Cuti-cuti Malaysia: Johor Bahru, Johor

Bahru



KM 0 marks the spot! We are officially in JB!

We had a fun 2-days, 1-night trip to Johor Bahru, affectionately known by locals as JB, during the Christmas holiday in 2010. Lots of sight-seeing done, especially at the Johor Zoo. And not to mention staying in a unique boutique hotel! :) All this for a total all-in cost of RM375.45 for two persons, inclusive of transportation from Shah Alam, accomodation, food, and souveniers! Find it hard to believe? Follow me on our journey through JB! :)

Day 1

We began our journey from Shah Alam, via North-South Highway. Transportation cost for toll and NGV are RM55.30.

Upon reaching JB, we started our journey with a walk around the shopping district. The largest shopping centre in JB city centre area is no other than JB City Square. Located between Jalan Wong Ah Fook and Jalan Tun Abdul Razak, it is a stone's throw from the Johor Bahru KTM train station. The office tower of City Square also makes it the tallest building in JB. It also houses a 5 screens Cathay Cineplex. But what draws our attention the most is a section of the shopping complex called the Inner City. It contains a unique mix of small shops selling clothings, souveniers, food, and others, with a touch of rustic feel to the architectural design of this section.



JB City Square

We had our lunch here for RM24.65 and managed to shop for a couple of souveniers as well for RM25.90.

Zoom Inn Boutique Hotel

We then checked-in to our hotel, Zoom Inn Boutique Hotel which is located at Danga Bay. A night at the hotel is at RM78.

This hotel is simple yet unique in a way that each room has its own special quotes written on the wall. The room comes with a large LCD tv. Another interesting 'feature' of this hotel is its bathroom's sliding door that is shared with the toilet. When the door is slide to close the bathroom, the toilet opens, and vice versa. Therefore, at any one time, only one of the bathroom or toilet can be used. And the door can't be locked. Aha! :o



Toilet Opens!

Bathroom Opens!

After taking a look at our hotel, we continued our journey around Danga Bay. There is a fun fair located here, which comes to life at night. There is also a marina here with some number of yatchs docking, as well as some restaurants. There is also an abandon site here that once houses The Royal London Circus.

Danga Bay Marina

We then headed back to the city centre and take a stroll to some landmark locations around JB. Among the locations visited includes the Sultan Ibrahim Building, which is the former state secretariat building of Johor, and the Royal Abu Bakar museum.

  

Sultan Ibrahim Building

Royal Abu Bakar Museum

Our next destination is the Night Bazaar along Jalan Segget. The difference between this night market with other night markets that are normally found in Klang Valley is that the stalls only start opening at 8pm until the wee hours of the night. Didn't managed to see much while we were there as it was drizzling.

We had our dinner at one of the stalls along Jalan Meldrum. There are quite a number of stalls located along this back lane selling all sorts of delicious food at a decent price. From claypot chicken rice, bak kut teh, and kuihs to white wine chicken, indian food, and sugar cane drinks, the variety of choices are simply mouth watering. Overall, we spent RM14.90 for dinner.

Day 2

After checking out, we had our breakfast at a Chinese coffee shop located along Jalan Tan Hiok Nee that is famous for its Nasi Padang during lunch hour. This outlet is a corner shop that is opposite Hiap Joo Bakery (an outlet famed for its charcoal-baked bread). The nasi lemak with fried fish here costs only RM1.50. Total spent for breakfast - RM19.80.

Nasi Lemak with Fish

After breakfast, we headed to the Johor Zoo. Entrance ticket is at RM3 per person, which includes a non-negotiable, non-cancellable fee of RM1 for its animal show. The price is pretty fair, in fact, it is the cheapest zoo that I have been to so far, considering the number of species of animals that are on display here. Among others are lions, tigers, elephants, snakes, crocodiles, and tapirs.

Malayan Tapir

Loving couple

Crouching tiger

What are you staring at? Grr...

Flock of pelicans

If you smell what the Croc is cooking..

Python

After the zoo visit, we pay another visit to the Nasi Padang coffee shop, this time for its Nasi Padang. The crowd is huge for this stall. Price for two person is at RM14.50.

