周杰倫 in Connecticut

This is the highlight of the trip!!! If it wasn't for Jay's concert, we wouldn't have planned the trip in the first place! 還記得 July 那一月, 第一次看到有人說杰倫有可能會來到Toronto 的事後, 已經很開心了. 到票開始賣的時候, 跟朋友已經決定去了. 差一點要訂酒店, 要開始plan去Detroit 申請Canadian Visa, 有看到有人說杰倫會去Connecticut辦演唱會. 那就更好! 因為可以用Visa那筆錢買更貴的演唱會票. 等了幾個星期, (雖然感覺好像很久!!) 終於在杰倫的官方網站看到公告 - 杰倫真的回來到Connecticut 開演唱會!! 好興奮!! 一看到消息就立刻通電話給ah Pei.

覺得自己好幸運喔!!! 一年能夠看到自己的偶像兩次!! 又在兩個地方 - 1/18 是在馬來西亞, 12/21 在美國!! 更幸運是, 杰倫剛剛發新專輯, 能夠看到他唱新歌 - 那就是可以看兩個不一樣的演唱會!!!

The moment we arrived Connecticut, Ping was already super excited. While getting dressed in the hotel room, 我們已經開始聽杰倫的歌. 一到Mohegan Sun, 興奮到吃不下了. 更何況那環境也很特別. 在美國第一次去Casino. 它的室內裝潢還滿美的. 那天晚上吃的buffet是最不值得的. 好想看到Jay 或許NQMM 他們, 但一個都沒看到. Hehehe...知道, 知道, 那只是一個夢想了. 在馬來熱亞的時後, 是跟Jay2U一起, 所以比較熱鬧, 全部都一起期待杰倫的出現.

The stage from Ping's seat.

The first song - 黃金甲 from the movie Curse of the Golden Flower. The view from our seat. Pretty close eh. We were just one section away. Ping is glad we didn't get the floor level, which is the most expensive ticket since Ping won't be able to see it anyway.

Next is 無雙 from his last album, 我很忙.

不能說的秘密...where they played the movie clips on 葉湘倫 and 路小雨 interactions.

Then it was 退後 followed by 安靜. Ping really wanted to hear the mixed version of 安靜 and 安靜了 that he sang in Canada but he only performed the classic 安靜. Even with the classic 安靜, it was still great because nothing beats listening to Jay live!! especially with one of his best composed song!! Another classic that he sang was 開不了口.

Another kick out of the live concert is 能夠親眼看見杰倫彈鋼琴. He first played a duel with 宇豪, similar to the duel they did in the movie. Later, he played 最長的電影 from the previous album with the MV at the back followed by 說好的幸福呢 from his new album, 魔杰座. We were hoping to hear 給我一首歌的時間 too but he only sang two songs from his new album. BUT, he also sang 黑色幽默!!! This was totally unexpected!! It is one of Ping's favorite Jay's song. This is definitely a surprise for Ping!

After the piano and Jay's classic came 千里之外 with the fan dance. This is another one that Jay is known for - 中國風 songs.

He also did a short version of the 扯 dance after singing 本草綱目, when he also threw the 扯鈴 down. It was so close that we could tell it was a plastic toy one. Haha...no wonder he can afford to throw them down at every concert.

After 扯 was 迷迭香 and 夜曲. 迷迭香 was actually the only song that Ping get close-up look at Jay back at the concert in M'sia. After 迷迭香, Jay went back stage to prepare for the next song while his dancers came down to dance right in front of us!!! Yes, literally in front of us!!

After that came another highlight of the concert - 南拳媽媽 as the 來賓. Not only that, he also brought Gary along!!! NQMM also came out earlier with their What Can I Do and another song which Ping can't remember. When Ping saw Gary, Ping was hoping they would sing 流浪詩人 but they sang 月光 instead. It was actually expected since Jay is pretty good at promoting his buddy's songs but can't hurt to hope mer. Sad to say, Ping wasn't too impress with Gary's performance though...it seems like he wasn't very excited to be there. NQMM did a way better job.

They also sang 彩虹, acoustic version of 雙截棍 and he did a special dedication to all his fans who are away from home, studying in the US (like us!!!) with 稻香 - his most recent 'advice through song' song. Here's Jay when he walked toward the side we were sitting.

