SAEL

28 MAR 2010: It was a usual Sunday where I would went out for breakfast with family, followed by shopping at nearby shopping mall. I was a little tired indeed after the outing on the night before even though I went off from the club at 12am++.

Anyhow, I saw a banner put up by this skin care shop when I was walking around with sister and nephew. Something wrong I felt. I only realized the mistake made on the second look. OMG, how could they make such a silly mistake? Are those staff really blind of it was purposely done to attract attention. If it’s the latter, at least they are kind of successful to attract my attention.



Anyhow, did you realize whether other branches are using the same marketing strategy?

New Family Member

24 MAR 2010: Let me introduce the latest addition of my family member, who is a nephew of mine.



After 9 months of waiting, he was finally born yesterday. He came a week earlier than expected, that gave me a big surprised receiving a SMS from my sister at early morning.

Left office earlier and drove over to KL after work to pay him and the mum a visit. Though it took us an hour plus to get there within the bad traffic condition, but seeing his face makes it worth everything.

A mixed feeling I had actually. I was very happy for my brother and of course for having another nephew, but it was kinda painful to accept the truth that I’m getting older apparently. Give myself a pat on my own shoulder, telling that I can do nothing but to accept and live my life better.

Hope he grows to be a healthy and better man.

Flowery New Year

12 FEB 2010: Been a quiet morning today. The traffic was very smooth and the office is being so peaceful now. I just love it this way.

As all the shopping malls have their own theme when it comes to CNY décor, I think my family is trying to follow the same trend too. And our theme for this year is “FAT FA DIN (發花癲)”. Have no idea where and when that my father gets all those flowers from. Previously I’ve seen only one pot at the corner of the living room. And when I woke up this morning and walked down from my room, ya allah…another big one besides the TV, the whole tree lagi tu. Probably my father wants to get me more “TOU FA WAN (桃花运)” for this coming year, LOL.



How about your house décor? Done anything spectacular or extra ordinary?
BTW, Happy Chinese New Year to all of you.

Hong Kong (2007 vs 2010)

15 - 21 JAN 2010: Went to HK for 7D6N trip with family. Took quite a lot of photos over the week even though I was there 3 years back. Went to some of those same places again as my 2nd sister and nephew were along this time around (They didn't go 3 years back). The weather was lovely (13-18C). Anyhow, not much of shopping this time around as those outlets were selling mostly winter clothes.

Coincidencely, took some photos at the same places as 3 years back. Therefore, I tried to put those together to see my changes over the past 3 years. Guess nothing much changed apart from being an older me now.

These are the selected shots of my nephew over the trip. Such a naughty but photogenic little boy he is.

Well, when and where will be my next trip?

Christmas Weekend

24 DEC 2009: It was a Christmas Eve and an off day for me; therefore I brought my nephew for a walk and picnic at a park in Cyberjaya. It’s a very nice park that I used to jog here pretty often before I joined gym. Packed some snacks and drinks along as I knew my nephew would be tired running around as there’s a huge playground within the park.

Sitting at a corner while watched him running around the playground, realized that he has grown up a lot. A much taller and heavier him now that I could hardly carry him around anymore; means an older me nowadays too. We spent about 2 hours within the park, and of course cam whored a little. Think my nephew has the potential on cam whoring, what do you think?



25 DEC 2009: Friends invited me to stay-over in Genting on the night of Christmas Eve, where we had a little party with gift-exchanged. I bought a gift and wrapped it nicely. Think the wrapping is comparative with Danny’s wrapping lo, hehe. And during the trip only I realized that Genting has strawberry farm too.

Among all those gifts below, which do you think is mine?

Fun Time with Cups and Cakes

12 NOV 2009: Wanted to bake egg tart initially, but cousin came over to my house over the weekend. So I thought it would be fun to try cupcakes instead. It didn’t take me long to prepare those ingredients like butter, flour, sugar, lemon etc with help of my cousin. Being a lazy her normally, I was surprised that she has been very attentive and helpful for the whole process.

