Happy New Year 2009

30 Dec 2008: Just a day to go where 2008 will end. Too many things happened to me throughout the year. Definitely couldn't avoid sadness and disappointment. But let's not to talk about those, I'm here to list down those great and happy moments in year 2008:

1. I've started blogging and have got to know bunch of funny and crazy people out here. Well, you should know who you are. :)

2. Went to Phuket and Krabi with a group of colleague and we had great fun there.

3. Gone up to Mount KK for the 2nd time. The 1st time was 7 years back. Obviously, it was tougher this time around comparing to the 1st attempt. Aging...what else can I blame on.

4. Joined the Turtle Rehabilitation Program organized by UTM. It wasn't as fun as expected, but I've gained a lot knowledge and experience through this program. I want to express my gratitude and appreciation to Prof Chan and all the staff.

5. Very first time participation on Walkathon event at Putrajaya. It was challenging and tiring, but the achievement was priceless.

6. Went down to Singapore and had a very fun and enjoyable trip with Jay, Martin, Steven, Lee and Kenny. You guys are fantastic.

7. Malacca trip. It is always great being together with Alu and Meg regardless of the location.

Above are some of the millions that I could recall for now. 2008 was a good year for me, I should say. How about yourself? Bought myself a watch as a reward for all the hard works done throughout 2008.

Finally, wish every one of you a happy new year 2009. May all your wishes come true in year 2009.

A loving trip to Historical city

27 - 28 DEC 2008: A beloved friend of mine (Alu) was back from UK for her yearly home-visiting. Therefore, Meg has planned for a 2D1N trip to Malacca since Alu misses our local food very much.

On the day itself, I woke up at 7am to pick them up from Cheras to meet Lee at Kajang. We had seafood noodle as breakfast in Cheras before departed to Lee's house, where we reached at around 10am. So 6 of us in 2 cars, drove all the way down South to Malacca. We met with another friend of us (Local Boy) in Malacca and went to Jonker Street for lunch. The traffic in Malacca town was very bad as it was a long weekend and holiday break for most of the people. And I did observe that most of the cars' plate number started with W or B. Damn, Selangor and KL people are just too free, aren't we? Moreover, the weather was terribly hot. I'm always wondering what kind of attraction does Malacca has that attracts so many tourist. Historical architectures? Food? Weather? Handy craft? Can you name me others?

My friends wanted to go for Malacca famous chicken rice ball as lunch, and the queue was horribly long even under the hot sun. Gosh, I'm gonna be a roasted chicken before I'm getting my turn, I was thinking. We queued for around 20 minutes (My skin was burnt) before we seated and served with food. The chicken rice served was pretty normal that we could always get a better serving in KL. And the rice ball looked smaller compared to my last visit. After the meal where most of us were so full, we decided to walk around Jonker Street. Walked down the street, we took quite a lot of light snacks such as Chendol, Machi, Kuih Nyonya, Satay Babi etc. and those foods were really nice I should say.

Checked in to our Hotel (Baba House) which is located next to Jonker Street. Meg done the reservation earlier last few weeks, where this hotel was actually her 2nd choice as the 1st hotel was full. Walked into the lobby, the hotel looked nicely decorated in Baba and Nyoya style. All the furniture and decors matched very well with the theme presented. However, the service given by reception and housekeeping wasn't that pleasant. The 3 rooms reserved weren't ready though we checked in at 4pm. Moreover, the room's condition wasn't as good as shown in their website and the check-out process took ages to complete.

As we've been out since early morning, we decided to take a short nap before our dinner at 7pm. Woke up at 6pm to get myself ready for the evening session where we went for stay celup and fried oyster. As usual, we enjoyed the food very much as these are the famous food in Malacca. After the dinner, Local Boy brought us to the Portuguese Settlement to enjoy the sight-seeing of Christmas decors. The place was packed and those houses were very nicely decorated with lots of creative colorful lightings. And our Prime Minister was there as well for speech and visiting. All of us were very tired that we went back to hotel for rest at 1am.



Woke up at 8:30am the next morning for our breakfast served by hotel. It was a very simple breakfast of breads, scramble egg and coffee/tea. The portion was small that most of us couldn't even felt the food inside our stomach after taken it. Therefore, we went for 2nd round of breakfast at Jonker Street where we took our favourite Asam Laksa. Always love the Asam Laksa here.

