Thesis of a Cruel Angel -2-

LOcked...

2011-11-12T06:49:00.000-08:00

Sg Vs My

2011-07-24T16:52:00.000-07:00

cockroach soup

2011-02-14T17:44:00.000-08:00

Remember to listen in silence after you pray - you may receive an answer!

2011-01-11T18:07:00.000-08:00

I always wonder why God never answer my prayers, maybe I was too busy to listen.

A story on giving

2011-01-02T18:07:00.000-08:00

HIS NAME WAS FLEMING, and he was a poor Scottish farmer. One day while trying to make a living for his family, he heard a cry for help coming from a nearby bog.

He dropped his tools and ran to the bog. There, mired to his waist in black muck, was a terrified boy, screaming and struggling to free himself. Farmer Fleming saved the lad from what could have been a slow ad terrifying death. The next day, a fancy carriage pulled up to the Scotsman's sparse surroundings. An elegantly dressed nobleman stepped out and introduces himself as the father of the boy Farmer Fleming had saved.

"I want to repay you," said the nobleman.

"You saved my son's life." "No, I can't accept payment for what I did," the Scottish Farmer replied, waving off the offer.

AT THAT MOMENT, the farmer's own son came to the door of the family hovel. "Is that your son?" the nobleman asked. "Yes," the farmer replied proudly. "I'll make you a deal. Let me take him and give him a good education. If the lad is anything like his father, he'll grow to a man you can be proud of."

And that he did. In time, Farmer Fleming's son graduated from St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London, and went on to become known throughout the world as the noted Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of Penicillin. Years afterward, the nobleman's son was stricken with pneumonia. What saved him? Penicillin. The name of the nobleman? Lord Randolph Churchill. His son's name? Sir Winston Churchill.

Someone once said: What goes around comes around. Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody's watching.

-I expect to pass this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any fellow human being let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.-

Beijing 8.2 - Good Bye Lunch-

2010-01-17T15:43:00.000-08:00

There was nothing special about the Good bye lunch except the 'ta fu fa'... Those found in Msia usually mixed sweeteneer... here they add a lot of different stuffs instead!

5ive typee of stuffs which I couldnt remember and the Taste... I dont realy like it but its worth a try.
Basically, I had a good trip but not the best because its too COLD and joining tourgroup which required us to wake up before 7am and reach hotels about 9pm everyday was simply too taxing. If we skipped all the con-shops (about 7even in total), It could have save us 2days extra...

I rather backpack than joining another CHINA-TOUR! That's why in the 1st day Mr.li said vacation is 'buying suffering', that is only true for commercial tour!

Beijing 8.1 -Foot Massage-

2010-01-17T14:01:00.000-08:00

The National Olympic Games Energy Experience Center. Wow! Finally there is a place for sports. At the entrance of this center, I saw 10-20 athletes jogging. I thought this must be the real, something that's good and official.

The warm herbs water for leg washing was perfect to ease the freezing temperature outside. Goodanee! Then came the trainee "Chinese doctors' to help us massage our feet.

Then did I realize that this was a Con-shop as well. The tactics they used was the worst I had experienced. The kid who massaged my foot try to force me to buy an oilmen for RMB200. I insist of not taking it! Of all the china con-shops I went to, this was my most pissed off.experience. Unlike others con-shops, I could just walked away but not this one because he was holding my foot.
Although, his massage skills was the worst but I learn few things about foot massages. Foot massage can be done at home by putting marbles into water and steps on it.
China is promoting Tibet and market Tibetan's product. Tibetan doctor consult patient my looking at their palm.

This center totally destroy any hope of me believing in anything true / real coming out from China-Tour! If that boy whom massaged my leg was truly a Chinese trainee doctor, I am sure China will have no future!!!!

Beijing 8.0 -Panda-

2010-01-17T13:59:00.000-08:00

The only regret for skipping the 7th day tour was not able to see the Panda "live" but luckily they didn't visited the Pandas and it was re-schedule to the 8th day. Great!

Where to find pandas?

In the Zoo lol! Not sure wat kinda birdy is this but its looks like the legendary phoenix!
China call Panda Xiong-Mao "Bear-Cat' translate into a Cat which looks like bear and taiwanese call Panda Mao-Xiong 'Cat-Bear'. The taiwanese is Right, Panda indeed is a bear that looks like cat. Adult panda live in isolation, just like bear they are territorial animal. Panda is so lazy, they even lazy to have sex. Most of the pregnancy of pandas are by human intervention. Adult panda don't move much so the youngs one are cuter.
Panda originated from sichuan and all pandas in beijing were exported here for exhibition purpose. The adults were export for China Asian Games in the early 2000??? Not sure so they are old! Panda age 7times faster than human. They 6 younger pandas were about 2years old. For Beijing 2008 Olympic these 6 specially chosen for prettiness & activeness....
The mos BIG DEAL about these Pandas are that their Bamboos (food) are send to Beijing daily from sichuan through flight because Pandas don't take Beijing bamboo as its too dry!
Recently, there are few celebrities like jacky chan who adopted panda and each one cost about RMB 1millions. Pandas are Top Level China national Treasure...

Beijing 7.0 -Staying Alive-

2010-01-17T12:37:00.000-08:00

The 7th day or should I called it 6th day. In the tour-schedule it was the 7th day, if taking into consideration the 3hours (9pm to 12am) we spend at KLIA was part of the tour, then its the 7th day and if not .... THE SIXTH DAY!

6th or 7th I didn't care because Mrs.lai got too sick to go.... 5straight days of (7am to 8pm) of torturing tour. I would have fallen sick too, if I had continue for the 6days. That day, we were suppose to go to Tianjin which of cause has nothing much to see in the winter, further more weather forecaster a level 6 wind thus I prefer to stay in the hotel!

So Pekam came to visit us, not bad he bought us some souvenir for our wedding.
Thanks Pekam! nice cup...

The rest was worth every cent cause, our tour-bus top was blown off and tour-mates said there was nothing to see at tianjin as most shops has been closed due to lack of tourist in winter.

Beijing 6.2 - Putuo Zongcheng Temple-

2010-01-17T11:35:00.000-08:00

Putuo Zongcheng Temple was build by Qianlong Emperor for peace purpose, during 1700-ish there were conflict with Mongolians whom were believer of Tibetan Buddha thus building a temple for their religion would eased the conflict as it was sign of respect to them. Qianlong Emperor did say that "build a temple, save 100thousand life". Indeed true, places of worship are placed very high in individual heart.

This temple also nicknamed 'little potala palace' as it was build to be lookalike the real thing in Tibet but only about 1/3 of the size.

We were invited to pray at one of the building but I didnt enter as I am not of same religion, anyway at the end. People were 'encourage' to donate so that the monks can pray for them. According to my tour-mates, those were same old 'stories!' Just like tibet, building and houses were build without windows as the wind are too strong but to make the houses look better, fake window were made. Be glad that we have REAL WINDOW!
Everybody play badminton in China... Look at his girls! They love it!

I climbed to the very top of this mini-potala palace and found these Western Love Locks...

0h! lalala... then I realise this 'holy' palace has been turned into a 'commercial' palace instead. Western Love locks.... I dont believe in those things as locks can rusted and breaks!

Beijing 6.1 -Mountain Resort-

2010-01-17T10:59:00.000-08:00

Mountain Resort in Chinese read 'pi su sang chuan' in straight translation mean 'avoid heat mountain resort'... The resort was build during peace and prosperity time of the kingdom and during that period citizen has grown fear of war thus one of the reason for it construction was to encourage its citizen to enhance their hunting skills which will be important during war times. The chinese characters on the board were written wrongly by the emperor himself but yet no one dare to right his wrong. To err is humane, to forgive is divine... He was indeed human!
The main chamber was build using a special kinda wood which were brought to Chengde through river from Yunnan. This kinda wood produce fragrance and its scare away insects. The main chamber is the only structure in the world that is build by this kinda wood. During world war2, Japanese soldiers damaged the structure by taking wood out of it for protection from insect. But restoration works has been done by the current gomen.
Once upon a time in china, 8 countries came to bully China. China was force to sign an unfair peace treaty and till today Chinese believe that the west & Japanese owe them. That's why making imitation of western and japs good are kinda 'OK" if not "patriotic' for them.
Mountain resort cover land areas of 6km2. During winter time (-15), walking will surely kill me. We had no choice but to follow the tour guide's advice to take the bus, I would love to walk as I could have taken more photos as this mountain resort is famous for scenic view which were copied from famous landscaped gardens in Southern China.
I couldnt really enjoy my vacation in China because of the Freezing weather. The only 'enjoyment' was taking hot food & drinks. A HOT-dog cost RMB5 & a can of HOT-coffee too, this stuffs would have cost 60% less in supermarket. But now its not the time to save money. The best part about visiting during freezing condition was that there were less people, lot less than usual.
This was the place where The 1st Pearl Princess "Wan Chu Kak Kak" was filmed, the exact location where Zhao Wei kick something and flown over the roof and picked up by the Hero? I'm not sure who anyway I don't care... not my typo movie.
The hot tin of coffee wasnt just good enough for drinking. It was very good to warm the hand. There were few stalls along the way and we could exchange for a hotter one at the next stall. For RMB5 that's awesome and that's only okay if you don't let the hawker know you didn't bought from them.
Yeah! My shoes again... cracking my the ice on the lake! Hahaha...

A good shoes but too thin for cold weather. Badminton shoes suppose to be thin and that's why its actually not good for winter time. I seen our tourguide wearing something like 2inches thick...
There were still fishes living under the frozen lake as the ice can only be as thick as 6inches or 6feet, I am not sure. anyway... ice in this lake was strong enough for people to play on it.
I seen the fattest cat for real in Chengde... FATCAT so cutie.
REHE (Hot River) is only 300m long, the shortest river in the world. Its source from a hotspring thus in the winter, the water will never form ice. Good for the fishes (red dots) as they can still feed, while others has to hirbenate.
It looks like Koi to me...
Deer... The game for hunting in the older days and now... locked up! So pitiful, either being hunted or locked up! Hard choice to made.

Beijing 6.0 -Chengde-

2010-01-17T09:57:00.000-08:00

0vercook soy milk & mantaos were few of the main dishes of de chengde breakfasta. Their typo breakfast was not to my taste. 0vercook soy milk is their way of food, better not to criticize others culture & kwai lol are the besta in respecting others culture. Learn to respect others so that people will respect you!
Tour-guide & team leader has advice us not to openly criticized food served to us. Its not nice to do so as we were there to learn about the history, culture, people and food, so its best to take whatever there silently & criticize them in the blog. LOL!

Some said, food in china were only good enough for dogs, I found that not true in fact I found few dishes to be very delicious.Chengde is situated northeast of Beijing. It is best known as the site of the Mountain Resort, a vast imperial garden formerly. There are mixture of races in Chengde even a small population of Muslim but generally they looks the same, not like msia where people of different races can be easily spotted.It was freezing, officially -15 C but there were still people playing badminton outdoor. For the locals, it was a normal day but for us, it was hell freeze over.

I wore 2 pair of stocking + a pair of plastic stocking,
2 pair of long john, a pair of jeans + underwear,
3 t-shirts, 2body long john and a scarf for the neck, a mouth cover & a head...

but i still fell freaking cold! It was more than a culture shock...

If given the choice to choose between hot & cold place, I prefer the Hot one. Spending 1-2days in snowy areas is fine but anything longer than that is suffering.

Anyway, women in HOT places are HOTTER!

Beijing 5.4 -Chengde Dinner-

2010-01-16T21:55:00.000-08:00

Chengde was renovated with lotta lightings to make it night's view magnificent. Chengde is consider a small town by China Standard, only 450k population. Chengde was originally named Rehe Town ( Town of Hot River) but few hundred years ago, one emperor decided to build a retreat for training soldiers and a mini-version of potala palace of Tibet thus this small town begin to grow.
Chengde was 5-10 degree colder than Beijing. Luckily, we has been alerted about it. Dinner at chengde was one of the best I had. The best one was the hot sugar sweet potatos, it has to be dip into cold water before ate as its just hotly outta the oven. BESta....
I didnt think I could taste the legendary "coke+halia" in China. I almost forget the fomula which was introduced by Peter Wong my primary skool teacher. Not as goodanee as the sugar sweet potatos in super cold winter but its gave some flash back memory of childhood.

Beijing 5.3 - To Chengde & Rural Toilet -

2010-01-16T20:32:00.000-08:00

On the way to chengde, we stopped at a ski-resort. Single journey from Beijing to Chengde would normally take 3+hours, so it was a good choice to stop at the ski-resort to refresh ourself and THE DRIVER before we continue the next 2hours. Anyway, this ski resort stopover was supposed to be the replacement for the boat ride at summer palace which was canceled as the lake was frozen. Only 1/27 tour members knew how to ski, so its not a good replacement. Anyway on the bus Guide-Li has brainwashed us not to Ski so that he could save some time on other journeys.

Tour Guide will always be Tour Guide, they main intention is to take your money out of your pocket into theirs. Tour guide set time frames and sometimes rushed us through historical places and tourist spots because these places wont earn them extra bucks. For visitation to shops and factories which will earn them extra bucks, we could stay as long as we like and they will smile like they had Ecstasy.

Guide li promoted an extra RMB250/person tour to few places around Beijing. After he finished his promotion talk, he straight away collect money from tour-members. For me it was half force half presude kinda offers.

Anyway, the ski-resort wasnt a 'snow' ski resort, it was actually a ice-ski resort because the 'snow' was actually made by freezing water into ice at the slope then the ice was 'blended' into 'snow' form by a modified truck.