Cousin was a little worried initially as it was our 1st time of baking cupcakes, but it turned out nicely on par with those selling by bakery..LOL. With a little creativity on the frosting, the cupcakes even looked more appearing



What do you think of the cupcakes, considering it was my 1st attempt of baking cupcakes?

My BIG Day

28 SEP 2009: It’s my birthday today, but I chose to work instead of staying at home. A quite day with gloomy weather that allow me to flash back some of the memory for the past 30 years. It was 20 years back since my mum left us, 9 years since I graduated from Degree and all the things that I’ve done and gone through throughout these years. I remember a conversation over a radio last few days about what age is considered old for guy/lady. And one of DJ said we’re old when we start to flash/talk back about our old time. Ouch….is it what I’m doing now? Time really flies I would say.

I’m always glad that I have a great and supportive family/relatives and friends being around me, where they had organized some birthday celebrations for me over the weekend.

1. Lunar birthday celebration with family and relatives. Lovely dinner and had a great time with all of them, always.

2. Went for short hike with friends at Cheras, and they threw me a little surprise celebration.

3. Monthly birthday celebration with close friends. 4 September babies celebrated our birthday together. Nothing is better than sharing the happiness with a group of close friends.

4. Celebration with buddies and gym mates at Karaoke. They had a great time with the singing where I was just being an audience.

Those celebrations were fantastic and this would definitely be a memorable year for me. Thanks everyone for always being there for me.

Potential Baker vs Home Chef

17 SEP 2009: You know, the cheapo me always have all sort of cards within my wallet. Put away those credit cards with some bad debts, I have lots other cards like Bonuslink, JuscoCard etc. The purpose is not other than collecting points to redeem for free gifts.

As my Bonuslink points have accumulated up to 13k and some points will get expired soon, I was looking at the newsletter for choices of gift redemption. I was quite interested on the oven, as I always wanted to bake cakes and cookies. Well, I did bake before (I mean years back) and it was such a disaster. The cake turned out like a “kuih” (*&#*&@()*$@, shame me!). But hey, failure is the “mother” of success and who knows I might have potential on bakery.

On the other side, my busybody dad wants to get a Food Steamer. Oh yeah, he always love this kind of kitchen gadget. But these gadgets would end up at the corner of store room after few times of usage as he would normally gave up after few failure attempts. My dad and gadget just couldn’t get along well.



The indecisive me is scratching my head now for choices between “OVEN” and “FOOD STEAMER”. What say you?

4D3N Chiang Mai trip

31 Aug 2009 : DAY 01 - ARRIVAL CHIANGMAI

Took the morning AA flight to Chiang Mai (Around 3 hours). Warm welcome by the tour guide (Mr. Siao Ma) who spoke mandarin. First destination was Doi Suthep temple that located in the west of Chiangmai city on Doi Suthep, 929 feet above sea level. As we have a senior visitor with us, we took the tram car up to the temple. You can choose to climb up the 300 steps by yourself though. It was a wonderful 1st day with fascinating view of Chiang Mai town and chilling fresh air at this temple.

After the trip, we went for a Khantoke Dinner where we were served with Northern Thai food accompanied with cultural Lanna-Style Performance during the dinner. Checked in to our hotel (Centara Duang Tawan Hotel).

1 SEP 2009: DAY 02 – CHIANGRAI DAY-TRIP
Woke up at 630am for early breakfast at hotel and headed to Chiang Rai via Van, which took around 4 hours drive.1st drop off point was Mae Kajan Hot Spring, which didn’t give me any surprise. Stayed for 30 minutes and went to 2nd destination, which was White Temple (Rong Khun Temple). As it was rained at the time we reached, we happily carried our umbrella and walked around the temple. It is a very beautiful temple with all white in color, which is very different from typical temple around Thailand; a must visit place if you happen to come here. Proceed with lunch nearby The Golden Triangle, which is the intersection between Mekong River and Kong River (The border of Thailand, Vietnam and Laos). Took a boat ride to a small village located in Laos, which has nothing much there apart some stalls selling local-made souvenirs. Another 4 hours drive back to Chiang Mai. And yeah, I managed to hit the hotel’s gym for an hour of workout. The night ended with shopping along the night market.

