Counting down in rainy days

It's rainy season now in Malaysia as year end is drawing nearer. In Kelantan, the monsoon season has just arrived. Sometimes the rains poured heavily nonstop for days , flooding many areas in Kelantan. I love rainy days though it might give a gloomy and moody feel for most of us. Besides sleeping, rainy day is a good day for me to reminiscence and contemplate. I love to listen to the sounds of nature like waves bouncing and beating on sands and the sounds of rain...That's the main reason I like sitting besides the seaside alone or lying down on the beaches watching the sparkling stars up sky. These nature sounds make me feel calm, mind-relaxing which rejuvenate me.

In the night of rain now, I'm counting down the time for my flight to Beijing . I have found something new for my semester break- aiesec exchange program . Refreshing back about the application process, I feel myself is rather crazy haha... I came aross this project 1 week before my study week, so without thinking, I was so 'rajin' filling up all the particulars and got my CV done within few hours in the mid night as the authorities is waiting for me to submit my CV for the next day interview session. Since they insisted me for attending the interview face-to-face in Penang, so I was absence the next day for sure as I was still in Kelantan that time . I arranged my time and made a 1 day tour to Penang just for the 15min interview the day after I reached my hometown on the commencing of study week. Luckily I passed the interview smoothly . Initially I opted for an developmental internship in countries like Poland, Turkey, but due to the limitation of projects holding there by that period, so I decided to change to China.

Basically there are a few types of internship available:

1. Developmental

2. Management

3. IT

4. Language teaching

For management and IT internship, we even have the chance to work in big company like Nike, Microsoft etc.Since my field of study is not related to management, so I could just choose between developmental or language teaching for my intern. There are lots projects going on throughout the year worldwide. We could join the internship anytime in the year before we reached 30 years, provided that there's some suitable projects matching with our criterias, personal skills and abilities.If the project's authorities is willing to accept you while you are interested in the same project as well, a match is formed.

Usually we just need to pay for our travelling fees, some projects do offer free accommodation and meals like mine, some would pay you a monthly salary to cover your expenses there. The duration of internship is min 6 weeks to a year which lies on the project itself .

So, I would be away for ' Dare to Dream' project in China for 6 weeks furing the semester break. It is a quite meaningful project, which aims to motivate the children in Sichuan to dream and have a better view of outside world after the drastic earthquake last year. We hope to lit the hope and dream inner them by organising a series of program like Winter camp for children there. Thus, I would be in Beijing for few weeks for preparation while the rest of time spending together with children at Sichuan. I had chosen this project over the HIV awareness project as I have always wished to help the people in Sichuan besides donating to them after the earthquake.

Hope I will enjoy myself there ^^

Last day at Kelantan

Yesterday was my last day at Kelantan after 3 months stay at Murni. Most of my friends have already waited for the day to come since long times ago, how much they hope they could escape this 'boring' state as soon as possible, haha..

For me, I did feel a bit reluctant to leave. Well,the hostel at usmkk might not be as nice as the one we have in main campus, the campus is not as large as in Penang, the state is not as interesting and full of entertainment like Penang, but I like the friendly and warm people here, perhaps it's the different of big city and developing city.

The person I would certainly miss the most is my rOoMate! I 'm always quite lucky to have nice and caring roomates since my matriculation life, really appreaciate it. My cute roomate-Mimi makes me feel warm and comfortable staying in Murni especially when I haven't get adapted to the room here. We laughed together, and sharing all things happening everyday. She is a very considerate person which comfort and care for me in her own way when I cried myself for hours in the room. ( Mimi, sorry that I still make you worried about me in your last week here, and forgive me for not being able to tell you the truth )

Right after the exam in the morning, I had a great time having lunch and playing snooker with my friends. Thanks Cj for teaching us so patiently as the rest of us know nothing about how to play snooker , instead he still can bear with us as we are damn slow learner and player =p

At night, the whole bunch 16 of us went for trio dinner+supper at Song Phan Mai restaurant, Satay Malaysia and Red Bean Cafe. The thai restaurant, Song Phan Mai is located at a quite hidden place besides a river, but it's so great that they had a table big enough to accommodate 16 of us and nice food !Satay Malaysia Restaurant is quite famous in Kelantan, nearby airport. We were stunned by the numbers of cars parked outside the restaurant! The satay taste good as well =)

Last station we went to Red Bean Cafe for some dessert, but sad that most of the famous food of the shop had already sold out by the time we reached. Recommend you guys the red bean paste with tang yuan and 'Ba bao bin' !