This aint shoes for all terrain and its actually a court shoes, but I have actually fixed it myself with strings and needles. The shoes has my perfect feet moulds thus it is the perfect shoes for travel. In freezing temperature, I wore 2pairs of socks and plastic bag for protection from cold. We spend less than an hour at the ski-resort and after an hour on the road, we stopped at a rural area shop selling local made handcraft. This wasnt any con-shop, it was setup by tour agency to help people from this area to gain extra income. Local in this area were suppose to be poor. Not sure how true it is until I saw the TOILET!
This is the legendary China's toilet, where everyone who had been to china talked about. I had heard numerous stories about china's toilet which has 'make pees flow backward'. It wasn't as bad for the men to do small business but anything other than that required expertise beyond Malaysian's abilities. Those who travel to china 10-20years ago will have The Super Toilet experience, I thought those great time has pass but here was the time machine for the ultimate china Xperience.

Beijing 5.2 -Lunch-

2010-01-16T19:28:00.000-08:00

Yashow clothing market was another fake-goods haven. Things sold here were similar to other fake-goods-stores but Yashow is bigger than Hong Qiao... but nevertheless not my cuppa tea again!

Beijing is a clean & tidy city with mixture of modern buildings and historical structures. Compare to Dubai, Beijing structure has its own identity and build by its own people. There seems to be SOUL in Beijing!

For my 7days stay in Beijing, I never seen anyone spat or thrown rubbish on the street. Many thanks to Olympic2008 in which the government took a huge effort to educate the public.

I always felt hungry mainly because of its FREEZING weathers (-10 to -15)! Hot foods were the best!Before we boarded the plane to Beijing, our team-leader Cindi has warned us not to complain China's foods publicly. Due to differences in culture and weather, Beijing likes saltier and sweeter food, thus the cooks will tried their best to accommodate us. For a table of 10 person, we will have 10 dishes and minimum 7/10 will be vegetables. Beside breakfast, we technically had similar dishes for the last 4days!

Usually there will one Fish dishes, one pork, one soup and there rest were veges. I have no complain about their portion and tastes, just the limited varieties. In some big restaurant they did tag the dished with the cook numbers, for quality control purposes I guess...

This was the last "similar" dishes I had, as the tour-guide is an experience guy thus they know by the 4th day, we would have TOOOOOOOOOOOO much of these. LOL!

Beijing 5.1 -Fake Goods-

2010-01-16T18:10:00.000-08:00

Hong Qiao Pearl Market is just a gimmick, it actually sell all kind of imitation stuffs. We called it 'fan-pan' (copy of the original), the Chinese call it 'kow-cho' (high quality imitation), similar meaning.

Most of the tour-members were so happy being able to fulfill the dream. Nowadays, China are more famous for their fake goods than anything else. Their cheap fake goods can be found all over the world. The fun part was of cause the negotiation part, prices can be slashes to 10% of original price and yet doesn't mean you got a bargain. You know you got a bargain when the salesgirls scold you! That's how low they can go!

I am not a fans of fake goods, I rather use cheap brand than fake goods. Anyway, I bought a Starbucks look-a-like! I don't think its fake...

This is not Fake???

China is opening up!

Beijing 5.0 -Dragon Head-

2010-01-16T17:06:00.000-08:00

Fengshui practitioner believe that every city/country has its vein. For beijing this is the Dragon Head. During Mao Zedong times, lot of ancient buildings were demolished except the Dragon Head.

I was very excited about this visit because this place is the most actsy tourist spots in China. What is so *bah bai* about this dragon head. First of all, its not open to visitor everyday and there are no fix period to which they will be open to public. In Fengshui terms, when its TIME to accept visitors, they will open and in Commonsense terms, they like to open whenever they like.

That morning, we were initially going to visit the Pandas but half way through the journey, Guide Li was informed that the Dragon Head is open for public for that day so we U-turn back for this!

Further more, unlike others tourist spot which are administrated by China Tourism Department, this Dragon Head is administrated by Geological / Fengshui Department. This building is old and on some of its bricks are names of the factory. This names are 'printed' on it for quality control proposed during ancient times.

I have seen this BIG LION Stepping on the SMALL LION statues almost in every historical site but still wonder what does it means. I must have concentrate too much on photo taking and not listening to the guide.
This is the only place where photography, videotaping and even sound recording are prohibited inside a tourist spot. anyway its aint suppose to be a tourist spot, its a Geological Department.

I thought I gonna see some amazing fengshui stuffs or meet some really 'kin-yaw' fengshui sifu. At the end, its the same old story of trying to sell us stuffs! aiy0~y0!

The Sifu, kononnya usually don't give lecture to visitor but due to too many visitor he has to help out and he kononnya like Malaysia Pulau Tioman ( Just like all those who sell us stuffs, they know a bit about Malaysia).

So the sifu continue with his fengshui abilities, he shake a hand of a tour-member has predicted he is into transportation than he read the face of a boy and predicted he is into music. Both are right! Sai lei Woe!

After approximately 40minutes, we were brought to the buy "Pi-siu" the iPhone of Fengshui but none of the tour-member bought a single one. Too bad, the guide must be damn pissed off because he could make a lot from here because one statue can cost up to RMB20k!

Beijing 4.4 -LED Screen, War Foods ' Yuan-

2010-01-16T16:59:00.000-08:00

The 2nd Biggest LED screen in the world, the biggest belongs to La Vegas! This one named " all Beijing look up", it was HUGE... I thought just another giant stuffs which i have seen millions in Dubai but this it outta my imagination. A 250 meter x 30 meter, that the size.. it would take usain bolt 25second to run the length! Proudly say... MADE IN CHINA!

The sliced goat steamboat was an ordinary war-food make extraordinary by a brilliant soldier-cook. The emperor heard about the brillaint food thus summon the soldier-cook to made the meal for him in the palace.

The soldiers tasted the food extremely good because they hadnt been eating warm food during fighting but for the emperor, he had been eating well cooked food all along thus just dipping goat meat into hot water surely will not satisfy him.

The brilliant cook came up with an idea to freeze the goat meat on a ice-block thus the meat can be sliced to very thin and that make it extra specail.

That day was "Ko_tung festival" (Winter Festival?) So our tourguide Mr.li bought us some tong-yuen, chocolate tong-yuen to be exact. He said he bought all that's left in the store and got scolded by people behind, not sure if its true or not. Ko-tung was suppose to have something to do with Winter but in Msia we dont have winter, I wonder why Msian Chinese still celebrat this day?

Anyway, China's Chinese celebrate ko-tung by eating kow-chi not tong-yuen...

Beijing 4.3 -Dr.Tea -

2010-01-16T15:58:00.000-08:00

Indeed another Stop for shopping, while tour guide will always set time limit for historical places visitation but they never ever DID in Factories @ Shops they brought us to. Its an open secret that they will get commission from whatever we bought. This is the worst part about traveling in a tour.

Dr.Tea is the Tea-shop that we were *forced* into, no choice as there weren't any other alternatives. Anyway, i enjoy the exhibition part as they used pretty china dolls with sweet voice to entertain us.

As usual, the main speakers knew few words of Malays to show their sincerity. They even know Teh-tarik, what a coincident... NO! Its not... its fixed with practice... LOL!

While overseas Chinese are more into coffee and western tea, china still very Chinese tea!

There are actually four grades of tea leaves.

1^st grade Bricks

2^nd grade Round

3^rd grade stumps

4^th grade scattered

How the teas are being graded has a lot to do with its picking period and the smaller the leaves the higher the value. There are also lots of others factors to be taken into consideration.

We are given to taste 3-4 types of teas, the “ma lao meat” (pluck by monkey), Pu ‘er and two others which I can’t recall.

The “ma lao meat” (pluck by monkey) is the tea that are serve in The Olympic Village, indeed a smooth and nice smelling tea. Its called “pluck by monkey” because these tea were plucked by monkey in older times as the tea tree as tall.

The *legendary* Pu ‘Er tea, the longer you kept the higher the value as the older it gets the more nutrients its absorbed. If you put the Pu ‘Er into toilet, than it will absorb the toilet smell.

Pu ‘er is so legendary that the price shoots up like rocket. One of its major *POWER* is its ability to absorb oil. Three leaves of Pu‘Er can *clean up* the top layer of oil in a bowl of soup.

In my humble opinion, a contena of pu ‘er would be able to suck up a sea of spilt petroleum?

After the explanation and testing, comes the Selling part. If they skip this part, my trip would have been perfect.

I have no intention to buy any tea because it’s EXPENSIVE and I have no time to ENJOY tea the right way.

Mrs. Lai wanna buy 2 *Round* Pu ‘Er as gifts for people, so we start to negotiate with this girls. The ‘offers’ start pouring out,

Offer A - 6packs free 1 packs + a set of tea pot. RMB400 x 6 round packs = RMB2,400… HELL NO! I aint gonna pay RM1,200 for a pack of dried leaves.

NO! I just want TWO! RMB400 x 2 round packs = RMB 800

Then come the Managresss, talk like a vixen who wanna seduce an OX.

Then come , Offer B – 3pack free 1 packs, RMB 300 x 4 = RMB1,200

I hesitated and she started to talked a bit louder, Mrs. Lai looked at me (meaning to let me make decision but the decision must be according to her will ).

I dun wanna be nag by her again for not buying her pearls and not letting her buy this and that. So gave in!

RINGGIT MALAYSIA ONE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED for 4 packs of 18years old dried leaves. First time in my life!

the REAL excitement about buying stuffs in China is you will wonder if you pay double ? triple ? Ten Times more the its Value?

Or

If the stuffs you bought is Genuine!

Welcome to CHINA!

Beijing 4.2 -National Museum-

2010-01-16T15:56:00.000-08:00

The most impressive modern structure I have seen so far... the roundish bronze structure is just part of the National Museum. I have seen mega structure in Dubai but none represent the community identity and creativity like this building From this structure, I see China *modernize* in its own way. Truly an unique building which represent its own people progress. Relics inside doesn't really interested me, mostly are ancient cup, bowl, weapons & etc. But some paintings are interesting!

Mona Lisa of China

You can take pictures anywhere in china but not in Egypt so I found China to be more *song* as i can fully utilize my 450D!

China's history are much of interesting than Egypt but China's ancient relics are not so impressive. Egypt has these *WOW* factors in their relics that makes me felt amaze and this kind of feeling are lacking in China's stuffs. Maybe because of this relics at display are mostly daily utensils which I hardly use, maybe aunties who spend lotta times in the kitchen would appreciate it?

I wasn't interested in used bowls, chopsticks, accessories & etc but there are rare items of nature that is my cuppa tea. Buried wood in the shape of stumps & Serpentine Jade... Something I have never seen before. I like to learn new things, that's why bowls & knifes.... errr!
The wood is believe to be of a felt tree trunks, buried underground for millions of years. The wood is compacted & dihidrated thus becoming compact & firm yet retaining its original form.

The st0ne on top of it, is a Serpentine Jade / Fragrant Jade as it produce some long-lasting fragrance which it absorbed from plant.

Interesting Stuffs... I thin both of these must be super expensive!

Beijing 4.1 -Summer Palace-

2010-01-16T14:52:00.000-08:00

The Summer Palace, a place where the Emperor & Empress spend most of their time in summer but I went there during winter. Too bad, winter is the only time one can take personal photo as the other time, it would be too crowded to do so.
Indeed an impressive man-made lake with ancient Chinese structure. The lake was frozen and our supposedly boat ride has to be cancel and replace with skiing! 0pps...
The summer palace is so famous because its the reason china lost to Russia in Sea-wars. The Empress decided to use the money to build The Summer Palace instead of upgrading the Navy resulting in shameful defeats of the China Armada. That was history and today its better spend money on *submarine* LOL!
Guide-li didn't let use play on the ice because he THINKS the ice is not solid enough but there were other tourist on it. Tourguides will always be tourguide because they JOB is to bring you to the places listed when you sign up for the tour. They don't care if you enjoy it or you hated it, as long as you BEEN there, their job is consider done.
China is booming and there are no more a socialist country where everyone is equal. Those left behind of the economy boom find themselves lacking behind too much. Aunty & Uncle all come to earn an extra cents.
Summer palace has the longest corridor in the world, about 1KM??? and along this corridor there are drawings on it. During the Chinese revolution, Mao Zedong instructed all this painting to be replaced with *Patriotic* drawings. So the head of the culture department came up with a brilliant idea, they painted a layer of ashes on the original drawing to protect it from being damage and painted those *patriotic* drawings on the layer of ashes. After 20years, when china opened up, these ancient paintings were revealed.

China a country with thousands years of history but have they learn from it?

Beijing 4.0 - Pearl Factory-

2010-01-16T13:50:00.000-08:00

Another "Factory" Visit... this time THE PEARL FACTORY. I actually enjoy the explanation part but not the SALES part. There are 2types of Pearl, Salt-water-pearl & fresh-water-pearl... from these two types, there are distinquish into natural pearl & cultured pearls. Natural pearls are very rare!
This factory only produced fresh-water-pearls. According to the Salesgirls, fresh-water-pearls are much harder than salt-water-pearls because salt-water-pearl is mostly cultured by inserting a hollow sphere into osyter thus SW-pearls has a hollow center. But salt-water-pearl are much more expensive because of its beauty! Not sure to trust this people or not?

Anyway... the pearls that this factory produce was of Tri-angular shape. A special kinda freshwater-oyster found by An Emperor when he notice something shinny on the lake bottom. "not sure if its true or not as it was told by Guide-Li & the Salesgirl"... better be careful especially when people try to sell you things. when they oyster was opened up, there were 28 pearls inside it, so one for 27 of us... Looks like the Spawn in Aliens Movies. I thought, only one can be found in each oyster but 27! That's define how much the value of pearl has dropped over the years due to cultured technology..
The Salesgirls are smart, they only tried convicned women because they know women rather die than be ugly. Beside necklace, bracelet & other jewelry, there were also this PEARL CREAM which is supposedly good for the skins. Mrs. Lai got angry again because I refuse to be conned by Those Pearl-Girls.
I simply do not believe SKII is not better than This PEARL-CREAM...

From Western point of View, SKII is scientifically proven...

and from Chinese point of View, There are plenty FAKE SKII in China market but no FAKE PEARL-CREAM!