2 SEP 2009: DAY 03 - CHIANGMAI
After breakfast went to visit Orchid & Butterfly Farm before we proceed to Ban Tong Luang (Mix Hill Tribes village) to visit those Chiang Mai famous long-neck people. The village was nice and clean, where the whole village was actually supported by government. There were some nice looking ladies, but most of them were married with kids. Anyhow, I think the village was too commercialized and kind of loss its culture. The next destination was Elephant Camp in a Natural Park, which was quite an interesting place to visit where we were entertained with some performances by those well trained elephants. Took our lunch and visited some bird nest and honey manufacturers before visited the final destination of the day, which was San Kham Pang Village (Home Industries). This village has assorted size and design of those paper-made umbrellas. The umbrella was nicely painted with assorted design and colors. Had dinner and did our final shopping at night market.

3 SEP 2009: DAY 04 - DEPARTURE DATE
After breakfast, packed our stuff and happily flew back to KL.

Sg Gabai day trip & Adidas KOTR Goodies Collection

26 JULY 2009: My 2nd trip to Sg Gabai for these 2 months (Went there last month with a group of friends) but this time around was with family and relatives. Slept at 3am the night before due to clubbing, but woke up at 8am to prepare myself as a driver.

It took around an hour of drive from Serdang to Sg Gabai. A lot of fruit stalls along the way selling mostly durian, mangosteen and cempedak. Reached the destination and they charged us RM1 per person for the carpark/entry. Just paid it since we’ve already there, and then we have to walk up hundreds of staircases to the best picnic spot (carrying food and drinks). The waterfall was nice but I think they need to put more effort to maintain the facilities i.e. toilet. Had our picnic and spent few hours there before we drove back to Serdang. We dropped by at the Hot Spring on the way back, where the place was packed with aunties and uncles. Some of them even brushed their teeth there…so funny.



29 JULY 2009: Adidas KOTR run will be held on 2nd of August at Shah Alam. My friends and I drove over to Stadium Shah Alam to collect the goodies bag. The line was quite long when we reached, but we still patiently queue for it. Anyhow, we were still standing at the same spot after 10 minutes and we started to loss our patience. Even the pakcik who stood in front of us also complained about it. Anyhow, nothing much inside the goodies bag apart from a running shirt, bib and RM50 Adidas voucher. But I do really like the shirt given this year, which it's very well designed and sharp in colour (Orange + blue stripes).

Note: I took the M size and it’s so damn tight. Think I have to diet for whole week to fit into the shirt on this Sunday.

Family Sport Day

10 MAY 2009: Over the past week, my nephew has been telling a lot about this sport day and keeps asking me go for support. I didn’t give him an answer but I’m very sure in my heart that I will definitely go; just to give him a surprise since this is his very 1st sport day.

On the day itself, my sister and bro-in-law had to be there earlier for the registration. I reached a bit later at 10am, walked quietly towards him and hugged him. He was very surprised to see me and gave me a big hug and kiss. He is such a lovely boy. He participated in 2 team games, and won gold and bronze medals respectively. BRAVO my kid!!!!



He’ll always have my support on such an event in the future.

The Power of Mini Abacus

2 MAY 2009: Went to Thean Hou Temple with family and relatives. My dad always wanted to pay a visit there during Chinese New Year but we weren’t able to do so due to some reasons. Finally, we went there because my relatives wanted to buy a mini abacus (it’s actually a key chain). An uncle of mine said the abacus helps to improve his company’s business (Maybe it’s a feng shui thingy that I shall verify this with granny Twilight). Hearing this, all my relatives were so tempted to get one in order to have the same luck.

