Djezna's Stalker in Hard Rock Rising

Happy Chinese New Year!

 

Finally Djezna's Stalker is back on track for 2012. We have an acoustic set this Saturday (28th Jan) at Doppel Cafe, Central Market. Be there around 9pm as there are other performances as well. On 1st Feb, we will head to Sunway Pyramid Concourse for a public awareness campaign on forest conservation in Malaysia. 7pm - 730pm and 9pm - 930pm.

Click on Djezna's Stalker to like us and follow our updates. Don't forget the tweets!

We are listed in Hard Rock Rising Competition. So if you like our music, click VOTE to download our single, Uninspired. Support us if you wish to see us on the big stage.

Our Music Video.

Thank you!! Dong dong chang!!

Trip to Penang with A to Z staff

posted by tkl

I went to Penang recently on a staff trip with the people at A to Z. Yay! I love staff perks like this.

I've never really gone proper sightseeing in Penang so it was nice to go with them. we went to Kek Lok Si temple in a bus and I took lotsa pictures! Surprisingly I quite enjoyed Kek Lok Si. But I think it's only because we spent a very short time there haha.

Check out the cute tortoises at the base of the pagoda!

cute cute tortoises!

Temples in Malaysia are really colorful aren't they? Compared to other countries. Rather than a place of contemplation, they're more like a celebratory place.

We took the 'lift' up to see the big Goddess of Mercy statue

I really like the Goddess of Mercy's face (photo on the left). As for one in the picture above..It's so strange!!! It's a head sticking out of a building!! And the colors!! Seriously?? And why is she so short?? Is she sitting down???



The rest of the day, we played games. We played 3 games, 1 called daruma ga koronda (だるまがころんだ）which I found really silly but just took part in anyway to be a good sport.although to be truthful i didn't try my best.

we also played 'gesture game):

On the far left, you can see my boss holding up a sign with Japanese words and their translation in English (for Malaysian staff). 1 person has to make gestures and get their team members (the row of ppl standing in front of my boss) to guess the words.

It was quite fun. But some of the English translations weren't very good. And some of them, Malaysian people wouldn't know about anyway  so I thought that was a little unfair. For example, 1 was 'Ichiro', who is a very famous baseball player, but normal Malaysian people who aren't interested in baseball anyway wouldn't know who the heck he is. Or 深爪（ふかずめ）which i'm still not actually sure what it means but i guess means 'cutting a nail too deep). On the sign however it was written 'cutting a nail to the quick'. wtf?!

Anyway i thought it was really great that everyone tried their best. although maybe it would have been fairer if they'd gotten some1 Malaysian to help with the translations. haha.





The last game we played was すいか割り or roughly translated according to Kgia....smash the damn watermelon!!hahaha..basically we were blindfolded, had to walk in circles a few times (to dizzify us) n then had to listen to our team mates' directions on where to go to hit the damn watermelon.

Of course, Penang is never complete without food. We had awesome cha kuey teow at Lorong Selamat. It was really yummy! But since everyone knows that, I thought I'd show you a pic of super yummy yummy prawn mee mixed with loh mee. N i'm not even a big fan of prawn mee or loh mee!




I also had famous nasi kandar with my cousin and Von. My cousin very kindly was our tour guide for half a day and brought us there~



I'm still wondering why they call it Line Clear nasi kandar? Because there's no line? There's obviously not true though ahhaha but the food's good so it's all good.

Yes the fish head is really big. I wonder if anyone actually takes this to eat? And how much it costs?

I'd prawns so it was really expensive, around RM22. but i thought, what the heck. i'm not gonna come back any time soon to have nasi kandar and also the prawns looked really good and yes they tasted good too and yes I finished the whole mound of rice and everything else.






He also took us to the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion. I really enjoyed the tour very much! The tour guide was really funny. I went on the 11am tour. Really recommend it! Slightly reminiscent of the Melaka Baba Nyonya heritage museum tour but better! I think partly coz the tour guide was so funny. Also the tour comprised of a little architecture, some history, some romance etc. etc. just a bit of everything. Sugar and spice.

The color's really interesting isn't it? I've to say the restoration they did was really awesome.












The guide said that the owners had to get craftsmen from China to do the restoration works.

Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take any photos inside, which was also very beautiful. I love the open courtyard.

  

The left and right wings I believe are a boutique hotel now and people can stay there. A little pricey but the rooms look very exotic. You can also book the mansion to hold a function!

The guide said these ornaments were made with bowls imported from China, smashed into pieces and painstakingly stuck on one by one! Amazing right? For the restoration of these, the owners had to import around 10,000 bowls and get craftsmen from China.

Anyway I really enjoyed the tour! Highly recommend it :)

I enjoyed Penang alot. Thank you A to Z! & Nwarnwar~

Trip to Wats 2

One afternoon they said that we could spend the afternoon at a flower park or at the temple. Immediately my brother's were like 'FLOWER PARK!!! Bet that won't be happening again any time soon where they're thaaaat enthusiastic about a flower park hahahaha.so we spent the afternoon there.