Beijing 3.5 - Wang Fu Jing-

2010-01-16T12:49:00.000-08:00

Wángfǔjǐng is the Chinese capital's most famous shopping streets. Much of the road is off-limits to motor vehicles. Wang Fu Jing means The Well of Wang's Mansion; there was a well in this area, where its water taste sweet but there well has seen been closed...
Christmas day inst a public holiday in China but the Celebration mood can be seen all over Beijing. Big Xmas tree are everywhere... but in this super cold winter (-10), not many people were walking at night by Wangfujing standards.
McPork Burger is simply irresistible for someone who was born in Msia (no- mcPork) & worked in Dubai (no-McPork)! DELICIOUS!!!!
I thought Lee Garden was just a Sandakan's Brand but it was actually an International Hotel . Its Beijing branch is taller than HILTON and located at the busy street of Wangfujing! Its better to travel a thousand miles than read a thousand books. That's why I don't read.

Indeed a cold night but its great to feel "NOW" after 2days of visiting Building of Yesteryear!

Beijing 3.4 - China Exotic Food-

2010-01-16T11:48:00.000-08:00

The only legal roadside stall in Beijing, it was just a row of about 30stalls selling weirdo food located near the famous street of WangFuJing

These were the legendary "Ping Tong Wo Lu" = Ice Sugar + a kind fruits. An ancient candy, a kinda fruits wrapped by hard sugar. And today it has evolve into different kind of fruits as well. Not exactly to my liking but I have watch it millions of times in Kungfu movies, thus has to try it.
Bee cocon, Beetles, Centipede & all other weirdo food are not Beijing Foods, its actually Guangzhou Food. Guangzhou people are ferocious eater including cats...

Penis helps manhood abilities is a myth!
Fried starfish is rich with Vitamin A
Scorpion... not sure what is it power? I think also alot to do with manhood
unfortunately, I was too full to try all of this.

Beijing 3.3 -Bao Fu Ling-

2010-01-16T10:21:00.000-08:00

I had a bad headache due to the freezing strong wind in Great Wall but Mrs.Lai insisted that it because I visited the TOMB! Anyway, a visit to Bao Fu Ling was the prefect remedy for the pain. Bao Fu Ling is a famous cream with multiple healing power, sound very Magic to me .

BFL has been in the market for more than 20years and there are fakes Bao Fu Ling! When there are imitation of the real thing in market that's mean the Real thing is good.

The "tester plasters" was perfect for my headache, from kungfu movies I learn where to stick the plaster to cure headache. There were strong scenes of mint in the plasters.

The Highlight of this show was the red hot iron chain touching scenes. 0nce the *sifu cum lecturer cum scientist cum salesman* touch his hand with it, there were burn marks all over his palm and we can clearly see pain in his expression.

Despite in great pain, he still took a few minutes effort to show the audience his burned palm. After that he quickly applied Bao Fu Ling, after 10minutes the wounds were healed without scares. Amazing!

*That Sh0w* itself is worth RM300, I bought one BFL for RMB300. This kinda cream is good but not everyone need it. Most who bought it will not even use it. The cream can last for 5years if kept in cold condition.

I bought a bracelet of Bian-Stone (China Aqua Titanium) !

I do believe this kinda of things (Bian-stone/aqua-titanium) do helps in the initial stage of wearings but not in long terms.

Beijing 3.2 - 13th Tomb of Ming Dynasty -

2010-01-16T09:53:00.000-08:00

We bought one Big sweet potato for RMB5 at the foot of Badaling Wall, it was cheap for us and also good money for the hawker. A cooked sweet potatoes this size would have cost at least double in Jusco Msia. Best food, we had so far... in the -10 degree Celsius anything warm would have been delicious!
After Standard lunch, next stop The 13th tomb of Ming Dynasty....

The road which the emperor will only travel once in their life time, truly an once in a lifetime experience FOR THEM! Just like any other ancient kings tomb, the ming Tomb was hidden as well. It was exposed accidentally after an earthquake only ONE tomb was digged up and the others were left as they are? I wonder why? Izzit because the chinese afraid to disturb the ancestors or they dont have the expertise yet?
The "door of death", ancient believe that once you step through the door, you enter the world of death so our Super-superstitious tour-guide Mr.Li took us around round the door instead of through the door.
There were 16emperors in total but only 13 tombs because .....

I didn't take any pixs from the tomb as advice by Mr.Li... The tomb was about 7floors under ground with huge chambers. Much more spacious than those found in Egypt. The tomb was covered up with earth and almost impossible to be digged up if the entrance to the tomb are not located. But of cause with modern tech, the tomb-defense can be penetrated easily.

Mr.Li did advise us not to visit places like this in the future... superstitions!

Beijing 3.1 - The Great Wall-

2010-01-16T04:47:00.000-08:00

The great wall of China, the "NEW" Seven Wonders of the world. Some believe that this is the only human made structure visible from the outer space. Its proven wrong by China very own TAIKONUTS! Not visible from outer space doesn't make the Wall less meaningful. The great wall suppose to be long, tens thousand of miles long and yes, I don't think anyone did walk the distance and I don't suppose I can too. So the tour brought us to Badaling Wall (sounds like Petaling Walls), a minor part of the walls that has been maintain and restore by the government.

The wall is actually a symbol of suffering, millions died building and defending it. Its a reminder for human kind, the cruelty of wars. the steps of the wall aren't of standards size and length, I am sure workers and soldiers of ancient time has difficulty maneuvering around the wall. Some steps are almost 2feet high and narrow. This is the only part of the thousands miles that still in good condition, some actually has ruined. Very similar to climbing Mt.Kinabalu... TOUGH!There were stalls setup, selling certificate for RMB20 to certify that you have climb the Great Wall with a pix of you in it! BUT the certificate isn't recognized in the WHOLE CHINA! LOL! AND you can actually buy it some where else without climbing the wall.

hooooray! my 3rd 7even wonders of the world! 5more to go!

Beijing 3.0 -Jade Factory-

2010-01-15T05:20:00.000-08:00

First day in Beijing was dead tired; straight from airport we went sightseeing till 9pm. We wake up 615am the next day to continue but overall I feel satisfied as I experienced the real thing. I thought this tour is goodanee, no force buying and no con-shop.

I went to Beijing for one reason, The Great Wall and yes the 2^nd day was Great Wall day!

On the bus, Mr.Li talk a lot of things about china, but he was quite excited about “fengshui” and he mentioned the goodness of the “Jade Siu Pak Choi” numerous times . Siu Pak Choi sounds like “White Fortune” which means legal money or sort of. Then, he said we will stop by a Jade Factory on our way to the great wall.

Woot… the “tail” has come out! I thought it was a sincere sharing of his “fengshui” knowledge but instead it was a brainwashing process. Mr.Li told the story about a Malay man who doesn’t understand a single word of Chinese bought a big “Siu Pak Choi” home. He said, fengshui is not about religion, it can be applied to all but I doubt so.

Jade is Chinese No.1 Jewelry because Jade Emperor is Chinese No1 God. Anyway, I am not wise about Gems stone but these stone are EXPENSIVE! The Jade Factory tour start with this guy explaining the giant sculpture of jade which a sculptor took 3years to make it.

The “Siu Pak Choi” supposes to function as “Legal Fortune Magnet” and for the “Legal Fortune Magnet” to function the head should face the interior of the house and the roots should face the door. Most importantly the “Siu Pak Choi” must be made of Jade because Jade has mystical power.

In my humble opinion, the real reason the Siu pak choy must be made of Jade was because we are visiting a Jade Factory and Mr.li will get commission if anyone bought something from there. Few families bought some Big Siu Pak choi which cost Thousands.

Mrs.Lai got angry because I don’t let her buy anything from the Jade factory, although the factory does guarantee three times money back if the item they sold are fake. In my humble opinion, stuffs there are all real but the prices are sky rocketed.

The best jades are mined in Myanmar and China's Jade is second grade but most of the crafting is done in china. They can really craft almost anything to the visible eyes. Amazing, it isn’t easy to craft something so hard. According to the salesperson, Jade is one of the hardest material in the world.

Anyway, there are many grades of Jade. Some has been injected with chemical to enhance it color. There is a Chinese saying that sounds something like “Human feed Jade, Jade feed Human “. Chemical modified jade supposed to be “dead” so it can interact with its wearer.

Jade is also believe to protect it wearer. If a Jade bracelet break, it means the Jade has protected it wearer from danger.

Hidden in the washroom of the showroom is the best show!

No smoking! But beside the sign are an ASHTRAY with Table & Chair for the comfort

Yes... I left the place empty handed with Mrs.Lai Anger! lol!

Beijnng 2.2 -Tiananmen Square, Natioanl theater, Temple of Heaven, Acrobatic Show & Dong fang Hotel-

2010-01-14T01:58:00.000-08:00

Strangely I felt that the Entrance (Our exit as Mr,Li The Superstitious Guy took us from back to front) to be most fascinating 0f all the scenes I had seen in the forbidden city. The shear size of the doors and the length of exits gave a "WOW" feeling. It took me about 2min to walk through that door....

At the Entrance of The Forbidden City was the famous Pix of Mao Zedong, The China God... Yes! They do worship Mao Zedong in China. As Mr.Li said, Mao Zedong is not human, He is God in China. Even his father a lecturer did worship Mao.

Right opposite of the forbidden city is the Tiananmen Square and next to it, is the China's Parliament. A Political very sensitive location, Mr.li said, few years ago one Taiwanese teenager took out a Taiwan flag for photo, causing the whole tour group to be detained by police. The place is big but not as big as I thought it would be. I do remember seeing Tanks in Tienanmen Square from TV about 20years ago but this places doesn't seems able to accommodate that many tanks! Security is tight, metal detector & etc...

Next was the National Theater, nothing special just a few photographs from the exterior. The bad side following tour is that they just wanna cover every possible areas as fast as possible. That's why as they say "Vacation = Buy Suffering"! 0nly true for Tour Group!

Next was the Temple of Heaven, the place where Emperors worship the Jade Emperor (Tau Pek Kong). The spot nearest to heaven as everyone eager to STEPs on it! Anyway, I AM NOT ONE OF THEM! Temple of Heaven is actually THREE (3) times the size of Forbidden City but most of the areas are Garden thus we only spend less than an hour there.There are many halls in Temple of Heaven but I found the Echo Walls to be most interesting. The wall was build in a round shape, when one speak from one side, others can hear what he said all around the wall. It wasn't an intentional design but accidental effect from the roundish shape and perfect bonding of bricks. Up next... the acrobatic show, Magnificent Human Ability but I don't like watching this kinda show as these kids suffer a lot to achieve this and yet they earn peanuts. About 9pm we reached Dong Fang Hotel. 100++ years old hotel, which usually take foreigners as quest but due to Christmas season as not many westerners keen to travel thus it was open to public! We stayed here for 3days but we have no time to enjoy the facilities at all as we usually go out at 8am and reach home by 9pm! Anyway, it was just a 4stars hotel...

I bought some Bananas from hawkers at the entrance of the acrobatic show for RMB20 (Wat??? I should have bought some local fruits, Banana is tropical fruite le! )

Good night...

Beijing 2.1 -Forbidden City-

2010-01-13T01:23:00.000-08:00

1st site visit, The "Once" Forbidden City... This place is MEGA, I am sure ancient emperors did get lost. The Palace for Ming & Qing Dynasty, this place has the best feng shui in the whole china that's why the two dynasty decided to rule from here.

I am not a fengshui guy but our tour guide Mr.Li is an avid beliver, he once follow, not lead a group of Msian fengshui master & his students to learn about fengshui in the palace. One new beast I learnt from this tour is "Pi Siu". Everyone in the tour know about this beast but I don't... Anyway, for fengshui practitioner, the Pi Siu is the "iPhone" of fengshui. Pi-siu looks like a tiger with a flat or no ass!!! Ancient bed for the King, looks very uncomfortable to me but in those days... these are the besta! The emperors has lotta bed, because they fear assassination thus sleeping in random beds all over the palace. There are actually 7k+ bedroom not 9999.5 as in folklore... The 0.5room is the room for the emperor as the emperor is only suppose to be son of Tua Pek Kung (Jade Emperor) sort of this kinda stuffs???

This looks like the biggest bowl in the world but in actual its an ancient fire-fighting tools. It will be filled up with water at all time especially in the summer. The Forbidden City is too huge to transfer water from on corner to another. This is the Real "Bunga Emas" (Gold Flowers), smaller kingdoms send "Bunga Emas" to China Emperor as sign of "kow tow"but not mention in Malaysian History, instead sign of submission its a sign of "friendship"!!! These 2 are the most populor hat in china... I didnt get one as I wont be using it for 2nd time... Nice idea though!

The Dragon has 9sons.... this is the eldest... the *turtle dragon* sign of strength and longevity...

I didnt get much from the tour guide, as I am more keen on taking pix.... history is interesting but with the WWW, its easier to search for info

Beijing 2.0 -The Arrival-

2010-01-11T18:03:00.000-08:00

On arrival we were greeted by Our china tour Guide Mr.LI. We proceed to breakfast at one restaurant near the airport. Bags were send to hotel and we officially started The Beijing China tour.

My first experience joining Malaysian tour group. Basically, a group consist of a GroupLeader ( a Malaysian who will bring your all the way through KLIA and back), a Tour guide (a Chinese, who will determine where and when to go places) and a driver!

This was our Tour Guide, Siau Li (Little Li) that's the way he wanted us to address him. According to him, he is retired and now a owner of AAA – fake bags maker and his wife is going deliver in March 2010 but due to urgency and lack of tour guide, the boss of the agency as requested him to work for this tour. It sounds true to me…

I was surprised that Volkswagen dominated China market, Volkswagen Group China (VGC) (大众汽车中国) was the first foreign car maker to start a factory in china thus a big share of the market are monopoly by them.

