5 Things

I have been ‘tagged’ by KY. My mind was rather foggy initially, wondering what this tag thingy is all about. After some observations, I’ve finally figured it out. Asked KY a silly question to seek confirmation on it. :) KY, forgive me for my ignorance on this, as I am still a new kid on the blog. Hehe…

5 things found in your bag
I have definitely more than 5 things in my bag. While guys can always do without a bag, they may wonder why women always carry handbag wherever they go . First of all, men’s apparels come with POCKETS that allow them to conveniently keep their stuff such as wallets, mobile phones, and keys. Can you imagine how would it look like if women’s clothing is to come with lots of pockets and each pocket is filled with the woman stuff ? Christmas tree or Mr. Beggar Soo (苏乞丐), perhaps?

Here are 5 main items found in my bag apart from some other stuff:
1. Definitely my purse - The moment you go out, it means spending money.
2. Mobile phone – I can’t live without my mobile phone. Feel insecure if I go out without bringing it along.
3. Keys - my car keys and house keys, in a single big bunch.
4. Lip care – a Nivea essential care lip balm, and a Red Earth lip stick. I use the lip balm more often.
5. Wooden Comb – to avoid the sparkling sound (of the discharge of electrostatic) that I'll get from combing my hair with a plastic comb. Ya, I am physically easily charged with electrostatic, which is something annoying, and not that I wish to have. Once upon a time, I was easily shocked by electrostatic when I touched the door knob, car door, cubicle edge (plastic material) in the office or even at the counter of the petrol station, and most fantastically, by human or potato touch! One extreme experience was I even got shocked when I touched a potato at the supermarket! I hate it, because it's painful and I am always the one feeling the pain if the shock is by human touch. The shock occurance has reduced over time. Anyway, of late, I became the victim again of such shock, by human touch. As usual, I was the one who felt the pain, while the other person felt nothing at all.

5 favorite things in your room
I have lots of stuff in my room, accumulated over 10 years of staying in KL. Some are even in boxes, nicely put under my bed, yet to be unpacked from the last round of shifting. Talking about things in my room, I will need to do a round of mass housekeeping, downsizing, and throwing or giving away for things that I don't need anymore. Ya, I'll be moving soon. Moving is never a fun thing to do. Well, there are reasons why people don't stay where they are.

1. Long mirror - which I stand in front of it daily, applying my skin care or the extremely light make-up (I am not a make-up fan, only apply it when I have appointment at work, skin deserves to breathe some fresh air), ensuring that I look OK each time before going out, and the combing my hair before hitting the sack.
2. Sony CD player - which plays me nice songs.
3. CDs - ya, majority are from the pasar malam with only 2 are original. :)
4. DELLnosaur - my 15.4 inches, 2.81kg gigantic dell notebook which allows me to do my work and go online.
5. Fresh Cell Mask - This is my favourite facial mask. It's a gel base mask containing salmon roe DNA that has a refreshing and regenerating effect with intensive hydrating effect. It's a mask that I can even use as moisturizer.

5 things you have always wanted to do
1. Pack my backpack and fly far far away to see the world.
2. Learn piano - an unfulfilled childhood dream.
3. Photography - to capture the world from different angles. Pathetically, I don't even have a camera. Hahaha...
4. Buy 2 houses - 1 in Ipoh & 1 in KL/PJ. Need money money money!
5. Sleep earlier - Panda eyes are getting darker, and it's not good. Trying to sleep by 1am or 12:30am or even better by 12am especially during weekdays. But once I start sleeping late, I tend to stay late subsequently and form the habit unconsiously.

Again, I have more than 5 for this. I also want to start a blog in Chinese soon. Have not been seriously writing in Chinese for so long... I guess my last piece of proper chinese writing was probably an essay assignment/test durng form 5.

There is another thing that I am seriously considering doing and might be doing it very soon. You'll see. Will need some post-implementation moral support as I will go through an 'ugly' period for at least 2 years. Anyway, life goes on. As I age, I find that I am more inclined to taking more bold steps and decisions without much hesitation. If I have 80 years of age to live, I have already gone through 38.75% of it. Time is getting more precious, and I learn to realize more things about my life and to appreciate more. Not looking back, I wanna leave the rest of my life to the fullest with no regret.

And many many more...

5 things you’re currently into
1. Getting over a recruitment project. Suffering a little bit of withdrawer symptom after involving in it for about 2 months, a bit too long. Praying hard that all our hardwork and efforts will be fruitful.
2. Blogging - it's a whole new world out there in the blogging world with lots of fun, learnings and discoveries. Might not be as productive as those active bloggers, will try to write more whenever I have the time.
3. Collecting and discovering nice music. Have been buying CDs (from pasar malam of course) with nice songs or to discover if other songs in the CD are nice. Have been trying to find out the title and the singer of some nice songs that I come across. Thanks to E who helped me to download the mp3s of 'Dante's Prayer by Loreena McKennitt and 'The Rose' by Bette Midler. Am listening to these 2 nice songs when my mind needs some calming and soothing.
4. Ugly Betty - really love the show. It's shown on 8TV at 9:30pm every Tuesday. Check it out.
5. Getting ready to move. Got to throw a lot of stuff, start packing and looking for helper.

