Cute-sy Olympics

Phantom Jam

I can never figure out the KL traffic.

You're stuck in a jam for like 45 never-ending minutes,
speculating that there might be an accident upfront
or a road block etc...

Then all of the sudden,
the jam clears up.

Doesn't make sense!
What caused the jam in the first place?

ARGH!
WEIRD!

A Special Colleague

Oh colleague,
Your 'great work' so invisible.
That eyes have not seen, ears have not heard
of your 'capabilities' month after month.

Oh, I fear for you.


Oh colleague,
Your decisions so daring.
That you applied for a senior position
in this demanding industry though you're
unable to bring anything to the table.

Oh, I fear for you.


Oh colleague,
Your greed so incomprehensible.
You earn triple the salary compared to
most of the people in the department,
yet failed time and again to deliver a simple job.

Oh, I fear for you.


Oh colleague,
Your mind so insane.
When you couldn't think of
an idea for a 5-second
frame on TVC, you called me to
come back to office at 6am
to solve it for you.



Oh, you're so incompetent.
I fear for you.

Does beauty still exist beyond perfection?

Have been reading about Liu Yan,
a 26 year-old Beijing Dance Academy dancer
is one of China's best classical dancer.

That's why, it's not unexpected that
she was chosen to dance a solo
during the Olympics opening ceremony.

During rehearsal on 27 July 2008,
Liu Yan who was part of
the Silk Road dance, fell more than
three metres from the moving platform,
landing on her head and back after
a miscalculation by other performers
who were supposed to catch her.

She suffered a dislocation of her eleventh vertebra,
causing nerve and spinal damage. As a result,
she has lost all feeling below the waist.

The Olympics opening ceremony director
Zhang Yimou was quoted saying:
"You're the deepest pain in my heart,
if I could see you stand on your feet again,
it would make me much more excited
and happier than any praise I've received."

On the day of the actual opening ceremony,
her solo was danced by a replacement.

This is Liu Yan,
a year before the accident.






So beautiful.
Yet so fleeting.
So sad.

Hope she can walk again.

Gymnastics

Since the Olympics is on, thought it would be nice
to show you one of my favourite sports. Enjoy!

6,000 Over Steps of Love

Over 50 years ago, Liu Guojiang was a 19 year-old boy
when he fell in love with a 29 year-old
widowed mother named Xu Chaoqin.





In a twist a lot like Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet,
friends and relatives criticised their relationship
because of their age difference and the fact that
Xu already had children.

At that time, it was unacceptable and 'immoral' for
a young man to love an older woman.
To avoid the gossip and scorn of their communities,
the couple decided to elope and lived in a cave
in Jiangjin County in Southern ChongQing Municipality.

In the beginning, life was harsh as they had nothing,
no electricity nor even food. They had to eat grass and roots
they found in the mountain. But with his two hands,
Liu created the necessities to build a home.



Xu had always felt that she had tied Liu down and
repeatedly asked him, "Are you regretful?"
Liu always replied, "As long as we work hard,
life will get better."

It was also during this time (year 1949) Liu began and
continued to hand-carve steps on the mountain
so that his wife could get up and down the mountain easily.

Half a century later, in year 2001, a group of adventurers
were exploring the forest and were surprised to find the
elderly couple and the over 6,000 hand-carved steps!



Liu MingSheng, one of the couple's seven children said,
"My parents loved each other so much, they have lived
in seclusion for over 50 years and had never been apart
for even a single day.

He hand-carved more than 6,000 steps
over the years for my mother's convenience,
although she doesn't go down the mountain that much."



The couple had lived in peace for over
50 years until one day,
in year 2002, Liu returned from
his daily farm work and collapsed.

Xu sat and prayed with her husband
as he passed away in her arms.

So in love with Xu was Liu, that
no one was able to release
the grip he had on his wife's hand
even after he had passed away.
He was 72 year old.



"You promised me you'll take care of me,
you'll always be with me until the day I died,
now you left before me, how am I going to live without you?"

