My Hong Kong Trip Part 5 - Day 7

With only 2 days for the weekend, we had to utilise the time given to the fullest. After a long discussion, we decided to go for the Ocean Park on Saturday. What is Ocean Park? Well it could be described as a theme park with additional shows and performances by animals. Uhmm, maybe that's not the best definition of it but do read on.

Wifey queuing up for the bus is so hard on the knees

As early as 9.30am we were already on the move to towards the Admiralty MTR station to purchase the tickets and getting ready for the bus. We were quite in a shock to see the line that was queing up for the bus. Let's just say it nearly circled the building next to the bus station. But luckily there were a lot of busses on standby so we did not have to wait that long. The journey took us around 30 minutes to reach there.


As we were on our own with no tour guide, we took the approach "Redah je lah". With the map as our guide, we moved on to the peak of the park. The park had 3 very very very high escalator ride. I don't think i've never took a very long ride on an escalator. It took forever to reach on one part of the park. As we moved up, we could see the beautiful scenery on the south part of Hong Kong Island. As we were still lost of not knowing where to go, i guess it's best to head out for the shows that were on. So we rushed out to the Ocean Theatre where there were suppose to be some show on dolphin. As we arrived there quite late, we were denied of going down to the arena where there were still some seats available. I'm not sure why the staff there did not let us go down there. So we had to settle peeking from somewhere at the top of the Ocean theatre.



There were some show on dolphin and sea lion. It was quite entertaining for an animal show. But to be frank, i think the animal show that i've been to at Bangkok was more rocking than this one. After the show, we qued up in a very very long line under the hot sun to go on a ride on a doughnut on a stick (not really sure what it's called). The doughnut will go up while rotating and you could see a panoramic view. Cool too!!!




We then continued our journey to see the sea lion in action. There were other attraction available such as the roller coaster ride but we were not up to it due to the very long que and couldn't bare the hot sun. It was a very hot summer indeed. We then decided to visit a more cooling attraction there is. So we head up towards the aquarium area. It hosted a lot of sea creatures. I guess you could say that it's like the Aquaria KLCC (not that i've been there before ) and the Underwater World at Langkawi. I'll just let the picture do the talking :)




Next, to visit the second half of the park, you need to get on the cable car ride. The cable car ride journey was exhilarating. It was a very long ride with you high up on the air while viewing the South China Sea ( if i'm not mistaken). Since the Ngong Ping 360 was closed during that time, i guess this ride will do. The journey must have taken us around 15 minutes. It's a must try attraction.


Once a the other part of the park, we proceeded to see the Panda Bear. Two of the are called Ying Ying and Le Le. It was a long que, but hey, when else do you expect to see a Panda Bear? There were a few numbers of Panda Bear there but two of the were sleeping and only one of the were active.


Other things that we do at the second part of the island was take a ride on a bungee ride, visited the Dolphin university ( psst, dolphin are graduates too and this one understands chinese) and watched an acrobatic performance. After that, we walked along the park, took the cable car back to the top and exiting the park to return to admiralty via the same bus.

As the day was a damn hot and tiring day, we had our lunch + dinner at Tsim Sha Tsui for white rice + ikan goreng kerapu and ayam masala. Woww, i think that was the best meal ever. After dinner, we rushed over to the Arena of Stars to watch the Symphony of Lights. The symphony of lights is a light and sound show. They are decked out in lights, which at the flick of a switch, glow in miriad of colours depicting Hong Kong's vibrancy. The lights were like dancing according to sound that was played. It was a true classy event. Other attraction at the Arena of stars is a giant Bruce Lee statue, a few Hong Kong superstar's hand prints and stars on the floor, like the one you see in the US in hollywood.


After taking enough picture, we headed back towards the hotel after a long, tiring, hot day. Both of us actually got sun burn. Lucky enough we did not get a heat stroke!


Next stop, Hong Kong Disneyland !!!

