Living in Denial

To unsubscribe my subscriptions

2011-11-25T19:09:00.003+08:00

I'm not sure how many of you have the same experience as me.

Occasionally, you might be interested in some companies' newsletter and you decided to subscribe to them through their website.

Things were fine at first, getting the latest updates every now and then. Until..

They are sending the newsletter so frequent, they look more like spam when you hear from them every single day.
You have simply lost your interest and you do not want to know anything regarding or related to them.

When you decided to stop all these spams, here comes the toughest part. How do you unsubscribe?

Usually, there are 2 ways:

If you are lucky, they will provide you with a link at the bottom of the newsletter to allow you to unsubscribe.

After you've clicked on the unsubscribe link, this is usually what happened...

Over the next few months, I tried the same every time I receive the newsletter and as expected, the page is showing the 'Unexpected error occurred'.
Another way to unsubscribe, is to do it the same way as you subscribe, by visiting the website again and find the correct link. This is what happened in WizzAir website (I was interested in them cause I was staying in Hungary 5 years ago, and I still can't stop this newsletter till now).

On their landing page, you'll be very happy to see this little box showing how easy it is to unsubscribe...

and so I tried. I entered my email address, select unsubscribe and hit the Save button...

Hmm....ok..doesnt look as easy as I thought.

Anyway, I followed as instructed and tried to login to unsubscribe. My problem is, I don't remember my password. So I clicked on the 'hint' below the login trying to retrieve my password.

What do I get? Nah....

Ok...give up...

Happy Belated Birthday

2011-09-06T13:39:00.003+08:00

It was my birthday yesterday and few people have been reminding me on this blog while they wished me.

Yes, it's been a while and I do feel sorry to leave this blog for such a long time, but time has not been sufficient for me to update here and of course, 90% of the root cause is because I was infected by the highly contagious virus among human mankind, called, Lazitheliosis (aka I-AM-LAZY).

Till I've found the cure, Happy Belated Birthday to ME!

The visit to Macau, the City of Dreams

2011-06-27T16:17:00.002+08:00

Well, I know it's been a while. But since I've started the first part of my Hong Kong trip, might as well continue with my Macau trip after that although it's long overdue.

The hotel we stayed weren't quite fascinating compared to the one we had in Hong Kong.

Emperor Hotel

If you have forgotten my traveling team, here you go, 3 of them trying very hard to look cute.

This is the iconic casino in Macau, Grand Lisboa.

Looks grand? I didn't enter Lisboa though, as it is more suitable for 'serious investors'. Tourists like us went to City of Dreams, Hard Rock and Venetian only.

There are not too many tourist spots in Macau to be honest. Well, Macau itself is quite small to start with. We could finish visiting all the spots in a day.

First, we walked to St. Dominic's Church...

Not forgetting, of course the most famous landmark, The Ruins of St. Paul's...

At night, we went to Fisherman's Wharf which should be visited during the day as well.

I'm pretty sure the place would be more interesting during the day, but since we didn't have much time, we just enjoyed having a taste of the local beer overseeing the spectacular bridge...

Some people would ask if I would like to revisit Macau again. For a non-gambler like me, I would say, No. For a tourist......well, not really. BUT, for food, YEEEAAAASSSSS !!!

If you have read your history enough, or if you have your general knowledge broadened enough, you should know that Macau's culture is pretty much influenced by the Portuguese. Hence, trying out their Portuguese cuisine is one of the must-do in Macau. We were recommended by the taxi driver to try this Jumbo restaurant.

I've not really tried the authentic Portuguese dishes before and I'm not sure if this restaurant really serve good Portuguese dishes, but it wasn't really my cup of tea.

Rather, I really LURRVVVEEEEE the pork chop burger...

The Portuguese tart and milk tea...

and the crab porridge...

It was sooooooooooo NICEEEE!!!!

I'm salivating now. Ok, let's plan for the next Macau trip!

The 2nd visit to the Chinese Pearl of The Orient

2011-02-09T11:27:00.002+08:00

Another old post, please bear with me.

I went to Hong Kong for the first time in 2009. On 13th till 15th Nov 2010, I went to the same place for the second time, but this time, we skipped all the tourist spots, and focused on just 2 things, EAT and SHOP!

I'm trying not to make this post as my travel log. So it will only be a summary of what we have done.

First, let me introduce my traveling partners...

Yes, it was an all girls trip. ~Pretty Girls~ *ahem*.

The above photo was taken at the Royal Plaza Hotel lift and below would be the interior of the hotel...

Not bad, huh? The room was pretty spacious and comfortable, and we didn't pay much for 4 person.

Going for good food during peak hours in Hong Kong would mean joining in the long looonnnggg queue...

The food we had...

Other than food, we visited Wong Tai Sin Temple, which was the only tourist spot we went.

It doesn't matter if someone is religious or not, shaking these bamboo sticks seems to be a must-do task when one is there.

The place has turned into such commercialized place that even exchanging a piece of paper bearing the same number with the stick would need us forking out HK$2. We then look for a soothsayer to help us interpret the fortune on the paper. Of course the service didn't come for free either. There were many of them sitting right outside of the temple.

On the first night in Hong Kong, Lewis-the-Lulunee, invited us to join his friends to a BBQ session at Shek O beach.

On 2nd night, we went to Tsim Sha Tsui for a drink...

The most satisfied outcome from this Hong Kong trip was of course the shopping experience for the past 3 days...

Thanks to our 'official' tour guide...Lewis-the-Lulunee...

We had such a great time in Hong Kong, I don't mind coming again for the third time.

Happy Rabbit Year!

2011-02-07T21:56:00.005+08:00

It's already the 5th day of Chinese New Year and I could finally find time to wish everyone...

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!

May you have a prosperous Rabbit year ahead!!!

~ Survon ~

The golfing ticket seller

2010-12-26T23:18:00.001+08:00

It wasn't for money and it wasn't for fun, but somehow, I took this part time job for 2 days on 30th and 31st October.

It was to sell the entrance ticket at the main entrance of Mines Golf Course for the CIMB Asia Pacific Classic.

Frankly, I've just played on driving range and never tried touching the green before. Other than Tiger Woods, I know nothing about the golfers..

But well, at least I earn small bucks for that 2 days and met some new friends...

Excuse Me...I'm taking time out to HUNT!

2010-12-17T10:49:00.000+08:00

It was my first time, on 24th October, to participate in a non-company related treasure hunt event.

We could see more than 70 cars queuing up for the event's flag off, with people ranging from teens to some old folks and we were the only team with only girls.

To ease our understanding on the clues given, we took all the dictionaries we have, just in case.

The whole treasure hunt took place around Subang, Puchong, till Shah Alam and ended in UiTM where we were given lunch and a hall for the result announcement.

For an amateur team like us, we could just sit while looking at the prizes given to others. We didn't lose much though, one of us won an electronic photo frame and the other won an iPod Nano in the lucky draw session, but I could only win headache going around under the hot sun.

The October Event - Archery

2010-12-07T12:38:00.004+08:00

Shoot shoot shoot...

It was Archery time for the company's October event on 22nd October.

We conquered almost all the lanes available...

Frankly speaking, I'm a failure when it comes to archery. I don't think my hand is meant for this game and I'm getting bruises on my elbow because of my bone structure. But I could still do the right pose...

My team...

We didn't win, for sure, but at least everyone had fun...

Company Trip cum Annual Dinner

2010-11-10T19:03:00.001+08:00

For the past few months, I have helped organized various activities for the company and 1 of the most stressful event was non other than the company trip and annual dinner which spanned across 2 days in Port Dickson.

When the day finally arrived, Sept 25th, I knew that would be the peak of my stress. After weeks of preparations, I'm glad it has finally arrived.

We booked 2 buses to fetch the fellow colleagues from our office to the destination and another bus from Singapore to Port Dickson. We gathered and had breakfast in the office before departing.

It took us only 1.5 hours to reach the destination, which was faster than what we have expected. Thanks to the no jam condition on the road and the bus was not really speeding. *phew*

Avillion, people always got misled by the name, thinking of the other Avillion Chalet. Unfortunately, this is no romantic chalets, but the condition was pretty satisfied with RM2xx/pax. The room and toilet was spacious and the surroundings were more suitable for company's event (compared to Avillion Chalet).

Outside the room, inside the resort...

Upon arriving, we checked-in, had an ice-breaking session, lunch, and started the team building.

We've booked a hall for the next 2 days...

The facilitator explaining the game...

What we were given...

The whole team building session took about 2-3 hours, in which we did quite a few different tasks. Some are simple and some pretty complicated that I'm too lazy to explain here. Let the pictures do the talking...

In the night, we had the company's annual dinner. In which we get to laugh at Management's performance dancing 'Jai-Ho' and I made fun of myself dancing 'Nobody'.

Being the emcee of the night, I wasn't really enjoying the dinner much. I couldn't drank much as we ran out of booze pretty early after the dinner. It was funny seeing some people getting drunk, especially the management.

The next morning, we started our 2nd session of team building. We didn't know what to expect, but we saw a big boat in the middle of the hall when we arrived...

We were then asked to choose a table to sit, where each table has different kind of resources on top of the table. I, of course chose the yellow digiman, which seems to be the most popular table too.

Obviously, 'boss' table is never a popular group to mix with. Whenever the boss is there, that's where the employees will try to avoid.

We then left the place after lunch and depart back to office. We were all dead tired and everyone slept like a pig in the bus. That includes me.

The first Mentoring Date with sucks food

2010-11-02T20:31:00.010+08:00

I had a date with my mentor the other day and it was my first date after 7.5 months with the company.

Just in case you are curious on this matter, mentor in this company kinda function differently from others. I had a mentor in my previous company and his main role is to teach/guide me in the work I'm doing. Here, mentor is not exactly dealing with only work related issues, but also to take care of your everything including your personal affairs. This is because, the company cares about your career development as well as personal well being. (obviously I copied this statement from the company's statement)

To achieve that, the company provided budget of RM1,500 for all mentors each year to mingle around with their mentees through casual lunch/dinner. 1 mentor would have around 4 mentees to share the budget.

My mentor cum my direct superior is a super busy guy and he has been making empty promises for the 'meal' we were suppose to have for months! And I heard no other mentees had ever managed to enjoy the free meal.

When he finally could find time for it, I showed no mercy. RM1,500 budget is mine!

It wasn't easy to pretend being polite while trying to squeeze the most out of the fund.

Below is roughly what we have discussed through the msn...

Me	:	KL Shangri-La?
Mentor	:	Buffet?
Me	:	No la...Kidding. Not into buffet tonight.
Mentor	:	I'm easy man...why don't you tell me your preference and i'll see how i can accomodate :) :)
Me	:	Garden's Yuzu serves very nice jap food...very expensive though (trying to act considerate)
Mentor	:	Normal la..tired before liao
Me	:	hmm....and someone told me he's an easy man. so hard to satisfy
Mentor	:	but i'm fine with that if you're ok for it actually ;)
Me	:	ok..let's go KL TOWER!
Mentor	:	bad choice dear KL tower has got very bad food.. it's only for the view
Me	:	It's ok...I haven't been.

and so we went...

I almost got heart attack when I first saw the menu. Looking at the ala carte list, EVERYTHING cost RM140++. Set dinner was RM150++. Buffet was around the same price. I seriously hope this has got to be good after ordering the set dinner.

Alas, it was the worst food I ever had. Even the soup tasted awfully salty.

After this night, I could conclude that KL Tower's Revolving Restaurant is only good for the view.

NOTHING MORE THAN THAT!

Happy Belated Birthday

2010-10-12T11:56:00.000+08:00

Well, it's kinda late to start writing this post now, which is more than 1 month late. But still, I have to say this to myself Happy Belated Birthday to myself.

This year has been one of the most memorable celebration from my colleagues.

I always thought First World has only those small budget see-through glass door little toilet, but for the first time, I went to this World Club room of First World, which offer bigger and more spacious room for the guests.

We had our dinner at Good Friends Restaurant 好友記 in Highlands Hotel...

...and spent the rest of the day loitering around the casino and the arcade place....

He sure can shoot very high and strong ...

I met up with my cousin for a while who was working as a chef in The Bakery...

Yeah, I know, she is as pretty as I am. Muahahaaa ..

Come midnight, we started the main mission of the trip. It's not hard to guess what will it gonna be by just looking at the equipment we have...

CheeYong-the-ConGod lost his mind looking at the supplies we have...

Everyone was so excited with the drinks, no one bother about my cake ...

We started with a toast...

...and the game begins...

I was supposed to be the target of the night, but everyone else was as though they were competing to get drunk, leaving me sober for the rest of the night.

Anyways, it was nice being sober, so that you can laugh at other people's silly action when they are drunk. It was such a nice night with the gang.

As we grow old, birthdays don't seems to be that important anymore, but still, I love it when I have friends around me celebrating it. Most people would just invite me for a meal. Some would really buy me a cake which I treasure it a lot.

One thing I realized though, no one likes to eat birthday cake anymore. Look at the size!

The only time I could see a complete cake was during the monthly birthday bash in my company...

Cake is just a gesture from friends who cares about your birthday. Size really doesn't matter. It just to signify that I'm 1 year WISER!

Be a Monkey

2010-10-06T23:00:00.000+08:00

Just 1 week after the Paintball game, I was up with another extreme game in Bukit Cahaya, the Skytrex adventure.

There are 3 circuits available, which are, Little Adventure (for kids), Big Thrill and the most challenging path, Extreme Challenge. If only I have the choice, I would rather go for the Big Thrill, but considering some people in the gang have tried that before, we decided to go for the Extreme Challenge instead.

The starting point of Big Thrill

Extreme Challenge is the latest addition to the park and boasts 21 extreme challenges with some platforms reaching the height of 22 meters.

We were geared up with harness preparing to climb like MONKEYS!!!

To protect our palms, gloves were available for sale at RM3.00.

Flying fox was the easiest challenge of all and there were plenty of them around...