Nasi Padang Jalan Tan Hiok Nee

After lunch, we dropped by the Zon shopping complex, which is a Duty Free mall. It is quite a small place compared to the large shopping complexes in Klang Valley. Bought some chocolates here for RM59.80.

Before bidding farewell to JB, we bought some snacks and drinks for RM14.70 for consumption on our journey home. Total transportation and toll for the journey home - RM61.90.

End of Johor Bahru trip... :)

How your child operate (Part 2)

In the previous article, we mentioned that parents can understand what the strengths of their child are using Bazi. For people who do not have any background knowledge in Bazi, they can read out the article named “Bazi Introduction” to have a better understanding on Bazi. We will delve straight to the main structure of the chart for the purpose of finding the strength or the strongest element of a person in this article. Below is a sample chart. The season of birth for this person is circled in red in the chart, which is spring, and wood will be the strongest element in spring.

Bazi of a person born on 14 Feb 2013, 12pm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can also see that there are 2 more wood protruding on the heavenly stem as well. Therefore, it is no doubt that the wood element is the strongest element in this chart. And wood when referring to the 辛 xin metal Day master in the day stem is its wealth element. Element that is controlled by the Day Master will be its wealth element and it is metal controlling wood in this case. Therefore the structure or the strongest element in this chart is direct wealth as the 甲 (yang wood) is an opposite element for the yin metal Day Master. Please refer to the 10 gods table in Bazi introduction article if you are not familiar with this.

As an alternative, you can print out your Bazi chart from Joey Yap’s website where you can find out what your profile is straight away. Click here to print chart.

Please bear in mind that there are other things that influences how a person behave as well like the Day master (Who he/she is), useful god (the most important element that brings balance to the Bazi chart), etc. I will focus on the 10 profiles for the purpose of finding out how your child operates in this article, so that you can focus on the area where your child can perform best based on their strengths.

The 10 profiles

Direct Resource

Your child is quiet, cultured, likes learning. They think a lot, meticulous and therefore can be a good analyser.

Indirect Resource

A good observer, they like unconventional knowledge and do things uniquely. They have the ability to see things differently from others, and are usually quiet as well.

Direct Officer

Your child is a good follower who can follow rules and regulations. Set a clear target or rule with your child and guide them with frequent monitoring and assessment.

Seven Killings

Your child is brave and daring, like a warrior. They are straightforward and a doer. They can be in business expansion line to help fight for market share for their company. The only thing that needs to look into is they need to learn to be patience and think thoroughly before they act as their weakness is acting too fast and too direct.

Direct Wealth

Good at management especially in saving money for the company as they are very structured and aims to do things the most efficient way. This makes them the best manager material for a corporate.

Indirect Wealth

Your child is a natural-born entrepreneur. Train them in business related areas so that they can become a successful businessman/woman in the future, not to forget financial management training as they are quite poor with managing finances.

Eating God

Like an artist, they have plenty of ideas and good imagination. They can express their idea in words like a good writer, or in art like painting and fashion designing.  They enjoy beautiful things.

Hurting Officer

Your child likes the lime light or attention, and is a natural performer. Let them attend talent classes to find and learn what they really like and grow their natural talent. They can be a good speaker, dancer, actor, musician, sportsmen etc.

Friend

Friend is most important to them. They like to network and have many friends. Friend influence has the most impact on those with highest percentage in Friend profile. Make sure your child is surrounded by the type of friends that are positive minded and can motivate your child. You can enhance this by letting your child join clubs or society groups that are full with ambitious young people.  

Rob Wealth

If your child is having Rob wealth as the highest percentage in the 10 profiles, they are very competitive in nature, and like challenges and competitions. They like to be in groups, and is not a lone ranger. Put your child in a competitive environment where they have peers who fight along with them. They perform best under pressure.

The above are just some suggestions for the parents to understand their child more. This can be used as an additional piece of information for the parents to consider before deciding on anything for their child. As you can see from above, there are people who are extrovert, like to be seen, talk to and surrounded by people. There are also people who are introvert, who thinks a lot, are quiet and like to be alone. Please do not think that it is a disadvantage if your child is shy and quiet; they could be the best strategist or analyst in the future with appropriate guidance. You just need to focus on the key areas where their strength lies and grow the talent that is suitable for them. There is a Chinese saying that goes that there will be an expert in each and every different industries and fields.

