And of course, the next thing I realized was there were a lot of beautiful people around me. Many came in kimonos and yukatas, and they seemed ever ready to be photographed!

There were many, many visitors with an SLR in hand. Some of these guys really came well prepared – tripods, zoom lens, and even additional flash lights mounted on a separate tripods.

Szetoo brought her new Sony SLR camera with a kickass zoom lens too. Suffice to say, throughout the event, my camera was just another small potato.

Anyway, the highlight before the sky got dark was mostly the kimonos worn by visitors – Malaysians and Japanese alike. And no, I did not get to see this many kimonos when I was in Japan.

The universal peace sign is almost like a prerequisite in Japanese-themed photo poses haha. Kawaii desu ka?

Thank goodness they gave out fans for free at the entrance. Otherwise, I imagine these girls in kimono would have been baked!

Right in the center of the field was the main stage. The main performers on the stage were the dancers and drummers, and everybody else around the stage could simply join in and dance along.

It was indeed a very fun event because it involved the participation of the audience, young and old alike. We later went and check out the food stalls before it got dark.

Omg the crowd aitelyu…. The food wasn’t exactly cheap, but it’s actually comparable to the price in Japan. After conversion. LOL. My friend bought some soba which tasted more like mamak mee goreng.

Sushi King was there too. They set up a stall with a conveyor system, and patrons would have to stand while they eat.

Somehow, after dark, the little kids seemed to be more popular for photoshoots. Almost every kid in a traditional attire became a center of attraction.

This kid sure knew how to pose. No wonder he was a popular boy last night. Seriously. Some of these kids really seemed like they were trained to pose for photographers or something. They would pose when asked to!

Man, this is why sometimes I wish I hadn’t grown up. Then again, I was not even adorable when I was a kid. Hmm.

There were at least 3 SLR cameras shooting this two Japanese kids. They were not camera-shy at all. Like I said, they really looked like they were used to all these attention already.

See what I mean? They would even stand a distance away from their parents to allow us to take photos of them. I must admit, I have soft spot for adorable kids.

This boy seemed a little blur, but I guess he was just too young. Heck, if I were him, I’d be dazed by all the paparazzi-style camera flashes.

Ok anyway, let’s move on with the program. After some local dance called the “Tarian Rakyat Selangor” (that’s what it was called – I have no idea how it was like; I didn’t watch), we took part in the dance for the last (Japanese) song.

Video recorded with an N95.

Haha, it was pretty cool. The steps were repetitive, so everyone could follow once they familiarized themselves with the moves. As a first-timer, I think it was really fun, though I hate to stand out like a sore thumb.

Thanks to Szetoo for the brilliant recommendation! I didn’t even know it was the Bon Odori weekend. That definitely made my week.

Shorttalk: My friends are in Sarawak for the RWMF, which kicked off on Friday and ends today. Since I couldn’t make it for that one, the Bon Odori was definitely the next best thing.

Just like last year, we paid the temple a visit in conjunction with the Chinese New Year celebration. We went there last night, which was the 7th day of the Lunar New Year – also traditionally known as “Everyone’s Birthday” (or ‘Day of Humanity’).

The temple is situated near Banting in Klang, so we actually took about 40 minutes to reach (from Subang). It wasn’t very crowded, thankfully. But still, there was a good turnout. A friend told me that the place was sardine-packed last weekend.

Admission was free – just like every year – and the activities organized were open to all. Mom and Dad participated in some of them, which usually end with devotees giving some form donation to the temple (not mandatory of course!).

After offering our joss sticks, my sisters and I had a field day checking out the decorations around the temple. We took lots of photos – of ourselves, the statues, lanterns, flowers and other interesting decorations that we saw. There were also a number of shutterbugs who came equipped with tripods.

This year the temple featured some miniature models of locations where the Lord Buddha had been, including the Bodhi Tree under which he received Enlightenment. The miniature models were pretty elaborate and detailed, I’d say. Very informative and educational too!

Among the most popular structures put up were the twelve animal signs in the Chinese zodiac. They were a hit with the crowd because everyone wanted to take photos with their own animal sign. I was born in the year of Rat, and I had about three photos taken with the rat!