5 people you want to tag
I don't have many active blogger friends that I can think of tagging. Think I'll have to pass this.


Phew! I have finally completed this piece of tag.

Land Below The Wind - Part 2

Yes, finally, here comes my KK trip part 2, after 1 & 1/2 months. Though it's not freshly brewed, I have tried hard to retain the memories before they fade out. :)



13 May (Sunday) - Mesilau, here we began

Couldn't really sleep well (as always) the night before. I was having the worry of oversleeping and whether I could dispose some accumulated old stocks in my digestion system first thing in the morning before getting ready to climb. Having constipation during traveling is really a pain in the ass! The feeling of 'stuck' and not being able to 'dispose' is really mind bothering...

Forced myself out of the bed as early as 5am in order to have sufficient time to have 'enough' food and hot drink to stimulate my intestine movement to achieve a very important goal - to defecate! I had biscuit, cake, & bread one after another and a cup of hot cereal. After a while I finally felt the urge to poo. Yes, the moment of truth had come! I rushed into the toilet for this important mission. Err...it was explosive like the eruption of the volcano, and it's a lot... but please don't ask me how it smelt, ok? Hahaha... What a relief!

Ying Goh picked us up at 6:30am. We were targeted to reach the starting point at the Mesilau Nature Resort and started climbing at 8:00am. On the way to our destination, we stopped by at a dairy farm. The scenery was captivatingly beautiful. With Mount KK as the background, coupled with the fresh air, the big green farm, the clear blue sky, and the herds of cows wandering leisurely on a Sunday morning, it formed a very invigorating scene, giving us some New Zealand feel. We were told by Ying Goh that 1 of the dairy product TV ads were actually shot here. Everyone was happily posing for their best shots. Before reaching the starting point, we stopped at the National Park headquarter near the Timpohon gate to place our big backpacks, bringing only 1 small backpack with us for the climb. We reached the departing point at the Mesilau on time, and most of us bought a walking stick worth RM3 each, which YY called it as the best investment of the year! Haha...

We started climbing at 8am. YY who had decided not to go for the climb had to find her own programme while waiting for us to complete the climbing task.

There are actually 2 routes that one can take to climb the Mount KK, 1 being the Timpohon Gate, and the other is Mesilau. Both Timpohon track and Melilau track will join at Layang-Layang Staff Quater after 4KM and 6KM respectively. From Layang-Layang, there is another 2 KM of journey to reach the Laban Rata Guest House, where people stay 1 night for the first day of climb.

The 6KM Mesilau trail before Layang-Layang comprises a mix of ascending and descending tracks, which makes it more interesting. The walking stick had been in great support for me as it reduced the intensive use of the knee. As we ascended, it was getting colder and colder till my fingers were slightly numbed and painful, and I couldn't really feel them properly. 100 plus had been our useful drink for energy restoration. It was so revitalizing for every single sip of it, feeling the immediate replenishment of energy. We paced constantly and made a few pit stops when necessary for short breaks to have some bites of food and drink for energy. For each stop, we couldn't afford to stop for long as it would be very cold. At certain points, wind was blowing quite strongly. Thus we just kept going and going, enjoying the nice scenery along the trail.

The trail is really luxurious comparatively. There is a rest point for every 1 km, with water point and clean toilet with flushing system. The toilets are cleaner than most of the public toilets in KL. The water refilling speed after flushing is super fast!

When it was just a few hundred meters away from Laban Rata, it started to rain. Isshh...We quickly put on our raincoats. Too bad, most of our shoes got wet. After about 6 hours, Thong, GW, Pocket, BK & sister, Xena & I completed the 8KM climb to reach Laban Rata around 2pm.

It was cold at Laban Rata. We quickly went to take bath before the heater went off in the evening. An hour plus later, pig head and LC arrived, with LC looking a little pale. We had our expensive lunch at the cafe, at least RM15 for a plate of noodle or rice. Well, come to think of it, looking at how the porters transport the gas, food, and other supplies up the mountain with their physical strength, the prices are well justified with a valid reason. After lunch, we quickly went to bed to get some good rest in our dormitory with 4 double-deckers, squeezing the 9 of us.

Again, we had our expensive dinner at the 1 & only cafe. GW ordered 1 Tomyam soup & 1 plate of fried rice. After tasting the Tomyam soup, I decided to order Tomyam Meehoon. Who knew it didn't taste like Tomyam at all, more like Bandung. Aiks! No Umh at all! RM15 leh! Pig head ordered another bowl of Tomyam. Guess what? His tasted in between mine and GW's. Wah, how come there was no QC at all?!! It's really a tale of 3 Tomyam.

