Typecast

In such a diverse a country as Malaysia, the top places to visit cover everything from striking cities to tropical islands.  The country also has four UNESCO sites, all of which are covered below, and some of the biggest and tallest natural attractions in the world. Here’s an insight into the best of Malaysia’s caves, mountains, theme parks, wildlife hotspots, historical sights and more. Cameron Highlands Malaysia’s largest hill resort and biggest tea growing region, the Cameron Highlands lie around 20 kilometres east of Ipoh. The altitude here provides a cooler climate in which to explore attractions like the rose gardens, a Chinese temple and cactus valley. You can combine a visit to the BOH tea plantation with the Mossy Forest, otherwise known as the Cloud Forest due to its surreal, misty nature. Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary This well-respected sanctuary has been working hard for over 60 years to rehabilitate orangutans back into the wild. Around 75 orangutans li...

I write about running on a regular basis. I talk about it on Facebook A LOT and I even have a podcast which is all about running . I have gone through every emotion you can think of before, during and after a run but I still find it hard to believe that I now actually run distance for pleasure and fitness rather than to win races as I used to when I was a sprinter in my teens. And whilst I have some blog posts specifically dedicated to certain points in my running journey, I also like to do an occasional round-up style piece dedicated to general musings and running or fitness links I find on my travels around the interwebs. So here is one of those... this is  The March Run Down ! First and foremost... just in case you didn't know... I ran a half marathon . There's a whole long story behind it but the premise is that I was pissed off after being snowed in on the day of the 10 mile race that I'd be training for so, on a whim, I booked one of the final 19 places...

Pub chain Wetherspoon have an app where you can order food and drink without leaving your table.  It's really easy to use and you can pay using your debit card or Paypal and it would be a godsend in a busy bar.  But there's an extra layer of fun to be had because ANY person with the app can order ANY food or drink item to be presented at ANY pub.  I've seen it in action a couple of times and thought it was time to give it a try myself.   What could possibly go wrong? Picture the scene... it's Easter Sunday, I'm already a little bit tipsy and I find myself in the Postal Order pub in Blackburn. I share my table number and a fun picture to my friends on Facebook and Twitter and ask them to buy me a drink.  I honestly don't expect many people to respond but HOLY HELL they did me proud. After I shared our table number we waited.  Friends were commenting on the Facebook post advising me to "sit tight" and letting me know what they'd orde...

I can't believe we're at the end of another month already! Anyway, because I have nothing better to do with my evenings, I've been capturing some of my journey around the interwebs and collated it all here to give you something to do.  Here are some of my favourite links and things I learnt in March. ¨¨°º©©º°¨¨ Hey @YouTube , now you've demonetized my channel please can I have my $87 ad revenue or are you keeping that? pic.twitter.com/V8bpDiwgwi — N I C K I E (@nickieohara) January 17, 2018 YouTube recently took  the decision to demonetise channels  that had less than 1000 subscribers and less than 4000 hours of watch time. Now it's no biggie to me because even though I have  a few videos on YouTube  that do very well for views, I don't have the time to invest in 'growing my channel' but I did have some funds in my adsense pot that I felt I was entitled to claim.  There was, however, no information about how to do this - all links ...

Today I ran my first half marathon - the Darwen Heritage Half organised by Darwen Dashers .  I was gently poked fun at for choosing this 'undulating' roller-coaster style course as my first half but there was a story behind it (isn't there always?).  Let me explain... photo credit : Marianne Rintoul I shared this picture a couple of weeks ago. It was taken at the GroupRun Blackburn Celebration Run (Winter Plan). The caption explained that this is how I feel about running at the moment - totally loving it, feeling accomplished, sticking to a training plan that was helping me run further and stronger, and running back with my old crew again.  Everything felt just right.  I shared the photo the day before a 10 mile race that I'd been training for and explained that my running buddy turned Sergeant Major, Claire, had been pushing me to my limits but was also giving me confidence in my abilities.  But we never got to the race. Overnight about ...

When my daughter was diagnosed with cancer , apart from the emotional strain, the hardest part of the process was not being able to keep in touch with our families as much as we would have liked.  It was the early 1990s so there was a constant queue for the public phone in the main hospital corridor, mobile phones were expensive, and it was years before social media and WhatsApp. We had to provide as much information as we could during short visits home and opportunities to just "pop in" from extended family were few and far between as the hospital was 40 miles away from home. Because of this,  I wrote a lot about cancer on this blog to try and break taboos and provide information. I'm always interested in new initiatives that help families who are supporting a cancer patient so I was excited to read about a social enterprise website called No More Grapes . The way I'd describe No More Grapes is like an online 'hub' for the family where you can reach o...

Within a few minutes of being on Twitter last Tuesday I saw a couple of my old school blogger mates share an old school style meme post. Back in the day (2010 if you really want to know), these blog posts were all the rage and are currently seeing a welcome resurgence.  So, thanks to Kate and Molly for the inspiration - it's nice to stretch the fingers and the mind a little bit with something like this.   ¨¨°º©©º°¨¨ When was the last time you cried? I'm generally not a crying type of person but a few weeks ago I went on a run that took me above and beyond my comfort zone. I hadn't ever run more than 7 miles before so when my running watch buzzed at 8 miles and signalled the end of the run, I sobbed.  It wasn't a pretty sight but they were mainly tears of relief.  If you were another person, would you be a friend of yourself? I hope so. I'm the type of friend that's loyal, trustworthy and funny. I've noticed that my friendship group has...