What Are Words

Effie, thanks for sharing this :)
It's a really beautiful song and the story behind the lyrics makes it all the more meaningful.

Chris Medina's What Are Words

Anywhere you are, I am near 

Anywhere you go, I'll be there 

Anytime you whisper my name, you'll see

How every single promise I keep

Cuz what kind of guy would I be

If I was to leave when you need me most

What are words
If you really don't mean them

When you say them

What are words

If they're only for good times 

Then they don't 

When it's love

Yeah, you say them out loud

Those words,

They never go away

They live on, even when we're gone

And I know an angel was sent just for me

And I know I'm meant to be where I am

And I'm gonna be 

Standing right beside her tonight

And I'm gonna be by your side

I would never leave when she needs me most

What are words

If you really don't mean them

When you say them 

What are words

If they're only for good times

Then they don't

When it's love

Yeah, you say them out loud

Those words,

They never go away

They live on, even when we're gone

Anywhere you are, I am near

Anywhere you go, I'll be there

And I'm gonna be here forever more

Every single promise I keep

Cuz what kind of guy would I be

If I was to leave when you need me most

I'm forever keeping my angel close

Trip To The Big Apple (Part 2)

TIMES SQUARE! :)

Times Square is a major commercial intersection at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets.

Filled with colorful billboards! Loads of people milling about, tourist and locals alike :)

Planet Hollywood along 7th Avenue

The Paramount Building at 1501 Broadway once housed 

the Paramount Theatre

Disney's The Lion King - The Broadway Musical. We initially had a thought about going to see one of the musicals, but I guess time didn't permit, too bad.

Also Mamma Mia!

And there you go, the night spent taking pictures at Times Square. Oh...and we had a nice dinner at an Irish Pub/Restaurant called Perfect Pint - I had what they called the Leprechaun Lamb Stew, washed down with a pint of Guiness ;)

Slightly different from the typical Irish Stew (one of my favorites),
but this was every bit as delicious! 

Title.Banner

Finally! I found some time to work out a new banner for the blog title :)
And now I need to figure out what I want to put as the background...or should I leave it empty? I think some patterns or "stuff" would make it look less dull?

Anyway, I'm going to do this a bit at a time, more fun that way ;)

Trip To The Big Apple (Part 1)

So that's it for Chinese New Year this year. A bit strange cause I hardly noticed any difference before and after. Except the two rounds of card playing (what my friends call AGM - try figure out what that means) in between, I guess it's just like any other day. Yes, including the work and all.

Anyway, that's probably just me (second time I've used that this week). I do wish that my friends have had a great celebration, or at least had a very good break from the daily routine to spend time with family and friends :)

I did say in my last post that I was going to blog more about the trip after I sorted out the pictures. I think I'll do the trip in bits so as not to bore you too much with my long-winded writing. As for the pictures, they are uploaded to my Facebook photo album and there will some I'm uploading with this post.

The trip itself felt as if it happened a year ago - although it was only 2 weeks ago that I arrived back in Penang. Despite the very long travel time involved, it was certainly worth the effort, and money to check out The Big Apple - had to pay extra RM1K to get out of New York after our flight got canceled.

If anyone is traveling to NYC any time soon and would like to stay in Manhattan - you can check out Hotel 31 - Thank you Irene for helping me with searching for the flights and accomodation! :) It's clean and cost wise, it's reasonable. And I do recommend that you stay in Manhattan if you are planning to stay only a few days and want to do those usual touristy stuff - it's just more convenient to get around. You can either walk to most places or take the subway, which cost around USD2.50 for a one way trip (goes pretty far I believe, so long as you stay on the same subway line).

The first night CS and I got there, the first thing we did of course was to drop our bags and just went wandering around, snapping pictures and I guess getting used to the cold - it was between -5°C and 0°C, and at that time we just came from Florida which was more like 8°C - 10°C.

New York Public Library at night

Fountain at Bryant Park

The next day we started with checking out Madison Square Garden, then routed back to Fifth Avenue and just made it towards Central Park. Along the way Fifth Avenue, one can visit places like the New York Public Library (which we skipped on the first day cause there was some filming going at the entrance and they didn't allow visitors to enter), the Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Trump Tower and the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA).

Madison Square Garden,
where famous matches were played/
fought. And like one friend commented
on FB, reminds him of MTV

Outside Rockefeller Center
One should go up the tower and
take in the view of Manhattan from
the top - it's really something!

Central Park was a pleasant surprised - although I have seen it covered in snow in movies like Home Alone 2 and Batman 2, it's quite an experience viewing it in person. Makes me wonder what it would be like in the autumn. The feel would be so different. Golden, brown leaves would cover most of the park instead and I'm thinking that scene would be very beautiful during sunset.

Central Park - All in white :)

Central Park - By the pond

And as the day got darker, we managed to get ourselves to the American Museum of Natural History - remember the movie, A Night at the Museum? Anyway, now that I look at the map again, it had been a long walk from where we started the day from - 31st (hotel) to 79th Street (museum), not to mention the many places we stopped by in between. I guess it made sense that after the museum visit we decided to take the subway back down to mid town  - conveniently there was a subway station on the 79th Street. We were tired and wanted to check out Times Square during the night still. Talk about maximizing time huh? ;)

Inside The American Museum of
Natural History

James A. Farley Post Office - huge!

Anyway, that's a stop for this round - not quite finished Day 1 yet, but this post is getting a bit too long. Will blog more the next time.

Have a great weekend!

48 Hours and Counting

After hours on the plane, with multiple transits, I'm have now arrived back in Hong Kong. That's 48 hours traveling straight from New York. With the final leg back to Penang in another few hours or so. Tiring.

After a night of snow pelt

It all started with the weather getting very bad (snow storms and all) in the US, particularly in the North East. And then our flight out of New York got canceled. I guess it was fortunate that we found out early enough (about the cancellation) that we were still able to get tickets out of New York - else we will probably get stuck there for another few days. The unfortunate part was that we had to pay a bomb for the tickets - last minute and all and had to rush to the airport to buy them.

So in 48 hours, we made it from New York to Atlanta (Georgia), and then to Plantation (Florida), and then to Dallas (Texas), and then to Los Angeles (California), and then finally making the long flight to Hong Kong. By the way, Texas was also hit by the snowstorm a couple of days before and the temperature was still around -8°C when we arrived at the airport - fortunately the planes were not grounded.

It was certainly an experience - though you would probably have guessed that it is not one I would want to repeat anytime soon if I can help it ;)
Particularly when during the journey, I developed a sore throat and have a nose bleed. The throat seems to be fine now after some hours of rest along the way, but it seems that the nose has became a bit worst - hoping it's just being "heaty".

Will be blogging about the trip as soon as I get around sorting the pictures out. Here is one I took in Schaumburg, Illinois. Apparently it's about 20 inches of snow there after the last round of snowing - glad I'm not around to weather it out :)



To friends who are celebrating, here's to wishing you a Happy New Year! May the year of the Rabbit brings you lots of joyous and happy moments!