Anyhow, I was just a driver on the day itself that I was so blur and sleepy, as I slept at 4am the night before due to clubbing. Anyhow, I was still able to camwhore a bit just to show my sleepy face. :)

Cheng Meng: Grave Sweeping

29 MAR 2009: Cheng Meng is one of the traditional Chinese festivals. It’s a day to remember and honor our ancestors where we pray before the ancestors, sweep the tombs and offer food, tea, wine, chopsticks, (joss) paper accessories, and/or libation to the ancestors.

It was a tough morning for me where I woke up at 5am to get everything ready. Drove out at 10 5:50am, passed by stalls to buy some foods and reached the cemetery at 6:30am. The crowd was expectedly lesser comparing last year, as people said it wasn’t an auspicious day for grave visiting. As usual, we started with my grandparents’ grave and followed by my mum. Weather was nice with cold morning wind blowing occasionally. Looked at my mum’s grave, it has been 20 years since she left us. Wow, 20 years…and I’m getting much older/mature now.

Finished the grave sweeping at 10am and proceed with breakfast at shop nearby.

Are You Sincere Enough to "Ask"?

23 MAR 2009: I have always been asked the same question lately:

"What happened to both of you? "

For those who really care about me, I did explain a bit to show my appreciation for their concern. However, there were minority of them who asked this with the purpose of gossiping. The answer I gave them was:

"No comment. And you don’t have to bother."

Perhaps you might think that I was being bad. Or you might wondering how would I differentiate between those who really care and not. Well, think twice before asking question next time as people could really feel your sincerity.



Had a family dinner last Friday at nearby restaurant. I paid for the bill to show my gratitude for their support and understanding. We had a great time as it was quite long since the last time we had dinner all together. Here is my latest camwhore with nephew. :)

KL Towerthon 2009...Confirmed

16 FEB 2009: Finally received an email from my friend (TCM) that confirmed my registration and participation in the KL Towerthon 2009, which will be held on the 1st of March 2009 at KL Tower. This will be my 1st time joining the Towerthon event. Therefore, I’m not really sure about the procedures, just knew that I have to run about one kilometer uphill before climbing 2,058 steps to reach Tower Head 3 at 288 meter above ground level. Sounds fun but tough isn’t it? With all those mixed feeling of excitement cum anxiety cum challenging, I’ve started my training aka jogging today at the nearby park after work. Hopefully 2 weeks are enough for me to catch up the stamina required.

Anyone who will join this Towerthon? Let me know and maybe we can meet up for a chit chat after reaching the top.



Went for a family outing last Sunday to Putrajaya where our 1st stop was at Alamanda followed by Satay lunch at “Taman Warisan Pertanian”. Took some photos that I would love to share with you guys here. Looking at those photos of my nephew and niece taken, I've realized that they have really grown up a lot, especially my niece. She is now exactly a mini version of her mum aka my elder sister. Bet she will grow up as another sweet and beautiful princess.

I'm "HOT"

4 FEB 2009: Lot of things happened during the past week that had taken away my time and attention on blogging. During the 1st few days of Chinese New Year, things went kind of smooth that this isn’t a bad year after all for me; I was thinking. A lot of visiting done and hell yeah, I went to Sunway Lagoon with family and we had a great fun day there. The consequence was that I’ve got a much tanner skin. It’s gonna take me a real long period to get fairer.

