Holiday Season

Another posting which was left unposted for close to a month in my list....glad that I finally find some time for it.

The original posting time of this posting was 3rd January 2010.

Happy New Year to all my friends!

It has been a while since I last update my blog...just didn't have the urge to update my blog especially during this festive season.

I was in holiday mood since the week I was suppose to visit Sungai Lembing in Pahang. However thanks to rain god, our trip has to be reschedule and most probably without me in it :S

As we were already in Karak Highway when we received the call from the owner of the chalet, we diverted our journey towards Bukit Tinggi instead. Though Bukit Tinggi wasn't much like I have anticipated, I enjoyed my trip there with the companies...I have much great time sweating ourselves trying our luck to get a synchronous jump shot.
So from the initial plan of 3 days 2 nights trip at Sungai Lembing, we spend our time in Klang Valley. So much has been done together...karaoke at Neway, One-U, bowling at Times Square, hiking at Broga Hill, flying kite at Kepong, 'chor tai tee' at EP's house, shopping at multiple malls and on food hunt. Love spending time with them...

my favourite meal...I just love those desserts

My 2nd visit to Gua Tempurung

This post was left unposted in my posting list for close to 2 months...was pretty occupied in Dec and early Jan.

It was my second trip to Gua Tempurung. I was there with May and my colleges.

This time we signed up for the Grand Canyon Tour, the most difficult of the 4 trail offered. However it was rather disappointing. It was true that it was much longer but in terms of difficulty it was similar to route 3. All the difficult sites of tour 4 was also covered in tour 3...no additional 'phewww...' site on route 4 and worse when we ended up at the other end of the cave, the best place for smoker to gather for puff. So for non smoker like us, we just couldn't enjoyed ourselves there. This place was surely a NO NO. So next time there, please sign up for tour 3 will do.

After the close to 3 hours of caving and close an hour queue in the badly maintain washroom, we left for Ipoh. With WE being our guide in Ipoh, we got to savour the famous Big Tree Yong Tou Fu and the Funny Mountain Tau Fu Fa and stopped by Sin Yoon Loong for a caffeine boost before we head home.

Anyway this was an enjoyable trip and I really have a great time with VTSMers. Hope that we could have more of this to come.

Photo from holiday on the other coast

This was from my last holiday on the East coast of Peninsular Malaysia. This was a trip which I didn't really enjoyed much about.

Day 1, it was a long ride to Kota Bharu. We took North South Highway and turned into Butterworth Kulim Expressway at Seberang Jaya. Then into the and Grik Highway en route Baling, Grik, Jeli, Rantau Panjang, Pasir Mas and finally into Kota Bharu. Luckily it was a sunny day and the green scenic on the Titiwangsa mountains were breath taking. Our first meal in Kelantan was great too. I love the nasi kerabu and ayam percik served by the Yati Ayam Percik stall at Jalan Long Yunus.

Day 2...my mouth wide open looking at how our public officers were working. We were rushing here an there through out the hold day and yet nothing done (Read my experience here).

I was rotting with the orchids in their office

Our eating out plan wasn't good either. We tried the recommended pulut tapai at Selera CPT along Jalan Long Yunus. None like the tapai and the cendol base was tasteless.

The chinese food at Medan Selera Kebun Sultan was rather poor. After meal desserts in the TeaTalk Kopitiam on the opposite road were less satisfying. And the cough mixture like coffee drink at Hayaki sucked!

Day 3 Most accomplished in a day. Sunrise at Pantai Cahaya Bulan, yummy nasi dagang at Kwang Ling and temples visit in Tumpat. Kelantan has nothing better than the not so well maintained Buddhist temples.
After long hours under the hot sun, we headed back to town for some cool air. So we visited the KB mall, in which my driving skill was put to test...2 turns to get to the car park on the 5th floor. No wonder, the car park attendant stopped me before I got up and asked, "Boleh naik?". I was puzzled. Anyway I answered "boleh" and then only to discover that I signed up for the roller coaster ride. What made the situation worse was we witnessed a MPV on the opposite direction got itself scratch against the wall...ziiiingggggg. Kelantan architect really boleh and the officers lagi boleh. Such a crazy plan can be approved and built to reality.

We didn't stayed long in the mall. My mum was worry all the time we were in the mall. She was worried of how I could drive down later. So to calm her, we left early and hit the car park again and left after another round of roller coaster ride.

