There's No Way But Up

I wrote this travelogue of my recent trip to Serpom and Nepal for http://www.tsemrinpoche.com/ Since my mother had passed away earlier this year, H.E. Tsem Rinpoche advised me to take my dad on a holiday. He suggested several countries like India, Nepal, Burma, Thailand and so forth. Rinpoche said that we should go to these places…

Dear People who are karmically connected with me, As you know I love beautiful mountains, dwellings in the mountains. Pastor Seng Piow on his own initiative has been just looking through various beautiful properties. Some are just breathtaking and when I see something beautiful I just want to share with others whom I feel might…

All stimuli that serves to excite or disgust are based on lack of true permanence therefore only exist in a projected manner. Tsem Rinpoche http://www.tsemrinpoche.com  Recently on facebook, I was asked by Rinpoche to elaborate on this quote for the benefit of Victor Choi. This teaching was recently given to a bunch of students who…

Tsem Rinpoche sent me these pictures of a 9 inch statue of double-headed troll from Norway. He said it looks pretty realistic and went on to tell me a little bit about Norwegian folk beliefs in Trolls. Rinpoche said that the trolls that live in Norway can be scary, friendly, helpful, temperamental and so forth….

                                   The narrow street leading to Tahithy Chowk  Well, its been awhile and I am finally coming up with the second installment of the earlier post of the recent pilgrimage to Nepal. The pilgrimage was in December but fortunately,…

Happy 2014 guys and I know I have been 2 weeks late in blogging about this but better late then never… Over Christmas last year, I took 22 (including myself, Su Ming (the main organiser) and Nicholas Yu)  intrepid pilgrims seeking an intimate spiritual journey – a pilgrimage of sorts to Nepal. Needless to say,…

I was in Melbourne in 2001 and I was doing my final year for my Bachelor of Computing degree. I was just there for like a year but i soaked up some pretty interesting Aussie sights and sounds. I am not sure I did very well with my studies but I sure had the time…

2012 came by just like that and I have been totally neglecting my little blog here. I am not sure if I still have an audience out there in cyberspace. Perhaps just a few clicks from Facebook and that’s it. Last year saw the publications of 2 books, Tales My Lama Told Me, which I…

With a name that evokes the bar-tending  stainless steel cup (I learnt this from Wikipedia), my cousin’s new cocktail bar was something to behold. I just learnt of its existence from my cousin, Khai Yan, just 2 weeks back. It was apparently, a neat little collaboration between my cousin Guo Yi and her boyfriend, Indra. We…

Over the weekend, I was down in Singapore with my parents and Paul. I haven’t had the opportunity to spend so much time with my ma in a long time. It was a nice short car trip down to the island nation of immaculate streets and drab buildings. My ma loves Singapore and we were…

Li Kim and I flew to New Delhi from Kathmandu via Kingfisher Airlines. It was a pleasant flight as you can see the airport is state-of-the-art unlike the crummy Third World charm of the Kathmandu airport. I love the Mudra hand gestures the form the facade of the immigration hall. I think the same gestures are…

My flight was canceled and so I took the next flight to Kathmandu. Fortunately, the second flight was pretty smooth without much hiccups. After a few hours of sleep, I slide the cabin windows open as the captain announced that we will be reaching Kathmandu soon and we could see the snow-capped Mount Everest and…

Its the time of the year for travelling again… For work of course. I just got an email of my flight schedule. Usually, it would just be Nepal but this time, I am going to India as well. New Delhi to be exact and this is going to be my first time in Delhi. Will…

I was in Penang last weekend for the launch of Kechara Soup Kitchen there. It was a relatively low key event but we were still graced by the Chief Minister of Penang, YAB Lim Guan Eng. He seemed rather down to earth, attending the event with his wife and son. It was nice, fair-weathered day,…

A visit to the local muzeum was not really on the top of my to-do list. However, I found myself visiting it along with a bunch of my friends from Kechara as part of an educational visit arranged by H. E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche. We are there not to soak in the culture of Malaysia…

Over the weekend, I went up to the island state of Penang. Here are some of the pictures I took on my Blackberry… I saw this picture when I went to visit the Tzu Chi Foundation center there. I recalled many times that Rinpoche had likened Kechara to be a ship crossing the turbulent ocean…

Bouddhanath Stupa                                             Kechara Lounge @ Bouddhanath Some friends just returned from Nepal and they got me dreaming about Nepal. I would like to go to Nepal too but I guess I can't afford it…

After Kek Look Thong, we decided it was too big of a rush to head to the Lost World of Tambun so we checked into a hotel and stayed overnight. The next day after breakfast, we drove over to the theme park. The theme park was nice but the backdrop view of the mountains made…

After the brief visit to the Arowana fish farm, we had a delicious vegetarian lunch and planned our visit to Kek Look Tong cave temple. We were rather worried because it started to rain midway through our meal but it died down not long after. So, Seng Piow armed with his GPS 'thing-a-magic' led the…

Well, there is really no such thing as a dragon fish. But to the Chinese, the Arowanas look remarkably similar to a dragon. Although they are highly prized the Chinese because of that but these fishes are not indigenous of this region but are actually from South America. They were obviously brought over a long…