training in session

I'm in microsoft office 2007 training for the whole day today .. while in training, thank God I'm still able to get online and chat with my online buddies through email and browsing at the same time ..

Gadget lover people are definitely talking about 3G I-Phone which was just released 2 weeks ago. My boss has just received his order straight from New Zealand today. He was in the bad mood for the last 2 days waiting for the package to arrive by Fed-Ex. Thank God the Fed-Ex people who delivered it safely today and bring his mood back to normal .. no more banging things in his room.

I'm not a gadget people, but I have always loved Apple products .. shamely those stuffs are unaffordable for me. I experienced with Apple computer back in uni, since I studied Media Communication, Apple computer supported our major. There were lots of I-Mac, G4 computer back in the computer lab in uni .. little that I know Apple computer cost a fortune. Oh well .. I gotta stick with normal PC.

My dream notebook .. 17 inch Apple MacBook Pro

The most anticipated I-Phone is finally in stores .. in Australian and US market for AUD849 for the 16G and AUD729 for the 8G .. for the time being. Will hit Asian market soon enough I suppose, but I wonder when it's gonna enter Indo market and how much that's gonna cost?

-lookin' good-

17 days to go ...

Beijing Olympics is just 17 days away to its opening ceremony which will be taken place on 8 August 2008 .. the moment of all Chinese have been waiting for.

Let's take a look at this ... Light the Passion, Share the Dream .. nice! Wish I could be there and experience what I felt back in Sydney Olympics 2000 specially with my idol participating in it .. oh well ..

dream holiday destination

My 8 years dream of going to China has to come to an end ... Back in year 2000 when I was participated in Sydney Olympic, the same year Beijing was announced to host the 2008 Olympic, I made a promise to myself that I'm gonna be there ... I have 8 years to earn and save money, I know I can do it.

Now 8 years later, things change. Not that I don't wanna go anymore ... but situation, condition and circumstances seem don't allow me to go. Perhaps it's not the time yet, I'm sure there will be more opportunity someday in the future. When the time comes, I'm sure it will be more meaningfull.

I'm a re-born Chinese, I'm so fascinated with Chinese culture .. I wanna explore all of China, probably it will take me 1 year to actually conquer them all and now it seems impossible. At this moment, I'm not too keen of going to Beijing, Shanghai or any other China big cities, but I'm interested more into going to China's remote places with breath-taking scenery .. Guilin, Li Jiang, Xin Jiang, Shangrila, Yunna, XiShuanBanna just to name a few.

And I'm placing Guilin as top of priority. Guilin has been a popular and famous shooting place for some Hollywood movies, such as The Painted Veil and one old movie Joy Luck Club. It has a very amazing scenery which will give you comfort feeling even by just looking at the picture. Imagine standing there and see the view with your own naked eyes ... WOW!!!

Guilin 桂林 is a city in China, situated in the northeast of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on the west bank of the Li River. Its name means "forest of Sweet Osmanthus", owing to the large number of fragrant Sweet Osmanthus trees located in the city. The city has long been renowned for its unique scenery.

-beautiful Guilin-

-lijiang-

-yunnan-

One simple word .. WOW!!

王力宏Music Man世界巡迴演唱會

Finally after long months of anticipation, the concert is CONFIRMED. 2008 SonyEricsson 王力宏 Music Man 世界巡迴演唱會 will held in Taipei Arena on 19-20 September 2008.

Now it's time to plan away people ... Yey!! So excited! So looking forward for this.

New collections

I suppose almost all my friends know I like Wang Lee Hom (王力宏) even only for couple of years now but he has never failed to amaze me 'till this moment. I met him, being on stage with him and saw his concert twice -- will be again soon enough, I hope ^^

He has been in the e-business for 13 years now, while anticipating for his 13th album this year, I'm planning on collecting all his old albums. I was down with 3 albums, 'till yesterday when Lucy got me this off ebay in States -- Lee Hom's 2nd album "If You Heard My Song 如果你聽見我的歌"

- this was released 1996, look how geeky he was ;p

thank you Lucy -

That left me with 2 of his albums, Missing You (好想你) and White Paper (白紙) -- if any of you see those 2 albums somewhere, please do let me know :D

Recently added to my collections -- Sport Smurf Figurines

mountain weekend

Me and couple of friends have been planning for this mountain weekend getaway for almost a month and yet it was almost cancelled 'cos some reason, but with a little effort, it finally happened. 7 of us (4 girls, 3 guys) left Jakarta at around 8am, the traffic was quite bad since it was the last weekend before school starts. We reached Puncak at almost noon, just in time for lunch. Another friend joined at the rest stop somewhere along the highway. After settling in the villa, we went to Taman Bunga Nusantara, a huge beautiful Flower Garden with various garden theme such as Japanese, France and America.

