Greetings from Malaysia

I flew down to Malaysia on the 25th of November via Jetstar. You'd think you'd get pretty crap services and facilities with the budget airline, but it is quite decent. I only paid $240 for a one-way flight.

Flight was smooth and had no issues at all. I bought a book at the airport which I was planning to read on the plane, but ended up just watching movies and sleeping.

So what have I done so far ever since I touched down? Eat eat eat. :S

Food here is soooo cheap that it's hard to say no to seconds. I've been having mamak & chinese food mainly.

Also I've been fishing with my highschool friends at some man made pond in Sri Petaling. Costs around RM23 for 4 hours on Mondays. We ended up fishing for 8 hours hehe. I didn't catch anything though, so unlucky. My friend caught a 3kg pachu fish and we traded it for two 2kg patin fish.

I've also been doing a little bit of shopping. Not as much as I want though. Only bought a pair of boxers so far. Will be going to Lowyat today to buy a bunch of electronic goodies.

Not sure if you've been to a pub called Wabisabi here. Had beers with friends there last night. Gosh, it is soooo expensive! RM42 + 10% surcharge for a jug of beer. I've always hated having alcoholic beverages in Malaysia because it is so expensive compared to Australia.

Well my reasoning was I'd rather eat 40 roti banjir instead, hehe :P

Anyways, if any of you want my Malaysian number, just send me an email and I'll get back to you.

And you thought you've heard everything...

until this guy gets caught having "sex" with his bicycle. WTH?!?! Seriously, the perverseness that you come across nowadays is just ridiculous.

Cleaners of a hostel caught the guy with a singlet and naked waist down, holding his bike and moving his hips back and forth. The 51 year old bachelor claimed he was drunk.

Read more here.

Squirrel Fight!

I love their fighting stance and agility.

It's Cooking Time!

I decided to cook something tonight and flicked through HungerHunger's blog and discovered Steamed Chicken With Chinese Ham n Mushrooms!

Now the only deviation I did from the recipe was that I used normal soy sauce because I couldn't find light soy sauce, and I used normal bacon because I had no clue where to find ham that's asian. Also I used chicken thigh only because I couldn't be stuffed cutting up a whole chicken. Besides, I was only cooking for two: myself and my sister.

Oh, I'm not sure whether the chicken was corn-fed though. Didn't get a chance to ask it. Anyways, I followed the recipe and mixed it all into a bowl. Refrigerated for an hour.


Now the mixture was smelling bloody good and I was kinda proud of myself. Everything was going good until I came to the cooking part. A huge stumbling block for me, but perhaps not for others.

The instructions said "Steam at high heat for 25 to 30 min. Serve hot with plain rice". Me being a guy, didn't really understand this in full detail because I need step-by-step instructions. I wondered to myself, "How on earth will I steam this without the sauce dripping away?". I didn't think this through thoroughly and so I proceeded with the assumption that you're meant to simmer it. Oh how wrong I was!

Now I think the correct way is to place it on a heat tolerant plate or pan, and place it into a pot of steaming water and steam it! Aha, why didn't I think of this earlier?!?

Another huge mistake was not doing it in a non-stick pot. If you see the picture above closely, you'll see that the bottom is burnt and the food is stuck as well. I must say the aroma still smelt nice though!

The end result?

I didn't bother decorating and positioning the food in a presentable way because I was about to devour it in a few minutes.

The verdict? Very niiiiceeee...



Ignore the head piece and don't ask why.

Boring 22nd

Happy birthday to me!

Anyways, was a pretty boring day for me. Woke up 9sih cos Sahar called me. Then had a dentist appointment at 12pm. After that I played dota all afternoon pretty much, hehe.

After getting sick of dota, I bugged my sister and then went outside to do a bit of weights under the sun. Man, really need to get into the workout routine again. It's been a while.

Dinner at Big Johns with family and cousin. Then got a call from my girl to pick up my present from abercrombie.

Here it is!


Thanks princess! :) Funny message though on the card, hehe.

"I did not know" - Yahoo acting dumb

Chief executive Jerry Yang said his firm had always been open with Congress and that it was "fully committed to protecting human rights".

Mr Callahan said then that he did not know why the Chinese authorities wanted to trace Shi Tao - who was jailed for 10 years - but it has since emerged that other Yahoo employees had a document stating it was to do with the "suspected illegal provision of state secrets".

