Jackie Miao

I’m really excited to announce that I signed up Kota Kinabalu to get involved in the Twestival Global 2010 initiative. Check out the video!

Twestival to put it in the simplest terms is a Twitter festival that happens one day, once a year where people get together for a tweet-up party to raise money for charity. This year 200 cities will get together on 25th March 2010 to raise money for Concern Worldwide, who are helping the poorest kids in the world go to school.

We’re currently looking for volunteers and sponsors at the moment, and if you’d like to help follow @kktwestival @fooz @twestival @concern @twestivalasia and drop us a line here kktwestival@gmail.com with your name and contacts. In the coming days, we’ll have more information on how you can participate!

Visit our official blog here!  http://kotakinabalu.twestival.com

Jacky Cheung's Jazz Album, released on 29th January 2010

Cantonese superstar Jacky Cheung (張學友), one of the Four Heavenly Kings of Hong Kong’s vibrant entertainment industry has selected to use a song my friend and schoolmate Roger Wang wrote as part of his new jazz album entitled Private Corner (Released: 29 Jan 2010).

Roger composed ‘Love Scale’ for Double Take’s debut album, which was released in 2003 with Mia Palencia taking the vocals for the original English version. Seven years later, the track has been rendered in Cantonese to ‘十二個音’ and is finally having its moment of glory in the international scene.

It just blows my mind to think of the idolatry of Jacky Cheung in school, Roger’s lone madness with the guitar and the hundreds of times we’ve heard wannabes at karaoke bars yelp Jacky’s songs…

The fact that the ‘God of Songs’ is now singing a tune written by Roger is amazing and unbelievable! I bet Roger is pinching himself now; he shares how it happened on his blog. I’m beaming with pride for him. Congratulations Roger… you deserve it!

Check out 十二個音 (Love Scale) here:-

DAY 3: Lan Kwai Fong (Part 4-3)

This is Part 4 of a series of stories about my four days in Hong Kong.

With Sam Wu, Winner of Amazing Race Asia 3

After leaving Quarry Bay, I headed to get Rachel so that we can head to Lan Kwai Fong. Managed to get in touch with Mimi’s friends and hit the first bar of the night called Iconic. While we were there, I was rather surprised to learn just what a good time the people of Hong Kong know how to have!

Mimi’s friend introduced me to more guys. In fact, one of them is the jolly Sam Wu, winner of Season 3’s Amazing Race Asia! Too bad I was living in London at the time the third season was airing so I didn’t get to watch how he and his partner Vince won but I heard from friends that they were definitely well-deserving of the title!

Nevertheless, it was still nice to meet him. I told him that I was vying for the Best Job in the World earlier in the year and the bubbly Sam said, “Really?!?” and proceeded to laugh from the surprise of it all!

Here’s another picture with some of the people I met that night. Not all of them were photographed as I only quickly got together whoever was within reach before Sam headed off. You can already see our eyes getting smaller. Haha

Not long after we met, the super-smiley Sam had to head off elsewhere but the rest of us continued to barhop in Lan Kwai Fong. Here’s another shot of the man who works for the richest man in the world, Rachel and I.

By the time we got to Fong, I had already had a glass of wine and two Cosmopolitans and was feeling sky high. On the way down the stairs from the ladies room, a random stranger said hello, asked me what my name was and whisked me back upstairs for a slow dance. I can’t begin to tell you how shocked, confused and slow my mind was operating. Are men in Hong Kong generally this aggressive in bars? After what seemed like a few minutes of dancing I told him I had to get back to my friends! Phew!

6 drinks and 4 bars later, I find myself in quite a serendipitous predicament. By the time I came around, Rachel had already freaked out about my whereabouts and I only got back to her place at 11:30am with the worse hangover of the year! In the next part, see how I survive the hard partying from the night before…

Part 5 & 6 will likely be published sometime this week.

My dad comes up with some of the best content ever and it is a shame he isn’t a blogger. Here’s some of the stuff I think should be shared.

Seen nature mimicking nature lately?

Cloud formation taken by my dad on his Nokia N95

While my dad was enjoying the sunset at Tanjung Aru Beach on Sunday evening, he caught sight of a cloud formation that looked like the state of Sabah. How wonderful it is for him to see this in Sabah, and lucky for us that he captured it on his phone to share!

Then, there was a time when my dad had this obsession with double-yolk eggs. Imagine his joy when he found not just a double, but a triple-yolk egg last year. In fact, he was so proud of his discovery that he couldn’t contain his glee which brought out the food stylist in him.

Triple-yolk egg my dad found.

Yea dad, you sure do attract some hot chicks! Last but not least, here’s a shot he took while piloting an Australian Navy submarine into KK Port a couple of months ago.

My dad directing the Australian Navy submarine into port

Seriously, how cool is that? Being able to bring into port a stealth warship in broad daylight is just too cool . Well too bad for us, my dad’s way too busy to be blogging but at least most of the interesting stuff he captures does get fed to me and eventually to you.

Ladies and gentlemen say hello to the new face and Brand Ambassador for Estee Lauder Malaysia, the beautiful 19-year old lass Jennifer Pedersen from Sabah.

Jennifer Pedersen for Estee Lauder Model Search 2009

Jennifer beat 3,000 girls to emerge as the winner of the Estee Lauder Model Search for Category A (Under 29s)  as well as bagged the Most Photo Perfect prize as well. I could not get a hold of her in time for this post but managed to chat with her mother Helen, who informed me that she is currently in Bali doing a photo shoot. Here are some pictures courtesy of Helen Pedersen.

Estee Lauder launched a national search for a model and Brand Ambassador

According to Helen, Jennifer had a bout of pre-live contest jitters and wanted to pull out of the competition for fear of failure. Her supportive mother eventually managed to convince her to go through with it, advising her that it’s okay to lose if she does. With her nerves negotiated, this girl bit the bullet and went through the competition with her head held high…

Jennifer doing the stage lap

With contenders like that, I'm not surprised that she's not expecting to win!

After two rounds of judging, she surprises herself by winning the Estee Lauder-Sony Most Photo Perfect contest.

Jennifer wins the Most Photo Perfect contest.

The judges then pared down the list to the final three.

Comic effect to diffuse the suspense perhaps?

And tada… she wins! The title of Brand Ambassador comes with a RM 35,000 voucher, on top of the other RM 16,000 voucher she won for Miss Photo Perfect.

Jennifer wins the Estee Lauder Model Search 2009!

Isn’t she glad now that she didn’t quit!? We should all learn from this girl that you should go ahead and face your fears head-on. Who knows what the universe has planned for you? Jennifer is now RM 51,000 worth of prizes richer and likely going to get more modeling jobs because of the exposure she’s gotten from this process.

Triumphant and her fear conquered!

Perhaps for another challenge, she’ll enter the Miss Malaysia pageant next? Let’s hope so!