Ping was also excited to get a pretty close glimpse of 彈頭 and 宇豪. In M'sia, they stand pretty far away so Ping could barely see them. Ping actually a pretty clear picture of 彈頭 too!!! Wanted to get a pic of 宇豪 but taking picture when Ping is super excited is pretty challenging.
A super cute Jay expression.

Of course, we didn't miss out on the super popular 聽媽媽的話 along with 張學友 singing one of the chorus. He also had a clip showing Jet Li's comment on him which is pretty recent. None of us took any photo after that as he started singing all the 搖滾 songs - 陽光宅男, 霍元甲 and the original version of 雙截棍.

When he sang 髮如雪, someone actually managed to get near the stage to give him a little bear!!!
Ping was hoping he would do another encore and sing 周大俠 but they only showed the MV while he sang 雙截棍. It was about 30 minutes shorter than the one in M'sia but hey, we are in the States. It is definitely a rare chance. 能夠看杰倫兩次在一年時間裡, 已經夠滿足了.希望杰倫有個特別的生日. 生日快樂 to 杰倫!!!! In a month, it will be a year since Ping was last home...yet, Ping feels like it has been forever since Ping was home with mum and dad and ahmah.

It is sooo cold...

It is sooo cold...
that you don't need an ice-bucket to transport your DNA samples around.

It is sooo cold...
that you don't have to worry about ice when collecting soil sample (but who would want to go soil sampling right now??? Gila!)

It is sooo cold...
that the car heater is not warm enough to clear the back passenger windows.

It is sooo cold...
that you can get frost bite if you're not protected for 30 minutes (according to WFMK Morning Show).

It is sooo cold...
that probably even the record-breaking psychrophiles might not survive (what is the lowest temperature psychrophiles tolerate anyway???).

Yup, it IS that cold. It is -18 degrees C!!! That is two more degrees to the -20 C freezer that stores our DNA samples!!! When was the last time it got this cold??? Can't remember but it is freezing cold!!!

BUT, before it got this cold, Ping get to play in the snow!!! Here's my first snow angel...
Ping got to make another snow angel the day before the temperature drop to craziness.
Now that the temperature is so low, the snow is not fun anymore. Ping wants more snow!!!

And here's the lil bro making snow angel. He's definitely enjoying it!

A Day in NYC

Boo!! Ping was in NYC at the worst time! Snowing! Raining! Hailing! Half of the time we were walking on flooded walkways while the other half was walking on slippery ice. They are not as efficient as Michigan when it comes to shoveling and cleaning the snow. Plus, people there are not friendly at all. In fact, Ping would consider some rude as they shoulder their way through a crowd. (Haha...can see some of you smirking and wanting to say, isn't that how it is like in M'sia? See..Ping tends to avoid crowded places in M'sia unless Ping has a companion who is good at shoving through a crowd. Bleh!) Don't think Ping would like staying in NY for long term at all.

However, tt and dk's apartment is actually at a very nice place - Roosevelt Island -, and it is literally right in front of a subway station. It also comes with an awesome night view of NYC. Ping went straight to the apartment to meet up with ahdik before we head out to the busy city.

Our first destination was Central Park. Lucky thing we decided to go there first because the weather just went from bad to worse after that. tt brought Ping there the first time Ping went to NYC, which was in the fall and it was lovely! Ping wanted to go see the ice-skating rink as they always look so pretty in the movies but we were there so early that there wasn't that many people and the weather was just depressing.

It then started to rain pretty bad that we went into Time Warner Center to stay out of the rain and cold for a while. We got some hot drink and some snack at Borders before heading out to the 'war with the weather'. The Time Warner Center is just right outside Central Park at the Columbus Circle. Pretty upscale place. We wanted to go to the bakery in there but guess what, it was a sit down bakery where people actually serve you buns and coffee!! Geezzz...

After the warm up, we took the subway to Times Square. This is Ping's favorite place in NYC. The energy, the cheerfulness, the colors, the fun, they are all right here. Just the ads itself is crazy. You can actually stand right in the middle and see the news headlines of the hour! The further you walk away from this area, the less fun and less cheerfulness you get. It is like the heart of NYC.