Such hanging strings was one of the challenges I hate...

This was easy though...

Some other challenges...

I have to admit that I did thought of giving up while I was climbing up the stairs. It was really tiring and stressful. Motivation from each other is absolutely mandatory and luckily the gang did a good job in this. Else, this Ayam Exit could be useful to me...

After about 3 hours hanging up the trees, we completed the circuit finally!

Fire in the Hole!

2010-10-02T10:59:00.005+08:00

The one thing fun being part of the company's Recreational Club, is that you are able to take charge on what everyone else have to do and you do according to YOUR WAY. I've been waiting for my friends to organize a paintball session and each time when it was finally organized, somehow something comes up and I never get to shoot my virgin shot!

Finally, on August 21st, I have organized a Paintball session for my company and everything went well. It was at the Canyon somewhere in Damansara Utama.

Before the real war...

Some safety briefing before the actions...

There were a few arenas with different settings of bunkers...

And the area for resting...

My team was all ready to FIGHT!

And my VP somehow spot the wrong target...

We had 4 teams in total and the 3rd team walked away with RM100...

My team secured the 2nd place and got us RM200 cash...

Here goes the champion with their RM300 cash...

No one went home empty handed, as everyone including the losing team got an extra souvenir from the team (read: bruise).

Such a happening event ...

What's Up, Survon?

2010-08-29T11:05:00.003+08:00

I know it's been a while. I was simply too lazy to update here.

So what have I done for the past few months?

Other than doing some not so interesting stuff on 2nd May, in which I visited the National Zoo for the first time in my life...

I experienced Go-Kart for the first time on 15th May...

In other times, I was just busy joining the company's event.

We went to FRIM for treasure hunt on 22nd May...

We appointed the FRIM management team to help us with all the plannings.

We were given maps and compasses to help achieve our given tasks.

It was raining heavily that day but it didn't stop us from accomplishing our goals.

Alas, we lost.

On 25th June, everyone competed again in the Bowling Competition in Mid Valley.

Not surprisingly, I lost again.

On 5th July, I attended company's Corporate Update for the first time. It sounds strange to me but it seems common to them to hold such formal event in an informal venue, RedBox Karaoke.

They booked a huge lounge, which was the biggest karaoke room I've ever been in RedBox.

We were then assigned into different smaller rooms of 10 people so that everyone has the chance to show their singing talent

On 31st July, the project management of one of my projects decided to organize a get together session with the whole project team members.

We booked an affordable villa in Melaka and drove over in 4 cars.

Only half of the team managed to join the trip and I was rolled off from the project to join another project, just a few days before the day. However, I still followed the trip.

During the daytime, we relaxed in the villa while some spent time imagining being a rock star...

Some were exercising their brain with chinese chess...

Come dinner, we started our main objective of the trip, barbeque!

On 10th August, we booked the whole theater in GSC Tropicana Mall to watch The Last Airbender.

For the next 6 months, while I have to work in my official tasks, I'm also appointed to help out on all these company's outdoor activities. While having a stressful days, I'm pretty sure I'll have fun organizing them as well.

The first biz trip

2010-05-23T22:13:00.002+08:00

From the first day I joined my new company 2 months ago, I was assigned to handle a project in Singapore dealing with the casino. Project schedule has not been smooth since and my trip was again and again being postponed. From the pre-planned 3 months stay in Singapore, everything seems to be uncertain for not having the mutual agreement.

My team was sent to Singapore for 4 days from March 13th to 16th to study slightly in depth on the project.

Though it was only 4 days trip, I will always try to find time to catch up with my girlfriends whenever I'm in Singapore.

We continued to have a drink at Clinic, in Clarke Quay, and had all the weird drinks. Honestly, I think the drinks were pretty bad there.

Despite the drinks, I had a great time with them and miss them so much!

The Gopeng Rafting

2010-04-30T10:30:00.001+08:00

More than a year ago, I tried white water rafting at Slim River with my bunch of friends and I had so much fun. On 27th March, I joined my new company and experienced my 2nd rafting at Kampar River guided by My Gopeng Resort. It was my first outdoor activity with my new company (other than the weekly badminton and futsal) and best thing of all, it was FREE!

Early morning at 6.30am, we gathered at our office block lobby and then we were shuttered to Gopeng by a coach.

We were then transferred to a lorry to go up the hill into the resort. It's a new experience to most of us riding IN a lorry.

The team...

There were some chalets around the resort made for people travelled from far and wish to stay overnight.

Lunch was provided by the resort before the extreme task.

Everyone was asked to sign a Liability Release ~~so that we can die peacefully~~.

We took our gears while being briefed on the safety precautions. We were given rubber shoes to wear and I had to search for the smallest pair which was still 1 size bigger than my feet. Despite of the shoes discomfort, all other gears were in pretty good condition.

Now everyone is prepared...

Comparing to my previous experience, I would prefer my previous rafting as the guide was far more experienced compared to the one in My Gopeng Resort.

Anyways, there's something in My Gopeng Resort that I really enjoyed. Apart from staying in the raft and flow with the water, the first thing to do, was to float through the rough rocks and water with our body. It was a cool experience, though I swallowed quite a lot of water and the rock was hitting my arse. But well, I still survived and it helped us to feel more comfortable with the water and not to be panic in case we were thrown out from the raft during rafting.

The real combat then begins...

We rest for almost half and hour in the middle of the river where we could play with the water and throwing someone up in the air...

We ended our 2 hours adventure happily...

YES, we did it !!!

We followed the same route back to KL and stopped by in Kampar for dinner and had the local famous Curry Chicken Bread.

Other food...

Satisfied ~~

Digi, very tedious Yellowman

2010-03-22T14:04:00.000+08:00

I've switched my phone line recently. From the Big M, I now have Yellowman following me wherever I go.

I'm a loyal person. I am not someone who's looking for changes when I'm so used to using it. But recently I have an offer from Digi to sign up their ambassador line with no minimum call charges and what attract me the most is the data plan of RM29/month for 2 years.

And so I've changed and I started setting up all the services that I need. The next day I've activated my line, I was chatting (online) with their customer service to activate my International Roaming service.

Guess what? He told me, "For Roaming activation you will have to walk in to Digi centre with your International passport for activation". The chat after that wasn't pleasant anymore cause I kept on complaining how inconvenient it'll cause me.

Their reason for this is for security purposes. Now, honestly, if I can prove that I'm the owner of the line, why do they have to care if I have any legal documents to travel around? They are just trying to make our life harder by applying such troublesome step to activate our roaming service.

Darn the Yellowman!

New Company Wrong Companions?

2010-03-22T11:37:00.001+08:00

Many of my friends don't really know about the fact that I have (again) changed to a new job. This was not meant to be a secret move, but it was a short notice. I got the offer and here I was 1 week after that. I'm now stepping into my 2nd week of work here, and I'm still in the process of getting used to the culture here.

I've been with different companies for the past few years and people seems to act differently in different companies. Some knows how to enjoy life and some will put savings as priority.

The first day when I came to this company, I went to lunch with 5 ladies. Fyi, they are not old. Most of them are below 30. 1 of them is going for maternity leave the next day. 1 of them is pregnant for 5 months. 2 of them are married with kids. Over the 1 hour lunch break, I got to learn a lot, especially things about getting married, giving birth and growing up a baby . It was informative, really. But after joining them for the next few days, it became TOO informative.

I think I'm mixing with the wrong group.

The City of Merlion

2010-03-05T11:38:00.001+08:00

While KL was celebrating it's Federal Day on 1st Feb, I took the opportunity of the long weekend and bought a coach ticket alone to go to Singapore. I love going to Singapore, not because of the place, but because of the friends I have there.

Just before the trip, I was having temperature and was worried if the immigration officer will stop me from entering to their country. I wanted to give up at 1 point of time, but luckily I didn't and took the risk and had such a nice time there.

On the first day, Saturday, we wanted to check out Sentosa for some exciting sports. But we ended up too late to go after watching the TVB artists in Dhoby Ghout. We saw...

Moses Chan

Steven Ma

Sonija Kwok

...and also Nancy Sit and Nicholas Teo.

I was so happy to meet up with my hot babes...

Veriza-the-MissBikini

...and also Cherie-the-Godiva, which I forgot to take a picture with.

At night, Veriza-the-MissBikini wanted to try something new and brought me to Dempsey Hill for a change. She managed to get Valantane-the-MissChinatown to drive me up but the journey was a severe test of patience and endurance. I'll never forget Park Royal because of that. Let's not go into the details.

We had our dinner at Dome Cafe up the Dempsey together with Kylie-the-Pooh. It was my first time meeting up with Kylie-the-Pooh in Singapore. It was also the first time both Kylie-the-Pooh and Veriza-the-MissBikini met formally in Singapore although one is in Singapore for 10 years and the latter has been there for 8 years.

We then proceed to party at Movida inside St. James. The band was great singing lots of Latin songs.

We ordered a bottle of red wine and a bottle of Hennessy.

We drank and drank and drank...

While the girls were still sober...

...minutes later, under the influence of alcohol...

The next day, Veriza-the-MissBikini brought me to 313@Somerset for some window shopping and then we did something crazy by buying an empty cake from Icing Room and did a DIY design on it.

This is the vanilla empty cake we had...

We were given the basic decoration tools for the cake. You can buy some other nicer decoration from the shop as well.

Veriza-the-MissBikini started her mission...

I was catching up...

And ta-dahhhh ...

That's our baby !

Later that day, I met up with Engratia-the-Honey and her boyfriend for dinner. Engratia was my ex-collegemate that I used to hang out very often. It has been years I didn't meet with her. So lucky to finally catch up with her that day while having dinner at Orchard Central.

After dinner, I walked a bit in Takashimaya and then met up with my cousin who brought me to KPO to have a drink with his friends. KPO stands for Killiney Post Office, fyi.

KPO close pretty early that night. Not surprising as it was Sunday and not everyone is having holiday the next day. We then went to The Pump Room at Clark Quay and enjoyed the awesome band there. I love them very much!

The Pump Room serves real good spicy fried chicken wing. You should have a try if you haven't been there.

We ordered 2 towers that night for 5 people...

Sitting at the VIP area, you can see lots of funny things. Here is the basketball player with all his dwarfs...

Such a wonderful night...

The next day, I met up with Veriza-the-MissBikini for lunch and then took the coach back to Kuala Lumpur.

I had great time thanks to the people, especially Veriza-the-MissBikini.

Roar Roar 2010 !!

2010-02-14T13:21:00.002+08:00

It's the day of the year, the tiger is out to wish everyone a Happy Chinese New Year and Happy Valentine's Day!

*roar roar*

2010 Resolutions

2010-01-11T13:32:00.002+08:00

I went out for a drink last weekend. Though, I was not drunk and nothing big happened, it makes me reflect on my drinking habit for the past few years. Some of my friends have never seen me drunk. Unusually for a group of friends that I've been hanging out quite frequent, seeing me drunk, vomit, passed out, were something normal to them.

Getting hang over the next day was never something pleasure. And so, I've added a new item into my new year resolutions list. Here's the updated list...

Join a Hip-hop/Modern/Yoga class
Re-visit Europe
Never get too drunk! Yes, tipsy is allowed.

Now, let's see how my life goes on...

The end of 2009 and the start of 2010

2010-01-07T21:26:00.010+08:00

Time flies and here I am writing another post of my new list of resolutions for 2010. Just before writing this, I was reading my last year's resolutions to see how far I've come to.

My last year's resolutions were:-

	Take up a Salsa course My interest towards Salsa has drastically dropped or totally vanished. Now I'm waiting for Kate-the-Kutie to research on hip-hop/modern dance in which I think it should be more exciting. Yoga would be my 2nd choice.
	Visiting another wonders in the world - Angkor Wat. DONE in March!
	Visiting another country that I've never been. Thanks to my tour guide, Lewis-the-Lulunee who helped me around when I was visiting his home, Hong Kong! Not only that, me and my gang went all the way to Pulau Batam, Indonesia to find food! Since it was my first time stepping into Indonesia, it's a double success for this resolution.
	Save more money As I've never place a target figure on the savings, I don't think this resolution was hard to achieve. Anyway, I'm at a comfortable level looking at the figure. I can now start considering properties, but most probably I will only execute my mission next year.
	Stay put in my current company I'm still here. After 1 year and 6 months, I'm still sticking to my current company. It's a new record to me, being in a company for the longest time. I don't know how long I will be staying here, but I'm sure this resolution will not stay in the list this year.

Throughout the year of 2009, I'm happy that I've done...

Eel Fishing
New style for the new year.
Reunion with my college's closest mates in Genting.
Celebrated Arthur's Day with the Black Eyed Peas.

This year, I can't really figure out what I want and what should be added to my resolutions. But I tried my best and listed the following...

Join a Hip-hop/Modern/Yoga class or whatever that attracts me. Kate-the-Kutie, I'm counting on you!
Re-visit Europe. Remember my ex-roommate in Budapest, Biljana-the-BestWife? She's getting married and I'm so gonna attend her wedding. It's gonna cost me a bomb, but I think it's a good excuse for me to go back and visit my good old friends. Unfortunately, they haven't decided on the exact date yet.

Hmm..Anymore? I'm still figuring out...

Wedding Peak Season

2009-12-31T10:41:00.004+08:00

I'm pretty sure everyone in Malaysia is experiencing the same for the past few months, especially in December. I had 4 wedding invitations in December and had to reject 2 as they clashed each other in different states. I don't have much choices but to select 2 weddings of my best buddies.

Was honoured enough to have been selected by my buddy to be her maid of honour on her big day, which also mark my last chance being the maid of honour for a friend. I was told that one can't be the maid of honour for more than 3 times. Not that I'm superstitious, but no one dare to give me another chance, which I totally understand. She's gonna regret for the rest of her life if *touch wood* I'm gonna be single for the rest of my life.

