All time FAV books

Since I had listed my list of all time favourite alt/rock songs, I thought I would list out my all time favourite books.....until now that is. I still have so many books to read! I don't own all of the books, I used to borrow a lot of them from the libraries in UM and back home in Taiping. Ah....I actually do miss UM's library because I love their literature section. The smell of the old books......sigh. Oh, and I can spend hours in a bookshop!

In no particular order:

1. The World According to Garp (John Irving)

2. Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less (Jeffrey Archer) I love his short stories but this is still my favourite book from him. It made me laugh, it made me tense just reading about their payback scheme.

3. The Magic Faraway Tree series by Enid Blyton. I grew up with her books.

4. The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit (J.R.R Tolkien). These books got me hooked on the fantasy genre and although the movie took liberties with the storyline, it was still a well made movie.

5. To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee). A classic book. Found it in my dad's collection of books when I was little.

6. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen). The book that launched Colin Firth's career.

7. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller). Love this book. Hillarious from the start.

8. Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck). Deeply touching. I have not read Grapes of Wrath but I had bought the book a long time ago and it is now sitting pretty on my sister's bookshelf.

9. Love in the Time of Cholera (Garbriel Garcia Marquez). For me, this book was intense in its depiction of love between two people. I have his One Hundred Years of Solitude, which I had no time to read just yet.

10. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (Douglas Adams). Bought this book when I was visiting my friend in England. Damn funny! The movie was alright but the book is of superior quality.

11. Animal Farm (George Orwell). Another classic. Found it in my dad's collection.

12. Lord of the Flies (William Golding). Another classic. Also found it in my dad's collection.

13. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 (Sue Townsend). Made me laugh and laugh and laugh.

14. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Mark Haddon). A bittersweet book.

15. High Fidelity (Nick Hornby) Saw the movie then read the book. Book and movie were good.

16. The Witches (Roald Dahl). I do like books from him, but for some reason, I really like this book in particular.

17. Bridget Jones' Diary (Helen Fielding). I saw it by chance, on a UM library's shelf and thought I read a review about it somewhere. Borrowed it and loved it. The sequel was alright but the first was much better.

18. Good Omens (Terry Prachett and Neil Gaiman). A parody of The Omen (movie). I should read more of Terry Prachett's books.

19. Life of Pi (Yann Martel). When I saw the title, I thought it was about pi not somebody named Pi.

20. Are you there God? It's Me Margaret (Judy Blume). Any growing girl's book. Talks about puberty, trials of being in love and religion.

21. Watchmen (Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons). Am still reading it!

22. The Alienist (Caleb Carr)

23. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Jonathan Safran Foer). Am in the process of reading it and loving every second. Next up: Everything is Illuminated.

24. Rainbow Six (Tom Clancy)

25. Kitchen Confidential (Anthony Bourdain) I love it. I love reading anything about food or chefs. I love cookbooks, I love looking at the mouth watering dishes! Which explains why I have Jamie Oliver's and Martha Stewart's books with me.

26. Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany (Frances Mayes) Another book about Tuscany and the splendid food. The movie however, was a complete letdown.

27. Leaves of Grass (Walt Whitman) A collection of his poems.

28. Poems (W.B. Yeats) One of my favourite poets

29. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)

30. Watership Down (Richard Adams). It is about rabbits.

31. Sophie's World (Jostein Gaarder). Philosophy made simple....sort of.

32. The Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguri). Love both the book and the movie.

33. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Have not actually read her whole collection but read enough to know that I like her.

34. Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens) Classic

35. Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha (Roddy Doyle)

36. Silas Marner (George Eliot)

37. Harry Potter series (J.K. Rowling). I have invested my time and money in these books. The ending better be worthwhile.

38. The Colour Purple (Alice Walker)

39. Band of Brothers (Stephen Ambrose)

40. Any Hercule Poirot mystery (Agatha Christie)

41. The Double Helix (James Watson). Now it would be good to hear it from Crick's point of view, but since he died....

42. The Five Find-Outers series (Enid Blyton)

43. The Secret Seven series (Enid Blyton)

44. The Three Investigators series (Robert Arthur)

45. All the President's Men (Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward). About the Watergate scandal.

46. A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens)

47. Chronicles Trilogy (Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman)

48. The Exorcist (William Peter Blatty)

49. The Godfather (Mario Puzo)

50. Neuromancer (William Gibson) Science fiction book which was a bit hard for me to understand at first but gradually, things improved.

51. The Turn of the Screw (Henry James)

52. The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame)

53. Sherlock Holmes series (Arthur Conan Doyle)

54. Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson). I want to get the collected series but it is so expensive.

55. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)


There are some books that I have read but I do not like as much as I thought I would. For example, The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger). I did not see what the fuss was about; this book constantly appears in the all time favourite lists compiled by many organizations such as BBC, Times etc. I don't really like Hemmingway or F. Scott Fitzgerald or Shakespeare, which is why their books are absent in my list. And please, do not make me read The Iliad by Homer! I tried, believe me, I tried but I just could not get past the first few pages. I can't get past Ulysses by James Joyce either. The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath) does not interest me somehow despite the good reviews.

