My first holiday in Japan

Finally, my first holiday in Japan has begun... How's everyone back in Malaysia? i believe it is raining season now as from the news, i saw lots of flooding going around... for Tokyo, it's quite cold here, the temperature is in single digit region but seldom negative... it's not snowing in tokyo so it's ok here.... I'm still able to travel around comfortably... =)....



There's a forest reserve in Saitama-Ken.... i went there for some photo shooting.... in winter, a forest is nice. I like nature, it gives me a different kind of feeling from any forest in Malaysia... Hence, for this year, 2010... i'm going to travel around Japan to feel the nature, mountain, forest and any others natural habitats that i can find.... challenge myself to the max... i would like to register for full marathon in Tokyo Marathon 2012 in February 2012... going to exercise a lot this year, i'm going to finish my 44km!! good luck to me^^ haha...





I saw penguin for the first time in my life!! they are so cool!!! haha...
Happy new year everyone!! may your 2011 be a prosperous year =)... good luck!

Another fresh start in my life

I was so tired after my 4 years university life. I planned to further my study in postgraduate but i simply cannot continue anymore. But i think now it is different. In the past few months, i have had enough rest and recharged my battery again. In the photo above, i think just the expression already shows that i'm different to myself of one year ago. I still remember during my final year, my face was practically looked death. Now, i'm ready to take up any challenge again. That's why i can't wait to start my job now!! There are lots of fresh ideas in my mind, and i'm ready to DESIGN again! yeah! I hope my language training will end faster and bring me out of the hell of language to start my job! i'm not insane with job but the passion is there for me to take up the challenge!^^

The first day in Japan

In live, i had have lots of separations... this time, it's gonna be long, long time. i miss my family, my friends and all the memories in malaysia. but it's a new life hence i cannot bring them together. although maybe i didn't cry but the emotion in my heart was so strong and for this time, it was stronger than the first day stepped into university of malaya. UM will be my university forever, i love it. But the place is in bayan lepas and KLIA, the last places i visited before leaving.


Last photo with my brothers and father, i miss my mother.....


ticket from bayan lepas to KLIA, my first journey!!


my 2nd journey, a journey that needed passport!! people tend to surprise when i tell them japan is the first oversea country i went. i was not able to travel abroad(even singapore) in the past coz i've no money (-_-)|||.... so do not be surprised...


last view of KLIA!!


another photo of KLIA, inside the information lounge....


finally boarded the JAL flight JAL724 with JAL member card!!^^ my supper of the day


i requested vegetarian version of in flight supper.... wah..looks delicious!!


oh my God!! it was typhoon on the first day.... hmm... not a good day to arrive in a person's new chapter of life.. my i believe good lucks will come soon^^

more photos of raining in the town of Tsurumi, Yokohama.... the town where my dormitory is located. It's a good place to live in... as i've came before to Japan for the Toshiba interview... this time i didn't act like crazy person who snap every single photo along the way from the airport to the destination^^... hence, i only took the photos of my town...







the shops are nice, isn't it?^^..... ok next will be my room!!! hehe, we have kitchen in the dormitory and i'm cooking my dinner every night!! lol.... here are the overview of my room!







and the most important, it got a balcony!! yeah... the size is like a master room in malaysia... and there's an attached bathroom in room!! and fully furbished.. basically we can bring anything appliances in our room, not like last time in UM where u cannot bring this and bring that. we can as long as we pay the electricity bills^^..... i'm planning to buy a refrigerator soon.... visitors, both male and female are allowed into our rooms until 9.30pm everyday^^.... but cannot stay overnight.... hahaha...


this is to teach us how to throw rubbish in my dorm... wah.. walao eh... until now i still not fully understand how it works.. so i'm officially don't know how to throw rubbish now... lol


my first meal of the new life near the tsurumi train station... and as typhoon are still blowing strongly with the temperature around 10 celcius with strong wind... i slept after some short tours around the towns by the Toshiba global recruitment center.... so that's the end of my first day in Japan^^....

The day i fly

想一想以前到现在，最想做的事情就是坐飞机。一个梦想就是那么的简单，所以，我知足了。。。

it's a new chapter of my life.
From the beginning until now
i worked so hard for this
but the journey continues
whenever and wherever i am
i'll be the same me as always
i work for knowledge and not money
i remember every guest in my life
i love my country & try my best to help as i believe i've proved it in my university
although sometimes i feel not appreciated
perhaps because i'm a Malaysian Chinese
but that's life and it's alright
because it taught me money doesn't fall from the sky
i love my life^^

日本語の名前、どうしようかな。。。

「私はンです」。。。「私はユーヤンです」。。。おもしるいね、lol.... どうしようかな。。。今僕の名前はよくない。もし日本で使ったら、日本人はもちろんわからない。たぶん新し名前が欲し。今考えている。かえられる？私はそう思う。

ほかの大きニュースは昨日新し本をもらったよ。



ああ。。。本をたくさん有る、毎日頑張らなければなりません。もうすぐやすみが1週間ある、私の誕生日なんだよ！！哇哈哈哈。。。

University of Malaya Convocation Ceremony!!!!

wahhh..... finally, graduated from University of Malaya.... great memory, great friends, great experience, great place.... i have tried my best in the university and i have tried my best for the university, no regret, no turning back, no dissatisfaction.... everything's great, a great start and a great ending to my university life.