Started work on the 5th day where it was an auspicious day according to my friend. I was the 1st to reach office before 9am and couldn’t see much Chinese around for the rest of the day. Damn, that friend must have played fool on me. It’s fine anyway as I went out for lunch with few colleague at Alamanda. And we were so proud and happy that Nando had acknowledged us as their “HOT STAFF”. Look at the photo taken if you don’t buy this. :)



As we all known, life is full of ups and down. Same thing goes to relationship that it could be very fragile. My sister broke up with her long time bf (Mr. H) after 7 years of togetherness. It was a real bad news for the whole family as Mr. H has been part of our family for the past 7 years. He is quite a shy and kind-hearted guy, with bad temper however. And I wouldn’t deny that he has been such a great company for us and I do recognize all his contributions to us. However, they should know the real problems between them better than anyone of us does. As an elder brother, I felt bad that I couldn’t do much than gave her some lame advices (as I’m bad in relationship thingy as well). Frankly, I dislike seeing tears and hatred when it comes to break-up but it seems that they didn’t handle this well enough. There’re still some hu ha thingy going on until nowadays, that I hope these 2 young fella can really move on their own life and live better each day. Best wishes to both of them.

And for Mr. H, we’ll always be friends of yours and our door is always open for you.

Spring Haircut

14 JAN 2009: Since everybody is so busy with spring cleaning, spring shopping bla bla bla, which are all related to spring, I therefore went for a "spring" haircut today. Not much difference comparing to previous cut (being a conservative me), but this would be my look when meeting all my relatives and friends on coming CNY.

CNY is a festive season with lot of happiness, enjoyment, fun, gambling, eating, which are all good apart from being asked the same old million dollar questions by those aunties again:

Auntie A: Aiyo, where is your gf?
Me: Don't have ler, do you wanna intro one to me?
Auntie A: Sure not? So leng chai you are.
Me: Doh.....

Auntie B: Fast2 get married and give ang pow lor, so old de.
Me: Not old la, still wanna take your ang pow for the next 5-7 years.
Auntie B: Choi...

Trust me, still the same old them and me. No surprise...
Anyone with same experience here? Mind to share how did you handle these kind of questions for me to give them some surprises this year..hehe.

Brand new year, brand new day

31 DEC 2008: It was the last day of year 2008 and I didn't have any plan until the day before that my ex-colleague invited me for a steamboat session at her house in Kepong. Therefore, I said yes without too much of consideration and hesitation.

Woke up at 7am on the day itself to buy some vegetables and assorted balls from nearby wet market. As I wasn’t an expert on the market thingy, I just chose whatever that I like to eat especially “meat balls”. Since some of the materials were not available in wet market, I went for another round of shop at Jusco during noon. After taken a short nap, I drove all the way to Kepong where reached Kepong's Jusco at 7pm but some of the other friends didn’t show up until 9am. What a late dinner for me on New Year eve. All of us had a nice chit-chat after dinner until 12am for the countdown before dismissed. I always love this kind of light outing and dining.



1 JAN 2009: A very first morning of year 2009 that I woke up early at the morning for breakfast with family. A very simple breakfast of soup noodle (No more Ah Yat dim sum, hehe). As one of my family’s routine is to go for shopping after breakfast, we went to Alamanda for groceries shopping and walk-around. Bet my nephew loves this session the most where he could run around happily around the mall. Speaking about Alamanda, I didn’t walk out from the building normally but it was abnormal today that I was attracted by the bamboo trees planted along the walkway of one of the exit. How good if I could fly around as what shown in “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon”, I was thinking.



It was my daddy’s birthday on 31st Dec that most of the time we would celebrate it on 1st of Jan. Hehe, sounded odd huh. You know, New Year eve is a working day that most of us couldn’t make it on-time for dinner due to massive traffic. Therefore, 1st of Jan is always the best day for celebration.

It was his 64th birthday celebration and he has done an excellent job as a father of 5 kids for the past 36 years. Sat beside him during the dinner, I could see his face clearly that his hair is getting thinner and whiter, more wrinkles found, and his tummy is getting bigger; but his smile is still as warm as always. Since my mum passed away when I was 10, we had gone through the toughest time together. I really appreciate that he was always beside me whenever I needed him the most and I believe this would be the biggest achievement of him that I’ll never accomplish in my life.



Daddy, thanks and I LOVE you...

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...