Drove back to KL after checked out from hotel so that we could have enough rest before attending a wedding dinner of our course mate at Bankers Club. It was a fun trip with a lot of eating though Malacca itself wasn't a fantastic choice of place considering the bad traffic and hot weather. :)

Roars in Singapore

18/19 DEC 2008: Took LRT from Sungai Besi to Pudu Raya for our 11:50pm bus to Singapore. It has been a year since the last time I took Star LRT, where it just took me 20 minutes from Sungai Besi to Plaza Rakyat; which is pretty fast from my point of view. Talking about the condition of the LRT itself, it didn't really change much in term of cleanliness and comfortable. But I just don't like the slippery metal seats. Anyway, the bus was punctual to depart sharply at 11:50pm where we reached Singapore Custom at 4am. The total of 4 hours journey from KL to Singapore was quite fast that I wasn't sure what the speed was as I was sleeping along the way. Just like that, I entered Singapore with a warm greeting from the custom officer. Singaporean is kind of friendly I was thinking.

Continued our bus journey till the last stop at Lavender where we took MRT from Lavender to Ang Mo Kio, the place where we stayed for the next 3 days. Steven was so nice to offer us a stay at his sister's house where I was deeply touched by his offer. However, I had an unpleasant experience with the MRT counter officer where he was so impatient with my questions that started to give me a bad impression of the people here in the neighborhood country. Upon reached Ang Mo Kio, we took an early breakfast at nearby food court. We took asam laksa recommended by Steven, where it was so tasty at a reasonable price tag of SGD3. Food in Singapore is much cheaper than Malaysia (If you don't convert the currency). Since we have travelled since the night before, we took a nap until 11am before we went for lunch and shopping around City Hall. After few hours of walk, we went to Chinatown to meet with Martin, Lee and Kenny for dinner. We had our dinner at nearby food court (forgotten the place's name) where they ordered quite a lot of famous local food for us to try. I love the fried prawn mee here. After the dinner, we went to a nearby pub for some drinks before headed back home to hit the sack at 11pm.



20 DEC 2008: Woke up at 1oam for breakfast. This time around, I took prawn mee that it was a bit tasteless for my preference. Rested and took a shower before started our journey of the day to Orchard. Met-up with our friends (Lee and Kenny) for lunch at Food Republic where I took beef noodle that turned out pretty tasty. The beef was tender and the sauce was nice. Nothing much we could do for rest of the day apart from shopping as Ochard is a heaven for shoppers. But I bought nothing, hehe. Passed by LV and saw a long queue in front of the boutique. Wow, bet economy wasn’t that bad now I was thinking. We took a short break for hi-tea at a coffee house in front of California Fitness. All of us showed our tired faces, which was kind of cute. Had a long conversation about how health conscious the local people are, while looking at those gym-fit men and women walking in and out of the gym. From the obversation done, I came out with a conclusion that most of the local people have fairer skin color compared with us, though the country itself is just separated by a bridge down Peninsular Malaysia. Headed to Tanjong Pagar for dinner and clubbing until 3am, where we took a taxi back to Ang Mo kia that cost us SGD15. Not too bad I supposed.

21 DEC 2008: It was our last day in Singapore. As all of us slept late the night before, we woke up at 11am for brunch at Ang Mo Kio. I had Mee Siam, which was pretty nice. We walked around AMK Plaza for final shopping. Kenny was so nice to join us after his lunch with family. Packed our stuff and headed to Lavender at 7pm. We were very glad and happy as Martin and Kenny had accompanied us for whole day. We took Thai food as dinner before we sent Martin and Kenny off as we didn't want them to wait until 11:30pm for our bus. Moreover, it was windy that we afraid it might rain. It was sad to say goodbye that we hugged each other. I really hope to see and catch up with them again in a short future.

Martin, Lee and Kenny: Thanks a lot for the hospitality offered and we do appreciate every moment of togetherness with you all.

Visit Singapore 2008

18 DEC 2008: Still remembered the last time I went down to Singapore was December 2007 for the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon, and it was already year ago. Well, another year older for me. Anyhow, I didn't participate in this year’s Marathon as the schedule was too close with the Putrajaya Walkathon. Will try to make it next year, I promise. :)

Today is the day where I will go down for 3D2N trip with the purpose of friends visiting, walk-around and dancing perhaps (follow Twilight’s footstep, hehe). Hopefully, it will be an enjoyable trip this time around. However, I’m kind of worry about the huge congestion at the new Sultan Iskandar CIQ complex, as seen on newspaper. Damn...I just hate human traffic.



