Finally summoned enough courage to bring up the conclusion. I guess I have to do it, or we will be struggling in uncertainty. I am sorry for everything. I am just that screwed up, forever rushing in to start something without taking care of what follows. Even though I know it will not work, we still take it on persistently. I hope this is the right thing to do. I am really not sure. I am sorry.

I guess I am having another crisis in life right now, feeling rather grey about the future.

Too much ambiguity, too much problems, too pessimistic.

I need a good dose of stimulant and great deal of distraction to get away from this drama mama disposition.

Heck, the world is crazy anyway.

Sorry rubbish.

For you, I hope you continue to pick up from here and live a better life from now on. I will miss the fond memories but I will not look back. Nobody is certain about the future but it’s the surprises in life that get us going. All the best, piggy.

For the rest, don’t ask.

Support please!! It is only $28 and the multimedia is done by our legendary senior! haha...and Nora Samosir is really good! Go watch and tell me about it k? ;)

Nothing is an exploration of urban alienation. Written and directed by Natalie Hennedige, and performed by Goh Guat Kian, Nora Samosir, Rizman Putra, Peter Sau & Siti Khalijah, the talented cast will play multiple characters, some entirely identifiable, some obscure, some mundane, some elusive to create a poignant, meditative and funny tapestry of the human condition in the midst of urban frantic and noise. It will employ electronic music and noise and a stark stylish set as well original and found text.

See the laundry in the machine. It goes round and round.
See your reflection in the glass you are a great sad clown.
Hello Mister. Hello Miss. Where are you off to now?
May I join you on your way into the great abyss?
I won't say a single word or get in your way
I'll just be a companion. Grey.
It will be a grand nothing day.
Say yes. Say.

The last post of my easter trip! The breathtaking journey continued as we embarked from Engelberg to Interlaken, a moderate town surrounded by two lakes and right under the peak of the Alpes. Interlaken is really peaceful and there is this silence charm about the place that make people keep thinking about it and wanting to go back. Hmm.. maybe only me. Anyway there are heaps to do there beside skiing and snowboarding, lots of extreme sports and mountain adventures, and it would be fun if we go there in a group. So hint hint to everyone out there, please start saving money.

And so we are constantly pampered by sceneries like these while we were on the train from one town to another. If only Malaysia is like that lor.


After a night in Interlaken, we were all excited in the early morning, ready to go up to the tallest mountain in the whole of Europe. (Still a little shorter than the tallest mountain in South East Asia, which is Mount Kinabalu in Malaysia, standing at 4,095 meters high, children). The journey upward was more or less the same except this time there wasnt any cable car ride but just train ride straight to the top (with many stops and exchanges of trains).


And after about 3 hours (?) of train rides we finally got to the top. Ladies & Gentlemen, may I present to you the top of Europe, Jungfraubahn! Standing at 3,457 meters above sea level with a magnificient glacier across the band of mountains.



We went to the Sphinx to get a good view at Jungfraujoch, the peak of the mountain and grabbed some photos before we ventured to a walk on the glacier. I couldnt possibly take a picture of the Sphinx cause i was inside it so i stole a picture from the internet to show you how crazily beautiful it is.


After coming out from the Sphinx, we were greeted by the great wonder of nature. Never in my life i have been in somewhere so white before, it was so glaring i dont think anyone can survive without sunglasses. We saw a sign telling us the outbound journey into the glacier will take 45 minutes and it should bring us to a restaurant. So both of us very gung ho la, walked out without much thoughts. We started by taking pictures (again!) everywhere, above the ground, under the slope, on the ground, inside a hole, with the skiiers, with ourselves and then started the walk slowly on the endless white path.

Man we were conned! The journey was definitely more than 45 mins and there were a few steep slopes along the way, we were dead tired and hungry by the time we arrived at the restaurant but the experience was really fulfilling. I have just walked on a glacier and played with compact snow! woo hoo!


After the glacier walk, we went to the Plateau to have a good view from the top. Again everything is white white. No wonder they called it 'between heaven and earth', it does look like a place for immortal beings.

So there you go, I am at the top of Europe!!

