Hiking Trip At Broga Hill, Semenyih

It has been awhile since my blog was updated which was 24 days ago where the post was dated 10/1/10. It’s my first time abandoning my blog for such a long period. It is all because of the lecturers’ fault amount of assignments and projects that were continuously smacking me right on my face for the past 3 weeks.Finally, I’m able to write this post after 3 agonising weeks without blogging. It’s because I’m now back home for the weekend, leaving aside my busy student life in university. Sometimes its good to leave aside my student life and just sit in my own comfy room and just do my own things on the computer which are not studies related. (I drafted half of this post on 30/1/10 when I’m back at home)
 

Many interesting events had occurred in the past 3 weeks. One of them was a hiking trip to Broga Hill, Semenyih which took place 5 days ago on the 28/1/2010.

It all started when my coursemate, Sheat Wei planned to gather all of us TKs (TK is the name for students who are taking Computer Science. Don’t ask why is it called TK instead of CS, because I don’t know too) for on outing. To be honest, we hardly go out in a large group before. NONE! So this hiking/outing trip will be the 1st and NOT last for us TKs (more to come, I hope so).

At first, this trip was supposed to be on 27/1/10 (Wednesday), but due to the lack of people that are able to attend (having class the following morning), the date was changed to 31/1/10 (Sunday). I was quite disappointed at first because I won’t be able to go for the trip because I’ll be going back home on Friday. But luckily, the date was changed again to 28/1/10 (Thursday) because all classes were cancelled in the morning due to certain event that was going on in the university.

I was quite excited for the trip because it will be my 1st hiking trip with my coursemates and my 1st attempt to capture pictures of the sunrise (I’m still learning, kindly leave some advice yeah).

So we departed from our colleges at 4.10am and gathered at a Chinese restaurant near our university called 大树下 (“Big Tree Under” - direct English translation ^_^). There were 27 of us and 5 cars in total that were gathered there.

After taking some group photos, we started our journey to Broga Hill at 4.20am. The journey from 大树下 to Broga Hill was 40 minutes.

When we reach at the foot of Broga Hill, everything was pitch black. We couldn’t see a thing without the aid of our torch lights. But one thing that caught our attention was the sky was filled with many bright Twinkling Little Stars. It was such a beautiful view at that time (I will never ever forget that).

We started walking into the Palm Oil Estate at 5am without a single clue where are we heading. The only thing that we could do was to trust and follow another group of students that was ahead of us. As for me, I remembered that I was busy messaging. To be honest, I didn’t concentrate where I’m walking. I was just following all the light source that I could find on the floor.

After walking for 5 minutes, the floor started to be uneven and sloppy and we started hiking instead of walking. Starting of the hike was easy. Nothing really challenging though, except that we were walking on a slanting and uneven ground. It’s quite tiring though after hiking for about 30 minutes. Once awhile I could hear people talking jokes and I heard laughter followed by it. One of the girls nearly gave up along the way. So we encouraged tricked her by saying “We are almost there” (I lost count how many times I said that line ^_^).

Before reaching to the 1st stop, the terrain was a challenging one. Ropes were provided for us to hold onto while we hiked at a certain area. Along the way, 1 of our friends was not feeling well because she started the journey with an empty stomach. So some of us accompanied her until she regained her strength. The others (including me) continued our way to the 1st stop 3 minutes away from where she was.

Upon reaching to the top at 5.45am, I could see everyone’s face was tired and sweating. Everyone started drinking water as if they have not drank it for the past 3 days. While we waited for those who were still on their way up, we rested and took some group photos.

 
Some of us tried to guess where the sun will rise. One of them tried guessing it using the aid of the direction of the wind blowing (haha..).

My suggestion to them was to use the stars as a guide (didn’t we learn that in Science?)

But unfortunately, we didn’t managed to guess it because the stars in the sky was jumbled up and I’ve forgotten everything about my primary school Science syllabus (@_@).

We continued our journey to the 2nd (last) stop at 6.20am. Everything was basically the same. The terrain was not man made staircase but it was man made foot path (flat surface on a slanting ground). So hiking up to the 2nd stop was an easy one as if we were walking up a stairs. It took us 10 minutes to reach the 2nd stop.

A group of students reached there earlier than us were busy taking photos while we were busy catching our breath. After settling down, we took some random pictures while waiting for the sun to rise.

 
Coincidently all of use were pointing at the correct direct of the sunrise.

The sky started to be bright at 6.45am. Some of us were preparing ourselves with our camera and the rest stood there with the anticipating look on their faces. I started to be nervous about snapping photos of the sunrise. I was worried how would the pictures turn out to be. Well, here it goes (do give some/many advices yeah).

 
The sun was no where to be seen. But the sun really coloured up the whole sky with its lovely orange colour.

 
I tried to capture different angle and view of the sunrise.

The sun started to show itself at 7.30am, which was 45 minutes after the 1st photo that I captured.

