University long semester break 1 (Chapter 2) - Medan; Indonesia

26th May 2011- 2nd June 2011

I am delighted to be one of the SIFE UTHM members who had been selected to join the Indonesia Outreach Programme (26th May 2011 to 1st June 2011). It is plausible to say that this programme is the most interesting and meaningful event that I ever had experienced since I stepped into tertiary education. We have been sharing our knowledge or information with our neighbor country; Indonesia’s friends about recycling, HIV &AIDS, water issues, nutrition and future planning apart from cultivating the interests of continuous learning in some poorer friends at Medan. It‘s a good thing to learn caution from the misfortunes of others, this makes me feel appreciative for what I own (have) now.

Well, the 1st photo is the tired looks of everyone during discussion of each night.

The meaningful moments we spent together with! UTHM Sifers go go go!

The programme had kick-started by Alex, Scott and Rinesh's participation in a concert event and parade organized by the Faculty of Language and Arts of Universitas Negeri Medan (UNIMED). They had helped setting up the booths to promote our university as well as SIFE to the Indonesia students.We had attracted 50 students from UNIMED to join our session through group discussions and presentations by our fellow SIFErs in which the idea of  “To create a better world through the positive power of business” had successfully delivered. Throughout this two-days program, SIFE UTHM managed to convey the SIFE concept to the students in UNIMED.

Yee Lin was introducing SIFE concepts to students of UNIMED. 

Group Photo  at UNIMED

Apart from the target programme, we also set out to explore the surrounding every morning, where we visited markets, and home based businesses to gain insight about the economy activities there.

Group photos at a shop which sells something which looks like milk .

Pui Yen and I conducted of Hang-Man game =)

socializing with volunteers of UNIMED.  This bunch of Indonesia girls are very cute!

On the next few days of the programme, we had shared our knowledge on 5 topics regarding social matters, which are HIV & AIDS, Environment, Entrepreneurship, Nutrition, and Importance of Future Planning. Some UNIMED students had been lending us helping hands to help translating to some who couldn't understand our language. In short, they helped easing the communication problem.

At Al-Alum

At Yayasan Pendidikan Shafiyyatul Amaliyyah

Before we headed back to Malaysia, we had gone to a relaxing place i.e. Lake Toba! The vicinity of it is very nice, tranquil surrounding and it's different compared to Medan city.

Lake Toba's scenery..love the serenity of the environment

with scott,wei lin,sue fern and ying min

nice smiles from everyone=)

It's an amazing outreach programme that was organized by us. We, SIFE UTHM had spent a total of 2,500 working hours with a budget of RM 10,000 for this project.


I had learnt boundless knowledge by cooperating with the other Sifers such as how they remained being resilient when entangled with difficulties in running the programmes and the perseverance of everyone to make this programme a success. Furthermore, the teamwork had been showed by everyone as all efforts are consolidated in innovating new ideas or solutions to help each other especially those who face presentation problems in Yayasan Pendidikan Shafiyyatul Amaliyyah and Al-Alum. From this unprecedented programme, I am able to learn the culture of Medan; Indonesia such as their foods, languages and etcetera. Nevertheless, I have learnt from this programme i.e. we have many ambitious desires which are achievable in life and we should keep pursuing stoically and appreciate what we have right now because the starting point of all achievements is faith in self. 

Last but not least, I am proud to be a Sifer!

The 3rd trip is with my dearest family which is to Singapore...

(to be continued...)

University long semester break 1 ( Chapter 1- Malacca)

During Long Semester Break

Chapter 1

Aha, finally I am continuing back with my abandoned blog after 3 months. Time flies like lightning strikes, the 4-month holidays are going to end soon. Anyway, this has been long overdue and as of right now I need to remind myself of all the things that I had done during the holidays. So I started the blog post with the trips/ retreat I had gone to...