- France Garden, beautiful! -

- us at Japanese Garden -

- sisters jump of joy (mind my chubby
stomach peeking :D) –

After a long walk around the garden, we went back to the villa, took a short rest before heading for Night Safari. Ria and Edwin joined us in late afternoon for the Safari. We just recently had Night Safari, but since we took the last bus ride at the Safari, we didn't see many animals, I guess they were all resting and sleeping plus the bus driver was speeding in during the ride. Sigh!! There goes our Rp. 60.000,- (stupid bus driver).

We left the Safari around 11pm and head for KFC for very late supper. Yummm, KFC never tasted better when you had it with friends, in cold weather and in the middle of the night ^^ we then continued for some dessert, roasted corn, roti bakar and pisang bakar with some hot milk tea. I spent 5 years experiencing winter and it was only about 15 degrees C but I was freezing. Oh well ..

Sunday .. we tried to catch the one way schedule down from the villa. Thank goodness it wasn't so bad, by 2:30pm we have reached Jakarta with a little traffic. We ended our weekend getaway with a nice late lunch at Pizza King. I reached home at around 4pm .. it's been an amazing people.

And during the trip, I got addicted with Nintendo DS playing cooking mama. Hmmm .. thanks all for getting me hooked. Now it seems that I'll be getting DS myself. No no ... not a good sign :(

- a good cook? Yes I am -

new hide-away

So everyone knows I'm a bookie .. and I have new hide-away place. Other than the big Kinokuniya bookstore in Plaza Senayan, Times has opened its new branch in Karawaci, just a bit outside Jakarta, huge place in the corner of the prestige UPH. It was opened about 2 weeks ago and it has become my new fave place .. with 20% discount opening promo, I picked up 3 books even I still have lots of books waiting in the shelf to be read ...

I'm in a total different world among books.

- isn't it nice? -

Another thing I picked up last week was this Smurf figurine. I'm a Smurf lover .. they use the word Smurf to change certain words, it's confusing sometimes, but cute :D but why is it so hard to find the animation on DVD or even anything? So once I saw this in Puri last weekend, I immediately bought two of it and just the other day I went to PIM and saw range of Smurf Collections in Multi Toys in South Skywalk for 15 thousand a piece. Should I get the whole collections? Oh No!!!

- isn't he the cutest or what? -

Room Make-Over

To those of you who like to watch Oprah Winfrey Show surely know the famous and cute interior decorator Nate Berkus, he is my fave decorator .. Well, I don't know that many decorator so he is the only one. I really love how he can turn old furniture to look brand new and how he re-use everything without throwing the sentimental value -- that's so me :D

I got this shelf around a year ago during the office moving. My office sold all the furniture for very cheap price including this solid book case. It has experienced big flood early this year. So after a few touch here and there, it decently enough to store all my books collections which they were all over the place.

The two CDs shelves are brand new I bought which one of them was on sale in Ace hardware. They are pretty solid but still isn't enough to store all my CDs collections which I realized now that I have quite a lot. But all those CDs I brought back from OZ, no longer has the CD case, I had to put all of them in CD pouch to be able to bring all back.


This shelf is the earliest shelf I bought in Carrefour for less than 100 thousand and it has experienced 2 big flood. It might look pretty good still, but mark my word, it's not what you see. And just a suggestion, don't buy those so-called wood furniture in Carrefour to store your collections, get those rather expensive with better quality for long round. I keep this 'cos I haven't found any decent shelf.

- top shelf holds all my Lee Hom's collections -

Finally .. my room looks a room -- a decent room. Next make-over is the window .. termite has invaded my window frames, so gotta save some money and do the real room make-over. Or hey might call Nate for help :D *yeah, keep on wishing net*

Bookworm

Bookworm -- that could be a new nick name for me now. I wasn't a book fan when I was younger, in fact I didn't own any books 'till in high school. Uni life forced me to read lots of thick text book, that's how I grew into loving books. I don't have any specific genre of book that I like, as long it's not horror, thriller, corny and too confusing, I'm cool with that. But if I have to choose, I prefer literature. I'm so into Chinese literature 'cos of this book, in title of Falling Leaves (落葉歸根) which coincidently has the same title as one of Lee Hom's songs. I read it back in 2003 and now I have the entire collections of Adeline Yen Mah.

Her new book is coming in 2009 -- "China Land of Dragons and Emperors".

Plot:

Do you know why the opening time for the Beijing Olympics was set at 8.08 pm on 8 August 2008? What are the secrets guarded by the silent terracotta army inside the First Chinese Emperor's tomb?

This book will introduce you to the most famous people and events in China during the last 2200 years. Meet the emperor who loved a woman too much, and the admiral whose fleet was so big it blocked out the sun. Discover for yourself the meaning of dragons and why you should never give a Chinese man a green hat. Be amazed at China's many inventions, from silk, paper, printing and porcelain to crossbows, stirrups, matches, cast iron, steel and gunpowder.

