Pulau Tenggol - part2

Of course, you may wonder what we'd be doing spending 5 days on a tiny little island with no shopping, no TV, no spa, no internet.  Nothing much I would say.  We'd wake up, have breakfast, jump into the sea.  Most of the time Robin would ask us to tag along when he brought the divers out to the different dive sites.  Get back to the resort, have lunch, then snorkel again, and then come back, shower, dinner, take a walk on the beach or simply sit down and interact a bit with the other guests.

A lot of divers would visit this island but we think, even if you're only snorkeling, it's still phenomenal.  Although you don't get to see the many beautiful creatures in the deeper waters, you'll still be able to see some beautiful things that is just less than 30 meters away from the shore.

Some might ask about the food.  Well, the kitchen is run by a young mother (her 3-year-old is the only tiny human being on the island), the food tasted very good, and they were generously portioned.  It almost felt like home.

We don't have a professional camera, it's just a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX36, in a waterproof bag.  And these are some of the photos that we took: -

anemone - closed but we can still see the clown fish swimming in it!

another anemone, try to spot a different species of anemonefish in it.
see it? at the center top of the photo, the white stripe is on its back, the pink anemonefish

a pair of pink anemonefish, a.k.a. pink skunk clownfish, in their anemone home

look at the landscape

the amazing colours

a giant clam, just about 18" wide

the clearest photo that we have taken of a clown fish - very shallow water, approx. 1 meter deep, with the sunlight.

a beautiful giant clam - the most beautiful we've ever seen!

see the yellow, blue and white little things?  they are Christmas tree worms

this is the fish that wouldn't leave us alone, it was getting very close and even if it was so close to getting hit by our flippers it still would not leave us along!  Adrian thought it was not quite as friendly as it looked so we swam back to the boat.  However, according to Robin, they are in fact very playful fish!
Funny how 2 big persons getting scared because they were being circled by an A4 size fish... hahaha

this is Robin, the cheeky DM

a blue starfish, we've seen a few of them, spans just about 1 foot

the beautiful sunset

There you go, I don't think much needed to be said.

And we have decided, by the end of our second day, that we will return, for sure!!

Pulau Tenggol - part1

This trip, we spent 5 days on an island on the east coast of Peninsula Malaysia - Pulau Tenggol.  We were completely amazed by the place and we were already talking about returning to the island the 2nd day of our stay.  It is very raw, very quite and very beautiful.  Not as superb as Maldives but not far off.  However, if you're looking at a resort like what's available in Maldives, you should not come here.  It is purely original, not decorated at all.

We took a coach at 10:30pm the previous night and arrived at the jetty at just about 5:30am, the boat arrived at 8:30am, as scheduled, to take us to the island.  There was a storm out in the sea so the water was very rough, so rough we were drenched when we arrived (so drenched that there was not a single dry spot on our clothes, including underwear!!) and it was just a one-hour boat ride!  However, one amazing thing about the sea being so rough is that I could see numerous baby rainbows by the side of the boat because of the all the splashes!  So many that I lost count!

As soon as we got off the boat, I spotted a cat.  It was a really unique experience so I will blog about it separately later.  But if you can read Chinese, this will tell you about the interaction between me and the cat.

The room was a very simple and basic room, with hot water supply all day long and electricity from 6:30pm to just about 9:30am.  Very little mobile network coverage - just one or two bars at all times, and no internet access.  It is somewhat more isolated than some of the islands in Maldives.

The resort is owned & managed by Malaysian Chinese and run by the local Malays.  The dive master, Robin, is a very friendly and funny guy.  I was, for 4 days in a roll, the only Malaysian guest in the resort, I was out numbered by Dutch, French, Aussies, Spanish and Mainland Chinese！And so, I've been called "ah moi" almost every time he saw me.  And when he asked Adrian if he knew what it meant and my lovely husband said, "cheeky little female!" and he agreed!!!

On the very first night we arrived, we saw turtle laying eggs on the beach and we also saw milky way!!  Neither one of us have ever seen soooooo many stars in our lives.  It was simply breath taking!!  Of course, this trip being the celebration of our 2nd anniversary, a kiss under the milky way was inevitable!  hehe


~ to be continued ~

My crocheting project - floral handbag

It was time consuming, a lot of different techniques but all in all, it was good fun.  This will be for my mom, and there'll be another one for my mother-in-law -- order placed by husband before I was even 10% into this project!  Of course, the deadline for the next one will be before Christmas hehehe

It took me more than a month to complete this but of course I spent about a week abroad on business and didn't bring it with me to work on.

