainty and questions but I guess, that’s life and have to trust God. 

Nevertheless, it will be exciting to try to stay in a different country and culture. It will be new experience for us from the all-year-round summer country and to enjoy the new four seasons and having sun rises at 5am and set at 10pm during summer.

It will be exciting to learn new things and although the same language but might be a bit different of how we are going to use the word or even to pronounce it!

Let see how it goes and I do hope I can have time to continue to update this blog. If not, let’s hope my wife will get on the bandwagon of blogging!

Adios!

Hand Mime

I had been busy with my work and had been travelling most time. Here are some video presentation which I found and thought of sharing with all of you.

Kuala Sepetang and Hutan Paya Eko Matang

During the 3rd day of Chinese New Year, my grandfather decided to visit Kuala Sepetang for a road trip. We don’t have any agenda for the trip but simply to visit the place. Kuala Sepetang is an old Chinese fishing village located over in Perak.

As it is a small fishing town, we manage to go round the town in 15 minutes. However, we saw the Hutan Paya Bakau Eko Matang along the way back and decided to stop by for a stroll. I have been to a lot of swamp forest but I would say this is a very nice place for a stroll or evening walk.

This place is protected place and there are a lot of information that the management put up along the walkway through the swamp.

This place is a haven for crabs, prawns and fishes as it acts as their spawning place.

 

It also acts as a place for migratory birds to stop by as the food is abundant here.

Apart from that, there are great varieties of plants which can be found here too.

This will be great place to visit too if you are a avid fan of fishing! You can opt for the boat ride along the river or to the open sea or simply fish by the river bank.

Along the way back, we drop by Taiping and visited the foothill of Maxwell Hill.

It is simply a very nice and enjoyable trip and I get to spend some quality time with my grandparent!

Chinese New Year

This year will be one of my last year to celebrate Chinese New Year in Malaysia before I re-locate to US. As such, it is such a heart warming experience to be among the company of family members. I took this opportunity to spend more time with my aging grandparents.

Chinese New Year has taken on a new meaning when I became Christian about 6 years back. It’s no longer about preparation to usher in the new year with a lot of emphasis on the prayer preparation but more so to meet up with family members whom I rarely see now as I lived in KL.

 

I loves to meet up with all my relatives and cousins and to catch up on what is everyone doing now. Most of them are staying far from each other and some are in overseas but this is the opportunity that we have to meet.

Obviously, there are a lot of get-together and food is a big part of the celebration. How can we forgo that when it comes to occasion like this? And yes, we also do have firecrackers though I am not a fan of it now.

So, how does your Chinese New Year goes? I am enjoying every moment of it.

I am typing this on my flight to Sibu to continue the celebration. After all, Chinese New Year last for 15 days!

And everything in between – Malaysian Drivers

Some questions (and suggestions) I always have about (for)  Malaysian driver.

1. Don’t they know how to use the indicator light when they want to change lane or to stop at the side?

2. Green light GO, yellow light, ready to stop and red light STOP and NOT, I mean NOT Yellow light is still CAN GO and Red light, GO lah…colour blind ka?

3. Don’t you know how to use the ‘round-about’? I know some countries don’t have that but if you stay at the outer lane, you have to exit at the next exit. You don’t keep circling at the outer lane!. NO, indicator doesn’t apply here because we can’t see at that angle!

4. Hey! Yellow box is there for a reason. You don’t stop in it and turn your head away and ignoring the driver that you just stop in their way. And by the way, you are causing all the jam too!

5. Oh…road is for you to drive and not to park your car! If you want to park your car, there is something call CAR PARK!

6. Motorist, I know that you can go faster than a lot of cars and you can squeeze in between cars, but you don’t have to show your skills at the outer lane of the highway. I know you are good and skillful but, my car can be more POWERFUL. Safety first man.

7. Why you must turn on your radio so loud that I can also hear what you are listen too…actually, to think of it, do all of you play the same music? It always goes boom, boom, boom…Do you hear my music too? It goes honk, honk, honk…

8. I wonder how many of you actually know there are designated lanes to turn right, left or to go straight at the traffic light and junctions. Not all lanes can do everything you like. Right lane to turn right, left lane to turn left…oh…you don’t know which is left and right? Then, I would suggest that you…… STOP DRIVING!

9. Come on, driving can’t be that hard. You don’t need to tailgate someone else car to eliminate the wind drag to your car. And by the way, it doesn’t save you any petrol too. I know because I watch Mythbusters and they said so! Don’t believe me, next time watch that too! Oh…by the way, some times I do apply brake to my car to slow down because cars in front are slowing down too and they are STOPPING. Sorry, I can’t twitter to inform you earlier because you DON’T twit and drive!

10. Don’t talk on handphone while driving applies at ALL speed. No, you are NOT safer if you travel at 20kph and talk on the phone while you hog the road. And no, the polices still see you while you travel at that speed while talking on the phone, you don’t go invisible!Summon doesn’t come in speed categories (I hope so and yes, pun intended!) except when you over-speed! Oh, by the way, the same goes for those who want to smoke and drive, twit and drive, snap-a-pic and drive, tour-guide and drive and drink and drive too…maybe not drink and drive – you can’t even go straight what more to follow traffic rules!

