Just another day in paradise

Finally I successfully dragged someone to go to eat at Borneo Rainforest. The famous restaurant that is owned by the fabulous Tiara Jacquelina, producer and actress of Puteri Gunung Ledang. I wanted so badly to go, but there has been little interest by some, finally Ching, pandi mummy agreed that we should go after the most disappointing QS grad school tour.

So imagining my bad sense of direction, (that's because I'm not actually from Subang as you know it) We manage to find our way to the parking area situated in front of Sunway Hotel. Parking is flat rate RM3 per entry, which is cheep considering Subang price. This is relative to the rates in Alor Setar where on week days the cost of a half hour parking is RM0.35. Cheap huh?? That's why I love my home town...

Anyway, the restaurant is situated right in front of Euphoria Ministry of Sound. Cant miss it if you are from Subang. So we went in, a bit disoriented, but we were greeted by the lovely sound of the waterfall and the lovely no rain moon above us...

Reporting to mummy pandi...hehehe

I have no idea what ching is thinking right now...hahaha

You see what I mean, the lovely waterfall and the music just sets the right mood...love this place...

So took a seat, then looking at the menu, the prices are reasonable. there are western food as well as local food. Their speciality was their Kolor Mee and Sarawak Laksa. So we ordered them booth.

Ching's Sarawak Laksa...yum...with two reli big prawns....

The scene before it dissapeared...

And me and my Kolo mee. Yes it halal, don't no pork in this kolo mee...I'm also not that sure how to eat it, but I definitely know where it end up at...hehe.


We were served by a full costumed sarawak warrior sort of waiter. Haha, the scenery was nice, the weather was nice, food was nice as well. A good place to have a date...(still pending). Anyhow, I'm glad to be able to get a chance to try the food, because I only heard of it in TV but have never tried it. Its worth the try, plus their lunch value meal is only RM9.90 nett so you can check it out. Its a must go in subang jaya. Here is a sight that I took form inside the waterfall...haha...

With Flash

Without flash, definitely this is nicer...lovely scene....

Music!!! makes the people come together...yeah!!!

Hail the newest exhibition at petroscience!!! Muzika: the science of sound. From the add it says that it is built by Heureka, the Finnish Science Center and is designed to open visitors ears and mind to a multidisciplinary take on music. The exhibition will stimulate curiosity and motivation to investigate and learn about music because not only will you be able to hear music but also see touch and learn more about it. It's what you need to know about music. According to the KLue Klassifieds page, the science center is working with the Sibelius Academy, University of Helsinki, The Helsinki University of Technology's laboratory of acoustics and sound processing, the Finnish Music Information center and Cartes art and businesses, among others.

There is still time as it ends in March 2010. I had the opportunity to go in on the 7th November 2009. Petrosains members on the 7th and 8th get free entrance plus a goodie bag for the first 20 members. So, without delay I went and made my booking on the 7th at 10 am.

So the freakin day starts as I woke up late...(again) at 8.30 and headed to the KTM Subang Jaya station. it was 9.10am and as i was punching my cash card, I saw people on the other side of the rail standing up. This means...train is here. I was in my clarks wedges, running without breakfast, on the bridge and making my way to get on the train. luckily the KTM is driver operated. He might saw me running frantically and waited till i got in the train. Quick thumbs up to the driver and he went on its way to KL central.

At KL central, my cash card wasn't keyed in properly. When I went to the Kelana Jaya line rapidKL train, i couldn't get in. Quick run to the KTM solved the case and I found myself running past the escalator and again, train was arriving. Pushing through those not in a hurry lenggang kangkong people I made my way huffing and puffing through the train...*phew* no breaks man. most importantly, NO Breakfast!! I had to replenish my energy fast or i'll crash. So I bought my sandwich at rotiboy and went up to the top floor at petrosains...

Wee, I arrived at 10. 03 like that. To my suprize, all the shops were open. Not like getting started to open, they are already ready for people to come in. Aha! next time i know when I should come to KLCC to shop. Keep in mind that folks..