"Yahoo claims that this is just one big misunderstanding," Mr Lantos said.

This is one funny article. If you didn't already know, Yahoo recently gave information to Chinese officials leading to the arrest of Shi Tao, and jailed 10 years for sending an email to a foreign website, warning journalists not to cover the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 2004.

Shi Tao's mother who was present at the hearing only received a silent nod from Jerry Yang, CEO of Yahoo and Michael Callahan, execute vice-president of Yahoo.

I guess Shi Tao's mother can be comforted from Yahoo's "I didn't know" defence which lead to her son's jail term, with a silent nod.

At least offer her monetary compensation, gosh. Oh wait, Google's owning you at the moment. Gotta save every penny.

uncapped

woot, once again i rejoice at fast internet.

lay-Z-ness

Why is it so hard to do something so easy? Especially after what I've gone through. I have a 10 minute presentation worth 20% tomorrow. That's like 10 or so slides and rehearsing my speech a few times to get it in sync.

I've done 7 slides already but I think that's too many because I haven't even got into my main work yet. Terribly hard to condense the explanation of Ajax, Ruby on Rails and Web 2.0 into 3-4 minutes. Now the weather is gloomy and slightly chilly, ideal conditions to hibernate. Ok, wake up hong yi. You're sleeping in the computer labs again!

As I type, I begin to wonder. Wonder what's it like to rest my head upon my soft sheridan pillow.

Need I wonder for much longer?

Thailand anyone?

Ah it feels so good to be sorta free. Watched Rogue Assassin yesterday (crap), and The Kingdom today (good). Two movie in two days. Man I'm spoiling myself silly.

I'll be flying to Malaysia on the 25th of November for holidays and would want to go to Thailand, sometime in December or early January for about a week. So far the people who enlisted are:

• Me
  
• Suren aka thambi
• Sean

I know, not a very impressive list but I haven't really asked many people yet anyway. Not that I'm looking to run a contiki group to Thailand either.

Anyhoos, if you're keen to go Thailand during those periods, let me know k? Don't be shy.

[edit date="5/11/07"]

Newly acquired member(s):

1. Wern
   

Quick quick, don't be shy!

[/edit]

80% down, 20% to go

Woot! After 122 pages and 14,419 words, I'm finally done with my thesis. Stayed awake for 38 hours or so as well (sorry hy, not really keen to break your record).

Now all that's left to do is a 20% presentation on Tuesday and a work experience report to hand in before I graduate.

Can't wait.

Wings of Red Bull

I've stocked up on 2 cans of Red Bull to last me all night tonight. Yes, just two. Don't want to end up on the floor. That's the recommended intake anyway.

Another 14 hours till my thesis is due. 109 pages and 11,919 words so far.

"Victory!" - Viking Quest shout.

Its an entourage thing.

C'mon...nearly there!

It's 5.25am now and I've just finished my 90th page of my thesis. Due in another 34 hours. I still need to print and bind it as well.

So so tired. Can't wait till this is over.

Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus - Philippians 3:13-14

Feel like that now, hehe. Different from how Paul intended it to be though but nonetheless, handing in this thesis seems like a heavenly prize (but its not really!).

Yet another "Thriller" moment...Bollywood style

I've posted another thriller video previously if you haven't seen it. But here's another!


Sheer brilliance.

I have no life

Since last week I've been waking up at horrendous hours (i.e. 11am-pm) and sleeping similarly as well (2-5am). My routine begins with waking up, getting some breakfast and perhaps read some stuff online. Would probably waste an hour or so.

Then for the next 8-10 hours I stare at the computer screen, clicking and typing away with the occasional break. My shoulders are sore, my wrists feel a bit cramped, and my eyes feeling lifeless. I have a slight pulsating headache as well.

I can't remember the last time I talked to my friends (I do, but its a figure of speech) and went out to get some fresh air and sunlight. This is what it's going to be like for the next 7+ days. It's kind of depressing.

Almost finished coding. Now I'm in the debugging and testing stage. Not looking forward to writing up my entire thesis.

Cute Hamsters

This is for Hong Yi.

Apple goes Open Source

Finally the fruit goes open source.

I was leaning more towards getting an iPod Nano but now with Apple about to release a software development kit (SDK), I'm seriously considering the iPod Touch. The iPod Touch uses the same underlying architecture as the iPhone, which will be the first to have its software go open source.