See you guys around 3 days later. :)

1st Putrajaya 12-hours Walkathon

13 – 14 DEC 2008: It was a great and meaningful experience for me that I’ve joined the 1st Putrajaya 12-hours Walkathon. I’ve started my training since few weeks back in order to prepare myself for this event. And for the past few days, I was kind of nervous and worried that I couldn’t complete the 24 km limit, as this would be my very 1st walkathon event.

On the day itself, we reached pretty early to Dataran Putrajaya so that we would have enough time to collect our goodies bag and setup our tents. Putrajaya is a very nice place with plenty of wonderfully designed and built bridges and buildings. More than 500 participants had participated in the event where our team consisted of 10 very close friends of mine. For men-open category, we have to complete 24 km within 12 hours to receive the medal. While for women-category, the limit was 18 km.



The walkathon started punctually at 8pm where I took almost 6 hours to complete 24 km with some breaks in between. I felt pretty relax for the 1st 10 km where I walked averagely 11 minutes per km. Took a 15 minutes break after completed 14km for a light dinner cum supper. I could felt the muscle-ache after the short break where the last 10km thereafter was a terrible and painful experience, where it was totally a different experience compared with marathon. I took a short nap at 5am after completed my 25th km and woke up an hour later for another 1 km, where my total distance was 26 km.

It was great that all of us had successfully completed the walk and received our medals. Anyhow, what made us happier was the support given by some other close friends. Thanks a lot to Kia Liang & wife, Ding and Meia who paid us a visit at the middle of night. A small action done that meant a lot for every one of us, especially when we were so tired and de-motivated. It touched deeply, at least for me. The walkathon was officially over at 8am (14th) where the prize-giving ceremony was conducted at 8:30am. And for the lucky draw, I almost got the grand prize as the winner was A036 while my number was A037.



The organizer has done a good job in planning and organizing the whole event. Simple food such as fried mihun, fried rice, nuggets, sausages etc. were served along the event with some remote toilets located at various locations around the route. However, the weather was bad with some rains at the middle of night where we felt glad that we had our tent ready.

I’m still feeling tired and sleepy now though. Guess it will take some time for full recovery. And for all my team mates, I love every one of you and you all are always the best!!!

Shop more to boost economy growth?

11 DEC 2008: It was a public holiday for Selangor to celebrate our Sultan's birthday. Therefore, I went to Mid Valley with family with the main purpose to exchange some SGD for my trip down to Singapore next weekend. We reached there at 11am and the parking spaces were almost full. I was in luck today that could get my car parked within 10 minutes.

The crowd was as expected since it was a holiday where long queue was seen everywhere from boutiques to restaurants. Looked at those shoppers with paper bags from branded boutiques, I was wondering how bad the economy could be nowadays. MNG was terribly packed with their "Up to 50%" sales (Hehe, my sisters went for it), G2000 was pretty quiet, ZARA has no sales going on...sales everywhere!!!

Anyway, I think Mid Valley has done a great job on Christmas decors that the Center Court was nicely decorated with some huge Christmas trees with a stage surrounded by artificial animals, which has became a popular spot for photograph. We were there for almost a whole day until 4pm. A tiring day it was.



After some noon-nap, I joined few close friends for dinner at Seri Petaling to discuss on preparation for the 12-hours walkathon. It's just 2 days to go and I'm a little bit nervous now. Really hope it'll be a fun and memorable experience.

2D1N Kukup trip

7 DEC 2008: Woke up at 5:30am for breakfast with family and waited for the bus to arrive at 7am. It was such a pain to get my butt up at this hour. The bus was quite punctual to arrive 10 minutes after 7, where we started our journey down to the south. As we were the last pick-up point that most of the front seats have been occupied, I took a seat at the back with a younger cousin of mine.

We reached the 1st destination at around 11am, which was a temple located in Batu Pahat. I’ve heard a lot about this place from my relatives, where there's a myth about those fishes in the temple that a single touch on them will give you a good luck. Some of my aunties do hit 4D after their previous trip here. The very 1st impression when I saw the pond was that…such a small artificial pond it is, while lot of people laid themselves around the pond just to touch those fishes. Some simple instructions when you happen to go there someday; Just lay down, put you hand into the water and waiting for those fishes to swim through your fingers, and wait for the good luck to come. Interesting enough? You might lost one of your finger, but who cares as you might win millions ringgit later. It was silly but we had a lot of fun and laughter. Talking about the temple itself, it was nicely built with some colorful statues of gods located around the temples.



