Two more days before moving into a new phase of my life. I've been waiting for this ever since completing my last semester in MMU, yearning for time to wind up faster. Yet now that it's just 2 days before departure, I feel nervous over this from head to toe.

So many people I love will be left behind, family, friends, and all the familiarity which I've taken for granted for so long. For the past few months I've been getting closer to my family members, getting updated with my friends and highschool mates, so that I could burn their image in my mind and recall when I'm there.

I'm really thankful to have met good and sincere friends all along the years in highschool and university life. You guys have painted my canvas of life with vivid colors. I won't forget the times we had as classmates, hostelmates, housemates, club and event committees, movie kaki, makan trip kaki, bday party goers, exam crammer and many more. Thank you especially, to Kristine, Loo Mun, Weiyong, Shin Dee, June and William for being there for me always.

But time flies, and there's so little time left when I realized that there's so many things that I could have done for my close friends and family. All I can do now is to pray and hope that people I love dearly will be well and healthy while I'm away.

Even though I'll be venturing into a completely new and strange place, starting over again, like the start of MMU life, just that now it's in a different country all together, please don't worry about me, because I'll be alright with kind people there lending a hand to help me settle down.

I'll be updating once I am connected to the internet. So for now I won't say farewell this time, but see you again soon!!

Literally. Have you ever wonder how the space between the ceiling and the roof of your house looks like? When I was a kid, I used to stare up at the ventilation hole and think that if I stare long enough I'd see the monster living up there.

"Boogie man lives up there!!" ...Too bad kids nowadays are too smart for that already, sigh.

Well last Sunday after returning home early from a grocery shopping in Tesco (sadly the only 'in' place with air-con in Taiping) with parents, we decided not to go out anymore due to laziness. So dad decided to fix our telephone line at home. It became problematic when the phone line is connected to the phone upstairs (my house is a double-storey) and disrupts the internet connection without fail. So dad, the super handy-man came to the rescue!

Dad's the coolest when it comes to fixing stuff XD

He went into the master room and slid a piece of the ceiling board off the side and went up the boogie man's hideout. I follow suit, and here's a picture on the way up.

The lamp is so dusty, and everything else too up there.

Once I'm at the top of the ladder, I can't help looking down.

Ooohh.. getting dizzy.. not! haha. I'm not afraid of heights, but more of falling down and kissing the tiles. painful.. *wobble*

So turning my head up away from the scary sight, the arc of the roof came into view.

That's a fluorescent light at the bottom left which my dad installed so that boogieman can't lurk in the dark here.

Walking gingerly on the wood, dad reached the hub of telephone lines and start working on them, basically just rewiring and clamping them up with terminal caps.


I didn't dare to walk up there, knowing my own clumsiness. one wrong step and off i go plundering down to my death. noo way. So I've only taken pictures standing on the ladder.

Here's a wooden support of the roof, with the blue-ish metal thing fixing the wood together.


And this is the water tank. I hope no rats or cockroaches are swimming in there.. nope I'd suppose that's out of the question. *gulps*


And this is the wires connecting to the tv aerial, which is not in use ever since we installed Astro XD

My exploring up there was cut short when dad had wrapped up his work. So we came down safely and successfully have the phone upstairs ringing with the internet connection intact. Mission accomplished!

So that's all about the adventures of exposing the truth behind boogieman's hideout! Now that we are done with that, I feel more insecure knowing rats and cockroaches would easily take boogieman's place up there... >__<

Do you all remember the peanut plant back in my older post? Here's a reminder of how the peanut leaves are.

So last week my uncle had harvested most of them, while I was still in Singapore (will blog about it later!) and left only a few plants. My auntie had aired the peanuts, and served them steamed. Nothing beats organic peanut and steamed without that eeky yellow dye! Yet I really wanted to see the peanuts with roots attached, so today uncle pulled out a few of the remaining plants and show me. The whole plant is pulled out of the soil and the peanuts are revealed! See if you can count how many peanut pods are there in the picture below!



It takes about 3-4 months after the seeds are planted for the peanuts to ripen. So how do you plant a peanut plant? get the packets of peanut from kacang putih store and scatter them on the soil? well, of course the only thing that is gonna grow in number are ants :P



Each of the peanut pod as shown above has about 1-4 nuts. So in order to make them as seeds for the next round of planting, the pods are plucked off from the roots and will be aired/sun dried for a few days. This is to make sure it's harden and less susceptible to ants. Then the pods are cracked open to take out the nuts within. After that the dried nuts will be mixed with a layer of ant powder to prevent further attacks of ants when they are soiled. This is done like how you shake fries and pepper in a paper bag. Finally it's ready to be planted in the soil!

Here's a closer look of the peanuts.


So this is the end of the 2nd round of botanical show and tell from my backyard!

I've just updated the last post with more pictures after coming back from the clinic in town. My back has been having this annoying bruising pain since I came back from MMU at the end of May. I've been doing stretching, jogging and a little thigh exercise to hopefully shake off some weight, but instead I guess I've strained my back spine/muscle. Nice move, Lisa. Sigh.

My Godmother had tried to massage the pain off my back but to no avail. So I went to the doc's this morning to get a number, return in the afternoon, waited again for about 40 minutes for my turn (the most popular doctor in town) and got out after 5 minutes of diagnosis. Bought with RM25, these are the colorful candies I have to eat 3 times a day for 2 weeks to hopefully cure the ache.


And here's Hiro feeling as dead as I do, cos my Godmother had went to KL without him.

In this post I'm going to have a show-and-tell on my backyard sowed and plodded by my uncle. Tada!