What this means is that you can now have your favourite softwares installed onto your device. Word, Excel, Skype, Firefox and others will be available. I'm pretty sure someone will develop those softwares.

The iPod Touch comes at a hefty price though. $419 for the 8gb, and $549 for the 16gb whereas the Nano comes at $199 for the 4gb, and $279 for the 8gb.

Perhaps I should just wait till the price drops.

Dumbledore pronounced gay

I've been a fan of the Harry Potter series since I was like 13 or 14, before the movies came out and spoilt it. Now another recent news has spoilt my enjoyment of the book: JK Rowling announcing that Dumbledore is a gay character.

What a load of bull. I can't believe JK Rowling is subtly instilling gay content into children's literature. Well that is how it started anyway, a children's literature.

Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell welcomed the news about Dumbledore and said: "It's good that children's literature includes the reality of gay people, since we exist in every society.

"But I am disappointed that she did not make Dumbledore's sexuality explicit in the Harry Potter book. Making it obvious would have sent a much more powerful message of understanding and acceptance."

I'm not a gay hater or anything as they are still equally human beings which God created, but I disagree with the notion of accepting the practice of homosexuality. Does it mean that we have to accept the practice of rapists and murderers even though they exist in our society?

God made Adam and Eve, not Steve. The male and the female organ was intelligently made to fit together, thus procreation. I don't think crossing swords would cut it.

She said she regarded her novels as a "prolonged argument for tolerance" and urged her fans to "question authority".

JK Rowling has definitely kept this quiet till the end to boost her book sales. If she was really sincere in her quest to urge her fans to "question authority", she would've revealed this a long time ago.

I'm pretty sure parents would not have allowed their children to read the book knowing this much sooner. A very disappointing end to the Harry Potter literature.

More time wasted!

Argh! Just spent another couple of hours adding del.icio.us, digg and facebook bookmarks onto my posts. Also added a digg button at the top of my page. Colour looks ugly but I couldn't be bothered to change it atm.

Shanghai continued...

Alright I'm back in Sydney and have been busy coding, trying to complete my thesis which is due in a couple of weeks. It's very exciting to know that you finally finish university education (for now anyway) after five hard years. I totally enjoyed it though I must say.

For those who don't know what I'm doing in Shanghai, I'm working part-time for a company called Hannover Fairs Australia, the organisers of CeBIT Australia. Our parent company is Deutsche Messe, the organisers of CeBIT Hannover. A team of us have been sent over to Shanghai to do media coverage for CeBIT Asia, CeMAT Asia and PTC Asia, a combined trade show at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre.

So back to Shanghai. First three days were a nightmare. Basically got up at 6.30am and sleeping around 11pm-12am. Around there. We were so busy that we usually took work with us back to the hotel to continue uploading content onto the website since there is internet in the rooms.

Working hard in my room.

The hotel rooms were quite nice. I think it's a 4-star hotel, Rendezvous Merry Hotel. Sounds a bit like a seedy hotel though don't you reckon? It had a nice view of the city as well. If you've never been to Shanghai, it's a very developed city, much like Sydney. A lot of skyscrapers and construction going around. With a high rate of development comes pollution as well. The city was constantly smoggy.

Day 1 - 3

This is what kept me occupied on the plane. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!

Me arriving in Shanghai, outside Pudong airport.

The taxi ride to our hotel from the airport was quite lengthy. I think it took us around 1 hour to get to our hotel and costed around RMB250. Oh, apparently you're not allowed to have schizophrenia, and do dumpings in the taxi. You can also refuse to pay the fare if they taxi driver doesn't say polite greetings like "bye-bye!". I would've taken a picture of it, but it was a night. The flash would've made it unreadable.

We were very tired after having our flights delayed by two hours and I think the flight was just over 10 hours total. As a result, we collapsed almost immediately onto our beds.

We travelled by bus every morning for 1 hour through the traffic to the centre.

Each morning we travelled by bus to the centre through the city, which crosses over the bridge. Traffic in Shanghai is terrible, whether it's day or night. The city also looks very smoggy as you can see from the pictures. There are a lot of skyscrapers and construction though. Lots to see while you're on the bus.


The exhibition centre has like around 10 huge halls. Weird though how there's like a huge barren land in the middle. Also there was a swampy house randomly located while we were walking to the exhibition. Hope no one lives there.