There are many, many more books that I have not read like The Naked and the Dead and The Executioner's Song (Norman Mailer), Middlesex and The Virgin Suicides (Jeffrey Eugenides), The Gathering Storm (Winston Churchill), The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco), 1984 (George Orwell), Midnight's Children (Salman Rushdie), Paul Auster's books, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Milan Kundera), The Magus (John Fowles), The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (Michael Chabon), I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings (Maya Angelou) to name a few.

What is your favourite book?

People

It was a beautiful sunny autumn day in Arashiyama where we went to celebrate Uly's birthday. I took loads of pictures from that day - my poor friends having to download so many pictures. Anyway, this post is just about the "people" pictures I took of that day. I love the first picture, with the birds flying away in the background and the wind blowing the girls' hair.



The birthday girl at the beginning of the trip, in the train.



Another close up shot of Uly at the riverside. There are many pictures of Uly here - after all, it was her special day!



Uly with the wind in her hair.



Uly in colour.



Igor with the BBQ-ed meat he made for Uly. It was delicious!



Caleb, looking like he was posing for some magazine shot! Haha



The girls (WY and Chen with the Uly behind and Estie at the side) having fun. Love the blue blue sky.



Caleb and Kendall



Dries



Movie star Estie :)

To the smallest member of the family:

Happy Birthday Ethan!

Shoot.....I forgot the mum's birthday last month too! SORRY!!!

Happy Belated Birthday Sis!

Happy Birthday Mum!

Happy Birthday Mum!

Phd

The new semester had finally arrived and I am starting anew as a Phd student this time around. My two years as a Master's student passed by like a blur, except for the last few months whereby I was frantically writing my thesis and preparing my defence. Note to self: Never procrastinate.

Phd is a totally different ballgame. With Masters, you can still hem and haw and yet produce what you need to in order to pass. With Phd, you need to be focussed, alert and prepared. And right now, I am not in any of these three levels, which worries me. I worry that I don't have what it takes to be a Phd student. I worry that I might not be able to produce the results needed for a Phd thesis. I worry that I might not be able to make a good presentation. I worry about my losing grasp of the english grammar and vocabulary. But I guess, I just have to kick myself in the ass and put myself into motion and get rid of all those worries. Hah! Easier said than done.

I love what I am doing, I love what I am studying. It fascinates me and I find myself lucky to be able to fullfill this part of my dream. Another three more years and I would graduate with another degree. But then, what comes next? That would be another problem to solve during my three years here.

Oh, yes, I finally got my Master's certificate two weeks back. It was huge - as in size wise. I had two, one in Japanese and one more in English. It finally hit me then, that I had graduated. However, there was no big graduation ceremony for me. I just walked downstairs to the office, signed a few forms and the kind lady handed me the certs with "congratulations". That is the sad part about graduating in the second semester.

So before I forget:

To my professors, thank you. Without them, this would not have been possible.

To my family and all those dear to me (and you guys know who you are!), I would like to say thank you. Thank you for being there for me during my two years here doing my Masters. The first few months were hard, being away, but friends here made it much, much, much more bearable and in fact, more enjoyable than I ever thought possible. Those karaoke sessions helped alot!

To my labmates, without you guys, I would still be the lost ryugakusei wandering around Kyoto! Thank you for all the help you have given me and I have learnt so much from you guys and it is not just in the academic sense.

So, as the Japanese will say, I will "gambatte"!

The Buffet Style - Sara

Chan, Eddie and I went for this lunch buffet at "The Buffet Style - Sara" at Cocon Karasuma. So these are the pictures from that day.



The food was not bad for the price we paid. It was a mixture of western and japanese food. You have the usual stuff - bread, spaghetti, rice, dishes, desserts etc.



Unlike back home, buffet here is limited to 90 minutes. Eat all you can in 90 minutes. For a slow eater like myself, this was not the best deal. I love it when I can stuff myself in unlimited time, but when you have to eat so much in just 90 minutes, for me, it is sorta wasted.



The decor was lovely. Most of the restaurants here have lovely decor. Makes the eating experience even more enjoyable. But hey, I still love eating at stalls back home - it is the food that counts!



There is a serve-yourself bar but you have to pay extra for alcoholic drinks. Not that much, but since I don't drink much, it was not for me. The place was packed at lunchtime, every table was filled.



One thing that was nice there was the sesame seed pudding dessert. In the end, we barely had time to eat all the food that was there. It was funny because we were like - 15 minutes more, better take the desserts!



I like how they decorated the bar. I love the reflection of the wine glasses. That is why I had to take this picture. Hah, I spent the first 10 minutes just going around taking pictures. Damn, that was 10 minutes wasted!