My parents have traveled to many places around the world and have shown me many photos of their trips.  Not many have caught my eye but the following waterfalls I would definitely love to see during my lifetime.

The Bigar Cascade Falls in Romania is the first waterfall i would like to see.  It’s unique shape similar to a floating mountain makes me very curious on how it actually looks in real life.

The Iguazu falls located in Argentina seems to be a very romantic place.  The lovely view of sunrise actually makes stunned.  I think it would be a good place for a honeymoon or even a proposal location.  What’s good about this fall is there are a few different falls located in the same area.

Clothing wear composition:

1. Hartford Polka Dot Shirt - Looks simple and plain but brings out the classical feel.  The polka dots reminds me of Easter eggs and I think wearing prints of eggs wouldn’t go well so dots would definitely do.
2. Levi’s Monochrome 510 Skinny Jeans - Levi jeans are comfortable to wear and I like the contrast used in the lining which is white/silver in colour.   The black jeans will also make the White Polka dot shirt stand out more.
3. River Island Drawstring Snood Scarf - In a sleek beige latte colour, the chunky knitted main with a cable knit design, scalloped shaped edes and contrasting drawstring tie to the front, in a pull on style.
4. Vans California Chukka Del Barco Decon CA Plimsolls - The canvas grey material gives you a good contrast of fuzziness.  Matches well with black jeans and the aqua blue for the under sole adds an energetic feel.

Having been around since 1911, the university possesses great history where many people from all nationalities have graduated but some who unfortunately died during their studies.  Reports of ghost sighting have been in a few different buildings of the university such as the main building, main library, K.K Leung building and the east wing gate.  The following real life stories are from the paranormal ghost experience from the Main Building.  (This story was submitted by Shelly Yuen and Mr Lau and we thank them for sharing their experiences.)

The main building was the first to be built of the many historic European design buildings on the University.  It has been said during the construction phase, 2 Chinese workers were killed when they were laying the roof tiles.   Students who would attend class in the main building said they could hear footsteps on the rooftop at any time of the day, but mostly during the late afternoon, which was the time the 2 workers fell to their death.   While students and teachers walk past the place where the workers died, they would hear thumping noises behind as if some heavy item was thrown from the roof.

A student in 1982 called Shelly Yuen recalled, “I remember one night when a friend and I were studying till 9:30pm decided to go home, so we walked past the main campus and heard strange sounds coming from the rooftop.  I remembered so clearly because I saw something like a tile suddenly dropped around 3 meters in front of us.  We were so shocked and looked up but saw nothing accept we heard footsteps walking on the roof.  We were scared because we thought it was someone who wanted to kill us.  We then quickly walked against the stair barrier furthest to the building.  As we walked down the stairs from the right corner of my eyes I saw a black thing drop on the ground and heard a thumping sound.   At that instance I thought someone tried to kill themselves so I turned back to have a look. This all happened within a seconds. I saw a black transparent shadow like object on the ground.  I couldn’t see clearly what it was, but it looked like it was wearing a blue shirt.  What was strange is I couldn’t see the bottom part of the object; it didn’t have any legs at all.  I was shaking, but within a blink of an eye the object disappeared.  I thought I was dreaming but my friend also saw it.

Another story happened in 1991, when a teacher believed he had an encounter with the 2 spirits. The teacher said, “It was a late afternoon when I just finished class.  I stayed back for around 30 minutes as I decided to correct some work from the students.  I was on the 2^nd floor and I happen to drop some notes.  This let me towards the hand rail overlooking the inner yard.  As I looked in between the spacing of the rail I was able to look at the inner yard, I saw two shadow figures lying on the grass yard seemly like they were relaxing.  Although I couldn’t see what it was I had I just knew these two things were looking at me.  After I collected my notes I quickly rushed down the stairs but I heard footsteps walking behind me, so close I could hear their breath.  I turned around and saw nothing.  I thought, there should be no one hear at this time as class should have finished a while a go. As I was still in my thoughts I turned my head back facing the front but I felt a powerful force pushing me from my waist area.  This led me to fall down the stairs.  Before I lost my consciousness I could see two objects wearing blue standing at the top of the stairs.  Although I couldn’t see clearly, they seem like they were wearing clothing from the early 1900’s.  I couldn’t keep my eyes opened anymore, but I heard their laughter, and their conversation about needing to get back to work fixing the roof tiles.  It seemed like the spirits haven’t realised they have already died.

