Selamat Hari Merdeka ke 51

I would like to wish all Malaysian Selamat Hari Merdeka ke 51.

Perpaduan Teras Kejayaan.

ps: I hope that this picture stands through the test of time

Cendol oh cendol

After friday prayers, i went back to the office through the road from the Coliseum heading towards the EPF (you know, the US style road direction). Stopped by a stall selling cendol drink. The cost is RM1.30 now. My friend told me that it used to cost less last time. But for the price of RM 1.30, the taste is awesome. Furthermore, the brader also included corns inside the cendol drink. Try it for yourself before the fasting month. Cukup berpuas hati : )

Excellent !!!

Winner of Permatang Pauh By Election

Barney can kickass all politicians

As me and wifey were already in front of the tv to catch the result of Permatang Pauh by election, guess who’s the winner in Sofea’s (child) eyes? Yup, for her Barney the Purple Dinosaur was the clear winner of the election. No need to shout, throw bottle, spit, slander and other sort of stuff that they do in the the most violent election ever held in Malaysia.

It’s just so nice to stop and think and look at a more simpler life. I sometimes wonder why can’t we have a simple clear thinking of what our child have. Why do we need to fight amongst ourselves. Our number are not that many in this world but yet we still fight with each other. In the end we ourselves are going to be extinct. Come on people, wake up and smell the reality. Why can’t we unite, especially the malay’s. Why can’t we have that unity feeling when we were all cheering for Malaysia during the Commonwealth Games 1998 or perhaps during the badminton battle between Lee Chong Wei and Lin Dan?

A few days ago I read in the newspaper a so called pious dude conducted a Solat Hajat (Request prayer) along with a few thousand people asking Allah to destroy certain people just for the sake of this by election. Oh my God! Astaga. You are praying for Allah to destroy your own brothers, be it in Islam or Malay? What has the Malay people of Malaysia become? Did he include in his prayers to help other Muslim brothers in such as in Palastine and Iraq as well? As far as I know, Not. That kind of prayers would be way better of, but instead, he choose to request that certain individual be destroyed by God. If the individual has done something wrong, why didn’t he prayed for them to be shown the correct path? Shame on you dude.

Sometimes it’s just best to see from our children’s perspective views and thinking. Hence that is why Barney was the clear winner of this by election in the eyes of my daughter.

Sofea can see Barney even with her eyes close

3rd Wedding Anniversary

MSI Wind U90 vs Nokia E71

My wedding anniversary is not today but on 6 August. Obviously this is a retro entry. I have not had much extra time to blog around during office hours these days as the new management makes us work till the last bit of out energy and time.

I have been asking wifey what would she really like for her anniversary and she did give me a few choices or option. One of them being an original Coach / LV handbag which costs a bomb. And for me, hey it’s just another handbag only that it’s the original stuff. The bottom line for me, it’s just another handbag. Most of the people probably won’t believe it’s the real thing anyway.

But than it came to her just before a few days of our anniversary that she hinted she wanted a new phone. A PDA / Blackberry type of phone. Coincidentally a colleague of mine just bought a brand new Nokia E71 which had a full qwerty keyboard features, 3G, Wifi and a cool slim looking look. I didn’t gave it a serious thought at first but seems that from the reaction of her face when I mentioned it, I could read the message clearly.

Coincidentally that the day before our anniversary, I went over to Low Yat Plaza on a CCTV footage retrieval mission and for no reason I stop and asked a few shops on the price. The 3rd shop gave me the best price as compared to the other two. After thinking about it, I guess it would make a great 2 in 1 gift. Because that it is quite pricey, the present will be covering for 2 occasion which is anniversary and her birthday as well.

I surprised wifey at exactly 12am on 6th August 2008. She was already asleep at the sofa by then. I kept quiet about it and did not mentioned that I have already bought it. So surprise!!! She did like it a lot and have used it the next morning.

When I was at Low Yat, those two things weren’t just the things that I was looking for. As I was surveying for a Kodicom CCTV DVR card, I came across a few shops selling these new nettops or netbook. A small version of laptop. At first I was eyeing on the Acer Aspire One with Hard Disk and Windows XP. Unfortunately, the model that came with the hard disk and windows is only due sometime at the end of the year. So I came across a this new cool netbook. The MSI Wind.

It features an Intel Atom processor, a 8.9” display, an 80GB hard drive, a 1GB RAM and weighs at only 1kg. How cool is that. This is basically the same spec that is offered from Acer except that it hasn’t arrived yet. The next best competitor is the Asus 901 which has nearly the same spec but looses out in terms of disk capacity. So, I guess we can forget about the Acer Aspire One and the Asus.

