Penang Trip 27-05-2005

My trip to Penang starts off with a rainy day on the 27th of May 2005. My destinations are 2 customer site that are located in Bukit Mertajam and the Island itself. Actually, I'm always amazed about the marble hills around Ipoh, so I grab my camera and ready for some action this time.

In case you have not visited Malaysia before, our country actually had a huge amount of land for agricultural purposes. Here in this picture is a Palm Oil farm.

Ah... a convoy of army trucks escorted us on the way there... not bad huh ?

As we approached Ipoh, this sight is the beginning of the Marble Hills surrounding it.

Though some of these hills were torn down for marble productions but portions of the hill itself is still filled with flora and fauna

This is the original creation of nature - untouched by mankind.

During the night, we were brought to the "Bangsar of Penang" (Plaza Gurney) after a splendid dinner in an Italian restaurant.

The tea were good... But then again, I don't believe anyone would go Bangsar to drink tea only right ?! Of course the ambience and ladies there are good as well !

Before my trip back to KL, I brought my sales director to Kek Lok Si temple. Nah, we aren't there for the prayers (Overall, my sales director is a Muslim) but instead for the Asam Laksa !

This stall is located just next to the wet market adjacent to the Kek Lok Si temple. The 2 containers you see in front are filled with the Asam Laksa gravy - yummy !

Now, you won't get such delicacy anywhere in KL. Why ? For a start the gravy is THICK, furthermore the fish meat are all within the gravy itself and last but not least... It's only RM2.20 each bowl !

Look at him ! My sales director said that he never tasted such Asam Laksa anywhere before...

... and guess what ? He went for 3 bowls !!!!

The mix road runners !

We had managed to catch up with these guys and grab load of freebies ! These people are very friendly but they are always in the run - you can only locate them by listening to the MIX radio station or by visiting their website.

Coco Lim...

Once I promised a friend that I'll take a picture of my dog and post it up in my blog. There you go then, it's name is "Coco" (and because it's my family dog, we gave it a surname of "Lim") and it's decendant from my late dog named "Dino". My late dog died in the year 2002 due to old age.

Janice...

This is Jonathan (aka Janice) my counterstrike gaming partner from my cybercafe days... This eatout is located in Sungai Long, mostly serve odd drinks but delicious indeed.

Ken's Wedding

On the 21st May 2005, my old pal Foo Yoke Ken finally ties the knot with his girlfriend Tan Yin Fun. The wedding was held in Federal Hotel, Kuala Lumpur

From left to right; Michele (my girlfriend), the groom (Ken), myself and Ho Chee Chew (My college mate - never expect to meet him there though)

This guy is another special friend of ours. Elbert Foo (Nicknamed "Ah Boy") the groom's brother, he's my friend since badminton days (around 15 years of age I think), he's my teammate when I played games in the cybercafe, he's also the person who helps me with my car and most of all he's one of my trusty friend !

Melaka Trip

Hello from Melaka ! On my recent trip to Melaka, I had managed to take quite a number of pictures for blogging back. For a start, this is the hotel in which our customer was put in - Century Mahkota Hotel. It's just a stone throw away from the Century Mahkota Parade.

The reception area. I had once stayed here before and I would only rate it as mediocre compared to other newer hotels around. But then again, if it's convenient and located at a strategic location, you can never doubt the effectiveness of it in the sense of customer's attraction

The rooms...

Out of the hotel, we drove around 5 minutes to the infamous Jonker Street. That's where we get all our goodies, souvenirs and definitely the Chicken Rice Ball ! (Yum yum !)

This is Jonker Street. The buildings are of the colonial type but seems like the state government had commercialize it a lot since my last visit here

A sign in the middle of Jonker Streets that reads "Happy 2nd anniversary on the declaration of Melaka - historical city"

See that trishaw next to the motocyclist there ? These trishaw is all around the older part of the city. Visitors just need to pay a sum of around RM10 to RM20 for a ride around with it. Mostly run by the elders so if you weigh of a certain amount, I strongly suggest you to drive...

This is supposed to be a press company. My colleagues claimed that this wooden door would cost quite an amount of money - so I just snap a picture of it !

Sunset view of Jonker Street...

While in Jonker Street, we ended up in the Chicken Rice Ball shop to enjoy the infamous Chicken Rice Ball of Melaka... yum yum !

That's what we had for dinner... Chicken Rice Ball (It's actually rice but rolled into ball shape for easy consumption), Bean sprouts, BBQ Pork and soup (Say... where is the soup eh ?)

After dinner, we went for a bowling tourney with the customers. These 2 chaps are my colleagues. The one of the left is Lawrence (Who flew all the way from Hong Kong) and Hew, our local channel's manager

Now have you wear such a sock for bowling before ?

Eventually our team did not win but I must admit it was quite fun to be there. My highest score for the night (out of 2 games) was only 144. It must be the lane or ball or pins or shoes or gloves or combination of them all ! :P

New Marine Inhabitants !

This is the hermit crab that is taking care of cleaniless of the tank. Do you know that hermit crab also shred it's skin like prawn when it grows ? It also changes the "home" behind it to cater for growth from time to time

Ah... can you see this little guy here ? This is the Hawk fish that I mentioned earlier. It's eyeball tends to move and focus on objects that moves around itself.

Those were the days

Born in 2 January 1975. This is the picture of myself, my eldest sister and my caretaker. She's a nyonya and my mom said that she cooked the best curry ever.


1980 : Kindergarten graduation. I'm the kid at the top row and standing 2nd from the right. The one next to me (3rd kid on the right side) is my best pal Chin Nan (In which we are still in contact up till today)


1982 : This is how I look like in 1982. Apparently dad asked me to dressed up, go up to the stage and sing (In which I did !). There were no karaoke or equipments, just the guitar, organ, drum and me !


1984 : Class photo of standard 3. I'm standing on the last row, 4th from the right


1988 : Taken in a picture during a trip with my parent in Thailand. That's dad, mom and my youngest sister.


1991 : Taken in my school compound (St John's Institution) with my late friend Yap Kian Seng who had passed away during the highland's tower tragedy


1992 : Prefectorial graduation taken with my best friend Kenneth Chan


1995 : APIIT college graduation with with college mates


1998 : 3rd job (Sybase) taken in Sybase Singapore with ex-colleagues


2002 : Sybase office with ex-colleague Desmond Wong

New Addition To My Marine Tank

This is the Hawk Fish. The new comer of this 3ft tank of mine


this is another new comer. It's supposed to clean up the residue within the tank. Apparently it died a couple of days later - Seems like this guy not much of a cleaner after all (After having to force myself to clean up it's body in the tank...)

Labour Day 2005 !

Labour day ! Well, it's always a day worth celebrating for me as it's the day when I started working 10 years ago (since 1995) and it's the day I hop from one company to another. For this year, myself and all my ex and current colleagues went pot luck in another colleague's place. There were food, liquior and DVDs to watch. A few of them were absent due to personal commitments though.


For a start, I took a picture of KL night scene from my colleague's apartment at 15th floor, nice huh ?


I was thinking of capturing KL Tower and KLCC at the far end, ah... I missed the zoom settings when this picture was taken...


That's Margaret (Our host) and CSLim (Current colleague)


Ex-colleague Leslie Lee. Boy does he looks tired... or drunk ?


That's Margaret and Michele


Since Desmond left, rarely you can see these 2 bachelors in the same picture. I admit that we both looks older since the last picture though...


Just when I got home after the party, guess what we saw ? My fish was sleeping at the side of the tank ! Aiming a torchlight near it, I snapped a picture of this guy while it's snoring away next to the anemone... hehe