nork_nork's Xanga

Sabah, Day 3 (June 12, 2008)

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:14:21 GMT

Day 3

This was our Mount Kinabalu Day! Woke up real early to take our local tour. First thing we saw on our almost 3-hr ride was the State Mosque. Stopped half-way and someone bought something at the flea market there! Finally, we arrived at our first tourist destintation of the day - the Kinabalu National Park.

State Mosque

The long ride & 2 Giants (Me & Mount Kinabalu)

Entrance

Our first activity of the day was a rather hot one - to climb 600m off the ground level, and walk pass the Canopy Walkway, which, as you can see, was quite scary when you found out that the walkway would rock and roll when a heavy-weighted champion was walking in front of you! Singing the "Indiana Jones" theme song throughout the "adventrue"! If that's not exciting enough for you, look down!

Canopy

Need to take a break

We're there!

Hesitation or Excitation?

(To be continued)

Sabah, Day 2 (June 11, 2008)

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:40:42 GMT

Day 2

We started our day with a very rush breakfast... coz we were so lazy getting up! Didn't really have time to "enjoy" the dinner... then, we headed towards the SeaQuest, the company that took us to the "islands." It's located inside the Sutera Hotel Complex. And guess who we saw there at the Pier? Mon Ka Wai (Ekin Cheng's girlfriend) and her friends. They were heading to the Sapi island. And for us, first stop ... Manutkan Island... heard a lot of good things about this island... so let's try not to disappoint ourselves with our first island visit! Getting there didn't take very long... the jet was speedy! A great transportation tool! Wish I'd own one in the future!

The speedy ride!

The first thing we did on the island was to pay the entrance fees, coz it was acutally part of the government owned National Park, which is composed of 5 islands (Manutkan and Sapi are 2 of them). Then, we went over to rent some snorkeling equipments.

First stop... Manutkan

We found a spot on the not-too-crowded beach, and we headed to sea for some actions! Being snorkeling amateurs, we had hard times getting the fins on! (See picture below) We were also not used to all those little rocks and sands getting stuck in our fins... quite uncomfy actually. But snorkling experience was quite nice... saw some fish crowds... asking for food... but we didn't have food with us... sorry... maybe next time?

Hardly putting the fins on...

Fully equiped!

Exhausted after snorkeling or just annoyed by the rocks in the fins?

After about half an hour messing around, we headed back for some hardcore sunbathing! But how stupid we were... after snorkeling, we didn't re-applied any lotion! Guess what happened to our skins by the end of the day? I'll tell you later. Let us look at some nice sunbathing pix first! "Sun and Beach"... as they said.

Self-taken photo

Beneath the Kinabalu Sky

Roaming and posing beneath the Kinabalu sky

Enjoying the sun...

Random pic 1 - 2+1 legs

Random pic 2 - Shadow and the legs

After an hour under the sun, we headed to snorkel for a second time. And then, we took the boat to another island... Sapi! At the Manutkan pier before boarding, we noticed a lot of fish neatly lining up waiting for food! The theory of evolution...

Fish "fishing" for food right next to the pier

Next stop... Sapi

On Sapi, again, we had to pay the entrance fees. At the entrance, we decided to buy one of those disposable water-proof camera to capture our snorkeling actions! But before we started out water activities, we were too hungry to go on. So, we had a beach picnic... burger, sandwiches, and malay iced milk tea!

Picnic on the beach

We decided to rest a bit and then go for our third snorkeling expedition. And this time, we were ready to feed the fish! We had taken some breads from the hotel breakfast place, split them and put them into a water bottle. Here're some of our feeding pix!

Feeding expedition

More feeding...

Surrounded

Two feet beneath

The only 2 pix in which we successfully posed with the fish

They wanna get into the photo!

Wow!

Here're some other nice pictures we took while we were at Sapi.

