Happy 52nd Birthday to Malaysia.  And Selamat Hari Merdeka (Happy National Day) too all Malaysians including myself :p.

Salam Satu Malaysia. (”One Malaysia” is a hot topic now, even the news on radio and Tv use this word all the times. And from newspaper, many advertisement or articles will use pictures that consist of 3 main races in Malaysia - Malays, Chineses and Indian to show the concept of One Malaysia.)

This are our passbooks of the Amanah Saham 1Malaysia (1Malaysia Unit Trust).

We opened the accounts and invested a small amount a few weeks ago several days after it was launched. We did not go on the first day because we do not have time to queue up for hours, and surprisingly it was still available three days later. ASNB (Amanah Saham Nasional Berhad) still had not sold out all 10 billion units at RM1 per unit at that time.

Unlike other Amanah Saham (Unit Trust) from the government (such as ASN, ASW2020) which can sell out all the available units in an hour or two when they were offered. Our friends and relatives told us about their experiences on  getting ASN or ASW2020. Some of them even started queueing up at the bank or post office or ASNB office as early as 4am previously, and they got it, but some of them went a bit late, queueing for hours, got nothing and disappointed, one of them only got half of the amount she wished to invest.

It seem that the response of AS1Malaysia was not as hot as ASW2020, ASN, etc.. That’s why we did not have to queue up. Is it a good news or a bad news? Any way, we expected that this is a long term investment and wish can see ASNB issues a dividend soon. If they promise that they will issue a high rate dividend, I am sure all the units will be sold out immediately.

So you want to know how much have we invested? You guess “lah”. “Lah” is a Malaysian slang that is always added to the end of a sentence. I did not check with ASNB whether AS1Malaysia is still available. If you know please tell me.

Again, Happy Birthday Malaysia!!!

Thank you Malaysia, my country, the land where my blood is shed. (Negaraku, tanah tumpahnya darahku)… …

Merdeka !!! Merdeka !!! Merdeka !!!

After taking the photos of the sunrise, I continued to shoot around.  Our location at 3rd floor were just right for all these photos.  If I had more time, I may have captured photos from each floor to see the surrounding scenery from different angles.

The higher the better?  Not really.  From a higher place, the things in the scenery become smaller, but we can see more.  From a lower point, we have limited scope, but things on the ground floor show greater details.

Maybank is an important landmark at LCCT for some bus to stop.  It is located across a road from Tune Hotel.

The plane was landing.

I also saw a large plantation of palm trees.

From the top, I caught a picture of the root of the palm tree.

Since the hotel is not that far from the airport, aeroplanes parked there are easily visible too.

This is another important landmark for buses to disambark and pick up passengers.  This building is the post office.  It is known as Pos Malaysia.

This is how to corridor outside the hotel room looks like.  There is quite a lot of room to move about.

From the balcony, I found the car park of the hotel.  Do you notice the red van in the picture above?  That’s the shuttle service of the hotel that provides rides from various places.  One of it is LCCT to the Tune Hotel and return.  This costs RM 1 per ride.

It must have rained the night before.  I discovered that the handle grip of the fence on the corridor was wet.  The drops of water on the grip created a nice texture and pattern that moved me to capture them.

The picture above is a close up and this is the whole picture of the wet handle grip.  The sunrise (background) in the picture above is out of focus and overexposed. 

Someone might had looked at me while I was taking the photo.  There are security cameras in the building to protect the safety of the guests.

Overall, it was quite an experience to spend a night at the Tune Hotel.  We didn’t order any extra facilities besides the basic ones so I guess we didn’t really have the 5-star hotel experience as promoted in their advertisements.  However, it is a place with sufficient facilities to rest in order to ‘recharge’ one’s battery and prepare for the next journey.

As the night slowly crept away and the dawn came to take place, we had an acquaintance with the lovely sunrise.  It was a refreshing morning and we were fortunate enough to be able to catch this beautiful view at the corridor outside the hotel room.

According to some findings on Wikipedia, one should not confuse dawn with sunrise as dawn is the (variously defined) point at which the sky begins to lighten, some time before the sun itself appears, ending twilight.  Sunrise however, is the instant at which the upper edge of the Sun appears above the horizon in the east.

What does sunrise mean to you?

Couples shown in movies like to stay up all night on the beach just to wait for the sunrise because it is romantic. But to be on the safe side, you have to make sure it’s a weekend.  You don’t want to fall asleep at your desk with your boss standing in front of you. Do you think watching sunrise is romantic?

Well, from another point of view, sunrise is the beginning of a new day.  This is a fact that can’t be denied.  How many of us actually know that it is a new day when it is a new day? A funny but meaningful question. Think about it.

A new day means our lives has become shorter.  Every second that has passed us by will not return anymore.  It is very important to realize what we are doing every second is meaningful so that our lives can be content and not wasted just like that.  Have you called or hugged your loved ones today?

Sunrise can be a new beginning.

A new beginning to a new born.
A new beginning to a new job.
A new beginning to a new project.
A new beginning to a new friendship.
A new beginning to a couple who fought the night before.

