A Different Lifestyle

I'm So Lucky

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 12:58:00 +0000

Thank goodness my wedding is finally over... . Now that I'm completely free, free from work, free from wedding preparation.

April 10 2010, marked as a day that I am officially Mrs. Lim, who is also jobless, seeking for what have been missing throughout these many years.

People have been asking me the same question over and over again. What do you want to do after quitting your job? This is exactly what we gonna ask ourselves 'what we wanna do in life if it's not work'.

The main reason that I'm quitting my job is because Don and I will be moving to the US soon, probably in a few months time. I don't want to be tied to my work till the very last day when I am going to board the plane. A jobless time is the best time to ponder about the meaning of life and to realize exactly what I wanna do before leaving to the states so that I don't leave the country with regret.

My To-Do List:

1. Spend valuable time with my family - before this, I always have my lappy on my laps even though I was physically present in the living room with my family.

2. Complete my Malaysia travelogue in my blog. I will start exploring the places in West Malaysia and record all my footprints in details in my blog.

3. Setting up an online business. There are a lot of online money making ideas in my mind. Just need confirmation and encouragement. Whoever is interested and have some brilliant ideas, feel free to share with me :)

4. Eating is one of the great sensual pleasures in life. So I will learn to cook some delicious food for my family, friends and my loved one.

5. Need to start picking up Yoga again. It's an essential path to health, youth and happiness.

6. Pay more attention on my appearance. Gonna look 10 years younger at all age :-p

7. Gonna finish reading a few books that have been sitting in my bookshelf for ages.

8. Do a medical checkup.

9. Gonna ask Don if we shall proceed our Gunung Tahan trip.

It has been a fruitful week after my wedding day. We went for a day trip in PD, stayed in Avillion Resort. Read my post about my stay in Avillion Resort here -> A rejuvenation trip in PD. Had a fun Karaoke night with Don's and my friends right after our trip from PD. Had a light-hearted chat with my cousin who came back from Taiwan to attend my wedding. She gave me a lot of good advices which I feel very thankful of. Then throughout the week I went back to my parents' place (my old home) quite frequent, almost everyday :p. I did some research on Macau and Australia trip, gonna plan a trip with my family in May. Lookup information on Sri Lanka too, we'll be having our honeymoon there! Sounds more adventurous than romantic huh? The rest of the time was spent on writing blog and reading. My cousin just bought me a very good book, Living in Joy, can't wait to finish it.

Look back to my past, I shall consider myself as lucky.

I'm so lucky that my mum has been so helpful on my wedding preparation.

I'm so lucky that my parents have been so supportive on most of my decisions.

I'm so lucky that Don is being very understanding to allow me to spend more time at home, despite being married.

I'm so lucky that Don told me I don't have to wash his clothes after I did our laundry. Hmm.... so odd, since I was doing laundry, so why would I skip his clothes and wash only mine... so cute :p

I'm so lucky that Don did all the house chores without asking me to help. But I cook, ok? At least I cook :p

I'm so lucky that Don's dad prepares breakfast and dinner for us whenever he's back. He never complain I never did all these.

I'm so lucky that I got to spend some valuable time with my cousin after losing contact for so many years. It's a precious gift for my wedding.

I'm so lucky that I hired only ONE photographer for my wedding, but it turned out to have THREE photographers, all charity work from my good buddies, Julian and Yew Choy.

I'm so lucky that my friends, Shiau Mei, Wai Ling, Wei See, Pik Earn & Yew Choy, Julian & Su, were being so supportive to attend all my wedding events. It was really a hassle day to come to my house early in the morning, travelled all the way from Selayang to the church in Klang for our church wedding ceremony. Then attended our dinner reception in the evening.

I'm so lucky to receive so many wishes from the guests in our wedding dinner. Thank Shiau Mei and Chris for their brilliant idea to encourage the guests to write down their wishes to us.

I'm so lucky that I don't have to work now and have this precious time to write this precious post, while watching Dirty Jobs in Discovery Channel. You gotta watch this show, it's not ordinary funny!

My Wedding Day is Close

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:20:00 +0000

My wedding day is close, but I'm very unwilling to leave my house and my room. I asked Don if I can continue staying at my house. He wasn't happy of course. But later he agreed that we can spend some nights here every week :-D

My mum just bought a set of table and chairs in the compound next to a small fountain. Her friends sometime came just to have breakfast and coffee here. How I wish I can indulge myself in the sunshine with the sound of the gentle flow of water, while pampering myself with a good book and a cup of aromatic coffee here every morning. I don't want to leave until I have sat on the chair for at least five minutes.

This is the bouquet that replace the Christmas tree after Xmas season

These few weeks my house are full of my wedding invitation cards. They fill up my living room, lying happily on the tables and the floor.

We ordered 2 type of cards, I love both very much. Wai Ling wanted to have both, but I told her her wish will materialize if there are any leftover.

The invitation-box looks cool huh? When I handed it to my friends they were like 'What?'... so difficult to tell meh?

But they aren't cool at all when you're going to distribute them in bulk. Gonna prepare a lot of bags just to carry few boxes of cards.

Look... tell me if you don't understand why I don't wanna leave my house and my room.