My virgin was given to Felicia last year. Faye-the-Chin's wedding was my 2nd time and my last job is currently reserved for my sister which I yet to know when will it gonna be.

It was a tiring yet wonderful day watching my buddy who has found her life partner and decided to stay together for the rest of her life.

The theme of the day was Cheong Sam except for me who had a privilege to wear a white dress.

The wedding banquet was a great fun. It was more like a reunion of all the high-schoolmates.

Congratulations Faye-the-Chin!

***************************************

The next wedding was my next buddy who I've hung out with, studied with and slept with. We have done so many crazy things together, but we've been doing that lesser and lesser since after college. I'm pretty sure it's gonna reduce even more after her wedding. I'll miss that, but I'm still glad and happy seeing her marrying the guy that she really loves.

This time, it was not that tiring, but we traveled almost the whole day. From Ipoh (Bride's house), I followed to Kuala Selangor (Groom's hometown) and finally went to Klang (Couple's new house). The highlight of the day was, the fight between the jimuis and the heng dais. Imagine 6 girls vs more than 20 guys! Read that correctly, TWENTY HUNKS !!!!

I have to admit that the bride was especially stunning that night. I've never seen such a beautiful bride in my life before.

Congratulations to Yvonne-the-CandlePrincess!

Dangerous Hair

2009-11-20T23:32:00.002+08:00

The other day I was doing my grocery shopping at Carrefour during lunch hour and I bought myself a new hair shampoo and conditioner. I'm not a very brand conscious when comes to hair care. I'll just buy whatever attracts me. If nothing's interesting, I'll just grab L'Oreal.

For the first time, I bought these...

Despite the attractive packaging of Herbal Essence, the word 'Dangerously Straight' is certainly very catchy when I was scanning through the whole rack of shampoos from different brands.

Just in case you haven't notice, I did my rebonding 4 months ago and I've been trying to maintain my straight hair as long lasting as possible.

I've been using it for a few times now, and I can't really tell how dangerous my hair has been. What I do realize, is the smell which taste like strawberry chewing gum.

Every time I wash my hair, I feel like chewing them. *yummy*

Where is Survon?

2009-10-22T19:15:00.000+08:00

Here. Was all the time just right here.

As time passes by, my blog has eventually metamorphosed into a travel blog. That was an unintentional act. What was really planned is my end of the year's schedule. From the beginning of the year, I've decided to have NO travel plan at the end of the year and it's a money saving season. I know this sounded kinda strange as people usually start traveling in this time of the year. As for me, whenever there are cheap flights, that's my traveling season.

Since I've been blogging so much about travelling, I've kinda lost the direction of blogging when I'm no longer roaming around. Heh, I guess this gives me a valid reason of not updating my blog.

So, what's the update, Survon?

1st update, being passive. Yes, I've been hanging ~~out~~ in a lot at home these days. Someone suspected if I'm suffering from depression. Nah, it's my money saving season, remember? When you don't go out so often, you can conspicuously see the effect in your bank account at the end of the month, and I'm enjoying that satisfaction.

2nd update, my office has moved next to a shopping mall few weeks ago. Just ONE day before we moved, someone broke into our old office during lunch hour and stole 4 laptops, 1 cell and 1 handbag. Breaking in was not something new as it was the 3rd time since we rented that place 2 years ago. But why did it happen just a day before we move? Why can't they come when we were gone the next day? Darn! Luckily I was at client's place that day and my laptop is still safe with me. Else, I'll be still crying for losing all my precious data.

3rd update, which is kinda conflicting to my 1st update. Now that we are so close to the mall, we get the first hand news of any sales available. Everyday during lunch, we are forced to wander around the mall passing through many stores before reaching our place of food. Once in a while, we get the magnetic feels from the stores drawing us into their shopping wonderland and subsequently ended up paying at their counters. Now, I no longer get the satisfaction looking at my bank account at the end of the month. Not to mention my credit card bill.

Sigh...

Festival at the Cultural Village

2009-09-09T22:00:00.003+08:00

We were not in Sarawak for holiday, but it was because of this...

NO, not for the festival either.

We were working for all 3 days from early morning till midnight, cramped inside the little pondok.

It was exactly 2 years since the last time I stepped my feet on this land for the same occasion.

The familiar scene when you first arrive at the entrance...

We purposely bought a Borneo t-shirt from one of the souvenir shops in Kuching and wore like Power Rangers.

While everyone is so hot partying inside the festival, no one is allowed to enter with a hot fever detected by the temperature detector...

Other than the musical workshops and concerts, they have beers...

There was a lake with a huge'X' mark. No treasure though.

There were a few traditional buildings...

There was a mini bazaar selling the local handicrafts...

AND....MOST IMPORTANTLY !!!

There was my darling, Alan Yun !!!!!

Meow Meow World
Festival at the Cultural Village

Meow Meow World

2009-09-03T21:13:00.002+08:00

Looking familiar? Yes, that's from the AirAsia kitchen.

Where to? ~ Kuching! *meow meow*

We checked-in at Hotel Santubong Resort inside Santubong at 9th July.

The view from the hotel room...

We had our lunch at one of the restaurants at the riverside. Not sure if it was because we were too hungry, but the food was great. A bit pricey, but it was really nice.

The restaurant was decorated in a very traditional way with a huge screen showing the local's traditional dance.

We then walk around the small market bazaar just next to the restuarant...

Walking around the streets, you'll find many stalls selling the layered cakes full of different colors.

and this...

You might not be able to see clearly what's selling in this stall. I don't really know how to use those stuff either, but it's something to boost up your bed experience. And I thought Sarawakians are conservative!

There's nothing much to visit in Kuching town. Most tourist spots are out of Kuching, and we didn't have the time for that. While passing by a Chinese museum, we went in to enjoy the cold air-conditioning.

The museum was pretty small and wasn't very impressive. It shows the antique and traditional items the chinese used to have and explaining each of the chinese tribes you can find in Malaysia.

I'm Hakka, by the way.

When we were about to leave, Michelle stood there not wanting to leave the place. I thought she was posing to take a picture, and so I took this..

1, 2, 3...*snap*

Done, but she's still standing there. I wonder why. After a few seconds, I saw something blowing on her legs. Sigh....No wonder she was smiling there so happily.

We were all so tired and hungry, we went to have seafood at one of the famous places in Kuching, the TopSpot Food Court.

There were rows of seafood stalls and we picked this...

The food we had...

Now I'm feeling hungry looking at the pictures.

[To be continued...]

Meow Meow World
Festival at the Cultural Village

Chinese Pearl of the Orient (Part 6)

2009-08-13T21:58:00.003+08:00

DAY 6
Date : 22nd June, 2009 (Monday)

It was already my last day in Hong Kong and I have yet to bump into any superstar which everyone claims to be a common incident here.

I was not giving up yet. Not when I was told that I'm going to SOHO where it seems to be a popular hang out place for the superstars too.

It was hard to choose which restaurant to go to since all the food looks tasty. I selected a restaurant based on just the look. It was like having my brunch in the Harry Potter's library...

The food was great and I was slowly enjoying the food, hopefully a superstar will drop in while I tried to stay there as long as possible. Unfortunately, no one entered the restaurant at such odd hours.

While looking around Hong Kong for the last time, I spotted something familiar...

That's a very traditional police station you can see in the TVB series, no?

It was almost the end of my trip and I had to give up on my hope on meeting any superstars, but we encountered something else though. We passed by someone demonstrating on a particular bank on 1 corner of the road with a loud speaker verbally poisoning the bank.

I wonder what will happen to the lady if she was to be a Malaysian demonstrating in Malaysia. Don't think I'll be seeing her anymore the next day.

Well, to round up my Hong Kong trip, I didn't meet any superstar, but I've been to most of the places in Hong Kong that any tourists could go. I tried almost all the possible public transportation there including...

Mini bus...

There's a speed limit alarm installed in all the mini buses which will blast when it's speeding. Quite a cool and safety feature.

The 1 and only tram line in Hong Kong Island...

Double storey bus...

The red cab...

Mass Transit Railway (MTR)...

Hong Kong is a crowded place. The people is hardworking due to the competition. I'm not sure if I will love to work at this place. But for holidays, I'm sure it's a fun place, especially having the best tour guide (cum photographer) I've ever had...

Mr. Lewis-the-LuluNee which was trying to take a picture of a naked girl in a building 2 blocks away with his super gigantic lens...heh, kidding.

But thank you very much, man! Owe you a biggggg ONE !

Bye Hong Kong, but I'll be back!

Chinese Pearl of the Orient (Part 5)

2009-07-26T12:10:00.004+08:00

DAY 5
Date : 21th June, 2009 (Sunday)

Introducing you a coffee shop that serves typical Hong Kong teatime, Honolulu Coffee Shop...

The teatime meal (which we took it as breakfast) you should never ever miss when you are in Hong Kong, 菠蘿油 (Buttered Pineapple Bun), egg tart and milk tea.

Not forgetting the pork chop with macaroni in Hong Kong style...

Next up...OCEAN PARK!!

To be honest, I'm not sure if it's because I could finally release the kid inside me, but I was pretty exciting when I was there.

We chose the Raging River as our first ride...

And I got all drenched ...

..there goes my hair-do I did for 1 hour!

Advise to all, you should take this ride at the end of the day before you mess yourself up.

One of the nicest thing bout the park is that, while you are swinging yourself up and down, left and right, on any rides, you'll still get to enjoy the spectacular sea and mountain view...

What I like best in the whole park, is their Ocean Theater, which was extremely thrilling. It really makes me smile watching the funny act of the seals and dolphins.

After walking and playing under the hot sun, we took a break by entering the only air-conditioned place to cold down at Atoll Reef, a huge aquarium...

After finishing part of the Ocean Park, we took the cable car and continued our journey to another part separated by some mountains.

It was my first time seeing a real huge PANDA, and as expected, they were hibernating all the time!

For dinner, I was brought to try the Hong Kong way of having steamboat. As a Malaysian, I will usually take some soup, be it tomyam or anything, from the pot to my own bowl. The Hongkie's way of eating, is not just taking the soup, but mix with chili padi and raw egg...

I didn't dare to try.

[To be continued...]

Chinese Pearl of the Orient (Part 4)

2009-07-20T16:49:00.003+08:00

DAY 4
Date : 20th June, 2009 (Saturday)

While I was happily preparing for my dimsum breakfast at home, I was informed that typhoon level one was hitting the island. Oh my god, please don't ruin my holiday.

Me, as a typical Malaysian, am really not good with such disaster. The worst hazard I had ever experienced was the hailstorm back in Budapest, and mother nature had treated me well since. *touch wood*

While praying that the typhoon will not be promoted to the next level, we went to Causeway Bay to enjoy our Dim Sum in 翠園 (Jade Garden Chinese Restaurant).

We then walked around the Times Square but I didn't manage to do much shopping as there was no sales to motivate my shopping spirit.

Times Square was considered a big mall in Hong Kong. A typical mall in Hong Kong should be much smaller with narrower hallways like this Island Beverley...

While I was walking around...look what I saw!...

Well, probably I've over reacted, but hey, bamboo scaffolding is something that can only be found in Hong Kong, which means, it's part of the 'tourist attractions', no?

We then continued walking on the street in Tsim Sha Tsui and something caught my eyes...

ICE CREAM CAR!!!!

Such a relief under the hot sun.

Another popular thing in Hong Kong, other than their TV series, is their roadside FOOD!

I had Egg Balls...

Apparently they have few flavors, and I went for the classic one..

I then tried another popular food in Hong Kong which turned out to be my most favourite food of all!

Curry Fish Balls...

Hong Kong Yeong Tau Fu...

And some other weird food you can find is such stall...

Before the sunset we went to 女人街 (Trans: Ladies Market)...

Followed by 廟街 (Trans: Temple Street) which was within walking distance...

I tried the Chinese beer, TsingTao Beer, just before our dinner was served...

What I had for dinner...

Spicy crab was really good. I wonder if i can find such dish in Malaysia.

Since we still have some time and we can't really find another tourist spots to go at this hour, we went to Neway and experienced the origin of Neway. Nothing much difference compared to Malaysia, except that all popular Malaysian singers were categorized as Taiwanese. Sigh...

[To be continued...]

In between 3 cities

2009-07-15T11:59:00.001+08:00

Just a brief update cause some people is wondering why am I missing for almost a week in MSN...

Last Thursday, I flew to Kuching to attend the Rainforest World Music Festival in Santubong. The Festival started on Friday but we arrived a day earlier to walk around at the town. Unfortunately, it was not a pleasant walk as I was called by my company on the same day to attend a training in Singapore on Tuesday. Half of the day was pretty stressed up trying to bring forward my flight back to KL.

I rushed back to KL on Monday evening (was supposed to stay in Kuching till night), and took the last coach that arrived at Singapore after midnight.

Travelling was tiring enough, and I've been sleeping late for the past 1 week. I'm dying in the training class here.

Will be back to KL on Thursday midnight as I need to attend a client on Friday morning. Another exhausting day it will be.

I'm so going to stay at home most of the time this weekend to regain my strength, I hope.

Call Me, Baby...

2009-07-08T18:50:00.000+08:00

Heard of this song?...

If you have called my cell before, I'm sure this song sounds pretty familiar to you. Yes, that's my caller ringtone since I've purchased my current number. That was since I came back from Hungary, in November 2007! The fact that not many people in Malaysia would purchase a Spanish ringtone, and not to mention how catchy the tune of the song, people could easily remember my ringtone.

Some people who called once in a blue moon would ask me the same question when they realized I've not changed my ringtone for the past few years. "Hey, still the same song? When are you going to change you ringtone?"

I love the song so much that I was reluctant to change it. So much so that I even set it as my ringing tone on my own phone (before I changed to my current Diamond).

The first time I heard this song was when I was partying in Budapest. The song was a great hit back then that all the DJs from any R&B clubs will spin the song every single night. No matter how bored or tired I am, this song will bring my feet on the dance floor and shake like there's no tomorrow. No kidding.