So after hinting it to wifey, she agrees to return the same as this is a 2 in 1 gift. Fair enough and the pricing is almost identical. So we went over to Imbi plaza to purchase the netbook during the weekend. Finally we made a bargain at an middle east sales guy shop as it offered a lot of goodies compared to other shops.

So at the end of the day, both of us were happy with our 2 in 1 gifts. So Happy 3rd Anniversary honey and may our marriage lasts forever.

ps: Our wedding anniversary falls on the same day that Mawi was crowned the AF3 champion.

PCM Gathering @ Titiwangsa 3rd August 2008

Again this year I have been “forced” to join wifey and her cyber friends with the perkahwinan.com.my aka PCM gathering. This year it’s held at Tasik Titiwangsa as opposed to the Lake Garden last year. Only this time I have a pal along with me which is Sofea. Well, last year she was around except that she couldn’t walk but just lying down on the ground Luckily she is around as I am the type of the anti-social type of person.

The event was scheduled to be held at 9am till 11am. We reached there around 9.10am. The picnicking crowd were already down at the grass on their mat. Like last year it was a pot luck event. Wifey brought her specialty of Trifle.

And I forgot to mention that the theme was red. So we get to watch everyone dressed up in red. It was just a usual get together gathering event except that it had an gift exchange program this year. As I did not know anyone, I just tried to behave the best that I can.

As usual, Sofea does not like to stay put in one place. So I followed her around up and down the hill. There were even a band practice in conjunction with the World Marching Band event. An additional bonus I guess as we get to see them practice.

We finally left the event around 12pm after finally finishing up the event and mingling around. I could say that this years event was better than last year due to the location and weather condition which technically is hot and warm. But the placement of the setup was better as compared to last year. Overall it was an okay event.

Where are those Jalur Gemilang ?

My flag on my wajabee

With only a few days left before the 51st Merdeka Day, the Jalur Gemilang flags have started to be put up all around buildings and houses. But what I see lack is the flag flying on cars. They were not as many as they were as compared to 10 years ago. Back then, the flags were quite expensive. I remember a housemate of mine bought it for me (which I paid back) for the flag that cost RM8.90. At that time, I guess they were quite expensive with the economic instability. But I can see a lot of those flags flying around on cars, bus and trucks back then..

But seems for this year, not many vehicle owners put up their flags on their vehicles. I don’t know what is the problem anyway. A flag for your car which can be bought at MyDin only cost Rm1.90. That’s RM7.00 cheaper back in the 90’s but yet very few put them on. Surely the flags mean something to everyone.

Is it because they are not patriotic, too lazy to buy the flags, scared of scratching their cars or maybe they put it up but then the flag flew away? For me, this is the second flag that I have put up since the first one flew away at Raub after attending a friends wedding. Come on rakyat Malaysia, think of it as a festival where this is the only time you get to put up flags on your car. With the national flag on your car, it doesn’t matter what car you’re driving. They will certainly look good and fabulous. So come on, fly those flags. Throw away your political believes. The flag is the symbol of the nation.

Selamat Hari Merdeka ke 51. Perpaduan Teras Kejayaan.

Hong Kong Trip - finale

As for the coming week, I am totally on my own in another’s man country as wifey has returned back to KL. Yup, it’s just me. So for the balance 6 days that I have, I decided to make the most out of it. Right after class, I did go out and enjoyed what can be enjoyed at Hong Kong at night time.

I re-watched the Festival of Lights on Monday, again at the Golden Bauhnia square, near the HK Exhibition Centre. And this time, I was ready with the D60 in my hands and the broadcast for the day was in English. Even though this is the second time watching the show, I never get bored of it. Somehow it is a very enjoyable show to watch. I wouldn’t mind watching it every night.

As for Tuesday, I decided to visit the Night Market again but not at Mong Kok or Ladies Street. First I visited Sham Shui Po where I read in a brochure that they sell lots of electrical stuffs either brand new or even second hand. So I decided to have a go. What did I discovered there? Lot’s and lot’s of electrical items. From cables to DVD players, to mobile phone’s to amplifier and all sort of stuffs. It was heaven for me. If I have not been careful with spending, I would have bought a lot of cool stuffs. But luckily my consciousness kicked in, so I just settled for a few cables for DVD and Astro as they are quite costly in KL. Before heading back, I stopped by at the famous Men’s Street at Yau Ma Tei. It’s just like Ladies street only it’s a smaller version. The stuff sold there are more focused on men’s interest as opposed to Ladies street. By that time, the weather was quite windy.