Motorbikes are banned in China, only handicapped person are entitle for one but electric bike are legal. Because of the cold weather, bikes' handles come with gloves...
Beijing (Peking) is a modern and clean city, its de capital of China thus become the symbol for china. Before Olympic 2008, there are aggresive movement to teach beijing citizen not to spat and throw rubbish. They must have succeed!
17 millions inhabitants... much more modern than our KL...

Beijing 1.0 -Air China-

2010-01-10T18:22:00.000-08:00

For me, the most important gear for travel is the shoes because you will be walking distance with it. Cloths, you can buy on the spot but you can never ever get good shoes because shoes need time to be nurture to be one with its wearer.

My best shoes is no other than my Yonex, I have been wearing it on badminton court for 2years and it has tears near the small toes side on both shoes but I sew it back. Yes! I did it myself because commercial tailor would charge me RM12 for one shoe and it doesn’t sounds fair to me.

We bought our an 8Days 7nights tour packages at RM2300 that was awesomely cheap. In my 30years life, I have learn that good things don’t come cheap and cheap things dont come good. Air China, China no.1 budget airline was as BAD as it can get. I don't expect personal entertainment system but I was expecting delays but not what await us.

As we were about to take off, the plane Air-conditioning and lighting gone out.

Woot… it happen twice and the plane has to be jump started with help from external battery. Lil’s told me, if it happen the 3rd time, we gonna walk out of the plane. The 3rd times never happen… not sure to put it as lucky or unlucky.

When the plane electrical system died off, there was no ventilation nor light and its hot. I have took a lotta plane but this is the worst I have ever came across.
The 6hours flight to Beijing was nothing special but the landing was the worst! The plane swing to leftsss and rightsss when it tried to land, maybe due to the strong wind (I am not sure) but that was scary.

The most unforgettable landing and take off I experienced in my life , I thought it would have been my last journey. The Journey back to my ancestors' land!
Beijing international airport was awesome, very similar to KLIA in terms of colour. My story about Air china didn’t stop there; two of my travel group’s member has their bags open… theft???
I know before hand that China trip wont be easy but I survived to tell the story!

Hebrews 10

2009-12-13T07:11:00.000-08:00

26 If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 27but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.

Indian Food

2009-06-23T02:01:00.000-07:00

The cheapest restaurant food one can find in Dubai is Indian Food. There are similarity between Dubai's Indian Food and our Mamak's food, after all they come from the same source *INDIA*. One of my fave hang out places is this Restaurant, especially after badminton session at Burj. Usually it cost us less than 20dirham/per pax each time... consider cheap for Dubai standard.Nasi Bryani is generally come with every dishes- bryani chicken, bryani mutton, bryani fish & etc. Its very oily, Too oily for my taste and usually I can still smell the taste of Bryani the day after I had the meal. That's why I always said, eat too much Bryani till Tidak Berani to eat anymore.Ever wonder how our Roti KLCC, Roti LRT, Roti-Roti names make it to Msia? I persumed it must have started in India too... Those Mamak must has brought it to Msia. Anyway... Drinks here are much more colorful with variety of names too...Giving names to those Drinks are the easy part... making it colorful is the hard part. No sure how the mix 3colors into a drink without the color mixing up. This kinda drinks are for those with a Sweet Tooth... from the look also know its all Sweet UP!
I aint gonna miss Dubai Indian's Food, but I gonna miss it colorful decoration!

KL Tour

2009-06-18T09:45:00.000-07:00

Recently Trev & Lor stopped over at KL on their way to Hong Kong so I took them around town to see2 look2... I thought it will be boring affairs since nothing in KL really interest me... Anyway it was my chance to be little ambassador for Msia...

But boy... it was nothing such as Boring working as a *Part* time Tour guide... It took me to places where i havent been to for Years... I mean Years... Never in my imagination did I think KL Twin towers can be this BEAUTIFUL... It aint cheap but it sure beautiful... I have seen many impressive building all around the world but The Twin Tower Night Scenes.... AWESOME!

Whenever I think of Batu Caves... Its scary because everytime I passed through that road ---> MASSIVE TRAFFIC JAM!!! But I was lucky that day... it was clear-- clear--- clear... clear road, clear weather & clear of crowds... I have only been into Batu Caves once and that was almost 20years ago. I was too young to appreciate the uniquness Batu Caves.

Before Trev&Lorr reached KL, they have enough warning of *insecurity* in msia. Shame to admit that crime rates in Msia is at a worrying level but its also important to inform foreigners especially friends about potential dangers. Luckily, I didnt have to elaborate much about Msia's crime as they have been well informed in Dubai by MSIAN frens... LOL! I was worried about myself too, I know I have lost the *alertness* about my surrounding as Dubai is largely crime-free. Beside them learning about Msia, I learn a thing o 2 about HK too. Hongkies found it funny that Msian can simply come up with *creative* signboards. For me, ah longs are the most creative fields in Msia. I should have kept few Ah long's name cards to show those hongkies; Written in english- provide tution but in chinese provide loan, whore & pwan! LOL!Initially, they werent very interested to travel to Genting but I cant think of others places which might interest them. They are from HK & work in Dubai, so shopping & shopping malls in msia are no match to the 2 mighty shopping heaven. Contrary to their views of Casino Land like Macao... Genting offer much more than just *betting*; there are amusement, shopping, theme park & etc. DIVERSIFY is the word to describe Uncle Lim Visiion!Next I took them all the way to KLANG, to taste the Real BAK KUT TEH! They have been taking packed Bak kut teh in Dubai & also recently *Ajinomoto-ed Singapore Version of Bak Kut Teh*. Its only right to let them taste the Original Taste Bak Kut Teh... Oh yeah! Goodanee... Support Original. Further more they have never seen *food shops* like that in HK... Talking about Food, Hongkie has never taste Kaya before... LOL! Sometimes, we need some outsider to let us know our *specialities*!

I thought there were no Fryfly left but anyway I drove them all the way to Kuala Selangor. Wooot! It was awesome there were so many flyflies, I looks like a row of X'mas trees. Maginficient sights. For all they have seen in KL; KLCC, Genting, Satay, Bak kut teh- nothing more memorable than FlyFlies... I have been there 7-8years ago and I was impress too! Fryfly do visit me regularly at night in SDK home but to see them in thousands making row of X'mas trees lookalike... That was AWESOME!

I wont have notice so many interesting places within Klang Valley if not for Trev & Lorr!

Return to Say Bye2

2009-06-11T01:22:00.000-07:00

Boarded a almost empty MAS airline from KLIA to Dubai... the stewardess told me that was only 30 passengers on boards. The same TV-less plane I boarded with MAS DUbai-KL & vice versa. I make an official complain this time as their airfare isnt cheaper either but provide no personal entertainment... MAS!!!
Beside the *no personal entertainment system* we also gotta stopover in karachi, pakistan... not a safe place to land not even for an hour stopover! Most of my ex-colleague request to be transfer back to Msia... KARACHI is almost a WARZONE now...

Rented a car in the airport... booked online at a much more cheaper rates. got myself a Toyota Yaris (Vios) manual. MANUAL... that was a challenge for me... 2nd time drive a left hand side manual... the 1st time was about a 15min drive... my UAE driving license is for auto-car but the rental company didnt notice so i took it anyway... no wonder its so cheap because manual car got low demand... nevertheless renting a car is much more cheaper than taking a cab in dubai...

The same *OLD* building in dubai... nothing special for me... has been here for 3years... so it was kinda bring my parents over to see2 look2 & settle some of unfinish business... As usual my paretns were impressed by the 7lanes road of dubai... & lot of people must have left dubai as the roads were mostly empty even at peak hours... queue at the immigration also empty... now Dubai looks a Msian version of putrajaya... UNDER UTILIZED!!! took my papa & mama to the outskirt... to let them see what dubai looks like 15years ago... Wow... boy the weather was HOT! 46c MAX.... I always wonder why Dubai's SUN seems bigger than Msia's SUN? Air-con bus stop... the ultimate shelther during this 4months of HEAT waves... if there is one in msia... the same day the Air-con would have been stolen. The world tallest structure is still under construction.... wonder if they gonna complete this THINGS when the economy is so down... Abu Dhabi make a PANCAKE building.... this PANCAKE is huge... maybe they got the idea from KLCC Jagugn look alike strucure... maybe MSia shall start a Durian lookalike Mall? Although, Burj al arab (the self proclaim 7stars hotel) is the most famous structure in UAE but most visitor would agreed that Abu Dhabi Emirates Palaces ( also a hotel) are much more beautiful. Sammy is still there even after all the campgain to free her... Sammy is a whale shark caught near UAE water for the sake of *Education*! Pix from top of UAE... the tallest mountain Habeel Jaffet... I dunno why but I like this pix very muchi... maybe of the vastnest of land? this hotspring is not popular during the summer but during winter... it was the HOTSPOTS! This is DATES in its ori form... very oily... same family with our oil palm.. Burj al arab as always... Everyone who never been to dubai will ask about it... Beautiful... yes it is...

empty airport... empty road... Dubai at it worst... gh0st t0wn?

Le Tour De Genting

2009-05-09T01:10:00.000-07:00

Drop by to visit Uncle Lim last week & spend a nite at First World Hotel... A Huge development... The Walls of the parking lot were full of *ads*... Sexy Ads...Rented a Deluxe room & there was a *Classic* 14inches Tv...

MAS Dubai-KL

2009-04-14T07:26:00.000-07:00

I just could not understand how can MAS not provide personal LCD screens when the air fares they charge were similar to Emirates Airlines and Singapore Airline which equip their aircrafts with personal LCD inclusive of 800 channels.

I only board MAS dubai-KL bound two times and both times also no Personal LCD…

Same value… different quality! Pay for patriotism...

Is MAS expecting each & every passenger to sleep 7hours?

Raining Ice Cubes in The Desert!

2009-03-28T00:55:00.000-07:00

UAE Hail Storm (March 26, 2009)

Expensive Cheap Cars for Sale!

2009-03-25T23:54:00.000-07:00

Subaru Impreza 1.5L,

2008 Model,Black Colour,

Gulf Specs All Wheel Drive (AWD),

42,000kms,

Automatic with option of manual shift,

Accident free,

Good condition -

Full Options (6 stack CD changer, 15” tyre wheel, Front head fog light)

Power windows, Electric mirrors, Central locking, A/C, No kid or pets have been in the car,

No smoker,

3 year 80,000km warranty,

Reg Jan 2008,

Insurance paid to Jan 10,

Price AED 40,000.00 Lexus IS 300 2008,
pearl white color,
Premium Plus options ,
done 10,000 km,
4 months use
Accident Free
Full service history
Only 1 driver
Under Lexus Vehicle Warranty
Feature:6-spd multi-mode transmission w/paddle shifters, 228hp, 17" alloy wheels, ABS, Traction control & VSC Leather, 14 speaker Mark Levinson stereo w/ 6 disc in-dash changer + MP3, CHILLED seats, Front & rear sonar, Cruise control, Auto-rear sunshade, Keyless entry & start, etc... Looking for Dhs110,000

Both cars belongs to my fren and they are leaving Dubai, it aint any random Ads i copy & paste from car sales website. Middle East cars are cheaper and its even cheaper now... since everyone is leaving...

Car is the only things I never regret spending money in because SHE give me a LIFE in UAE...

Cheap car + Good Salary = Bargain!

Selling car during this time is 0ne good experience... I almost sold my car to a Pakistani, we reached the Road Transport Authority(RTA) office and only at that moment he said he wanna 4k discount because I mis inform him about the year production of my car. It was 2005 but I told him 2006!

I didnt lie to him, it was written 2006 on my insurances policies but 2005 on my car registration card. He know about it for a week but he choose to bargain with me at the last minutes... WTF! He tried to exhausted my all other options thus I have to sell my car to him.

But I aint gonna give in... I drove away & post my car on the website again...

A week later, I sold my car to a Hot Russian Blonde with a 4k discount. Selling car in UAE is all about SATISFACTION not MONEY! LOL!

Heaven Throwing Stone to D0bye?

2009-03-25T19:12:00.000-07:00

I thought my friend was joking when he said, there will be Hail stones tonight (yesterday). People use to tell me, it usually rain 2 days a year in UAE but I have experience much more rain than two!

But rain usually come during the month of December to February, It was an unusual circumstances. Dubai and adjoining emirates were lashed by heavy rain and in some areas there were hail stones.

0h yeah! D0bye was crying becoz I’m leaving…

Teh Tarik

2009-03-21T21:18:00.000-07:00

Just got my Creative Vado yesterday morning... very efficient, I just order it thursday evening and they deliver it saturday morning. Less than 48hours... super efficient to dubai standard. This gadget is kinda free because I redeem it from Airmiles. 46500 airmiles to be precises....

Sheikh Zayed Road

2009-03-19T10:15:00.000-07:00

Sheikh Zayed Road or simply known as SZ road is the main road of Dubai. It's actually the center of the New Dubai, where all those new modern building were build. I live along SZ road but the problems is that whenever I travel out of my house, I need to pay 4dirham Salik (Toll) charges and that Sux! But since I am car-less now, I need not to pay plus I can take alot of pixs while walking.Buildings along SZ road comprise of Residential as well as commercial. Lot of the residential Towers are actually owned by Emirates Airlines thus there are high concerntration of Cabin Crews here.Burj Dubai can be seen almost everywhere and its located along the SZ road. All those high rise buildings around it are actually more than 60 storeys high but when they stand near to Burj Dubai, it looks like they are only 20-30 high. Optical Illusion...Its very hard to find parkings during peak hours along the service roads of SZ road. Beside the limited parking spaces, there are also lot of cars stopping in between buildings to pick & drop passengers. Parking use to be free in Dubai but not anymore... One of the way for the Dubai government to look for extra revenue and discourage people from driving. 1dirham for 1hour, 3dirham for 2hour, 5dirham for 3hour & 8dirham for 4hour... If get fines--> 150dirham... Another reason for the bad traffics along the SZ service road is the construction of the METRO (LRT), There are excavation and overhead bridges everywhere.