The song lost it's popularity when I'm back here in Malaysia. On and off, you will still be able hear the song played over the local radio station. But not many people seems to know the song, and so, I tried to promote (no one is paying me) the song by setting it as my caller ringtone. Now everyone will think of me when they hear this song.

Time flies, and I realized the song has been there for too long. Occassionally, I will search for some nice ringtone from the Maxis site, but no 1 song is good enough to replace my Juanes, until recently.

When I tried to set the new ringtone, I realized that they have changed the new system 3 years ago, while I am still with the old system.

I've been paying RM3 every month, and that's an extra RM1 for 21 months!

Why the freaking Maxis can't just automatically upgrade our service or at the least, SMS us about the new service with their own SMS service, for god sake. Instead, every month without fail, I'm receiving an SMS informing me that RM3 is charged as my Caller Ringtone monthly subscription. Merde!

Anyways, YES, I've finally purchased a new ringtone and it's playing perfectly when people called me.

Wanna know what ringtone I've set? Call me, baby.

Chinese Pearl of the Orient (Part 3)

2009-07-06T23:05:00.003+08:00

DAY 3
Date : 19th June, 2009 (Friday)

Before I arrived in Hong Kong, some friends have been recommending me the local delicacies which includes Soya Bean with Sticky Rice Roll...

Lewis-the-LuluNee brought me to this famous restaurant, Shanghai Noodle Shop, in Causeway Bay which serves excellent sticky rice.

We then went to Stanley to experience walking around the local market...

Just outside the market, there was a row of pubs and restaurants where we had a round of beer to cool down our body temperature.

Before the sunset, we went up to The Peak with the Peak Tram and went to the Wax Museum.

Everyone who enters the museum has the same objective, that is to take a closer picture of their idols.

The museum is not just about the Hong Kong stars, but also some political figures around the world.

The Chinese Mr. Tall Guy was so tall, I couldn't even touch his head no matter how high I tried to jump.

I couldn't find Bruce Lee figure although pictures have been showing his face in the museum. Probably the museum has sent the body for maintenance after being touched by everyone around. I guess Andy Lau will be the next to be sent for maintenance. OMG, look at the skin of his face. It's peeling off!...

One of the worst product I've seen throughout the museum is this...

Can you guess who is this?

He's Jay Chau. What a failure?!

Alright, after posing with all the static idols, I've decided not to visit any of the wax museums around the world unless it's really unique. Kinda feel stupid taking all those pictures, really.

The sun was still shining brightly when we came out from the museum and we sat down to enjoy a cup of cappuccino and ceaser salad at Cafe Deco while waiting for the night to fall.

Hong Kong night view from The Peak...

We didn't come down with the same peak tram but a bus and went to Lan Kwai Fong for a drink on the Friday night...

First, we met up with the rest of the gang in a pub called Fong.

After a few drinks, we moved to a pool bar, Racks MDB, which was owned by Daniel Wu, and apparently, Tse Ting Ting (Nicholas Tse's sister) and Eason Chan have been a frequent visitor to the bar. Unfortunately, while I thought I could spot some superstars (for the first time in Hong Kong) in this bar, we had to leave the place as there were no pool tables available for us.

We then hopped to a bar up in Hotel LKF where we could enjoy our drink surrounded by the Hong Kong night lights.

I love this happening place of Hong Kong!

[To be continued...]

Chinese Pearl of the Orient (Part 2)

2009-07-05T23:21:00.003+08:00

DAY 2
Date : 18th June, 2009 (Thursday)

My first breakfast in Hong Kong was the normal Set A,B,C,D or E in a Hong Kong kopitiam nearby the place I stayed. The meal was not bad, but the milk tea was not up to Hong Kong standard.

After the breakfast, we went to Lantau Island to visit the Big Buddha. Unfortunately, the cable car, Ngong Ping 360, was under construction, and we had to take the bus up the hill instead.

Near the Big Buddha, there was a tourist street selling some souvenirs with very nice traditional atmosphere worth taking pictures of.

Visiting the Big Buddha was not an easy task that I almost fainted when I look at the stairs ....

But of course, coming from so far, I couldn't give up so easily. I need to conquer it even if it takes my whole life!

Finally...

After coming down from the Big Buddha, we went to the Wisdom Path...

It was a loooooooooong walk passing by some farms with scarecrows...

I didn't know what to expect in the Wisdom Path, so i just kept walking for almost 15 minutes expecting something really good. When I reached there, there were columns of timber carved with Heart Sutra...

We then took a bus and went to Tai-O, a fishing town, in the same island.

Walking around the Tai-O market, you'll notice all the different dried fishes hanging here and there, including sharks or even one of the world's most poisonous fish, the puffer fish...

Although Tau Fu Fah was one of the famous dishes in Tai-O, we couldn't find the nice one, but I've learnt a new way of taking Tau Fu Fah...with brown sugar (not in liquid form).

There's something that you should never miss out when you are in Tai-O, 茶粿 (trans: Chinese Bean Tea Cake) ...

Coming out from the Island, there is a huge factory outlet mall at the MTR station selling really cheap branded stuff...

Time was rushing and I couldn't finish walking the whole mall, as I had dinner appointment with my ex-colleague in Tsim Sha Tsui...

Our dinner was in Choco Cat Cafe where there were few cats running around while you are having your meal...

My leg was already hurting after the whole day walk, but we had a final visit of the day at the Avenue of Stars passing by...

Hong Kong Cultural Centre (with the Clock Tower on the right background)

Honestly, I do not think the Avenue of Stars is worth visiting for tourists. Such a boring place...

But well, something to add on to the list of Been there, done that...

[To be continued...]

Encouragement Fund

2009-07-03T18:28:00.003+08:00

1 week ago, some immoral burglars broke into my ex-colleagues' house in Ara Damansara. One of this ex-colleagues, Madam M (say, from Company T), is married and stay in the house with her hubby. Another ex-colleague, Miss E, is staying in another room in the same house.

That night, the news about the break in spread like wildfire and in no time, everyone knew about it, thanks to the advanced tehnology tool, named Twitter.

Surely it was the hot topic of the day after the incident and eventually, people started to think about ways to ease the victims' pain, which cost about RM20k and RM10K each. Looking at the loss, we need some constructive acts other than sending them consolations.

Early morning after the incident, I received an email from the 'organizers' looking for sponsors contributing to a fund, we called The Encouragement Fund.

In 1 week time, we gathered 32 people, among the current employees and alumni of Company T, and collected, RM2100.

The organizers managed to secretly pay (on behalf of Madam M) for the new door that they've ordered, which cost RM1300 and the remaining was used to buy a new LCD monitor that was stolen from Miss E.

We bought cards for each of them which they described as 'heavy'. Indeed Madam M's card was heavier as we have attached the payment receipt of the door in the envelope which startled her.

Madam M was feeling bad to receive the 'comfort' that we have contributed which we couldn't do much about it. Guess she needs to learn to get over it.

I was touched thinking about the whole post-incident motions. It proves that we are not just a group of IT geeks who merely knows about IT and goes around Malaysia organizing makan trip, but when times are bad, we do know how to care for each other.

Chinese Pearl of the Orient (Part 1)

2009-07-01T22:15:00.011+08:00

DAY 1
Date : 17th June, 2009

I think I'm done with the local road trips. Now it's time to take a plane!

..and I flew for almost 4 hours to reach here...

Well, yeah, I know this picture might not show the famous landmark of the place I was. But I guess it can be used to test how much you've watched Hong Kong series/movies all these years. I mean, seriously, that arrow thingy over there, that's what cars usually bang into during car accident, no?

I was glad and lucky enough to have Lewis-the-LuLuNee coming over to pick me up from the airport and brought me to his apartment.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw his apartment. The apartment was really unbelievably........unbelievable!

Huge facade, full length glass entrance, lady 'security guard' standing at an office-style reception counter, LCD TV while you are waiting for the lift at the lobby, air-conditioned lobby and corridor, sofa and carpet in the lobby....Is this really an apartment?

...and it's not even considered as a luxurious apartment in Hong Kong!

I then took the lift and shoot up to a level so high I could feel the pressure in my ears.

After putting my luggage into the apartment, the couple brought me to a dessert place partially owned by a I-cant-remember-who-Radio-DJ and ordered 芒果西米撈 (trans: Mango and Sago Delight)...

I've never seen much of Hong Kong, but it was already time to go home and rest while watching 翡翠台 (trans: Jade).

Oh, I can't wait to swipe my Octopus card tomorrow. Swipe swipe swipe!

[To be continued...]

Visiting the Green Carpet

2009-06-26T20:04:00.000+08:00

Date : 29th March, 2009 ~ 31st March, 2009

This trip is gonna be another trip being a tour guide to a Hongkie and an Indian English.

We reached Ipoh on Friday evening and went to the famous Tau Fu Fah in Ipoh where we saw Ah-Niu directing his new movie nearby Onn Kee Taugeh Ayam Restaurant. If you are in Ipoh, make sure you don't miss the Tau Fu Fah at Funny Mountain Soya Bean store, the Tau Fu Fah is so smooth, it might just slid through your throat before your teeth could even bite it. No kidding!

Coincidently. it was Faye-the-BigSister's birthday and few of us were planning to throw her a surprised party. Too bad, nothing could hide away from her. Anyways, it was a great night for a short catch up.

Next morning, I was dragged by Mich-the-BabyBelle's mother to have breakfast at Foh Shan Restaurant. We stuffed ourselves with plenty of dimsum knowing that there won't be any nice food up the hill.

Before departing to Cameron Highlands, we had a round of the Ipoh famous white coffee at Sun Yuan Loong Restaurant.

We then rushed up to Cameron Highlands to visit the Boh Tea Plantation Farm.

Going up to the plantation with the small winding road might be more exciting than riding a roller coaster as there's no track nor safety precautions and it all depends solely on the driver's skill.

Everything was worth it once you are up there enjoying a cup of tea.

Steamboat dinner was like a routine in Cameron, which we didn't want the two foreigners to miss out.

There's nothing much to do in Cameron after the sunset. The only 'healthy' outdoor entertainment available was the pasar malam.

As we couldn't find any proper glass or cups in the apartment we rented, we had to use bowl for our white wine. It's strange, for sure.

The next day, we went to the Smokehouse for a short photo session before leaving the hill.

Labour Day Weekend Getaway

2009-06-07T19:35:00.009+08:00

This trip was planned several months ago, during one of the Chinese New Year reunion gatherings. It was delayed once and I'm glad all of us could make it on the 2nd proposed date.

Who are we? We went to the same college though we were not in the same course, we stayed together in 1 roof like a family, we partied crazily like there's no tomorrow, we teased each other with no guilt nor feeling offended, the girls are all from the same primary and secondary school, we did a lot of unbelievable stuff, and thank God, we are still very much close to each other now.

Everyone from KL, Singapore and Ipoh gathered around on the Labour Day, to finalize the trip plan for the next day. We hopped from cafes to restaurants to cafes and back to restaurants in MidValley as people came in batches (with long interval in between) and everyone seems to come with an empty stomach.

Eight years ago, the same group of people went up to Genting Highlands with a bus and cable cars. This time, we went up with a Harrier and a Singapore-mari Jazz.

There's no fixed plan on what to do when we were up there, but just to enjoy the breeze and cam whoring...

A coffee session at the Coffee Bean...

While waiting for the night to come, we had a warm-up healthy round before revealing our skills in the casino. It's healthy because whoever lost will drink a glass of water. I mean PLAIN WATER! Heh, imagine these losers going to the toilet 6-7 times in 2 hours.

We then prepared for the night while doing what we girls are good at (posing for pictures)...

We lost a bit to Uncle Lim's empire, but that doesn't affect our mood at all.

We went back to one of our hotel rooms (we rented 2 rooms) and continued our 'gambling project' in the room. No more betting with chips, but Chivas!

The guys seem to be losing voluntarily and everyone was down soon after that.

One bottle was not enough for the night.


Now you see...	Now you don't!

As the guys were drunk and the girls were still very much conscious, we reshuffled our room plans and moved out from the Theme Park Hotel room to another room in Genting Hotel. Imagine, we were packing our bag in the middle of the night and shifted to another room...

I was so tired, I dropped dead on the bed after a hot shower.

Again, we turned into monkeys the next morning after reviving from the zombie night.

Before leaving Genting, we walked around and visited the casino for the last time.

I certainly hope I won't have to wait for another 8 years for our next trip and hopefully it'll be before anyone of us get promoted to be parents.

Love you girls (and guys)! Friends Forever...

The Office Gremlin (Part 3)

2009-06-01T22:45:00.002+08:00

Gremlin has officially tendered her resignation today and expected her last day to be this Friday.

Her superior might be throwing confetti now.

Lazing around Batam III

2009-06-01T00:22:00.002+08:00

DAY 3
Date : 30th March, 2009

Woke up around 7.30am to have a last visit of Batam, while some of us preferred to stay home for a relaxing morning.

TienSoon-the-Sky and WaiPei-the-CherasGirl who gave us a surprise with their sudden appearance in Batam yesterday wanted to visit the Melur Beach, which according to online sources, it is not a commercialized beach and was popular among the locals.

From our apartment to the beach actually took us around 1 hour crossing over 3 bridges where we stopped by at one of the bridges to capture the moment.

The long journey was all worth it, though the beach was not very clean but the water was crystal clear and we spotted few jelly fishes inside the water.

After around an hour, it started raining and we rushed home to pack up after having our breakfast prepared by our usual cook.

Instant noodles with our left over food from yesterday...

We took a ferry back to Johor Bahru and had our lunch at a restaurant famous for Koay Teow Kia.

Overall, there's nothing much to do in Batam, but honestly, I won't mind going again if I could stay at the same resort, Indah Puri Resort with such magnificent view. I'd rather stay whole day at home watching DVD facing the sea, than to sweat myself walking everywhere in the city.