Guess what, while we were chit chatting after finishing our dinners, the group of Malaysian guys working in Singapore arrived. They went for the same rafting trip, trying to act superior, simultaneously instilled in some hostility in most of us against them. Anyway, according to BK, there's 1 of them who was friendly and having better attitude. I forgot what time it was, I guess around 8pm. My goodness, that means, the ‘elite’ group took around 11-12 hours assuming they started around 9am??? BK deliberately went and said hi to them and showed off a bit, the same time trying to gather some 8 news about them. We were really amazed by BK's bravery and curiosity. We couldn't stop laughing. Haha...

We found out that there' was shoe and clothe drying services available. Thank goodness, without hesitating much, we decided to go for it at a price of RM10 per pair after negotiation. Or else, we would be in our uncomfortable wet shoe the next day. Some opted to dry their clothes too at RM4 per piece.

After that, we went to bed super early as we needed to start climbing again at 2:30am to conquer the peak the next morning. For me, it meant insufficient sleep again.


14 May (Monday) - Conquered the summit & a night to remember

With a sleepy head, I woke up around 1:45am. After getting ready, we went down to the 1 & only cafe for our expensive breakfast. Most of us chose the buffet breakfast. I usually can't eat much in the morning, especially at this kind of odd hour. Well, I tried to eat more as I would need lots of energy for the journey to conquer the summit. Anyway, I didn't dare to eat too much as my 'daily affair' was not settled yet at this kind of unusual hour.

We gathered at 2:30am for a short briefing. The temperature was 9.4'C, and it was dark and freaking cold. Everyone was nicely wrapped from top to toe, and looked like a member of the special task force (飞虎队). We started climbing around 2:45am with our torch lights and small backpacks.

It was all uphill tasks, which covered a 2.5KM journey from Laban Rata to the summit of Low's Peak. I was half awake & half sleepy. As I ascended, the more I felt the gravity. Energy was consumed faster than the food could be transformed to glucose. I started to gasp a little as the air was getting thinner as the altitude increased. While stopping and waiting for people in front to proceed, I looked up at the sky which was filled millions of shinning stars. It was stunningly beautiful. I wished I could pause a little longer to admire the beautiful starry sky, but I couldn't. We just got to keep going as it was cold. Mucus just couldn't stop exuding from my nose as if I was having running nose.

At certain points, the chilling wind was howling frantically like nobody's business, as if it was giving us a warm welcome. Again, my fingers were freezing and painful. We made some short stops to have some chocolate bar & 100 plus and moved our butts to keep going right after we were done.

The air got thinner and thinner as we approached the summit. Slowly and steadily we marched forward, fighting the chilling wind and the coldness simultaneously. I was gasping with mucus exuding non-stop from my nose. I kept asking the guide " jauh lagi kah? ... sampai ah?" a few times, couldn't wait to reach the peak to have a rest.

Finally, Thong, GW, Pocket, Xena and conquered the summit, Low's Peak at 5:30am! It’s 4095m above sea level. The sun was just setting. The sunset was breathtaking, not only because it was beautiful but it really took us a lot of breath to reach the summit, and view the same sun that sets at the east every single morning. Haha... :) There were already quite a crowd of people there at the peak, occupying the nice spots to enjoy the magnificent view of the summit.

Xena & I were sitting fixedly and emotionlessly, enduring the cold while the rest were busy snapping shots. According to the guide, it was about 3'C at the peak. BK & BH reached a little later, as BH was suffering from altitude sickness and BK needed to take good care of her. Pig head & LC appeared and joint us at the peak at last. The rest were so busy taking photos that Xena & I had decided to descend a little bit from the peak and hided under a big rock pathetically while waiting for them to finish their photo taking sessions.

Guess what, when the rest finally settled with the photo taking, the guys challenged each other to take off their clothes at the peak and they did! It was freaking cold up there! They had really gone crazy! Anyway, they were not totally naked though, with pants still on. :)


After all the craziness, we proceeded to descend. While descending, I had already felt my knee aching.

We got back to Laban Rata, had some food and drink, rested a while and started to descend again. This time around, we took the Timpohon track, which was a 6km journey from Laban Rata. For me, Timpohon was a relatively boring trail. It was completely downhill, and was filled with so many staircases! The staircases were killing my knees!

After about slightly more than 4 hours, the 5 of us reached the Timpohon gate, while BK & BH, Pig Head & LC joint us later. We then headed for the National Park Head Quarter to claim our big backpacks that we deposited there earlier on and proceeded to Nepenthes Villa where we would be staying for the night. YY was already there waiting for us.

We occupied 2 units, 5 of us each. The design of the unit resembles a townhouse, 2 rooms on the top, and there's a big and cosy living room, a balcony, a kitchen and a fire place downstairs. Oh no, staircase! I was already walking like penguin, having enough of staircase from the climb! It was a nice and cosy place but the water was not so efficient. If it is used, the other person has to wait for 15 minutes before it functions again. It was cold, and we didn’t want to die freezing bathing with the cold water.