The dream of unleashing your child’s full potential has never been easier if you can identify your child’s true potential and give them appropriate training and guidance to nurture their talent.

If you would like to know more on this, there are books by Joey Yap that talks about the 10 Day masters, 5 structures and 10 profiles that explain this in more details. Click here to visit Joey Yap’s Mastery Academy.

 

How your child operate (Part 1)

Many parents spend thousands of dollars on their child for tuition classes, talent classes, motivational classes and many more, with one intention, they want their child to be ahead of others and lead a successful life that they will be proud of.

For some parents, the outcome is quite desirable and encouraging, but there are many more parents that have been left with frustration and disappointment when things do not go as what they have planned it to be.

Why?

If we analyse the reasons why some of the efforts failed to materialized in the end, there are 2 key areas to look into as follows:

1)      Internal (self):

·        Feeling of boredom with the subject or class, due to lack of interest/passion/drive.

·         Feeling of fear and wanting to avoid facing reality when the child lacks the required strength/capability for the subject or class, or when the pressure they received from the parent or teacher has exceeded what they can tolerate.

·         Feeling of unfairness, where some child will purposely go against what their parents want them to do to draw attention from their parents as a sign of protest, usually when they are unhappy with certain things that their parents have done to them.

2)      External (Environment):

·         Problem with others like teachers and friends, e.g. Fear for a teacher causes unwillingness to attend classes taught by that teacher.

·         Peer influence. To some child, friends are their world; they will try their best to be like their friend in order to fit in.

So from what we can see above, in order to solve the problem from internal/the child, communication is crucial in finding out where the problem lies. Therefore, parents need to spend some time to talk, listen and understand what their child’s interest and strength really are, or try to guide them to find what they really want.  At the same time, parents should also not pressure their child as pressure will cause someone to lose appetite and interest in things that they are doing.

For external influence, if the reason is due to the quality of the teacher, the parents can try to change a new teacher for their child. That is the easiest solution among all problems identified here.

It is more difficult to solve problems cause by peer influence and it requires more time as well. Parents need to talk and explain to their child why they should not follow everything that their friends do. Try to justify everything you say and treat your child like an adult when you talk to them. You need them to respect you because you are right, not because you are forcing them using your authority as a parent.

Parents can also arrange their child to join healthy activities or society groups, which is another good way to avoid your child from mixing with bad companies as they now have more chances to mix with positive minded people.

All that I have mentioned above is the more traditional way to solve the problems faced by parents today, which is through communication. There are other ways to know what the strength of the child is and under what circumstances can they produce maximum performance. One of the ways is through Bazi or Four Pillar of Destiny Analysis (one type of Chinese Astrology). I will briefly talk about the 10 types of profiles with its strengths and weaknesses, and everyone will have 1 of the 10 profiles as their main trait, and some sub traits from the other profiles as well. As this is more technical, I shall discuss it in part 2 of the article. To be continued.

 

Bazi Introduction

In order to allow the reader to understand and appreciate the technical articles in this site, we have prepared a brief introduction for readers who may not have any background knowledge on this subject at all. Hopefully, this helps and more people can know and appreciate the ancient art of our Chinese culture. 

Everything in Bazi is revolved around the 5 elements and its interaction with one another. Therefore a good understanding of the basics will take you a long way for the learning and understanding of Bazi. It will be very useful as well if you advanced further into other subject of Chinese Metaphysics like Fengshui (the study of Qi and landform) as they also uses the concept of five elements.

The five elements are namely metal, water, wood, fire, and earth. The basic relationship between the five elements are categorised into producing cycle, weakening cycle, and controlling cycle.

The producing cycle

 

 

 

 

Water produces wood: Water grows wood just like plants need water to grow.

Wood produces fire: We burn wood to produce fire.

Fire produces earth: Fire burns everything into ashes and returns it back to the earth. Earth can be referred to as soil, sand, dust, or ashes.

Earth produces metal: Metal refers to the natural minerals that grow in the earth.

Metal produces water: Metal does not really produce water but attracts water during its condensation process.

The weakening cycle

 

 

 

 

The five elements are weakened by element that they produce or grow, just like a mother is weakened after giving birth to her child. Therefore, metal weakens earth, earth weakens fire, fire weakens wood, wood weakens water, and water weakens metal.