Knowing that Petrosains attract many school kids in the weekends, getting in the place might be a little hectic, but when you get in the exhibition hall it'll be more comfortable. Muzika is not in Petrosains main exhibition but is the one next to it. The place that they formally had the dinotrek 2.

So, upon registering, getting my goodie bag, I went straight through the curtains and this is the view at the exhibition. Looks very plain, but the exhibits are very interesting. See that huge globe. There are white dots on it. With a funny vacuum cleaner thingy you can listen to the music in the places on the globe. Its very fascinating. I thought of coming again on a week day. (possibly the day that I have my "holiday" so that I can finish all the nice music on the globe. It has only three headphones so it will be selfish for me to stay there for very long, because there are many people on weekends.

This is the closer view of the mobile thingy that i find nice. If you are working at the exhibition, tell them that if you don't want this anymore I would certainly would love to have it...hehehe.

This here is a never ending piano. When you play it, no matter when you go how many rounds, the pitch sort of keeps going. Come over to find out how it works...

There are even shows that are presented during the exhibition, so be sure to stay long enough so you could actually be apart of the demonstration. This is because, if you are lucky, you'll might get yourself free stuff....hehehe, who doesn't like free stuff.

So basically for this demonstration, they talked about how sounds are generated, how sounds are can be audible, different pitches, all those things that you lean in science around form 3. Nothing here is rocket science, but i might be to let say a 10 year old kid. But i think its a good introduction, plus its very visual and you can feel and play and touch and listen. Make use of all your senses. Me loike!!

Other booths include like this one here. It might look very simple, but when you do the activity its interesting. One more thing is that I'm writing on behalf of a music student so the fascination might differ according to other peoples interest. This thingy here has to do with catching the main beat. Having a sense of pulse. One of the activity here is that they give you a ragtime piece and tap on the table and it will record the beat that you tap. There are also recordings of other people at the exhibition and that they would play it together. In general, many would have almost correct beat. that all change when the ragtime is been stripped from its bass line. When they ask you to beat again without the bass line, its hard to catch the main beats thus, most people would be unsure of the downbeats. So, when we hear the playback of the guests, in the exhibition, it sounds hilarious because, people were tapping all over the place. It became a new rhythm all together!!

The stool looks very much like it was purchased at IKEA.

hah, an empty stage, waiting for some creativity to start. Well, there are more interesting stuff here in Muzika like this boy and his dad doing...hehe, notice the disco ball??? its a DJ 101 class. Yep, this one tells you how to do the scratching and how to use the cross fader...

Haha, let DJ Slow teach you how to move-it-move-it...wee, so I had my chance to try. I think i need more practice, but it was all fun...

And then there is the invisible guitar. see that black screen?? What you do is take the yellow sensor gloves and start strumming. I don't know how to play the guitar, let alone an invisible one. I'll leave that to the experts. but i tried though, I was only able to struck one chord. I have no idea how to manipulate the pitches...
Here the computer actually takes several instruments and isolates the partials. Each musical instrument note is produced by a series of partials that makes the note. So here you can listen to each partials whether its piano, violin, flute and a number of different instruments. I'm not sure exactly on the details on partials since we've only talked about it briefly, but I'm sure Mr. Victor has more knowledge if you need more explanation.

Errr, this is actually the explanation for the partials, but its a little blurry,

Ah, this one is the basics in orchestra seating arrangements. The orchestra plays 4 pieces and then you can listen them by parts and actually learn on the evolution of the orchestra from Bach to Dvorak.

Here's a short 15 min clip that shows the history of western music. Very cute, gotta come here and watch. Here's the description.

Here the forms of recordings are been played from waxed cylinders to vinyls. Here we find that forms of recordings have improved and even sometimes when digitized, sounds become super clear that to some people it would sound a little fake. However, technology is ever improving. Who knows whats the latest in recording techniques in the future.