After cleaning ourselves, we went out to a town 20km away for our dinner. Everyone was tired except YY as she had ample of relaxation while we were climbing. Haha... After dinner, we headed back to the Nepenthes Villa to prepare for a big event.

Yes, it was Pig Head proposing to LC! AT the living room of guys’ unit, we had got a proposal banner which wrote “Li Charng, you are the princess of my life. Will you marry me?" hanged on the fire place and a don’t-how-many-carat diamond ring surrounded by burning candles which formed a heart shape, awaiting LC. Never know that Pig Head could be this romantic. When everything was ready, we called Pig Head to bring LC over.

As a result of lacking of rehearsal and coordination, some unstipulated circumstances occurred!

We turned off the light. Pocket being the 'flash man' who would flash the torch light at the banner when signal was given, got into position at 1 corner while GW, the camera man, hided at another corner. The rest of us hid at the corner by the staircase and some in the kitchen.

Suddenly, someone shouted "Fire! Fire! ” It was the tray holding the candles that was on fire and the fire almost reached the ring box in the middle! Spontaneously, I blew hard at the candles to put out this small fire. Everyone was laughing at this unexpected fire at the crucial moment. No more romantic heart shape candle light. How ah? The show had to go on. BK was trying to lock the door to buy some time due to this unstipulated incident. The moment BK reached the knob, Pig Head and LC had already arrived.

BK: I am going to sleep liao.
LC: Why are you sleeping so early?
BK: I am suddenly not feeling well. U guys go ahead to help yourself.
LC: Why sleep so early? Don't bluff lah.
Pig Head: Come, I have something for you. (Leading LC to the staircase to go down to the living room)

LC: Why so dark one? Why off the light? Why are there some heads? Why are there people hiding there? Aren't them human? Want to scare me is it? Crazy... (Puzzling hard with many why)
Pig Head: Look at that. (Leading her to go down the staircase, pointing at the banner)
LC: See what? I can't see.
Pig Head: There, look at there.
LC: I can't see. I didn't wear my spectacles!

Duongiao! We were already 'silently' broken into laughter but holding it hard, Ahahaha... Pig head slowly lead LC to the sofa, which was a better position to view the banner. Pig Head signalled pocket to flash the banner and pocket did.

Pig Head: You see.
LC: I can't see! I didn’t wear my spectacles.
Pig Head: Will your marry me? (Kneeing down, with the diamond ring on his hand)


There was a moment of total silent. LC was so surprised, covering her face out of shyness.

We all popped up, laughing non-stop. How ah? LC didn’t say yes or no. We decided to evacuate ourselves out of the unit, leaving the 2 of them with the final negotiation.

We were wandering outside and it was so damn cold in the night. Someone wanted to pee and LC locked the gals' unit and took the key with her! Alamak! Why was the negotiation so long? We were wondering how would the answer be and guessing all kinds of possibilities, with lots of 'what if'. Finally we decided to go into the guys' unit again, of course silently to station ourselves in the room upstairs rather than dying frozen outside. Someone tried to open the door gently, with the lightest touch. Thank God Pig Head shouted, "Successful liao!" Yeah, what a relief! We celebrated the occasion with some junk food and drink.

What a night to remember! I believe that both Pig Head and LC would have the sweetest dream that night. I slept the best that night, out of exhaustion...


15 May (Tuesday) – Time to go home

Having sufficient of sleep, I woke up refreshed. Went out to the balcony enjoy the fresh air and warm sun light of the beautiful morning.

It was a leisure morning. We had ample time to have out breakfast, relaxing, chit chatting at the living room before packing our stuff.
We checked out by noon and had our lunch at a restaurant nearby. The food there was not bad. We then stopped by at the souvenir shop again, where YY missed the chance to shop due to her unfit condition. YY regained the shopping queen title whereas Xena’s performance wasn’t bad either.

We then headed to KK town. Before KK town, we went to have coconut pudding and whack the lokan bakar again. There were fresh crabs there too! Too bad, if it wasn’t because of time constraint due to we had a flight to catch, we would have nicely taken our sweet time to try the ketam bakar. With the craving for the crab staying on our minds, we suggested to have Seremban ketam bakar for BK’s & Xena’s up-coming birthdays. FYI, we ended up having butter cheese crab and salted egg crab at Dataran Prima, PJ.

After satisfying our stomach, we headed straight to KK Airport. While nearing airport, YY wanted to pee so badly. There was a slight jam and Ying Goh was racing with time to send us to the airport, thus he couldn’t afford to stop or we might risk being late. He asked YY to hang on for a short while, and some guys took the opportunity to tease and make YY laughed at this critical moment. Well, YY, holding hard, still managed to stay cool and respond steadily. Hahaha…

The very moment that we reached airport, YY shot to the toilet, RUNNING! Guys in the car commented “Wah, knowing YY this long, I couldn’t recall seeing her run before. This is the first time I see her run!” Laughter filled the whole atmosphere in the car. Come to think of it, having known YY for 16 years, I have never seen her run before too.