One wouldn't think that there is an Information Center for a few blocks of commerce center. But there is one. Yup, it is happening enough to have an information center right there on 7th Avenue. If one has a huge budget, there really is tons to do in NYC. If there is lots of time, there are also cheap stuff to jump on such as the Broadway shows lottery tickets.Just a few doors away from the information center is Charmin. Charmin is a brand of toilet paper in US. They did a really good job with their advertisement on TV because they have this blue bear that sings the Charmin song, both of which have pretty strong impression. Even ahdik who just had his first experience with Charmin got the song stuck in his head for the rest of the afternoon. Anyway, the Charmin at Times Square is just a clean, free public toilet with different types of toilet papers and people who actually guides you to the toilet door! Also, ahdik and Ping was lucky enough to get stall number 16 and 17!!! Just above Charmin is Duracell, a battery brand. They have various charging stations for you to charge your cell phones, mp3 players, camera, etc. In addition to that, they also have a bunch of snowmobiles for consumers to help power up the 2009 for the new year countdown. When ahdik cycles on the snowmobiles, the energy is being transferred into a battery cell which they later connect to the 2009 sign which lit up when clock striked 12mn. They required 230 cycle hours just to get 10 minutes of energy!! Sadly though, it seems like they are actually giving out more energy than saving because there were more people there charging up their gadgets or playing Wii and Xbox that they provide than people who were powering up the 2009 sign.

Among other fun stores we went into were M&M's and Hershey's. The M&M's look like the beads that mum use for her crafts (left). The Hershey's store was a lot smaller but they have this machine that allows you to mix the different varieties by random (right).

We also went all the way south to the Bowling Green area to visit the Wall Street bull. And finally, back up to the Rockefeller Center to catch a view of the Christmas tree before we head back to the apartment. Can you spot the Malaysia flag?? Didn't see the flags this trip but probably because it was pretty dark when we got there and Ping was wet and miserable. Ping did manage to go to the roof top during Ping's first trip to NYC though.

Happy New Year!!!

Wow! Time certainly flies. It is already 2009!! Happy New Year everyone!! It has been a year since Ping had the mini-steamboat party at her place, with only WY, PH, ah Pei and Ming over while everyone else was spread out elsewhere.

Since most of the gang is in town, Ping had a party to celebrate the countdown. It was also a reason for us to eat some hometown food that we miss.

Ping cooked the 'pek sak kae'...
and had lots of chicken stock. Wanted to use it to cook chicken rice but Brian volunteered to cook the chicken rice so Ping used it to cook 'loh mai kai'. Ping didn't get a chance to marinate the chicken for the loh mai kai earlier so added a little ngoh hiang hun that makes the loh mai kai taste more like bak chang rather than loh mai kai. Ah Pei and PH contributed the taugeh for the chicken rice.
Since we had chicken rice, it seems wasted not to have char siu. We also need more vegies so we had bok choi and mushroom. Deckson also brought some salad.
Thanks to ah Pei and PH for all the help with cutting up the pineapple and cucumber for the laksa, buying the laksa bor and deboning the mackeral for the laksa. Also thanks to TT for bringing the curry chicken, Deckson for the 龟苓膏 (gui ling gao, some kind of jelly with some roots extract), and Alan for the super addictive drink!!! Haha...
It has been a great year and the coming one will even be better! There are bound to be changes as most of the gang have graduated and will be moving on to the next agenda on their 'life-to-do' lists, and now that Ping's brother is here, Ping's project in lab is also changing, the downs will come but it will be the ups that will make it a better year!! Happy New Year!!

It is all about food...

When traveling to large cities like New York and Boston, there are usually two main attractions - the city itself and the food galore they offer. Ping was recently on a road trip to the East Coast with a bunch of chinese M'sian friends. The main purpose of the trip was to attend Jay Chou's concert at Mohegan Sun, Connecticut but since we were heading towards that area of the State, we decided to do the rest - starting with New Jersey (which we only spent one night), New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

