Blog move to new place http://kekko.homelinux.com/blog/
After some consideration I have move this blog to my home server,
I been busy for quite some time after Easter, my life style change a bit due to car and apartment. Well, you can find more in my new blog site. I will update there more soon... :-)

Lapland trip

I am invited to visit this cottage up north in Lapland. So I will start my early Easter holiday today, no choice for me as I have explained to my colleague, better go there now than in Summer :-) I will skip that..

No electricity, no water, outside toilet and in middle of no where. Let see how interesting it will be. Well it will be nice if go with a girl :-) but not this time yet ... very unfortunately.

I will update something after I come back... remember that NO electricity !! no Laptop SOB SOB....

Life is short
I meet my ex-colleague this morning at bus stop. Chat a bit and got to know that he have prostate cancer since last year, fortunately he is fine now and under medication. It is not the "dangerous" type. He is looking fine and very positive thinking. I was a bit "dunno what to say" during the conversation, this is first time I came to face this type of problem. It is really make me thinking about life and death.

It is also reminded me of my college friends conversation in previous annual re-union. Somebody mention that we are already reach half mark of our life time... if one can live up to 70++...

So, never take life for granted :-), you never know what can happen next day...

Palmusunnuntai ja Virpominen

Palm Sunday and "Virpominen" :-), I can't find the English name.. anyway story start like this...

"Ding Dong". There is someone at the door...mmm who could it be??? Surprisingly to discover that there are witches standing there, they ask something to get my permission (I've forget what they ask, actually more like don't understand :-)), I said OK... and they start chanting..(for Malaysian, it is read exactly read as in Bahasa baku" with emphasis on the "r" )

"virvon varvon tuoreeks terveeks tulevaks vuodeks vitsa sulle palkka mulle"

I did not get the translation of these word, so I cannot explain. It is some sort of blessing. So next candy was given out for them :-) and the witches went to next house :-).. OMG I'm save :-)

""Virpominen"" is the tradition (related to Pagan practice) that get the influence from Karelia Region. The young kids will dress up as witches and go around to give blessing for new spring and try to get some candy. It is very interesting and meaningful tradition :-), it is depend on the region, in Oulu, they do that one week before Easter, palm Sunday. The kids will start collect some bushes branches and decorate them with feather and colourful paper and also other stuff like small egg type decoration. This branches is called "Vitsa" ... not Vista :-)
Check how many my friends' kids, Samuel and Saana did for the vitsa, they will get a lot of candy :-) Hopefully they still got teeth to eat next day ha ha ...




I also got 2 "vitsa" that day, my friends' kids gave me, aren't their cute :-) And I did some cheating, I've gave out theirs parents candy back to them ... (Don't blame me, I dunno what to do, need to do something...)

More on A-ha
Actually this song "Hunting high and low" from Aha is my flavoured from that same album. I remember that time we don't have any MTV or computer share. So it is quite difficult for poor ppl like me to get any glimp of music video. And in Malaysia TV broadcast, there wasn't much to see either.

Aha-Take on me
Ahhh... Good old song of my teen day :-) .. Reminded me of days when my friends and I were hanging around Komtar after Saturday's school curriculum, meeting point at "Old and Young" shop... mmm did I remember that correct :-), yep yep... the good old day. Thanks J-Bot, the little bold Finn for the link).

The Feeling of Being Young
I went to an alcohol shop just now, after taken 1 bottle each of red and white wine , I went to the counter and make payment. SURPRISINGLY, the cashier ask "Do you have any ID".... with shock and a bit of happy, I quickly show my Finnish Kela card proudly :-) ... First time somebody think I'm below 20 years old :-) I guess this Finn cashier did not know how to judge the age of Asian people. Anyway I'm happy. Last moment to feel young. I though I lost that 17 years ago :-)

Lion Dance






















I was visiting my friends who are living in Ipoh, and it was happen to be the eve of 15th day of CNY. There was planned some event of celebration on the main field in the middle of Ipoh city, so my friend and his son and I went there to check out what is going on. It was still early when we reached there, so I snap some closeup of the Lion Dances' Lion Head :-) Check the picture, isn't it colourful?