This was one of my work areas in the hall. Not very glamorous.

A snapshot of what it looked like inside the hall.

There was a stand which showcased cool modified cpu towers and also had over-clocking competitions. They call it "over-frequency" over in Shanghai.

They were using dry ice to cool down the cpu.

On our way to the opening party, I came across an "engrish" sign. I think it was one of the chinese companies exhibiting. Couldn't miss the chance to take a picture.

I wonder what they're selling.

The opening night party was pretty much drinks and food. A lot of it! I would've taken pictures of the food but I didn't want to seem like a loser.

There was a guy also singing karaoke songs on the stage. Would've roundhouse kicked him off if I could. Sucked so badly. After several torturous minutes, some other cool performances were presented.

I love German beer.

I can see your thighs there.

These three violinist chicks were awesome.

Do I look tired or is it the beer(s)?

On the second night we went to a reception at the Sheraton Hotel, hosted by the government of California. Not sure if you guys know Lt. Governor John Garamendi. He's someone who works with Arnie. Well, he was representing California there.

There were really nice desserts there. Took a few pictures of them. Gosh I love digital slr cameras. Too bad it's the company's and not mine :(

On the third night, we went for a Shanghai river boat cruise. Some other corporate function. This was when I was craving for some local Shanghainese food already. Already had enough of eating hotel/catered food! Anyways, the night city views were beautiful. All the buildings at night were brightly lit up.

FYI, the wine and beer tasted horrible.

The media team. (L->R) Emma, Gilad, James, Kae Yen, Me.

Me and Gilad.

Not sure if you can see it, but that's actually a boat carrying a big ass advertisement!

Day 4

We finally finish early on Saturday and looking forward to actually spend some time enjoying ourselves and not attending corporate functions or doing work! As a treat from the company, we were taken to the Hyatt Hotel, a very luxurious bar on the 88th floor. I ordered campari and lemonade/lemon juice. Very nice!

Beautiful view from the top I'd say.

Remind you of Gotham city?

Michael and the media team.

Looking down the atrium. Beautiful isn't it?

Emma and I (aerial shot).

Next we headed off to Nanjing Road and the Bund. Touristy areas. Pretty lights all around. Shopping area too but didn't shop there since they'd probably charge tourist prices as well.

Whilst walking on Nanjing Road, couple of guys came up to me asking if I wanted "female-company". Pretty funny since they were pretty persistent. Oh btw, something that you'd notice is that if you're with foreigners, a lot of these street sellers will come up and ask you "You want watch? Want bag? Prada? Gucci?".

The Peace Hotel.

Mao and I go way back...

Yes they do have adult shops in Shanghai. Only saw one though.

Nanjing Road.

Day 5

Shopping shopping shopping! Finally we get to pick up our tailored suit and shirts. The tailored stuff we got at the "Spinning Market", apparently on Qi Pu road. Other stuff, we got at the new copy market.

The tailored suit cost only RMB500, including two pants. That's around AU$75. The tailored shirts cost RMB100, which is around AU$15. Pretty good if you ask me!

Can't remember what's this place called. It's above the copy markets.


That's how you use a gun, son.

Satay anyone?

Trying on my newly made tailored suit.

Hungry after a day's worth of shopping!

Me outside "Spinning Market".

Our friendly tailors and their baby.

Me about to be measured.

After all the shopping, we were about ready to head to the airport and fly back to Sydney. But not before we have some local food! Finally!

Bowl of La-Mien (hand-made noodles) was RMB7. That's like just above AU$1!

It was pretty funny cos while we were having dinner, a lady was arguing with a guy from the shop. Obviously I didn't understand them. Then a police came to hear them out. Was too scared to take a picture in case that was illegal :S

So what's the quickest way to Pudong airport? Did anyone say magnets? I sure did. Shanghai has a popular train that goes to and from the airport using magnets. Yeap, apparently the train hovers on magnets. This of course uses electro-magnetic principles which I refuse to regurgitate what I learnt 4 years ago in my physics class.

Takes less than 15 minutes to reach the airport and travels at around 300km/h.

Queuing up to buy tickets.

In the magnet train.

Fast and smooth.

And thus concludes my trip to Shanghai. It was fun and would've loved to spend more time there but unfortunately I got a thesis to write and an university to graduate from.

Gosh, I think I spent nearly 2 hours on this post. ><

Farewell Shanghai!