Don’t ask. I know too little Chinese characters to understand what that text means. I thought the bokeh effect in the background was interesting :p Yes I’m yet to have found a personal Chinese-language tutor…

Ah, this one’s more like it. I’m so proud that there was at least one non-English signboard that I could read. Nevermind there were only four characters. It was one whole board ok.

Compared to last year, FGS Dong Zen temple now has a larger area. The extended area was more like a nursery with various types of beautiful flowers planted.

Some wall with interesting lighting and design pattern.

I’m sure the flowers would look prettier in the day…

Another type of flower… No name was provided, but I do not think it’s chrysanthemum!

If you’re interested to go check out the place, go before the 24th of February to avoid disappointment! I don’t know if they’ll remove the lanterns and other decorations after that date, but the temple has CNY programmes lined up until then. Its location map can be viewed here.

By the way…
It’s the time of the year again for the most over-rated day ever celebrated – the V’s day. It’s my fourth consecutive year celebrating Valonetine’s now… (or is it fifth?) lol. Anyway, Happy Valentine’s Day, you! ;D

P/s. General elections on the 8th of March. It’s going to be arguably the most interesting GE Malaysia has ever had. Are you ready yet?

Introducing, The Hand. It’s not just any hand. It can vibrate the bones out of your skin. It can disintegrate that lump of fat into smaller bits that’ll eventually disappear. It can give you a pretty good massage.

But don’t expect the hand job to be as good as uh… well, the real thing. Like, you know, traditional Balinese or Thai massage. This handy device (pun intended) is, after all, made out of plastic.

Try placing the vibrating hand on your shoulders, back, buttocks, or wherever else that makes you happy and you’ll soon feel a pleasurable rhythmic sensation that’ll make you wanna move the hand around to massage a larger area.

Normally, with pleasure comes a price. In this case it’s the power. You’ll feel so suagucomfortable you’d want to playmassage with it all day long. That’ll of course deplete your batteries in no time. When that happens, The Hand does not vibrate very well.

This is where the USB cable comes in. In fact, I have not inserted any batteries into The Hand before. The USB cable allows The Hand to draw power from your PC, much like how your mouse operates.

Now, anyone wants a massage? I could give you a hand………

P/s: This interesting device was a Christmas gift I got during a gift-exchange exercise last month.

Whoa, a changing-colour Christmas tree! Aiyah, something different la. I know 1U’s toy-soldier deco wins hands-down this time. There was a choir group singing carols on the tree when I took this photo. After photo-snapping, I went down to Level 1 for……

J.Co Donuts, What Else?

A trip to the Pavilion KL is not complete without some J.Co indulgence. I just had to dabao some home!

Only one dozen for my family… each flavor one donut. Of course there were some flavors omitted. The queue never fails to amaze me. Never. I queued for about 20 minutes! Therefore, I must make sure my purchase will be worth the time and money (only RM20 for a dozen donuts, not bad eh?). I *must* ensure that no ants will invade my donuts.

That’s based on the long-known scientific fact that ants… cannot swim.

Have a good weekend! ;)

1U’s new wing had this toy soldier-themed Christmas deco that was pretty interesting. While the Christmas trees are not as big as the one put up in KLCC, it has the biggest toy soldier (possibly) in the country. Haha! Its head can turn from left to the right, and to the left again all-day long without getting a neckache. A brass band was preparing to do a performance on stage that day.

Monday was a working day and it was one of the gloomiest Mondays ever!! It rained more than 24 hours non-stop, and I woke up to a foul mood in the morning. It wasn’t good at all. There was so much work to be done and I didn’t talk much. The workload made time seem to pass alot quicker, thankfully. I remember feeling so relieved that the next day (today) would be a Public Holiday for Selangor. Daulat Tuanku!!! Hahaha…

Midvalley Megamall was our destination this time and we went early to beat the jam (and get a parking!). Spent the entire day shopping. Took photos (pic above) of the decorations and visited Tu-Long Restaurant (at the Boulevard) for the first time. To the uninitiated, Tu-Long (please, don’t attempt to read it out loud in English) is of course, a new restaurant opened by MY FM‘s DJ Lam Tak Weng. Didn’t take pics in the restaurant though (really, I still haven’t mastered the art of shameless photo-taking in quiet, public places).