My Hong Kong Trip - Part 4 (day 5 & 6)

What's visiting Hong Kong without bringing back souvenirs from the famous land of shopping. By shopping, i meant shopping at the infamous Night Market at Kowloon. So for day 5, our agenda was strictly for surveillance on shopping at night market. To be more specific, Ladies Market at Mong Kok. So after work, we took the MTR from Wan Chai to Mong Kok. Once we arrived, there they are ... the good stuff. All you could probably hope for and maybe more at a night market. For Malaysian, i would say that it is a bigger version of Petaling Street. Reminded me when i was in Bangkok's Cha Tu Chak and Suan Lum night bazaar too.

wifey getting ready to shop till you drop

From clothings to wallets, watches to sunglases, handbags to decoration, neckties and all sort of stuff that you could think off. Yup, this is definately heaven for shopper holics who has the same taste like me and wifey. Before we came here, wifey's main objective here is to purchase branded handbags and wallets (copy). So i guess the mission is clear, 1 - purchase handbags and wallets, 2 - purchase other stuffs and souveniers. Unfortunate for us, the day that we went probably wasn't the right timing. At first when we arrived, a lot of shops were displaying catalogs from branded items, but we ignored it at first since we had the rest of the night to stroll down. After walking down from end to end, we were geared to go to the shopping mode. But when we searched all around, none of the stalls were displaying the catalogs. We even asked around and all of them decline. And then it kept us thinking, maybe they had received a tonto saying that a raid might be conducted by the local KPDN. Well, it is illegal to sell fake branded stuff. So since we couldn't achieve objective no 1, i guess we'll have to settle for objective no 2 (for now).

So we were in shopping gear. We purchased a lot of stuffs to bring back to our loved ones and friends back in Malaysia. For instance, i bought a total of 45 fridge magnets to distribute back. never in my life i have bought that many magnets. After roughly calculating and bargaining with the stall owners, it comes down to the final price of around RM4.00 per magnet. Well, lets take it this way that i treat all my colleagues to a plate of rice worth RM4.00. The important thing is sincere right?! Other stuffs we bought were T-shirts, neck ties, purse pals, and other small items. For the stuff that we missed out, we came back again the other day as we still had time to achieve objective no 1.

The very next day, we came back again to Mong Kok and this time we were lucky. The stalls were displaying again their catalogs for customers to choose from. Handbags, wallets and watches were the main attractions. So we stopped by at a few stalls. The system is, the seller will take you to their office located nearby at their stall. You will then be taken to a special room where all the good stuffs were placed. This is where you opened up your eyes, carefully choose which of the stuffs that you really like and bargain hard with the seller. It's all up to your bargaining skills. If you could speak Cantonese, i think it would be a better advantange. So we finally chosed the stuffs that we wanted, bargain with the seller and paid him off. After that, we went back to the streets. We did tested out what happens if we did not want to purchase anything. Well, eventually nothing happened. We could leave the room just like that if we did not want to purchase anything.


Now that both objective were completed, i eventually did a little shopping that at first wasn't in the list. What was it? A Digital SLR camera. Yup, a Nikon D60 camera. At first i didn't want to purchase such thing, but there was a small voice in my head kept saying, " buy me, buy me". Oh well, finally i used up the powers of the credit card to purchase the camera. The price, well you could say i saved up a few hundred ringgit if I purchased it in HK than KL. Hmmm, i guess i will have to extend the buying big stuff period to another year. So for the rest of the entries in the blogs, the pictures were taken using my precious Nikon D60 aka my very new toy :)

In the streets of Wan Chai Hong Kong after a long shopping trip

My Hong Kong Trip Part 3 ( day 4 )

By this time, the weather at Hong Kong still wasn't on our side but if we had to wait for the weather to be ok, we'll be missing on a lot of great stuff to do. So as at wednesday ( day 4 ) of our trip, we decided to make the most of the evening by visiting the infamous Victoria Peak. At first we were still quite confused on how to get there, but thanks to the internet at the guide pamphlet, it was quite easy to go there. In fact, the bus stop was just around the corner. We took the double decker bus no 15 to reach to the peak.



It was kinda drizzling on our journey up there, but we could still enjoy the view from the bus. The buildings there seems like that they were made of Lego blocks stacks all together in a big green board. The building were all very close to each other and most of them were very very tall. At a certain point, they did look like domino blocks to me :) The road leading to the Peak was very winding, but being a Malaysian and had gone up to Genting and Cameron Highland, the journey was not that tough.