This is no underground passage although there is one for crossing SZ road, this structure is to protect people who pass through building which still under construction from being hit by falling object. Dubai authorities do take Safety & Health at construction site seriouly.

This is the 0ld bus stand... it actually has been replaced by the air con Bus stop. I dunno why they still keep this broken bus-stand here? For romantic reason? to remind people that they use to sit under sun 50celcius to wait for a bus?

The 3wheel bicycle or tricycle is an effective way to transports stuffs from grocery stores to clients apartment. It might not be as flexible as a 2wheel but it offer better stability... give & take in life! At night this side of the road is a busy as its in the day... disco, pub, restaurants... one of the most famous disco/pub Zinc is located inside the Crowne Plaza along this road. Famous because Cabin crews can get 50% discount for drinks. I have an unforgetable experience related to this road. I finished drinking with my colleague at 2am and I tried to catch a taxi back but no taxi wanna take me home because the road was blocked to enable the installtion of the connecting bridge between 2metro station. I apartment maybe about 3KM from here but in a freezing night... 10C... I aint going to walk the walk... so go back and drank some more... till 3am... but the road still close... aiy0... sit at the road side till 4am... before traffic resume to normal.... All i wanted was a nice hot shower & sleep...

SZ road not the center anymore... more classy pubs in Marina now... Time change... location also change...

The Long Walk

2009-03-16T22:40:00.000-07:00

I was about to walk the long walk from my apartment to Dubai Mall, The biggest Mall in The World. Driving will take me about 5-10minutes including finding parking & turning up the multistorey carpark and walking will be approximately about 30min...

Since I sold my car, I have to Walk The Walk... No choice but I am blessed with Friends... I met Kriss when waiting for the lift and she is also going to dubai mall so she took me there lol! So lucky...

The multi-storey parking is so big and Multisss... there are tickets machines everywhere for customers to get a ticket free to show where they park their car. I am sure, it will be a nightmare trying to locate a car without one.

One of the main attraction of Dubai Mall is The Kinokuniya bookshop... I think its the biggest bookshop I have ever been to.. There are all kind of books inside, from english to indian, chinese to japanese, korean & the list goes on and on...

The walkways for this mall is very wide and it has contribute a lot to the title biggest mall in the world. The fastfood burger Johnny Rockets sounds great but it price also very expensive. The cashier asked me do I wanted cheese in my burger and I asked her back, is it free? She said 4dirhams and I said no, TQ! Time has change... There are water features everywhere in the mall... some are about 30m high. Water features are one of the most popular decoration in dubai. Its nice to see but expensive to build and maintain. Most Dubai famous buildings has water features, its like Water Features is a must in the Land of Desert? What set Dubai Mall apart from the rest of Dubai Landmarks building is its lighting decoration. It was magnificient. They must have spend a fortune on these stuffs, lighting decorations are everywhere from ceilings to floors... I dont think any World Famous Shopping Mall can exist without Brand Like Armani & LV but in Dubai mall, these shops are actually still under renovations... Sean Connery still sell hot despite his age... A Legend without doubt... I doubt LV can find any Actor more famous than LV... only SEAN! But our very own Jimmy Choo shop is open for business... I am not up to standard to buy it but still can window it!

Aquarium inside Dubai mall is the main attraction of the mall... If I am not mistaken it the biggest Glass Panel in the world? anyway... non-paying tourists used to be able to go very near to the glass but since not many people wanna pay 25dirhams just to walk through the "underwater" tube... they setup a barricade to stop people from going near unless they PAY!

Just beside the Biggest Mall in the World located the Tallest Structure in the World... THE BURJ DUBAI

Behind every landmark building, there are thousands and even millions of labourers... It was 37degree celcius that day! They are 0rdinary supermen to me...

Within this Dubai Mall & Burj Dubai vicinity, there is The 0ld town hotel... Its not old but designed 0ld... not exactly 0ld, just according to UAE tradisional buildings... It looks like some romantic boat ride at the man-made lake but they are actually cleaning it. It takes a lot of manpower, time and machinery to maintain the "Blue-ness" of the lake if not it will turn Black-Green. Money is the secret to a beautiful blue lake... I prefer this hotel than The Famous 7star burj al arab, as this hotel give visitors the feeling of Arab-ness. Its their original taste... tourists come to taste the local enviroments not so western structures.... Just like every Landmark Buidling in Dubai... water everywhere but here its mix to perfection and give the feel of 0asis. Super cars are everywhere in UAE but super long cars are rare.... Burj Dubai is so huge... It drawfed all the building around it and I think they purposely design all building around it to be less than 3storeys high to give it even a BIGGER feel.......

I decided to walk back that day, halfly because I dont want to pay any taxi fares & partly I want to get the "slave" feel I got when I just came to dubai almost 3years ago.

It took me 2hours to walk from Dubai Mall to my apartment... It was suppose to be a 30min walk but because of my ignorance. I walk a lot of *yin wong* way... How I wish I have a bicycle like them... I used to laugh at them but Things change... I cant always be the big dog!

Lifes goes one...

Atlantis

2009-03-16T13:13:00.000-07:00

I cannot possibly leave Dubai without ever setting foot in the famous ATLANTIS!Just like any other Tourist Center or I called it "Foreign Money Sucking Traps", they have a THEME and that is UNDERWATER CITY! So There are sotong and fishy everywhere, even on the ceilings.When everywhere people got sotong-ed, nobody gonna spend no money, so shops were technically empty. Everyone are just to see-see look-l00k!Even the walkway and corridors are S0000000000 "Crowded".... Do-byeeeee!What irk me most was that, they still wanna sell these trousers for 2000AED! More expensive than the cheapest Tag Huer Watch!I aint gonna spend a cent in this TRAP, UNDERWATER WORLD... I skipped it and go to those free show! LOL!The aquarium is so big, it can be seen everywhere... no need to pay also can see but of cause not that close up lol!Underwater vacuum cleaner... I believe this kinda job is not for the ordinary cleaner. Must be someone with diving license... Not an easy jobs vacuuming underwater...The biggest fish in the Tank is actually Sammy the whale shark. She is caught at the coast of UAE and put inside this Tank. Lotta activitist has actually demanded her release back to the wild and this is one of the reason I refuse to spend a single cent in Atlantis. Release Sammy or I boycott Atlantis...I didnt go into the famous water park because its very expensive AED400 per entry... wow wow! Anyway since THONG isnt allowed, no point I go inside to have "FUN"! This is the mouth of the famous Water Slide... THe world most vertical water slide and will bring you through the aquarium in the hotel... sounds interesting but too expensive...Atlantis...

ATM Robbery

2009-03-09T23:18:00.000-07:00

Finally it happens in UAE, it doesn’t take a genius to notice the different in approach between the securities personnel transferring money into ATM in Malaysia and UAE. Due to high crime rates in Malaysia, guards are usually very alert and careful when loading the ATM but it was totally opposite in UAE, guards are so relax. Time has change, lot of people are jobless now in UAE.

As reported in www.7days.ae

A security guard is recovering in hospital after being shot outside a bank during an armed robbery. An eyewitness told 7DAYS that the guard was left screaming in agony and lying in a pool of blood following the attack on the Noor Islamic Bank on Buhairah Corniche in Sharjah early yesterday morning.

The eyewitness said: “Everything happened so quickly. The robbers arrived in a white-coloured Prado car and attacked one of the security guards as he carried the money into the premises in metal boxes. The thieves were all wearing masks to hide their identities.” The man said that the incident happened at 12.30am. “There were three men who carried out the robbery. They could not be caught as they were carrying a weapon,” he said. It is believed that thousands in cash was stolen as the eyewitness said the gang got away with four cash containers, which normally contain at least dhs100,000 each. However, the exact amount of cash stolen has yet to be disclosed by police or the bank.

The witness said four security guards were trying to transfer the money into the ATM machines when they were attacked and robbed.

“The money was brought in a secure vehicle. One guard was inside the vehicle while three others were trying to deposit the money. The armed men attacked one security guard and fled the scene with the cash,” he said. The Pakistani security guard who was shot is recovering in Kuwaiti Hospital in Sharjah and is in his early thirties. Hospital sources confirmed the incident and said a man with bullet wounds was brought to the hospital for treatment. A watchman from a nearby building who heard the gunshot said that he initially thought someone was bursting a firecracker.

“I never thought that it was gun being fired. It’s only after seeing the security guard lying in a pool of blood that I realised that someone had shot him. “The man was badly wounded and was crying in pain,” he said. Another man, who ran down the building from the 22nd floor after hearing the gunshot, said: “There was a loud noise followed by much commotion. I came down from the building to see the man lying on the ground in great pain. It was shocking to see him like that and looked like he had been shot in the leg.”

Sharjah Police confirmed they were investigating the robbery. “We received the emergency call about a robbery incident near an ATM machine in Buhairah Corniche when a security van was delivering cash to the ATM machines,” an officer at Sharjah Police said. “We are investigating to find out more details about the raid,” the officer added.

Bowling...

2009-03-04T21:13:00.000-08:00

Ever since my failed mission to bowl in Sandakan Bowling center more than a month ago. I beria-ia wanna see what will my score be after more than 10years never bowl. Never a pro but bowling has been the things to do at Friday after school hours.

Constant reminding me about the failed mission was the RM4.80 (RM4 + 10% Tax + 10% service charge) The-Tarik I had at the Sandakan Bowling Centre. The most expensive Teh-tarik in the whole Sandakan?

The teh-tarik was very expensive in sandakan standard but that don’t really matter. What make me more eager to bowl now was because that the centre was close for lane oiling purpose that day. Di……

How can a bowling centre which doesn’t have electronic scoring system charge so expensive for a cup of tea? They should have give us free tea as bowlers need to write down their score by hand...

So one fine evening... I cox my frens to bowl in Dubai. 1st time bowling in dubai too. 20dirham a game, free shoes & stocking 3dirham, sibei expensive. Not as big as KK bowling centre... I think there are about 15-20 lanes there. lol... The Lanes seems shorter too... But i think that was because I already grow up so things also look small now!

I use Ball9, when I was 55kg and now that I am 80kg, i choose ball13. More Power! My 1st bowl masuk longkong, the more I bowl, the more sai lei I become... After 5-6bowls, I found it not very fun throwing a ball straight line hoping it will hit 10pins. So, I start trying out the "Helicopter" Spins and my score improved, I even got 2strikes using Helicopter spins! LOL! Not bad at all... 1st game in more than 10years score 110points!

The Helicopter spins took toll on my finger nails. My finger nails peel off abit thus effected my perfomance for the 2nd game...

Only score 80 in my 2nd game...

Sunbathing

2009-03-04T21:00:00.000-08:00

Had my 1st ever sunbath about a week ago... Went down to my apartment pool at 1pm. There were already few kwai lols & kwai pohs there. I have seen them laid there for whole day and I must try it out in order to know what they think.

I dont have any sunblock nor lotion or any kinda those stufffs because I dont think I'll do this again lol. I might not have any 1st hand experience but I have enough "observations" to know what to bring... 1 large towel, water, ipod, handphone & few reader digest.

When the last kwai poh left, I also follow suit lol… it was quite enjoyable 2hours. I slept, I read some books, talked on the phone and listen to radio… Not bad

Just that, the pool location sux… located on the 7floor surround by under construction high rise… I wonder how this Kwaisss can do it everyday…

Anyway, I gonna hit the beach next time..

Smoking in the lift

2009-03-02T21:01:00.000-08:00

I was in a lift when an Arab guy enters holding a cigarette. I smelt there are smokes so I look at him.

With a strong voice he said “This Lift allow smoking!”
I replied “What?”
He said again “This lift allow smoking!”

Ok… LOL! Since you insist!

Sandakan New T0wn

2009-02-28T00:20:00.000-08:00

There are lot of abandon homes in Sandakan. Places used to be "Beverly Hills" of Sandakan has become Illegal Immigrants Hideout. No Sandakian dare to stay in these places anymore and even jogging late in evening is a scary journey.

20 years ago, this place is consider romantic and many older generation used to "pak toh" here but now has to lock up to prevent theft of the "steel" handrails.

Sandakian has given up on the old town, there used to be few steamboats restaurants on trig hill but now left only one.

I was surprised by the numerous ongoing construction activities in the town centre, especially near the waterfront areas. This sounds like opportunity for my return to homeland!

The new wet market is quite magnificient although nothing to Dubai magnitude but it still impressively Clean!

One of the major developer in Sandakan is IJM and their new double storey house now cost up to 300k. Using Donald Trump tactics of selling the 1st phase cheaper and 2nd phase much more expensive, indirectly jack up property prices in sandakan. They succesfully "produce" a so called Real Estate Industry Market in Sandakan.

Some of Sandakan 0ld bangalows has been turn into money-spinning-machines, like The English Tea House and Agnes Keith House but most are beyond repair as their has been robbed to the bone by Illegal Immigrants to build their Huts!

Sandakian although lack the Fund$ but we have the will with lot of wooden extension are build along the shores as restaurants. Sandakian finally find out ways to utilize our Sea Breeze!

The most famous construction site in Sandakan is this piece of land belong to one of the infamous legendary Balak-King. Located at the busiest traffic junction in sandakan making people wondering what is he planning. The site has been no development for 5 years or so and there is rumour that it be build as hotel at last.

Mile4 is the new happening centre in Sandakan. This is the busiest pub in Sandakan because of its good location where anyone can see everyone and anyone can be seen everyone.

Believe it or not! Sandakan actually own the first connecting bridge in Malaysia, way before KLCC Twin Towers. Located at mile2 it has been there before I was born... Sandakan B0leh!

Dubai Tennis 0pen 2009

2009-02-24T22:41:00.000-08:00

Four of the world’s top ten players will not be playing in Dubai Open 2009 contradict to earlier report stating they will be here. Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Nikolay Davydenko allegedly injured but Andy Roddick decided not to protest against UAE decision not to grant Israeli Shahar Peer visa. I dont really care if they came but I really wanna take a photo with Andy Ram the Only Israeli to enter an Arab country officially.

