Paradise II

More photos from the walk. You probably won't understand why I call this paradise, but if you were in my shoes.. You probably would.

Food, fun and Firsts

McD for lunch.

Pulai Ketam Steamboat.

My first Lecka Lecka gelato. 

My first Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf drink.

My first snowflake Taiwanese dessert :)

Horizon

Hot air balloon fest

A hint of the hot air balloon fest at Putrajaya last Saturday.

Dang, I seriously need to make an effort to bring a tripod stand the next time I go night shooting :/

Weekend

So the one week break has finally come to an end. And here I am blogging when I should be packing my school bag and hitting the sack in a bit.

This weekend has been a pretty interesting one, I have to say. I started off my Saturday by attending dance practice for the Good Friday performance at church, went for Chemistry replacement class in the late afternoon and then headed to Putrajaya for the Hot Air Balloon Festival at about 5-ish with the family and Ru Yuan. After arriving, the both of us met up with Syuen Lee who also came with her family to the fest and we hung out throughout our time there. I didn't get to ride on a hot air balloon but I managed to test out the 50mm under low lighting conditions and I'm extremely satisfied with most of my shots of the day. I only stayed around until 8-ish so I never saw the fireworks, if there was any but I managed to get great shots of the fest from the bridge. I'll post a couple of photos to summarize my adventure soon, hopefully.

As for today, I started my day pretty early with church. I usually go at about 9.45am but since I was playing for worship today, I had to come at 8.30am for practice. Practice didn't start immediately though, so I decided to work on some Chemistry tuition homework while waiting for Jon Robs to come and initiate practice. I struggled with a few questions regarding isomerism at first, but Jon Gui helped me with one of the structure for alkenes and I managed to do the other similar questions. It's kinda cool having someone from church teaching you how to do Chemistry because as far as I can remember, studies are pretty much a taboo thing here at church. Or perhaps it's because I've been too far influenced by a certain someone who keeps implying that studies aren't as important as I thought. Anyhow, Job Robs came eventually with Caleb, who I discovered was on drums for today which was news to me since I barely see him on drums. But yeah, after everyone came we started practicing.

I felt a little awkward playing initially because I've had experience playing during camp and service last year and I did really badly. I was really, really nervous about playing this time, but I prayed prior to attending practice. Instead of praying that I won't screw up, I prayed that my heart be set right for worship and that I'll play as an offering of worship to God. So after a few moments of practice, I slowly began to focus on doing this for God and eventually I felt comfortable as I continued playing. Instead of playing chords, I started to play the melody for some of the songs. I felt exactly how it was like when I worshiped on my own at home on the piano. I just played the way I did at home.

And for the first time in my life, I found joy in playing in church. I knew I did something right for once, because I prayed for my heart to be right and in return, God gave me confidence in Him and I played for Him. So that was my best experience ever, playing for God. And I am so grateful to Him for helping me do it, so I'm using this as a testimony to glorify His name :)

Oh, and I also took a first step towards overcoming my stage fright. I've always had a thing about voicing my opinions but never in public in front of so many people. I've always imagined myself preaching in church but I never really thought about stage fright, until today. Pastor Gurmit separated the entire youth congregation into 5 groups and each group was supposed to elect a group leader and everyone was supposed to cooperate and answer the six questions regarding fasting based on the passage Isaiah 58 : 1-12. 

I seriously am grateful to God for my analytical abilities and His plans to put me in English Lit class because I honestly benefited a lot from it based on whatever I answered today. Anyway, I somewhat got elected as group leader since Raquel had to rush off for some rangers camp so I ended up reading my answer. I was really nervous but I volunteered to answer question 4 anyway because I came up with a inferential analysis of the topic so I decided to just read it and share my views. I was shaking as I spoke, but thankfully it wasn't apparent in my voice. I was at a loss of words for a few moments as I was sharing my answer on the mic (oh and thank God for good sound systems!) but I managed to just counterattack my fear by being all spontaneous. But yeah, I really hoped people actually understood what I meant and benefited from what I was saying.

In conclusion, what I've done today wasn't a result of my own gungho-ness, if I may put it this way. It was God doing His work in me. I've never done anything quite as gungho as I did today, come to think of it. I've never dared to volunteer to go up in church to talk or even played worship so confidently like I did today. I've always watched as youth leaders stepped up to take their place and do hard things, but I never imagined I would be the one up there. But today I was. And I realised that all it took was God to plant a seed in me.

So this post is dedicated to God. Without Him, I wouldn't have become who I am today. I'm not perfect, but I'm a creation of God and with His strength, I can move mountains.

Amen!

Time to hit the sack.

OH NOES IT'S 11.28PM AHHHHHHHHH

Misc

Just a series of photos that tell the story of the past two weeks, I guess.

Sorry if the food is mouth-watering, especially the last four photos featuring my Teppanyaki set. I had this for lunch at Kita No Zen last weekend and it was really good. This set lunch costs RM30 and it was really, really filling. And you can take my word for it since I am one of those who dig huge lunches and for me, this was really good.

I should really get some sleep now. It's almost 1AM. Heh.

Paradise

Well, my rendition of paradise, that is. I've been wanting to snap photos of the usual track I encounter on my walks for such a long time and I'm really glad that I finally got to do it. I took quite a number of photos but I haven't actually edited all of them. So instead of posting them all in one shot, I'm going to post them gradually in the days.

I know I promised to post more during the holidays but honestly, one week isn't enough for a school break. I spend at least 60% doing countless different things and only about 40% completing my assignments and tasks at hand. Well, at least I'm slowly falling out of my procrastination streak for once. And that's a good start.

I've just returned from 1 Utama after catching a movie with some friends and although it wasn't in any way bombastic or as "awesome" as my outings used to be, it was short and sweet. I should be able to get used to things now. I know it's only been a few weeks since the ordeal but I guess it's a sign that I'm moving on. I'm not living life on the fast lane anymore, instead I'm slowly catching the beauty of the little, meaningful things in life. And I've got more time to focus on pursuing God's love, so what's not to love?

Anyway, I'm going to continue doing my Tugasan Harian for my Moral now while listening to Bon Iver. Here are a few photos for your uh, enjoyment? Heh.

So.. Enjoy!

Paradise in HDR

Fusion

Sweet and spicy basil seafood fusilli @ Black Canyon Coffee, Kinta City.

Bruschetta @ Ben's KLCC

Duck confit spaghettini with rocket leaves @ Ben's KLCC

Lemon meringue pie @ Ben's KLCC

Some cake from The Loaf.

Chicken cordon bleu @ Secret Recipe, Centrepoint.

From top : Chocolate cake, tiramisu and waffles with drizzled chocolate and vanilla ice cream @ Theobroma's Chocolate Lounge, 1 Utama.

Black pepper chicken and fruity bass @ Fullhouse, Sunway Pyramid.

Macaroni and cheese @ Kenny Rogers' Roasters, Empire Shopping Gallery.