Little Tiger came to deliver the dried meat. We had the last group photo at the KK airport together with Little Tiger.

Sayonaro KK. It was time to go back. We boarded Air Asia’s AK5113 at 1820 and reached KL at 2050.

It's always nice to have a getaway from busy life...

I Am Missing Her

I had my last bite of the yummy Siem Meehoon for breakfast last Friday and I will have to wait for another 2 months before I have the chance to taste it again.

Almost every morning, I will buy breakfast from a Thai lady at a stall in front of a cyber cafe at SS2. It is facing the morning market at Wai Sik Kai, and located at the same row as McDonald. Customers normally address the Thai lady as aunty.

There are nasi lemak, Thai fried rice, toasted bread, fried egg, drinks (Coffee, tea, yin yong, etc...), different variety of fried noodles which include Siem Meehoon, Mee, Kue Teow, 'Lou Shu Fen', glass noodle and sometimes a type of noodle which looks like Taiwanese noodle, and a special type of Thai otak-otak sold at the stall. Sometimes, there are some kuih too. The prices of the food are very reasonable. Due to limitted space, there are only a few tables available for customers to sit down and enjoy the food.

Out of all food, though I have not tried all, I enjoy the Siem Meehoon with the crunchy ikan bilis (bought from Thailand) and a special Thai sambal the most. I am a big fan of fried ikan bilis and her ikan bilis is the most delicious one that I've ever tasted. It's so thin (full fish body but you can't find the fish bone) and crunchy. The ikan bilis is mixed with kacang in a nescafe container. I don't fancy kacang that much, thus I will perseverely put in some effort to pick the ikan bilis out of the kacang mix. Yes, at this stall, customers can help themselves to pick their food and add the ikan bilis & sambal. Of course, being a sambal person, the Thai sambal is a must for me to spice up the Siem Meehoon. The sambal tastes so yummy and enticing that I just can't stop imagining its taste in my mind even before I cross the road to reach aunty's stall. haha... :D I like the Thai otak-otak too but the portion is a bit too big. Unlike the normal otak-otak in slim rectangular shape, aunty's otak-otak is made of tenggiri fish with cabbage as the base layer and is filled in a square mould made of banana leaf. You can taste the freshness and the elasticity of the tenggiri flesh when you bite on it. 1 piece of otak-otak is selling at RM2. For me who can't eat much in the morning, 1 piece can make me full for the whole morning.

Aunty is a very nice and friendly lady. From her physical appearance, I guess she is in her late 40s. Well, look can be very deceiving in age revelation nowdays, especially when women are concerned. :) She can speak a little Malay, a little English and a litlle Cantonese. Customers normally speak to her in English, and so do I. There is a middle age Chinese man helping aunty at the stall. Comparatively, he is not as friendly as aunty. It seems he is neither her husband nor brother. Anyway, I never bother to know what is their relationship as it's not none of my business. :) From a conversation with a customer, aunty said 'RM3.50' in Cantonese. I asked if she can understand/speak Cantonese. She replied in an adorable and loving manner, "Yes, Papa is Chinese.". So Cute!

Every morning, aunty will great every single of her customer good morning with a very pleasant smile. My engine is normally slow and needs longer time to warm up in the morning. Ya, don't talk to me the moment I just wake up, I won't have the mood to respond for this reason. Her warm greeting, pleasant smile and the yummy breakfast definitely serve as the best catalyst to wake me up and turn my engine turbo.

Recently, aunty has gone back to Thailand for 2 months. It's kinda hard for her customers to see her go because everybody loves aunty! Aunty has brought joy and happiness to people around. In this city where everyone is so busy minding their own business, where neighbours hardly know or greet each other, where most of the people are wearing a mask, how nice if there are more people like aunty around, to break the ice, and warm everyone's heart.

I think everyone misses aunty and I miss her too. If we use a flower to symbolize aunty, sunflower will be the best representation. When you see her, you'll see joy, hope and happiness.

Seems that I have to wait for 2 months before seeing her and enjoying her breakfast again. Guess what, I have asked aunty to buy some ikan bilis back from Thailand for me! Hehe... And I wanna try aunty's coffee when she's back.

Aunty, I miss you!

"WISH TO DO" vs "SHOULD DO"

Yes, life has been very busy with tonnes of work ever since I am back from KK trip and I am drowning in a pool of paperwork. I have been back from KK trip for 1 month and have not been blogging for quite some time. In fact, pathetically, I only managed to finish writing the part 1 of my KK trip and Part 2's status remains "TO BE CONTINUED..." for long. It was really a good trip with loads of fun and good memories. Thus I just don't want to simply write something for completion sake.

Have been feeling time is always not enough recently. There are always so many things to do and yet so little time available. Very often, I am caught in between doing thing that I WISH TO do and I SHOULD do where there is only 1 spectrum of time available to be occupied by either one thing. In fact, I know very well that doing things that I WISH TO do or like to do will give me short term pleasure while not doing things that I SHOULD do, which always associates with some level of unwillingness, consequences will follow. Well, what to do? Reality is always cruel.