The Office Gremlin (Part 2)

2009-05-25T22:22:00.011+08:00

Since the first day Gremlin stepped into the office, everyone commented how talktative she was. That comment was neither a compliment nor a critic. It's just a first impression in which we thought it was normal being a salesperson. Eventually, our impression turned ugly when she talks more than she should.

Hate might be a big word. And probably I don't even dislike her. I'm just annoyed. My ignorant level is usually being set higher than the people around me, but what triggered me to write this post (and the previous) was not because of how annoying she is. But I'm starting to doubt how can she work as a salesperson when she talks like a bullet train and the unclear pronounciation leaving everyone with thousands of question marks at the end of her talk.

There was one day, 5 of us in a car with our big boss from Hong Kong who obviously can't speak any Malay. While looking at the Malay roadsigns, our boss curiously asked us how are they pronounced.

Boss	:	How do you pronounce that? Setepek? (Pointing to Setapak roadsign)
(Few of us trying to correct him while teaching him some basic rules of how Malay words are pronounced but someone interfered...)
Gremlin	:	That's a Malay word. See, here we have few languages written. Sometimes English. But that one is a Malay word. We learnt Malay in school...bla bla bla...That's a Malay word.

Look, if a salesperson can't even answer an easy question properly, how can we expect the customers to understand what we sell and what we can offer? Which customer will be convinced to buy our product if our salesperson can't answer their questions correctly? If there's no customers, there won't be any sales, hence, the company won't have any profit and who is going to pay our salaries?

Customer	:	What does your system do?
Gremlin	:	See, in the technology world, we have software and hardware. We are selling software, not hardware.
Customer	:	OK. So, what does your software do?
Gremlin	:	It's a software, to be installed into your server. It can be Unix or Windows. Doesn't matter. If you want Windows, you need to get someone to restart the server every now and then.
Customer	:	Why is that so?
Gremlin	:	It's a Windows built-in feature. To show their uniqueness.

I'm worried, seriously.

The Office Gremlin (Part 1)

2009-05-23T13:42:00.003+08:00

Ever experienced someone who talks so loud and fast, that when u sit beside him/her, you can feel the pain on 1 side of your ear, which possibly leads to the uncomfortable headache the whole day?

Ever met someone who talks non-stop where you won't have any chance to interfere, and in the end, you just can't figure out what his/her point is?

Ever knew someone who is full of complains where every words that comes from his/her mouth is about how unsatisfied he/she is, and whatever she does is right while other people (especially her superior) is doing wrong?

Ever tried to avoid from engaging any conversation with him/her because you knew that once it has started, you have problem ending the talk? I'm not refering to phone conversation where you can lie about low battery while talking further and further away from the phone, and then hang up. Unfortunately, there is no hang up button when we are talking face to face. You can't runaway much because there's only 1 route to go to the washroom and 1 route to leave the office to get to your car. You might just end up standing there for half an hour when u bump into him/her listening to her bitching about her superior.

Ever have problem listening to someone who talks the same language as you while your mind is wondering if he/she is using some other kind of alien language that doesn't require you to open your mouth and just use your throat to talk? Each time when this happen, you killed almost 100 brain cells trying to comprehend her message and at the end of the conversation, you feel like you have worked out the whole day, mentally. It's exhausting!

Ever heard of someone who keeps repeating his/her statements when he/she knew you were up to something and didn't inform him/her? For example, "You are going <insert your activity here>? Why never invite me?". This usually happened for a few reasons :-

You didn't have time to inform him/her.
You are going out with your own friends which has nothing to do with her.
You just simply don't want him/her to join.

You might have seen certain people carrying a few of the above mentioned traits. But I know this might sound unbelievable to you.

There is, ladies and gentlemen, 1 person who fulfilled all the above criteria in my office.

[To be continued...]

$311.0u7!

2009-05-12T11:45:00.003+08:00

Watched a great movie yesterday. $311.0u7! Probably because it's not another huge Hollywood production, not many people seems to know about this movie. I came across this movie through the advertisement showing in Astro. At first, I thought it was some kind of funny product advertisement. When I realized that it was actually a movie, I know I have to watch it.

By watching this movie, you can easily identify some current issues happening in Malaysia or any other countries in the world. There's no beating around the bush. The dialogs were so direct, you just can't stop laughing on things that are actually happening beside you.

Come, let's support local production..

Lazing around Batam II

2009-04-29T21:30:00.003+08:00

DAY 2
Date : 29th March, 2009

Day 2 in Batam was very relaxing. No alarm set to wake us up. We could sleep till our biological alarm told us so. Somehow, my alarm is always later than other people in the trip. By the time I woke up, our main chef was already preparing us our breakfast in front of the sea.

While having our breakfast, we took out uno stacko and started the piling and destruction mission.

Before lunch, we drove around Batam trying to search for any tourist spots worth visiting. Based on our GPS, there weren't many points of interest available. As we passed by a temple, we dropped by and started cam-whoring.

There were a few temples in 1 fenced area.

We then went to have lunch at one of the coffee shop we bumped into. Since there weren't much choices, we couldn't expect too much on the food. But surprisingly, the food turned out pretty good.

Since there's nothing much to do, we went home and started watching DVD in the cozy resort till our BBQ dinner (which turned into Grilled instead, because we couldn't find charcoal and net ).

[To be continued...]

Lazing around Batam I

2009-04-14T20:40:00.008+08:00

This will be another happening trip from the makan trip gang. We have been to the north and south, east and west of Malaysia searching for food and any attractions we could find. Still, we couldn't cover the whole of Malaysia, but at the moment, we are bored of Malaysia. We need something more exciting.

This time, we have decided to go overseas. Yes, you've read it right. O.V.E.R.S.E.A.S and the destination is the island down south, Pulau Batam. So far, all our trips were budget trips, and there's no exception for this overseas trip. 3 days 2 nights, and it only cost us less than RM350, which covered EVERYTHING!

Pulau Batam was once famous for their casinos, but since the close down of all those money making activities, Pulau Batam is now being more famous as the 2nd Wife island for the Singaporean guys.

******************************************************************

DAY 1
Date : 7th March, 2009

We met up around 7am at Kajang and had breakfast at a restaurant nearby, called Hong Kong Pepper Soup, which was famous for their pepper soup.

We ordered some other claypot dishes which goes with rice. One of the dishes, called Foh Bao Yuk (火爆肉) (translate:Sautéed Pork) was so spicy, that your tongue will lose its senses after few pieces. Nevertheless, the dishes were all very appetizing.

After feeding all the hungry drivers and the participants of the trip, we started our journey down south which took us about 3 hours.

When we reached Johor, we went to Stulang Laut recommended by our friend to try out the mee rebus. Personally, I don't fancy mee rebus. But if I could finish the whole dish on my own, it was not bad at all.


Enjoying our mee rebus	Mee Rebus

We then parked our car at The ZON and took a ferry to Pulau Batam which cost us RM120 for a return ticket. The journey was about 1.5 hours, and if you are planning to have such a trip yourself, please be very careful with your luggage. I've lost my cap and goggles during the boat trip as I placed my luggage on the luggage area and I sat way in front. If you have a small luggage, carry it with you all the time, or else put a padlock, just in case.

Anyway, since I can't get back what I've lost, let's forget about it and just recall all the nice things during the trip.

The first nice thing we encountered in Batam, is OUR accomodation, Indah Puri Golf Resort!

We stayed at the ground floor, where the living room was directly facing the sea.

The house was fully furnished and decorated with simple English style.

What's best, was....It's FREE!

The place was actually owned by an English man, who is our organizer, George-the-GPSNavigator's sister's boyfriend. Sounds complicated? Doesn't matter, as long as we do not need to pay for anything.

In the evening, we went to the biggest mall in town, Nagoya Hill, to have our dinner at the food court and bought some ingredients for our BBQ session tomorrow. We ordered few local dishes, called Sundanese food, and shared among ourselves. For drinks, I didn't really know what is good, but according to George-the-GPSNavigator, Jeruk Kelapa is very nice in Indonesia. Jeruk Kelapa is citrus juice with Coconut meat. Nice!

After our dinner, we walked around the mall before heading down to the supermarket department. During our time in the mall, we have experienced blackout for 5 times, in just a few hours. Batam is a poor town and most roads are not well lit. Not sure if that's the reason behind the blackouts.

[To be continued...]

Flaming Siem Reap III - The Remote

2009-04-13T09:53:00.002+08:00

DAY 3
Date : 16th March, 2009

We had enough of Angkor for the past two days, we decided to check out the suburbs of Siem Reap.

After our relaxing breakfast at the hotel, we went for an educational visit to the Silk Factory - The Artisans Angkor.

The staff showed us around the factory and demonstrated how silk worms are made into a nice silk scarf.

Silk Worms

Cocoon

Worker weaving silk

The factory produces first class silk products that you can never find such quality in any markets in Siem Reap. Unfortunately, quality comes with price, which we did not see the necessity to pay that extra money for something we do not need. Hence, we went back empty handed.

In the evening, we had our floating village experience on the Tonle Sap Lake, which connects to Phnom Penh. Along the way, we could see lots of little wooden houses next to the sandy road.

Whenever a car passes by, dust flew everywhere into the houses, but the locals were not at all affected by that. In fact, many of them sat in front of the house, relaxing while breathing in the dusty air. Does anyone ever worried about their health?

We boarded on a boat, cruised by 2 little boys around 10 years old. Scary wei...

These are what we saw on the boat ride...

Fisherman

A little kid rowing a boat

Doing plantation in the middle of the lake

Floating Pig Farm

Wanna play snooker? Can you see the snooker tables?

Trimming hair

We were brought to a platform with a souvenir shop and cafe to enjoy the sunset.

On the platform....

The sunset view...

I guess we have covered most of the places in Siem Reap in 3 days time. On our last day, we woke up early and went to the airport straight away.

Flaming Siem Reap
Flaming Siem Reap II - The wonder of Angkor
Flaming Siem Reap III - The Remote

Flaming Siem Reap II - The wonder of Angkor

2009-03-31T22:33:00.004+08:00

DAY 2
Date : 15th March, 2009

On the second day in Siem Reap, we woke up extremely early to catch the magnificent view of the sunrise scene at Angkor Wat.

With the ticket we bought yesterday, we will be exploring Angkor the whole day today.

If only I knew that they took the picture to be printed on the ticket, I would have smiled properly.

We went back to our hotel for breakfast after the sunrise, before continuing our journey in Angkor.

Since we did not have much knowledge preparation before the trip, we hired a tour guide for a day which cost us USD45, inclusive of USD10 extra for the sunrise.

Our tour guide was arranged by a local tour agency that we stumbled upon after having lunch yesterday. It was bad. The English-speaking tour guide could barely pronounce the words properly. The weather was hot and the sun was up above our head. But that's nothing compared to the pain trying really hard to guess what the tour guide was trying to say.

By looking at the buildings, I could barely differentiate them...

South Gate of Angkor Thom

Terrace of Elephant

Giant Tree Roots at Ta Prohm

Baphuon

Royal Lion Sculpture

The path into Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat

There were some locals wearing their local constume inside Angkor, hoping that the tourists will pay them to take a picture with them. The stingy me, of course, would rather take a picture without myself.

We left Angkor after watching the sunset...

The whole day walk was really tiring...

[To be continued...]

Flaming Siem Reap
Flaming Siem Reap II - The wonder of Angkor
Flaming Siem Reap III - The Remote

Flaming Siem Reap

2009-03-27T18:54:00.007+08:00

Although the popularity of Siem Reap is getting higher and higher among the tourists for its Angkor Wat, a lot of people can barely tell where Siem Reap is. Cambodia or Thailand? Some asked, Vietnam?

Siem Reap, literaly means 'Defeat of Siam', symbolizes their victory in the past wars with Siam, now Thailand.

DAY 1
Date : 14th March, 2009

Upon arriving at Siem Reap, we were transported by the hotel's van from the airport to Casa Angkor hotel. From the first impression, the town is considered clean, but the quality of the road sucks big time. The whole road was covered with sand and you can imagine what happen when a car passes by.

The weather was HOT HOT HOT! I wonder if that's the reason why all cats and dogs we bumped into were mostly hibernating. To generate lesser heat?

Since it was our first day in town, we decided to check the town center for their Centre Market and Old Market. These are the places where you get to test your bargaining skill. Trust me, you can bargain every items here for at least 75% lower than the price they have set. If not, walk away, cause there are probably 99 other stores selling the same stuff which could offer the price that you want.

Wet market and dry market was just next to each other. Till now, I am still wondering what are these...

Do tell me if you know what are those ray-like species in the picture above.

One thing I missed was to taste their cooked shells sold by some stalls along the road.

We then walked around to find our first meal in Cambodia around the Pub Street where there were tonnes of restaurants everywhere. Instead of picking one blindly, I went into a souvenir shop to look for recommendation.

I was brought to this nice local restaurant called Khmer Family Restaurant and tried their local dishes...

Amok

Lok Lak

And not forgetting their local beer, Angkor beer, which was only USD1.5!

We then prepare ourselves to enter into the wonderland (aka Angkor) which will cost us USD20 valid for 1 day. By buying the next day ticket, we were allowed to enter into Angkor Wat after 4.30pm a day before, which was exactly what we were about to do.

Since it was still early, we went to a cozy restaurant, Blue Pumpkin, that my friend highly recommended.

With the extreme hot weather out there, one can easily fall into deep sleep once you sat on the couch.

We then went to a branded outlet for window shopping...

Don't be fooled by the outlook of the shop, they are not selling the original goods!

Around 5pm, we started our journey climbing up Phnom Bakheng Hill in Angkor which took us about half an hour...*sweat*

We waited till sunset before getting down.

For dinner, we thought of something different and visited this Red Piano restaurant for some western food. It turned out to be a bad idea as their food was not up to expectation.

[To be continued...]