There was also dragon dance performed that day, but unfortunately it was too far and I could not get a good picture.

There is also some chingay flag performed there.

Lao shu fen (Short Rice Noodles)


This is also one of my favorite noodles. It is cooked with mince pork soup with fish ball. Later, an egg is added into the boiling soup so that the egg white get cook fast enough but leave the yolk only to be warm but not cook. That the ideal case if I can get that type of egg in the soup. (There go my high cholesterol). The hawker stall that I visited the most when I stayed in Penang island is the one near the road junction's coffee shop in Sungai Nibong. I visited so many time till the owner of the stall and also coffee shop's the Indonesian maid/waitress know me, so I did no need to really order what I want when I went there because they know what I'm going to have :-) Lao shu Fen + egg and drink is Nescafe Ice.

Unfortunately during my last visit back home, I only managed to visit the place once due to the distance far from where I stay in Butterworth, basically I need to travel more than 30km with crossing a 13km bridge to get this food. But it is definitely worth it.

The Fountain
When I was flying to my "second" home in Finland after CNY, fortunately I can have a sit that have individual LCD display for watching movie. I've watched 2 movie during the flight, "The Fountain" and a bollywood movie :-). Long time that I did not seen any bollywood movie, I just had to see it :-).

About the fountain movie, it is directed by Darren Aronofsky. It was a bit "deep" for me to understand. It is about life and dead, the will of living and the will to let go. Well, I need to watch it again before I really can say anything. I like how the plot in the movie, even it was switching between the past, the future and current, it is a bit confusing at the beginning, but once the story evolved, it somehow clear the confusion.

So Adrian, you must see this movie, I know u have been waiting for ages :-)

BA - THE FOUNTAIN (VO)
Uploaded by cinelogs

Server down :-(
I have setup my own server with 250G for storing all my movie and TV series that I could watch later and I don't have time to backup all this file. On last Friday, my little server somehow stop working... damn. It was a "Hack" Linkstation NAS device running on Linux Debian OS. There was a minute of panic, yes only last for 1 minute because I have no time to panic after that when start trying to get my data out from the hardisk.

After a few try, I've manage to get some of my data out and it is still transfer now to my another hardisk. It will be another "no life" week when I need to start to re-flash the device and re-install everything. Hopefully it is not "brick" else €199 gone :-( sob sob...

Chicken Rice
Chicken rice is one of the most common food one can find from the hawker food. It is actually quite simple food mainly consist of roast chicken or plain steam chicken. Beside that, it also offer some other choice like roast pork and char siew, (Chinese barbecued pork). Check the picture below, it is show how the stall look like. Well, I selected at that time to eat Char Koay Teow so no picture for the dish :-). By the way, the stall not belong to me ;-) because I'm not that fat.

Penang Char Koay Teow
Next hawker food I would like to share is Penang Char Koay Teow ("炒粿條"), fried flat noodle. Again there are many famous Char Koay Teow places in Penang Island, but during my last trip back home, I only managed to eat the Char Koay Teow near my home. It is in the coffee shop in Bagan, Butterworth, next to KFC. If I'm not mistaken, the hawker used duck egg for better taste. It is also consist of prawn and Cockles. It can be spicy but it could be pre-order with how much chili that you could take. Normally I will order with a bit of chille.


One important tips to get good Char Koay Teow - the hawker only prepared or fried one person's portion one at a time. Besides that it is best taste when it is serve straight from wok.

"Malaysia Boleh"
It translates to "Malaysia can!", to some, this idea went overboard, crazy, money wasted. I've snap this picture while driving to my friend's place in Penang island. Check this picture, does this car need so many exhaust pipe? Amazing... :-)

"Don't drink and drive"
Funny Thai advertisement, check my friend's link:

http://blog.yam.com/nomoreads/article/7736803

Funny Clip

Canal+ Brokeback Mountain +English subs
Uploaded by YforYerom

Daily life in Malaysia...
Small motorcycle is a very cheap and convenient mean of transportation in Penang. But sometime it is very dangerous because as my mom always said, car is "a metal cover for the skin" but for the motorcycle, "Our skin is the cover for the metal". The picture below show how people could used this interesting transportation. To some ppl this might be dangerous, but to other is the only way. People are not always afford to have a car... So don't laugh at me if I need transport my TV with my bicycle :-).

