Going down the longkang!

WHAT ELSE! OUR COUNTRY-LAH!

well, i haven't blog about politics in quite a while, as getting bored and tired and sick of all the childish mud-slingging!

Anyway, looks like no one is bothered enough, to see what is happening, going on in this country. Everyone is busy politicking, dishing out dirt of PM and SIL, DPM and wife and a model, and of course, the hot topic today... the alleaged "sodomy" about a certain old (61 yr) man and a certain (23 yr) old ...

Anyone telling me how's our present gov. helping the rakyat now that crude oil has hit 140USD per barrel? By increasing the rates for electicity?
Anyone telling me how's the poor rakyat gonna cope with the increased cost of living by almost 20% when our pay remains the same??
How about the sad state of public transport in penang? No more MONORAIL, PORR?
Not too sure about the 2nd bridge either??
Petronas gonna spent money on a luxury hospitals for their STAFF,http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/85066??? Why and not spent it to improve the general hospitals???
i could still go on... but why bother anyway? everything is going down the longkang anyway! Next time, you see a Malaysian longkang tersumbat, you NOW know why!
HOW NOT TO GET CLOGGED WHEN ALL YOU GET IS RUBBISH!

First time getting interviewed on video

hee, today Penang Net TV came to make a documentary on HYS Blood Donation Campaign.. and gee, i got to say something.. Hmm.. dun know what it turn out to be.. But a first for me, Didn't set my hair, didn't apply makeup.. just got this sleepy look.. Haha.. Anyway, i was way way too nervous, too shuttering. :) But it should be an interesting documentary, as you will also get to hear the point of view from our very supportive donors!

--------------------------
On an unrelated issue, this is the first time i get to use GPS today In Penang too. TX very kindly loaded the Malaysian map into my GPS. I just tried it out from Sunshine Farlim to get home.Cool! My parents were really impressed!

thinking back all the old arguments between husband and wife in navigation, the husband who gets bad tempered losing the way, saying "i know, i know" And the wife getting esperated as she does not understand why or why does men do not want to stop to ask for directions! GPS is indeed a wonderful tool. Bliss when driving in a new place!

----------------------------
On another further unrelated issue, I sprained my back again during BDC. I keep forgeting that i am not as young as i used to be! was instintively doing heavy work, lifting things etc.. Gai lor! Hopefully i do not need painkillers to get to work tomorrow!

Round the world in 80 Days!

Well, just came back from my round the world trip... well, not 80 days, hey, it's the 21st Century now, u can do that in less than 80 hours!


Anyway, i flew off 2 weeks ago from Pg to Singapore-Japan-LA- Denver.. Spent a few days working there and flew off to Atlanta, the olympic city of 1996. and then 2 days ago, started my journey back via JFK, New York - Frankrurt- Sg- Penang!

I will just highlight some of the interesting bits here.



Colorado


Snow Capped Mountains From Denver


A mountainous area, you could still see the snow capped mountains in the summer. Which reminds me very much of Switzerland.

The first night we were there, we were driving along this 4-lane highway to Boulder. And we were the only Car on the road! Colorado also reminds me alot of all the UFO movies i see.. Imagining a UFO landing in the middle of nowhere... oh ya, that's our hotel in Denver, as we were guided by the GPS to our hotel, we were so surprised to see that we were litteraly in the middle of vast area of vacant land, being like 3 mins driving distance from our Hotel.


Atlanta


We were staying right in in the CNN centre and no, i didn't bumb into any newscaster. She was recently hit by a tornado in March. You can see the broken windows... The amazing bit is not that a tornado swept through the city, nor is it the buildings are still standing. We can actually see this black tape being used on the windows tapped from the outside of these really tall towers!

Atlanta City Sky Line

Yup, i got a balcony... but....
You can see the damage caused by the tornado here

City skyline from the Altanta Centennial Olympic Park - notice the white olympics rings?

Food

As usual, being on business trip, i tend to get very very good food! I suppose that best bit that i enjoyed the most is my Coldstone ice-cream, hey, i got to eat twice.. was initially going to sms CC and TT and Ivan with the pics and message "wish you were here" but then i didn't do it due to the time difference... They would be sleeping soundly in their bed that time.

Airports

Since i spent so much time time there, might as well.

My first trip to Singapore T3, I can say I am impressed. Even the Transit hotel rooms looks good. I have this curtain which gives you the illusion that there is a window there, but it is just a curtain blocking a blank wall. What the heck!

Denver airport is really nice and Efficient, unlike the other US airports i have been! No long queue going through security.. In fact, they have like 10-20 lanes for this, which really helps! First airport that the security folks were actually waiting for me to un-shoe, un-belt, un-laptop and un-liquidise.... And this is one airport with lots of escallators and walkalators... It is worth mentioning here as it is 2 lanes each way.

JFK airport, way way too busy, imagine we taxied more than 1 hr 30 mins just to take off. We were number 40 in the queue! What a waste of petrol! Talking about traffic jams in the sky... we were also following this little plane somewhere along Europe... hence, we got to slow down as we can't really over take!

I can imagine in a couple of years time, you will be chosing the route of flying via route that are least congested, to avoid "Sky" traffic jams!

Backache!

What a pain in the back! Well, was suffering lots from this. Took way too much painkillers this trip. Need to get to a chryropractor!

Well, back in Penang, my project manager is suffering from headache caused by missing RND Engineer, Product Engineer, Test Engineer and also Mechanical Engineer for Pegasus! Anyway we are are back! Hopefully he gets happiers with our return!