Another fave is Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Kite Runner is now a major Motion Picture. it's still pretty much literature but very much different than Adeline Yen Mah Chinese Literature. This story taken place in Pakistan, about the story of Amir, a boy from the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul, who is who is haunted by the guilt of betraying his childhood friend Hassan, the son of his father's Hazara servant. The story is set against a backdrop of tumultuous events, from the fall of the monarchy in Afghanistan through the Soviet invasion, the mass exodus of refugees to Pakistan and the United States, and the rise of the Taliban regime.

I was introduced to this book by my idol himself Lee Hom. He read this throughout his journey in Japan. It was an amazing, powerful at the same time really sad and disturbing. Worth to read to those of you who enjoy books so much.

His latest book called "A Thousand Splendid Sun" is another good book. Once I had it in my hand, I couldn't stop reading it through the end.

"If knowledge acquired from history is the truest education, then this book is the best present I can give you."
- adeline yen mah -

My most anticipated movie

After a little disappointment of watching Indiana Jones - Kingdom of Crystal Skull, which turned out to be alien (huh?!) and it claimed to be the most of anticipated movie of the year (sorry Mr Spielberg, you have failed to amazed me this time), The Mummy - Tomb of the Dragon Emperor would be my next anticipated movie.

Since I was young, me and my bro have been fascinated with Egyptian and Chinese history, that's how my bro got to wish to be an Archeolog, but dream was only a dream. Being an Archeoloy in Indonesia, would be probably the most un-successful job in the entire life. Government won't fund you, all the history are just left un-cared and they are will be left behind -- sadly!

So Mr Rob Cohen, I really hope this 3rd The Mummy Trilogy will still amaze me as the other 2 The Mummy Movies. We shall find out on 1 August 2008, where China and the world are looking forward for the 29th Olympic Games in Beijing.


Synopsis:
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor stars Brendan Fraser as explorer Rick O'Connell, along with his son Alex wife Evelyn (Maria Bello, taking over the character from Rachel Weisz and her brother, Jonathan. The two parents are now retired, but they must stop the resurrected tyrannical Han, the Dragon Emperor played by Jet Li, a mummy awoken from a 2,000-year-old curse, and whose army was found by 18-year old Alex. The Emperor now wishes to rebuild his empire, and threatens to plunge the world into his merciless, unending service with his Terracotta Army. Their chances of stopping him are thin, for the Emperor has not only an army of great magnitude, but controls the five elements. The undead Terracotta Army faces another, smaller, raised-from-the-dead army made of the Dragon Emperor's enemies, who died when they were crushed under the Great Wall of China

五月天

I knew 五月天 MayDay -- Taiwanese Rock Band briefly through local Asian magazine 'till I got to see them performed in Lee Hom's Heroes of Earth Concert in 2006. Just recently I got to know deeper through Ling .. they have some nice songs, of course I don't know that many, just few recommendation and some downloads. But I think they are pretty solid Rock band, first Taiwanese band I know in fact -- real band.

Few songs like 米老鼠 (Minnie Mouse), 最重要的小事 (The Most Important Thing) and the famous duet 私奔到月球 (Elope to the Moon) are just few favourites stored in my mobile phones. till the last one, Hokkian song which Ashin wrote for the SiChuan Earthquake victims called 出頭天 (sorry, don't know the english title :D). They are famous in singing Hokkain (Taiwan dialects) songs, which some of them are pretty nice too.

This was introduced to me today called 小護士 (Little Nurse), it's very catchy song and cute dance by those boys.

- thanks ling -

here comes July ...

So we are now entering first half of year 2008 ... 38 days to go to Beijing Olympics, the event I've been looking forward for the last 8 years and I have to give it a miss, for safety reason -- well, not gonna argue with that. I totally understand how current world's situation, unpredictable. I'm gonna have my big trip plan soon anyway, so I'm not complaining.

My friend Ling said in her blog today, "It's time to stop and reflect on the first half of 2008 and the resolutions you've made in beginning of the year..." Well, honestly I don't think I've accomplished much till this point, other than to stay healthy, live life to the fullest and just enjoy the moment you've got . So gal, thanks for the reminder ... it's been quite a journey :)

Anyway, my bro, evie (my colleague at work) and my lao shi (mandarin teacher) are sharing same birthday today -- 1 July as well as the late Lady Diana .. Happy Birthday to all. Hope everything the best for you ... God bless to you all.

So this was taken today, Evie's 31st birthday (sorry vie, have to mention the age :D) This is our little "arisan" group at work (minus Mba' Gita) hahaha. They are all my +++++ sisters --- no offense. We have this so-called tradition for celebrating birthday, our office piazza normally is our "meeting point" -- quoting for the birthday girl herself "the present is never been a surprise since we always ask what is needed. well, our favourites is the voucher ..of course. either sogo, metro, kinokuniya or aquarius. it's simple and easy and we never have to worried that we bought the wrong present"

Well vie, hope you enjoy your bday and remember "you're old, you're confused and don't know the different ... " :D

Have a good July everyone!!