Going on low gear

It's been a long time since I drove a manual car. But I do know that driving on low gear can get you going through almost any hill.

You won't go fast by staying in low gear, but you still get there. Wherelse being on fast gear all the time, going up a steep hill may just kill the engine, and you stop going further. Other times, you're fast.

This metaphor (if I remember using this term correctly), kinda represents the 'efficiencies' in life. Many places, countries, even, are switching to everything rapid. Instant. Take ISPs for an example. You can probably find more than half the Malaysian internet users complaining about how slow our ISPs are. Yet it's still a vast improvement from those dial-up times I can still remember clearly. How our phones give a funny noise and not-usable while we're online. I remember having to ask permission to go online since it blocks the phone for a while.

But things change. Things do change. It's all in a matter of time. We see how technology rapidly evolves. Tech changes are often so welcomed. Other changes, not.

In the end, what I was imagining, what if we just stop and take a breath of fresh air. What if we take a little stroll or a holiday and leave all the 'instants' behind?

And while I'm feeling a little 'nostalgic' here, it doesn't mean going back to how things were, is all fun and easy. I do thank goodness for the internet and stuff. I prefer to just type out what I'm looking for than heading to the library or an archive, manually searching for information. But hey, people can still survive! Not to say people aren't surviving now, but I feel that the pressures and stresses have built up exponentially high with the advancement of technology.

Timeliness is part of being efficient.

I'm not that great with typewriters. (Used it before in a previous employment)

Hit Counter

Look Look on the right >>>>>

:D

Found this flag hit counter when checking out a link sent by mum.

It has somewhat brightened up my day today.

A Letter about Sydney

Yesterday and today, a friend came to me talking about his intentions of visiting Australia. He requested some input on places of interest, and I briefly told him what I knew of places in Australia. But for Sydney, it's a special case. Sydney's like my second home. There's so much I could talk about Sydney. Here's what I wrote to him:

Ok! And about Sydney!

After staying there 2.5 years, there are still some places I'm yet to explore. (tho funnily i can't remember what i haven't explored there now) Ah yes..

Now of course, there's the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. If you love sights and have some extra cash to spend, you may consider going for the Bridge Climb. You have to book a spot online, and rain or shine, you gotta climb! There are night climbs and sunset climbs too. I'm afraid of heights, so I didn't try! :p If you don't have the means to climb it, you can still walk on the bridge! There's pedestrian paths on the side, and the view is still pretty awesome! That's what I did, hehe!

There's this beautiful coastal walk I love, from Coogee Beach up to Bondi Beach. If you go really slow, it could take 3 hrs, if you brisk jog, about 1.5 hrs. At Coogee Beach, before the start of the walk, there's also a little rock pool you may wanna jump in. However, it may be cold due to winter, where the waters there are about 12-14 C. You pass many small bridges and places, and also a cemetery on top a cliff facing the sea! It's good to go in the morning, then have lunch at Bondi Beach, Sydney's most famous beach. Other popular beaches there include Manly Beach, located at North Sydney and Maroubra Beach. Around Manly Beach there are also walks like the coastal walk, but I've not tried it before (cuz I liked Coogee-Bondi and lived about 20 mins walk from Coogee). Annually they also have a sculpture by the sea somewhere along the Coogee-Bondi walk, but I checked this year's date and it's at the end of October :( There're also some popular beaches up north of Manly, forgot the name, but heard the sand there is best. Now, that's just beach :P

Sydney has... all sorts of food from everywhere. One rather popular place is the Fish Market. Everything there is like, super fresh. Should go in the morning as well, it gets rather crowded around 11 AM. Then there's those chocolate stores, japanese, korean, i don't know, Sydney's just super diverse. If you want western food like ribs and steak, you could try Hog's Breath and/or Hurricanes. Be sure to make reservations as they're usually pretty full. There's a 24hr place called Pancake on the Rocks, situated at the Rocks, near the Opera House. Ppl love going there too, and the line can be pretty long, but it's 24 hrs! That's just food...