It is actually a stretch of land covered with weeds, which the government owns but have nothing better to do with it than letting it rot. Far behind it would be the vast jungle with a really nice waterfall recreation area called Burmese Pool.

When I was little, my grandfather had a tool shed built out of zinc roof and wooden planks there. then around the shed were a lot of Durian trees. Our family used to eat durians from our backyard during its season, but then the municipal ppl came and chopped off and demolished everything there to make way for a so called new housing area but end up suspended instead.



So when my uncle and godmother come and live with us, he started clearing the weeds and make a small vege haven there, planting chilies, pandan leaves, xiu pak choi, bayam, long beans, lady's finger and others.

Let's start off and see the cute chilies plants!


And there's purple ones too which are super hot!


Here's my uncle watering the plants. Every evening after work he would dedicate his time to his babies in the backyard. On the left is long beans plants, the right is my fave, peanut plants!


The long bean plant. creeping plant it is~


I like peanuts.. but no peanuts growing yet. Even if there's peanut it'd be underground :p


Then we will move on to the hairy plant! who would have thought this is the plant that produces smooth crunchy timun?


Timun (Cucumber) is also a type of creeping plant. The spiral tendrils are clinging on the strings hanging from above.


There's a special guest in our backyard, ladybug on timun flower! I've actually made this into my wallie lol.


And the Timun Finale, Baby Cucumber~

I've been searching high and low for this baby timun but I never knew that it looked so spiky in the first place?! so in the end uncle have to point it out for me. btw cucumber is scientifically considered a fruit! woot!

Planted near the cucumber plants is this, called Mali leaves in Hokkien. the leaves are served along with the famous egg-noodle called Ban Mee or Mee Hun Kuey in Chinese.


Walking towards the right, there's this bunch of wild blue flowers and wines hanging on the fence of my backyard. This is used to make the blue food dye for the nyonya kuih (a kind of dessert).


Further then, I've seen something in the garden for the first time in my life...
Aloe Vera flower blossom!!


You'd think What? does aloe vera even have flowers? got tipu me or not...
So here's the whole pic, with the flower stemming from the aloe vera plant


See? It's real! here's a close up on the aloe vera flower.


Nature is amazing right? Well I've found so many little wonders in my own backyard, let alone the whole world! And that's all for now. Go explore your own backyard today! XD

*edit* I've missed out the papaya cos it's technically not in my backyard, but anyway for those who are curious, here's the mighty green papaya trees!


And here's the close-up. they take ages to get ripen, but will quicken when there's more rain. Still it's quite long until this batch shows any sign of mellowing.


That all for now! :D

There's been a craze for 'Axis Power Hetalia' which is a 5 minutes anime series anthropomorphizing countries like Italy, German, America, Japan and others. It's mainly on Italy, a good for nothing, pasta loving softy, who joined force with German and Japan to become the Axis Powers. So after reading from one of the anime blogpost my sister decided to make the paper cut out hetalia characters too XD and here it is, Doitsu (Germany)!


so cute XD *blame house printer for the sucky color*

anyway do you think it will sell in Daicon? :p

And newly added, Nihon (Japan) too!!


*update*

Nihon and Doitsu was given away during DAICON by my sister *wave goodbye* but good news is she had made another two! and here's our long awaited North Italy!


I love his expression saying 'pasta~~' XD it comes with his baka antenna too!

And another one here which is Norway~

the one hidden behind is Italy XD

It's been a few days since the last post, because I've been busy playing RO2 and lazying at home lol. This post will be about my dog named Hiro.


Unlikely as it seems, I suggested the name after Hiro Nakamura in Heroes lol.

He first came to our house in June 2007 looking very tiny and uncared for, with his fur all patchy. Then my auntie aka godmother took care of him like a precious baby.


My godmother's holding Tiny Hiro. Notice the paws are all black except one at the right leg? cute right XD


then after a month his fur become smooth and nice under my godmother's loving care *got jealous abit back then*


Hiro likes tapiocas and couldn't sleep without them. So we had to buy a bagful as his pillow :p.


Then when he got bigger a little bit, we gave him a collar with bells and a pillow too, but he likes to sleep on his back, paws facing up.


Hiro likes car rides too. whenever we go out on our kancil, there's a special seat for him on the dashboard. Later as he got too big for it, the rear seat became his throne.


Not to mention bucket ride too lol. This time around his ears are not droopy anymore. We'd hope his ears would be like the Labrador type but apparently not T.T


It's bathing time! My godmother bath him there with hot shower then later dry him using hairdryer. Both luxuries are not even available for my 5 years in Melaka *bites handkerchief*

So Hiro grew longer and not taller in time, but he still likes to sleep on his back, just that his limbs became too heavy to lift up so it become like this.


One hotdog playing dead there lol


Did I mention that Hiro is a poser? when we say 美美(meimei), meaning pretty in chinese, he will keep still and look at the camera. no kidding! Hiro and his vanity lol. the weird blue thingie is his favourite squeky soft toy.


He have a lot of them actually. small baby soft toys and teddy too.


Hiro is feigning a depressed look. I din torment him with multiple shoots ok?

And so Hiro has been the king of the house ever since he came, leaving the other dog Coco in the shadow, sad and neglected.. No la. Just kidding. But yea the love is halved di..


Coco is chained outside our house with a pethouse of his own while Hiro roam free in our house. It can't be help cos Coco would pee in our house if we let him in >.<

And so this is our Hiro for whom we'll be buying a bday cake to celebrate his upcoming 2nd birthday this month!

Happy Birthday Hiro!

P.S. No animals were harmed during the production of the photo shots in this blogpost. maybe just mildly annoyed :D

P.P.S in response to sherwin's question, here's a pic taken today lol.