While Ping would have opt to try more of the local specialties and different types of cuisine busy cities have to offer, but a trip with M'sians who have not been home for a long time and craving for homecook food had us making more frequent trips to chinese restaurants.
The first was at New Jersey - our first stop. We drove straight from East Lansing, MI, passing by Ohio and Pennsylvania to get to New Jersey. The entire trip took us 12 hours. We could have arrived a little earlier if not for the traffice jam (which reminds Ping of Federal Highway during peak hours). We went to a restaurant serving both Chinese and Thai food and had the special treatment 'coz ZT knows the 老闆娘 pretty well - Golden Palace Restaurant, Kenilworth, New Jersey. Ping was pretty excited initially as we were just snacking on junk all day. The first dish was a huge pot of hot chicken soup...then came the curry chicken and tau eu bak (Ping's favorite!)..then the pad thai noodles (another one of Ping's favorite!)...then more dishes came flowing out. It came to a point when there are way too much food than all 8 of us can finish in an entire day! An entire table full of food!! This is definitely a luxury! Even harder to come by - an entire fish! With the head and tail! Now this is what we call real fish, as oppose to all those fillets we get from Meijer.

The next day, Ping took off by herself to New York to meet up with her lil bro at tiptup's apartment at Roosevelt Island. It was when Ping was in NY that Ping get to try non-Chinese food. Thanks to tiptup's recommendation, we went to the Five Guys for dinner. Totally American! Simple! They make really good fries too! The fries was super addictive that by the time Ping got her hotdog, Ping was half-full.
The next morning, tiptup and dk brought us to brunch at Queens. Like NYC, it is very cultural, with shops of Italian, French, Korean, Chinese influence. Ping can't remember the name of the restaurant we went to..although it has a very simple name that Ping was so sure Ping would remember it..anyway, Ping had spinach, mozerella and tomato toast - all three of Ping's favorite!! Don't ask why they serve fries with it 'coz Ping thought it was weird having fries for brunch too!!

After the brunch, dk drove us to Flushing to drop Ping off so that Ping can meet up with the gang. Flushing is a HUGE Chinatown! It is like Petaling Street. Like Chee Chong Kai. Ping missed out on the M'sian grocery store though. But we did go to a Korean bakery that reminds Ping of Jaya Jusco bakery. The photo is a little blurry since Ping took it without focusing as Ping wasn't sure if they allow photo-taking there. You know lah..Asian a bit more im chim one. Too bad Ping didn't stay long enough to try any M'sian food there. Seems like there are tons M'sian restaurants there.

We didn't try anything unique at Connecticut. Ping was too excited to see Jay to be sitting down and eating anything. The moment we arrived at Connecticut, Ping was already 'jae beh tiam' and 'chiak beh luk'. Hehe...just like when Ping was back in M'sia, waiting to see Jay for the first time!! Plus, we were in Connecticut for only two nights and a day and we spent the time sleeping most of the day after Jay's concert which was at 2am!!

Cool gifts

Ping is not big on giving birthday gifts or any gifts at all. It is only when Ping see something and Ping thought of a certain someone then will Ping get it. It is probably because when growing up, mum and dad was never big on giving birthday presents. It was more spending time with the family and having a nice dinner somewhere or home cook dinner by gee kim. The other thing about gifts that deter Ping from giving is that you don't really know what the person wants or need.

Recently Ping found out about this program by Heifer International. While most organizations simply bring food and send their volunteers to help out people in the third world country, Heifer International actually help the people take charge of their own life. They preach sustainable development. Have you heard of the Chinese proverb "給他一條魚, 你餵他一天, 教他釣魚, 你餵他一輩子" ? It literally means "Give the man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach the man to fish, you feed him for life". In the ancient Chinese, it used to be "授人以魚, 三餐之需. 授人以漁, 終生之用" which basically means the same. This is the basis of their programs. Instead of giving money donations, you buy the family a cow or ducks or some kind of food source animal. They have volunteers all over the third world countries to help them start their own farm so that they can feed themselves. Pretty cool!

So when you are not sure what to give someone for their birthday, buy a flock of geese under their name.

Buatan Malaysia

Ping and Pei went shopping at Meijer this weekend. Actually more like Pei teman Ping go because Ping has to go buy stuff to clean the carpet and bunch of other stuff for the apartment. Almost got everything except the curtain (which is so hard to find the right size!!!) and a tv (which Ping is still not sure if we should get one since Ping don't watch it very much...will wait till the lil bro get here).