The bus ride took around 30 minutes plus the peak hour traffic. Once there, we could see the famous Peak building that i've seen on website, the building that look like a T shape. We quickly went in the building and rushed over to the Tramp. But i did wonder why do we need to go board the Tram since we were already at the peak of the Peak. True enough, after we boarded the tramp, eventually the tramp was going down to it's station. Looked like we were cheated, we were already at the very peak, and after we rode the tramp, it wasn't going up, it was going down. So we had to purchase another ticket to go back to the Peak. Once at the top again, we rushed over to Madame Tussauds, the place that was part of my master list in Hong Kong.

I've once visited it at London when i was a kid and i have loved it since then. With this trip, i was looking forward to it. I've read it in the internet saying that the Hong Kong madame tussauds does contain some local celebrities, but that's ok. We were greeted by Bruce Lee and also Jackie Chan at the main entrance. So for the rest of the story, i will let the pictures do the talking as a picture tells a thousand words :) Do you know who they are ?

My Hong Kong Trip Part2 ( day 2 & 3 )

Cum Monday was the day for me to start my official work in Hong Kong. I waited outside the HK Police gathering poit at about 8.15am. There i saw one guy waiting at the same place and finally i went out to him and said hello. Lucky enough that he was one of the participant too and from Singapore. I guess he's the only closest neighbour that i will find here. And after a while, another 2 more local participants came and we were finally brought inside. The HK Police HQ were quite cool and modernized.

In class we were briefed about the 2 weeks course and other matters. We also had to undergo self introductory in front of the class but it seems to be no problem because most of them understand english except from a few participant from China mainland and Macao. For the rest of the day, we did a few class exercises such as dismantling a hard drive, learning about hard disk, partitions and stuffs. You know, all computer forensic related stuff. The class ended for the day around 530pm. It only took me 5 -10 minuts walk to reach the hotel. Actually i could have reach the hotel quicker as it was just across the street. But unfortunately, one have to use the pedestrian bridge to cross over and that bought me some time.

We managed to dismantle and destroy the hard drive

Once back at the hotel, we then discussed the basics of survival. That is food of course. So, after gone through our halal food list, we finally decided to head towards Tsim Sha Tsui as there seems to be quite a number of halal foods there. So we took the MTR train from Wan Chai towards the TST MTR station.


Once at TST, we couldn't really find the place that we were suppose to go to but luckily we bumped in to a place called Ziafat. It even had the halal certification so we head straight inside. After looking at the menu, we ordered Garlic naan, butter naan and also 2 legged tandoori chicken. Our order was ready in about 10 minutes. Damm, the sizzling and smell of the chicken and naan was breath taking. LOL. Not even Chanel, Hugo or issey miyake can match this one :) The price plus tax was HKD 110 or about RM 46. Not the cheapest naan and tandoori that i have ever had but enough to satisfy my stomach. Never imagined eating naan in Hong Kong.


As the weather wasn't at our side on tuesday evening where it rained all day in the summer, we decided to have dinner at an Indian restaurant called Minar. The signboard said halal food so we took their word for it. We had Chicken fried rice + chicken kebab. Again, the food at HK so far had not failed us before. The taste was excellent and the quantity was enough for both of us to share. We then walk to a nearby shopping mall called the Pacific plaza. It was an ok mall but unfrotunate for us, the shops there closes quite early as compared to KL. As we were inside in one of the anchor shops, the announcement that the shops were going to close were announced and it was only around 830pm. But oh well, no problems here. We took one last spin at the mall, and bought ourself an expensive coffee at Starbucks (HKD 35) there before heading back to the hotel.


As there were nothing to do at the hotel, we tuned in to Star Movies Chinese (different from our Star Movies English) and watched a movie called Silverhawk. Overall it was a great story and not forgetting that it starred by Malaysian's Michelle Yeoh. Yeayyy!!!! Malaysia Boleh !!!