Flaming Siem Reap
Flaming Siem Reap II - The wonder of Angkor
Flaming Siem Reap III - The Remote

Once a Millionaire

2009-03-11T22:08:00.003+08:00

I was a millionaire over the long weekend in Pulau Batam.

No time to blog about my trip yet. Please be patient...

The biggest bouquet I ever received

2009-03-01T00:02:00.003+08:00

Valentine's Day had past and most of my friends are still uploading pictures into facebook about what they did during the day, or blogged about the romantic day they had.

I'm not gonna tell you what I did on that day, but what I'm about to write is about the gift I got in my office just 1 day before the big day.

Yes, a huge bouquet of flowers with roses, lilies, carnations, etc. It's so huge, carrying it was like carrying a baby...

People who are too realistic or people who have been in a relationship for too long might think that this is a total waste of money. As for me, I don't really mind accepting it as long as it's not too expensive.

My curious colleagues went into the florist website to search for the flowers, but couldn't find the exact same bouquet of flowers in the web as the bouquet was actually 'customized', as what I was told few days later. After some 'research' and comparison, they concluded that the bouquet should cost around RM400-RM500. I was shocked. Heck, why spend so much on something that will only last for a few days?

Again, I have to admit, I don't mind accepting the flowers, but spending more than RM400 for that (I hope it didn't hit RM500), certainly sounds a bit waste of money.

I asked the sender, "Why spend so much? Get a small one is good enough." and my heart says, "Should use the remaining money to buy me something more practical."

His answer was something I've never ever thought of. "When a guy send a flower to the girl's office, it has to be big, so that she won't feel sad if other girls in the office receive a bigger flower bouquet."

Not sure if I should agree to that statement.

For the curious people out there, don't ask me who the sender is, and, NO, I'm not officially attached.

That black thing in the paddy field

2009-02-12T13:36:00.003+08:00

Date :	11th Jan 1009, Sunday
Location :	Sekinchan Paddy Field

Woke up early morning and gathered at the house of our guide-of-the-day, George-the-MakanKing's dad. It's not another makan trip we will be doing, but "FISHING FOR EELS!". Most people couldn't believe what we were about to do. Heh, now who says IT people are geeks who merely stay in our 6 x 8 cubicle doing programming?

We love nature. Especially when we caught some eels and cook them. Kidding. Most of us did not plan to take any of the eels home (if we caught any, that is) as we were just doing it for fun.

Reaching Sekinchan, all the girls started putting on their armor...

This is not a farmer. She is one of us, with the full armor gear. Hey, it's hot and sunny, okay? Can't afford to have any sunburn especially when CNY was just around the corner.

The DaddyGuide helped us attaching the string and tying the bait.

We do not need a sophisticated fishing rod to catch eels. Anything that could hold a string with the bait is good enough, for instance...


Bamboo stick	PVC rod

Broom stick	Bangle-like disc came with the string

The instructions was easy. Go walk around the harvested paddy field with low water level and find holes, something like below...

Put your bait near to the mouth of the hole and wait for the eels to bite.

And so, following the instructions, we walked and walked and walked...barely found any holes. From the team of 4, we splitted up to 2, to have a higher probability of finding a hole, and if we ever found one, there won't be 4 of us squatting in front of one hole waiting for the eel.

And so I left with my partner to another field to try our luck...

Yes, this Arabic Uncle is my partner, Jason-the-PasarBoy. I had to grab a guy with me, thinking that there'll be someone taking care of me. But this boy was so excited and got carried away looking for holes, which ended up me, carrying our ~~empty~~ bucket.

After all the hard work in 2 hours, our bucket was still empty. We had more than 20 people, and we didn't catch a single eel, but the DaddyGuide caught 5 eels alone! That's so humiliating. I think we should get back to our cubicle now. *sigh*

The catch of the day

Still, we rewarded our fruitless hard work with a cheap luxurious seafood lunch in Jiann Chi Restaurant...

Some of the unique food we had were...

Spicy Shark Porridge

Braised Tiger Shark with Pig Intestines and Pork

Fried Mantis Prawn

After such a meal, failing to catch any eels no longer matter.

Free Meal?

2009-02-11T17:25:00.000+08:00

My room in my Sunway apartment was always in a mess because I didn't really have a proper place to chuck my stuff. Everything was piled up on my table, and gradually, I needed to dig into the mountain before getting what I want and most of the junk were sunk underneath where their existence would eventually be forgotten.

The only time I cleaned my room was ~~when my mom stayed over~~ before the Chinese New Year when I bought myself two 3-tier cabinets to properly place all my belongings.

As expected, I've found a lot of things that I have not seen for the past 1 year. There were also a lot of last year's angpows that I'm not sure how they landed in the mountain, but nonetheless, I'm glad I've found them as I was few hundreds ringgit richer after the spring cleaning.

Among the red packets, one of them did not look right...

Hey, that's not a Chinese New Year angpow with two pieces of RM50 note in it. Certainly it's not meant for myself, and if I remember well, I bought this kind of wedding packets last year to pass to all friends who were getting married.

Did I forget to 'contribute' to the pool of angpow in a wedding dinner? But whose wedding was that??

I guess someone out there must have thought that I had intentionally wanted a free meal at their wedding dinner.

Happy Chinese Moo Year !!!

2009-01-26T11:52:00.006+08:00

Survon here, wishing all my Chinese readers...

GONG HEI FATT CHOY!!!

New Year, New Style

2009-01-24T12:26:00.001+08:00

It's the long-awaited Chinese New Year celebration soon and it's time to give myself another valid reason to 'invest' more on my wardrobe. New shirts, new lingerie, new jeans, new dress, new shoes...and of course, not forgetting a new hairstyle.

Well, yes..I've changed my hairstyle finally. I have been living with my long straight rebonding hair for many many years and it's time for a change!

What did I do?

~ Rebonding (top part), Perm (lower part), Dye and Treatment.

Total pocket damage = RM550 (So freaking expensive !!!)

Is it worth to invest on this? You tell me...

(Before the damage)

(Afte perm, Before dye)

(The final result)

Some say I look more 'woman' after the perm. Heh, I'm not a girl, not yet a woman!

One ended and the other started

2009-01-07T12:34:00.003+08:00

I should have done this post end of the year, but with my procrastinating habit, at least it's only few days late.

End of the year is when we start thinking about everything we've done in the past one year and new year is when we set the new list of resolutions to be achieved throughout the year.

In 2008, I've done pretty much things for the first time in my life and some which was pretty memorable to me.

On March 8th, I became my friend's Maid of Honour for the first time and was featured in the newspaper.

In April, I slept in the forest under a tent for the first time with my then colleagues in Jerangkang with a nice waterfall at the side. I was a girl guide, but we didn't have the chance to camp inside a forest.

In May, I visited Peninsula Malaysia's East Coast for the first time (Let's exclude Redang Island which I went more than 8 years ago).

For the first time in my life, I stepped my feet into the Land of the Sawasdee, Bangkok.

A cat who wanted to prove that they do not have 9 lifes committed suicide in my car engine.

In September, I had my first experience with water rafting in Slim River.

Looking at what I've done for the past 1 year, I didn't seems to have achieved anything big, other than broaden my knowledge of other places I've been for the first time. Surely, knowing the culture and visiting foreign places was something that I always wanted to do. But seriously, have I upgraded myself over the past 1 year?

I've never really like setting resolutions during new year, cause they will never be achieved. Don't ask me why, probably I've set it too high, or I just never bother at all.

The coming year is gonna be different, I've changed my mind. I'm gonna give myself 1 year time to achieve things that I wish to achieve in the near future...

Take up a Salsa course - I have been dragging this for almost 2 years now. Been talking a lot and thinking a lot, but no serious actions done so far, other than attending a 3 hours bootcamp and ONE salsa class. I can hardly dance ~~with cute hunks~~ on the salsa dance floor.
Visiting another wonders in the world - Angkor Wat. Gonna do that in March 2009. Tickets have been bought and I'm just waiting for the date!
Visiting another country that I've never been in the 2nd half of the year - Currently considering Hong Kong. Anyone wanna join?
Save more money - When can I afford to pay for my own house?
Stay put in my current company - Have been changing jobs every year and I need to stop doing that. Not that the current company is treating me great, but I need to have a better resume in the future.
~~Find the love of my life.~~ *oooppsss*

The last 'present' of the previous year

2009-01-01T13:05:00.004+08:00

It's the 4th piece since June 2008. I thought 3 were more than enough, but I got the last piece on the very last day of year 2008, because of the smart parking system which only allow us to pay maximum 3 hours when we need to park for the whole day. They came around 1.21pm when my ticket period ended at 12.49pm.

Yeah, I know. Happy New Year to you too, DBKL!

Should I capsize, or should I not ?!

2008-12-21T09:57:00.003+08:00

Forward Paddle! Back Paddle! Left! Right...Right, Right, not LEFT!!

Those are the commands you'll always hear when you are going for white-water rafting, which I just had mine on Sept 28th at Slim River, Perak.

They said, it won't be nice if your raft never capsized. Probably all the members in my team was not heavy enough, our raft did not capsize even though our guide tried trick us to achieve that.

My team...

Now I have another invitation to go for another white-water rafting at Kuala Kubu Baru this December 28th. Don't ask me why they are always going for rafting on 28th. It's mere coincident.

Now, the question is, should I fork out RM180 to experience the raft capsized that I missed out during the previous trip? or should I save up those money since Xmas is just around the corner and Chinese New Year is arriving and everything is money money money!

My Butterfly Template

2008-12-20T20:34:00.003+08:00

It has been exactly 3 years, from my very first post in this blog and I've never change my template since. Yeah, I know it's kinda boring looking at my ugly blog, but heck, I need to work ~~and play~~ and it's really hard to find time to beautify it.

Searching for a suitable template was hard enough. Deploying it (very technical jargon, I know) into my blog took me almost one whole day!....adjusting the width, editing the original background image, putting my own codes....it was so tedious!

After so many years in programming, I just realized that hover css codes must be placed after link block. Putting it otherwise will cause the link codes to overwrite the hover. And so, certain effect in your hover might not work.

It's ok if you don't understand what I've just wrote, but one thing for sure, it'll take me another few years before I will change this template.

So, what do you think?

Not nice? Sorry man, you gotta learn to live with it, cause I'm not planning to change it anytime soon.

Touch my Diamond

2008-12-03T21:29:00.003+08:00

Approximately 1 month ago, I got myself my very first Diamond...

Yeah, baby...HTC Touch Diamond...

I've fallen in love with this phone on the first sight...

The diamond shape at the back is so cool!

Ironically, when I really wanted to get the phone, I've fallen for another phone, Iphone 3G. I'm pretty sure nothing can beat the GUI and the functional specifications of Iphone.

In the end, I've decided to go for the Diamond mainly because of the outlook and the size. Yes, the interface was cool too, but only the first layer. Clicking into any programs is a total turn off, looking at the traditional 2D interface.

2 weeks ago, I was thinking of selling off my Diamond and get an Iphone. But since I've already owning it and I couldn't sell it off for a good price, I've decided to stick to it for a little while.

Missing

2008-11-24T23:15:00.003+08:00

Sometimes I do realize that pet has a better life than human.

I've never seen such nice bunting advertising missing person.

Gear up your car

2008-10-29T15:31:00.003+08:00

Few weeks back, on a Saturday night, I was supposed to drive to my ex-colleague's house at Kelana Jaya Sterling Condominium for a house warming party.

As usual, I went to my car, unlocked everything, inserted my key into the ignition and turned the key. It went...*tick tuck*. Huh? I tried again and it went...*tick tuck*. Gosh, what kind of sound was that?

All the lights on my dashboard was on too, the cold and warm water indicator, fuel indicator, oil indicator...all the indicators were on!

I could not start my car. What happened????

I called my friends who has reached the party and told them what happened. I was asked to take a cab to the place and they'll send me home after the party, but I didn't wanna give up yet.

I waited for half an hour till my sis came back with her bf and checked on my oil. That looks fine. Water level was a bit low though. We added water in and tried to ignite again, but failed.

Since it was already late at night, I drove my sis car out, leaving my car at the apartment.

The next day, I tried again and everything was okay. I could start my car!

Sounds like a magic?

Well, indeed I've performed some voodoo on it in order to make it start. I didn't really wanna talk bout this after the incident because I ~~feel ashamed~~ just wanna stay low, but I will share it with my blog readers here so that you'll know what to do if you face the same situation like mine.

Follow the following steps and everything will be perfect soon...

Sit at the driver's seat in the car and be cool.
Adjust your rear mirror to suit your height (if necessary).
Insert your car key into the ignition but don't start the car first.
This step is the MOST important step of all. With your divine hand, place your gear, which was originally on 'R', to ~~'D'~~ 'P' (sorry guys, was too excited when i was writing this most important step till I've accidentally wrote P as D).
Start your engine and VOILA! Your car is back to normal.
Now drive your car away as fast as possible and try to erase what has happened yesterday and pretend nothing ever happened.

Just keep this to yourself, okay?

My Engine ain't a Playground

2008-10-26T00:13:00.003+08:00

Last friday, on 17th October, I was asked to go to Menara Maybank for some supports. Driving from Sunway to Menara Maybank, I wouldn't consider it as very far, but with the light jam after 9am, it took me more than half an hour to reach the destination.

Along the way, I could hear some weird noise coming from my car which at first I thought it was from the radio. I finally realized that the weird sound was actually meows.

Crap, a cat must have jumped into my car when I opened my car door that morning.

Thinking that I will be reaching Menara Maybank in a few more minutes, I didn't stop my car immediately, rather to release the cat after I have parked my car at the car park.

I parked my car, switched off my engine, and started searching around...only to find...nothing. But the cat scream was still very loud and clear and it was no longer from the inside of my car, but....my ENGINE!

I opened my bonnet and saw this with the help of my phone's camera flashlight. The cat was already dead at this moment.

It was a major operation in getting the car out. Luckily there were some guys working with Maybank came to give a hand. It took almost an hour to get the cat out. We had to take out the whole battery in order to reach the cat.