(I'm rather skipping a lot of details :P)

Ah yes, for food, I forgot to mention, a short bus ride from Sydney town towards south, you can also have good fish and chips. The place is called La Perouse, and there's a few fish and chip places there.

Oh yea, I did not even manage to go up the skytower xD But anyways, in terms of places to visit, in town, people like to look at the Queen Victoria Building (QVB). It's a shopping place inside. Darling Harbour is also another place of attraction. Sydney Aquarium and wildlife centre is there, it's quite interesting, I went to the Aquarium at least twice. Across the harbour, there's the zoo and seaworld. The zoo is pretty neat, I didn't go to the seaworld, but I heard from my family who went, that the aquarium is better. If you wanna carry a koala, you should go to Cairns or elsewhere, not sure about Melbourne. Because ppl are not allowed to carry/touch a koala in New South Wales. In Cairns, they allow so, I have a picture of myself carrying one there. In Sydney, you can just stand beside it and take photos.

Of course, I'm not done yet, with Sydney :P more places to visit include Watsons Bay, Port Douglas, Hunter Valley and the Blue Mountains. Watsons Bay is scenic, overlooking the harbour and the ocean. Port Douglas is about 2-3hrs drive up north of Sydney, where there are dolphine tours and sand dunes. The sand dunes are spectacular, as it's right next to the ocean. You can go sandboarding there, ride camels and such.

Hunter Valley... is also a short drive out of Sydney, I've never been there myself, but the reason people go there, I can't say here :P

Blue Mountains is also another drive/train out of Sydney to the west. There's a rock formation there known as the three sisters. There, there's also the Jenolan Caves there, which is quite cool. Other than that there's a few quaint little shops that's quite interesting to some =)

That's all for now, I can't think of anything else at the moment :)

I even forgot to include the pies at Woolloomooloo!

And about Penang... It'll be on facebook :P So I'm not gonna talk about it here. Besides, pictures are worth thousands of words ;)

Do I hear a WHEE~?

So I got my chin up bar :D

It's now attached, and yet, I dare not use it yet xD Gonna wait till dad drills some support screws in :P

Quick overview on the Penang Road Trip. It was something really new, and really filled with food. A lot of things I envisioned it to be, was not to be. But it was still really enjoyable! :) Can't wait for my next trip!

And back to office again!

First road trip done!

Yep, at the age of 24, I've finally went through my first road trip with friends from the office!

However, as usual, story will come later, as it's almost 1 AM right now.

My first wishlist was done at last at least :D And now placed in the navigation bar ~ :D

Sweet dreams!

ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Food for the Heart & Soul

Things I'm saving up for!

Big things (cost exceeding 1000)

1. A house on land in a good location or a unit in Titiwangsa Sentral, The Greens TTDI, Surian Condominium :D
   
2. Trip to China/Italy
3. Bathroom tiles & shower doors (basically to renovate my bathroom a bit)
   

Medium things

1. A pet cat
2. Bloch ® Adult Wave Sneaker (Silver/Graphite/Purple)
3. A hot water heater tank YAYAYAYAYA!
4. A new radio + speakers for my car I actually got a new car instead o.O
5. Rollerblades!
6. The oh-so-cute! new iPod nano (green/orange/red)
7. A good squash racket Now I need the time to play squash o.o
8. Day curtains for the room
   

Small things (costing less than 100)

1. Food undeez/Foot glove :D such as Bloch ® Soleil Foot Glove or Capezio ® Unisex FootUndeez™
   
2. Sailing knee pads! :D Now where did I put these...
3. A small wallet. Don't like big ones anymore. And a card holder for the cards. Got my wallet here
4. Travel items like padlocks

Immaterial things

1. Happyness
   
2. Sleeping in a couple of mornings weekly
3. More patience
4. Someone special with me always
5. Assertiveness
6. "true" friends?
   