My Hong Kong Trip - Part 1

After serving the Bank for over 4 years, finally it was my time to go for overseas courses. And just my luck, all those waiting in patience finally landed me a trip to Hong Kong for 2 weeks for a computer forensics course. Wohoo!!! Now that's what i'm talking about overseas trip baby. 14 days as oppose to 3 days for an overseas course. All that waiting finally paid of.

I was scheduled to departure for the course on 15th June 08, the same date as Father's Day. Though i was looking forward to go on this trip, it did made me kinda sad to leave behind my daughter for so long and especially on father's day. It did cross my mind to bring her along as wifey was tagging along with me for a week. But finally we decided not to take her along due to certain reason such as we don't know what it's like in Hong Kong, acessibility of Halal Food, weather and also she is still quite too small to remember things and places. It would have made our trip more difficult as we had that extra baggage. Plus, i don't think wifey could manage to bring her back to KL with her bags and a small child on an airplane just by herself. And for those reason, she had to stay behind. If she was a bit older, then we might have brought her along.

We departed from home around 6.30am, stop by at Rumah Kent to pick Papa up. He promised to send us to KL Sentral. We finally reached KL Sentral around 6.55am. We were quite saddened to leave Sofea behind, and at the same time i think she had an instinct that she was going to be left as she was quite gloomy that morning and not her usual ceria self. After checking in our bags at KLIA, we had breakfast and finally board the plane. It was a MAS Boeing 777-200. My first time on such a plane. It was equipped with the lcd screen where you could watch movies, play game, or listen to songs. The 3 hours 25 min sure was quite jiffy as we were entertained all the way.
After finally reaching Hong Kong airport, we finally took the Airport Express to the Hong Kong MTR station. The Airport Express Train is the equivalent to our KLIA ERL express. The journey taken to ride the train was around 30min. After reaching the Hong Kong MTR station, we had to walk to the next station with our bags along to the Central station. The station was quite far i guess though we only walked inside the station passage way. I have never seen so many crowd in a train station before. Plus the Hong Konger's were really walking at a fast speed, young and old, men and women. After finally reaching at the correct station, we took the MTR to the Wan Chai station stop which in theory, the closest one to the Hotel. Well at first it does seemed quite far a walk, but as time progresses, i guess it's not that far :)

We finally checked in to the Wesley and given the room 2012. Our first impression of the room was, what a small room. The room at Sri Malaysia was wayyyy bigger than this one. But after analyzing the buildings nearby, i guess the size is quite standard as all the buildings seems to be very tall but narrow, due to lack of space.

After relaxing in the room for a while, it's time to explore the Jungle out there to find ourselves the basic survival stuff, food. We decided to try the Causeway Bay area and find some of the Halal restaurant food that we had printed out. Finally we found a middle east shop with Halal food, but was shock down to our knees when we saw the price of the foods. It's like nothing we have ever seen before. Not even the hotel prices in KL could match them. At first ee thought that this particular shop was expensive so we went on for search at an Indonesian restaurat called Warung Malang.

They sell nasi campur, the usual that we always have in Malaysia. We ordered 2 nasi campur and 2 drinks. The cashier finally counted and said sembilan setengah nine and a half. Now this made more sense, so wifey gave her a HKD100. But to my shock and laughter (in my heart) she returned back only HKD5. What the devil??? Did you mean to say that 2 nasi campur and 2 drinks cost us HKD95 or RM 40. Back at KL, RM40 could easily support you for the next 3-4 days of complete meal, but here is just a 2 person meal??? I was already missing my D'Tebing Rm5 value meal and i don't think RM5 is enough for you to buy food in Hong Kong. True enough as we stroll down the street peaking at eating outlet there was, the price at Warung Malang was considered a standar price. Damn

Click picture to reveal the actual price!

This is not the warung malang price, but from Shalimar.

How lucky am i to stay in Malaysia

After leaving the restaurant, we had a walk along Causeway Bay area and went inside the Times Square shopping mall. I have never seen so many people walking about and this is the first time that the number of human is more than the number of cars. There were very few cars on the road. For people, It was like a traffic jam but a jam that was filled with human beings walking about. It was like a Jusco member day sale, only at a bigger place.
Petrol price in HK = HKD17.43 (RM 7.32) per liter as compared to Malaysia RM 2.70 (HKD 6.42)

I guess we're not worse off

After finished with the shopping mall, we finally walked back to the hotel, which suprisingly was a long way back. We did however stop at a few supermarket to see whether they are any Malaysia products available for sale. Sadly, i couldn't find any Maggi mee, but suprisingly Ayam Brand products were available. Go Cap Ayam!!! In Hong Kong, you have to be careful on the product on sale as they might contain lembu pendek ingridients.