For the past 17 years the event was held inside the Aviation Club, inside the club locate the Irish Village, one of my favourite pub. One of the oldest and "green" place in Dubai.

the Aviation club is bigger than I thought, there are many facilities, shops, restaurants and many tennis courts inside it.

First Lesson... Cannot enter if the match is ongoing, has to wait for play to stop before enter. Distract Players wow!

So Lcly, I go other courts see-see look-look! Go to those back lane courts to see other not so famous players lol.

Liangmoi might not know him but he is famous.

Michael Lammer is his name... He is Roger Federer roomates. LOL! He stay at Federer home in Dubai and they known each others for 15years.

I know none of the players on that day because its a qualifying rounds which is FREE and open to public. That's why i go lol!

If anyone walking in the stands, the empire will say "Please be seated!"

Eye opener... 1st ATP tour Xperience

They Own Sandakan

2009-02-19T08:14:00.000-08:00

Sandakan need no UMNO, MCA, MIC, DAP, PKR or PAS, Sandakan only need STC!

The best place to witness the perfect harmony of Sabahan + illegal immigrants from all walks of life and races is at 4D centres like STC. Nobdoy complain about having to queue in a smelly, dirty and crowded place because all of them concretrate 100% on the same goal- to buy tickets for 4D. No.1 Sandakan UNITED!

The 2nd most United place in Sandakan is the Snooker Centres. When Krishan Tan said we can unite through sports, he must had first hand experience in Sandakan Snooker centre.

$nooker centres are the place where all those International Snooker "Champions" from Msia, Phillipine & Indonesia pit against each others with LITTLE side bets from onlookers. This is the way f0rward! STAY UNITED!

Illegal immigrants aka “fui chung” are plentiful and Nobody knows what to do with them. They are everywhere, every election's promise to flush them out seems to be Talk 0nly. They are a menace to sandakan.

THEY left their children on street and these Street Kids are very daring going around town asking for money. Famous for THEIR high production rates, it wont be long before Sandakan is taken over by those Sandakan-born-illegal-immigrants (SBII). Some said, we should help them but why? We have lot of native Sabahan kids that havnt receive help!

Most of them make a living through legal means like sewing cloths, repairing shoes but the way they occupy the walkway of Sandakan Town make the town look dirty. They eat & shit at the same place. Almost every stairs steps are occupied with "profesional" sewists. I respect their endurance working in such harsh condition; smelly, hot and dirty.

Any unoccupied staircase corner is made into open toilet! Sibei Smelly, so its either occupied with illegal immigrants or illegal immigrant's pees. Its the same with Sandakan Town Business, either you do Fui-chung business or no business!

Literally translate as “Hand phone can borrow money”, a service exclusively available in Sandakan Town. Ah Long Business grow like mushroom after rain, I wonder who are the one actually borrowing from them?

High tech walkway traders are on the rise in Sandakan, where "handphone experts" sell their expertise to repair handphone. Shoes repairers and sewist has been in the town for as long as I can remember but Handphone repairers, that's new. Modernity has finally catch up with Sandakina.

In sandakan, one can pay their parking fees directly to those who write the resit? Sounds like this system is open for abuse, anyway this has been going on for ages. Buaya2 has been accepted by Sandakina and part of our culture.

Before sunset, everyone must leave town because The Night belongs to THEM!

THEY rulezzzzz the night from every corner of the street to the coast!

Few years ago, there isnt anyone else beside THEM in Town at night but now come a bunch of Golden Hair Species that are "Daring" enough to shop at Genting Mas.

The problem for this Species with Golden Hair when shopping in Sandakan is that they couldnt find the BRAs with the right size!

God of Fortune

2009-02-17T07:04:00.000-08:00

The white hair beggar or some like to call him “Choy Son” (God of Fortune) but for me he is a daytime robber who use Chinese’s Chinese New Year Superstitious believe that only blessing words should be used during that period but younger generation do not give him a damn. Some even chase him away… LOL!

The white hair guy has been begging for money every Chinese New Year at least for the last 20 years. He must be getting ten of thousands ringgit every year.

The “Choy Son” roll has been taken up from Non-Chinese too but this non-Chinese “choy son” dunno about custom. He even go beg for “ang pao” from coffee shop. Spoilt the market!

The Legendary Kampung Adidas

2009-02-16T06:30:00.000-08:00

This is the legendary Kampong Adidas, the best shoes for climbing the majestic Mount Kinabalu. Anyone who climbed Mt.Kinabalu should have experience being taken over by women potters carrying a gas tank at her back. All of those super fit potters wore a pair of Kampong Adidas.

These shoes are made of 100% rubber with it studs, it give them an excellent grips on any ground conditions. This shoes cost less than RM7!

Sandakan Breakfast

2009-02-13T20:50:00.000-08:00

For 13 straight days I had Lemon Teas during breakfasts and that's straight from the moment I touched down on Sandakan "International" Airport at 10am, 24 Jan 2009 till they day I left Sandakan at 10.30am 5fen2009. Lemon Tea is a delicacy that can only be found in Sabah. I definately had more than 13 cups of Lemon Teas because I will try to have it whenever I can, during 10am Yam Cha, 2pm Yam Cha & supper... Supa!

And also for 13days... I have "Siu Yuk" + "Kon Low Men" for breakfast. Revenge of the Dubain on "Siu Yuk"... Oh Yeah! Although there are Pork in Dubai but there isnt anything like Sandakan Siu Yuk. I tasted Lemon Tea & Siu Yuk Kon Low Men in more than 10 restaurant and all of them taste Goodaneee!

Winter in Dubai

2009-01-15T06:14:00.000-08:00

Last nite thunders was awesome... We dont get much thunders here with usually clear sky without clouds.

2pixs above are "cetak rompak" from some forwarded mail!

It was freezing 16c this morning. I live here and face those cloudless skies for 10 whole months. It’s a blessing to see such beautiful sky and feel the cool breeze.

I love this weather, I feel so Home! Anyway I am going back to Msia soon…

This weather brings out lotta Kwai pohs walking their dogs…

Some serious kwai poh joggers with ipod, nike trainers, hot pants and tight shirts as well. good time to start jogging as well!

McDonald & Starbucks in Dubai

2009-01-09T22:01:00.000-08:00

One Fine Day

2009-01-04T04:01:00.000-08:00

I was about 45minutes late to work today, as i was waiting for the pedestrian signal to turn green. I saw all my colleague walking from the opposite direction.

I thought they might be going to HQ for some urgent matters?

As we cross path, they told me the whole convention center is now sealed for the wedding of some big fella.

So today i got an extra day off . LOL!

Idolism of Beckham

2009-01-02T12:01:00.000-08:00

I have lost counts of singers, actors, actress, athletes and famous personalities that had their events held in UAE. I proudly proclaimed that I attended none of them, not because I hate them, I am just plain lazy to cramp myself in and out with the crowd.

There will be exception for everything and there are seven reasons why I attended AC Milan Training in Dubai.

1. David Beckham, the most marketable footballer in the world.
2. Ronaldinho, the most skilful footballer ever.
3. Paolo Maldini, the most loyal player ever. He is 40 now and has been playing for AC Milan since he was a kid.
4. Kaka, one of the best player in the world and *Virgin* when he got married.
5. Its FREE!
6. To Kap Lui!

7. To satisfy myself, looking at those soohai arabkia shouting *beckham, beckham!* I was so shocked that no girls shouted his name only some arabkia. Beckham marketing strategy must have gone wrong somewhere?

I missed a lot of happening events in the UAE but I am not going to miss watching some arabkia shouting hysterically for a MAN!

Wooo0t!!!

Big Bowl

2009-01-02T08:04:00.000-08:00

Big Bowl Restaurant, is one of the few budget Msian Style Chinese Restaurant in Dubai, one of those old brand. Its boss is a China National who has stayed in Msia for 20years and dubai for 10years so foods serve has been Malaysianized!

The bowl is about 8inches in Dia... Its Trademark!

City above the cloud

2009-01-02T07:07:00.000-08:00

The weather was so nice for the last few days. Its about 15c in the morning and 20+c in the evening. Just like summer in UK. Fog is also seen every morning, looking out from my 28th floor apartment, it felt like City above the cloud. *Not Genting*!

BUT today, it was so hot! Afternoon was 30+c and I dun even had the chance to wear my new bought sweater from Mark & spencer. Although I like it cool but the hot weather brought out all those Ikan Masin to the pool!Pros & Cons for everything!

Free Give Away Cars

2008-12-31T01:05:00.000-08:00

My fren used to work illegally in Japan and he bought a second hand Malaysia made Perodua Kancil for a very minimal amount about RM500. When he left Japan, he just parked his SLK (Small Little Kancil) in front of the Tokyo departure hall and leave.

So cool!

Even since I heard that story, I wanna do the same but it seems that lotta people has done that in Dubai. Not so cool anymore!

Today Dubai newspaper reported more than 80 vehicles found abandoned at the Dubai International Airport recently. There must be higher numbers of vehicles found elsewhere yet to be announced by the authorities.

I believe it must have been done by people fleeing the country because they didn’t want to repay loans after losing their jobs.

Abandoning your unwanted vehicles in Dubai airport aint cool anymore, so I gonna do the reverse! I gonna take those abandon cars and speed it up to 300km/h.

0h yeah! I hope I found some abandon Lamborghini, Ferrari or Mesarati.

The best thing about driving some strangers’ cars that have leaved this country for good is that I will be fine proof and toll free.

No matter how many times they fine my *free* Lamborghini, I still don’t need to pay.

I gonna check out some free car in the airport parking tonight…

My new year gifts… LOL! A great way to start 2009

China restaurant in d0bye

2008-12-28T09:01:00.000-08:00

There are lotta china restaurant in d0bye, although their dishes are similar to msia Chinese food but their style is quite different, that’s why I still miss mama food.

Msia Chinese food kinda mixed up with Indian and malay stuffs so only in d0bye did I really gotta chance to taste some true china food.

Lotta people are surprise that there are pork in d0bye, in fact pork is sell legally in a different section of supermarket and its perfectly legal to serve pork in 5stars hotel.

But most small china restaurant do sell *chu yok* illegally, its not written on the menu thus you gotta ask by words. LOL! Sounds like buying drugs but that feeling of consuming illegal substances that make it taste even better. Oh-Yeah!

Ham-Chu-Sau was one of my favourite dishes… goodanee

Sui-yu soup also good le… hermmm

I am sure there are lot more illegal substances out there waiting for me to explore.

Brilliant!

Dunno why most china & Hk restaurants in d0bye usually have a room with karaoke set. I have never sung there and have no intention to do so but I think there must be on demand.

I was taught by a China-fren that, we shall never call those women waitress *Siau-Je* (miss) because Siau-Je is reserve for those Women who are in the *Service* industry that has made china famous world wide.

We are suppose to call those waitress *Fu-Wo-Ren* (Servant)! Sounds a bit too long for me LOL!

Different world, different calling lol!

Xmas Steamboat

2008-12-26T09:18:00.000-08:00

What do you do on a 15degree Celsius night?

Steam boat lorrr…

The 1st Xmas steamboat in my life!

Although food serve were different from Msia (China style) but there are Spicy and non-spicy soup. The spicy soup are different from Msia one as well, it make my mouth go numbs. They said is sichuan spicy!

If European stuffs are famous for their Quality, China stuffs are famous for the Cost Effectiveness! The chopsticks were definately reused, not sure if they cleaned it properly but I think they use back the chopstick cover as well. Goodane!

Wat *ku-hon* there gave us four Xmas gifts le! Of coz made in China!

Four Days Off

2008-12-24T00:03:00.000-08:00

Hooray…

Tomorrow is Christmas and the start of my looooooong weekend.

I am officially off for four days… hulala!

The best part about working for a British company in d0bye is Christmas holiday, usually we get two days off but since 26dec2008 is a weekend there will only be officially a day off for Christmas.

But 28dec2008 is also a public holiday for it’s the New Year for Islamic calendar. LOL!

I am so lucky…

Yeah-ha!

There are actually caroling in some of the major malls the last few days. I have never seen that before in msia but in d0bye they allowed it?

Herm…

D0bye Pyramid

2008-12-22T08:21:00.000-08:00

The 750dirhams shopping vouchers I won from being the top horseman in my company lead me to this shopping mall.

WAFI Mall… It’s actually located just a stone throw away from my office but I never thought of shopping there because all stuffs there are BRANDED!

Wanna buy phone: they only sell VERTU, one phone 10-20k
Wanna buy shoes; they only sell Gucci, Prada and some italian name I have never seen before.
Even those salesperson dress up more smartly than our Msian CEO!

The 750vouchers is just gonna make me spend much more than I supposed to!

This WAFI mall is like teasing me…
Why go to Egypt when you can see a brand new Pyramid, Obelisks and Mural!
Why go to see those degenerated, robbed, eroded and smelly ancient stuffs in Egypt, if you can see brand new stuffs for free!

Xmas with Horses

2008-12-20T07:58:00.000-08:00

My company Xmas party was held in the top floor of 2nd most *sinful* place in d0bye, where alcohol + horse racing happen every thursday night.

Nad al Sheba, the main horses racing clubs in d0bye.

Entrance to the public stand are free and there were plentiful of labourers. Those labourers were trying their luck predicting the winning horses. Gambling is illegals so instead of legalized gambling, d0bye gomen offer a total of Dhs50k prize money a night for those who succeed in predicting the winning horses of the six races.I was amazed by those labourers determinations, they studied all the information of the horses & jockeys seriously before making their prediction. I think they must be regular here and they were everywhere, even filling up the grass path. Prize m0ney is a clever idea of d0bye gomen to fill up that areas.Even the TALI-Buns were there to test their luck... We werent seated with those enthuastic people, We got our place at the top Fifth floor. A *sinful* place which sell Alcohols. I went even thought I had problem walking with a sprained ankle because it was held at a private box of the Dubai Racing Club (Known as Nad al Sheba). Not everyday I got the oppurtunity to get into such expensive and private place so I had to go even if I had to crawl there.I dunno much about horse racing but since making prediction is free, no harm starting my crash course on horse racing. I did study for 5minutes but I gave up in the end, instead I choose horses with names that I like.