Laksa
As I have promise that I will share something I like to eat in Malaysia, at top of the list is a very simple spicy noodle, name Laksa , the one that I like is Penang Laksa. I've not tasted this noodle for 2 fxxxing long years :-), it was a long wait. I'm very choosy when come to Laksa, since the laksa hawker stall (small stall that sell mainly noodles and other food), can be found everywhere, I only like the one in Ayer Itam market place laksa, the noodle is so smooth and the soup.... *wah lau ... DELICIOUS.... (Wah Lau - expression meaning like "Oh my God" in Penang's Hokkien dialect)

Penang Laksa will look "ugly" to some, especially for foreigner (Finn), Hey, if I can eat Finnish Mämmi (Look more like "Shit"...Sorry Finn guys, I need to explain to my home friends), so eating laksa is nothing for me:-)

Food will be anyway a very personal thing, so I hope I will not offence anybody :-) I always keep an open mind... unless it came to eating liver ...

As for the laksa, I got this explanation from Wikipedia:
"Penang laksa, also known as assam laksa from the Malay for tamarind, comes from the Malaysian island of Penang. It is made with mackerel (ikan kembung) soup and its main distinguishing feature is the assam or tamarind which gives the soup a sour taste. The fish is poached and then flaked. Other ingredients that give Penang laksa its distinctive flavour include lemongrass, galangal (lengkuas) and chilli. Typical garnishes include mint, pineapple slices, thinly sliced onion, hε-ko, a thick sweet prawn paste and use of torch ginger flower. This, and not 'curry mee' is the usual 'laksa' one gets in Penang."

As how it look like...(don't be scare.. look)





And below pictures are the Ayer Itam's market Laksa hawker place...it is near the main road, there will be always traffic jam, so, it is not the ideal place but that the Penang's style of having good food places, no air-con, wet market smell and noisy.. there will be always long queue during the holidays. Check out the soup !!!



It will be another 1 year to go for my next laksa trip :-) This previous trip I accidentally got sun burn on both my hands because I went there by bike (100cc only) and I have not regret.

On the 7th of March, I was asked to be a driver :-) to Cameron Highlands, I went there with my mom and my cousin together with her 2 daughter. We met my another cousin family from my birth town Taiping near the exit of the highway near Ipoh. I did not know the way so I just follow my cousin's son. After breakfast in Ipoh, I ended up driving all my "old" batch ppl of the trip, the young one prefer the another new car :-). I'm driving my sister's car, an old Proton Iswara (same as the one I had before).

We were using the newer route start from Ipoh to Cameron Highland, the road is less winding and wider compare to the older road start from Tapah. At first I was thinking that it will be quite challenging for me personally because I had not been driving for 1 year and driving this old car (manual) with 4 passenger :-). Anyhow, it is not as hard as I have expected, I have been driven more winding road compare to this.

After some time later, (I did not check the time, it was holiday and all passenger were talking loudly about some story and besides, I need to concentrate on the winding road), we reached to the first farm that we see after some up and down, left and right winding road journey, we stop for the wash room break, I was surprise to see finally how ppl now do farming in the "modern" way.



Later the journey we have visited another floral farm and strawberry farm. Amazingly there are so many strawberry farm. More picture can be seen from my own web server http://kekko.homelinux.com/gallery2/main.php

By the way, the strawberry from Cameron Highland had not taste at all if compare to Finnish strawberry, I was very disappointed after the first bite.

Another disappointment is the weather, it should be cooler (maybe 20 yrs ago) but it seem to be now is it not much different compare to bottom of the highland. Few days later, there was a report in the newspaper mention that the temperature in Cameron Highland has increased few degree and it was resulted from the over development and number of cars visited there. So it is another act of homo sepian :-(. BTW, check the picture below how some the building is build here.