Xu spent days softly repeating the above sentence
and touching her husband's black coffin
with tears rolling down her cheeks.

In 2006, their story became one of the top 10
love stories from China, collected by the
Chinese Women Weekly. The local government
has decided to preserve their '6,000 over steps of love'
and the place they lived as a museum,
so that their love story can live forever.

This sure tickled my funny bones.

This can be to you, a funny joke or an enlightenment.
Good entertainment nonetheless.
Enjoy!

Let eat at erm....

I have a perfect website address to suggest to this restaurant:
http://404-not-found.com



HAHA!

Give me a break.

Chill k? Work can wait till tomorrow.
I need some zzZZZZzzzz.

Save your face.

There are a few words in English, that if mispronounced,
can result in SEVERE, traumatic embarassment.

To avoid being labelled a moron / idiot,
learn the correct pronounciations.
Sadly, I've learnt how to pronounce
some of the words below the hard way. Sigh.


Don't make the same mistakes I've made.



Here they are:

1) Lingerie - If you pronounce it "Ling-ger-ree", congratulations,
you've just made a fool out of yourself.
Unfortunately, I did! ARGH!
Until I found out it's actual pronounciation is "Lawn-jer-ray".
My friends never let me forget this.




2) Jewellery (British) / Jewelry (American) -
Don't pronounce it as "Joowel-la-ree" or "Joowel-ree".
It's "Jool-ree", k?





3) Realtor - Many people pronounced this as "Real-uh-ter".
Nope. Wrong. Don't complicate things.
Keep it to two syllables please. It should be "Real-ter".





4) Rendezvous - Bury yourself alive if you've got a huge ego.
Coz this word should never be pronounced as "Ren-dez-vous"
(yup, sometimes pronouncing it like how you should
spell it is misleading). It should be pronounced as "Ron-day-voo".





5) Beau - A 'beautiful' word to describe your lover BUT this word
is NOT a short form of 'beautiful'. So, don't pronounce it
as "Beeyou". Correct pronounciation is "Bo".





People,

Hold your head up high.
Get the pronounciation right.

Your 'Million-dollar Response'.

g

g

This is the 'Million-dollar Question':

"Should I or should I not post the video
of how fiance proposed to me on this blog?"

I've been contemplating this for a long long time.
Can't decide. Please leave me a comment / response on this.

g

g

g

Aiks.

Hahaha....
The video which I've posted yesterday has
ALREADY been posted in November last year.

Blur me.
Don't worry, I've replaced it with this one:




ENJOY!
Psst... Check out the cute nose bubble in 00:10!


Press 'Fullscreen Toggle Button'
on the bottom right to see hi-res video.

Like royal. (PART IV)

On the 3rd day in Honeymoon Island,
we had an 'outing'.

Honeymoon King & Queen arranged for all
to board their ship and took us to another island nearby.

That island is called 'Egg Island'.
Sounds so weird right?
But according to them, if you take a picture
of the island from a plane, its shape resembles....
AN EGG! (well, a no-brainer there)

Anyway, in a horizontal view,
this is how Egg Island looks like:





It's a really small island, probably take you 15 minutes
to walk round the entire island. Yup, THAT small.
I think it's more like a HUGE pile of sand in the sea,
not so much an island. HAHA.

It's also super crowded.
Lots of Phuket's tourists go there for 'outings'.
Some were playing beach volley, some were sunbathing,
some were swimming around the island,
some were just chilling out at the bar.
BUT most of us who went there felt a bit bored.

I mean, it's nice that they took us island hopping,
but many of the reps still have yet to present their work.
So, a lot of them couldn't fully enjoy.

Not only that, because we didn't know what to expect,
or had any clue what was on the Egg Island,
MANY of us didn't bring $$!

So, we sat there and just 'look at'
people enjoying their corn on the cob,
ice creams, beer, fresh juice,
trying on swim wears, sarongs etc.
Without $$, we couldn't savour or
buy any items on the Egg Island.

This is where I'll tell you a little about
Honeymoon Queen.

