Back from hiatus

Moving through different stage of life is always very challenging. I wish there is a definitive guide book on what to do in every situation. Past few years I've been traveling in and out of Brunei, Manila, Shanghai. Hope to do more traveling in 2020.

Sometimes things will take a turn

The more you give, not necessary the more you will receive. The better you treat someone, not necessary you will be treated better in return. The least you expect of something, that something will always happen.

Japan trip #2

First time going to Japan, it is scary when you find out that the metro/subway/train map is really complicated.

Then finding lunch is a daunting task as well as most cheaper restaurant in Japan does not really speak English.

The good thing is that Japan is all connected by rails, but their Shinkansen is not cheap to be exact, but it is really convenient. Tokyo to Yokohama is less than 30 minutes.

Japanese people, they are just too polite. When watching street performance, they will make sure they are not blocking anyone behind them. Over here, you will get people suddenly stand up in front of you to take selfie or something else.

Of course when you are in Japan, never miss out on their Tonkatsu. Our own local tonkatsu can never ever beat the Tonkatsu in Japan.

Good that the hotels in Japan is not as expensive as in HK.

Dining in a 2 starred michelin restaurant.

If you have nothing to do over the weekend, lets fly to Hong Kong to dine like a boss.

First the food have to be served on a plate made of jade.

Then the condiments have to be distinctive in terms of colours and taste wise.

Then a small plate of special mixed vegetables is served, FOC from the restaurant to stir up our taste bud.

Here comes the real appetizer. Peking duck.

Abalone topped deep fried fish ball.

Fried pork ribs.

Spicy fried prawn. Very fresh.

To be finished off with noodles braised with scallop.

Then dessert, of course.

Ginger ice cream with chia seeds topped vanilla ice cream.

Very filling and satisfying meal. Sad to say we cannot find such meal in our own beloved country.

Genting highlands

Genting is a nice place to go if you have no plans for the weekend. The cool and windy weather, the crowded Starbucks even at 1 AM, the expensive arcade, the crowd whenever there’s a concert.

The sunrise view from Genting is just so nice. It is like the sun is rising from somewhere you can’t see.

Japan trip 1

We took a short break to went to Tokyo to experience Japan for the first time in our life.
Got the chance to rest in the MAS Golden Lounge before we depart.

This is the view from the satellite building lounge.

Next it is lunch time:

Appetizer

Main Course

Dessert

Refreshment before we landed in Narita

It is already dusk when we reach Narita.

We proceed to grab our luggage and then took Narita Express to our hotel directly.

The road back

Have to travel back every year for sure, for the Chinese New Year celebration and also the “Ching Meng” festival, the festival to honour out ancestor and my late dad.

First when I travelled between KL and my home town, I would be using the Teluk Intan –> Bidor –> Highway route.

Then during college years, we found a better route that has almost same travelling time but with less toll fees. It will be passing through.. Teluk Intan –> Hutan Melintang –> Tanjung Malim –> Highway route.

After that, the old coastal road has been widen to 2 lanes in most section, therefore I switched to that route. Teluk Intan –> Tanjung Karang –> Kuala Selangor –> Ijok –> Sungai Buloh –> Highway. The fastest travelling time using this route is around 3 hours.

Nowadays with the technological advance in cellphones, we do not really need the offline GPS device like Garmin anymore. Using Waze alone is good enough to navigate us through most of the place. But the downside of waze is that without any wifi or cellular data, waze will be useless.

During festive season, it is advisable to use waze all the time to avoid any nasty traffic jam in all the routes. The other day when I came back, I managed to exit at Slim River, and took the trunk road all the way past Bidor and to Teluk Intan. Surprisingly, there was no traffic at all. Slow leisurely drive due to the speed camera in Bidor areas usually.

Now I will be leaving back to KL again. Not sure which route will I take.

Living beyond their means

Young people nowadays seldom understand the importance of savings.

Singapore

This would be the second time coming to Singapore. The first trip was made back August last year. This trip mainly is for business. Stayed in a budget hotel in Kallang area, thought it will be alright. Turned out worse than I expected. Gave them 2 stars in tripadvisor.com, still it cost us about 100SGD per night. Project is about setting up WiFi around the new sports hub in SG. Hope that there will be no more staying in budget hotel.

Dan Hill

You ask me if I love you, and I choke on my reply...

More or less

To be in a relationship, either the girl love you more than you do, or you love her more than she does.

If she loves you more than you do, then you will feel that sometimes she is annoying.

If we love them more than they do, then we will feel that sometimes she is not doing enough in the relationship.

Expectations and assumptions.