Back to the trip, after visit few farms and some sightseeing, we heading back to Ipoh for dinner and again we hit the winding road. It was another test for me, I have to switching from high gear to low gear and vice verse. There were few time I could hear the squeezing sound of the car tyre from my turning :-) Opsss I drive too fast..... but still there were some cars managed to over take me.. I blame the proton make bad car :-)

Ok... seem to be quite long for the part 2 :-)... well story continue. At the midnight of CNY eve, or start of CNY's 1 of st day, another praying is begin, this time is to welcome the God of Prosperity.

After this some member of my family will go to the temples and make wishes for a better new year ahead. We have visited 5 temples, they are 2 Tua Pek Kong temples, Guan Yin temple and lastly 2 more temple that I forget the name of the deities, if I have not mistaken, both so General in the Chinese history. There were so many people visiting the temples during these hour, especially at the Tua Pek Kong Temple that located near the river, we need to queue up just need to "put" the burning Joss-sticks to the altar. It was so smoky and my eye start "crying" :-). In previous, the queue was so long that the joss-stick was already burn half way when I reach inside the temple. Fortunately this year it was raining a bit at midnight, so there were lesser people.

So basically it was very late when I go to sleep, if I did not remember wrong, it was already near 4am in the morning.

30th of 12 Moon (Chinese Calender), 17/2/07, Sat, wake up early... no jet lag.. good, the eve normally started with some ritual in morning, start with the praying to the Sky God, the simple altar is setup in front of the house, large Joss-sticks was used (not so large, some ppl used even larget and longer)
Burning a pair of red candles and some fix number of joss-stick (normally 3, 9 or 12)

Next is the Sky God altar (I not sure the real name, just direct translation) , some offering for the God.

The offering are steam chicken, some spring onion, roast pork, some "kuih", tea and rice wine.














After this, next is in the kitchen, ritual for the Kitchen God, Zao Jun, (灶君).

Later, the ritual continue to the main deity of my home, the main god whom take care of the safety of this house. There are many different deity, the one we have in our home is Guan Yu (關聖帝君) (the middle one with 3 person), and after that to my ancestor altar (the totally red colour one in the picture)

After all these ceremony, the chicken and roast pork shown above will be chop into right size pieces and as a dish for CNY gathering dinner, one of the most important dinner for the Chinese family during the whole years. All the family member "should" be back to attend this special dinner. We have it as lunch because everybody were already back home, and we are hungry :-)
So after this, I just eat and relax, watch TV and sweat, sooooo hot in my home :-)... and wait for midnight for next ritual ...in next post..
So below some closeup to the chicken used for the ritual ... :-)

Leaving Oulu Part II. "To buy or not to buy".... It has been in my mind for months to buy a iPod, after checking the price, NO WAY i'm to buy in Helsinki airport, so instead I get full load of chocolate, dark bread and smoke salmon :-), last minute and simple souvenir, after that I discover my hand carry bag is too heavy, I should have taken the luggage bag with wheel...By the way I almost get lost in Helsinki airport, stupid me, I forget there is another counter for other flight company other than Finnair, it took me more than 10 minutes to find it after asking people, the map in airport is no good, or maybe only for clever ppl..

There are a lot of Kiinalainen or Asian people in Helsinki airport, not sure whether they were going home or going for holiday, nowadays it is a trend that people will go for holiday during CNY (Chinese New Year). We said that they are CNY runaway..

The flight from Helsinki to Amsterdam is quite pack, well again same boring flight without any real conversation, there are a "gang" of maybe Dutch student, they make most of the noise, especially there one female teenager.. Amazingly act like "Wild Jungle" ppl, speaking loudly without feeling ashame at all.. OMG

After reach Amsterdam airport, I need to rush my next terminal because of the short transit time but found out later there are like 50 ppl queuing just to check into the gate .. so I take a U turn and start again "To buy or not to buy" dilemma :-).. well finally I selected to have new toy.. 2 G iPod nano ..