Millions thanks to all my friends at usmkk for showing us around ,I enjoyed the moments we spent together and will certainly miss all of you here ('',) Good bye Kelantan

Life in Kelantan 4

Forget which museum is this ~

Let's talk about the place of interest in Kelantan after all those eating stuff =p
Basically, there are not much places to visit here, the most famous one would be all the Wat and beaches.

We visited 4 of the famous Wat (Buddhist temple ) here during our stay here.
1. Wat Photivihan (Tumpat)
It is the most famous Buddhist temple in Kelantan . It contains the biggest statue of the
Reclining Buddha in Southeast Asia. The statue - which measures 40 metres long, 11 metres
high and nine metres wide - was completed in 1979.


2. Wat Machimmaram (Tumpat)
The main attraction here is the sitting buddha which is believed to be the second largest in
Southeast Asia- 30 metres high and 47 metres wide

3. Wat Mai Suvankhiri (Tumpat)
This is one of the most beautiful Wat we got to visit. The uniqueness of this temple is it is
placed in a large replication of dragon ship with 2 dragons guiding at the entrance.

4. Wat Phothikyan (Bachok)
This is the Wat that I liked the most among others. There is a 100 foot high standing Buddha
which is just opened to public in June 2009 and a Kuan Yin temple facing the South China sea
nearby.


Besides that, We also visited the "Kampung Kraftangan" where you could search for some souvenirs there. But it might be due to the renovation going on, there is not much to see there and all of us claimed that we entered the museum along mopping the floor using our foots and trousers haha ..( coz it's really very dusty inside =p) It's a regret that we did not able to visit the 'Gelanggang Seni" which there will be some cultural shows from February-September every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.

For beaches, I just went to 2 famous beaches , namely Pantai Cahaya Bulan and Pantai Irama. Personally, I would think that Pantai Cahaya Bulan is much cleaner and the sand is softer. But
if you compared those to beaches in Terengganu , I think the latter one is far more better, so nothing much special to describe about the beaches here. Most of the university students like to watch sunrise in the beaches here.

Some of us went to a few waterfalls in Kelantan, all crowded with people, they even brought their own barbecue equipment and roasting all those meats while picnicking...

We even went across the border to terengganu 's to a nearby 'air kolam panas' , but the place is so disappointing haha....
For shopping, you can opt for Rantau panjang or Pengkalan Kubor. If you have time, you can have a look at Pasar Siti Khadijah, variety of things and food selling things, quite nice if you havent been there before .
Visited one of the kite making house, wow...all the wau are damn expensive, the one shown in the picture costs RM500! The smallest one also costs around RM50, just can be 'watched ' without buying =S

Life in Kelantan 3

Initially most of us come to kelantan wishing to slim down and save some money since there's not much entertainment, but in fact, the real scene turned out to be totally different!

We gained more weight but sampling so many delicious food here and in the mean time burning a hole in our pocket =S...

September and October are the peak season for birthday among our coursemates, I can't really remember how many of them born in these two months and how many times we had celebrated the birthday for everyone of them ....that's one of the main reasons we got broke here haha...

Almost every weekend we will go out hunting food ( coz it's really too bored in the hostel). There are many Thai restaurants here , if would like to get non halal chinese food, Kebun Sultan would be the choice.This is white house, a place for breakfast ( nasi dagang) and supper.

Another restaurant which is recommended by 'Ah Xian' is Chiang Mai restaurant at Tumpat.

Fried bees and worms

Fried Pork Arm ( Thumb-up for this , yummy!)

Fried prawn with cashew nuts, recommended by chef

Four Season restaurant, erm still ok for the dish but slightly expensive for the services haha...



Guangf Ling Restaurant , not bad !