Finally, here is a short piece that I composed from, snorts, sneezes, growls, farts, thunder sizzles and I cant remember...Oh, Mr. Johan, would be so proud of me...*Too much of syok sendiri*...hehehe...its like doing the cool edit electroaccustic piece that we did during our final year...thing is this is much more easier....yeah...

Kinda been inside of that place for more than 2 hours, so I decided to head home. Lunch. On the way back I saw the add of activities in Petrosains main exhibit, and guess what, Its about foooddd!!!! so, I'll be coming soon. hehehe...probably drag the pandi as well...you like food right?? and that's Muzika. make sure you take an effort to check it out!!!

A letter to Chingy the lil piggy

Dear Chingy, pandi, mummy, dearest....


I can imagine Chan looking like this when coffee is present....=P sorry Ying Ling....VPYV...hehehe

Trying out the dress Azie??

Its been months that we've see each other. I'm happy to tell you that I'm very blessed to have another family here in UM. School work can be very depressing but its good that in the end of the day there is always some one to turn to and to laugh away the stress. There are some familiar faces in @ UM like Kit. However learning in USM was proven the best time so far in @.

Now that i'm in YV, I feel that I contribute more to society. Further more working with underprivilage kids have another personal meaning that shared a darker part of my past that not many know of. It brings great joy to be with these kids and that I would love to share my experience with you

Working on the notice board...Chia Yinn looks very glitterish....

The shelter that we have permanant interns working is the Agathians. The interns appeared in the Malay Mail a few days ago. Its a good way to promote our program and that my job in the ER department would have something to talk about while raising other shelters. There is more room for love that we can share with other Kids alike. One of the interns Yassmeen, from Egypt is so musically incline that she tries to learn a new instrument a year. She has two guitars, two violins, a saxophone, an accordian to name a few. Its very interesting to hear other @-ers that share the same passion as I am.

The shelter that we held our activities are at Assunta Children Society. Its basically a missionarry school where the underprivilaged children come to learn. They do not stay there, and they do have families. They are mostly from what I've heard are children refugees where some of them come from Myanmar and also Indonesia. They are the sweetest kids. I wish you could meet them.

Yesterday, at the shelter, we kick start the day with some square dancing. The kids and one of the nuns were dancing with us. Though many of us were fasting and jumping to "cotton eyed joe" none of us didn't really care. It was a blast having fun with the kids.

tired after dancing....

After the dance we had a Hari Raya presentation. We talked about, why we fast, what do do on Raya and so forth. After the presentation, there is a quiz where the kids get duit raya packets filled with sweets. We had also served Kueh Raya.

Happy LCP....

Happy angpow or should i say cing pow recievers....

After the presentation, we made Raya cards. It was a fun project that I find the little kids took more time then I've expected, but its ok. All the fun was in the process. I even made one for you...hehehe, for all of you who read this blog I suppose. I'm not creative but one of my group mates Helen made a lovely card that she dedicated to me and another girls, Azie and Niza. All of us were touched.


After the raya card making, I couldn't resist the smell of cakes from the kitchen. The kids make fruit cakes for sale. I was about to purchaise one till i found a bottle of brandy on the kitchen counter. Yes there is some brandy in the cakes....*sigh*...if I didn't asked I probably buy and get high on fruitcake and never know whats inside it....too bad but never mind....;)

Cakes

More cakes....

More cakes....OMG...me want sooo bad...the smell was nice....

Joline sent me to the train station where i went back home. I really enjoyed the time spent with the kids and that I'm looking forward on the next time we'll be going there. BTW, mummy....I've been demoted back to JE...*sobs* i'm stuck in TR stage for too long you know, I hope that I can go up soon. Lastly please pray that I don't get stuck for my masters, I do wanna finish in 2 years. Hope you do well in your one and only paper!!! get an A then you can enjoy deans list...hehe...

My love, hugs and kisses,

Your Anak,

Tatie