A worthwhile cause

Hui Yin Seh 28th Annual Charity Vegetarian Dinner 慧音社敬老慈幼慈善晚会

Date : 22nd of June 2008 (Sunday)
Time : 6:00pm
Venue : Penang International Sports Arena (PISA)

You are cordially invited to participate in this event
Sponsorship of one table - for 10 members of the above organisation ( RM200.00/=)
- 2 complimentary dinner tickets will be given to the sponsor.
Dinner ticket RM20.00/= per person
** Cheque Payable to:“PERTUBUHAN HUI YIN SEH”.

For further details and enquiry, please contact:
Hui Yin Seh ( 04-829 5198) Mr. Lim Thung Hin (013-480 2829)
Chooi Florist ( 04-826 2298) Ms. How Sze Ling (013-530 9838)


******************************************************************
This charity dinner is for the old folks, the less fortunate and the handicapped around Penang. 2 years ago, when i first attended this event, i was so touched that it brought tears to my eyes and a warm feeling to my heart! Words are failing me here to describe the electrical atmosphere of this amazing night held once a year. All i know for 100% sure is that quite a lot of old folks, kids in the various home are really really looking forward to this day! Imagine the cheers you will bring to these ppl. Do join us for you will feel for yourself the warm glow in the heart i felt 2 years back. Let's us all help to make this wonderful event a success! Thank you!

What a week!

Kelantan Trip 31st May to 2nd June

Trip was planned eons ago by JH and LL from HYS. Woke up at 5:39am on a Sat morning and drove all the way to this land of wau bulan! It was quite refreshing to drive litterally through contry roads...lalalala" Country road, take me home..." Nice scenary! :)

Our 1st stop was Jeli Hot Spring... Well, it's on the way from Grik to Jeli town... it's pretty secluded and abandoned... Pity.. The hotwater there was pretty hot.. took lots of time and courage for me to put my foot in.. the 2nd pool, i didn't want to cook mine in the first pool where the water was steaming hot. We stopped for lunch at a Malay Food Stall in Jeli town.

After satisfying our tummy, we proceeded to KB town to check in our Hotel, then we out to the silversmith and then later to PCB where we had our dinner.. and then we were guided by TX's gps to look for Wakaf Che Yeh, a open-air night market.

The 2nd day, we started off after a good breakfast in the hotel to all the temples + the duty free zone (market) near tumpat. Not going name them 1 by 1 here, but you can see them in my picasa album, which i took pains to name everyone of them! We managed to bump into a nice chinese Restaurant about lunch time and had a sumptious meal, We had a big fish, prawns, oysters etc.. and the surprising bit was that the bill only came to RM140 for 10 person! Wow.. cheap...We find Kelantease food tasty, just a wee bit of the salty side. hehe...

After our pilgrimage to all the tumpat temples. we headed back to town and visited the Royal Museum and the Handicrafts Museum. Then the laddies wanted shopping... so we went shopping for batik... Me, and the rest of the guys were getting pretty bored... We were looking forward to our next stop, Kite Flying!

We did multiple stops on batik shopping, much to my and Little Jun's missery.. We just wanted to fly Kite... Not shop shop shop... haha...Anyway, finally our wish were granted and we had a fabulous time flying kite in Kelantan.....

Dinner at the famous thai restaurant was alright.. not really outstanding, but then, by that time, i was pretty tired. After dinner, we proceeded to KB Mall... No Karaoke here in Kelantan, but you can go bowling...

3rd day.. Hmmm... going home day.. Visited the famous colourful Siti Khatijah Market! and the state museum.

Well, the bit i enjoyed the most is of course the flying kite session! The wind was so strong there that it almost take no skills to lambung. had fun just running along the beach, and lazing about on the beach under the sun!


The interesting bit about the colours! I would think it is almost the most colourful state in the country! Well, for a start, the cars on the road are even more colourful than penang( where we tend to stick to all the dull metalics). The women there of course tend to wear colourful, bright batik baju kurung. That;s a strange description for kota bahru, however, i suppose, it is the first thing i notice, having come from a grey place like Aberdeen. Haha...

Colourful Kites


We visited 8-9 temples near the tumpat region on our 2nd Day. Most of them were pretty impressive! I suppose most of them were more impressive than penang temples. I mean you just have to take a look at the scale of size of the statues to know what i mean. In this state, you will see huge statues of buddha in Standing, sitting (various positions), and standing position.


This is one of the most unique templesWat Mai Suwankhiri i would say in the region is this dragon boat one... Literally a temple on a dragon boat. This pic is actually taken from the dragon boat... Impressive!

Kelantan, although a poor state under opposition rule for the past 20 years, has better roads than Penang!!!! At least most of their major roads are well maintained! Just drive around the affulent areas of bayan Lepas area, you will see what i mean...

KY's Birthday - 3th June


Hmmm, had lunch at Secret Recipe, than followed a cake cutting ceromony in TAO room and followed by big big seafood meal in Hai Boey! We went to Hai Boey about 7pm, after TT pimple removal ordeal. 8 of us sat on a table for 12.... haha... As we wanted to order lots of stuff! And we did, lalas, balitungs, helicopter, fish, crabs, prawns etc etc.. Had a really full meal and of course the company was great! Yup, I think i am gaining weight from all these outings! Oh no... Maybe i should follow Botak to the gym!


Besides the hearty meal, i also had a good laugh on the way back to town. Haven't laugh so hard for quite some time. Poor me, getting breathless laughing!

Petrol Price rocketed

I was swearing all the way home....hmmpf.. what lying scumbags! wtf!

RND treat 5th June

had lunch at palace de India followed with Hagen Diaz..... We managed to try all 14 flavours by ordering 2 7th Heaven! Haha.. My favourite still all all the coffee and rich chocolate ones, like Belgian choc, Tiramisu, Coffee, Rum and Rasin!

Really need to get to the GYM!