Horse "Pride of Baghdad" from USA - that's UN-BELIB-ABLE!

Dinner was next...Dirty Rice... Didnt seems very dirty to me!
I didnt see much horses that night, I spend the night getting drunk!
But at the end of the night...

I became the top predictor of my company and won Dhs750 Gift Voucher. I beat all my british, irish, scottish & etc colleagues whom some are Horses racing-addicts. Wakakakaka!!!

What to do with this 750dirhams voucher, this WAFI shopping mall is full of expensive branded stuffs?

7stars Breakfast

2008-12-07T23:53:00.000-08:00

I know during recession time, I am not suppose to spend too much on luxuries but I cant left d0bye without ever entering Burj al Arab. The sceneries and the building dont excite me anymore because it has been over used but the price of breakfast do! Anyway... a man gotta do wat a man gotta do!I have seen this lobby countless time through my frens fotos, internet and media but untill I witnessed it myself, I felt like I am in a space ship. It loooks more futuristic than the control centre of *starterk*. No local features at all. The lobby is full of oversized columns, mulitcolor finishes (some might mistaken they got lost in disneyland), mega size fountains and two salt water fish aquariums. There are very expensive restaurants with famous chefs but I prefer the cheapest of them all, The breakfast buffet. Enterance to The Jun Sui look like some time wrap from the *Stargate* movie. Those jingle little stars on the walls might looks cute but definately not a comfortable place to have breakfast. I felt like eating breakfast inside a disco.

The toilet looked like the control room of the alien's spaceship...Foods were actually not bad with lotta variety. I couldnt even finish tasting all type of food even though I took only a small portion of it. There were western, chinese, japanese, korean, indonesia & thai but no Malaysian. Unlike most indian restaurant in d0bye which sell varieties of food but cooked by the same indian chefs, burj al arab really employ chefs from their respective nationality to make the food.The first thing that come to my mind when I saw this MADE IN CHINA Noodles, MELANIE? They say is 7stars but there is only 5stars, so where is the other 2stars? As to my limited knowledge, there isnt any grading up to 7stars. So siapa so pandai go tambah dua biji?The highlight of my breakfast & tour of Burj al Arab was this LEAKING, If not for this LEAKING... the whole breakfast doesnt worth mentioning inside my blog!d0bye only rain few days a year and I guess less than 99.99% of its visitor can witness this *beautiful scenery*, I am one of the few lucky one.

If a 7stars hotel have defects that are usually found in low cost housing, so how great a man he still will have some weaknesses.

Team Social -Desert Safari-

2008-12-05T11:47:00.000-08:00

Desert safari wasnt my cup of tea but since my director also going, its best to go since now everything *fung tao fo sai*. Go sau-sau fung also need la, anyway its fully paid by the company... I have been to desert safari but this one is a luxury type as it cost twice as much as the market price.

I was expecting Toyota Land Cruiser (the self-claim king of desert) for dune bashing but instead came three Chevy Tahao, a much bigger 4x4.

The dune bashing location wasnt the same with my 1st time experience 2years ago. There was a private guard at this so call *RESERVE*?

It is a must the reduce the pressure in all the tyres before any dune bashing start to give the 4x4 more grip.

While waiting for the driver to setup the 4x4, there were camels for customers to take pix with but I dont even wanna get close to it. Dirty Smelly... yak!

This dune bashing experience was actually less excited than my first, maybe because I wasnt suprise anymore or maybe the dunes here were less challenging or maybe the big chevy tahoe tackle the desert better or maybe the driver was less skillful... maybe... maybe...

There were so many maybe but there was still people vomiting. The 30-40 vehicles convoy stopped few times for us to take photos.

A couple started a bollywood dance in the desert but I couldnt hear what they were singging but they did the usual stuffs. Hidding behind the bushes...

Rolling on the sand! I thought it was just bollyw00d gimmick but they really *kow lui* like that!

Not sure what these two photographers doing? any interesting stuffs in the sand?

After 2 hours of dune bashing and stopping, we finally reach the Fake beduin camp side. It looked more like a terrorist camp to me. The Paktan driver muka terus tukar hitam when he heard me said that. LOL!

All drivers become waiter in this camp. We were greeted with arab coffee and dates at the entrance, only I drank it did I notice that they reuse all those small cups. Feel like Chee Chiong Kai* drink... YaK!

Why this tour cost 2x more than those capalang camp side... ALCOHOL! LOL! For Kwai Lol, Social = Alcohol!

Most male were eagerly waiting for the belly dancing but everyone was dissapointed with her looks but she was really doing a belly dancing. She got a belly bigger than mine... Without a belly how to do a belly dancing le?

She did try to make the crowd join her dance but since most of the 100+ crowds are made of *very experience* tourists along with their families. She didnt taste much success except this korean guy!

Then I proceed to Hyena section... Phew! This was kinda hard to take for that artist! Legs!

I did a Scorpion on my left arm to show my CRUELTY but with it looks like a cute version of the scorpion.

So what was the best way to promote SABAH to my colleague? My Powerful right Arm!

Burning M0ney in Abu Dapi

2008-12-04T09:51:00.000-08:00

2Dec08, 12 adulst + 3 childrens gather at the Ibn Batutta Mall, d0bye to start a journey to witness The World Biggest Fireworks show... In Short, the most money burn in 45minutes. The mall is actually split into six main courts: China, India, Persia, Egypt, Tunisia & Andalusia. Stuffs sell in those courts are not from those particular place, only the interior & exterior design of those courts that resembles those places.

Ibn battuta as I learn from Sejarah was the *greatest* traveller of his time but I was shock at the time of my visit there was also exhibition of *Zheng He* expedition. I wonder why until I read that ZHeng He Also same religion as Ibn, that's why!

Taiko8 ordered a Orange-Chicken Rice, which tasted so-so WEIRD. IT was my mistake not to advice him in advance as I was busy snapping fotos around the mall.

I have been to this Mall numerous time but it was the 1st time I had my E450 with me. I dislike this mall the most because of it single floor design which a maration runner can partically train here. Nevertheless, as all Dubai's Mall... its interior as impressive.

This elephant clock is the landmark of the mall. The most outstanding features in the whole mall. Idiots would have thought that it was some kinda monsters outta ultraman cartoons but in actual it was was a medieval Muslim invention. Understandable la, everything in middle east is all about *the religion we dont speak about*!

We left the mall to Abu Dapi about 3pm and reach AD 1.5hours later and it took us another 1.5hours to find our VVVVIP fren! Not his fault, partly GPS fault, partly the heavy traffic fault! But The VVVVVIP fren took us to this super nice Vietnamese Restaurant. Yumeeee!

0ne of our mission was to take photos of Taiko8 in happy mood to show his mum, that include good food & Sexy babes. I had the duck soup noodles... Yumee... I even habiskan all the soup le! After dinner, we all rushed out to the corniche to see the 830pm biggest fireworks in the world.

There were many interesting side shows, like this! National Day is the only day I witness locals entertaining expats by doing dangerous stunts. Sitting at the back of the car with the speed of 100kmh. That was impressive!

What even more impressive were those vehicles tinted with their Kings faces... I never seen that in Msia! Their patriotism was impressive but their driving skills were much more impressive. How could they see when all the car mirror are tinted with photos of their kings? Maybe, just maybe their kings eyes helped them to see the roads?

They really loves their country and their kings... I have never felt that way about my country. Why? I love my country but I will never do those stunts and tint my car with Najib 0r Badawi.

Most of the best place to watch the fireworks has been taken up, places leftwere either cover by trees or people. So I gave up taking photos and left that task to Samuel!

Impressive but D0bye's fireworks was much more impressive! No wonder Abo dapi dunno wana let d0bye take all the fung-tao adi. So is apo-dapi waiting to see d0bye mati? *big tree attarcts wind*

Rain, thunder and lightning

2008-12-03T01:46:00.000-08:00

Rain, thunder and lightning were all over d0bye skies this morning.

The Dubai International Airport’s Meteorological Services Department’s website put the outside temperature at 21.4 C with humidity at 61%.

Rain is no big deal in most part of the world but in d0bye it is. The more it rain, the more it remind me of home. I miss those times when I can sleep like a baby inhaling super cool air resulted from the rain.

Super....

Finishing work at 3pm today because there is a Desert Safari event organized by my team, a so called team social.

Kekeke!

UAE National Breakfast

2008-12-01T11:29:00.000-08:00

This morning there was a national day celebration breakfast in the client office... the breakfast were all arabic breakfast so.... b0leh la... free mah! BUT This wasnt any ordinary breakfast, it was the national breakfast!
Got a rare chance to write on the national flag... LOL! Wish to write *idup tuanku* but scare kena hantam by those ninja putih!

I should have wrote REFORMASI... REFORMASI... but that didnt come to mind at that moment...

Fireworks: D0bye to Abu Dhabi

2008-11-30T01:00:00.000-08:00

On December 2, the world’s largest and record breaking fireworks will light up Abu Dhabi’s night sky to celebrate the 37th National Day of the UAE. The fireworks will begin at 8.30pm lasting for 45 minutes but not all UAE residences are going to enjoy the show, some are without jobs and most uncertain about their future in d0bye.

In time of economy crisis, d0bye spend 10 million USD on fireworks 2weeks ago during the opening ceremony of Atlantis and now Abu Dhabi gonna show the world Abu Dhabi is bigger than d0bye. Abu Dhabi don’t care how much the fireworks cost, as long as its bigger than d0bye’s one, they will pay for it.

Although there were large scale retrenchment exercise happening in d0bye, there isn’t a single case of retrenchment heard yet from Abu Dhabi.

Taiko Abu Dhabi aint gonna let Sai-Lol d0bye to take the lead. Most frens said, Abu Dhabi is the way forward but for me Abu Dhabi just got a slower reaction.

Burning Money… that’s what I call fireworks!

D0bye Crying

2008-11-26T20:30:00.000-08:00

D0bye cried last night, d0bye cried loudly and tears flows like river. It was as if d0bye was crying for all her inhabitants that lost their jobs. The heaviest rain I have seen in d0bye so far but doesn’t matter if its rain heavy or not, it always flood in UAE because nothing here were build to resist the rain. Roofs always leak and there are no irrigation systems, to be fair they don’t need one, no point making something that will only be in use 3 out of 365 days a year.

When d0bye cries, my first worry is safety on the roads. Most drivers here don’t have the experience to drive in the rain and they tend to speed as usual. After spending two years of my life here, I myself have also speeded up. It’s not easy to do 60Kmh when I have been doing 120kmh regularly.

The timing of the thunderstorm really makes me wonder if it was a reminder of the hardship the world is facing from the Mass Sacking of employees in d0bye to Mumbai's Terrorist attack, the world seems to be coming from bad to worst since Mr.0bama won.

Her0 come in the time of crisis, is mr.0bama a hero or a villain?

Only time will tell...

A pix says a thousand words

2008-11-24T14:52:00.000-08:00

Pix that best describe D0bye

Construction Safety in D0bye

2008-11-22T08:41:00.000-08:00

I have to pass through this crane’s weight at least once a day as it located right above the driveway to my apartment parking. Will it fall down right one me?

Dubai Mall Aquarium

2008-11-21T11:13:00.000-08:00

Dubai mall located less than a kilometre from my home but I have no intention what so ever to visit it since it official opening a month ago. For me it will just be another Shopping Mall.

By chance I visited Dubai Mall and actually there wasn’t much to see, most shops were still under renovation but it major attraction The Mall’s Dubai Aquarium and Discovery Centre was magnificent.

It officially earned the Guinness World Record for the world's "Largest Acrylic Panel" (32.88 metres wide x 8.3 metres high x 750mm thick and weighing 245,614kg).

From certain angles the connecting line between panels are actually visible. I doubt any vehicles could have loaded the 33x8m2 panel; it has be manufactured on site or assembled there. I believe the latter hypothesis shall be correct since there were visible connecting line.

Equiped with only K810i, this is the best I could have done... Althought their Aquarium is the bigest I have seen but their fishes were small. Their two Giant Groupe (Loong tun) were babies compare to what I seen in our Sandakan "Hoi siong wong" wakakakaka...

But the Stingrays' tail were really looooooooong, at least 3times the length of its body. The one that killed Crocodile hunter...

Money makes Wonderss!

Burning M0ney

2008-11-20T22:56:00.000-08:00

If not of L insistent to watch fireworks show, I will surely miss the greatest fireworks show on earth because as usual, I am lazy to go crowded places. Someone told me that those involve in the Beijing2008 firework setup are the one who gonna make this show bigger and better.

We waited at the beach opposite of Atlantis. A friend with some “inside” info said the fireworks gonna start at 11pm. So we wait and wait and wait… till 12.15am also no fireworks. I thought d0bye brankrupt already, fireworks also can’t afford to purchase but at least the beach sand was cool and it was a nice place to relax as well and we actually planned to leave, suddenly...

At 12.30am the show begins… It was the opening ceremony of The Atlantis and a lotta A-list Hollywood, Bollywood and Sportstars were invited; Kylie Minogue, Denzel Washington, Robert DeNiro, Charlize Theron, Lindsay Lohan, Mischa Barton, Boris Becker, Lily Allen, Richard Branson, Sol Kerzner, Quincy Jones and also lotta Bollywoods stars which I have not much ideas who are they. If I knew Michael Jordan will be there, I would have bought a ticket to watch that show in Atlantis.

I was more interested to fire up situation than watching fireworks until I experienced first hand this beautiful sight. Although the fireworks display was engineered to perfection but most of friends’ main topic was the global financial meltdown. I think this fireworks display alone cost more than USD 10millions, some of my financial analyst friends thinks that d0bye's pocket has been cleared but they still push... push... push... to make believe they still got money even they are broke!