Things I like to have

1. Bed stuff: Quilt sets, bed sheet sets, etc.
2. Chocolates!
3. Magnets for the office cubicle

Things I usually don't like to receive as gifts =p

1. Photo frames, albums
2. Key rings
3. Soft toys
   

Road Trip to the North!

I was planning to blog about @p, but the pace of life have picked up again, and in a couple of hours, I'll be off to Taiping and Penang. So can't write much now, as I've just began to pack :P

See you in a few days! ^^

Solitude

is the name of this blogger skin. I love it! :)

Found their site through April, and now fixing it up beginning with the 'about me' post which is the previous post and now linked at the navigation panel up there.

And this site even thought me how to upload a blogger skin without having to redo all my widgets! :D Previously, I'd save each widget individually, then reload them again manually.

Next, will be mah wishlist :D Which I decided to do not too long ago but haven't actually gotten round to doing it!

About the Ayinpire

As the address of the blog says:

Ayin is me.

Ayinpire is one of my newest online nickname, which ain't that new anymore. But it's uniquely me. Unlike my old yet still active kittenz. Sometimes paired with numbers, either 747 and 23. Well, this is the online me.

In the real world, I'm also known as Naz. Short for Nazreen. Let me explain about Naz and Ayin, since it's one of the mind bogglers to many about my identity. My family calls me Ayin, a nickname I acquired before I can even remember. The story is that, I could not pronounce my real name and kept on saying Ayin, and my dear family decided to call me just that.

As I grew up with my big brother myuu sailing the Optimist (yea, those times!), sailor-people who knew my family then knew me as Ayin. So in the sailing world, I'm Ayin.

However, academic-wise, at all levels except my degree, I was known as Naz. All the way from primary school, secondary school and then my first university where I did my diploma (which in Malaysia is somewhat between pre-uni and a bachelor's degree).

Yet it was during my diploma days, where online gaming and networking started to grow on me. Even though I've been exposed to the internet when it was nothing but dial-up, irc and playsite (where my first ever username online was paw) at an early age, it was now that I started to expand my network through online games, beginning with neopets (yes, I would readily admit it :P). I still enjoy mmorpgs better, but they're just too time consuming now. But anyway, back to the 'topic', in the online world, I'm Ayin.

This carried forward into my bachelor days in UNSW. My housemates called me Ayin because that's what was written on my messenger. It caught on to those people around and close us housemates, but not far enough to my coursemates. So I was half-half known as Ayin and Naz there.

Now that I've started working, my colleagues call me Naz. As that's how I'm introduced to people around there. However, there are some people in my office who has been introduced to me as Ayin from my uni days, so, it causes some confusion in others. xD

So that's the story of Ayin :)

I respond to Naz, Nazreen and Ayin equally well that I wouldn't notice at all if you switched calling me between Naz and Ayin.

What about ayinpire? I bite. So Ayin + Vampire = Ayinpire.

Stress and Moodyness don't mix well

Today's a good day.

But not yesterday, not the day before. And a couple of days before that too. I had a mix of being stressed out and moody at the same time. And moody here is pretty much being at that snappy kind of person who gets annoyed so easily at small things.

Moody is that time of the month.

For some funny reason I'm not moody today.

So far so good.

missed gym. work. lunch with awesome ppl. work. PRIME. drop by the shop for onions and garlic. cooked dinner. dinner. blog

now with Miss April uploading a new blog template, I wants one too! :D

She's mah super cool colleague, whom I speak lolspeak with almost on a daily basis. Posted aboutz me once too :o I certainly wanna return the honour someday. This post definitely is not enough.

Nevertheless, even on good days, things can still go blah. But when it's a good day, it's a good day, where small things do not annoy you. Today's small thing that I can recall is my car's hand break not working :P It won't go up.

Hmm I have a bunch of random stuff in this post :D