Sapi and us

R&R

Sea and sky

Watering

After staying there for about 3.5 hours, we took the last boat back to the hotel. Guess who were riding with us? That's right, Mon Ka Wai and her friends.

Sapi at sunset

Byebye Sapi!

Headed back to the hotel, we showered... and without noticing it at the first, our skins were so red and they hurt so bad when taking the showers. Took some pix at the balcony, and then headed towards the city for food!

At balcony... and getting tan

Enjoying the sunset

Tonight dinner took place at the famous "Twinsky Seafood." The place was really quite intersting, it was an open-area food court with numerous other mini-food-stands surrounding the food court. In other words, while being seated at the tables of the Twinsky Seafood, you would also be able to enjoy different kinds of food from these other little food stands. I personally enjoyed those foods from the stands more than the seafood... :P

Twinsky Seafood... we've been there!

Many types of seafood to choose from

See below for the food we had.

The local Malay drink... what's this called again? Quite nice.

Satay from those small stands

Fried egg... yummy... from those small stands

Local veggie

Shrimp with butter

Local shellfood special

Before heading back to the hotel, we shopped at a local grocery store for some authentic junk food. Look what I found? Mamee's drinks! Never seen this in HK. Got me very excited coz I really like the Mamee noodles!

Mamee...

Headed back to hotel and got some good rests for the exciting day that followed.

That's a wrap for our second day in Sabah!

Sabah, Day 1 (June 10, 2008)

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:43:24 GMT

Here... at last... the highlights from the Sabah trip!

Day 1

Took off from HK Int Airport!

Waiting to board @ HK Int Airport

Arrived at Kota Kinabalu at around noon... a nice PR led us to the hotel van, which then took us to Magellan Sutera Resort Hotel... but, wait a minute! Not the Pacific Sutera Hotel which we had booked? So, we told them to take us back to the Pacific Wing. And we were there... we were once again told that we should be staying at the Magellan Wing, the nicer and more expensive one! How lucky that we paid less for better quality... but took us like an hour before we were assigned a room. So, they let us have free drinks at the lobby lounge, where we could get a nice view of the pool.

The pool

The lounge and the lobby

Finally, we got to our room. Being starved, we had to find a place for lunch right away! Our first meal there was local Malaysian fried rice - huge and quite delicious... just what I need after 3 hrs of flight and 1 hr of waiting!

Our first BIG meal

After lunch, we got changed, and headed to the hotel private beach, the smallest beach I have ever seen in my entire life! We spent about an hour and a half there reading and just enjoying the late afternoon sun.

The private "beach"

Posing... and posing...

Ok! Enough with the posing... let's get changed and head towards the town center for money exchange and sight-seeing. The hotel offered free shuttle to several downtown shopping plazas.

Waiting for the shuttle bus at the hotel lobby

After getting our money exchanged at this Chinese lady place at a "mall" (looked very much like the shopping plaze at Kwai Chung) recommended by our hotel staff, it started raining, and we got all wet coz we didn't bring our umbrellas!

A landmark in downtown KK around Wisma Merderka

We started to look for a place to dine amidst the merciless rain. After like half an hour of searching, finally we decided to dine at this place called "Teen Teen," a Malaysian-Chinese restaurant. Some waiters there could speak Mandarin. So, we managed to get ourselves some nice Malay Milk Tea, Laksa, and Hainan Chicken Rice.

Gosh! That looks tiny!

Tasty laksa

We had our first trial of the very famous Sabah ice-cream potong for dessert... wow! We had never tasted anything like that... superb! Easily the best ice-cream stick we've ever had! Shopped for some snacks at a local store and headed back to the hotel! Sleep early and get ready for the even-more exciting second day!