Sorry Kitty, I didn't mean to barbecue you

R.I.P....

The Tea Land

2008-10-12T18:21:00.002+08:00

I think my blog is turning into a travel blog pretty soon as I've been traveling extensively for the past few months.

One reason being that I had to be the tourist guide for my far away friends who came to visit me, Marton-the-Carrot and Zsombor-the-ComputerForever. During their final week in Malaysia, I brought them back to the White Coffee land, Ipoh, and one of the popular spot for foreigners, Cameron Highland.

Lucky to have Brandon-the-Designer who was nice enough to be our driver up the hill.

We went to Cameron for 2 days, from 20th August till 21st, and we stayed at the place that I stayed during my last trip, Country Lodge Resort. It was RM200 for a 1-room suite, quite reasonable since it was coincidentally the school holiday week.

My mom and bro came visiting us for a day and enjoyed the tea at the Boh Plantation where they have an extremely scenic cafe and a factory showing the steps how tea is processed.

For dinner, we had steamboat in one of the restaurants where they prepare authentic organic vegetables introduced by a local friend...

We walked around Pasar Malam just next to the resort after dinner and brought home some strawberries as supper...

The next day, we did some tourist stuff like visiting all the different farms and for the first time, I visited the Time Tunnel Museum and cam-whore around all the displays.

I think I'm pretty good in acting blur and surprised, no?

Cabling to Genting

2008-10-12T17:52:00.002+08:00

Since after school and when everyone could afford a car, how many would actually thought of taking a bus and a cable car up Genting Highland?

The day after my FRIM adventure, few of us decided to take the public transportation to Genting Highland to re-experience the journey of the cable car.

We had basically two objectives in this trip...

To visit Mich-the-BabyBelle's parents and church members who were having their church camp in Gohtong Jaya Hotel.
To enjoy OSIM chair massage in the cinema.

Obviously the latter was the main objective, where we watched Wall-E and massage our body throughout the whole show.

Every cinema has limited 8 OSIM seats in the first row of the hall and it cost RM15 per person. Wanna try?

Wanna take wedding pictures?

2008-10-12T11:18:00.003+08:00

One day after driving range, during the normal yamcha session, the girls were thinking of doing something more exciting like hiking the Melawati Hill. We were excitedly discussing about the plan to go on that Saturday and the preparation, and bla bla bla....Eventually we discovered that that might be too adventurous for us and shifted our focus to FRIM instead.

FRIM is famous for mountain biking and wedding photos perfect venue. That's the place where we would love to go, to do some exciting activities and taking pictures.

Without any research, we went straight to the place on 16th August, only to realize that there weren't any other activities to do other than mountain biking and jogging. We were totally not in the proper attire for that.

Still, we hiked for about 30 minutes and took some pictures, pretending like those people taking wedding pictures.

Unfortunately though, I couldn't find a couple and had to grab Mich-the-BabyBelle being my lover.

FRIM was so big that we couldn't find the real nice spot like my friends who took their wedding pictures there...

We didn't sweat a lot as expected, but it was a nice outing with the gang...

We then went to Rawang for the famous fish dish, I forgot the name, for lunch...

In the land of Sawasdee

2008-10-08T23:11:00.001+08:00

Lots of people couldn't believe me when I told them that I've never been to Thailand. Especially when I met this Thai guy in Budapest and I still remember his very first respond...."Wow, you are the first Malaysian I've ever heard that have never been to Thailand".

To save the pride as a Malaysian, I've finally took the chance to visit Bangkok for the first time in my life while the Hungarians were around.

I reached Bangkok on the 1st Aug and left on the 5th. 4 days 4 nights should be enough to cover the whole of Bangkok, I thought. In fact it was more than enough as I had limited cash for shopping. I've spent all of them on the 2nd day itself.

With some recommendations from my friends, we stayed in Saladaeng area, The Inn Saladaeng. The hotel is relatively new and clean. Cool place for an affordable yet comfortable stay.

As this was my first time visiting Bangkok, lots of friends couldn't wait to offer their help to suggest places to visit around the city. I'm not sure if it's just because of Malaysians or Bangkok is made that way....Out of 5 places suggested, 2 were shopping places, 1 spa/massage parlor and 1 tourist place, which is the Grand Palace. Some even advised me to omit going to the Grand Palace, but of course being a tourist I am, will have to at least visit the place once in a lifetime.

My first day in Bangkok, I went to Jatujak where I met up with Bryan-the-PoolMaster who was coincidently having some work in Bangkok and Pattaya.

We walked the whole day around the market till dinner time, where the portable food stall selling cooked insects started their business.

On the 2nd day, I went for another round of shopping spree in Platinum and went for lunch with Bryan at Siam Paragon, where we spent the rest of the day around that area.

The final 2 days, I was being the real tourists where I stopped shopping and started visiting the tourist places.

The Grand Palace...

I was given a sarong to wear because my shorts was not decent enough, which matches exactly the color of my backpack that I just bought from JTJ 2 days ago.

Nice hor?

The Temple of Dawn...

On The last day, I went to Vivanmek Mansion...

For the remaining hours, we went to some other Wats where I couldn't distinguish which is which, cause everything looks the same after visiting the first Wat.

While I was in Bangkok, I tried their foot massage, body massage, pedicure and medicure...

In one of the taxi rides, we were being fetched by Mr. Pornchai...

Man...that sounds real something to us Chinese, no?

Fortunately, none of the places we visited was closed to mourn for the death of the King's sister, but her picture was everywhere around the city.

Bangkok....a heaven of shopping. How can any girls resists?

Let's Start From Here

2008-10-07T19:25:00.001+08:00

I'm so into Joanna Wang.

Who? - A singer. A 20-year-old Taiwanese singer grew up partially in the States which has a wonderful voice that captured my heart the first time I heard her song.

I mean, no kidding. I love her very much.

2 weeks ago, I was in one of the boutiques in Chinatown, Singapore, waiting for Veriza-the-MissSingaporeBikini to try her clothes. Other than observing other foreigners trying on their clothes and showing off to their friends, I got distracted by the songs played over the speaker, especially this one...

The voice was not very familiar, but it's so good, I recorded a video of the song so that I could go home and search for it. Yeah, I did this all the time, whenever there's any nice song played over the radio.

It was hard to search for her songs over the internet as she was too new. To try my luck, I sent the clip to Mich-the-BabyBelle and surprisingly she HAS her songs. Not just 1 song but her whole album. Splendid!

People might think that I'm crazy listening to her songs over and over again for the past few days. But I don't care....Cause I just love it and no, I'm not bored of them!

Don't you think she's just so talented?

KB trip Day 4 - Perhentian to KB to KL

2008-10-05T21:39:00.003+08:00

Date : 20th July, 2008

Slow day ahead...

I couldn't remember what time I woke up as we had a crazy night at the beachside yesterday. By the time we I woke up, it was time for brunch.

Some went to have another round of swimming along the beach side while some of us (including myself) just casually selected a cafe nearby for food.

We boarded on our boat around 12pm and went back to the jetty while Zsombor-the-ComputerForever and Marton-the-Carrot continued their stay at Pulau Besar for some diving sessions.

Along our boat journey, we were stopped by a sea-block. If you are wondering what's a sea-block, imagine a roadblock on the sea. The boat was over crowded and life jackets were not enough for everybody. We were asked to write our name and I/C or passport number, ~~and leaving the phone column blank on purpose~~ on a form and passed to the Navy.

We continued on the road back to Kota Bahru, stopping by at Tok Bali for a visit and then had some durians along the roadside near a market, can't remember the place name.

When we reached KB, we had the local chendol with tapai (the exact some stall I had previously).

Since there was no unisex massage parlor around KB, Huei-the-Panda brought us to a saloon in which they washed our hair plus back and shoulder massage. We were so tired that all of us slept while being massaged.

After dinner, we rushed (and I really mean RUSHED!) to the airport and flew back to KL.

It was such a wonderful trip, thanks to our tour guide, Huei-the-Panda, who has been bringing us up and down and doing all the planning while we were only there to enjoy. Thanks man!

KB trip Day 1 - Belum Rainforest Resort
KB trip Day 2 - Kota Bahru
KB trip Day 3 - Kota Bahru to Perhentian
KB trip Day 4 - Perhentian to KB to KL

KB trip Day 3 - Kota Bahru to Perhentian

2008-10-05T15:45:00.006+08:00

Date : 19th July, 2008

I tried to woke up early in the morning rushing to Wat Machimmaram to consult the famous fortune teller there. The teller is so famous that there'll be a huge bus full of tourists visiting the place, almost everyday at 9am.

Unfortunately we were late and the bus was already there by the time we got there. Guess I'll need to make another trip to KB in the future for this. Well, not that I'm superstitious, but I am curious on what the fortune teller gonna say about my life.

We then went to have breakfast at the Craft Museum & Handicraft Centre.

We tried another type of local food, Nasi Ulam. Nasi Ulam is like the local salad, where they eat all the vegetables raw, dipped into a fish sauce called budu. The taste of the sauce was strange and the vegetables was too raw to be put inside my mouth. Most of the time, I took only the cooked meat like fried fish and chicken.

Since most of us were beginners in this food, the staff taught us the way to take the food from the table and how to consume it. As the vege was raw, it's easier to eat with Malay style, as in 'with hand'.

After breakfast, we drove an hour to Pulau Perhentian and took a boat to Pulau Besar where we visited Sany-the-DiveBoss' dive center, Universal Diver

We had our light lunch at the island before taking another boat to the Pulau Kecil and we started soaking ourselves into the water.

[To be continued...]

KB trip Day 1 - Belum Rainforest Resort
KB trip Day 2 - Kota Bahru
KB trip Day 3 - Kota Bahru to Perhentian
KB trip Day 4 - Perhentian to KB to KL

KB trip Day 2 - Kota Bahru

2008-10-05T11:04:00.010+08:00

Date : 18th July, 2008

I know it seems like history writing this post. But for the sake of locking down my sweet memories, I'm gonna try to continue my previous post by making it short and simple.

Waking up the next day, we went to the local market to introduce the local food to the Hungarians while waiting for the 2nd half of the group to arrive from KL.

We tried and bought lots of tropical fruits that we no longer feel hungry after the 'trip'.

We waited and waited and waited...

The train which was supposed to reach at 10am finally arrived after 12.30pm. The 16 hours of ride, must have been 'interesting'.

To heal the empty stomach, we went to have the very typical local food, the blue Nasi Kerabu...

We then went to prepare ourselves for tomorrow's trip...buying liquors...

We bought 2 bottles of Black Label and 2 bottles of strange local liquor.

One is called ~~Like Ur~~ Likeur Lychee and another one is called Monkey Juice. RM8 a bottle to get you drunk, not bad, huh?

Surprisingly in the same shop, we've found a bottle similar to Absolute Vodka, named Privilege Vodka...

What's unbelievable was, it was Made in Malaysia!

We are so gonna get drunk tomorrow, but before doing all the sinful acts, we had to do something contrary...

While waiting for our dinner, we went to the beach to fly kites till it's dawn.

Choosing the kite...

Preparing to fly the kite...

Acting excitedly...

Packing up and ciao...

After the exhausting 'kiting' exercise, we had dinner at Restoran Chiang Mai.

Again, we went to the forbidden night spot of KB, called Sun, which is a Karaoke Pub.

[To be continued...]

KB trip Day 1 - Belum Rainforest Resort
KB trip Day 2 - Kota Bahru
KB trip Day 3 - Kota Bahru to Perhentian
KB trip Day 4 - Perhentian to KB to KL

Another year wiser

2008-09-14T21:57:00.005+08:00

PRE-BIRTHDAY :

On my eve, I've booked a studio room in Sunway Resort Suites to party all night.

Unfortunately there was a change of plan at the very last minute to have dinner at Sushi Zanmai in Sunway Pyramid instead of ordering pizza into the room.

As many could only make it for the 2nd round after dinner, only 6 people joined the dinner.

The party continued to Bar Celona where I had almost everything I wanted for my birthday...

I had my multi-flavour birthday cake (thanks to the innovative idea of my event manager, Michelle-the-BabyBelle)...

I had my birthday Flaming Lamborghini shot...

I had my birthday hugs...

I had my birthday kisses...

I had my friends...

..and of course, most importantly, my birthday PRESENTS!!

Few of us stayed overnight in the hotel and went to work as usual the next morning. Gosh, it was such a torture to wake up from the comfortable bed in a hotel.

***************************************

BIRTHDAY :

Worked whole day, but hardly focusing with the hangover I had. But I struggled through to survive for the dinner.

The night was not only a celebration of my birthday but to enjoy the company's dinner for the first time. It might sound sad to celebrate birthday with the company but I don't mind really. The company is paying, you know.

At first we couldn't decide where to go for dinner as it shouldn't be too cheap. Flying Chillies seems to be the best choice...

Since it was the first time (and god knows when will be the next) to have all my 3 Hongkie directors in KL, we suggested to extend our party to another Karaoke session as a chance to get to know each other more ~~and because the company is paying~~.

We booked a room in the classy RedboxPlus in Pavillion.

My 3 funny directors...

I didn't look at the bill, but I'm pretty sure we've spent more than RM1k for the night. Well, who cares? The company is paying.

***************************************

Post-Birthday :

The next day, I went back to Ipoh and had my final birthday celebration of the year with my Ipoh friends.

We had dinner at 1919...

Regretted for not taking pictures with the whole group during the dinner itself.

After dinner, I had another Karaoke session with them in K-Box.

Here I am, another year older, another year wiser.

KB trip Day 1 - Belum Rainforest Resort

2008-09-02T21:09:00.005+08:00

Date : 17th July, 2008

Night of 17th July, after work, we took the night flight and reached Kota Bahru around 10pm. So happy to see Huei-the-Panda picking us up at the airport. As usual, this nice host will never fail to stuff our stomach with their yummilicious local food. Before sending us home for a rest, he brought us to a mamak to have some Satay where we met Anson-the-Roadster and Sany-the-DiveBoss.