It felt like we weren't in South East Asia!

I love the way they did up the place. And I love how open and clean it was. And the colors!!~ ~

We also visited another Wat on another day. Called Wat Boonyawad. Ajahn Dtun let us ask him questions after breakfast. This is him and the translator:

I was really happy to attend it somehow. We asked him questions and because there'd been a question weighing on my mind which i just wanted to get off my chest, i pulled myself together and asked him. I asked him 'There are some people I don't get along with and somehow every time I meet with them negative feelings are aroused like anger, impatience etc. As a human, I don't like these negative feelings and because I try to avoid them, I wish I could avoid these people too or I try to avoid these people. Is this ok?'

In the middle of asking this question, I started tearing up. Admittedly, I've been kinda emotionally fraught I guess. Ever since grandma passed away I've teared up at seemingly random times when I'm especially fraught with emotions. I think another reason I started tearing up was because Ajahn Dtun was looking at me with soooo much compassion. So much. Just through his eyes.

He said 'It's normal to get along very well with some people and not so well with others. It could be past kharma at work. The important thing is to remember that everyone wants to be happy. Everyone is searching for happiness. When someone says something, be mindful of your mind. What you think and what you say. However, if you can't do this, it may be better to avoid these people'.

It's really very hard to be mindful. I've tried it. It's much too easy to just react.

Trip to Wats part 1

Last Friday I went to Bangkok. Before everyone goes 'so jeles!!!!' let me just say that I had to wake up at 4:30am every day, and 3:30am on the last day. And I'm still sleepy because after arriving in KL at 12+am when we got back, I went to work the next day. and work starts at 8:30am. sleepy!!!! Basically a Buddhist temple called Wat Ratanawan based in Khao Yai national park in Thailand was having its inauguration ceremony and my parents wanted to go. So the whole family went. With a Buddhist group called BUBS (Bandar Utama Buddhist Society). This is the Wat (temple):

It's Thai style architecture and made of wood. I heard the monks helped with the sanding of the pillars and other work during the construction period. Beautiful, don't you think? Amazing how different Buddhist temples look in different countries.

Honestly I felt sleepy and bored most of the time I was there because I don't understand Thai and was so sleep deprived. But I was very impressed by the Thai people's chanting. They chant beautifully in unison. They don't try to outdo each other by chanting very loudly and they don't chant like they are in a rush. It's done earnestly.

I was also very impressed by how much respect Thai people have for monks. I think partly why Buddhism is so strong there is because the King is also Buddhist and the Thai people also respect the King very much. There were about 200+ monks the day we all gave food to the monks. We lined up around the lake and the monks came around asking for alms. The army helped out with the organization and everything. I have to say that they are very efficient even though they looked very young! Wonder if we can have the same standards in Malaysia? It's beautiful to see how everyone worked together. Without complaints or arguments.

The sticky rice in Thailand is soooooo fragrant and delicious!



There were monks from many places and luckily for us there were a couple of Dhamma talks in English.

I remember something that struck me and has stayed in my mind. A monk from Canada was speaking and I think he was speaking about non-self. I apologize in advance because my memory is not so good so I may not be 100% accurate about what he said. He said that non-self is not about not feeling anything. It doesn't mean you don't feel anger or jealousy etc. It doesn't mean that if you feel those feelings that you blame yourself. That just leads to more negative feelings. If you feel anger,jealousy, fear it's only human. What you should then do is be mindful of your body and of your feelings. Be aware of what you are feeling. Observe yourself. What are you thinking and feeling? Why? If you just react to how are you feeling, your reactions will cause more negative reactions. Cause and action.

I remember he came before to Malaysia and he talked about fear. He said after being aware of his body whenever he felt fear, he realised that his aversion to fear was causing him to react very badly. It was more of the aversion than the fear that caused him to react. I was very touched by how open he was about his own experience and feelings.

This is the inside of Wat Ratanawan:

They used this square box thing and a pulley system to move things to the top of the stupa. Quite cool right? And the monks went to the playform on top to place Buddha relics in I think. Anyway, it was quite interesting as I had never been to such a ceremony before and it was really interesting as a Thai cultural experience.

Milk Toof

The other day, my Japanese classmate lent me a book.This book:

It's written by Inhae Lee, who has a blog here.

The main characters, Ickle and Lardee are just too cute!!I love the characters and the pictures. She must have taken alot of time and effort to make the book. Check out this video:

I so want my own copy and to give one to my cousin's kid now haha..I bet she'd love it! There's only one word to describe every item and the colors of each item - cute. And the teef have so many face expressions!They get to a lot of mischief..

But anyway, I won't say more, read for yourself! Check out the blog or better still, buy a copy of the book so you can look at it any time!