Have to thank Angela for the nice shots. So yeah, after the Plateau we proceeded to the Eispalast (ice palace) which are tunnels dug into the Jungfrau mount. It is a shame that during this period of time, many activies were suspended until winter comes again. I am particularly interested in this husky ride! Argh!

So all good things come to an end, we have to descend the mountain and the journey downwards is nothing less extraordinary.

Before going back to Interlaken, we had a brief stop over at Grindelwald, a beautiful beautiful town at the foot of the mountain.

We wanted to get to Grindelwald First (thats a part of Grindelwald) but didnt have enough time. Here is a stolen picture again to show you how crazy it would have been.

So yeah, Grindelwald, remember this place! Must go!

The last day in Switzerland was spent on train ride from Interlaken to Geneva, where we were supposed to meet my bro-in-law. I didnt take much photos in the end cause i realised i have been spending way too much time looking at the place through the viewfinder. I needed the final chance to look at them properly. Some pictures to show though, bear in mind i shot all these on a moving train (at 200+kmph) , without a tripod and behind dirty glass panels. The real scene is way much better than the pictures.


Final stop, Geneva. It is a modern town with (another) lake and backed by Mont Blanc. So yeah, this trip I finally saw the real mountains on the toberone, ricola and mont blanc packaging. Yayness.



Summer is quietly creeping by many people were suntanning by the Geneva lake. We spotted a swan that has just gave birth to an egg. Picture shows Ms Swan looking at the Swan.



So yah thats the end of my dreamy holiday. Contented and happy with a chao ta face. Hehe. Thanks for reading ;)

Many photos coming up! After Bern i went to Geneva and after meeting Angela at the airport, we took a train to Luzern, a really charming lakefront town surrounded by the lower part of the Alpes. When i was very young, my sis and I bought a 2000pcs puzzle and put it up together, the image of the puzzle is the tower and the bridge of Luzern Lake. It has been hanging on our wall for ages without me knowing it is actualy this beautiful place in Switzerland. The feeling is really great when i was finally upfront with the real scenery.

Really grateful for the good weather when we were there

We had our first mountain trip up to Rigi Mt at the high of 1800 meters. The trip started with a boat journey across the lake, followed by a rail train ride all the way to the top. Apparently it is the first mountain rail system in the world. (Do I really sound like a tour guide or what.)

Some sceneries we caught on the boat

Up on Mt Rigi, Angela and I were behaving like suaku kias as that was the first time both of us encounter deep snow. First we got trapped in the snow and laughing like crazy infront of the angmohs. Then we were taking pictures like crazy and spent a whole lot of time playing with the snow. She even made some snow bunnies which later became a tourist attraction where passer by would take pictures of them. We were mad happy and contented with what we saw on this mountain already without realising that there is grander experiences ahead.

The view from the mountain top, overlooking Luzern and its lake.

After whole day of indulgence in the white land we were brought back to greenery by cable cars . Spotted some meh meh on the way to catch the ferry back to Luzern town.

We continued our journey by taking a train to Engelberg, one hour away from Luzern. It is a skii town with lots of hotels and skii shops and it is located just right underneath Mt Titlis, a 3238 meters high mountain with snow all year round. We were really excited as this mountain is almost double the height of the previous one we went. After an hour plus (or is it more?) of travelling on cable cars we were exhalling air of great excitement. Man we were above the clouds! There were lots of skiiers and snowboarders doing their cool stunt while we snapped pictures like China and Indian tourists. It was great fun trying to walk on hard snow and slipped and fell flat on the butt occasionally. Really really cool and cold stuff!


A lot of panaromic to see hor... Sorry for the sloppy job as i am really lazy to joint them nicely la.But trust me, the real scene is nothing like the picture, the impact is hundred times greater! In case you are wondering if we are cold since it seems like we were wearing so little, yes we were very cold! but for vanity sake, we took off our jackets at points of time to take pictures la.. haha


So yeah, we did nothing much except taking pictures and took a silly balloon thing. We took the ski lift as well that flew across a beautiful glacier path and went into an ice cave. The whole experience robbed one day too and then we took the cable cars back down to the ground, blood rushing and still high on the near heaven experience we just had. Okay sorry, sound erotic. Well, it was just very beautiful la.