There are many things that I wanna write about but I just don't have time for it as there is just too much work for me to complete. Yes, the work is something that I SHOULD do or else I will suffer the consequences.

Blogging has been my new interest found and I find it a fun and good learning process. In order to keep the ball rolling and to generate the momentum to keep going, here tonight, I have chosen to blog over some work that I should do. Well, I will have to work double hard later to complete what I SHOULD do for this short term pleasure. :)



Sometimes it's really challenging to decide what to do when caught in the the struggle to choose between "WISH TO DO" and "SHOULD DO". Pleasure or Consequences? It takes wisdom and discipline to prioritize firmly.

My New Discovery

Isn't this cool? A new discovery for me to make slide show and incorporate it into my blog. This is the masterpiece of my first experiment, by simply picking some sample photos from my notebook. It's easy and cool.

Ya, this may be nothing new for those who have already known of this stuff for ages, but for me, it's a new dicovery, being a new kid on the blog. With this tool, I can make a nice slide show of my KK trip later, without uploading the photos and maintaining them somewhere else. Things are just made easy with this cool tool. Check it out at www.slide.com.

Land Below The Wind - Part 1

Yes, I am back from KK after 6 days, in 1 complete piece！ Hehe… 2 weeks before the trip, I was still worrying about my sprained ankle (I fell at the staircase), and 1 day before departure, I was down with sore throat and flu. With all these hiccups prior to the trip, I still managed to enjoy the white water rafting on the Padas River and conquer the summit of Mount Kota Kinabalu, the highest peak in South East Asia. Not bad though. It seems that determination prevails.

Brought back loads of fun memories. At the same time, loads of work awaiting me too, after I am back. Life has restored its busy nature, and I have not been blogging for quite some time. Think I have to break the 6 days trip into 2 parts because I don't really have the time to complete writing about the whole trip in 1 shot.

Trip Participants:
1. TBK – our organizer
2. TBH – TBK’s pretty sister
3. KYY – our co-organizer, 1 of the key persons of the trip
4. Spring Pocket – The humorous and acting talent
5 CCW – Pig Head
6. TLC – Mrs Pig Head
7. NGW – Mr. Kuan’s replacement when he’s drinking or hot
8. LML – me
9. Xena – The female warrior
10. Thong – Xena’s friend

10 May (Thursday) – Lepak-lepak
Flight delay seems to be an unspoken tradition of Air Asia. The flight that we took was having 1+ hours of delay. Instead of 1415, 10 of us departed at 1520 with AK5108 and landed at KK airport at around 1810. We then took 2 cabs to Hamin Lodge, a quite new budget guest house that would be our accommodation for the first 2 nights of our 6 days trip. It’s opposite Ruby Hotel, and next to ‘Seong Tin’ (双天) Restaurant, 1 of the hot spots for seafood in KK town. It is located at the first floor of a corner shop lot and it is quite clean and not too bad for its reasonable charges.

After dumping our luggage into the rooms, we went downstairs to wait for Mr. Little Tiger, YY’s friend from KK, to join us for dinner. He took us to a night market near the Le Meridien hotel for dinner. We had some hot food: grilled fish grilled ‘carbon’ chicken wings (too much honey I guess, burnt in black color), fried mee & fried rice under the hot weather. The weather was freaking hot till ice kacang also couldn’t save the day. After dinner, some went back to the lodge for shower, while some of us went for some fresh coconut juice at a stall at the road side near the night market, to quench our thirst. Suddenly, there was a loud sound of fireworks. We stood up from our tools, trying to check it out but just couldn’t get any sight of it but the sound. After that, Little Tiger aka the ‘Mini Bus Driver’ drove YY, GW, Xena & me to wander around KK town in his MyVi. He took YY to buy dried meat (the local production), made a pit stop at Sutera Harbor, 1 of the luxurious hotels there for a luxurious toilet break. We also toured round the area where the rich locals reside, and some corners of the town, and made a pit stop at Sunny Supermarket (YY’s favorite there) for some shopping and ice-cream before heading back to the lodge. Everywhere Mr. Little Tiger drove passed, he would labeled it as red light district (鸡窦) if he couldn’t tell more about the place, what a funny KK tiger. Hahaha…

11 May (Friday) – White Water Rafting at Padas River & Luxurious seafood dinner

The excitement started today. Bus from Riverbug picked us up at 7:30am in the morning to head for White Water Rafting at Padas River, the highlight of the day. Apart from the 10 of us, there were also ‘Ms. Big Earring plus Hair Band’ & bf from Macau, and 3 other Malaysian guys in the same bus.

Padas River is situated at the interior of southern part of Kota Kinabalu that is only accessible by train (used since the late 19th century in Borneo). Basically, this trip will give you an excursion of class III-IV river, and a ride in an antique train in this new millennium.