She's such a sweetie.
Even though she's rich,
(well, her husband IS a millionaire / billionaire after all)
there wasn't a hint of arrogance in her.

Maybe it's a Thai thing.
She was really hospitable to all of us
throughout our entire stay in Phuket.

When she found out a lot of us didn't bring $$,
she quickly announced this to us,
"We have baht (Thai currency)! We have baht.
Don't worry. What you want we'll buy".

She then whispered something in Thai to her staff
(our helpers). Like I said before this, all the country reps
were assigned a Thai helper. Mine was Orawan.

Right after she spoke to them,
our helpers came and told us to just
POINT at what we want, they will buy for us.

Wow, what a statement.
POINT at what we want,
they will BUY.
(Aww... How I wish my fiance will say this to me in a mall!)

I was wondering,
if I POINT at Egg Island,
does that mean Honeymoon Queen
will buy the island for me?
HAHAHAHA....

Anyway, I wasn't greedy,
I merely 'pointed' at a Wall's ice cream.

An hour or so after, we hopped back into our ship
and journeyed back to Honeymoon Island.
Just in time for dinner.

Let me show you the ambience we enjoyed
while having our dinner:









This is EXACTLY what I saw. I didn't photoshop or
did anything to the picture.

To prove to you I didn't retouch it, I've included another
picture of the sunset with the other country reps in it.
The lady in red is a representative of
an ad agency in Shanghai, China.



Dinner was buffet style.




Check out the food. Hhmmm... YUMs!










Now, let me tell you a little bit about Honeymoon King.
He's a brilliant man. Not as friendly as his wife,
but still very hospitable.

Remember when I first arrived on the island,
I was alone, and I had lunch with Orawan?

Our conversation went a little bit like this:

Me: Orawan, I came here by speed boat,
How are the others going to come here?
(So many of them!) By speed boats too?

Orawan: No... Mr. Kun XXXX (referring to Honeymoon King)
owns a ship, they'll come here with that.
You came alone, so we used the speed boat.

Me: Oh, so Mr. Kun XXXX (Honeymoon King)
will be coming with them on the ship too?

Orawan: No no no! (She looked shocked when I said that)
(HAHAHA... And I was shocked that she was shocked!)

Orawan goes on to say:
"Mr. Kun XXXX is the owner of the island.
He is very important. So, he'll come FROM THE SKY."



FROM THE SKY? WHAT THE?!!
This was what Orawan meant.








HELICOPTER!
I took this after Honeymoon King and Queen arrived.
His pilot was cleaning the helicopter.


SERIOUSLY!
Now you understand why I named them
Honeymoon 'King' and 'Queen'.

Fuh-yoh! This was what I felt after witnessing their arrival:
We COMMONERS travel by land or sea.
For the REALLY IMPORTANT people,
they must descend from the sky.

Below are some close ups of the helicopter.





They used the helicopter quite often.
I think on the 2nd day,
they took the helicopter to Phuket for lunch.
(While we, the COMMONERS ate on the island). Haha.

Every time the helicopter comes near,
there'll be a surge of strong wind,
something like a baby typhoon.
The trees and plants will sway left, right and centre,
And my hair will look super messed up after. Haha.


Anyway, just before they landed,
I took the opportunity to take this series of photos:






From afar, it looked like an insect
that's going to land on the flower, right?









I must say,
I had on heck of a trip in Phuket.
Even though it's work-related,
it felt more like an eye-opening 'holiday'.

I have to thank the person who made
this trip so much fun.
He is none other than - the Honeymoon King.

Now, to end this four-part post,
I've decided to give your eyes a little treat.

Allow me to show you a glimpse of the
owner of Honeymoon Island (also owner of
the helicopter, the ship, a worldwide business
and many many more things!)

Ladies and gentleman,
I present you,
Mr. Kun Honeymoon King.

(Picture taken while we were on the way to Egg Island)

Pssst... He shared the ride with us on the ship,
because Egg Island doesn't have a helipad!
HAHAHA.