After the Mt Titlis, we took a train again this time towards Interlaken where we will meet the heart of the Alpes, the top of Europe, the famous Jungfraubahn. Standing tall at 3,471meters high, it is the peak of the Alpes. Couldnt wait, but there was beautiful beautiful sceneries along the way to entertain us.

Never bluff you right? Every where is so breathtaking lor... I wonder if Switzerland is the most photographed country in the world. Well, will never know anyway. Are you tired of reading already? I am tired of updating already, haha... till next post, i will conclude with the finale on the top of Europe and a brief stop at Geneva before this heavenly excursion ends. Tschuess!

I am back from Swiss! I am coughing badly now with a chao ta face cause that country robbed my breath and ruddiness. It is so damn beautiful even the garbage piles look damn lovely. Ask Angela and she will agree. Haha. The next few posts gonna be long rambling of Swiss worshipping and many many peektures to prove my points. Hehe. But really la, peektures don’t do justice; you really must be there to experience the overwhelming sceneries.

I shall start with the capital of this adorable country. While waiting for the female lead (that everyone wants to see) to arrive, I went alone to Bern and spent a night there before going to Geneva. Bern keyed me up the moment I arrived, the atmosphere feels like a living 17th century. Imagine yuppies and city-dwellers in power suits and hip hop jackets walking on brick road and chatting underneath hundred years old clock towers, trams and cars passing by stone fountains and relic monuments. The historical present in the town exudes very interesting contradiction. I was snapping pictures of buildings and people like a crazy tourist amongst the bustling crowd. Everything looks so interesting from a gothic door knot to a clown face fountain.

There were two parts in the town, the new one on top of the hill and the old one below by the river. The buildings are the same only the old town being dead quiet with only hobby shops and galleries around.

The new part has got penetrating tramways, high fashion boutiques and Einstein house!
He spent 7 years in Bern before moving to Zurich but this is the birthplace of E=mc2! Haha how cool. Actually I am not really interested in learning about him la, just wanted to pass time waiting for my hostel which has closed for lunch break.

I really like the richness on the street and i took so much photos of just people on the streets. Modern people on olden streets.


Yeah so the rest of the day is pretty much point and snap and my excitement went from high to low then to negative. Yeah it was really bad at the evening as everything closed damn early. Suddenly it just went quiet, with not a single soul on the street. (Prove : Check out the first two peektures on the 1st montage above, I am not so crazy to photoshop away the people and cars) I was damn bored alone so I went to watch a Dutch movie with German and French subtitles. Hehe. It was a good film nonetheless, superb cinematography. It is called After the Wedding, nominated for this year's Oscars for best foreign film.

If you think the scene in Bern is pretty much like France, yeah I agree cause at this point of the trip nothing extraordinary seems to happen yet. Stay tune for next part when I met Angela (can hear Nat and the rest cheering eagerly) at Geneva and started my never before experiences ☺

p/s : Blogspot seems to lighten all my pics so they might look dull, but the scenes are really much more vibrant in real life. And one more thing, I do not blog this to show off how am I enjoying life while some of you were busy working or studying, I did it as my own travelogue and if you really think I am showing off, you can either don’t read them or make it a motivation to work harder so in turn you can travel to better places.

Update soon!

Not long ago I was in this talk by a Scandinavian design guru Per Hollerup, listened to him talking about his great insight of minimalism and Mies van der Rohe, how we all should strive to design something simple and avoid ornamental elements that serve no purpose in our artwork. I thought it was very motivating and I like his remark of “nowadays there’re so many standards there’re no standards”. I left the talk thinking I must go minimalist.

48 hours later I was on a euro coach reading about how ornament design is coming back with a vengeance. Less isn’t more anymore and people want design that they will get lost in. The new trend of ornamentation is taking over and that is good news for me as embellishment has always been my cup of tea. I finished the magazine thinking I must go back to complicated design and look forward to producing a busy illustration for the adobe award.