Anyway, I know I have a number of readers who’re currently not in Malaysia (or Klang Valley, for that matter). With these photos now I hope I’ve made you miss home a little bit more…… Bwahaha…

Have a fantastic week ahead, you! ;)

P/s: Omg tomorrow’s my first-ever Jap class! *Excited*

P/s2: Photos taken with too low f-stop values (aperture), so please forgive the softness near the edges (if you notice at all). Won’t repeat this mistake again for wide-angled shots, I plomis…

One day, legend has it that the Earth was surrounded by 10 suns at the same time. The Earth was too overwhelmed with heat and the appearance of the 10 suns had upset the yin and yang balance. Therefore, the Emperor ordered Hou Yi to save the Earth. Hou Yi, a renowned archer himself, then stepped up to the occasion and shot down 9 suns. He became an instant hero after that. Little did he know, the Goddess of Western Heaven had witnessed his heroic feat.

She rewarded Hou Yi with a special pill that would make him immortal. Hou Yi was extremely happy. However, there was a condition that came with the pill – Hou Yi must meditate and fast for a year. He must take the pill with an absolute pure heart, otherwise he would not become immortal. Upon agreeing to the conditions, Hou Yi proceeded with his heart-purification mission, without the knowledge of Chang Er.

(Image taken from A Doodle a Day, via Google Images)

However, Chang Er accidentally found the pill and out of curiosity, she swallowed it! Hou Yi was very angry about it, and Chang Er was consequently sent to the moon as a punishment. That is why we see images of a woman on our mooncakes, today! Mooncakes are a must during the Moon Festival, which is meant to commemorate this legend about Chang Er. Actually, my version of this legend was derived from a number of sources, including a speech delivered by fellow Toastmaster recently.

So have you eaten any mooncakes yet? I prefer yolkless ones ;D One of the first mooncakes I had this year was the much-hyped, durian-flavored one from Tai Thong. It tasted surprisingly good! I also love the ‘cold’ mooncakes (to be kept refrigerated), or 冰皮月餅 (bing pi yue bing, literally translated to be ‘ice skin mooncake’ in English). They’re my favorite! This year’s Mid-Autumn Festival falls exactly on the 25 September (coming Tuesday), but celebrations usually begin about a month early. Happy Mid-Autumn, everyone!

Narrowband’s trusted references:
1. The Moon Festival – About.com
2. The Legendary Stories of the Chinese Moon Festival
3. Mooncake Legend
4. Moon Festival Overview
5. The Legend of Eating Mooncakes

Photo update@0015hrs, 29 Sept 2007:

Super yummy Snow-Skin Lotus mooncakes from Tai Thong. By the way, anybody can tell me what to do with mooncake boxes? Lol… I don’t feel like throwing them away – what a waste!

And because business at the restaurant coffee shop was so good, they actually ran out of fish. Therefore they replaced it with some other ingredient in the yee sang. I forgot what, but I thought that was weird. There was nothing we could do, and we were all seated with our stomachs growling already anyway.

That night (early morning of the 1st day of CNY), we performed what they call the ‘invitation of the God of Prosperity’. Sorry, I know direct-translations suck. For those of you who know, it’s 接财神 (‘jie cai shen‘). By that time, the altars (including Guan Yin‘s as well as our ancestors’) were filled with offerings such as foods, flowers, fruits and drinks.

It didn’t help that the house was filled with smoke. The burning of joss sticks (we had a number of big ones too) and candles could really make you tear. The TV was switched on – we watched some concert show recorded last year. On the 1st and 2nd day of CNY we weren’t allowed to wash our hair. But I did. At least I avoided the shampoo. Haha.