After reaching the hotel and experiencing what the city is like, we doze of to sleep after watching tv. Luckily they were a few english channel available such as Star World, NGC, Fox News and 2 other more channel.

Greetings from Hong Kong

I am currently in HK attending a 2 weeks course here. So far it's been ok except for the weather which is currently raining everday. Hopefully it will be a bit better in a few days time. The food here are very expensive compared to malaysia. The streets are always crowded with people. There's not a single corner without a human being. Transportation wise so far so so good as the trains are quite efficient.

That's it for now from me. I will release the full details when i return home :)

More Home Cook Meals :-)

Actual product of WIfey's salmon steak

As part of the so called ubah gaya hidup (change our lifestyle), we took up the challenge by not going out of the house at all. Seriously, we did not even open the entrance door or set foot outside of our compound. The furthest we went is at the balcony overseing the swimming pool and it's surrounding. The result, i guess we managed to save some petrol because we did not require to move the car.As for food, wifey was in the gear again to cook.

For breakfast we just had baked beans with bread. Even Sofea shares the same meal as ours. And for lunch, wifey cooked for us chicken soup. Yum yum. I call it Chicken soup for the petrol hike. Maybe the chicken soup book author can work on this and probably even be a best seller. But don't forget my commission.

Chicken soup for the petrol hike! Next best seller

For dinner, a very special meal never been prepared before. Salmon steak. Wallaa!!!. Salmon my favourite. It was prepard very well with salads and a special internet black peper sauce. Hehe. Meaning the black pepper sauce recipe was from the internet.

Actual servings as depicted above and below

The taste, marvellous!!! Well done wifey for the delicious meal.
Note to self : i might get use with this. Guessed the price hike did made a different in lifestyle :)

Petrol prices up again! Now at RM2.70

My reaction can be translated to the picture of Sofea above

As at 5pm yesterday, i kept on visiting the online newspaper to see what's the new petrol price structure is all about, but to no avail, nothing was updated. In a few minutes time, i received an email from my colleague who is kinda related to politics. According to him, the prices of petrol will go up to 80cents per litre. At first i wanted to ignore it, but coming from him, i do have to say i kinda trust him. So quickly i messaged wifey to fill up her tank. Luckily enough, she managed to fill it up early before the que starts coming in.

I officially heard the news on Radio 24's news at 6.30pm that confirmed by 5th June 2008, the petrol will increase by 78 cents. Oh my god, that high??? So i rushed quickly to the Esso station at Keramat after informing a few of my contacts through sms'es. By the time i got there, the que was already starting to build up. Luckily i qued at the correct lane which eventually did not take that long to que. There were already 4 cars in front of me, but hey, what the heck. Might as well go for it. And at the same time i keep praying, please don't let the credit card machine fail now as i have only Rm10 in my wallet.

Fill it up before before you go go!!! This was only at 6.35pm.

The bad
After about 15 minutes of queing up, finally it's my turn. Inserted my Amex card, and finally it was okay. Pump it up to the max at the meter showed RM60.01. In other words, i would be pumping in 31.25 litres of petrol. I guessed that's the last one that i'm gonna get for this price. The next time i pump in at the same amount, i will only be getting 22.22 litres of petrol. That's less 10 litres for what i'm getting now. Technically, i will only be filling in 1/3 of my Waja tank compared to 1/2 as before. So that's the whole news. Usually i will pump in around RM80 for 2 week. With the new price, i will have to fill up RM 112 to get the same amout of petrol. That's RM 32 more. Times 2 is RM64. Times 12 is RM768. That's the additional expenses that i have to incure for the upcoming year. And that does not include long journey trips. This is just the daily commute from Wangsa Maju - Jalan Kent - BNM - Jalan Kent - Wangsa Maju + a few nearby destination. That night by the time we headed to home around 10pm, all petrol stations were still busy like no one's business. We even had trouble getting home as the road that was heading to home was filled up with cars. Finally we took the incoming lane to bypass the jam. There were no other choice. Either face the upcoming cars or stay stuck for the next hour. Petrol stations are the last place on earth you want to go yesterday if you are really in a hury.