Happy driving folks! And welcome to Driving in Malaysia 101: Do’s and Don’ts or is it vice-versa?

Penang National Park – Pantai Keracut

Many people did not realise that we also have a national park in Penang. It is one of the smallest national park in Malaysia. So, on the second day of Chinese New Year, we took a hike in the Penang National Park to Pantai Keracut. What will be a better way to spend Chinese New Year after so much of ‘glorious’ food the days before!

This place is at Teluk Pahang and the the track start near the ‘End of the World’ seafood restaurant. It’s a smooth walk of about 500m into the trail leading to Pantai Keracut or to Muka Head.

The hike took about 1 1/2 hour to Pantai Keracut. It’s not a though hike, though the beginning was a bit tedious as there are a lot of steps to begin with.

 

45 minutes into the hike, the trail will level off and you will pass through a place called Bukit Belah. Along the way, there are many pavilions  (7 in total) created for hikers to take a rest.

Once you reached, you will be greeted with the sight of a meromictic lake one of the 19 around the world. Here in this lake, salt water and fresh water are joints. The denser salt water will be at the bottom while the fresh water will be on the top, forming double layer lake.

Sand here are very white and hot during afternoon. It’s also soft and makes it very hard to walk. However, the sunny day is a very nice time for taking picture.

Walk around the place you will find more places to take picture.

The beach is very nice and not too deep for you to wallow in. Along the beach also, you can find a look of starfishes.

As you walk along, you will also come across jellyfishes. There are found to be abundant at Pantai Keracut making it a not suitable place for swimming or water sport activities.

However, unknown to many, Pantai Keracut is also the place to see turtle. This place have been gazetted as a turtle sanctuary. The abundance of jellyfishes as the primary source of food makes it a haven for turtle. Many green turtles are known to lay eggs here.

 

There is a research station and ranger station to take care of the sanctuary and to prevent poaching by various people who collect the eggs to be sold.

Although this is not the season for turtles to lay egg, we manage to find a few cordoned off areas which is actually sites where turtles has lay eggs.

After that, more picture taking at the beach.

Some artistic picture, and some not so but random…but happy picture.

Some scenery from the turtle sanctuary too..

And some cam-whoring time too…

After about an hour plus or so, we decided it’s too hot to remain at the beach and decided to head back. We actually decided to get a boat to go back and paid the boatman RM100 for the 9 of us.

The journey is a very pleasant and it only took about 15 minutes to go back. Along the way the boatman stop at various places to show us the various beaches, flora, fauna and interesting structures!

Eagle’s nest on top of a tree…we saw quite a number of it.

Some rock formation which this suppose to look like a turtle…

and the crocodile or buaya darat….!

Floating chalet which you can rent for RM110 a night for fishing.

Overall, we enjoyed the journey and a good break from the normal routine of Chinese New Year of visiting relatives and eating non-stop. Do visit this place before it’s heritage is lost.

I wonder why

Some of my random thoughts of Chinese New Year.

1. Why do people gives ang pow (red packet with money inside) during Chinese New Year?

2. Why we must have so much of food during Chinese New Year reunion dinner and at the end, ended up eating the left over for days?

3. Why everything must be new?

4. Why do people put up red lantern?

5. Why more Malays are playing fire crackers during CNY then Chinese ? (at least at where I stay in Penang)

6. Why more houses are decorated in the Christmas mood rather the Chinese New Year atmosphere?

7. It’s reunion time. Can we have reunion elsewhere together, like in KL? It save a lot of trouble like traffic jams, packed sardines at every supermarket/ shops/ market, etc.

8. Which is the real, original Chinese New Year song?

9. Why do we celebrate Chinese New Year for 15 days? Isn’t New Year is just on the first day?

10. What is it about  new red under garments? WHO CARES!

 

I guess I am a Chinese but still have a lot to learn! And obviously I do have ONE last question…

Can we forget and ABOLISH the ang pow tradition? or can I don’t gives this year?

Have a great and blessed Chinese New Year everyone! Have a good reunion and fellowship with loved ones!

Remember, don’t drive too fast and keep to the speed limit!

Don’t go faster than the angels do!

Happy Chinese New Year

Hi. I want to wish everyone a Happy Chinese New Year.

May the year to Tiger be a roaring year for everyone.

But…you don’t be a tiger ya…:)

randomness

 

Make a trip to Putrajaya to take some outdoor pictures but only to meet with heavy rain once I arrive there. I ended up at the Putrajaya Boat club and took few pictures there.

We left for field work on Friday and over the weekend. Took some shoot as I walk along the field. Still trying out some of the features that MarkII 5D has to offer. Love the camera but hate the weight. If I am carry that camera all the time, it’s like lifting weight wherever I go.

I love the harvesting machine in the field. It adds some ‘activities’ to the picture.

The fields are ready for harvest now. Some have been harvested and some going to. The field right now are in hues of green and yellowish. Golden.

 

Fierce! I love the red mower in front. It gives the contrast to the yellow mean machine!

The colour on the day is just nice. blue sky and green and yellowish field. Had a great time taking pictures. Must learn more on how to use the Canon Mark II.Though I have been using it for 7 months now, but have never fully utilised it.