By the time I reached back at the Hotel, the Hong Kong Meteorology department (I think) has already issued the warning Typhoon signal to no. 8. Well basically no 8 means that it is quite serious. This is due to the moving wind of Typhoon Feng Shuen which hit the Philipines a few days back ago. Never imagined in my life that I would experience such weather. Basically, this means that class will be postponed as stated earlier by the HK police and the course outline that was issued earlier to us.

So for the next morning, the class was postponed until the authorities lowered the signal back to no3 and class resumed as usual at 2pm. Because wifey had requested a few thing to buy at Mong Kok, I did go out anyway to purchase them. It was business as usual but not all of the shops were in business as a few of the shops were quite damaged due to the typhoon that whacked them earlier. Nonetheless, I did finish shopping and headed back.

For the day before the Examination and Graduation day, I just couldn’t just sit in the room all night. So I walked out in Wan Chai area and had dinner in a muslim Chinese restaurant. On the way back to the hotel, I came across a plaza that sells PC and console games. Wow, another hit. This is just one of my interest as well but as I wasn’t into PS3 at the moment, I guess a window shopping would do fine. So for the rest of the night I stayed up all night until 2am to study. Yeahh!!! Woohooo!!!

So the day had finally arrived. The examination and graduation day. But in order to graduate, I need to score 70% on my examination. The question’s prepared by the HK police was quite tough and tricky. Plus, my partner would be doing the same questions but in a different random order. Never expected that. For the practical examination, luckily we would covertly cooperated with each other. Lucky enough, all from the class pass the examination and qualified for graduation. So at 2.30pm on Friday the graduation took place. It was finally over. 2 weeks of drilling brains and calculation bits and bytes were finally over. We enjoyed the rest of the evening by talking to each other and exchanged contacts. You never know you might come across each other’s pass some day and at the same time expanded my networking friends in overseas.

As Friday was the last day that I would spend the night in Hong Kong, I decided to make the most out of it. It has always been hard for me to say goodbye to a place that I really like. I would usually spend some time admiring the view from afar and at the same time think hard on what’s to come. What better place to be than to re-visit the Peak. This time I managed to head up to the Sky Terrace to enjoy the magnificent view of Hong Kong Island from evening till the sun set. The view was spectacularly amazing to see those tall buildings starting to light up one by one. I stayed up at the sky terrace from 7pm all the way till 815pm.Before going back down, I stopped over at the Hard Rock Café souvenir shop to purchase a few items. And yes they are also expensive here in Hong Kong. I bought a HRC T-shir for Sofea which cost HKD100. Convert it and you get the idea of how much a small t-shirt cost. After shopping, I headed back down and had dinner in the room which I bought from the Minar Indian Restaurant. They have a very delicious Chicken Fried Rice for the price of HKD 68.

As Saturday approached, it was the day to say goodbye to Hong Kong. I walked up to the Admiralty MTR station and claimed my refund for the Octopus card. Walked up pedestrian walkway facing the harbor and taking some photograph in front of the Hong Kong Police headquarters. I took the Bus at 11 am which would drop me straight at the Airport.

Once I checked in, it’s time to have lunch at the Popeye restaurant. Yes, it’s halal. Probably the only halal fast food restaurant in Hong Kong. To kill time, I visited almost all of the shops they were at the airport before departure back to Kuala Lumpur.

Finally back in your own ground, your own soil and your place of Tanah Tumpahnya Darahku. After leaving Sofea for 2 weeks, finally I get to see my little girl again and from her reaction once she saw me, I feel that the feeling is mutual. Yes, no matter how cool, sophisticated modernized other country is, there is no place like home. Yeah there maybe problems in your country, the salary might not be that high as compared to other places, the petrol is overpriced but when you are abroad at other people country, you tend to appreciate more on what your have and how lucky you are to be born in Malaysia.

A message for those who like to condemned your own country, I say think again, go out and think of how lucky you are on what you have. If you don’t like it, think of how many immigrants who were willing to sacrifice everything they have just to be here. They would give anything just to be in your shoes. That sure does mean something.

Renung-renungkan dan selamat beramal.

Hong Kong Disneyland - Day 8

Although it does seems that it is quite late to finish this story, but nonetheless i will finish it up. As this is is the last weekend for me and wifey will be spending time with each other at Hong Kong, we decided to save the best for last. What else is there to do except enjoying ourselves at Hong Kong Disneyland.