As we were walking pass an isle, we saw this box that says 'Product of Malaysia'. Haha...the two Penangkias got super excited. It is not very common to see 'Malaysia' in Meijer. Usually barang buatan Malaysia are electronics (like Ping's new laptop!) or crappy gloves or Adidas clothes. So what is this stuff that is made in Malaysia? Canned crab meat!! Haha...how come I didn't know that Malaysia has canned crab meat? Still prefer the frozen one. But if Ping is in M'sia...the fresh one is even better!!!

Ping's lab

The lab Ping is working in has gone through quite a lot of changes this past year. People leaving, new people joining, stuff being moved around, new equipments, and bunch of other stuff.

Ping's most recent desk arrangementThe writing area is kinda tight now but Ping have been going to the library or going home whenever Ping has to do writing. Ping gets to see the sun set and rises everyday and the lovely view when it is snowing.

The desk at the end of the bench is Ping's original desk. It is now moved to this side of the lab to be the gassing station (which is an area where we exchange the type of gas in the headspace of a flask/bottle that we are using to grow our bacterial cultures. The glove bag will be an anaerobic glove bag for culturing bacteria from hyena paste. Unlike mammals, some bacteria can only grow or grow better when there is no oxygen - known as obligate or facultative anaerobic bacteria. To provide them with the right condition to grow, we grow them in a glove bag that has the oxygen gas in the headspace exchanged for nitrogen. Sometimes people use a mix of other gases such as hydrogen or carbon dioxide. We have also used helium gas in the lab before too - this is a fun one!!!
This area used to be our gel electrophoresis area. However, we have moved the gel station near the entrance of the lab (below) and this is now the bench of a postdoc who joined us just a few months ago.
The gel area is where we run gel electrophoresis to separate out DNA, to determine size of our DNA of interest, to determine the length of our DNA amplification reaction (polymerase chain reaction, PCR), and anything else that requires the visualization of DNA.
This are used to be Steph's bench and the lab computer for everyone's use. The computer is now moved to the end of the desk (can see the chair facing the wall? That's where the computer is. ) and the desk and bench is now used by a post-doc who joined us sometime middle of this year. She's been a really nice addition to the female population in the lab but Ping still misses having Steph around, especially during the nights and weekends.
Here are two more glove bags. The one closer is a new one we recently bought for isolating bacteria from the human gut (using colonoscopy samples) and the further one is for isolating bacteria from soil. These are in a smaller room somewhere across from the main lab.

Pretty cool, eh. Ping is lucky to be in a pretty complete lab, having most of the stuff that Ping needs or would like to explore with.

The Little Nyonya

It has been a while since Ping watched Singapore drama series. It is easier to get access to Taiwanese drama than S'pore drama since the piracy regulations there are a lot tighter. The last S'pore drama Ping watched is the Parental Guidance 2, which was two years ago now or some where there. Lately, Ping started checking back to see what's going on (since the Taiwan drama going on now is not as entertaining). Found a new drama that Ping will most likely continue to follow - The Little Nyonya (小娘惹).

The story revolves around the life of a little nyonya who went through all the hardship during 1930s through the World War II. They bring up the issues of interracial marriage, complicating family trees, the exchange of young girls for money and so forth. Unlike unrealistic Taiwanese dramas, S'porean dramas tend to relate more to the lifestyle people actually experience. Just watching the first episode broadcasted a few days ago, Ping remembers all the story that ahmah told Ping - how she escaped the chaotic WW2 from Penang to Malacca, the complication in her family with family members being sold to other relatives, the unique lifestyle of a nyonya and so forth. While at times, it was annoying have her talk non-stop, Ping acknowledge that those are the information that is pretty rare to come by.

Some of you must be wondering what is Ping talking about. What is nyonya? Let's start with Peranakan. It is a Malay word, literally meaning 'descendents'. Peranakans refer to the descendents of Chinese immigrant from Fujian province, China, (mostly) who married local Malays (mostly within the region of Straits Settlement - Malacca, Penang [at that time known as Prince of Wales Island], Singapore). Ping is not too sure how the British fit into the whole Peranakan origin but it all started when Emperor Yong Le (永樂) of China sent his daughter, Princess Hang Li Poh ( 汉丽宝) to marry Sultan Mansur Shah of Malacca (unreasonable, but I guess people at that time thinks that this is okay, especially since female is almost invaluable to the family...hmm...wonder why her last name is Han...or does all the Hans have Han as their last name?). Does that mean that we are somehow related to her since she is part of the source of Peranakans? Hmmm...