In the evening, with the GPS leading our way, we manage to find our way to the best Siamese restaurant in Kelantan. It took us approximately half an hour to Chiang Mai Restaurant at Tumpat. It was worth the drive for the prawn doughnuts and the spicy sour fish...yummy!
We left Chiang Mai minutes after the rain started pouring heavily. Scary moment to be in such an alien place with wild grown one meter tall grass on both side of the narrow path. The raining cats and dogs when we finally passed the clogged bridge linking Tumpat to KB...the bridge seemed flooded. If bridges could be flooded, more over the low lands. No wonder flood was such a big issue to Kelantan. Blamed it on their architects and officers at JKR and pejabat tanah.

Not even half way through the bridge, the KB city in front of us just went black off. No street lights or anything other than the vehicles lamps. This was just a super bad bad for me and my fellow Kelantanese. Wonder how could they stand such a disastrous day? According to the locals, it was normal for the whole or half the city to go back off.

in the world of darkness...in our hotel room

Day 4 My sis learned that her posting would be out today so we were in the pharmacist dept in Pengkalan Chempa early but nothing changed. She got posted to Hospital Daerah Machang. We rushed to the Bangunan Persekutuan for another round of waiting and finally headed to Machang.

Machang was a small town...way smaller than Sungai Bakap.

Day 5...We were back to civilization. I love Penang and am grateful to be a Penangite. Got Haagen Daz buffet treat from sis as my holiday compensation.

For more photos, please visit my facebook album.

IIP : White Cane Day and Mangrove Planting

These were the 2 recent Intel Involved Program that I joined. I was really into the programs, so they were no photos out of my lovely EOS.

White Cane Day...it was on last October 10th, 2009. There were approximately 200 participants, each volunteer was paired up with 1 visual impaired participant from St. Nicholas. I was enjoying my time talking to him through out our journey.

photographed by Shiu Inn

great to learn from him...he was so optimistic and brave. We were both same age. He was normal until few years back.

Mangrove Tree Planting...it was on 7th November at the Sg. Sembilang, Juru. We were there to plant hundreds of trees. It was under the hot sun at close to 10.30am. I almost fainted at the site after planting teens of trees. Really exhausting to pull myself out of the mud...aiks...I got myself dirty and scratches on over my feet and hands.....Anyway it was an enjoyable and valuable project.

half my pants were in mud...this is how I was after 1 round of washing

Damn...my words were so 准

My poor car's rear windscreen was broken overnight right in front of my house.

I don't know how much it will cost me but my insurance protection was for maximum of RM800 only. I may need to chip in for the windscreen and definitely I have to pay the full amount for the tint.

I do have a suspect in mind. He is currently one of my neighbour and soon to be not. He is staying and running a 'mamak like' restaurant in my uncle's shop lot. There is controversial between my uncle and him. He has an outstanding rental for 6 months. So my uncle decided to stop his water supply and electric supply. As my father has been helping my uncle to collect the rental all this while, he came over to negotiate with my father. He said we were rich and treated the poor badly...'got to kesian them'.

I overheard their conversation and I advised my dad not to interfere in this matter. It was my uncle's decision to lock the supplies, so let the tenant speak to the landlord straight. We were in no good position and I even said this 'we are in disadvantage looking at all our cars are parked outside. They can easily scratch on our cars and we can't do anything'.

So my dad took my advice and informed the tenant that we were out of the case and they shall deal with my uncle straight. Oh...this was on last Saturday night. So on Sunday morning, my uncle and grandpa were here to negotiate with the tenant. They managed to collect RM500 and a 3000Bahts and recovered the supplies to the tenant's use.

The restaurant's business recovered on Sunday morning and was still opened when I returned home close to midnight yesterday. My car’s windscreen was still fine too. Now on a Monday morning my rear windscreen was already broken.

For the past hours, I was busy calling insurance offices to enquire about my claim...asking if it was necessary to lodge a police report and how was the claiming procedure like while my dad called his friend also our insurance agent over my case. According to him, they didn't have claim over rear windscreen before....yup, normally it was either the front windscreen or the side windows. My case was the one and only one odd case in the office.

I am helpless now. I can't stop those uncivilized acts. I can only pray hard for them to move out peacefully ASAP and my family and I quickly move into my big bro's house ASAP too.

look at the holes and the cracks

obviously this was done with intention

gotto wrap it up before the replacement comes into place