The next morning, after some dilly dally, we started our 3 hours journey to reach Belum Rainforest Resort and the group in the same tour had to wait almost an hour for us.

Our tour guide could hardly express herself in English and our personal tour guide, Huei-the-Panda, had to be the translator most of the time to all other foreigners in the group.

This 1-day-trip organized by the resort cost us RM150 per person which was pretty costly for a 6 hours trip in which almost half of the time was spent on the boat travelling from one end to another.

Our first destination was to visit the elephant dung...and salt lick, where the elephants came to lick the mineral from the ground and it turned into a big hole.

After visiting all the poo poo, we went took another loooonnngg boat ride, and hike hike hike...

...just to visit another pool of dung and (wet) salt lick!

The next few trips were to visit the Orang Asli settlement...

Had lunch at the bottom of the waterfall before hiked up...

To the refreshing waterfall...

And to visit a flower bigger than my head...

It was super tired after the whole day trip, for sitting in the boat for too long. Frankly, RM150 for this 6 hours trip, was not really worth it. But since none of our friends have been here before, we had to be the Guinea pig to try it out.

We took another 3 hours to go back to Kota Bahru and stop by to cam-whore at the Titiwangsa stop (I was here before)...

We had a light dinner before reaching KB where Huei-the-Panda claimed it was the best nasi lemak around.

We met up with other guys in KB and went to Restoran Bangkok to have another round of dinner with Tomyam. Well, can't miss Tomyam while you are in KB, since there are so many Thais around here.

[To be continued...]

KB trip Day 1 - Belum Rainforest Resort
KB trip Day 2 - Kota Bahru
KB trip Day 3 - Kota Bahru to Perhentian
KB trip Day 4 - Perhentian to KB to KL

Driver and Tour Guide fees

2008-08-14T22:27:00.004+08:00

2 days ago, while I was concentrating on my work, someone chuck this in front of me...

Wah, Sennheiser wei...

My first response was..."For me ???".

And he said..."Sshhh...yes!".

It must be the driver fees accrued from his previous trip cause I was fetching him here and there and being his personal tour guide in KL. Now he's trying to pay with this earphone.

Survon is a happy girl.

Cool the Rhino down

2008-08-11T21:14:00.003+08:00

When I went to Kota Bahru few weeks back, I was having this minor sore throat and cough. If you know me well, you should know that my sore throat could lead to serious problem like this and this.

To avoid the same problem from recurring, I went to 7-Eleven and bought myself this...

This Cool Rhino water bottle was not only having a cool name but a cool packaging that everyone else thought it was some kind of special sparkling juice.

Not until I bought the same water 2 days later, but the older packaging...

Yes, they are the same water from the same manufacturer which cools down your body heatiness.

I bet you wouldn't have thought of that, would you?

The Islands Up There - Part 4 (Langkawi)

2008-08-07T10:12:00.004+08:00

It's the last and the most relaxing day of our trip in Langkawi.

We started off with a complete breakfast followed by a short spa session included in our package.

We then tour around the city and took some pictures that would be able prove to others that we were in Langkawi. The huge eagle, which is a symbolic landmark that represents Langkawi.

We lingered around the city and reached the airport just to realize that our flight was postponed for an hour.

The creative us will never be bothered by any mishaps but created our very own gambling table to play Big2 to fill the time.

Creative, huh?

Langkawi might not be as interesting as any other islands around, but with this crazy bunch of girls, we'll always managed to find activities to entertain ourselves.

Another great trip accomplished!

The Islands Up There - Part 1 (Penang)
The Islands Up There - Part 2 (Langkawi)
The Islands Up There - Part 3 (Langkawi)
The Islands Up There - Part 4 (Langkawi)

The Islands Up There - Part 3 (Langkawi)

2008-08-06T21:50:00.006+08:00

We checked out from Eagle Bay in the morning and went for island hoping.

The first stop was to the Dayang Bunting Marble where we were greeted by the monkeys and had a short swimming session in the lake.

The tour guide then brought us to a place where it was full of eagles flying in the air. We tried to feed them with meet by tossing into the water.

Before getting back to the Langkawi Island, we checked on another little island to enjoy the beach and cam-whoring.

After the island hoping, we checked in to Meritus Pelangi Resort where Mich and I stayed in a King sized bedroom while the other 2 stayed in Twin bedroom.

Being in Langkawi, how can we not visit the Hanging Bridge? Going up the Hanging Bridge, we'll need to take the cable cars which consists of 2 levels.

Scenic view from the middle level...

From the top level, we had to climb a few more hundred steps to reach to the bridge. Gosh, it was exhausting...but everything was worth it when we could enjoy the breeze and the view.

The Titanic feel...

The jumping pose...

For your information, smoking is prohibited...

Coming down from the mountain, we headed to the Pasir Tengkorak Beach where the locals claimed it has the best sand in Langkawi.

The initials of the 4 girls

[To be continued...]

The Islands Up There - Part 1 (Penang)
The Islands Up There - Part 2 (Langkawi)
The Islands Up There - Part 3 (Langkawi)
The Islands Up There - Part 4 (Langkawi)

The Islands Up There - Part 2 (Langkawi)

2008-07-27T14:07:00.004+08:00

On 29th June, we woke up around 6am to have breakfast and catch the early ferry to Langkawi. After partying one night before, waking up early was absolutely torturing.

Around 3 hours later, we could notice a huge Eagle statue standing firmly on the other land. Yes, we have reached the jetty of Langkawi!

From the jetty, we rented a Proton Gen2 for RM160 for 3 days. Extremely good deal, I would say.

The 4 race queens wanna-be

As it was still early to check-in to our hotel, we drove to the famous Makam Mahsuri to experience the history of the Island before exploring to other popular tourist spots around with the help of my GPS.

The 2 girls made a wish at the Telaga Mahsuri (Mahsuri Well).

This museum was mostly showing the story of Mahsuri and the life during that period.

We checked-in to Eagle Bay Hotel (absolutely not recommending this hotel if you have plan to come) and went to the refreshing Durian Perangin Waterfall.

Along the same road, there was this Air Hangat Village where they have natural hot spring for us to dip our feet. Part of the place was under renovation. Probably they are renovating the hot spring swimming pool?

Not sure if it's because of hygienic concerns, we are not allowed to dip our feet straight into the little pool, but to scoop the water out into a pail.

While we were up north, we visited the luxurious Four Seasons Hotel and witnessed a private beach-side wedding which was very simple (because there were no guests invited but only the couple with the priest and ONE witness). Unfortunately, we took all the pictures with Michelle's camera and it all went disappeared mysteriously the next day.

Night time, we went to visit Alan-the-KancilCivic which was coincidentally having their company's trip in Langkawi too. We brought our bottle of Finlandia Vodka and drank at the Westin Hotel's pool side, where Alan was staying.

The ambiance at the poolside was so nice that I fall asleep on the wooden lounge.

[To be continued...]

The Islands Up There - Part 1 (Penang)
The Islands Up There - Part 2 (Langkawi)
The Islands Up There - Part 3 (Langkawi)
The Islands Up There - Part 4 (Langkawi)

The Islands Up There - Part 1 (Penang)

2008-07-22T21:13:00.001+08:00

Early morning, we had to rush to LCCT to catch our flight. It's not something new as we ALWAYS have to rush when it's an early flight. It was a bit scary watching Loo-the-Treasurer's boyfriend (can't remember his name) driving his Honda Civic at 170 km/hr while the 2 pigs, Michelle-the-Belle and Rita-the-Driver, were sleeping 'peacefully' at the back.

It was quite an eventful night for both the pigs as they did not sleep the whole night for partying too much at Nicole's birthday party. What makes the night even more unforgettable was when Mich left her luggage in her own car, which was left in her office. In the end, she had to leave KL with no luggage. Sounds adventurous? Indeed.

Okay, this is the story...Mich parked her car in her office with her luggage, went to party in Nicole's car, left the key in Nicole's car, party party party, dance dance dance, drink drink drink, got tipsy, sway sway sway, yo yo yo, and everyone left home while Mich followed Rita WITHOUT the key. By the time Mich realized her key was missing, they rushed to Nicole's house but obviously Nicole was already having another party in her wonderland and no one could wake her up to open the door.

Anyway, our trip shouldn't be affected by such mishap. We carried on with our plan and reached the airport just on time. *phew*

We reached Penang before 9am and Jen-the-PenangGuide came to fetch us to her home. Smelly Mich took her shower and we headed to our first breakfast in Penang.

We then visited the Wat Chaiyamangalaran...

Inside the temple, they have the same HUGE reclining Buddha like what I saw in Kota Bahru. Slightly smaller than the one in KB of course.

Mich was so fascinated with the Buddha's nail that she wanted to take a picture with the 'Pedicured' nails.

Buddha's nail after Pedicure session

There was another temple just opposite Wat Chaiyamangalaran, the Burmese Temple...

Since we don't really feel like being the tourist in Penang, we skipped all the tourist spots but food. We went to have Char Kuey Teow and went to walk around in Gurney Plaza. Before going home for a rest, we had the popular laksa too.

Glad that Jess-the-FacebookPoker could find time to meet up with us this time.

By now, Nicole has arrived to Penang with her friend in a car bringing Mich's luggage.

As usual, we went to have seafood dinner, and then had the exciting party life joining GimMay-the-Whitey colleagues.

We went home around 3am and we had to wake up early morning tomorrow to catch our ferry at 7:45am to go to Langkawi Island.

[To be continued...]

The Islands Up There - Part 1 (Penang)
The Islands Up There - Part 2 (Langkawi)
The Islands Up There - Part 3 (Langkawi)
The Islands Up There - Part 4 (Langkawi)

The Glass House Forest

2008-07-09T10:35:00.003+08:00

I did another city escape with another bunch of friends on 7th-8th June to Sekeping Serendah. Direct translated as, 'One Piece One Short'. Cool name, huh? Or probably not. But it's certainly a very very fantabulous place to spend a weekend with a big group of friends. Check it out here.

If you are driving there (in which I suppose that's the only way to reach there), it's recommended to drive a fairly higher car as there will be a small stretch of slightly rough road just before reaching the place and the humps were f*cking high that it's probably meant for trucks! We tried to hold our breathe each time when we were going over the humps. That didn't make us any lighter obviously, as we could hear the quirky sound below us. 5 of us were in Mazda 3 and I'm pretty sure you can see all the scratches at the bottom of the car if you could turn the car upside down. *ouch*

The place was not very huge. There were 2 Glass Sheds, 1 Timber Shed and 2 Mud Sheds. As we have 16 of us, we rented 2 Glass Sheds and 1 Timber Shed. Every sheds is air-conditioned except the Glass Sheds.

The Glass Shed (2 Storeys)...

The Timber Shed...

One thing worth mentioning, is the open space shower.

Imagine you are actually naked taking your shower, looking up the sky and saw the canopy leaf. Adrenaline rush like hell. Let's hope there's no monkey falling from the branches though. If you can't imagine, then go check out the place yourself.

My Maxis was totally out of service in such rural place. If you wanna keep in touch with the world while you are in here, get CELCOM cause that was the only service we could get.

At about 5pm, we started to light up our bbq fire. The best part about this place was, we did not have to light it up ourselves. The worker there will help with the ignition and you can happily barbeque your food when it's ready.

The fire was just next to the swimming pool and a dining hall.

The swimming pool was not very huge, but it was smashing.

At first, I was wondering why do they have such uncomfortable frame chair next to the pool...

There was a reason to have such frame chair here. Since there were only 2 levels in this swimming pool, 1 with 4 feet deep and another with 1 foot deep. We can actually put the frame chair onto the 1 foot deep water and you can sit on it. How cool!

That's not just it. As part of us were not swimming, these people were kind enough to bring the food and drinks to us in the pool. So I was basically swimming, while having the bbq food accompanied by beer, sake and liquor at the pool.

Still missing something? YES! The music. And we were well prepared.

Ipod with JBL blasting speaker. (Did i hear a WOW!?)

OMG, it's heaven-like ~~

In that one night, we finished up 1 bottle of 2 litres Sake, 3 bottles of Single Malt Whisky and a bottle of Vodka. I remember there were 2 cartons of beer too, and it's all gone.

It was a great night as we played some games and had a great chat.

The only problem I had throughout this trip was my sleep. I was transferred to stay in Timber Shed from my Glass Shed cause someone got drunk and lost control that night. But what's worse, was my sleep was disturbed by a loud Indian-like music that was played very loud the whole night. I guess I fell asleep around 5am that night.

The next morning, we had light breakfast and continued the swimming and drinking session.

Not sure if they were drunk, as they were trying to play cards in the pool.

In that few hours, they finished another bottle of Single Malt Whisky and a bottle of Black Label. No kidding, these people are real hard core drinkers.

I tried not to touch the water that day as I was a bit lazy to dry up the clothes. Still, I was being thrown into the pool by the machos.

This is one of the best relaxing place that I've ever been to. 100% recommended to come and I don't mind coming again, if anyone of you is planning to go, okay?

New Cinema Rules

2008-07-08T10:55:00.002+08:00

I was in the cinema...

New rules in the cinema:

Violator should be banned from entering the cinema forever.

Peninsula North East Trip - Day 4

2008-07-07T19:45:00.007+08:00

Date : 17th May, 2008.
Places : Cherating - Kuantan.

The last day of the trip was the most relaxing day. We had another round of water splashing before checking out from the resort.

We took another group photo in the resort and left Cherating for Kuantan.

In Kuantan, we went to Medan Selera Teluk Sisek and tried their local dishes.

On the way back to KL, we stopped by Karak and bought some durian bomb and kaya swiss roll from Yik Kee.

We had our final meal of the trip at Tak Fook in Desa Aman, Ampang, before calling everyone off.

Another successfull trip accomplished!