There are much more photos which could been viewed from my facebook as we went to many reaturants and most of the dishes were finished eaten up before any pictures are capture haha=p

Life in Kelantan 2

Heard about the name of Kelantan, I bet most of the comments are negative for this place eg conservative, islamic, dead boring place, no entertainment at all etc. Talk about my views for this place after 3 months stay, I do like the place in which the people here are more warm and friendly than those big cities like penang. For sure the culture here are a bit different from other states as it is the only states which follow the Islamic law strictly. There are a few differences that we need to adapt ourselves:

1. Learn to say kurang manis when you order any drinks. We need to adapt our taste buds here since most of the food especially the drink and kuih here are sweet in nature. Kelantanese food makes more use of coconut milk than anywhere else as well.

2. Most of the restaurants are closed on Friday especially during noon time, so be sure to check out the operation time if you don't hope to go bang on a 'closed' sign.

3. Most of the supermarkets and petrol station closed during the noon time around 1pm-2pm, so make sure you don't get closed inside the hypermarket.

4. There are no cinemas or any KTVs here, only a bowling and snooker court in KB mall. Other than that, you can choose to exercise, strolling along the beach, enjoying the sunrise and sunset at seasides.

We were considered quite lucky to have come here during fasting months as we got the chance to sample variety of local kuih-muih at pasar Ramadhan. Kelantan is famous for its kuih in which some of it can only be seen in Kelantan. Among those are Kuih Akok, Taik itik, jala mas etc...


This is Akok, which is the kuih that I prefer among others . It's make of egg without egg yolk part and preferably duck egg for less wrinkles haha....
Actually there are lotz more kuih that are only seen here, but I forget the names as there are really too many haha


Others famous in Kelantan is Nasi dagang, make up of white and red glutinous rice blended with coconut milk, so just consume a small portion you will be extremely filling.It is usually served with fish or curry chicken. ( Can try at Kuang Ning or white house in the morning)

The nasi kerabu in Kelantan is mostly white rice with local herbs, veges which is different from the dyed-blue rice in Terengganu. The colouring comes from a type of blue flower. This rice is usually served with fried fish, keropok, solok lada and budu.

I tried a Thai version of nasi kerabu which makes up of thirty plus of herbs mixed into a greenly looked rice.(Located at Jalan Wakaf Mek Zainab). Personally I don't really like the taste, it's a bit salty, but the asam laksa and laksam there are great!
This is the Laksam, for laksa, a must to taste!

Besides that, ayam percik is also one of the main attractions here. It's clipped using bamboo ang grilled with charcoal, dressed with coconut gravy. The most famous shop selling it is Yati ayam percik located at Jalan Long Yunus. But for me, it's just ordinary ayam percik haha..




Other special food are nasi berlauk, nasi sumatera ( must try !) and steam rice.

Life in Kelatan

It's has been ages since my last updates here . Sorry guys, i have been too lazy during the past few months till my blogs growing tall tall weeds here haha. It has been 3 months since my stay in Kelantan. Basically i do enjoy the life a lot besides the clerkship. We have been to 7 different pharmacy departments namely
1. TDM unit (therapeutic drug monitoring)
2. TPN unit (total parenteral nutrition)
3. Oncology unit
4. Management unit
5. Outpatient unit
6. Satellite pharmacy unit
7. Drug Information unit

Had been quite busy during the 7 weeks of clerkship as we were assigned 4-5 assignments to be done in 5 days for each units. But on the other day we did have a lot of new exposure and hands on experience on what we have learned in the theory. If you ask for how I feel after the 7 weeks of clerkship, I could tell you that I was a little disappointed for my own profession. I feel that it's really quite bored working in the hospital, at least not the job i wished to have, and furthermore, I feel that pharmacists are not playing an active and crucial role in the hospital setting, which makes me feel that we can't really applied what we have learned so much in the 4 years studies.
Another shocking news that disappointed me is the high possibility of an allowance reduction of RM750 from pharmacists' salary starting next year. This shows how our profession is being sidelined by our government where in the mean times other countries have recognized the importance of pharmacist profession in their countries.

Haha back to the title about my life here. Everyone of us regardless of races has build a closer rapport here. We have been so close among course mates since coming here, maybe due to the limited numbers of us here ( around 6x students)

my groupmates during clerkship

Half of my batch who went to Kelantan in 1st sem

Having a great time barbecuing at one of the lecturer's house in HUSM