(17/05/11 - 21/05/11)

1) Malacca  

The semester break started since May 2011, the 4 sistaz had decided to have a trip to Malacca with the assistance of Lucas Goh right after our final exams. Well, this trip has been planned since 2nd semester, and it's eventually, successfully organized! I had been reaching Malacca earlier than the others and I could say that the time I spent there is much memorable. As the quote goes, ' The early bird gets the worm', I had tried out more delicious cuisine compared to others as I came earlier. =) Okay, I am going to introduce what are the MUST TRY OUT cuisine when you come to Malacca, Malaysia.

1st and foremost, you can't miss out Satay Celup when you come to Malacca ! He had brought me to Restoran Ban Lee Siang to eat satay celup instead of another famous satay celup shop i.e. Capitol Malacca. According to him, Restoran Ban Lee Siang's satay celup is more fresh and cheaper compared to other shops. Let me give some short explanation, satay celup is a dish where raw or semi-cooked food like seafood, meat and vegetables on skewers are dipped into the pipping hot satay gravy.

Satay celup!

Next, at the mention of a trip to Malacca, the second thought that springs into my mind is the idea of having a bowl of sweet, refreshing cendol after being sun-parched by her infamous mid-day heat. We had gone to the Dataran Pahlawan and had our yummy durian cendol! The durian aroma mixed with coconut milk and gula malacca making this durian cendol with an additional epicurean taste. Furthermore, the dollops of durian of the cendol were creamy and possibly with fresh chilled D24 variety!  I still hope to have more scoop of it after finishing it.

My durian cendol from Pink Berrys, Dataran Pahlawan.

If you ever notice from the food reviews or even any social networking sites, many had been mentioned that Nadeje layer cakes/ mille crepes is a-must-not-missed-out food when visit to Malacca. It is said to be more yummy compared to Sarawak's mille crepes and Indonesia layer cakes. Well, skepticism had lingered heavily over my expectations, however I still request my friend to bring me to Nadeje Cake House. We had ordered three pieces of mille crepes! 

Had some nourishment of cakes at Nadeje Cake House!

The mille crepes is worth for a notable write-up. Here's a closer look on the famous mille crepes/ layer cakes @ Nadeje Malacca. I just realized that the word of  'Nadeje' means hope in Czech language. Hmm, can I say that we had enjoyed few pieces of meaningful mille crepes  =P

Berry-berry strawberry.. Quite nice!

Tiramisu mille crepes. Profound taste!Based on the menu, it made of high quality Mascarpone cheese of Galbanoni, Italy. 

I still prefer the original mille crepes!

Home made custard cream with Tahitian Vanilla Beans which are mixed with Fresh Cream- Yummy!

Okay, not forgetting the hot mocha, I like its epicurean taste and aroma!

Apart from Nadeje's famous layer cakes, I had the chance to eat nyonya kuih-muih! Nyonya food or Peranakan food is very famous in Malacca and it's like grabbing a golden opportunity to eat the famous Nyonya food when you know a localist there. I regretted that I kept most of it till the next day in which some had to be eaten within 24 hours. Sigh.. wasted~

Nyonya Kuih-muih

The night before I joined with my sistaz, my friend and I had some nice home-cooked meals =)

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On 19th May 2011, I met up with the other ladies and Lucas Goh! The trip with Hui En, Siew Chen and Chia Pei was full of laughters and we got to know more about Lucas Goh; the smart guy in our course. We went to Malacca Mahkota, some historical places such as A famosa, Porta De Santiago, Dutch windmill Malacca, muziums, and etc; Jonker streets, and much more.

At Porta De Santiago, Malacca.

At Dutch windmill Malacca.

Hehe.. sweet smiles from us! Yippy!

I was posing with a tricycle at Malacca street.

Hui En and I with our potato chips at Jonker Street.

At Malacca beach!

We headed to Gou Gou KTV on the first night =)

Apart from the KTV moment and going around historical places and etc, we had some exciting moments with FOODS! I kept remembered of the ramen that Lucas brought us to eat. Too bad that I couldn't remember the route to go there, otherwise I could bring my parents go =) A reasonable price for big portion as the ramen just cost around RM7. Highly recommended and I am so eager to visit the shop again!