16 hours later I arrived in Lyon. France never fails to mesmerize me. There is something about the hue and weather here; I can practically smell romance in the air. Met up with sis and bro in law and they brought me around the town, treated me to good food and explained to me the meaning of many French words. Sis can speak and understand French now. It is gratifying to see how she could slowly adapt to the French world now.
Lyon is beautiful. Like most town, it was built along a river and backed by mountains. The old buildings, some of which are already 400 years old, are very captivating. I always have a thing for brick walls and gothic doors and there are plenty of them here.

This is taken from a church on the hill and how Lyon look from the top.

48 hours later we left Lyon in my bro in law car and drove 2 hours to their French abode in Lons Le Saunier. The journey was scenic and it reminds me a lot of Malaysia actually. The feeling got stronger when we arrived at their town. The place look just like any town in east Malaysia, with the only difference being the language and of course the French are much much much much better looking than the Malays. Sis shares a nice little house with an old French couple and life seems kinda comfortable here. The next day I traveled with sis in train to a slightly bigger town called Besancon where she studies French. This town is much more interesting compared to where they stay and there are tourist attractions all around.





After walking her to school (a very nice building) I was left alone to explore. Besancon is even more picturesque than Lyon with also a river through the town and surrounded by hills. I walked to the Rivotte, where Besancon’s town gate is located. There used to be war in the 16th century and the gate is part of the city’s fortifications. There is this famous castle at the border high up on the hills called La Citadelle.

I reached the peak after climbing hundreds of steps and to my delight, the castle is now converted to a tourist spot and it houses a zoo, an aquarium, an insectarium, a climatorium, two museums and of course the castle itself is worth visiting already. The walk along the parapets offers impressive views of Besancon. I didn’t expect it but ended up spending the whole morning there looking at tigers, monkeys, beetles and learnt how France won over the ruthless Adolf Hitler’s domination.

Top of Besancon

After having lunch with sis, I made a visit to a sizable art museum which houses paintings of some renaissance French painters and some ancient artifacts found during the building of the town. The greatest reward of this trip was to learn about Fraganaud. He sketched with superb line quality and I am in love with his drawings. One funny incident while I was looking at Fraganaud. There were this group of young children, probably doing their kindergarten, were lead by a teacher to look at the drawings. The kids went from drawing to drawing and did Q&A with the teacher. The teacher would ask a question (in French, which I didn’t understand, but it must be something like “Who can tell me what’s in this painting?”). A few paintings away from where they were gathering, there were drawing of a male and female copulating, with uncensored depiction of genital organs and also one with a gentleman sucking a lady’s breast. I was waiting in awe to see what will happen when the kids all move to the two drawings. But too bad, they left shortly after they talked the last drawing they were at.

Yesterday I didn’t go to Besancon with sis, and decided to walk around Lons Le Saunier instead. It is much smaller and really nothing much to do. I spent time walking around looking at brick porch way, gothic window grills, elegant archers, alfresco French and grand facades. Although there were nothing much to do, I still felt great walking amongst the French and smelling the romance.


Today was out with sis to Besancon again. I grew to like this place a lot and I think I like it more than Paris. Paris is too complex but Besancon is just a comfortable portion of France you get for historical and leisure experience. Today I walked around the Porte Noire (black gate) area and visited the famous St. John’s Cathedral. I really like the Rose window and there are a few paintings from the 15th century in it. The weather was too cold today to walk around so I kept running into shops. I must say I am really impressed with their bookshops, any one of them are really huge with anything from cradle to grave. I spent the whole afternoon flipping through art and children books. They have really really nice illustrative books for the kids here. All done tastefully with thick matt laminated cover, spot UV titles and stunning illustrations from skillful French artist. If my dad prints money I probably will take 10 boxes of children paperbacks. Anyway check out Enki Bial, really good artist!


Tomorrow I’m leaving to Bern. That’s the end of France for me this time round. Sis has been such a great host and I really really enjoyed the time catching up with her these few days. We talked so much all the time and it has been so long since I felt like a small boy in her attention. I think I will miss her very much when I am back in London.


Alrighty I am going off to bed already cause I am taking a super early train to Bern tomorrow. Update of Swiss trip soon! Au revoir!