We thank Shelly Yuen and Mr. Lau for sharing there story.  If you have any related stories please contact me because I love ghost stories.

Over the years, there are been many ghost and paranormal stories that is well known amongst the locals thus labelling the Tuen Mun Road as one of the most haunted places in Hong Kong.   Over 1000 people have died over the past 30 years and many of those spirits are reported to still haunt the expressway.

As you can see from the picture above, the road is constructed on dangerous and winding terrain.

It is reported there are over 800 ghost/paranormal events which are reported.  One of the most terrible accidents happened in 2003 where a Kowloon Motor bus was in accident causing it to plunged into a village 35 metres bellow, resulting into 21 deaths.   Many incidents such as when 3 tourists were driving towards Tsuen Wan at around 4:00am and saw a bus suddenly appear behind them and following them closely.  The driver thought they were going to get hit by the bus but extraordinarily the bus drove right past them.

Other evident such as drivers would see a bus bursting into flames beside the road and calling the police, but there was never a bus there.

In 2002, Alan Wong just got his taxi license and went through the Tuen Mun Road taking a passenger to Tsuen Wan.  While he was driving he saw a young lady wearing a red dress at the left side of the road with her white Mercedes E- Class hazard light on and waving to catch a taxi.   After he got another clear look, the lady seemed like she did not have any legs.  When his taxi drove past he looked at his rear mirror and saw nothing.   After dropping his passenger off, he was heading back to the New Territories thus going on the Teun Mun Road.

On the left side of the road he saw the same women wearing red standing beside her car with the hazard light on.  This time rather than concentrating on her face, he looked to see if the lady had legs, and she did.  But something was strange, he thought to himself, ‘that was strange! Didn’t I see that lady on the other side of the road, why is she on this side”.  Alan became scared and drove faster but after driving past, a few second later he would see the same scenario where the lady was waving for a taxi but without a head.    Every time after he drove past he thought it was gone, the ghost would appear again but every time with different body parts missing.  For the duration of the trip he would see the same event until he exited to expressway.

In April 2000, a young woman in her 30s, died in a car accident when her car tyre popped which made her park beside the road.  She tried to catch a taxi while standing behind her car.   Unfortunately, for some reason she walked beside of the car, over the safety lane where a car crashed into her.  Her body would end up being hit by 12 cars, and her body parts were all over the place, some even on the other side of the road.

Waking up in the morning with the amazing scenery of the Sydney harbour with the sun rising behind is something I always remember.  I would wake up at 6am in the morning just to look outside my hotel windows and pop right back in to bed.  Another romantic place to view the sunrise is Bondi beach.  The cool breeze blowing against your face and the sun rising behind the expensive properties makes me every so motivated to earn more money because I would like see these views morning.

Nice views from the Four Season Hotel in Sydney.  Imagine looking at the sunrise from these views.  Chanation! remind yourself to work harder so you can travel to Sydney every week.

Why I have begun this post so dull, dark or lifeless? It’s because my aunty will be leaving this world soon.  Although, the outcome has been expected, and it might’ve been the best outcome for her, I don’t think I will be able to master the unhappiness of seeing someone you love leaving you forever.

One’s life journey is similar to taking a train.  Life begins when you enter the train, the stop could be near or far, but everyone will eventually get off at their station Death.

Whilst losing a loved one, the bond within the family strengthens, where everyone becomes closer with one another.  It is unfortunate it takes a situation as such for us to make the extra effort and express the care hidden inside our dusty heart.

During these dull times, it becomes easier to see who truly cares for you and those who are liars that are all talk.  You would want to believe that if you gave your heart out when treating others, they would do the same back (not neccessarily equally).  But this isn’t always true.  The world can be cruel and it was naive of me to have expected others to appreciate the things I did for them.  For those who do, I’m really happy and lucky to have those people in my life.