After taken our lunch, we proceeded to the 2nd destination that was another temple (again!!!). I have no idea what to talk about this temple as I’m not so religious. I did nothing here other than snapped around with my camera.



After stucked inside the bus for 10 hours, we finally reached Kukup at around 5pm. I could felt the pain all over my body, from my back to ass, down to my feet. I immediately smelt the “fresh” air from the fishing village nearby the minute stepped my feet on the ground. We proceeded to a light dinner at one of the restaurant as there would be another round of seafood BBQ at 8pm. Nothing could be done at night time here apart from some mahjong and karaoke while I played with PSP most of the time.

8 DEC 2008: Woke up at 6:30am for breakfast at 7am, as we supposed to have a tour to nearby fish ponds. However, the tour was cancelled due to the heavy rain since the night before. It was bad for us as there were no other entertainments around. Therefore, we slowly took our long-hours breakfast and packed our stuff before checked out at 10am. Along the way back, we had a few stops at Malacca (lunch) and Seremban (dinner) where we finally reached home at 9pm. Home sweet home...

Bye Bye KL

6 DEC 2008: I was a bit tired after a whole day of babysitting my nephew. We have done some shopping, car test-drive, cycling, eating and couldn't miss sleeping as well. A very enjoyable day I should say.

By the way, I'll be leaving the town tomorrow early morning down to Johor for family trip. It's a 2D1N trip to Kukup Island since Monday is a public holiday. Damn, should put the blame on my bad geographic knowledge that I have never heard of this place before . For those of you who been to this place before, any idea where is it and how great is this place?

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Dinner and drinking sessions with Bloggers

4 DEC 2008: Met up with Anton and sbanboy for dinner at one of the Shabu-shabu restaurant in Bandar Puteri. Felt sorry as I was late by 15 minutes due to the unexpected traffic (Hehe, normal excuse for Malaysian I guess). We quickly ordered some foods as all of us were hungry till can finish a whole lamb. The food served was fine but I like that Kimchi soup the most (with additional cost of course). Proceeded to nearby Station 1 for another round of drink after dinner.

A lot conversations happened throughout the night and I had wonderful time being with both of them. However, one bad thing about them that made myself felt unknowledgeable where they had so much thoughts and opinions on various subjects while I was keeping my mouth shut most of the time. Hope I didn't bore them. But hey, don't we always learn from the best? And yes, I did learn something from our conversations. Thanks man.

Here are some of the photos taken by sbanboy as he brought his compact camera along. Well, he has got a good skill that most of the photos of mine turned out pretty slim and nice. Nice job man.

PS: Not dare to post those photos of them as they might kill me.

Nephew 4th Birthday Celebration

2 DEC 2008: Today was a special day for my whole family as we've celebrated my nephew's 4th birthday at nearby restaurant. As the dinner started at 7:30pm, I still managed to have a short jog after work, as part of training for the 12 Hours Walkathon at Putrajaya next week. Wish me luck!!

The dinner was lovely that my brother-in-law ordered quite a lot dishes that were more than enough for 12 of us. My nephew was so happy throughout the night and so do I.

Happy Birthday my dear!!!

Snapped some photos with my lovely nephew and niece before the dinner.

Understanding subconscious and body language

1 DEC 2008: Time really flies that we are in the last month of 2008. As a preparation for my next year's income tax, I bought 2 books from MPH last week as I've got a RM100 voucher during my company dinner last June. Anyway, one of the book is about body language and another one is a about dreams. Well, don't get me wrong that I ain't a day dreamer (Although sometimes I did), but it happens sometimes that I have some weird dreams, which I really wish to know what do those dreams meant to be. Sounded a bit silly but some people does believe that dream is actually a kind of communication between our subconscious and reality. I couldn't explain too much here as I'm just reaching page 11 of the book.

Once I've mastered this knowledge, perhaps I could provide FOC dream interpretation service for every one of you. What an ambitious me.



I went out with my elder brother after work to buy a bicycle as a birthday gift for my nephew. We've celebrated his birthday together for the past 3 years and tomorrow will be 4th. I really hope that we could keep this going every year, and nothing happier than seeing him grows up day by day.

My precious, uncle really loves you so much.