I think I will spend 24 hours everyday just to stay in the house , especially in my room and be a veritable fujoshi! We'll see... after the wedding I'll be as free as a bird!

Little Big Soldier

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:45:00 +0000

We managed to catch the movie, Little Big Soldier, during Valentine's Night. I thought the movie was no more than just an action comedy like most of the Jackie Chan's typical Hollywood movies, e.g. Rush Hours, Shanghai Noon, etc. Surprisingly the movie shows very little of martial arts. On the contrary, Jackie Chan was a deserter who doesn't know how to fight and was referred as a 'Nobody' in the movie. Initially, I wondered what to expect from the movie if it wasn't about Jackie Chan's stunt. After watching it, I think I prefer a lowly, unnamed 'Nobody' Jackie Chan to a 'Hero' Jackie Chan.

The storyline is engaging and touching enough to be thoroughly entertaining despite there were not many fighting scenes in the movie. I like those very interesting and yet meaningful quotes from Jackie Chan in the movie.

“挺好的” (Sounds good) - It's the line from Jackie Chan whenever he had a tough or unlucky time.

“痒了就挠挠、倒霉了就笑笑” - Scratch it when you feel itchy, smile it off when something unlucky fall upon you.

The view of survival from a little soldier can be seen as wisdom of a farmer. This isn't a deep wisdom, in fact it's very simple, it's so simple that when both basic pride and survival can't exist at the same time, one can still face the cruel life optimistically.

Ultimately, the biggest perception of life that Little Big Soldier delivers to the audience is: contentment brings happiness.

I really love this movie.

挺好的! Be Optimistic Always!

Sneak Preview

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 12:39:00 +0000

~*~*~*~

Script writer: Shelyn
Director: Photographer
Cast: Shelyn, Don
Best Male Award: Don
~*~*~*~

It's my Dad's Lucky Day Today

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 17:16:00 +0000

10.01.2010 was my dad's company annual dinner.
I don't really know anyone from his company except my uncles, so to attend their annual dinner is actually quite boring.
But since there were free food so why not.

My uncle was very generous, basically all employees who attended the dinner would win something from the lucky draw.
I think approximately 100 employees attended.
The prizes were of course from normal prize to grand prize.

So whole night, besides eating, was to give away the prizes and some funny games also.
My dad was on the stage whole night organizing the event and giving away the prizes.
He was the event organizer.

The lucky draw was of course boring. If everyone would get a prize, then what's there to shout about.
The draw was stopped for a while when all the lucky numbers were withdrawn from the lucky draw box and left only 3 numbers.
Initially I thought they didn't have enough prizes for the last 3 employees. Conversely, the final 3 were the lucky one that were going to win the grand prize!
My dad was one of them. Which is considered very lucky, as all these years the partners of the company were not entitled for the draw. But this year my uncle announced that all partners should be rewarded, except himself, of course.

Since my dad was the event organizer, he actually planned the game of the final 3 lucky draw.
Which sounds not so appropriate when he was one of the winners.
So the final 3 lucky people would walk away with RM200, RM500 and RM800. (Yeah.. I know not much at all :-p)
This was when the event in its peak.
The MC wrote 3 numbers on 3 ping pong ball, 1, 2, 3 and put the balls inside the box.
Each lucky staff would draw one ball from the box to determine the sequence of the next draw.
Then the MC wrote the employee number of each lucky staff on another 3 ping pong ball and put the balls inside another box.
So now the person who got ball no. 1, can decide how much he/she wants to draw.
ermm.. confused right? It's a bit complicated.

For example, lucky staff 1 said he wanted the prize to be RM500. He then drew the ball with the employee no. that belongs to lucky staff 3, so the lucky staff 3 won RM500. Did you digest?

Then next, the lucky staff with ping pong ball 2, which is my dad, had to decide whether he wanted the next prize to be RM200 or RM800. My dad chose RM200.
Which means he had to pray hard he would not draw his own number from the box.
Quite exciting right?
And God knows he drew the other guy, too lucky that nobody believed. So the MC had to assure everyone that there wasn't any cheat by showing everyone the ping pong balls.

Unbelievable right? A partner of the firm, who was also an event organizer that planned the goddamn complicated lucky draw rules, won the grand prize. Everyone was like 'Make horse! Make horse!" but of course they were only kidding.

It's 1:40am now and my dad is not back yet. I bet his prize is gone by now in the after dinner happy hour celebration.

But you know, sometimes the money is not the key element for the happiness, the happiness could be as simple as you were proven that the lucky god is with you.

Where is my lucky god??? I never won any grand prize.

Men In Tutus Return

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 14:01:00 +0000

Men In Tutus is returning this January! I was highly entertained by these men ballerinas in May 2009 and am glad that they are returning so soon. (Read my blog about Men In Tutus.)

I can assure you that men can dance like ballerinas in pointy shoes, just watch the videos. (If you plan to buy the ticket to watch the show, then don't bother to watch the videos, it will ruin the surprise.)

Show Time:
MEN-IN-TUTUS 13th - 17th January, 2010
Performed by Les Ballets Grandiva
Produced by Gardner & Wife Theatre
Playing at Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre

Don't miss the chance to catch the show, pamper yourself with a good laugh as a good start of the year.