It makes my spine chill when you believed you knew somebody really well but in fact you didn’t at all. Or how realistic people are these days when they see you provide no value to them at all, their attitude changes 360 degrees.

As my aunty’s life is slowly drawing to an end, it has affected some views I have on life.  Although it might not changed the way I am, it does reminds me to cherish the people I love and care for and not to expect people to appreciate what you did for them.  Last night, A friend reminded me not to be embarrassed to express your feelings towards those you love and care because you wouldn’t want to regret not telling them how much they mean to you before it is too late.

Thus I would like to say;

Dear Aunty Sophia,

I will always remember the memories we had together such as the tasty sour chilli PiPi soup you made, your annoying high pitch voice screaming across the house, the favourite place you would take me in Hong Kong which was the market in Sheung Wan and the embarrassing leg exercise you would do in front of us in the dinning room.  These are only the few of many memories I will forever remember.

Your generosity and kindness is second to none.  You dedicated your life to make others happy and always considered your family and friend’s interest before your own.  Your big heart and unselfishness has often linked you to the word ‘dumb’ amongst our family.  The number of times we see how people have taken advantage of you angers and hurt us but I never for once heard you complain.  You have been a great role model for our family, especially the younger generations.  Although it hurts to know the fact you will be leaving us really soon, we know you will be happier.  You will be sorely missed and we hope when you eventually do leave, you would do so peacefully and comfortably.

I’ve been working pretty hard the past month optimising and planning a website I launched in October 2011.  Over $4k was invested creating unique content such as infographics, surveys and pimping up the design.  It’s been around 5 months and I’m very happy with the results where I’m ranked in the top 3 for most of my targeted key phrases.  After reviewing the performance, it took me around 3 months to recoup my original investment and now with the recent improvement in search rankings, things are looking bright.

Some of the key phrases are quite competitive, for example using Google’s traffic estimator some key phrases cost up to $5 a click.    I had 5 infographics created which costs range from $250 to $450.  What’s interesting was the cheapest infographic gained 73 root domain links (PA was 62 while RD was 49) while the other averaged only 25 root domain links.

Since February 20th organic traffic has increased almost 400% and as shown above it is on a upwards trend.  I hope to increase traffic to 2000 visitors daily by the end of April.  If the level of traffic is sustainable, I will rewards myself with a nice toy, maybe a nice watch.:)  What’s impressing is that there have been over 1000+ different key phrases where visitors have entered the site during this period.  The more different range of key phrases the less I would need to rely on competitive terms.  However, it is evident the top traffic source from a key phrase which I rank number 2 on Google, accounts for 30% of my overall organic traffic.

The bounce rate is at 44%(the lower the better) which is acceptable in my targeted sector( i think).  The average time a visitor on my site is 1.25 minutes and page views at 2.35 pages per visit.  Overall, search traffic out performs direct/referral traffic which is a definite plus.  This suggest content on my site is acceptable and the keywords I used are mostly appropriate.

After spending hours of hard work and to see it pay off really makes everything I do worthwhile.   Most of the time I’ve spent was on planning and researching content that I believe would interest viewers which increases the chances of your content being shared, thus more organic links.  Time should be invested in the planning, execution and research on content rather than spending money purchasing links which certainly isn’t the way to go.

You rather spend $1000 creating unique content than spending $1000 on purchasing 100,200 or 1000 links.  Why? Because sites that sell links:

1. Usually would sell to others as well, meaning the will be limited link juice/link value being passed to your site

2. Many people who sell links, actually developed the site to sell links, and not actually creating unique content for viewers which means low quality links

3. Google’s algorithm’s and their Spam team are smart.  They punish people who tries to manipulate rankings and you will have a hard time recovering if your blacklisted/punished.

4. Having a high DA/PA doesn’t mean much if the site doesn’t receive real visitors.  This minimises the chances of your content to grow organically as there is less chances of your content being shared.

5. In the long run, it will cost more to pay for links and it becomes unmanageable if your have say 5000 links to renew every year.

