I’ve been longing to see from the peak of Broga Hill and I finally stopped drooling over other’s photos and go see for myself.

Woke up by an sms saying “WAKE UP!!!! TIME TO BROGA!!!!!” at 2.15 a.m. and the journey started. An hour drive to Semenyih, got lost on the highway, you can speed, drift, “gostan” all you want at that kind of hour. Got lost in Semenyih village, had help from guys at the mamak…and arrived at the starting point.

©Tan Jie
This pose was held for…5 seconds i think? It was pitch black and we climbed up with torch lights all the way. Mosquitoes haven’t spotted us YET.

©Tan Jie

Reached the first peak at around 7am, while catching our breath, Tan Jie already pulled out his tripod. The city was still asleep, street lights are still on. Captured on long exposure and torch light to light up the foreground.

©Jaqueline
Love the colour of dusk
Long exposure.

©Jaqueline
We waited for the magic hour,where the sun would dye the sky red.

©John
Now we’re starting to see some other colours.
There were layers and layers of beautiful mountains.

© Jaqueline

© John
That was how we took it.
We had a live demo from Tan Jie on how to shoot long exposure without tripod.
On our stomach.


©Jaqueline
One of my favs.
This is the first peak and its trail to the second peak.
Now you really get to have a good look at how our homes are actually built in between mountains.


© Tan Jie
This looks like pictures you’ll see in some kind of tourism leaflet,lol.
Love the family portrait-ish look of it.

©Jaqueline
I got Tan Jie his profile pic.
While the boys are setting up their gadgets
us girls were….

© Jaqueline
Cam-whoring of course!
Mama’s face got so red after the climb


I got him a profile pic © Jaqueline

He got me mine © John

Spot the John © Tan Jie

Spot the Mama ©Tan Jie Spot the Tan Jie ©Jaqueline

Spot the Jaq ©John
This is actually the making of this :

Mama enjoying the breeze on this huge rock © Jaqueline

© Jaqueline © Jaqueline © John
Besides the long lalang grass,there were ferns ©Jaqueine

Monkey see… ©Tan Jie ©John
Came across a tree stump and Tan Jie wanted to do a portrait with an external flash
©Tan Jie
I forgot for how long I was holding this pose, John the flasher couldn’t find the button on the flash XD

We Found more rocks to stand on ©Tan Jie

On a 10 seconds self timer, we finally got our group shot ©Tan Jie


The rain clouds were coming towards our direction, like waves in the sky ©John
©John
When we were just about to pack up and go down, the cold mist swamped in SO FAST

It was like snowball rolling in to the area, swallowing everything in its way ©Tan Jie

We scrambled down and… ©John

Complete the hike in one piece with whole lot of mosquito bites ©Tan Jie

Then hit the local mamak for breakfast ©John

Thanks to Tan Jie for driving us there earrrrrrrrly in the morning. Basically the boys took care of directions and prevented all chances of getting our butt turn orange. Slipped a lot but fortunately no one fell. Awesome trip! We’ll go somewhere else next time.

I am hanging out with non-Cantonese speakers for almost a week and now my brain is starting to think in English, which means its time for….an ENGGERISH BLOG POST! \’O’/ I’m getting myself comfortable in my own room, enjoying Malaysian rain. (Yes, it does rain in Hong Kong too,but not quite the same). Sorry for slacking, I just didn’t have anything to blog about, mostly because I was rushing projects during the whole of April and half of May. And I meant BIG projects, which needed the 6 of us to work non-stop for weeks! Anyway, I’m over with 1/3 of my university life. I’ll tell you about some behind the scene stories this time. Of mine and my classmates.

Had my first feature story published, never mind the layout, I was devastated too. Mah baby ruin! NUOOOOH!!~

Okay.
Maybe the cover page isn’t that bad.
But hey, I paid a price for this cover pic.
One of the bitches from the editors board said they mistaken this for a cafe :


Have you ever seen cafes leaving combs all over the place?!
"Eh, you ada otak tak?”
That’s more or less how I sounded like except in Cantonese when my editor and I talked about this.
Girl, I hope it wasn’t your idea using this lame excuse
(I prolly wouldn’t have felt so tulan if you told me the photo just sucks.)
I understand that you were in a tight spot between me and the freakin bitches up there.
So yea, I made an EXTRA trip down to CENTRAL(中环) on SUNDAY
while I was down with COUGH + FLU package
just to take ONE bloody picture.

I’m not saying I should be receiving an award for this
(heck, its too stupid a task to even get nominated)
but hello?
What happen to something called “common sense”?