The Amsterdam flight to Kuala Lumpur flight seem to be quite ok than expected, there were a Scottish mom with 3 kids sit sit near me, they are heading home in Perth, Australia. At least this time I can have some chatting and get to know how is living in Perth sound like...

Next KLIA airport (Kuala Lumpur International Airport), I should just pass thru without stop to check some lotion for skin product... my mistake is to stop and after some chatting with an Indian promoter, I end up buy some expensive stuff ... just because some sweet word from the promoter... Stupid !!! Well she look quite ok ha ha...

1 more hour waiting + another hour flight to Penang ...and guess what I saw after that... Home Sweet Home... (This pic is not the right one, I did not took the pic at that jam, but this one is almost similar, happened 3 days after I reached Penang)

Leaving Oulu behind...Part 1
Seem to be I'm always have the phobia of going to miss the plane, so being late is not an option. Until now the Munchen trip is the best because I have all the "big" and "small" Finn to guide me all the way, no worry. I had missed the plane flight before, during my second trip to West Malaysia east coast, I've read the schedule wrong and it was the last flight out of that town... anyway, back to Oulu airport, I'm the first to arrive, first to wake up the scanner to scan my luggage, even the bar is not open...Scheiße (anybody know how to write shit in German)...by the way, thank to what is great (God, Alien, Goddess of Mercy) there are no body check this time.
After few games of mobile golf and few attempt to sms to disturb some friends in office :-) while waiting in the empty lobby , the plane finally came on schedule... later from plane window Oulu is getting smaller and smaller and than finally Aurinko (Finn word for sun) shine thru my plane window... now my real journey start. Next
Helsinki airport..

I'm lazy as usual, never update my blog since the day of creation, but now I have some target to "show off" my stupid journey and broken english to you guy

Very soon I will need to flight again :-), I'll start my annual trip back to Malaysia and "enjoy" the different temperature of 50 degree ...OMG... but latest news I heard, my room (actually my bro room) have install the air con.... hurray hurray

I not that fond of long distance flying anymore, especially alone, I need to keep silent for 24 hour except "may I have wine pls" , well I have good training in Finland to keep silent, especially in weekend :-)

Anyway, I still need to do something in work and in 2 hour, I will start my long journey soon... so if I really hardwork, I try to update my blog as frequent as possible...

Please corrent my stupid "Engalish"

Hi Shopping Mum, you are this first person who leave comment, many thanks. About blogging, I'm been try to start many time but lazy lah :-P, anyway let see how determine I can keep on doing it. 3 min warm up ha ha... so most likely no more post after 1 week.

By the way your blog is very good, nice to follow up few thousand km away about your kids & Husband growing up ... ha ha

HAIR CUT

Finally after err... about 5 months, I get a hair cut just now, I think this was the longest ever I keep my hair, if not because after sport my hair look like "lalang" (bushes hair style) , I think I still can keep it, especially in this cold winter. .. , and first time got a hair wash in the barber shop in Finland... ohh gosh I miss the massage of my head while washing it (Don't think dirty please :-) ) ..very relax head now ...

Anyway everything come with a price .. it s €28, so x 4.5 = RM ... you can do the math..how "cheap" is it :-)

For these few year normally I visit a friend that can cut my hair short and cheap €10.. well she having a baby now so no choise.... but after this hair wash... mmmm dilemma now, cheap vs hair massage + expensive :-) anyway I still got few month to figure out, maybe before CNY.

Finally winter snow came now, the night is more bright thanks to the snow. On Friday I need to battle the "snow" storm to get home from work. I only saw 3 finn cycle on the road, so I think I not that stupid to turn down my friends offer to give me a ride with their car :-)

The snow was so much at some place and nobody start to clean it, so at some place I need to walk and push my bike, well it was first snow storm this year and quite early compare to last year. Fortunately the temperature is quite "warm" about -1C

Check my bike after I reach home, it was already cover with some snow before I leave office.