End of day 1

給四川的歌...心在顫抖 Song for Szechuan

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 23:28:08 GMT

這是四川大地震後我有感以發寫的一首歌。我希望聽到這首歌的朋友可以把這首歌轉給你的親朋戚友，令世界每一個角落有中國人的地方都聽到這首歌。四川的同胞正需要我們長期的支持及援助！希望這首歌可以感動各位。

這首歌的完成來得非常神奇！五一二當晚得悉地震發生後，我在洗澡的時侯突然有靈感，這個旋律在腦海湧出來。但是歌詞花了兩晚還是想不出來。就在這時，我突然收到遠在北京的叔公電郵過來的一首詩；怎料詩的字與我的旋律異常配合，就像失散了的孖生兄弟 (一個在北京，一個在香港)！在那刻，我決定要把它完成，送給四川及世界各地的中國華人。

非常感謝許明龍先生感人的詩(改寫成這首歌的歌詞)、及所有支持我做這首歌的朋友，特別是我的家人。沒有你們各位的支持，這首歌是不能夠完成的！

This is my own composition on the Szechuan Earthquake. Please spread this song to your friends and relatives. It's my wish to get the song's message through all the people in this world. The victims in Szechuan need our continuous support and help! I'd wish this song can touch your hearts.

The completion of this song is almost miraculoous! On 5/12, after learning about the earthquake from the news, I had this melody bursting out from my mind when showering. But lyrics were kinda difficult... after two nights, I just couldn't come up with nice lyrics. At this very moment, my mom's uncle in Beijing emailed us his poem on szechuan; and surprisingly, his words and my melody matched really well... like separated twins getting together again... (one in Beijing, and the other in Hong Kong)! Without any hesitation, I decided to record this song for the victims in Szechuan and all Chinese around the globe.

A BIG thank you to Mr. Xu Minglong for his touching poem (adapted as lyrics of this song). Also great thanks to those who support me in writing this song, esp. my family. This song can't be done without you!

心在顫抖

曲: 鍾一諾

詞: 許明龍

編：Edmond Tsang

主唱：鍾一諾

大提琴：Ingrid Cleo Seto

心在顫抖，

驚視著那亂石飛滾的山頭，

美麗的城市，寧靜的村莊，

頃刻之間已化為烏有。

心在顫抖，

看著那轟然倒下的教學樓，

上千個活蹦亂跳的花季少年，

如璀璨的鮮花瞬間凋零在深溝。

望著那從地下伸出廢墟的手，

我的心在顫抖，

他永遠離開了陽光燦爛的世界，

帶著對生命的渴求。

我的心在痛，心的血在流，

凝望一個個催人淚下的鏡頭，

請把你自己的心扉輕扣，

難道不知道我們多幸福富有？

讓我們手牽著手，並肩前走！

望著那從地下伸出廢墟的手，

我的心在顫抖，

他永遠離開了陽光燦爛的世界，

帶著對生命的渴求。

我的心在痛，心的血在流，

凝望一個個催人淚下的鏡頭，

請把你自己的心扉輕扣，

難道不知道我們多幸福富有？

放下你的憂，扔掉我的愁，

擦乾眼淚，挺起胸膛，

讓我們手牽著手，並肩前走！

心在顫抖，

向著全世界，我們高吼，

打不倒壓不垮是中國人，

永遠高高昂起是我們的頭！

Long overdue... finally on YouTube!

Wed, 10 Jan 2007 01:05:09 GMT

"Song of Regeneration" by Brothers Chung 再生頌

《再生頌》 (第十屆十大再生勇士�� 舉主題曲)
曲/詞：鍾一諾
主唱：鍾一諾
口琴：鍾一匡

"Song of Regeneration" (Theme song written for Regeneration Society 10th Annual Regeneration Heroes Award Ceremony)
Written by Roger Chung
Roger Chung (Vocal, Guitar) and Henry "Sonny Boy" Chung (Harmonica)

"Ave Maria" by Roger Chung @ Hong Kong Methodist Church

Schubert's "Ave Maria"
Performed by Roger Chung
Organ accompanied by Gary Tong
Recorded on December 25, 2005 at Hong Kong Methodist Church, Hong Kong ... (more)

Henry "Sonny Boy" Chung vs. Mitch Woods at Grappa's, Central

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 09:28:23 GMT

On November 11th, my brother, a blues harmonica player, was back in action after his last performance in August back in the States. Here, he's the featured artist in San Francisco boogie woogie wizard Mitch Woods and Rocket 88's performance at Grappa's, Central. This is "Blues in A." I have not heard my brother blowing the blues live for over a year... and all I can say is... breathtaking! Enjoy!