Relationship should not have secrets

Secrets – Something that we cannot share with one another, unable to share it with our partners means, we don’t trust them. How can we ever start a relationship with someone if we don’t trust them?

Stop blogging?

Caught up with work? Relationship problem? What can make us stop blogging? Nothing.

Been travelling so much back in 2012, so forgot to blog.

Went to Riyadh the most, been staying in the same hotel, taking the same flight, serving the same customer.

Didn’t go anywhere much as far as I can remember.

New stage of life is about to begin, wait for it be unveiled soon.

Feels strange

Having such a long break in the month of August. I would prefer it to be in December.

The reversal

When I flew out of KLIA in the most recent trip, with my FFP card, even with my economy class ticket, I could check in at the first class/business class counter. However, the girl on the check in counter somehow printed my tickets on business class boarding pass. She had to discard it and print it again on economy class boarding class. Oh well, nothing much to comment about normal economy class, just that this time I decided to try pasta instead of rice. And it's the first time I finished up the pasta. Must be too hungry then. Could not sleep for the whole 8 hours journey, and I think I have finished all the English movies available on their entertainment channel, and apart from walking to & fro from the front to back, back to front, the only other source is to request for more water and also to watch again the movies.

On the trip back, I bought economy tickets as well, and the check-in desk did manage to print it on the correct boarding pass. However when I reach the boarding gate, and they just tear up my boarding pass, and I was thinking, shit, I will need to change my seat.

And she went to another counter, took up another sheet of boarding pass, and just plainly told me, you have been upgraded to business class.

So here's the mini review for the business class of the Skytrax award winning Qatar Airways.

Upon stepping onto the plane, there will be a flight attendant checking your tickets, instead of pointing you to the seats only, they will be leading you all the way to your seats. Upon settling down, another flight attendant will come around and ask what kind of drinks do you want, addressing us by our names, whether we want still water, sparkling water, wine, soft drinks, tea or coffee. After getting my drinks, another dropped by and gave me a small souvenir.


A Salvatore Ferragamo goodies bag.

The business class seat in the A330 aircraft is capable of going full flat, transforming it into a bed, although it's a hard bed. It's the same as the premium seats of AAX, just that this time, it comes together with back massage function.

The movies available on the business class entertainment system is the same as the economy class. Nothing special about it just that the monitor screen is nicer and bigger.

The food tray is also having marble like surface, not sure if it is just plastic with marble surface or it is really a thin slab of marble.

They would come and collect off all the glasses before the plane starting to take off.

Sooner after taking off, they would come around with a menu and ask us what do we want for breakfast. I decided on something off the menu, see if they can conjure up some magic. In the end, they did.


Pancakes with breads, muffins.

The food is not bad, though the pancakes is like the mini pannekuek we had in Amsterdam. And they stuffed some strawberries in the pancakes as well, which is much more better than the last pannekuek we had in that cafe in Amsterdam where I accidentally ordered an apple/banana pannekuek. That's the worst pancakes ever up to this point of my life.

After that they would leave us to do our own stuff, either sleep, continue watching movie, or playing with my phone. And they also gave us a few Evian bottled water for the rest of the journey.

After a while, they came with second meal option, which I chose some kind of fried vermicelli with seafood. It taste just like fried mee hoon. Once of the best I ever had in the air. When pairing it with ketchup, it's awesome.

Before landing, they would distribute some hot towel to refresh ourselves up.

Upon reaching KLIA, we get the perks of leaving the planes earlier and one of the first to get our luggages off the conveyor belt.

Facebook

Just deactivated my facebook and I dont think I am going back there anytime soon.

2011–Year round of flying

January – The month before Chinese New Year, I was sent to Riyadh, KSA for the 2nd time of my life for handling the delivery for a new project for one of our customers in the Middle East. My trip got extended and nearly I have to miss CNY celebration for the first time because of travelling. In the end, I still made it back to M’sia in one piece, after going through a harrowing taxi experience. This is the first time I experienced winter in Riyadh, didn’t know it could be this cold in the middle of the desert.

February – This time I was sent to Taipei to handle the delivery of one of our customers in Taiwan. It is still quite cold there, though not as cold as Riyadh. Previously I had been there back in July 2009, October 2010, November 2010, and this was my 4th time back there. Apart from the nice things like nice people, nice food, nice customers, nice partners, there’s nothing much to complain about Taiwan.

March – This is the first time I went to National Capital Region, India, and the shortest trip ever. We reached Gurgaon by night time the first day, and we left India in approximately 24 hours. And this is the first time I experienced AAX Premium Seats, as the New Delhi route has just been categorized as AAX route. Anyway, I just got news today that Air Asia is going to cancel the route to New Delhi, which I don’t know why as the flight to India is always quite full, should be one of the more popular routes for them.