~~ Synopsis from Gardner and Wife ~~

“Warped and wicked sense of humour” New Straits Times
“Toe-taly funny, most hilarious” The Star
“Brilliant dancers, beautiful choreography, stunning costumes” New York Observer

Direct from a sell-out tour of Europe and Asia, comes the most spectacular, talented and hilarious all male comedy ballet ever. Hailed by critics as “The greatest exponents of all male comedy ballet in the world today”, international company Les Ballets Grandiva is set to arrive in Malaysia in May 2009.

The largest company of its kind in the world, Grandiva boasts over fifty ballets in its repertoire and twenty of the best international male ballet dancers from thirteen countries whose soloists have performed with Russia's Bolshoi and Kirov Ballets, New York Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, The American Ballet Theatre, the prestigious Royal Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, The Royal Swedish Ballet, Berlin State Opera Ballet, English National Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Hong Kong Ballet to name a few.

Grandiva's "Men In Tutus" is the ultimate send up of both classical and contemporary ballet. The combination of brilliant dancing technique, tongue in cheek and blatant humour with intentional foibles, dancing mishaps and of course hissy fits by men playing both male and female roles (some of the men do actually look like gorgeous women, while others are hairy chested men with pancake makeup but all in tutus and dancing en pointe.) creates great entertainment.

2009 -> 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 05:21:00 +0000

On the 1st Jan 2010 early in the morning, ok... I lied, it is impossible to get up early when the bed was only warmed at 4am. In the 1st Jan 2010 on the way to get our bruch, Don asked me a deep question "How was your 2009? What were your significant achievements?"

It's not a good time to throw me a deep question such as this. I couldn't summarize it in a short sentence, moreover, I haven't completely slept off my hangover. But then it was my life, it sounds lame if I couldn't even answer this question. As if I have let my youth slip idly by for the one whole year. So I told myself to just say whatever that first came into my mind, and this was when 'we are engaged' escaped my lips. Don was of course content with the answer, and I got to escape from further exploring my past life.

Nevertheless, to put a perfect full stop in my 2009, I decided to summarize and review my past here.

What are the moments/things that are worth looking back on?

1. The best ring that I have ever received (coz I never receive any) and the best roses that I have ever seen. This was when my single status replaced by 'Not Available', in other words, my single status worths only a ring and a banquet of roses. Ok, kidding... it was priceless and it worths a worthy man. -- 21 June 2009 - Happy Summer Solstice

2. When I first received my spiritual birth certificate by saying this to the God 'I now give Jesus Christ control of my life'. I didn't do it full heartedly, at least not yet, but I know I had to, just so I could get over it. -- 27 Oct 2009

It's actually quite strange that when I was a kid, I liked church very much and I liked how Christianity encourages love and forgiveness. I was thinking how nice if I was a Christian especially I got to celebrate Christmas every year. And God knows I have now become a Christian but I'm still taking time to adapt to it as bible teaching is more complicated than just 'Love' and 'Forgiveness'. If it was only 'Love' and 'Forgiveness', I can then accept it more easily (I'm no longer a kid).

3. Career shift from System Analyst to IT Auditor, from developing system to hacking system. It is quite fun to perform penetration test for the first time over few hundred servers. I have also attended Hack In The Box conference which opened my eyes to the hacking cyberworld. But my skills are still lousy, to really master hacking skills, give me another few more years. -- 7 Oct 2009 - Hack In The Box Conference

4. Sink my teeth into my new travel blog -> http://www.travel-living-bliss.com/ -- established in 4 June 2009 - I was so absorbed with my travel blog that I almost wanted to be a full time travel blogger. I even paid to host my website (I ditched blogspot for more powerful wordpress) so I can have full control over my blog. However, there isn't much achievement in my blog as I simply don't have enough time to blog. An auditor in Ernst & Young just could hardly find time for anything. But for the sake of submitting a blog entry to Blog for Federal Territory contest, I ~~very beh paiseh~~ plucked up my courage to interview the tourists/foreigners in KL just so I can blog about 'What do Non-Malaysians Say About KL'. I hope this entry will at least bring me a prize. *fingers crossed*

5. My momentarily neurotic moment that transfixed my friends who read about it - Momentarily Neurotic -- I myself couldn't believe what I have done also. I even suspect that sometimes when one's IQ reached the peak it tends to fall back to the certain level to make room for growth. *I support spirit of Ah Q!* (阿Q精神) It reminds me of my inexorable fate to constantly trip and fall or fall without tripping -- read my historical records here My Inexorable Fate.

6. ............

Eh... quite sad, that's all I can think about. Not much achievement of the year. Gonna plan for my new year's resolution soon in order to have a fruitful year of 2010.

Happy New Year and May Your Wishes Come True!!

Oh by the way, this is one of my new year wishes, damn touching:

And I really love JS, they are awesome:

Live Interview in KL

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 16:42:00 +0000

In order to participate in the blog entry contest that is to promote KL, I thickened my skin to interview the tourists in KL and to video shoot the whole process.