Then we went to a temple which I have always visited since I was young. My hometown? Well my grandparents are in the Klang Valley so there was no need to participate in the holiday exodus. This temple, however, required a little bit of traveling. (mouse-over thumbnails for larger images. Their corresponding captions below)

The scenic balcony.
We’re high up in the sky!
Spiral jossticks and blue skies.
Limes and ang pows.
Beautiful background – clouds.

Wall art.
Spiral jossticks at the balcony.
Man-made waterfall.
Temple building.
Colorful dragons on the wall.

The temple had undergone renovations to accommodate more visitors. It was not a very grand temple with elaborate decos like the Dong Zen Temple for instance, but it has improved tremendously. Like previous years, we would eat at the vegetarian restaurant in the temple after performing prayers.

And speaking of the FGS Dong Zen Temple, we actually made a trip there as well. Mom had been talking about it since she saw the adverts in the papers. I had no idea it would be so far. I mean I knew it was somewhere near Banting but it was further than I’d expected. The roads leading there were dark, narrow and bumpy. I took about 40 minutes to reach the temple! Gee. Night-photography was abit tricky there. My poor ol’ Lumix Fx-01 doesn’t seem to shine at night. But I suspect that the photographer needed more practice.

Entrance into FGS Dong Zen Temple.
Lanterns galore!
Beautiful lights.
Putting a josstick there was a delicate task.
Brightly-lit pagoda.

Statues in the garden.
These lanters were made by children!
One of the cute statues in the ‘Lumbini Garden’.
Bamboo and lights.
Goddess of Mercy, Kuan Yin.

We have been having visitors since morning. One of the most dreaded types of visitors has got to be small children. They played with glue, markers, papers and scissors in our family hall. Ah, and the mandarin oranges, cookies and kuih kapit (!!). Children should only eat them under full supervision! But that does not always happen. I will have to help clean the entire house soon – really soon. The carpets, floor mats, stairs, floors, pillows, couch… *faints*. That said, I must admit that this is considered ‘mild’. We used to receive little monster visitors – Once, my trusty remote-controlled car was destroyed by them, and the piano became real dirty and sticky. Well, that aside, some of these children are really adorable you just can’t bring yourself to hate them.

Those are the cookies in my house. Oh man there’ll be lots of work to do after the holidays (even during!). Meanwhile, I guess blogging will slow down a bit. Happy Chinese New Year to you all!

Janet brought these candies for everyone. How thoughtful! There were more than enough to go around (today’s turn-out was a record low, gee), so I took home about three of those. Heh.

Apart from that, I also took home this gift – nicely wrapped and all. It felt light, and soft. At first I thought it was a towel or something. I opened one end and saw this:

Ta-daa! That’s something I could use!

It’s not very different from my current pencil case – as far as size is concerned.

Check it out. Now that’s really old-school…

… with an Esso logo to boot. Yes, I got that for free too.

It was so practical that I threw everything in there – calculator, liquid paper, pen-knife, card-reader, staples, scissors, rulers… etc.

Surely a new pencil case has to be just as big in order to keep all those things! To whoever that bought this, thank you! I love it :). (Believe it or not I still don’t know who bought it!).

And now, onto the pressie I got from my office last week. It was the biggest one that day!

Santas all the way to Nebraska. It was *that* long. Inside it was one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen! *Drumrolls plz..*

*Sounds of cymbals crashing* A giraffe-CD rack! Now this giraffe sure has a long neck…

… with its body and legs at the bottom. Funnily though, the space isn’t wide enough to fit an entire CD.

That’s pretty much the giraffe could take.

Now let me pimp some of my favorite CDs. The latest one I bought was Janet Seidel‘s. Boyz II Men’s Ballad Collection is simply timeless. So is Eric Clapton’s Unplugged album. Creed was one of my favorite modern rock bands (the Human Clay album was a birthday present). The rest of my CDs are ‘archived’ (read: collecting dust) downstairs in the living room, lol. Let’s take a final look at the giraffe’s body:

For this, I gotta thank Jy. She told me it was a CD rack but I had no idea it was such a cute one. Lol. Thank you Jy! Amazing how simple gift exchanges like these could make one so happy!