Ramen at Good Village Noodle House at Melaka Raya! 

Thanks to Lucas Goh's great fraternization with others, we had the chance to get discounts when went to eat sushi buffets at the shop his friend works.

The only photo we took when we had Japanese buffet!
We were too busy of getting ourselves sushi, teppanyaki and etc.

Apart from trying out delicious Japanese foods at Malacca, we also not forgotten to eat Nyonya food! Lucas had brought us to Jonker Dessert 88 during Friday morning.  Jonker Dessert 88 is located right at the middle of Jonker Street and it serves some home-made cendol, ice kacang and Nyonya delicacy!

Without hesitating, I had ordered a bowl of nyonya curry meehoon + noodles. It served with (tauhu pok) bean-curds, some cucumber and onion slices, egg and a spoonful of tuna which made it tasted different compared to Penang curry.

My Nyonya Curry

Left Bowl of Nyonya Laksa was ordered by my friend and she claimed it's yummy!

Well, it will be incomplete if we just ate Nyonya food, hence we had ordered cendols!

Banana cendol ordered by Siew Chen.
Banana lover can always try ordering this.

My durian cendol which had lesser durian taste compared to Pink Berrys'. =(

Not forgetting about this cute egg-shaped ice cream!
 You can find this at many shops along the Jonker Street.

Wow, it seems like the longest blog post I ever wrote! Okay, I hadn't done with introducing about Malacca delicacy. Another signature Malacca delicacy is Hainanese Chicken Rice Balls. We chose to eat at the most famous chicken rice shop i.e. Hoe Kee Chicken Rice Shop. We had to queue up for more than 30 minutes before it comes to our turns.

The chicken tasted very delicious and juicy =) I found that the chicken meat is more tender and with more distinctive taste compared to the stalls nearby my house and even better than the chicken rice I ate at Ipoh. Perhaps this is the special recipe from Hainanese! The signature chicken rice balls are worth to be mentioned here. The chicken rice balls are cooked with chicken stocks, chicken oil and being shaped into like golf balls or ping pong balls.

Chicken Rice Ball @ Hoe Kee Chicken Rice Shop

The breakfast that we had before we headed back to each's hometown was duck noodles from Kedai Kopi & Makanan Soon Yen @Jalan Tengkera! I can assure you this duck noodles which comes with shredded braised duck meat is highly recommended. A bowl of herbal duck soup is served together with the duck noodles too. The soup has a tinge of spices and herbs. Perfect noodles!

Famous duck noodles at  Kedai Kopi and Makanan Soon Yen, Tengkera

Okay, it's time to pen off. This trip to Malacca meant alot to me. I hope that kiwi will join us to the Bali trip we plan to go next year! We are going to spend another year and half year to spend with, shall make some memories imprint in our life =)

Discover Broga Hills @ Semenyih

Due to certain reasons, we had come to explore Broga Hills @ Semenyih. The entrance of Broga Hill (which is also called as Bukit Lalang) is quite obscure and hardly be spotted due to no signboard along the roads. I could only remember the parking lots are at a vast palm oil estate. We wasted quite some time to locate the Broga Hills and luckily we spotted the entrance around 6am. The sky was still pitch dark and misty due to the rains last night.

Several landslide areas which had made me having solemn heart attack! Well, I am not a sporty person and catching my breath while hiking this Broga Hill isn't really that fun. On the other hand, the partner is like a kangaroo, skimming along the trails towards each and each checkpoint. It's a 1.7km hike up till the peak of Broga Hill and the breath-taking view is at the top of the hills. Along the trails, the entire journey up did not really fascinate me as full concentration has to be placed on my surrounding, rocks, mud, slippery trails in order not to fall down.

Several small suburb towns

Finally, I able to rest against the big rock and my whole body was drenched with sweat.

I took around 45 minutes hiking up the Broga Hill. Most could reach the top within 30 minutes. Hence, I could say that my stamina is much more to be improved. For descending down the Broga Hill, it just took us about 20 minutes. Balancing the body was the quintessence to descend the Broga Hill and I was thankful that I had the aid of the umbrella and hiking partner's help. Otherwise I might have been dropped into a valley as I almost slipped downward the squalid and perilous landscape area.