Watch my video in my travel blog -> What Do Non-Malaysians Say About KL

And please vote for my entry also. No registration required, just click the banner 'Vote for my entry' and select Full Stars as the voting rate.

Thanks!

Sometimes my brain malfunctions

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:54:00 +0000

I was driving alone while happily talking on my new pet, BB, with Evelyn without hand free. The traffic was pretty bad at Jalan Bukit Bintang especially at the traffic light junction. The snails can crawl faster than the cars. Anyway, it didn't really bother me because I was engrossed in my conversation with Evelyn. Suddenly my snail-moving car approaching 2 traffic policemen who were chatting beside the road. I was looking at them and they were looking at me, coz they were just right in front of my car and since my car was crawling extremely slowly, we had time to actually stare at each other.

I guess that was one of the many times when my brain malfunctioned. I then continued talking on the phone as if nothing happened. I suddenly had this feeling that something wasn't so right. When the policemen continued staring at me with the 'WTF' look, then only I was awakened and quickly put down my phone and pretended I didn't see them. But the stupid traffic wasn't moving at all so my car basically stopped right next to them. The policeman showed me the gesture to roll down my window, I can't pretend to be blind anymore so I rolled down the window.

"Wah.. you see us and you can still continue talking ah?" Policeman A.
"Want to give her summon or not?" Policeman B.
"Why you talk on the phone when we are standing next to you?" Policeman A.
"My mind isn't functioning." I said.
"You so pretty but talk on the phone while driving huh?" Policeman B.
"kns... what it has to do with my look." *in my mind*
"Sorry huh... I didn't see you" I apologized.
"So want to give her summon or not?" Policeman B.
*Continue giving me fierce look* Policeman A.

Since Policeman B was waiting for Policeman A to tell him whether he should give me summon, and Policeman A didn't say anything, I quickly apologized for a few more times and wound up my window. The f**king car was still not moving. So I acted cool and waited for the traffic patiently next to them for like another few minutes.

Classic but very fortunate. *phew*

It's a Beautiful Day Today

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:47:00 +0000

Everything went smooth today.

I was kinda nervous in the morning due to the training that I was gonna conduct in the firm. Surprisingly the training went very well that I received a lot of responses from the class. The participants seemed to really pay attention to the course and asked questions promptly. I enjoyed the interactive section like this.

Since the training went smooth, my mood was good. After work, I got to go off with Don together, damn happy. Sound pathetic huh? Even though we work in the same company, we don't usually get to meet each other, most of the time we would be at client's place and we don't usually meet each other during week days also. So if we had chance to go off together, it would be special for me. hmm... how come still sound very pathetic.

Anyway, so we went for dinner together in Bangsar. I have been looking for an elegant extremely high-heeled bridal shoes for long but couldn't get one that really captivates me. Since we were in Bangsar, I continued hunting for shoes in the boutiques. Not sure why the sales girls that I met today are so friendly. I told them I was looking for bridal shoes and they were so friendly asked me a lot of questions about Chinese wedding and helped to look for the one that suits me. But none really looks like a bridal shoes until I visited Vincci Plus in Bangsar Village.

I found a pair that is exactly what I am looking for, the texture, the elegant design, and most importantly, it's 4 1/2 inches high, perfect for a short lady like me!

Simple and elegant. Love the color. I'm thinking if I should add some crystals on it. The front might look boring, but the side is captivating!

Transparent heels are decorated with crystals / stones to add the sparkle to the shoes.

I was so happy as if I found the treasures from the deep ocean. I requested a new pair and ready to pay. Guess the sales girl could sense my happiness so she asked,
"Are they for the dinner party?"
"Oh, they are for my wedding."
"Oh..." the sales girl looked surprised and immediately said "Let me get you newer pairs."

She then brought out ALL new pairs with my size for me to choose. I then slowly chose for the flawless one, to make sure there wasn't any missing stone at all. So kind of her!!

She then carefully wrapped my shoes so that I can't show it to my friends.

What a beautiful day today.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The other day I had this funny conversation with Julian
"I bought BB already" I said
"Huh? You meant you adopt one?" Julian
"BB - Blackberry lah!"
"oh... wtf... say lah... now in my dictionary BB = Baby"

A man who becomes a father.

Anne told me this evening that she forgot to bring her (company) laptop to work, so her colleagues have to setup a temporary desktop for her to use. *classic*

A woman who never change.

Quick Update of My Life

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:51:00 +0000

My weekends are basically trespassed by tight schedule. Err... ok, it isn't that tight actually, but when an activity is scheduled smack-dab in the middle of the day, you basically can't do much with a gap in between the day. Are you digesting?

For example, if an activity is scheduled from 3pm to 6pm, then I couldn't make an appointment with my stylist to perm my hair as the salon only opens at 11am and I don't want to risk my hair by having it done in rush. Besides, I have no mood to prepare homemade dinner as well (just an example, I know you know I don't cook) as I prefer having early dinner.

So my Saturdays are gone with the weekly marriage-prep course from 3pm to 6pm. Don't ask me why is the course, it's just a requirement to get the license to wedding. Don't understand? Watch License to Wed. *It happens in real life, I tell you.*

I think I wouldn't mind the weekly marriage-prep course if the counselor is Robin William.