The bus journey took us 1 & ½ hours overland through the countryside to Beaufort town. We took our breakfast there before boarding the train. From there upon, adventure began with 1 & ½ hours train rides tracks along the Padas River that gave glimpses of the thrills and excitement to come. This train ride was really one of its kinds. There was a big crowd of passengers, including local Malaysians and foreigners, heading for the Padas River rafting as it’s the peak season. The antique train (shorter than a Putra train) is not air-conditioned and there are not many seats. It was so crowded that one was lucky to get a seat. We didn’t manage to get a seat and stood all the way till the destination. It was packed like sardine and very stuffy in the train. Putra, Star and Commuter in KL have become luxurious when it comes to comparison with this antique train. We got to hold on to whatever supporting material that we could grab hold of as it was very shaky as the train moved. I was almost suffering from internal organs dislocation with 1 & ½ hours of shaking. Haha…

We made a pit stop at Rayoh Village, the ending point, which is also the Riverbug base Camp to place our bags before proceeding to Pangi Village, the starting point. Upon arriving at the starting point, we were given safety briefing before going down the river. Before the briefing started, there was this unanticipated scene, starred by Mr. Spring Pocket, conveniently hitting someone's life jacket, at the chest level saying, ”Very tight what (referring to the wearing and tightening of the life jacket)”. Some of us, who witnessed the incident, were laughing our heads off as we never expected that Pocket would conveniently/unintentionally/spontaneously acted in such a way. Ahahaha…

After the briefing the real fun and excitement started when we went down to the river for the real battle. BK, GW, BH, YY & I were in 1 boat with 2 guides while Pocket, Xena, Pig Head, LC & Thong were in another boat. Apart from us, there were easily more than 5 other boats heading for the same raft.

The adrenaline rush excursion covered a distance of 9km of this rather muddy 200 km river that holds 7 exciting and tough rapids! These rapids carry amusing names such as Merry-Go-Round Rapid, Break Point Rapid, Scooby Doo Rapid, Cobra Rapid, Curve Rapid, Lambada Rapid and Head Hunter Rapid. Each rapid gave us the feel of the motion as what the name means. It was exhilarating when we paddled past each rapid. I felt like I was on a roller coaster ride on the water. At each rapid, being skinny and underweight, I felt like almost being thrown out of the boat. I got to really hang on and tried to lean my body towards the centre of the boat to stabilize myself, or else I would be thrown out without our boat being capsized. There a few cameramen shooting video along the whole journey of the rafting. The video was clear and I really salute them for shooting so professionally and managed to capture those crucial moments as the boats paddling through the rapids or capsized.

When it was near the ending point, the rest all jumped happily into the river to enjoy the body rafting. I am not a water person, can swim a little bit but not so good at reacting in the water, decided to stay on the boat with the guide till the boat embarked. Who knew the guide said, “Ah, kalau you tak turun, you tunggu lah.” Alamak, the rest were already far ahead. Spotting Xena around, I quickly jumped into the water and rafted till the ending point with her as my body guard. It was so rocky down in the water that I had to always keep my legs pointing forward or else I would be knocked by those rocks and hurt my legs.

We had buffet lunch at Rayoh Village, the ending point. While having our lunch, the video shot during the raft was shown. In such a short time, they had already edited the movie, added it with background music and put it on show with a big TV. Of course, it’s for sale, with a ‘not cheap’ price. Photo shots were already developed and displayed for sale. Wow, Riverbug’s people were really efficient! Wanted to buy a T-shirt, but too bad, it was selling at a cut-throat price at RM50 per piece. Thus I got to forget about it.

After lunch, we changed and boarded the crowded antique train, stood and swayed all the way back to Beaufort town. We were tired but just couldn’t really sleep a little in standing and swaying motion, almost looking like Orang Utan, for those hanging on to the bar at the ceiling of the train.

After 1& ½ hour, we reached the Beaufort train station. The weather was hot and we were thirsty. We had ice cream in swift action as the bus was already outside waiting for us. We jumped into the bus and headed back to KK. For the challenge at Padas River that we had gone through, we were given a certificate of achievement that was distributed in the bus. Everyone started to doze off after a while of chit chatting, with a tired body.

I woke up after more than ½ hour, feeling the slight urge to pee. Oh shit, there was no toilet on the road before nearing KK town as the route was quite outskirt. I closed my eyes again, hoping that I could sleep and hang on till reaching KK town. The bus continued moving and the urge to pee gradually increased! I could just acted like a Ninja, holding on… 忍忍忍忍忍！Finally, we reached KK town, but too bad there was slight traffic jam as it was after office hour and it wasn’t convenient for the bus to stop for a toilet break. So shit, I could even feel a slight pain in my bladder as a result of holding the urine which was about to come out for too long! Finally, the bus stopped at Berjaya Hotel to drop the 3 guys. I rushed into the toilet, couldn’t even walk straight! What a relief after settling the business. No joke, man! It was my worst experience, ‘detaining’ my urine.

