Muse

Some said it leaked bu accident, some said it was purposely leaked by the record company to generate publicity. Regardless of the reason, Jolin Tsai's latest offering LEAKED!!! I can overlook the 128K or 192K quality, I just need to hear it for myself was this album worth the wait. After putting it on replay the whole day, I must say Jolin has outdid herself again.

The album's track listing is quite balance in terms of dance tracks and ballad. We all saw what Jolin can do in 'The Great Artist' and the amount of solid cash her record company is willing to spend on her. The first part of the album is made up of dance track, such as the pop-ish 'Dr. Jolin', Euro-pop-ish 'Ecstasy', the single ladies anthem 'Friday The 13th' and 'Beast' which she wrote herselft. I'm soooooo hooked on 'Ecstasy', even though is sound like 'Love Player 2.0'. Kudos to Qing Feng from Soda Green for coming up with this song.

The second half of the album is consist of ballads, such as her second single 'The Wondering Poet', 'Colour Photo', 'Someone' etc. Her choice of ballads these time around shows much more maturity and her voice sounds much more experience. I usually just skip her ballads but this time I actually ended up liking them all, especially the last track on the album 'I'. It may be the most personal but yet the most simple song Jolin ever did. One can never go wrong with a ballad written by Tanya Chua. It fits as a perfect ending for this album.

So in the end, as a fan, I was not disappointed. It was really worth the wait. This could possibly be the best album of the year (in the Chinese entertainment industry). Now this year would be perfection if Jay Chou would stop fooling around with his underage girlfriend and stop making mysterious movie so he can sing the theme song. We need your album! 





     

Mails

On the bright side, 

I still my regular doses of mails 

in the form of telephone bills and magazine subscription. 

Jangkar 2.0

If someone ask me to go hiking last year, the answer will be a big 'HELL NO'. But somehow I managed to slide hiking into my short list of hobbies this year. For most of my Facebook friends who has seen the pictures that I uploaded will probably know that I've been to the Jangkar waterfall back in April, but yet I still came back, 5 months later.

Things were a bit different this time around. We hiking up stream via the rocky river, jumping from rock to rock. And this time, rather than just swim underneath and stare up at the giant waterfall, I actually climbed up the waterfall, which was about 3 to 4 stories high. The view from above was SPECTACULAR! You can see the clear sky, the horizon, as if everything was just at the bottom of your feet. Plus, there's another waterfall up there, not as big as the first one, but still a great place to swim.

At the end of the day, we were at exhausted, some even got sunburn, including me. But it was memories made, it was another brand new experience. A big thank to Susan (the girl standing beside me in the pic above) for organizing this trip, I look forward to our next adventure :)

Top of the waterfall