The Song of Regeneration 再生頌 (MP3)

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 02:45:15 GMT

Wanna get a feel of what happened on the day of the Regeneration Award Ceremony? Listen to the studio demo version of the song here!

"The Song of Regeneration"
Written by Roger Chung
Roger Chung (Vocal, Background Vocal, Piano); Henry Chung (Harmonica)

《再生頌》
曲/詞：鍾一諾
主唱：鍾一諾和音：鍾一諾鋼琴：鍾一諾口琴：鍾一匡

*人生充滿著愁困

面對厄運如何渡過悲哀一生？

曾經苦痛迷茫

滿身傷痕誰人會獻出關心？

「你」願意共我分擔苦與憂

是「你」讓我重燃生機！

#我要衝破萬難

發奮自強全力去闖

如今不再驚怕

戰勝了危疾痛苦

再上路重拾信心

皆因「你」讓我再生

奮勇面對！

Repeat * # #

再生

Finally... the Photos from the 10th Annual Regeneration Award Ceremony!

Sun, 12 Nov 2006 12:49:43 GMT

十大再生勇士頒獎典禮 2006

Celeb name tags... :P

With Dr Kelvin Yeung, DJ王雅文, Chairman Liu, 長青DJ車淑梅, Director 李力持, Henry Chung and Vice Chairman Yiu

李大導 with "The Black and White Lethal Duo" (黑白雙殺)

SARS hero Professor Sum (沈祖堯教授)

The Opening Act - "The Song of Regeneration" 再生頌

Singing to the RTHK mic... just like a dream came true!

With the regeneration heroes, 梁智仁校長, Leo Ku (古巨基), etc.

With 高永文醫生... a very energetic doctor indeed!

With Dr. Margaret Chung and Mrs. Koo, founders of Regen Soc

Posing with Leo Ku (古巨基)

False Alarm!

Sat, 04 Nov 2006 20:18:02 GMT

Really sorry guys... the show may not be aired live on the radio. False alarm! But I'll definitely post the song and pix up here afterwards! Wish me luck!

Please tune in! Regeneration Society Annual Award Ceremony! Around 3pm! (Note: Time Change)

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 00:00:53 GMT

I know I haven't touched my xanga for ages. But this is something I'd really wanna share with you guys. I will be performing my own song written for the Regneration Society (再生會) this coming Sunday at their Annual Award Ceremony. Heard about 再生勇士? That's what it's all about! The song I'll be performing is called 再生. Please tune in to Radio HK No.1 this Sunday to hear the live performance. I'll be appearing at around 3:00pm (maybe before or after, so stay tuned...) with my bro Henry Sonny Boy Chung (back in action) as guests along with other celebrities like Leo Ku (古巨基), 胡定旭先生, 高永文醫生, 戴健文先生, 梁智鴻醫生, 林鄭月娥女士, 梁智仁教授, 沈祖堯教授 and the host is 車淑梅.

第十屆香港十大再生勇士選舉頒獎典禮

日期：2006年11月5日 (星期日)
時間：下午2:00 - 5:00
地點：九龍灣　國際展貿中心　3樓演講廳

10th Regeneration Society Annual Award Ceremony

Date: November 5, 2006 (Sunday)
Time: 14:00 - 19:00
Venue: 3/F Kowloon Bay International Trade Centre, Kowloon Bay, Kowloon

For more information, click here.