Peranakans typically still maintain their Chinese culture (they celebrate all the traditional festivals like Chinese New Year, Moon Cake Festival, etc.) but adopt the local Malay language and customs to try to fit into the local community. During 'adopting the language', a new dialect evolved - the Peranakan language (or is there an official term for it???), which is a combination of Malay and Hokkien (since most of the Chinese were from Fujian province who speaks Hokkien). So Nyonya refers to the females while Baba refers to the male. Ping loves listening to the language. Like the Chinese language of the olden days, they love to use poetic terms...can't think of any right now though. Ahmah has a book written in the peranakan language somewhere in her stash of stuff that Ping used to love flipping through just to know the language. Hopefully she/daddy (although more like daddy..hehe) still keeps that book since it is a treasure now. The easiest way to pick the difference between the current spoken Malay and the peranakan language is the way they address themselves - saya (or the more commonly use, although rude - aku) for Malay while Peranakan calls themselves 'gua'. 'Gua' actually has a Chinese origin - from 'wa' (我) in Hokkien. Besides Hokkien and Peranakan, most Peranakan can also speak fluent British English since the Straits Settlement are regions where the British have residential officials. So Ping's ahmah can actually speak pretty fluent English (although her pronounciation can be a little off sometimes) and she reads the English newspaper everyday too!

So how does Ping fits into this culture? Err...not too sure actually. If not mistaken, Ping's paternal grandma is a nyonya with 50% peranakan...and Ping's maternal great-grandma (ah chor) has a little bit of it??? But since both Ping's parents are not, Ping is more chinese than peranakan. Ping loves the food and the culture, but no idea how to speak the language, although Ping can understand it to a certain point. Ping does look like one though since Ping is often mistaken as a Malay. Chinese typically has a fairer skin tone while the Peranakans have darker skin tones, looking more like a Malay.

Due to the combination of background, Peranakans have a rich culture. Ping loves their 'baju kebaya', which usually consists of a 'sarung', an inner tank top (wonder what they used to call this?) and an outer blause that is typically slight transparent. Ping is still hoping to get one for herself someday. They are mostly on the higher end of clothing choice these days. Everytime Ping walks into the store, Ping can only manage to nudge mum and say, "mummy ar, that one nice hor". Another thing that is unique to the Peranakan is the 'chiki pai'. It is similar to mahjong, but in the form of cards. Ahmah used to teach us (ahboy and Ping) how to play them but Ping can barely remember how anymore. Definitely one thing to make sure we learn from ahmah. Wonder if the cards are still available in the market. Of course, not to forget the lovely manik shoes that mum makes. Just from the details on manik shoes, one can tell the amount of effort the nyonyas spent on their apparel. By the way, mum is really good at sewing maniks and making new designs. She's working on a hand bag currenty so if anyone wanna get a pair of manik shoe or want to learn how to make them, she's the person to go to!! They might be more expensive than some simple high heels but comparing to what people 'normally' pay for a pair of factory-made shoe, the manik shoe is definitely more worth it.

Thinking about it now, it seems like Peranakans might be have pretty upscale lifestyle...not too sure though. Anyway, that's Ping's spill of Peranakans. Will definitely be looking forward to the drama. By the way, why is it called 小娘惹? Is 娘惹 the translation for Nyonya?

Photography

Ping was at a photography workshop this Saturday. Ping learned her photography skills from dad, starting with the super huge manual Canon that we had a long long time ago. When Ping got her first digicam (Canon S410), Ping knew some of the stuff that you need to adjust like the ISO, exposure and of course, flash/no flash options. Ping never took the time to figure out the new features that come with digicam.

At the course, Ping learned about white balance and the effects function. Took a photo of the Red Cedar River on the walk back to Ping's car using the vivid effect. The one on the left is taken with no effect while the one on the right is taken with the vivid effect. On such a cloudy day, Ping always have trouble capturing the right contrast between the green leaves and the blue of the water. The vivid effect sure does a really good job with it.