                                      Top 5 things you need for hiking Broga Hills at Semenyih

• Good body stamina and frequent work out before hiking
• A good camera that would really pay off all the hard work in climbing up 
• Bright and good torchlight that has large coverage
• Comfortable sport shoes and travel lightly (a small bag with wallet and drinking water are enough)
• Bunch of friends (I personally think few people going along would be better); perhaps can have light picnic .. :)

4 month holidays

Read back facebook comments then only I noticed the special date 0520..Well, I think that might be a special night yumcha session that I never try before in my life. Today,I listed down a memo about what I would like to improve during this long holidays. First, I will need to learn some soft skills including how to utilize photoshop, sony vegas studio, adobe aftereffects software; and enhance my speaking skills. (someone introduced me a job i.e. surveyor..and I am still unsure should I go for this job)..

Secondly, I am thinking of enhancing my self-confidence and maturity. Uhh.. I just found that I can't control well my emotion where I will just be freaked out of unexpected things. Found a long list of websites that teaching how one's can enhance the maturity:

http://www.wikihow.com/Be-Mature

I like the way it teaches..Yea, I am just myself.. I can't act mature, maturity depends on experience.

Thirdly,I need to learn some sports.. Cycling vs swimming.. I am gonna take the latter one first. =) I am so eager to go to beach, yet the only activity I can do there is just looking at the scene and collect the seashells. Hoping that I can swim next time. At Sabah beach or the upcoming Phuket Island?

I am not perfect, neither u are..

But I am willing to improve myself..

To be a better person..

Forthly, I have broke my promise to join the japanese club and pursue second level of Japanese Language. Now, I think of utilizing the 4 months to have profound understanding in this langauage again.

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The previous semester result had been released and I am satisfied with the overall results except for Production and Operation Management. I know I can do better in the final paper, yet unexpectedly I made so many silly mistakes. Huh. Bad~ I shall have quoted " no pain, no gain".. I gained better results this time..

The recent case made me understanding that I should not forget what I had once, appreciate what I couldn't own, do not give up which I think it is belonged to, and learn from the mistakes I have ever made.

- will not be around for a week++.. for Medan Outreach Programme..-

- I'm somehow looking for a place that I can relax..Huh-

Mother's day contest

I finally back to KL after the hectic exam weeks and malacca trip. Today, went to Selayang Mall's Poh Kong to redeem the prize that I won for Mother's Day Contest "Shining Mums". The terms to join this contest was to share out with a short story and choose gold/diamond/jade or pearl to describe our mothers to win for the best slogan award or best shining smiles. I was one of the winner for the best shining slogan in the contest. The slogan I wrote was as the followings:

'Pearl ‘best represents my mom, because this symbol of unblemished perfection emanates the enchanting beauty and uniquesness of my mom.

Mom, profusely thank you for:

Path of glory that you directed me when I was lost,

Enduring words of encouragement when I faced difficulties,

Aspirations of life you guided me in astonishing proportion,

Rhythm of confidence you built in me to embrace the challenges in life,

Love that you showered me since the day you gave birth to me.

Well, the feeling for winning a prize for mom instead of myself is indescribable using words. I would like to thank Poh Kong profusely for this meaningful contest as I never give my mom the pressie she desires the most, kiss or words that said ' I love u,mom'.. This contest had given me the chance to write some sincere words about my mom, and thank her publicly.

Poh Kong Online Contest

Mom was delighted when she opened the gorgeous present box. She was actually surprised that I won in the contest instead of buying it myself. =P Haha.. it was really great when seeing my mom trying to wear the pearl necklace and she commented that she loves the pearl necklace! Yeah! Nothing is more precious than looking your own parents proud and happy because of you done just a little thing for them.

Here's the necklace given by Poh Kong.. * I love it too..* I am looking forward for the upcoming events from Poh Kong and do hope that Poh Kong will continue organizing such meaningful contests.