Morning Lake View

Morning lake view behind Sime Darby Medical Centre

I just noticed that I didn't blog at all last month, been swamped with work and projects since last year. Unsure if this is a good thing or not but basically time passes so fast with work and stress piling up like a mini hill. In just a blink of eyes, we are now in Q2 of the year. It's april already!!

Anyway, since my gym membership ends in March 2015, and clearly I don't have the time to go for it, so it would be a waste of money if I extend my membership. Made a decision to kill the membership and resolved with jogging around the lake nearby.

Shot above was taken in one of the morning I went for a jog. Nice shot eh?

4th Day of CNY

The 4th day of Chinese New Year, as usual we have nothing much to do. Unlike other families, we don't go do house visiting and don't have other people over visiting, so mom decided to go to my grandma's place. As for me and my sister, we are allow to have our own plan.

After dropping my mom at grandma's, I went to the mall nearby and camp myself in Starbucks. This is like my second drink today (drink in pic) and my 2nd visit this week. Decided to challenge Caffè Americano but cheated in the end with some syrups, just can't take the bitterness. Healthy much?

Anyway, purpose of camping here is to do work, but instead of working, I've been chatting with friends, checking Facebook, reading a book which I borrowed almost a year ago, and people watch in the cafe.

Chose a quiet corner for all the activities listed above, which not quite comfortable as the air cond is not strong enough. Speaking of which, I don't think the free wifi is working too, scanned for the connection a few times but to no avail, maybe the modem is broken. Meh!

Okay, enough updating. I think I should really continue slacking my weekend. Next week gonna need to start combating all the workloads and crazy clients again :P

Oh by the way, HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR guys!

Short Getaway to Taiping

HAPPY NEW YEAR GUYS!!!

I know, I know, another long abandoned blog since the last entry, yadda yadda yadda, busy working yadda yadda yadda, no time for a lot of yadda yadda, and I'm constantly being #tired. Not gonna continue yadda-ing around so let's proceed with this blog entry shall we :P

End of October 2014, I went to Korea with my bunch of high school buddies. By right, I should be blogging about the trip, but due to insufficient time (I have not even select any photographs from the pile yet) and my hard disk is currently with my friend, so posting about it is kinda not possible.

Last Sunday (1 Feb 2015) I went to a small town called Taiping (which means "everlasting peace" in Chinese) in the northern state of Perak in Malaysia. Reason? To visit my beloved brother. Well, not biologically related but when you have this one friend that you're well connected with, you tend to call them your "brother" or "sister" of different parents, right?

This is my first time going to Taiping, and this is also my first time taking a bus from Pudu Sentral all by myself. The other time I took a bus to another state was with a friend to Penang and we departed from One Utama bus station via Aeroline. Anyway, I experienced so many first time through this trip, one of the significant moment was when the bus I took (apparently the most trusted coach company) decided to take a stop at the road side while going uphill exiting Ipoh.

Luckily a back-up bus came for the rescue, in the end, we were only about an hour late from schedule.

Our first stop - The Matang Mangrove Forest Reserve which is located at Kuala Sepetang. It was quite a journey even though the friend claims that we completed the walk within 30 minuets, but throughout the journey I kept thinking about horror nonesense like how a group of people walking through the mangrove forest and one by one being killed by some murderous devilish creatures. LOL.

We then moved on to the fishing village. Since it was mid afternoon when we arrived the village, all the villagers were chilling and resting at home while doing their daily chores. What impressed me the most wasn't the fishing village nor the carefree villagers, but when I look up the sky, I saw eagles soaring/gliding in the sky. Many of them!!! It was so awesome!!!

The least expected place always brings you the best surprise. I never consider to visit the charcoal Factory because to me, they are just some light, black residue, consisting of carbon and any remaining ash - what is there to see? But like I said earlier, it was full of awesome insights and stories.

Perhaps it was the uncle's (who told us about the stories and processes of charcoal making) way of presentation that sparks my interest, or it was the aunty's (another group of visitor) reaction to the story made everything seems so funny and lively. Anyway, every single process in a charcoal factory is manually done by human power. Charcoal production is a long process and involved lots of man power.

