Happy Birthday, Gary Boy!!

Gary boy is now 26 years old. One year older and hopefully he enjoys great health and happiness in abundance :-)

Not bad, this year a good year it has been. Almost all of the resolutions were achieved before the first half of the year was due, with only one or two still left unresolved . Maybe the time has not come yet or maybe Gary boy hasn't been working hard on them :-p Overall, this year so far was like a repeat of 2007, above average :-)

That's how the day started.... Training :-/

Brownie as birthday cake :-p Thanks Mom and Dad and Sis :-) Love you all always :-)

The big boy :-p

Then came another few rounds of celebrations, thanks to buddy Chickuboy for the dinner at Manhattan Fish Market and also to fellow colleagues for the treat at Neway :-) And not forgetting the very early celebration in Cherating :-)

Let's toast to a better year ahead and may all of Gary boy's dreams come true :-)


Cheers

Cherating Trip 2009

Finally had my long awaited holiday after the submission of my thesis. The pre-planned trip to Phuket in July was called off during the last minute due to the H1N1 scare. Managed to get a 80% refund of the hotel booking but none of the flight one :-(

As for this Cherating trip, I said yes to it about 1 week before the actual trip, thinking that I could unwind after years of hard work and sacrifices... and also to clear my mind off of certain things, things that happened just 2-3 days before I took the plunge and informed my colleague that I wanted in. It was a good and pleasant trip, went on a Saturday and came back on Monday. Maybe I'll just let the photos to do the talking :-)

Inside the compound of the chalet

The chalet

One of the animals that you can find within the vicinity of the resort

One cute fella here :-)

Another shot of Jack (that's what I called it) :-p

Endangered species Size M

Endangered species Size S

And the animals from outside - Colleague with her furkids

Wooo....10 years old! I think I qualify!! :-p

The overall look of the resort from outside

...and it has a tree-house!!

Inside the tree-house

The main support of this nice and cozy place :-)

...and most of all, THE BEACH BABBEEEYYY!!!

I think that this will make a very nice wallpaper :-)

Ahhhh.... the ultimate solitude of life!! :-)

Being spy-shot-ed while looking for treasures (a message in a bottle perhaps) :-p


Toast with half-boiled egg and special curry!

Ice-blended choc lava! :-D


Nice....just nice...

My mark on the beach with my errr.... footsteps :-p

Loads of these over here...



...and time for ATVs!!!!

Is there something wrong with my eyes or did I look like a small kid in this pic?? :-p

Mom said that I looked like a kampung kid here :-/

Group photo, courtesy of Jason :-)

:-)

On the second night, my colleagues celebrated my birthday, by bringing me out to this pub called Little Bali. To cut the story short, I came out feeling tipsy but sober :-p hehehehe

Really nice holiday indeed for me. Reflected lots about life during my long hours sitting on the beach alone, and thinking bout the thing that happened earlier :-) Life....

Cheers

Mark

September'09 - An Unhappy Month

This month has been an up and down one for me. Good news and bad news come one right after another and my emotions have been going uphill and downhill like a sine wave :-(

The latest one really broke my heart. Here at one moment, we were celebrating the lives of 5 birthday boys and girls at a poolside party and on the very next day, we were mourning the passing of an ex-student and friend of mine.

"Life it seems, is not without its sense of irony"

In short, this friend of mine met with an accident, got knocked down by a car, was in coma for 3 days without gaining consciousness, and he's gone... just like that. I've been in a very deep sad of mood the whole of yesterday, especially after paying a last visit to him at the hospital. Is life really that fragile? Is life really that short? And it's so unpredictable!! I mean, he's already in his final year of uni life!! Why?? WHY??!!! There are so many people out there, criminals and terrorists who deserve to die, but not him, a young man with a bright future ahead of him. He hasn't even enjoyed his life yet! Looking at his family members, as well as the loads of friends that he had, I'm sure that we all are gonna miss him.

Let us all treasure every moment in our lives, work hard, play harder and love even more. After all, we will not know what is set upon us the very next minute of our lives.

人生有多少个十年?? 珍惜眼前人.... 珍惜一切...

RIP Choo Jian Yi

Gary