For record purpose only : I do not wish this to be my last graduation. I wish to have another 2 graduation ceremonies in the future....^^... but everything depends as life progressed.....

重来

品冠的“重来”，好久没听了，它曾经是我其中最喜欢的一首歌，连歌词都背得滚瓜烂熟了。今天不小心又让我听见，又想起了好多好多的往事。若很多事情都可以重来一次，生活将会是多么的美满。真可惜目前为止都不可能发生。真希望科学家们快快把小叮当的时光机弄出来。但真可惜我不是科学家，只是一位普通的工程师，没有能力实现这个愿望。有一天我会成为科学家吗？嗯。。。我不喜欢自己的头发是白色的，哈。。。

从前真的真的有好多好多的事情，其实都是可以改变的。一些决定性的抉择，都是那么接近和相似。就好像小学六年级时要不是一些成绩优良的朋友想继续留在家乡深造，我就没机会到日新上课了。中学时要不是哥哥从前是少年团的筹委，我就不会加入少年团了。在这一生中做过最好的决定就是中学时加入少年团了^^。以前一直以来都想到UTM攻读EE。结果填表格的最后一天竟然灵机一动，手痒把第一选择改成UMEE。就这样因为一瞬间的思想改变，到马大生活了四年。当初为什么会在最后一天突然改变主意，我到现在都还不明白。在大学要不是参加太多活动，我现在还有盲肠。最可惜的是，若以前选读医学系，老早明白癌病发的症状，现在应该还可以见到妈妈。现在要不是INTEL当初迟迟未答复，我也不会到TOSHIBA打工了。真的真的一直以来有好多好多巧合发生在我们身上。

其实我很相信星座的寓言。处女座的个性，基本上我都有。有时候一大早会去买报纸，为的就是要找出处女座一天的运程，才放心过日子。我每天都与科学和工程为伴，会相信这些吗？当然会，我相信生物的变化会受到大自然里一切变化的影响。这包括宇宙间的一切。而在这空间里，存在的并不只是只有你我他，而是还有好多好多的“不明物体”。这是因为我相信人类不是非常了不起的，是不能感受到宇宙间的一切。There are not enough sensors in us to sense everything in this world. Human will stop asking "why" if we already certain that the world we know today is the world that exist.

The start of Japanese Language Training

Time flies, with great sadness, no matter how it is, we still need to graduate, we still need to be separated from university life. but that's life, we need to progress to the next stage in our life. There are still plenty of exciting experiences in life waiting for us. There are lives after life.

Arrived at Casa Tiara, one of the apartments in Subang Jaya next to Subang Parade and Carrefour. A shopping paradise itself. hence, my car has lost its function. Everything just within walking distance.

Ever since i reaching here, my life becomes very scheduled and little bit healthy. wake up every early morning for 4 hours and 30 minutes of japanese class. Swimming follows suit. dinner with my only housemate, kang hern. revision and vocabulary practice before going to sleep on midnight. Not a bad life actually, but everything end in 3 months time. There will be much more adventures and unknowns when i reach tokyo at the end of october.

i've tried to treat the japanese language as my electronics circuit boards. hope one day i'll fall in love with it and master it in a shorter time. but so far it doesn't happen yet..... haha

ROBOCON Preparation

Wow.... once again... sleeping in carpark... nothing to do in the middle of the night... hence switch on my computer and put some feeling into words. We are working in a "huge, bright and safe" area for robocon preparation, guess what? yeah... faculty's carpark. It is the brightest part of the university in the middle of the night (all lights are switched on) hence the safest, it's the biggest space one can obtain. take a look at these.....


hehe.... the location "not bad" right? good for sleeping.....


The only table available in the area..... and it's not provided, i stole it last year from somewhere....^^


we haven thrown anything away for the past few months, hence our working residues are extremely mountainous.


the "blocks" in use.....

ROBOCON Malaysia 2010

A rather late date for this year Malaysia's robocon competition, 22nd to 27th June 2010. Here we are, with less than one week to the competition which will be held in UKM, everybody is working hard to finish the designs and robots production. Of course i'm not one of them. I'm graduating this year so do not involve in the designs team.

After we won the Robogamez in Uniten last year, it looks like our university will be one of the hot contender for the champion this year in ROBOCON Malaysia. But for those who included UM as one of the few teams to watch, don't worry too much as our preparation has been marred by campus politics, and by politics i'm not only mean those students politics aka small fries, it also involved very complicated relationship in the staffing level as well. Hence, we're definitely not in the position to win anything this year. I'm unfortunate to say that reputations are more important than students' welfares and knowledge for some members in the university. You definitely can't have enough politics in UM, the university that famous with politics, from students politics involved green and blue to some complicated situation which lecturers with only Dr. titles before their names are completely not qualified to solve. Let alone students, that's the beginning of self destruction. the university are weaken by plenty of politics, and it will continue until we have a new generation of research based staffs in UM. We have too much politics oriented staffs and it's not good for a university that aimed to do well in knowledge acquisition.