While I’m busy capturing these photos, I heard many people saying things like “Wah, its (sunrise) very beautiful” & “Wah, so nice~”

I tried different way of capturing pictures of the sunrise, changed the setting on my camera and put what I’ve learned before this to the test. I can say that I enjoyed every moment of it and I’m looking forward for the next hiking trip :-).

That’s the view of another part of Broga Hill that we didn’t hike maybe because there wasn’t enough space for the 27 of us.

We started our way back down at 7.50am. If you see closely, you will be able to see the place (1st stop) that we rested before reaching to the 2nd stop. The process of walking down Broga Hill was not as tiring compared to the way up. Basically what we needed to do was just to hold on to our “brakes” and letting go of it once awhile to prevent our legs from our heating (I hope you understand what I meant).

We walked down Broga Hill in a slow pace to prevent any injuries from occurring. Even 2 aunties in their mid 50’s overtook us!! They were walking as if they were walking on flat ground (quite an embarrassing moment for us). From what I know, there are people who climb Broga Hill every day to exercise and even to do Yoga (no wonder walking down was so easy for those 2 aunties..haha).

I respect those 2 aunties because they seem to know everything on Broga Hill because while we were on our way down, a girl from another group was injured on the palm of her hand. So, the aunties walked around searching for something in the bushes and then she said something like this “Use this leave and put it on the wound. Can kill germs”. I was stunted for a moment. What else do they know ah? I feel like asking them “Aunty got anything can make my manly face nicer or not?” haha..

I really gained a lot of experience and memories through this hiking trip alone. Really enjoyed myself because it’s my first time hiking with a bunch of university friends.

For those who are interested in climbing Broga Hill, you can search the location using Google Map. You will pass by University of Nottingham on your left.

Keep going straight until you see this Rabbit Fun Land on your right. Broga Hill is just opposite of it. You can either park your cars along the road opposite the Rabbit Fun Land or you can park it inside of the Oil Palm Estate.

 

Clement’s Word of Advice (Hiking Broga Hill):
1) Bring mosquito repellent
2) Bring torch lights (1Person 1TorchLight)
3) Wear long pants (to prevent mosquito bites and to prevent any scratches on your legs from thorny bushes <--for girls)
4) Please do not wear slippers (my friend did ^_^)
5) Bring some foods if you are hiking early in the morning
6) Bring water
7) Most important of all, bring your camera
8) Bring an umbrella in case it rains (at least to protect the camera not you)
9) And enjoy yourselves hiking up Broga Hill.

On the same day, my Facebook was flooded with statuses and photos related to our Hiking Trip. 
I myself also took the opportunity to thank all my friends who made this trip so memorable and fun.  And the best of all status was this (below). I was really touched by this status and comments. It shows how true friendships really are. For me, I am happy to have this circle of friends.

A Contractor To Be

Sometimes I envy my friends who are staying in another college. Their rents are cheaper, toilets are nicer, and the most important thing is that the conditions of their room are way better than mine.

I have the opportunity to step into two of my friends room who are staying in other cheaper colleges, and guess what I saw? Yeah, their room were super messy Their room are nicer than mine. The floor was tiled and their room was fully furnished with big & solid cupboard, table, and bed. However in my case, my room floor was not tiled but it was cemented! Yeah, CEMENT instead of TILES!! (The word CEMENT looks like my name, CLEMENT, don’t you think so? But please don’t call me CEMENT or else I’ll whoop your sweet & sour chicken ass). 

But don’t we deserve better facilities since we are paying more $$$ compared to the students in other colleges? I’m not complaining though. I’m actually quite thankful that I’m staying in my current college because the environment here is to my liking, the college authorities are always taking care of our welfare and the most important thing is my faculty is a stone's throw away from my college (5minutes walk). That allows me to sleep longer and still be able to attend my class on time (for those who know me, you know I’m telling a lie right. Shhhh  ^_^ ). Yeah I know, I’m always late for classes. I have the habit of snoozing my alarm and I don’t know why.

So, I did some mini “renovation” to my room to make me feel comfortable and satisfy with it. To be honest, I’m a big fan of the tv programme called Pimp My Ride where they modify people’s car for free.

So, I’ve created my own title for my mini renovation, which is “Pimp My Room”. Haha..

 

The picture above shows how it looked like before the mini renovation.

And that’s how it looks like after adding that polystyrene on the wall. Some of you might be wondering what in the world I did that for right? Well, I did that so that it would be easier for me to stick some notes on it as a reminder for me to complete my assignments, homework and etc. :-)

If you are observant enough, you will realise that my table is very messy. You will notice that there are many wires on my table leaving no room for me to put my books to study.  So I’ve decided to do another mini renovation.

 

As you can see, my portable speaker is now on the wall instead of on my table. Curious how I did that?

All I needed were 2 nails, a hammer, double sided tape and a strong arm.

Although, my table still look a bit messy, but I can assure I have more space to study now without the portable speaker on my table.