Before heading to Disneyland, we decided to have a look at the CityGate Factory Outlet. There were a lot of branded boutiqus shops. They are not rejected items, but the collections there are from last seasons collection. And the prices are cheaper of course. Wifey and i did manage to do our last minute shopping there before finally heading out to Disneyland.

To get to Disneyland, we had to take the train at the Disneyland Line. Yup, the Disneyland line is totally dedicated to Disneyland alone. The train there are customised and are different from the normal MTR train.

Finally we arrived at the station. Woohoo!!! Me and wifey were jumping joy to have finally reached there. Though they say it is the smallest Disneyland, but hey at least i've been to Disneyland. Have you???

We took a few pictures from the entrance right till the gate. Disney tunes from Little Mermaid, Aladdin and others were on the airwaves that made us more welcomed. Once in, we began at the Main Street USA.

HK Disneyland basically has four parks. Mainstreet USA, Tomorrowland, Adventureland and Fantasyland. At Mainstreet USA, you would probably recognized the design. It’s quite a familiar surrounding if you’ve seen pictures of Disneyland. It hosts a lot of souvenirs shop and a nice place for you to take pictures.

As we arrived there around 1230 pm and the nearest show was on at 130 pm, we decided to wait for a while to catch the High School Musical show live. So we waited for a while under the trees to avoid the hot sun. So at exactly 130pm, the show kicked off. If you’re a fan of High School Musical, then you’ll love this. Though their mode of communication / presentation are basically mixed between Chinese and English language. The show ran for about 30 minutes. Once finished, we proceeded to Tomorrowland first. We rode a few rides there. Among them were a space ship thingy (forgot it’s name), the Buzz Lightyear shooting game and the indoor rollercoaster Space Mountain. Damm those rides were cool.

At around 3.30pm, there was another show that was Mickey’s Water Parade. Basically it’s like the parade that you see during Merdeka Day, but the participants are from Disney characters and yeah, there’s a reason why they call it a water parade. As the day was really hot, they would be going around while firing water guns at the crowds. But as compared to the weather at that time, I think it was really worth it to get a little wet. It was a real experience if you’ve always wanted to meet up close with the Disney characters.
After the parade, we proceeded to Fantasyland. Oh yeah, we manage to cross over Cindarella’s castle. Never imagined that it was small. In the pictures it looked so huge but reality speaks for itself. We rode the Merry Go round and the tea cup. And the not to be missed It’s a small world ride. The it’s a small world afterall song was in our heads for quite some time. There was even a signage Selamat Jalan at the end of the ride which made us both proud.
Other things that we did there were queuing up to take photographs with the Disney characters. We did manage to take pictures with a few including Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Snow White, and Goofy.

At 5.30 pm, another round of High School Musical was on. Because wifey loved it so much the first time, so we had a go at the second round. By 6.00pm after the show, we ventured to Adventureland, which was basically sort of a jungle. The place where Tarzan lived. We took the jungle cruise ride and rode the rakit to Tarzan’s house. Think of it as a house tour :)

Just hours before the closing of the fireworks, we went in to the 3D theatre show. One of my favorites here I guess. It was a 3D show starring Donald Duck and other Disney cartoon characters. The show was in 3D. In spite the 3D vision, it had extra effects such as wind, smell and water effects. For example whenever Donald were blown away, we felt the air too as there were special side effects hardware attached at the seats. Now that’s what I call world class.

After the show, we had a round of last minute shopping for souvenirs. We ran here and there as fast as we could so that we wouldn’t miss the fireworks show. In total RM, I spent around RM350 for a few T-shirt and some fridge magnets. Talk about expensive.

At exactly 8pm, the fireworks show began. Oh yes, it was truly a magical world of Disney. Besides the normal fireworks that you usually might see, this one had additional features with tunes played from Disney’s show. And it does seems that the fireworks were like blowing up according to the melody. One just had to be there to really experience it. The show went on for about 20 min or so. Once finished me and wifey hanged around the park for a while as we knew the train station might be crowded. So we took a few pictures here and there before finally leaving Disneyland. Though we were really sad to leave Disneyland, we were very happy to feel young at heart again and to finally experience the Magical World of Disney.

We hoped the we could go there again sometime, most probably after the park has expanded and to bring Sofea along so that she could enjoy and experienced on what we have been experiencing. Though a bit pricey, it was worth the cost as you never know when you will be back here again.