The controlling cycle

 

 

 

 

Metal controls wood: As wood can be chopped down by axes which is made by metal.

Wood controls earth: The earth or soil is held together by the trees.

Earth controls water:  Just like the river or ocean which is contains/bounds the earth.

Water controls fire: Water can extinguish fire.

Fire controls metal: Fire is used to melt metal.

The Ten Stems/Ten Day Master

The five elements can be broken down into what we called ten stems by assigning a yin or yang polarity to each of the elements.

The Day Master is referring to the Day stem of a Bazi chart, which is circled in red in the chart below. As there are only ten different stems (yin and yang polarity of each of the five element), therefore we have ten Day Masters.

Day Master is very important in the chart as it represents the person, the ‘self’. What the rest of the 7 characters in the chart means will be derived by their relationship with the Day Master. 

 

 

 

 

Table 5: 10 Day Master table

Element	10 stems	Image	Description/Key characteristic
Wood	Yang Wood 甲 Jia		Big and tall trees. Benevolence, Straight forward, likes stability
	Yin Wood 乙 Yi		Twine and bushes. Flexible, adaptable
Fire	Yang Fire 丙 Bing		The Sun. Energy, passion, generous
	Yin Fire 丁 Ding		The light of candle. Meticulous, sentimental, motivator
Earth	Yang Earth 戊 Wu		Rocks, mountain. Loyal, dependable, trustworthy
	Yin Earth 己 Ji		Soil, dirt. Nurturing, productive, resourceful
Metal	Yang Metal 庚 Geng		Axe. Righteousness, power, fighter
	Yin Metal 辛 Xin		Jewelry. Elegant, attention-grabber, negotiator
Water	Yang Water 壬 Ren		Water in the ocean. Wisdom, adaptive, constant movement.
	Yin Water 癸 Gui		Mist, cloud. Mysterious, intuition, creative

 

Relationship with other element

Element that you (The Day Master) control is your wealth element

Element that controls you (The Day Master) is your influence element

Element that you (The Day Master) produce is your output element

Element that produces you (The Day Master) is your resource element

Element that is the same as you (The Day Master) is your companion element

 

Day master Element	Wealth element	Influence element	Output element	Resource element	Companion element
Wood	Earth	Metal	Fire	Water	Wood
Fire	Metal	Water	Earth	Wood	Fire
Earth	Water	Wood	Metal	Fire	Earth
Metal	Wood	Fire	Water	Earth	Metal
Water	Fire	Earth	Wood	Metal	Water

Table 6: Five elements relationship with the Day Master

The Ten Gods

The Ten Gods are derived when you further breakdown the five elements from table 6 above into yin and yang polarity.

10 Day master	Wealth element		Influence element		Output element		Resource element		Companion element
	Direct Wealth	Indirect Wealth	Direct Officer	Seven killings	Eating God	Hurting Officer	Direct Resource	Indirect Resource	Friend	Rob Wealth
甲 Yang Wood	己 Yin Earth	戊 Yang Earth	辛 Yin Metal	庚 Yang Metal	丙 Yang Fire	丁 Yin fire	癸 Yin Water	壬 Yang Water	甲 Yang Wood	乙 Yin Wood
乙 Yin Wood	戊 Yang Earth	己 Yin Earth	庚 Yang Metal	辛 Yin Metal	丁 Yin Fire	丙 Yang Fire	壬 Yang Water	癸 Yin Water	乙 Yin Wood	甲 Yang Wood
丙 Yang Fire	辛 Yin Metal	庚 Yang Metal	癸 Yin Water	壬 Yang Water	戊 Yang Earth	己 Yin Earth	乙 Yin Wood	甲 Yang Wood	丙 Yang Fire	丁 Yin fire
丁 Yin Fire	庚 Yang Metal	辛 Yin Metal	壬 Yang Water	癸 Yin Water	己 Yin Earth	戊 Yang Earth	甲 Yang Wood	乙 Yin Wood	丁 Yin Fire	丙 Yang Fire
戊 Yang Earth	癸 Yin Water	壬 Yang Water	乙 Yin Wood	甲 Yang Wood	庚 Yang Metal	辛 Yin Metal	丁 Yin Fire	丙 Yang Fire	戊 Yang Earth	己 Yin Earth
己 Yin Earth	壬 Yang Water	癸 Yin Water	甲 Yang Wood	乙 Yin Wood	辛 Yin Metal	庚 Yang Metal	丙 Yang Fire	丁 Yin fire	己 Yin Earth	戊 Yang Earth
庚 Yang Metal	乙 Yin Wood	甲 Yang Wood	丁 Yin Fire	丙 Yang Fire	壬 Yang Water	癸 Yin Water	己 Yin Earth	戊 Yang Earth	庚 Yang Metal	辛 Yin Metal
辛 Yin Metal	甲 Yang Wood	乙 Yin Wood	丙 Yang Fire	丁 Yin fire	癸 Yin Water	壬 Yang Water	戊 Yang Earth	己 Yin Earth	辛 Yin Metal	庚 Yang Metal
壬 Yang Water	丁 Yin Fire	丙 Yang Fire	己 Yin Earth	戊 Yang Earth	甲 Yang Wood	乙 Yin Wood	辛 Yin Metal	庚 Yang Metal	壬 Yang Water	癸 Yin Water
癸 Yin Water	丙 Yang Fire	丁 Yin fire	戊 Yang Earth	己 Yin Earth	乙 Yin Wood	甲 Yang Wood	庚 Yang Metal	辛 Yin Metal	癸 Yin Water	壬 Yang Water