Fireworks weren’t launched at a particular areas but it was launched all around the lining of 520km of the palm. I think that 15minutes times 520km = more than USD 10 millions? Really burning money… These fotos cant cover the every fireworks launched, the line was so long... those who didnt know in advance of this fireworks might thought it might be missles attack from Iraq or Afgan?

I was surprise to see Atlantis and Palm Jumeira still exist after what look like a nuclear bomb explosion. The beach was jammed with people... All these photos were taken by Samuel using E450!

Youtube VIDEO... Impressive!

Team Building Lunch

2008-11-19T08:28:00.000-08:00

I feel very appreciated working in a semi-government organisation because they held a team building lunch the first Thursday of every month and departmental lunch third Thursday of the month, all these in a five stars hotel. The food there was good and there were actually tropical fruits available but of cause no durian.

Suprisingly those kwai lols and arnab sactually know how to eat rambutan and dragon fruits… fruits are expensive in dubai, especially tropical fruits so there are no holding back from the company.

h0w much?

2008-11-19T01:27:00.000-08:00

Hiao was waiting for friends at crone plaza along the SZ road. It was 1pm in the afternoon but her fren hasn’t turn up yet. It was the main road of d0bye so there were lotta people and cars. A car stopped by her, an a-cha or arnab or maybe crossbreed, asked her "how much?"

Angie, Bella & Carl were having a drink in Dragon Mart, the famous china mart. Tw0 arnab in white table cloths dress asked Carl "how much?" Carl didn’t reply them. After drinks, 3 of them leave and one of the arnab followed them and asked angie "how much?'

0ne day I was taking a taxi from a shopping mall in d0bye. I queued along the taxi line and wait for my turn. When it’s my turn, the first question that taxi driver asked me was "H0w much?"

I said "What!!!" Even I was "How much-ed"

Reputation of the chinese community in d0bye can be summed up with "HOW MUCH?"

Thunderstorm

2008-11-16T08:57:00.000-08:00

Thunderstorm reduced visibility to 500 metres in Dubai on Saturday. Taiko8 is very lucky; he is only here for less than a month but could experience rain in the dessert.

This morning my car temperature read 25C, 6C under the normal temperature. When storm happen it usually meant change of season in the dessert. I guess winter is officially here.

b0c0r

2008-11-14T07:56:00.000-08:00

1803 hour, 9 November 2008 was once of those days... I reached the parking lot around 5.45pm and found my right back tyre flat. I was planning to drive to the nearest petrol kiosk to pump it up as what I usually do but dunno why this time I felt like changing it? Maybe because I haven’t change a tyre for a long time or maybe because I have nothing better to do that night ( no football, no badminton, no party, nothing at all) or maybe I felt it this time the tyre will burst because I haven’t service my car since February 2008 and over 10,000km of mileage.

I have been concentrating on my left back tyre as it has eaten a nail for the last six month. There were few occasion where my tyre almost ran outta air but I manage to reach the petrol kiosk in time to save it. It was just plain laziness not to have it fixed, but I never expect my right side tyre to go flat. That was a surprise, I haven’t found out the clause yet.

Everyone laughed at me for buying this dynamo power torch light but that day I fully appreciated it function. Actually this UAE invented product can be use to charge varieties of phones as well. My w810i has a very good torch light but I am using k810i that doesn’t have torch light but got a better camera flash. So new doesn’t mean better and this dynamo power torch light is superb if being use in remote areas.

I inserted the carjack from behind but found it very hard to transfer my power to the carjack, my arm length was just enough to reach the carjack handle and after 15minutes I still found the car wasn’t jacked up an inch.

So for the first time since I bought this car 10 months ago, I read the Owner’s guide. I found out the right place to jack and also many other car maintenances services. I checked the black oil, water level and etc for the first time in my life. If things are done the right way, its easy!

American invented the car with three nuts on the tyre and Japanese “ciplak’ it with four nuts, American reinvent it with five nuts and all this nuts were making me nuts!!! The first three nuts weren’t easy, I have to step on the wrench and jump-jump before it loosen but the two last nuts just wont come out! NUTzzzzzzz! Actually I exhausted the wrench by not loosening the nuts in the correct order.

I was totally exhausted after 15minutes of trying with my hands, legs and body. I could hardly stand so I have to call for help. I tried to HSBC road side assistant and I was expecting so professional help on line but instead some ah-cha who spoke ah-cha Inglish asking stupid question rudely. That stupid road assistant will not change tyre for me but can tow my car to service centre and that will cost me Dhs150.

I wasn’t that stupid to go for that option because I need to wait for an hour for that tow car and wait for the next day for service centre to operate. Changing tyre will only cause me max 30minutes! So I called Roy for help, he drive the same car as me and his work place was just 15minutes away.

That buffer time in my life was very productive indeed, I thought about lotta stuffs about my life, work, faith, love and etc. It was godsend because He wanna me to rethink about life and especially how I treated my car badly.

The last time I changed a car tyre was 2005 in Sri Hartamas. It was my superior tyre, we just had lunch and came back to find his car tyre has been punctured because his parked in someone place...

Do-bye or Goodbye

2008-11-11T04:06:00.000-08:00

Lotta people got sacked from their jobs recently in UK & Ireland, especially construction related jobs. When recession hit, construction industry is the first one who taste it effect. So lotta friends, friends' friends and friends's spouses are looking for jobs in the Middle East. d0-bye is the prime location because of its more westernize culture.

As side from its tax free and cheap petrol, d0-bye do offer a more luxurious lifestyle for the middle class. A maid can be employed as low as 1k dirham a mth, that's about 120pounds. For 120pounds, you cant even ask someone to look after your dog in UK! That cold weather in UK isn’t as romantic as portrayed in winter s0nata! For short holiday, okayla! But for long term stays that's miserable. That’s why kwai poh fresh from UK will literally strip while running towards the sun.

The bad side of d0-bye of cause its there isn’t a sense of belonging here. I have been here for 2years now but I still don’t feel like home. Maybe that's due to UAE don’t give citizenship to outsiders, giving me the feeling that I will have to leave someday. Maybe also because of the Law here which I find verrrrrrrrrry "wui kow" although UAE is the least strict of the Middle Eastern countries but I still feel uncomfortable. A man life is worth 200k, a women life is worth 100k and race hourse life is worth 2million???

D0-bye or Good-bye, a phrase I learn from a visiting friends' friend from UK.

But d0bye isn’t the safe haven as most Europe base frens thought. I repeatedly told them d0bye doesn’t have oil, even if d0bye did if recession hit, there will still be effects.

There are rumors of big-big company in dobye are retrenching hundreds of staffs. Not sure how true is it but I am sure getting job in d0bye isn’t as easy as it use to be. I hope the recession monster doesn’t come to close to d0bye. If it’s come, maybe is time for me to pack and go home?

So now is d0bye also bye-bye!

Egpyt 6.0 -Convoy2 Aswan-Abu Simbel-

2008-11-06T20:59:00.000-08:00

I checked out from Basma Hotel at 3am, that was just 6hours of sleep. Not enough to repay the lost of energy due to the anxiety of last night mantai's F1. Still feel very sleepy even though I had a morning bath but felt super excited about getting nearer to "Danger" Sudan. I only spent total of 8hours in the hotel (7pm to 3am), didnt feel worth the money. I didnt even touch the swimming pool water, only molested it through my eyes. This was our 2nd convoy in less than 24hours and I didn’t feel the anxiety like I felt with my virgin convoy. Maybe I had got numbed about all this convoy hype or maybe I was too tired to feel it. I was more worried about my driver's skill as I believed they will "fly" the van.

Just like last convoy, police came to register our vehicles and mantai gave them the necessary information. The "Aswan-Abu Simbel" convoy was bigger than the "Luxor-Aswan" convoy. There were more police, dogs and also mirror to check the bottom of vehicles, sounds like serious business compare to the main2 convoy yesterday. There were at least 40-60 public vehicles there, from big buses to small saloon cars.

The hotel packed kids’ breakfast for us, it consisted of 3 breads half the size of my palm, one small box of fruit drink and one yogurt. 3am was too early to feel hungry so I prayed for our safety, plugged in my Ipod and sleepzzzzzzz.

Egpyt 6.1 -Romantic Ride-

2008-11-06T20:55:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we rode through sunset and today we ride through sunrise. The most Romantic trip ever, some more at The neck breaking speed of 160kmh.

Abu simbel is about 300km south of Aswan, estimated it will take us 3hours for the journey. I slept at the early part of the journey, when I woke up an hour later, there wasnt a single vehicle visibled. The road was sooooo straight and empty, if not for the well maintained tarmac road, I would have thought we were going to no man land. There wasnt much to see on both side, mostly desert and a few settlements. A-mad said the gomen planned to develop this area into a agricultural land.

Man-tai didn’t slept the whole night as he party till morning. aiya! End of Puasa leh, one of the greatest joy of being "wui-kow". Man-tai brought his prodigy, a young man in the early 20. I nicknamed him (藤原拓海 Fujiwara Takumi) the son of man-tai in Initial-D.

We were also joined by a new Guide named A-Mad, so there were eleven of us in the Van. That was a bit over the comfort zone in the van with the last row being the lugagges storage. I was actually planned to sit infront to continue my snapping spree but my plan got distrubed again. aiya...

Tok-hoi was "flying" at 160km/h but it was less scary than what man-tai did because this road was straight and empty. The most linear road I have ever seen in my life, not a single obvious curve visible until 2.5hours later and if we didnt turn at that junction, we would have reach Sudan. It was a long and boring journey, I was afraid tok-hoi would fall asleep due to the non-challenging journey. It was a good decision from mantai to let tokhoi drive as even mantai didnt party till the next morning, I was sure mantai would have exhausted himself with last night "race with time"!.

Tok-hoi was a curly haired guy, as in chinese saying "Jiu Mao Lan Kow Yit". I was sure he didnt listen to any plea for slowing down. In fact, I saw A-mad did talk to tok-hoi in arabic after a-mad saw us looking abit worried with the neck breaking speed. On our way back, he even tailed gated a lancer at 160kmh and he even stopped once instance to argue with a driver behind... crazee!

Egpyt 6.2 -Abu Simbel-

2008-11-06T20:49:00.000-08:00

I was shock to see this cruise ship here, She was the only one of her kind here. There was just one big sized kwai poh sunbathing, nothing to see. I was suprised to see Cruise boat in Abu simbel because nobody stayed overnight here, is too near to uncomfort z0ne, Sudan.

The WC here was really the worst I have come true, 2LE per entry. I didnt go but most of my tourmates went in. I wanna show this ppl, what an expensive WC entry will cost their country! I dunno why but I hate this toilet pharoahs the most, maybe because they make a living outta others desperation, not j0y!

I thought I looked weird, this w0man even out wierd me. Karate Girl? Black Belt some more... Sai lei! Sai Lei! Should I wear a songkok or baju melayu to show my patriotism. Japanese, korean & Indian still wear their tradisional cloths regularly but not us Msian Chinese...

Just like any other Tourist Spot, there were $ale$men... This 0ne was a bit Pro, Robinho and a SLR selling postcard? Salesperson here are much less than in other places, maybe because that day was the 1st day of raya so most choose to stay at home.

Egpyt 6.3 -Th0se Walls-

2008-11-06T20:47:00.000-08:00

Abu Simbel was all about these faces in the walls. I seen lotta ancient stuffs the last few days but these walls still "Waaah" me. Abu Simbel two massive rock temples was about 5-6 storeys high. Some said this is a romantic site because Pharaoh Ramesses II built this place as a lasting monument to himself and his queen Nefertari. I can be this romantic too if I can afford the 200 wives, Ramesses II had.

Its construction was impressive but its re-construction was even more impressive. These 2 temples have actually been moved by UNESCO in 1964 to its current location from a lower area. The relocation of the temples was needed as the water started to rise due to the construction of Aswan Dam.

The whole operation took 4years and USD 40million.

The egyptian Pounds (LE) of 5LE has Abu Simbel Temples as it background. 5LE not very expensive lorrr but no easy to get someone faces on currency la..

If you see some actsy local guard like this, you know it "No Photo, No Video" kinda things inside the temple. Anyway its too crowded to take photo inside. Imagine what will happen if everyone started to take photo inside... STUCK! I didnt went into the 2nd temple, the temple for the Queen as I think stuffs inside will not interest me.

This guy is holding the Key of Life (KoL), its not use to open doors but simply a symbol between life & death. S0ohai said KoL looks like a scandal and ancient egyptian believe the only thing betwen life and death is the scandal because people live above the earth and die go into the earh. Boleh percaya la...

A-mad pulak said, The Hole represent woman and the stick represent the man... so they make life! Percaya siapa? I think A-mad theory more realistic la, Ancient were got think so much one. they only think s3x la!

W.A. Taylor is my boss name, he must have came here before me. Siao... He even crafted his name on it, much "geng" than my initial "A"! That's why he is my boss lorr...

There were so many names crafted on walls, there wasnt any place left for me to craft! Siao eh!

Egpyt 6.4 -Take this Toilet Pharoahs-

2008-11-06T20:42:00.000-08:00

This guy is my her0... looks like an experience traveller to me. I didnt have a clue how to revenge those toilet pharoah!

Mr.Her0 show me how to do it in a bright day ligth under the SUN...

I was going to follow him until I notice something up there...

CCTV at the fences top... This uncle was cool

CCTV on top of the hills...

CCTV everywhere... cant la, I wasnt that brave yet. Takut nanti got send to jail.

So I walked... Walked... Walked... through some treess...

The I shot all my hatred out here...

Wakakakaka!!! The 2nd best pee I had in my life and most important of all its FREEEE!!!

The Best pee still the one I shot with 6others guy at the top of Scotland 4years ago on the mission to revenge for Msia.