Can you tell us more new beginnings that you know or have encountered?

There’s a Chinese saying that goes (translated), ‘A whole-year’s plan starts in spring, A whole-day’s plan starts in the morning.’.  Planning is essential to ensure what we want to achieve be done in a smooth way with possible difficulties decreased to the least.  You might get more brilliant ideas if you are planning your day while enjoying the sunrise.

Do you think the sunrise picture above resembles the sea and the seaside?  I think it looks like the sea during dusk.

If you are still wriggling in bed, you better get up because slowly the sunlight will force itself through your window into your room.  You might have a curtain but you still can’t stop the Sun to pay you a visit every day.  And the Sun is a good doctor because it will ‘roast’ all the lazy worms in us and wake us up to our routine.

Romance, a new day, a new beginning, a new life…the Sun appears and brighten up every living beings with new hopes.  It burns itself without any frustration or complaints.  Let’s not disappoint the Sun and waste its effort.  Be happy! Be positive! Have a wonderful weekend!

We had a night stay at Tune Hotel, LCCT which located 7 minutes walk from the departure hall (as stated in Tune’s advertisement).  We walked two rounds “from/to” between LCCT and Tune Hotel.  On our way, we found the following which is extremely unbelievable.

It was the rubbish behind the Food Garden of LCCT.

I started to guess who has thrown the rubbish here.  The food sellers, the customers, or the cleaner who has done this?  Why the rubbish was left just like this although it is not the front side of the building?

If you were a tourist and you see this what will you think about it?  It was supposed to be removed from a tourist’s vision.

I can think of one idiom,”sweep under the carpet”.  Now I should change it to, “throw rubbish behind the building”.

Let me tell you the exact location, the drain is somewhere not far from the carpark near Pos Malaysia.

Pos Malaysia.

This is the road between Tune Hotel and LCCT.  It is about 300 to 400 meter.  We took about 10 minutes to reach (longer than the stated 7 minutes because we had to carry our luggage).  There is no proper footpath for pedestrian, and we always worried the vehicle that come from behind when we were walking there. 

We took a van for one time from the hotel to airport, and it cost us RM1 each.  The rest of the time, we were on foot.

Good luck to the trolleys because pushing the trolley on the road can shorten the trolleys’ life span, there should be a smoother path for both humans and trolleys.  We did use the trolley to carry our luggage from the airport to the hotel because there is no sign saying that we can’t do that.  When we asked for the direction of shortest path to Tune Hotel, a helpful young Malay guy at Food Garden told us that we can use the trolley until we reached the hotel.  Thanks to that young Malay guy.

When we reached the hotel, we unloaded our luggage and parked the trolley.  I doubted if there is anything wrong because our trolley has a different colour from the other trolleys in blue.  Soon, I cleared my doubts because I also saw the trolley of different colours appeared.

But we saw a girl stopped pushing her trolley.  When she reached the carpark she left the trolley behind the Food Garden, and carried everything on her own.  I think she regretted later because when she reached the hotel, she saw the trolleys again, and even for a short distance to the hotel receptionist, she used the trolley again.  We were walking a distance behing her and saw everything.

A junction outside the Tune Hotel.

The driver has parked the car illegally beside the road.

Although we could hardly open our eyes due to the strong sunlight, the things we have seen were our eye-openners.  (Mouth-openners too).   :p

We have a small beehive come naturally at the right place.  It is inside our room’s window but outside of the sliding mosquito net.  Therefore we do not have to worry about being stung.  I like its natural shape, their doors are artistically arranged, and each door is different but has similar size.  The whole structure seems to be made of soil and I am sure that the bees have used something to make it strong.

It appeared since years ago actually, and started with one or two holes only, and slowly getting bigger.  I had told them that this is my place but I let them stay with the condition that they do not hurt me.  After months, they grew until this size and stopped.  Now they had abandoned their home.

I feel sorry because I have caused them to leave because sometimes I need to close the windows due of strong wind or heavy rain, the worst thing was I needed to close the windows if I go traveling for a week or two, and they totally lost their access to their home or getting out to search for honey.

Slowly and finally and I did not remember when, non of the bees stayed and they only left us with their construction.

Do you believe that human can communicate with animals?  The communication does not have to be verbal, it can be using feeling, thinking, emotion, body language and action.  I have some proves.

1.  Look at those people having pets, the owner love his/her pet, and the pet love its owner.

2.  Many stories tell that animals (bird, dog, horse or other animal) can lead human from one place to another place.

3.  A story that I read years ago tell that…  A fisherman always met a large group of seagulls when he was fishing in the middle of ocean and they had became great friends.  The seagulls always accompanied the fisherman and they were very happy.  One day, the fisherman told his friend about the seagulls, but his friend had a bad idea and asked the fisherman to catch a seagull so that he would believe what the fisherman had said.  The fisherman went out to the sea again, and from that day onward, no seagull stopped at his boat again.

Animals understand and can read our mind, be nice to all the animals.  We can communicate with animals by showing our kindness.