Table 7: The Ten Gods

Strength of elements in a chart based on season

Element	Spring	Summer	Autumn	Winter
Wood	Prosperous	Weak	Dead	Strong
Fire	Strong	Prosperous	Trap	Dead
Earth	Dead	Strong	Weak	Trap
Metal	Trap	Dead	Prosperous	Weak
Water	Weak	Trap	Strong	Prosperous

Table 8: strength of elements based on season

The twelve Earthly Branches

People are familiar with the twelve animal zodiac signs that are associated to each year. For example, 2013 is a snake year. The table below shows the five elements that the animal sign contained. Determining the strength of the element will be based on the season that the person is born in, which is the same way as determining the strength of the stems’ element (Please see table 8 above)

Spring
Feb	Mar	Apr
寅 Yin Tiger	卯 Mao Rabbit	辰 Chen Dragon
甲 Yang Wood 戊 Yang Earth 丙 Yang Fire	乙 Yin Wood	戊 Yang Earth 乙 Yin Wood 癸 Yin Water
Summer
May	Jun	Jul
巳 Si Snake	午 Wu Horse	未 Wei Goat
丙 Yang Fire 庚 Yang Metal 戊 Yang Earth	丁 Yin Fire 己 Yin Earth	己 Yin Earth 乙 Yin Wood 丁 Yin Fire
Autumn
Aug	Sep	Oct
申 Shen Monkey	酉 You Rooster	戌 Xu Dog
庚 Yang Metal 壬 Yang Water 戊 Yang Earth	辛 Yin Metal	戊 Yang Earth 辛 Yin Metal 丁 Yin Fire
Winter
Nov	Dec	Jan
亥 Hai Pig	子 Zi Rat	丑 Chou Ox
壬 Yang Water 甲 Yang Wood	癸 Yin Water	己 Yin Earth 辛 Yin Metal 癸 Yin Water

Table 9: 12 earthly branches table by season. The small character in bold indicates the strongest main qi for the respective animal sign.

We will use the table below to show how the season of birth can determine the strength of all the elements in the chart.

 

 

 

 

Table 10 shows that people who were born in Feb will have a tiger sign as their month branch. This also indicates that the strongest element in the chart will be wood element as he/she is born in spring. The strength of each element in the chart can be determined by using table 8 above (e.g. In spring: wood prosperous, fire strong, water weak, metal trap, and earth dead).

After knowing what the element in your chart means to you and the strength of the element, you can know what your basic strength is and where your weaknesses lie. All this takes time and practice to master, but Bazi is definitely something worth investing for in your life.

I will stop here for the time being, and will come back to explain a little bit more when new concepts are introduced in other articles. If you want to learn more, you may also buy books like ‘The Destiny code’ and ‘The Destiny code revealed’ written by Master Joey Yap of the Mastery Academy, which is simple and easy to understand, and suitable for beginners who would like to know more about Bazi.