All The Way From China

I heard rumours going around that there was a new Chinese food stall that sells “La Mian” just open for business somewhere in University(For my overseas friends, La Mian is a type of hand-pulled noodles).

So, right after my class at 2pm, me and my friends decided to have our lunch there. This is how the place looks like.

The stalls are selling loads of other food besides La Mian. Since the rumours that we heard only mention about La Mian, so the 5 of us decided to eat La Mian for our lunch. When the chef was preparing for our meals, I stood there and watched him pulled a lump of flour until it was thin and long.

I’ve never seen anyone preparing La Mian before. So that was my 1st time, and it’s right under my nose! How cool is that. (This chef is from China and there are some other Malaysians working along with him. It seems that they own a restaurant in KL).

There were some shredded chicken together with the noodles and it was served in a polystyrene bowl. The portion of the noodles is between small and medium and it cost RM4 each. So for those who are small eater, this bowl of noodles would be just nice for you. But for those who can eat, like me, that bowl of noodles won’t make you full.

By the way, for those who are not good at eating spicy things, my advice is please, I repeat, PLEASE don’t mix the chilli paste in your soup. It’s really spicy. Don’t believe? See the pictures below and you will know what I meant.

Look at what the chilli paste has done to the colour of the soup. Still not convinced enough? Alright, look at the picture below and you will know that we used a lot of tissue papers because our eyes and nose watered while eating the noodles.

Overall, the texture of the noodle is soft and the taste of it is nice. For those who are interested, this stall is located at Level 1 FSSK and it’s directly in front of Persatuan Mahasiswa FSSK (PMFSSK).

Operating Days: Monday – Saturday
Operating Hours: 9am – 5pm (maybe will extend until night, not confirm yet)

My First Attempt In Designing 2D Graphics

For those who don’t know me, shame on you!! I’m currently taking my degree in Computer Science. One of the subjects that I’m taking this semester is “Pengaturcaraan Grafik” which is “Graphic Programming” in English.

So the 1st day of class, my lecturer taught us how to create 2D rectangle, roundRectangle, Ellipse and etc. At the end of that class, she gave us an assignment that was to create our own 2D graphic. The 1st idea that I had was to create a Tag Heuer watch.

But then I gave up on creating it because it’s  too complicated. So, my 2nd and final idea was to create a design based on my own handphone, Nokia 6120 Classic.

Before creating the 2D version of this handphone, I planned to draw the skeleton of the handphone on a piece of graph paper to make my coding process much easier. By doing so, the process of setting the measurements and the coordinates would be much easier.

But then I realised something - I can enable Gridlines in Microsoft Paint. So I didn’t redraw it on the graph paper, but I used the gridlines in Microsoft Paint as a guide for me.

To make my life easier, I’ve included many colourful dots on the picture as a guide for me to set the coordinates and sizes for every shapes. Firstly, I wrote all the codings for all the shapes that was on the handphone.

I’ve to admit that this process was a challenging one for me because I’m still a noob beginner at graphic programming. So forgive me, yeah. After that process, I started to fill in all the shapes with the colours that look almost the same as the original one.

The final process was to add all the numberings on the key pad.

If you are observant enough, by now you would probably realised that I’ve made a small tweak on the design of the Front Camera. Haha..

So basically that’s all for my 1st graphic assignment. I can’t wait for the next one because this subject is quite interesting for me.

Fireproof (2008)

Previously I’ve commented something in anggun3’s blog post regarding the movie Avatar. Part of the comment goes something like this

“ Yup you are right. Avatar is a good movie to end the year… ”

Well, that is true. Watching Avatar is a good way to end 2009. Coincidently, I just finish watching a movie called Fireproof.

Below is the summary of this movie taken from imdb.com

In Albany, the marriage of Caleb end Catherine Holt is in crisis and they decide to divorce. However, Caleb's father, John, proposes that his son delays their separation process for forty days and follow a procedure called "The Love Dare" to make them love each other again

I’ve watched before a movie called Ladder 49 in 2004. To be honest, the storyline in Ladder 49 was much nicer compared to Fireproof.

Ladder 49 is a great movie. It has some touching scenes. No doubts about that. But there is something different about Fireproof. Something to ponder about. Something to learn from. Something that really touches my heart. Something that made me CRY. Yes I cried 3 times while watching Fireproof, I ADMIT!! So? Guys cannot cry one is it? Maybe you can consider me as an odd male species.

The things that I liked about the movie Fireproof:

1. I realised how important it is to love someone with Unconditional Love
2. I realised that God love us too with His Unconditional Love
3. I realised how important it is to appreciate and cherish the people around me
4. Lastly, I liked the movie because it manage to make me cry. Watching Fireproof is a good way to start my New Year, 2010.

p/s: This next part is dedicated to Alex Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick.

I would like to thank Alex Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick for producing such a Great movie. From all the comments I’ve read in the internet, your movie, Fireproof really touched a lot of peoples life's and save a lot of people’s marriage. We are really blessed by this movie. Many Thanks.