April – This time I went to Taipei again to handle the training of our customer there. It is not that cold anymore by April. As usual, I stayed nearby the customer site, and there is no problem to find food, no matter where we stay in Taipei. The customers and our partners took good care of me. I wish we can have such customers in all the countries.

May – This month marked the 3rd time my car tyre had to be changed due to punctured or damaged tyres. I was sent to Bengaluru for meeting with prospective partners, knowing that the traffic could be crazy over there, I opt for a hotel which is really near to the customer place. Basically I walked to his office every morning, just like 500 metres away from the hotel. And weather has been so kind and everything went smoothly. Though it means I have to eat pizza everyday.

June – Went to Jakarta again for doing a short presentation and product update meeting. Traffic is very ‘macet’ as well, spent like 3 hours in the car from airport to the customer place. And this time we stayed in a different hotel in Pencenongan area, which is really nice one. The bathroom has a huge window overlooking the city.

July – I took a couple of days leave and went to Bangkok for a relaxing holiday and shopping spree. Next time when I’m going there again, I gonna bring a huge luggage bag.

August – This is the month of Ramadan. I was sent again to Riyadh, KSA in the middle of Ramadan. Fasting is strictly observed over here in Riyadh. Usually we fast together too during the day, and eat only at night. Because almost, no place serve food during the day, and even we need to drink water in secret. And it is also one of the hottest month in Riyadh this time round, so… it ain’t nice place to be at this time of year.

September - This is the first time I went to Iraq. We could see post-war situation over there. People there are generally friendly, though I wish I could speak their language too. Went to the bazaar, nothing much to buy except really cheap stuff, whole suit for man cost only USD 80, and lots of people selling gold there. Had to transit at Istanbul, so I took some time to get off the Airport and visit Aya Sofia.

October – This time we went to Riyadh again. It is getting colder now as it is approaching winter. We took Saudi Airlines this time.

November – Took Emirates to Riyadh again.

December – Took Qatar Air again to Riyadh..

So far my Qatar Airways has most miles, followed by Saudi Airlines, then Emirates and Etihad are tied, then China Airlines, and finally Singapore airlines.

I wonder if I should spread the miles across different card or just concentrate on cumulating it on single airline.

Taking a short break

Came back to hometown, ate some home cooked food, read a lot of old National Geographic magazines and slept for so long.

One thing about National Geographic magazine is that, you will never get bored of it. There is something new to learn everyday, even though we are reading the past issues. For example, recently I went to Sulaymaniah in Iraq, I did not know much about them before I went there. Even now, I still don’t know much about that place. I thought it is just like part of Iraq, but they are not. They don’t consider themselves to be part of Iraq. I saw an article in NGS dated back in 2002, they covered an article on Kurdistan. It allows me to learn so many things about them. Last time probably when I read it, I thought, gee, what’s this place? Why would I care? But after I have been there, it seems to be so much interesting reading what others have written about that place.

PC crashed :(

My HDD decided to quit on me after 2 years and 9 months of continuous operation. I wish it could have lasted longer.

Hopefully I have some spare ones ready for replacement.

Hardware comes cheap nowadays, it's the information inside that matters.

Would need to try to recover all the old pictures inside before it go busted completely.

Going back to hometown this weekend, after traveling outside the country for so long, it is good to go for a local trip once in a while.

Bread!

There are so many bread shop around nowadays.

I used to be a big fan of 'The Loaf', even though it is pricey, some of their bread are really good. Until, one day, when I tried to microwave the bread in the morning. After taking it out of the microwave and put it on a paper plate, after 5 minutes, we can see the paper plate is having plenty of spot where the oil seep through. Yuck, I don't want to know what type of oil is that, but the thought of eating so much oil is making me cringe. I will stop visiting this shop from now on.

Then there is also 'Bread Talk', 'Bread Story' which is quite similar. I don't like their breads, it's like commercial tasteless bread which is not that affordable and does not taste good either.

There is also the local bakery XQ which used to be located near to where I was staying, their bread is a bit more economical, but some of their breads, they keep it for more than a day, so the taste is a bit off. Sometimes when I just run out of choices, it is either I'll go for XQ or Gardenia.

Gardenia bread is the default choice when nothing is available, it's always either Apricot or Chocs, I'm sure if I stack up all the Gardenia date tags I have here, it can reach at least 10 cm in height.

Recently we discovered a new bakery, 'Tea Bread' in Viva Mall. And now I'm addicted to it. I wish I'm staying nearer so I can go there everyday. 3 for 2 promotion is still on-going, like one hour or 2 hours before they close the business everyday, it is really affordable. I just like their bread so much.