A short note to you guys. YES ! I'M STILL ALIVE & BREATHING .... Been extremely busy with work. You know, economic downturn, cost-cutting measures, screwing other peoples' asses and stuff like that etc. etc. Anyway, I'll be away for 2 long weeks, to Melbourne .... again. Cheap airfare, can't resist. Will definitely have more time to post the backdated entries and to edit tons of photos. Perhaps that's the only time I have left to update this miserable long forgotten blog of mine. Cheers :D

It's been a while since the last update. Seems like the whole parenting and work has consumed much of my time. Anyway, we spent this year's Christmas in Singapore. Perhaps next year we should spend Christmas somewhere else. Tokyo Disneyland maybe ? We stayed at the Meritus Mandarin Hotel for a couple of nights. It's just next to Takashimaya Shopping Centre. Baby Leanne tried to maintain her coolness ... LOL We also made a trip to Sentosa Island. It has been probably a decade since my last visit. Some say KLCC Aquaria is much better than the Sentosa Underwater World. Much cheaper too ...

This is the last entry for my 'balik kampung' trip to China. Well, days later we decided to visit yet another village. Somehow, I had a feeling it won't be any better than the one I've been staying for the past few days. Craved poles with names of their great ancestors. Not all villages have these. Names of these ancient people were craved on the poles to remember the great deeds they have brought to the village in the past. The size of a 'tulou' is determined by the family's wealth. All that was left.The remaining ruins they once called home. Even ducks look ridiculously weird here. The main entrance. Mostly are in poor condition. I'm very sure the term 'autogate' is an unfamiliar thing to them. Built to last ... Alley between houses. I wonder how they see ahead in the dark. 'Tulou'. Before the time of electricity, candles were used to lit up the house. View of the paddy fields. I believe this is called geese. Never seen one in my entire life. Depressed looking pig. I gues that ends my 'balik kampung' trip. I have a feeling I won't be returning anytime soon ... :D

Back to where I stopped. One of my relatives, own a fishing site about 50 minutes from the village. It's more like they breed fishes for leisure, and not for sale. They wanted to host a fish feast on one fine day. But first, we must go catch some fresh fishes. So we decided to go take a look. Fish breeding requires no license in China. Invest a few thousands in equipments and the place is yours. Raft is the only transport to get around. Self-made raft cost nothing more than RM200. As we approach nearer to our 'destination'. One of the fish breeding areas. Fish breeders stay in such floating houses. Usually in very poor condition. However, some are equipped with satellite television. The only form of entertainment around. This is where they breed fishes. Along the river, they are probably tens of floating houses like this. Even Nic had a great time catching fishes. This man here is incharge of feeding the fishes, three time a day, and basically he lives there as well. Must be tough living in a floating house all year round. Catch of the day. Called it a day, as we were preparing to bring back the fishes to uncle's restaurant, ready to be cooked. Fish feast, I believe that was what they called it. Our day at the fish breeding site was truly an eye-opener.

After about 30 minutes, we finally reached the top of the hill. The newly rebuilt stone grave looks great. At least better than just a tombstone. The food prepared solely for the ceremony itself was too much. So much that my ancestor could hardly digest. Look at the size of that pig. It must be at least over 100kg there. While everyone was busy with the preparation, the local 'band' also kept themselves busy. Even though I didn't record their play, but I could tell you that it almost resemble the music for the dead. That was definitely something new to keep me entertained. Using live chicken blood to 'decorate' the grave is not a common practise for us Malaysian Chinese. But to the chinese here, the more blood the better it is. In chinese villages, it seems that women are more hardworking than the men. Women here do the farming, fruits & paddies harvesting, while men stay at home. A common tradition for the villagers to present firecrackers to others on any occasions. However, in return for their gifts, it is necessary to treat them a meal, be it lunch or dinner. Another common practise here is to decorate the grave with firecrackers. So I heard, there were 55 packs of firecrackers, presented as gifts from other villagers. There were so many firecrackers that I was afraid it may eventually blew up the whole grave. The last thing I wanted to witness was my ancestor being blown to pieces. Heck. That ...

My 'balik kampung' trip to China was one hell of an experience. Mom, Nic and I went there to visit my great ancestor's grave. Heard they had to rebuilt the whole grave thing. Flight to Xiamen is about 5.5 hours from KLIA. Upon arriving the airport, we had to go by land to some suburban village in Fujian Province, passed numerous mountains and rivers to reach our destination. I last counted, was about 3.5 hours drive. We arrived at the village late in the evening. Had our dinner and went to bed. I don't think I can adapt to the lifestyle here. Our long lost 'chinese relatives' were courteous enough all the way through. The next morning our courteous 'chinese relatives' were busy preparing the food and other materials for the ceremony. It took over an hour for them to get ready. They even hired a local 'band' to play. It's nothing near modern music. It seems funny to me because when I asked how far is my ancestor's grave from the house, they said it's very near, just on top of the mountain behind the house. The fastest walk is only about 30 minutes. HUH ? 30 minutes walk ? I can reach KLCC from my house in less than 30 minutes drive ... The local villages are damn good at walking. They can walk for hours non-stop. Along the way, I spotted their local village primary school. For such it's nothing as good looking as our schools in Malaysia. And their students rate ...

At least that's where I think I'm going tomorrow ... I'm just gonna make this post short and simple. Already back in Malaysia for a week now. Little Leanne didn't cry much during her flight back home. So I assume she enjoys traveling ? So many things to blog yet I find no time to do so. My new promotion and new job scopes pretty much occupied most of my time during the day. At night, I need to spend some quality time with my little baby girl, Leanne. Not to mention to feed her every 2 hours. That doesn't affect much of my sleep time as I've developed 'selective hearing'. Hence, my wife is taking care of the feeding. Probably after my 1 week trip from China, I'll find time to make an entry on my newly acquired iMac computer and HOPEFULLY blog about Leanne's progress. Take care now. Love : Cavin

The only troublesome thing about applying for a Malaysia Passport and a Malaysia Birth Certificate is to submit the applications in person to the High Commission of Malaysia in Canberra. For some reason, they no longer accept applications by mail. Even so, we can expect to get things done on the same day, which I reckon it's worth the hassle. A day prior to submission, we had to stop by the police station to get Leanne's passport and birth certificate applications certified along with the thumbprints. Police officer Constable James was very helpful in certifying our documents. Throughout his years as a police officer, this was the first time for him to thumbprint a 3.5 weeks old infant. According to him, the youngest he has ever done was an 18 year old crime offender. Ironic it may seem, Leanne's first time officially out of the house since birth was to a police station. The next day, we embarked on a day trip to Canberra, the Nation's Capital. With cheap fares from Virgin Blue Airlines, we took the earliest flight possible, at 7.30 am. Short domestic flights don't offer variety of food onboard. After all, it's only an hour flight from Melbourne to Canberra. Upon arriving at Canberra Airport, we had to take a taxi to the High Commission of Malaysia at Yarralumla, which is 10 minutes away depending on daily traffic conditions. Guess what. The High Commission of Malaysia, Canberra, is nothing near to what I expected. The architectural structure itself, portrays very much of ...

Just some photos of SouthGate to share. The tram ticket validating machine. View of SouthGate. Yarra River view with Crown Casino at the end. Musical fountain at Crown Casino.

That's rite fellow Victorians. I'm BACK !! ... LOL I'll be here, say for 3 weeks. Really depends though ... Business trip ? Leisure ? Consider it a bit of both at the same time.