The other thing that Ping learned from the workshop is the white balance. The indoor lighting in US are typically yellow light. Sometimes it makes the subject unnatural. Ping typically use flash to offset the yellow lighting but sometimes the flash is way too bright, especially if taking a subject at close distance. There is one function that can be selected to reduce the yellow lighting. This is the white balance function. The photo on the left was taken with auto function while the one on the right is taken with the fluorescent function. The fluorescent function is like adding a fluorescent light to the subject. Looks better right??

After the 'lecture' part, we went out to take some photos in the botany greenhouse. That was the first time Ping went into the greenhouse. They have quite a lot of stuff with various theme. Ping's favorite is the tropical theme - reminds Ping of home!! Caught quite a few interesting stuff...

A Monkey cup! Ahboy, remember the one we found at Tasik Kenyir?

Banana!! Not one of Ping's favorite fruit though...unless it is pisang goreng from the roadside vendor on the way up to Batu Feringghi!!!

Morning glory @ Bunga seri pagi (牽牛花). It reminds Ping of bunga telang. Wonder if they use the morning glory to make the blue seri kaya kuih or not.

Carnivorous pitcher plant. （食蟲植物）Haven't been seeing this as often in M'sia. Might have to go deep into the tropical forest to see it. Definitely not in areas like Penang National Park since we didn't see any while we were there.

Halloween Party - a belated post

Just felt like posting some of the stuff we did for Halloween. That was the last time Ping really hang out with the gang - we had a little gathering after dinner at Ping's place and watch ghost movies. The next gathering will be the road trip to go see 杰倫 at Mohegan Sun!!! Time sure past fast when Ping is crazy busy. This couple weeks will definitely be fast too as Ping is back in lab!!! Got lotsa stuff that Ping wanna do!!!

That day was a pretty happening day as it was the last home football game (finally!!! Ping is surely not a fan of home football games!) After spending most of the day in the lab, Ping went to pick ah Pei up and we head over to Meijer to get some stuff to make some snacks for the evening gathering.

We had....a bunch of sugar loaded snacks. Sure made Ping avoided sugar after that night. But hei, it's Halloween!!

RIP Cupcakes. ZT and Ping did the decor for this.

Spider Cupcakes. The girls decorated this. While Ping thought it looks like spider, the majority thought it resembles 螃蟹 (pang2xie4, crab).

Then there was the Ghost Pudding. It was just plain chocolate pudding (mum's recipe) with melted marshmallow...not as successful though. But MC and ah Pei had fun melting the marshmallows.

The creepiest looking one is the eyeball egg. But it was good!!


















Another creepy one is the Bleeding Toe.

Lastly, we had a Pizza Face!

We also watched two ghost movies - JuOn (the original Japanese version of the Grudge) and another cantonese movie that Ping can't remember but apparently is a pretty well-known movie once upon a time. Ping watched clips of JuOn a long time ago so it was nice to finally be able to understand what is going on with the movie (with different opinions from different people...hehe). The best part was seeing PH being creep out and yet, still wants to sit right there hiding under the blankie.

Technorati Tags: halloween

Short, short, short.

Ping needs to keep her sentences short. Gotta reduce using words like while, then, hence, therefore, which will be,....

This should not be that different from the weekly report Ping writes up but why the thought that Ping is applying to NSF makes it all so much more tense. Seriously, should I even be submitting this? Gosh...can't imagine how it would be like when Ping finally starts writing up the BGE chapter for her dissertation. Scary.

8 more days to go.

Boo...

Blogging from Windows Live Writer. Just got the new toy - XPS M1530 and wanna try out some of Windows Vista's new stuff. Kinda like the gadget stuff at the side...almost like the Mac...still like the Mac one better.

Can't install Asian language input yet as haven't install MS Office. Too distracted to install anything or personalized anything. All Ping can think of right now is BGE, BGE, BGE. Can't seem to get my hands on a really good 'model' relating C:N ratio with BGE yet. Dateline is only 9 days away. Scary. Feels like writing my own prelim proposal all over again. Limited preliminary data. Not knowing where is this going. But at the same time, it feels more exciting because this is something that Ping really wants to do (okay, so the ribosome stuff was exciting too but it feels 'less achievable').

Alright..back to writing. Curious to see how this comes up.