A lot more cars were queing up behind the waja. It got even worse after this

The good
By the time i left the petrol station, the que was really starting to build up. Luckily i was done. Watched the news at 7 with papa. The good news is that the Government will going to give a cash rebate of RM625 for cars less that 2000cc. It will be paid when you renew your roadtax. And the waja's roadtax is due on August. Woohoo!!!. Luckily i was in the group. So technically RM625 /12 = Rm52 per month. Well i guess it's better than nothing. Luckily the Waja is 1600cc which qualifies for this and cheaper roadtax. Can't complain there. I guess the waja will be serving me for long. For those of you complaining about abolish roadtax, well how about this. Get yourself a car less than 1600cc. It's about less then RM10 per month.

Next course of action
In these tough time, i guess we will have to really cut down on our expenses. They said change our lifestyle. From car, change to motorcycle, from motorcycle to bicycle, from cab to lrt and from lrt to bus and finally from any of these transport to walking. But then you will have to spend more on mineral water :) I'm already cutting down the expenses to the max including not to use the air cond to and from the office. What else could i cut down on. Just something to ponder...

The effect
As of today as i was getting to work, the cars around me seems to go way slower than usual. Some of them even drove at 30km/h. What the heck??? I know they want to decrease the usage of petrol but, isn't it if you go slower the more petrol you consume since you will need to always step on the accelerator instead of letting the car cruise? I hope today i made it on time before the 9.00am "dead" line. Hope this is only temporarily. If not, i have to face the petrol hike and also the late attendance again.

Note: I hope D'tebing doesn't increase their price arising from the petrol hike.

"Harga petrol di Malaysia masih diantara yang terendah di rantau ini"

Wifey Rogers Roasters

Last Sunday, wifey was kind enough to prepare me with a home cook meal. The meal is Chicken Roasters. Similar but different as compared to the Kenny Rogers Roasters set. What i meant by similar but different is, the chicken is similar to the one found at Kenny Rogers, but different in terms of side dishes. What where you thinking eh?

Similar but different compared to Kenny Rogers Roasters

The taste was marvelous. To prove how good it was, just see the picture below. Can you guess what happened to it? Hehe. Some carnivor beast came into our house and finished it off. Even the CSI can't figure this one out. Bravo wifey!!!

What could have done this to a poor creature???

Sofea meets Bumblebee

Me like bumblebee

On Saturday, Sofea finally met her match. The Ultimate Bumblebee. Haha. Actually the bumblebee was purchased sometime in October 2007 and had always been on a display with my other Transformers collection. Since she's a litte grown up now, she's starting to explore more on what's there in the house. Thus she showed to me the bumblebee and i finally let her played with it.

Let's burn rubber!!!

She was quite amused with it since it could move about and play a few phrases and song encluding the transformers theme and Whip It by Devo. Hopefully she doesn't spoils it. It's my precious!!!! ( Smeagol kinda way)

Sofea's crocs rocks!!!

We went over to Great Eastern mall last weekend after having failed to visit the Jom Heboh carnival at Bukit Jalil due to myself. Hehehe. (not the type of dude who likes to hang out at crowded places). So as a consolation, we went over to GE Mall instead.

Just the usual window shopping + dinner. After receiving Sofea's birthday gift from Auntie Jie for nearly 4 month, we finally put the shoes on her. And it fits. Maybe not that fitting but after we tested at home, she seems to be able to walk properly. So we tested it out at GE Mall. At first we thought that maybe she couldn't walk very fast as it was still new, but we were wrong. She seems to be running and walking around at her usual pace.

psst, these are original crocs shoes. Thank you Auntie Jie
orang gila je yang beli kasut macam ni :-)

So i guess after this we will continue to use them before it doesn't fit her anymore.

Whoo!!! I can see you in 3D