But nonetheless, i believe we, the students will try our best to compete in the competition, who knows we can spring some surprises. The teams to watch are definitely UTMs, i feel sorry for them last year in the competition for the objections from other universities. They worked really hard and came out with some innovative technology that others can't do. I know really what they have done as i personally was a sensor designer. Hence, to get booed by others was something really not fair to them. Hopefully they can come out stronger and become champion this year.

But no matter how the outcome of the competition this year, we will come back stronger and stronger in the future. 2 of our self-designed and developed innovations are in the pipeline to be ready in the future, namely the fiber optic color sensor and image sensor. Although i've no chance to continue in getting involve in educational sector in the near future, i'm sure students will benefit much from competition as it prepares well for their future.

Explanation of my Thesis

Ever heard about something sounds like image recognition system? well, it's a system that recognizes image to the extend of objects and facial recognition. Honda Asimo is one of the example using facial detection and recognition. What if a series of image recognition systems take place for let say, 30 times per second? Hence, we have a visual recognition system that gives us continuous output for 30fps.

Besides, there is something more. Well, ever heard about sound recognition? yes, you can speak and the words can be recognized by this machine. Exactly, a series of continuous processes will give us an audio recognition system.

However, is there something missing here? yes, of course. We've an audio recognition system, we've a visual recognition system. But, does the machine know where those audio and video come from? is that in front of the machine? or at the back? or left side? or right side? exactly, we need a device that tell us exactly which direction we are looking at. That formed the directional awareness of the combination of gyroscope and accelerometer.



So now, how on earth that we gonna do all of these concurrently. If you put an Intel Core 2 Duo processor inside, you are not gonna able to get 30fps + 44khz audio processing + khz gyro accelero output. Hence, the key lies in the technology of parallel processing. This is where Intel and AMD are heading. The current highest true cores processors are from AMD, 12 cores. so, is 12 cores enough? no, hence what we have here? the answer is CUDA from Nvidia. with hundreds of cores inside, Nvidia able to turn their Graphic cards into something very very useful for scientific calculation, aka supercomputer.

But do we need a so advance system that consume high power carried in a mobile robot? of course not. So what we can do is we steal some concept from Sony in their play station 3. The answer is the custom Integrated circuit design. But i'm not at that level. What to do next? finally i turned to Altera for their Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA). The best tools for low power , high bandwidth , parallel processing and fast time to market.

So this so called FPGA will help us in the central processing of all these audio, visual and directional awareness sensors. The objective is to create a complete sensing network that able to behave like human. How is it possible? the answer lies in Artificial neural networks.

my last holiday

That's it. Having graduated from the university a month ago, i'm enjoying the last nonsense holiday in my life. It's the first time in years i've been submerging in the sea of holiday and relaxation. All will begin in July when i will have no more holiday, no more easy life, but promised to be an enjoyable experience for me.



I'll have a new life, new experience here at the end of october this year.^^

Chinese New Year & Toshiba Global Recruitment

There are so many events just around the corner. The the happiest of them all, the chinese new year, just a few days away. I will drive back on the day after tomorrow. The mood before chinese new year is great, partly because it is the chinese new year, partly because i have obtained an interview from toshiba. I am busy with lots of preparation for the interview. This is the final interview, which will be held in Tokyo on the week after the chinese new year. From the passport and visa application until the winter wear, there are still a lot of stuffs needed to be done. Among them, i have bought a brand new digital camera for myself, the Canon Ixus 100.... I do not always take pictures because i don't have a camera. My new camera is great because finally i can take some pictures whenever i feel like it..... haha.....

It will be another chinese new year without my mom..... so sad.... the second chinese new year to be exact. Unlike last year, in this year, i have begun to have the usual chinese new year mood. Everything not right finally back to near normal. If everything goes well, i will work in Japan for the next three year, if everything goes well. But, sometimes, things may deviate from what you expect. C'est la vie.... the only things that i can do now ---- try my best... ganbatte....

Some surprises of final year life

In the beginning, i thought of enjoying life since i have become the final year student in UM. The final year life is supposed to be relax, enjoyable, happy and stress free. But the ideal situation is not always up to mark. The more i experience, the more i feel about the tension i get. The life is not all about thesis. Some extra tensions started to build up upon me when i start to worry about my future. I have considered a few opportunities that are viable. Continue study? not my first choice. Hence, i have attended interviews from a few semiconductor companies. The interviews were not always easy, preparations were needed. The pressure started to hack my brain when i did not get the response from some companies. Will i have a good job in the future? The question keep flying around my brain. It is suffering. The supposed enjoyable life of a final year student like me is ruined by some extra undesired factors like these. It is my hope to secure a job as soon as possible. When the moment arrives, i can truly relax myself and enjoy the fun of doing thesis and final year life.... good luck to me.....