I did enjoyed myself in producing this story, people were generally nice, tolerant(thank god they were)and helpful.The text is a combination of Fong Fong and my report. Details which I like very much were lost during editing process, the final story was “mechanical” and sadly, without its soul. I have an interviewee who’s an ABC. I did mention that in the text. Later on I got a call from my editor asking for details about him leaving USA and living in HK. Does it matter?! Hey, I’m doing a story about hair salons, not to poke into his personal details and life journey. I was afraid that I wasn’t being focus enough on the right point, then I realized it wasn’t me =.=

For photos, I wondered why the hell they pick some of it, those which I considered inferior. Suppose I shouldn’t have included them, the favourites might have chance. As for layout, ugh, never mind me, you judge. (Even the magazine cover is horrid by general standard, you hear groans and scream when the pile of freshly published reaches fellow students) About the finished product, "sigh” is how I put it.

For another issue, I photographed for Susan’s and Bowie’s story on Mid Night Yum Cha culture in Hong Kong. It gets a thumbs up for layout! Decent yet creative.

and Oh my god, look at those glorious food the taukeh was offering us *ahem* There’s a reason why I volunteered myself XD After a week of dim sum dinner, the three of us refuse to have it for the whole of the following month. The fun part photographing food is that nobody gets to touch it until I’m done. Sometimes I take too long and I hear “now can we eat?”. Its fun cz I didn’t had to worry about the writing, who said what, interviewees’ details.

The problems they had with this story was that the editors wanted them to get interviewees’ Chinese names in full, age and occupation, AFTER they have finished the story. Well, you B’s up there could have said so earlier. Besides, who would give out details info about themselves while they’re simply having dim sum supper, minding their own business. So Susan and Bowie had to do the street interviews all over again cz you can never catch those from the previous session. Which means : effort put in 80% ; progress : 0%. Imagine the frustration! >.< They felt the same disappointment regarding the text. Sound bites which they thought were special didn’t made it to the final version, inferior ones were given too much exposure. You get the idea.

“This girl complains too much.”

Hell yea I’m complaining. My brain would be out for recycling purposes if I’m not. We put our hearts into it and I do think we earned the right to comment about how good or bad our works were meddled with. Its nothing personal. We’re all first timers, its not normal if things comes out perfect. So cheers, we’ll do it better next time!

here’s the link if you’re interested : www.com.cuhk.edu.hk/ubeat
(96期悠闲生活：特色髮廊；95期悠闲生活：深宵茶未冷)
Be patient, it takes a while to load with Malaysia’s internet speed XD
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Some photos towards the end of my second semester:

Softball class.
Had waaaaaay much fun compare to last term’s lousy basketball class. Mainly cz this bunch were nicer and easier to get along with. We were noisy all the time and the only male species (PE trainer) was good at shutting us up with his cool moves. He had to demonstrate the correct posture, this girl would go “break dance! break dance!”.

Team 2!
Just love being with them.
I think we called ourselves 恭喜发财 during Chinese New Year XD

Before I tear everything down and pack, I thought it’d be nice to remember the first place I lived in away from home :

One of the dorm activity during CNY, caligraphy. "
“People can tell that a foreigner and a China girl lives in this room.”- Tina
NUOOOOOOH!~ Mah caligraphy sux T________T
There’s another piece saying “玉洁冰清" that fell off, you can tell from the little red strip.
My room mate thought so hard for a 成语 that has the word 方
Awesome lah this girl~

No, its not a mess. Everything has it’s place.
I like to stick magazine cutouts all over, I’ll make myself a photo wall next semester =D

Remember I said the 6 of us worked non-stop on a project? It was an all girls team. The best part of it is that girls bring fruits to munch on as snack rather than chips. So even if I went to the lab without breakfast, they would have a few apples ready for the hungry ones. That night was mangoesteen. That shark was a toy from a Bueno chocolate. It hid in my pocket and accidentally followed me to HK. I’m gonna miss the seaview room. Though it’s freezing cold during winter.

Dinner. Fried mushroom + carrots + onion.
炒木耳 was a bonus cz I bumped into a china floormate in the pantry.
She couldn’t finish it so I get free food.
Rice from yesterday.
Cooking makes me happy. =)

Mah yellow egg boiler.
The floor aunty goes all curious about how it works, I bought her one from Penang instead.
She wouldn’t believe its only 12 bucks.

Mom’s watch and the crazy to-do list

Tuna can + pretty plastic bag strip + thumbnail = earphone holder.
Who says you need to spend to get good stuff?

erm, this may look dumb but yea….that’s my frying pan, spatula, the white one is for the rice cooker, pinned on the wall. It save space and makes it easier to dry. Hair dryer is also on the wall XD