First I started with the flowers - all 5 different types of them!!  11 different colours!!  5 different types of yarn!! Goodness!!  And material cost is less than a hundred HK Dollars...!!

Dang, I'm good!!

New blog

I've started a new blog, a blog in Chinese.

It is here.  Or you can click on the link at the bottom of my own intro here (on the right pane).

I maybe biting off a bit more than I could chew here considering I have not even had the time to blog here regularly.

I love writing but I love writing in Chinese on paper, for real... Chinese input is just too slow.  But I'm going to give it a shot anyway.  Let's see how it goes.  Some contents might be repeated but it really feels different when I write in my own language.  I'm sure, for people who can speak/write more than one language, feel the same way too.  

Mr. Bean in a wig!!

Ha!  Look what we found on one if the walls in Fat Angelo's TST!!

Look at the girl in the photo, doesn't she look like Mr. Bean in a wig??  Not clear enough?

Young Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson) wearing a wig!

Adrian's sense of humour...

Today is the day Adrian spends a day with his boys.  And they have the pleasure of my company for lunch.  But that's not what I'm gonna tell here.

We arrived at lunch and Adrian showed me the text between him and Philip (his elder son):

Philip:  So we'll meet you at Pacific Coffee?
Adrian:  Yes
Philip:  What are we going to do first?
Adrian:  Sit
Philip: OK

And then, when we were having main course, Thomas claimed that he was full and didn't want the Risotto at all...

Thomas: O I'm full!
Adrian: O so you're full?
Thomas: Yes, I can't eat anything any more.
Adrian: O so no dessert for you then?
Thomas: ... Noooo...
and we burst out with laughs...!
Just a few moments later,
Thomas said, "I'd do anything for a chocolate!"
Adrian: O ya?
Off he scoops a big spoon full of Risotto on Thomas' plate, with a cheeky grin on his face.
That little toad's face was so funny but surprisingly, he finished the Risotto and at the same time, realized that he must think twice before he starts his sentence with "I'd do anything for..."

This is my husband's sense of humour and I love it!  hahahahaaaa

小米小书迷

昨天又去了书展听讲座，蔡澜的 “蔡瀾@微博妙答”。 

从草草不工的连载开始拜读他的文章，近而买他的书，好像认识了很久一样。 

香港人都很慢热，于是第一个举手上台玩了一下，也问了很想问的问题，没什么深度的问题，星期六下午，太严肃对不起自己!  还胆粗粗毛遂自荐要当他的徒弟。。。还留了联络。。。 everything crossed!  

喜欢看他写老友，他的老友都超有趣，羡慕！ 虽然我也有很有趣的老友，可是很多时候都是我比较有趣。。。  

这是其中一本蔡澜写老友的书，前天刚买的，昨天看完：

倪匡閑話--老友寫老友續篇

spider woman? naaa... just monkey....

photo taken by the beautiful Ms. Cat Mok!  Thanks, pretty!

The hair dryer was a lot heavier than normal today, in fact, last Thursday too.  Why?  Well, because I'm restarting sport climbing, after, slightly more than a decade!! 


It was introduced to me by a very good friend and I fell in love with it in an instance.  I still remember the first session I had -- I got home with crippled arms!!  I didn't even have the strength to scoop some soup out of my bowl!!  My mom ended up helping me!  I literally used up every bit of energy in my arms. 


Now I stopped for more than a decade because I did not have any support then, well I was young and thought that doing what the other half asked me to do or not to do was alright even though that was something that I really enjoyed doing.  It is different now.  I've got Adrian and I have his full support in the things that I do even if that means he won't be able to see me for a day.  He's such a wonderful man!

Back to this sport climbing thing, it's just climbing on some climbing walls, not on some real cliffs, I used to call it indoor rock climbing.  But it's obvious that it's called sport climbing now.... It's safer, more convenient, it's like an instant noodle in climbing.  No need to prep your trip and plan your route long before you climb.  You just turn up after work, in front of some climbing walls, with a couple of friends, and there you go, you can start climbing!  Ain't that wonderful?

Well part of the reason why I enjoy doing it is that it's not too physically demanding -- no jogging, running, sprinting, walking uphills... ya, ya.  I'm not a big fan of aerobic exercises maybe my heart and lungs are damaged goods haha  that's why I practice yoga and the only aerobic exercise that I enjoy is cycling.  hehee...

O ya, I get one special bonus doing it as well -- I got to know some very healthy youngsters (who loves outdoor activities and the challenge), they are soooooo different from the good old Hong Kongers that I know!!  Amazing!!