What do you think if I told you I sleep at 12am in the Saturday night. 'Hello... it's Saturday night, only old lady would sleep at 12!!' Ok... refrain from being overly excited. But you see, I slept really late in last 2 Saturdays and therefore, I missed my course in Church. (Want to be a Christian also not easy one, must attend don't know how many baptism courses before baptize.)

So again, my Sunday mornings are given to the church. Actually going to Church is a good activity but if I was told that I MUST attend the service every Sunday, the excitement about going to church will turn to the feeling of restriction or burden.

But never mind, these are the tests and challenges guiding us to the path of happiness, so I shouldn't rant.

If I have time to blog, I will share with you of what we've learnt in pre-marital course.

Good night. Oh... if you are bored, go visit my travel blog, I update more frequent there.

The Luckiest Disaster ~ Baby Hit by Train

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:38:00 +0000

Breaking News! I was shocked when watching the news on TV. What a world luckiest baby.

A six-month-old baby had a miraculous escape after his stroller rolled off a railway station platform and into the path of an incoming train. The incident, which happened at Ashburton railway station in Melbourne, Australia, was captured by CCTV. The footage shows the baby's mother momentarily letting go of the stroller, which then rolls over the edge of the platform. Second later, a train pulls in to the station. The stroller and baby were dragged 30 meters further up the track before the ...

How Possible a Bed Would Move

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:25:00 +0000

I was looking for Ipoh and Penang's attractions in TripAdvisor and was curious about what Hotel in Ipoh is worth staying. So I navigate to Ipoh Hotels link.

Apparently Regalodge Hotel is the best budget hotel in Ipoh. The hotel is as cheap as Excelsior but way newer and cleaner. I might want to consider it if I have a chance to visit Ipoh again for work. http://www.regalodge.com.my

I then read some reviews of Hotel Excelsior (yeah.. I just want to know if anyone has any special experience in the hotel) and found this pretty 'funny' review:

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I have two complains, though:

1) The complimentary baby cot I asked for was damaged and can be unsafe if your child loves to climb or play inside the cot.

2) I was given two single beds joined side by side to form a queen size bed. The problem is the beds move! So while sleeping, don't be surprised that the beds gradually move apart, leaving a gap in the middle for you to fall through!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Can anyone tell me how possible a bed can move by itself? I have stayed in Hotel Excelsior before and the bed is definitely not the 4 legs wooden bed like what you see in the jail.

The beds actually look like this:

Unless you are doing intense workout on the bed, the bed MIGHT move a little. But the beds move and leave a gap in between while you were doing nothing on bed but sleeping? And the gap is big enough for one to fall?

Hmm... anyone who is good in physics can tell me how did it happen?

Oh.. by the way, the carpet in the room is not a smooth type, but a rough type.

HITB Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 04:48:00 +0000

I attended Hack In The Box conference 3 days ago for 2 days and it was awesome! Is there any job in the world that basically the company just hire us to attend all sorts of conference or seminar or talks or whatever you call, and all we need to do is to write a report about what we have learnt. Cool isn't it? (keep dreaming)

HITB is the premier network security event in Asia and the Middle East. The main aim of the conference is to enable the dissemination, discussion and sharing of deep knowledge network security information.

The conference fee is quite expensive though, RM499! Thank goodness my company sponsored me and John, the key person who perform penetration test in my company. I arrived at Crowne Plaza Mutiara just on time, the traffic in KL was terribly congested. The interior of Crowne hotel is actually way more grand than its exterior.

The organizer made me wear this tag and secured it with a piece of metal so the tag can't be removed unless you cut it. Which means I was forced to wear this stupid thing to eat, to shit, to sleep, to date, to swim, to fight, to whatever you can imagine, for a good 2 days. What a brilliant idea!

These teams were beating their brains out to exploit rival teams’ daemons to get their flags. The game is called Capture The Flag War - CTF.

Teams of 3 will have a set of daemons / services running on their machines and they need to exploit rival teams’ daemons to get their flags. Submit the flag to obtain offensive points. Keep your daemons up and running to obtain defensive points.

In CTF-WMD, each team will manage a country and each country will start with the same number of population (also known as HP or HitPoints). Teams will need to launch warheads at rival countries or disable their warheads or utilities in order to gain offensive points. For defensive points, all the team needs to do is keep their utilities up.

Heard that Korean's team won. If you are good in hacking and network security, you might want to consider participating in this competition next year (it's held every year), it's a very high chance that you would be spotted by renowned companies and hire you if you won.

There were 4 main speakers of the conference of all have been a hacker for a few decades.

Keynote 1: Joe Grand aka Kingpin (President, Grand Idea Studio)
Keynote 2: Rop Gonggrijp (Hacker and Activist)
Keynote 3: Ed Skoudis (Co-Founder, InGuardians)
Keynote 4: Julian Assange (Founder of WikiLeaks.org)

Joe Grand, hardware hacker/expertise, showed us how he cracked the smart card so he has unlimited value of the card to pay for the parking. But John told me the device that is used to analyze the smart card chip costs more than 100k (he didn't say in which currency) -_-". I'm not sure how true it is though. Gonna google a bit.

Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, told us he has been hacking since age 7! He was convicted of attacks on the US intelligence and publishing a magazine which inspired crimes against the Commonwealth. Genius are all weird. If you want to know more about him, google is your best friend.

I tried to wiki him but surprisingly he isn't in the wikipedia. How could someone like XiaXue who blogs about nothing but her rantings and pinky stuffs is found in Wikipedia whereas a WikiLeaks founder who has been hacking since age 7, is not interesting enough to be in Wikipedia.

Another interesting booth, Lock Picking Village, shows you how to hand pick the locks.
Visit here -> http://conference.hackinthebox.org/hitbsecconf2009kl/?page_id=358

The two members from the Open Organization of Lockpickers (TOOOL) were demonstrating to the audience how to use simple tools to unlock the lock.

The lockpick tools that they sell are expensive though, a simple tool in a size of a credit card costs RM100! I was tempted to buy one but I couldn't think of any reason that I need one except to show off. There was a man who wasn't hesitate at all to buy a set of toolkits which costs USD400!! hmm... might be a professional thief.

~~These 2 Russians are funny. They are one of the developers of nmap.~~ (my source is so not accurate :-p Thanks LD)

The 2 speakers, Fyodor, co-author of X-Probe and The Grugq, who has spent several years researching anti-forensic techniques and also the author of Hash, showed us all sort of funny 'illegal' tradings on the internet in Russia.

Can you imagine there are actually people who sell ICQ number? Before that I can't even imagine there are people who are still using ICQ. Anyone of you still remember your ICQ number? Is your ICQ number 6 digits or 8 digits? Mine is 7 digits, you can try to add me if you want, my ICQ number is 6051605 :-p... no joke, I still remember it!

Ok, the whole idea about selling ICQ number is that people prefer 6 digits ICQ number than 8 digits ICQ number, just to show off, I guess. The ICQ number that they sell are those lucky numbers like 116688, 996688 (why sound so like Chinese). Russians are simply brilliant.

Another funny trading in Russia is that people sell proxy online. For those who are not familiar with proxy, a Proxy site is a web page which allows you to browse your favorite web sites -- even though your access to those web sites might be blocked by a content filter. So if you find that your bloody company blocks your favorite websites, use the web proxy sites to get around the block. By the way, you can actually get free proxy online if you google it, not necessary have to purchase it.

The most classic one is that there are people who offer the service to TAKE DOWN TWITTER.COM. So if you want to take down twitter.com (for don't know what bloody reason) for 1 day, all you need is to pay USD 80 to the hacker who offers the service.

There are many more funny tradings in Russia but I don't think you can google it unless you understand Russian language. According to the speakers, those hackers who offer these services are not really a mafia, those are just young dudes who are still studying and wanted to make some money in a funny way.

Cyberworld is just another interesting world which will eventually dominate the world.

More info about HITB:
http://conference.hackinthebox.org/hitbsecconf2009kl/

p.s. Not many photos as my cellphone camera sucks, can't even zoom.

Laos Trip Update

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 04:27:00 +0000

My Laos Trip update in my travel blog -> Travel & Living Bliss

That Luang Stupa

Barbecued sticky rice

Learn to Respect the Tak Bat (Morning monk’s round)

Kid in Laos

Haunted Hotel

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:04:00 +0000

If you follow my blog, you probably already knew that I've just back from Ipoh.

Each time I was assigned work in outstation, the very first thing that flashes into my mind is that which hotel I'll be staying. Sometimes we can't choose which hotel to stay if the client insists to book the hotel for us. Like the case in Ipoh, the client told me they have booked Hotel Excelsior. So I immediately googled it online. I wasn't convinced of the pictures in its official website so I further googled and noted that it's actually the oldest hotels in the city which was built in 70's

-_-" -_-" -_-" -_-" -_-" -_-"

I suddenly had this eerie feeling that drove me to google more. But I didn't find any interesting information so I just ignored this uncomfortable eerie feeling.

When I arrived at the hotel, my first impression was that it looked bloody old and smelled bloody old. Serious, it smelled like 70's! I don't know how long they have not changed the hotel carpet. Then soon I went into the room, looked quite clean though, but I felt as if I had entered a world of 70's. EVERYTHING IS SO OLD. I bet all the furniture are from 70's! The antique chair is red in color! Who in the world would use red antique chair???

I then found a bible -_-"... sweat again... is there any hidden message with the bible in the room?

When the darkness fell upon the land, the eerie feeling grew stronger. I doubted if there was any guest staying in the same floor as me. It was so quiet that I didn't hear human at all. I started to blame Don for not accompanying me to Ipoh. I watched tv whole night while chatting and blogging online to divert my attention. I was doing good, I was proud of myself for doing this good. Until I was ready to hit the sack, my body suddenly got very itchy and the air conditioner didn't seem to produce cool air. So whole night I felt itchy and hot, not to mention about the continuous sound from the air-con that roused me from my sleep.

As a result, I stayed awake for the whole night till the break of dawn. Can you imagine how torturing? It was my first night.