So, spending $1000 on unique content matched with a well planned social media strategy; you will see your links reap in the long term and people who link to you are real people who actually like your content.  As proven, a good piece of content allowed me to gain 73 links and this will likely grow.  Although, it is impossible to determine the quality of the site linking to you, they are real sites and they are organically gained which is what Google wants.

Finally it’s important to keep in mind that doing everything well(good content + marketing strategy) does not always get the deserved result, It is a hit and miss.  From previous experience, 1 out of 5 interesting content with a well planned marketing strategy ends up working.  So keep trying and don’t give up.

So what have I done the past 2 months? Basically drank, party and chilled.   The feeling of contempt is something I’m familiar with, and the last time I felt this way was back in the days where I did nothing for 2 years.  At the moment I feel really comfortable with what I’ve got: ie. income.  I don’t feel the pressure what most people working have, pay off the bills or having the responsibility to look after a family.  In a way, it allows me to take risks which I have been doing most of my life.  Sometimes I feel really immature in the way on how I spend my money.  I’ve used around A$20k the past 2 months just from going out: eating, drinking and chilling. I asked myself what I would’ve done with $20k if I could turn back time?  If I was mature enough I would’ve invested it on my business and let it grow.

Recently, a friend woke me up by changing my views on money and life.  I realised I didn’t respect money and I would just spend money for the sake of spending.  I really thank her because she has brought a new dimension to my life.  I know money is hard to earn and I’m blessed to have to opportunity and luck in the past year and hopefully in the coming future this will improve. (and skills I would like to believe)

It is important everybody set goals during their lives.  It doesn’t have to be ambitious like making a billion dollars, it should be something you’re happy with, something you believe worth fighting for.  I think people with no goals would be living for nothing; soulless, bored and clueless.  You might be distracted during your journey, maybe only once if you are lucky but 5 or 10 isn’t unheard of.  Personally, I try to treat these distractions to be resting points or a break, where you gain more energy and motivation, and when you’re ready, you will start travelling on your journey again.

Anyway, my goal over the next 3 months is to improve revenue of my websites by 50%.  Wish my luck guys!

With the promotion code Godaddy gave me: (Domain names and personal details are highlighted out)

Seriously, 20% Off and a saving of 80 cents?

25% promotion code I got from a coupon site:

Not to mention, it doesn’t even include the total savings.  After entering both promotion codes, Godaddy says it will automatically choose the one with the best deal.  However, this wasn’t the case.  It actually applied the promotion code with the least discount.

Anyway, I hope this is a bug on GoDaddy’s part.  Although a few dollars doesn’t mean much, it does create a lot of confusion and raise questions of GoDaddy’s credibility.  At the end, I still got my discount so I’m happy.

Opportunities don’t fall at your door step, so it’s important to be determined to make the first move.   Here are the steps I follow when determining if it is a worthy short term investment.

1. Determine a possible popular trend

It is important for you to be up to date with the latest news.

2. Determine the likely revenue

Using the adwords cost calculation tool, you can determine the likely Cost Per Click(CPC).  Also, looking at other revenue streams such as promoting affiliate offers.

3. Determine the likely searches a month for that particular topic

Using google adwords tool and google trends to determine the approximate likely monthly searches.

4. Determine the possible competitors

If your competitors are highly popular websites it would be harder to rank higher than these sites.  However, you do not necessarily need to be ranked number 1.  From personal experience Ranking in the top 3 is adequate.     You need to analyse your competition carefully, usually if there are 2 strong competitors, I would still go ahead.

5. Keyword Research

I would usually target around 10-15 keywords first.  Usually 2-5 would be highly competitive and the rest would be medium to low.

6. Content Creation

Creating the right content is crucial.  Infographics, articles and videos can really give your website a push.

7. Link Building/Social Media Marketing

Finally, promoting your content to the appropriate audience.

My personal example 
Bellow is an example of a short term approach of making money online.  It outlines a period over a 8 month period.  With an initial investment of A$400 and an ongoing monthly content creation cost of $500 resulted in a total expense of $4500.  The return on investment(ROI) from this short term strategy was approximately $40,000, which is nearly an 900% ROI.

Traffic and visitor overview