This time I didn't manage to visit the zoo nor the Lake Garden (only drove pass at night), but I will definitely try to make it the next time! I had a pleasant stay at my friend's place and his parents we very accommodative! I guess besides Kuching, Taiping's gonna be my next favourite town in Malaysia. Looking forward to my next trip :)

Singapore Trip

The iconic Merlion @ Merlion Park adjacent to One Fullerton

Have I been to Singapore? YES!

Like finally after so many years. I've been wanting to visit the neighbouring country for such a long time, merely because I watch Singaporean production when I was younger, and heard a lot about the country through my friends.

The only reason why I didn't get to go would be the currency. Their currency rate is about RM2.58 = SGD1, which is slightly not affordable for us. This is also why my family never thought of bringing us over.

Maxwell Food Centre @ the heart of China Town
(Located at Kadayanallur Street Road in the Raffles Place District)

Due to the lack of sleep the night before in order to catch the morning flight, we decided to change the original plan of visiting the Gardens of the Bay to visiting Clarke Quay. Dinner was settled in Maxwell Food Centre, which is one of my go-to destination. My tour guide (who has been in Singapore for more than 7 times) went to queue for the famous Chicken Rice and waited for almost 30 minutes for a plate of chicken rice.

To be honest, I cannot tell if this is the famous stall, but there is this saying amongst the friends, "whenever you see a queue, follow and you will never go wrong". But in my opinion, the plate of chicken rice to me was just normal, not sure about Ivan (my personal tour guide).

Clarke Quay is quite a nice place, it somehow reminds me of Darling Harbour in Sydney. Stroll along the riverside you can see a lot of restaurants and drinking place. There are a lot of people especially couples who sits around the riverside and talk whole night.

I wouldn't mind drinking at one of the pubs if I am earning their currency, the environment and ambience is just awesome. Just choose a perfect corner, order a drink and begin to people watch, quite cool don't you think? Maybe one day :)

Sun Setting @ Gardens by the Bay / Marina Bay Sands

Second day was mainly travelling around the city. To keep the entry short, in the morning for brunch we went to Ikkousha Hakata Ramen restaurant for their awesome Ramen located at Tanjong Pagar. After meal, we headed for coffee at The Plain somewhere nearby. Headed to Bugis Street (another to-go destination), explored China Town, coffee again and finally to the Gardens by the Bay.

It did quite a lot of walking, but I still feel fat anyhow from all the food, desserts and coffees I had throughout the trip. Had my camera with me the whole day, beside taking photographs of the scenery, I too shot some random shots of people around, either walking around, or taking selfie/ussie.

One of my best shot would be the one shown below, the panoramic view of the city from the Marina Bay. It was a compilation of 3 shots with the help of Photoshop. Don't know what you think about this but personally I find it awesome!

Panoramic view of the city via Marina Bay

Third day was kinda normal, places covered are mainly the other malls you normally hear from your peers i.e. Suntec City Mall, Vivo City and eventually we went to the Universal Studio Singapore because Ivan wants to trade his Hard Rock Lapel Pins.

It was a long queue if we were to take the train back to Vivo City from the USS, so we decided to walk back. It's quite a long distance to walk bank, but it's good to walk no? Plus, I managed to get another sun set shot, with the view of the cable car. Looks kinda nice as well ;) (self praising)

But seriously, don't you think that the view is awesome?

Final day was spent well in the Orchard Road, however it begin raining heavily at around lunch time and I felt kind of grateful that it did not rain for the past few days when I was travelling around. I would say this is good despite the blazing hot sun and I feel very happy about it.

Overall trip is fine, but it can be better. To be honest, I never plan to visit this country again because of the currency, it simply doesn't worth it. But let's see how, we cannot foresee the future right? Who knows what will happen soon. 

Phone Screen Wallpaper

Lately I've been travelling around, took some good shots via my phone, edited it and thought it suits as my phone wallpaper. The third photo (on the right) is my current wallpaper.

This is random. Just thought of sharing and showing off, while keeping the blog updated :)