The next day when I was in the client's office meeting up with their IT manager and Ipoh colleagues, we chatted about my accommodation. I told the IT manager I stayed in Excelsior and he just looked 'quiet'. Then my colleagues asked me how was the stay, the IT Manager immediately said 'Not OK'. He then said the hotel isn't comfortable to stay.

hmm... I sensed something not so right.

In the second night I finally saw human. I was pretty sure there were few families stayed next to my rooms because I heard the laughter and people walking passed my room. It made me felt 'Thank God' and I slept better that night. The third night I slept quite soundly probably I was exhausted from the sleepless nights.

Finally I back to KL today. When I told John, my colleague from EY, he was like 'which hotel did you stay? Don't tell me it's the famous haunted hotel in Ipoh.'

Haunted?? Shit!! 'Excelsior wor'

'That's the haunted one lah!'

OMFG!!

John then continued 'Last time when I worked in Deloitte many of us were sent to Ipoh. We all had a bad time staying in Excelsior. Some of us heard the sound of the kid weeping or people slamming the door in the midnight. It's just so well known that this hotel is haunted'

I then googled it again with 'Hotel Excelsior Ipoh Haunted' and I finally found out that this hotel used to be the highest class hotel in the city and also the tallest building in the city. So many people chose this hotel to commit suicide -_-".

Bloody hell! If this hotel is so haunted, I'm sure the client would have heard about it before. I swear I will not want to stay in this hotel ANYMORE! If the client wants to challenge my persistence, I will QUIT my job and tell everyone in EY that this hotel is haunted so nobody would want to travel there!

Bloody stingy!

p.s. My mum said if there is bible in the room it means there is something fishy about the hotel. p.p.s. But also take note that in Christian country, bible is very common in each hotel room.

Jackie Chan's Secret Museum

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 15:38:00 +0000

I didn't know Jackie Chan owns a museum. The video tells it all.

All Travel posts will be migrated to New Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 05:58:00 +0000

I love my original personal blog but I would also like to create a travel blog for those who love traveling but not so much on my personal posts.

Initially I wanted to keep travel posts with same contents on both blogs but later I realized how search engines would detect duplicate contents and lower the ranking of sites with duplicated content. So it's not a good idea to have identical posts in 2 different blogs.

For the readers who have been following my personal blog, would appreciate if you can visit my travel blog for all my newly updated journey articles.

I'm going to remove the contents of my travel posts here soon and replace with a link to my new travel blog.

Travel & Living Bliss

Kuang Xi Waterfall in Luang Prabang

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 06:41:00 +0000

Magnificent turquoise blue waterfall in Luang Prabang that you don't wanna miss.

Visit my travel blog in Travel & Living Bliss.

Day 1 ~ Rivertime Resort & Ecolodge in Vientiane

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:29:00 +0000

My first day in Vientiane spent in ecolodge, an extraordinary experience.

Visit my travel blog in Travel & Living Bliss.

Laos Travel Tips & Itinerary

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 03:00:00 +0000

Visit my Travel Blog in Travel & Living Bliss -> Laos Travel Tips and Itinerary.

This is my First Day in Laos

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:47:00 +0000

I'm in Vientiane, Laos now. Just a quick update on my first half of the day today in Laos since the internet usage is free here in Rivertime and Ecolodge Resort!!

Anyway, my first impression of Laos is that the weather here is extremely hot and the public transport is freaking expensive. Imagine we had to pay USD6 for the taxi fare from airport to Vientiane town, which is only 10 minutes drive (with slow speed)!! The rate of the taxi fare here is kind of fixed, the rate for 30km is USD15, which is the bargained rate with the taxi driver. The airport transport service actually charged us USD22 for 30km! But if you take tut tut, it's only USD2 per person.

I'm now in Rivertime and Ecolodge Resort (http://www.rivertimelaos.com/), which is a local run resort right in front of the river. We are the only customers here today. Initially, we picked this resort because we saw that the reviews were really good (See URL here:
Review from Tripadvisor). But one has to take note that this is an ecolodge, which has a different approach to tourism and how resources are preserved and utilized.

One really big thing about this place is that the whole place was built without cutting down a single tree. The entire design of the resort is integrated into the existing space. Still, visiting an ecolodge also means roughing it out a little. For starters, there is no air-conditioning in any of the rooms. Only fans and natural ventilation. There is hot running water but Don doesn't really see the need to have hot water if there is no air-conditioning. It's quite hot and humid here, like any typical tropical forest.

The ecolodge, while a bit rustic, adopts a lot of sustainable management practices, such as employing local staff both in during the construction as well as in the daily operations of the resort. The staff here are also compensated fairly or better, typically receiving 20%-40% better compared to other resorts. The restaurants here also serve food grown in the organic gardens surrounding the grounds.

Rivertime has friendly staff and in addition to a cute dog, there is also a nice cat (they're both friends). And since none of the trees were cut, there are other little 'friends' crawling and flying all over the place too.

We had lunch here. There's a floating restaurant on the riverbank. We ordered barbecued fish and sticky rice. The portions are large. The fish was an entire fish about the size of a dinner plate and it came with the typical Indo-Chinese raw salad and a sweet chilli salsa. The sticky rice we ordered was good too. Just one of those is enough for the two of us. The food along with a large bottle of mineral water and a small bottle of 7-Up came up to 60,000 Lao Kip or 250 Thai Baht (That's about 25 ringgit). I'm sure we're paying 'tourist' prices.

While this place aims to serve a higher ambition and a noble one at that, a few things should be noted. The claims on sustainable practices are those made by the resort, and while we do not doubt the resort operator, claims on sustainable practices should be substantiated/certified by third parties.

Still, this place is quaint but not the most comfortable and certainly not for those seeking a luxurious resort with all sorts of creature comforts. It is a great place for those who would like to see more of and support sustainable tourism.

Will upload the pictures when I get back to Malaysia. Oh... just an interesting info, Laos is using 3 type of currency which are Lao Kip, Thai Bath and USD, which confused us a lot when we paid in USD and the driver didn't have enough change and requested us to pay in USD + Thai Bath so he can give back the change in Kip.

Chinese Funeral Customs and Ceremony ~ The Cremation

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:27:00 +0000

Finally, this is the last episode of my grandpa's funeral. Took me so long to accomplish the writing of the whole process.

After the procession, the buses took us to the cremation center.

Before cremation, all the guests were served with roast pigs and food for lunch.

After lunch, we prayed again before the cremation.

We burnt the paper bridge so that my grandpa would cross the bridge smoothly into the spiritual world.

After the cremation, we went back to my uncle's house for a short rest while waiting for the body to be completely cremated.

All the leftover food from the crematorium.

All my little cousins are damn tired after a whole day ceremony.

2 hours later, we went back to the crematorium to collect the ashes.

Many people mistaken that after the body was cremated, it turns to ashes. But in actual fact it turns to the pieces of bones.

Then only the worker crushed the bones into ashes.

The journey didn't end here. We then brought the ashes to the cemetery.

Chinese cemeteries are generally located on hillsides since this is thought to improve Fengshui (geomantic omen). The higher a grave is located, the better.

After the final praying ceremony, the journey ended here.

May my grandpa rest in peace.

What happened to my life?

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:47:00 +0000

My blog has been abandoned during this endless one month.
My life basically was very simple.
Due to the time constraint, I had to simplify my life to concentrate on only 3 things everyday, which were

WORK
EAT
SLEEP

Simple enough.

Do you love my simple life?

No, I'm not going to talk about my hell life in the past 1 month. I miss my blog so much, I miss my room so much.

I decorated my new room nicely hoping to have good rest every night but it turned out causing my mum mumbling every night about how messy my room is. See... I didn't even have time to clean my room.

I just bought 2 bottles of Royal Jelly 2 days ago which I don't usually buy the expensive stuffs like this. But I felt old after stressed out for one month and my skin broke out terribly which made me feel even older.

I drank too much coffee everyday as coffee was the only motivation that drove me forward but it also made me feel older at the same time.

To balance out my simple life, I've taken 2 weeks off to fix my life, fix it to a more complicated life. I need to fix my skin, fix my room, fix my diet, fix my blog, fix my twitter, fix my networking with the bloggers, fix my facebook, fix my itinerary to Laos. Yup, I'm going to Laos very soon, in 2 days time!! I'm very excited now to have new topics to add to my travel blog!

Chinese Funeral Customs and Ceremony ~ Procession

noreply@blogger.com (Shelyn) — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 02:46:00 +0000

In the fourth day of the funeral, we were ready for the cremation ritual. It was a big day that's why you can see 3 gigantic roasted pigs were laid on the table. Don't know why Chinese hate pig so much. The pigs must sacrifice their lives for any big occasion that the Chinese have.

Taoist priests all were nicely dressed to show the respect to the ritual. The ceremony took one hour and it was the only ceremony that my grandpa's friends and other non-immediate family members could join the praying ceremony.

My dad dressed up quite funny and toasted my grandpa by pouring the liqueur in the bowl.
All guests took turn to pray and toast my grandpa.

We were then told to march around the coffin while scattering the praying papers all over the floor.

Before the ceremony ended, my uncles donated the donation from the guests to some charity organizations and the school.

Final pray.
Yeah, these priests were paid quite a pretty penny so they prayed very hard to make us feel that the services worth the pay.

Finally the coffin was moved to the hearse.

All my little cousins looked quite excited as if they were having fun with tug-of-war.

Actually we were all struggling to pull the hearse.

Under the hot sun, with the hood to add more heat to our heads, and no shoes.

The hearse moved very slowly for one mile (more rarely, it is carried for a mile), with the eldest son and family members following behind. Because there were too many of us, included relatives, a white piece of cloth was used to link the hearse to all family members .

A long, lit joss stick is held throughout the journey, symbolizing the soul of the deceased.

Son-in-law, which is my dad, took the lead and he was supposed to carry the huge long flag. Thank goodness he got to escape the task because of the good service provided by... hmm.. I'm actually quite confused, I don't know this service is provided by the Taoist priest or by Xiao En Centre, anyway, a staff there carried the flag for him.

After about 20 minutes walk, we went onto the bus which took us to the cemetery.