Finally, we got back to our lovely Hamin Lodge, took our refreshing shower, getting ready for an interesting seafood dinner, courtesy of Pig Head’s kind sponsor. J We headed for Port View (不夜天) seafood restaurant. We had green lobster sashimi, lobster head soup, scallop shark fin soup, ‘seven star grouper’ (七星斑), chilly crab, and vegetable with rice. Yummy yummy! Guess what, the bill came up to RM600++! Hahaha… Was sure pig head felt the pinch though he’s earning SGD. Anyway, we were not that cruel to let him bear the full cost, we paid him back about ½ of the cost later.

After dinner, Pocket wanted so badly to have some beer to reduce his fire caused by the freaking hot weather. We proceed to 1 of the pubs, with sea view. We had some Qin Dao (青岛) beer. It was quite smooth and soothing. Again, Little Tiger was joining us for the beer session. He turned up close to 11pm as he was supposed to appear at 10:30pm. I asked Little Tiger what the name is of the place that we were having beer (with pubs and café, with sea view). Again, he irrelevantly answered “Oh, this place ah, is red light district (鸡窦)”. Everyone burst into laughter and I was speechless…What a tiger!

We were tired, and headed back to Hamin Lodge to call it a day while Little Tiger, YY & Pig Head continued their second round at other place.

12 May (Saturday) – Tour De KK town and Kundasang Leisure Stay

It wasn’t a good day for YY for she was down with food poisoning, probably due to the Teh-Si she had the night before. She was having diarrhea and vomiting.

Mr. Ying our agent came to pick us up with a van around 9 something in the morning. His surname is actually Toh, and his last name is Shu Ying in Mandarin, thus we gave him a new name in Cantonese, Ying Goh for easier addressing. He is a PHD student of UMS and has been residing in KK for almost 10 years, 1 of the pioneer badge of students when UMS first started. He is a Fu Chow, thus calculus & making business must be his areas of expertise I suppose. Thus, he takes up part time agent/tour guide job on & off. He took us to tour round University Malaysia Sabah (UMS) campus which has a very nice sea view (无敌海景). Weather was freaking hot, we stopped at a few spots, mechanically snapped some pictures and jumped back into the van for shelter from the hot sun. After the campus tour, we headed for Tuaran for Tuaran Mee for lunch. What a unique town name of Tuaran. What if people mistakenly pronounce it as ‘Tualan’? What would it sound in Hokkien? “Tualan Mee”? Hahaha… Anyway, I found the Tuaran Mee nothing great, just a plate of super dried mee with few pieces of ‘char siew’ (colored till super red), fish cake, and veggie.

After our lunch, we headed for Kundasang, a Cameron Highland like town for our 3rd day of stay. On the way, we stopped at the road side (which looked like an abandoned desert) for coconut pudding highly recommended by Ying Goh. The coconut pudding comes in 2 forms, in cup (RM2) and in a complete coconut (RM4). It was cooling, the texture was fine and it just tasted superbly great, in the hot weather. We also ordered some fresh coconut juice and lokan (a type of clam) bakar, eaten with lime juice and the super powerful chilly sauce. The lokan bakar tasted delicious, we just dared not take the risk of having diarrhea by having too much of lokan bakar as we were having our climb to Mount KK the next day. Poor YY could only stare at us having the lokan bakar, while she could only have some coconut juice.

After satisfying our stomach with the makan-makan, we headed to Kundasang, about 1 & ½ hours of journey.

As we moved, we were going up hill and the route got more winding, temperature was dropping, and it was getting colder. The journey was long, YY was sick and silent and most of us dozed off.

When we were near our destination, we made a pit stop for some grilled chicken wings, at a place similar to Kea Farm in Cameron Highland, with stalls selling fresh veggie and flowers. We then made another pit stop for souvenir, where Xena was the champion, taking over YY’s reign as the Shopping Queen.

Finally, we reached the Kinabalu Pine Resort. It was really a nice place, with cold weather, and nice pine view, just nice enough to do nothing and relax.

We had steamboat dinner in the cozy weather and it seemed that YY had regained her power and was recovering. Anyway, she had decided not to proceed with the Climb the next day for safety reason.

We had an early sleep as we got to wake up very early in the morning to start the climb.

Land below the Wind: Part 2 - To be continued…

13/05 (Sunday) – Started Climbing from Mesilau Track

14/05 (Monday) – Conquered the Summit & Funny Proposal Story

15/05 (Tuesday) – Shopping, Coconut Pudding & Lokan Bakar again, and urine detention story

The Mouth Opening Story

The weather is sickening hot. As a result, I am down with sorethroat. I just sprained my ankle 2 weeks ago when I fell at the staircase. Oh no, it's really one wave after another before it subsides. While my ankle is recovering quite speedily, I have this new situation to worry about as my KK trip is just one day away. Immediately, I went to see doctor. Found the Indian lady doctor a bit funny.

At the consultation room:

Me: "Morning, doctor."

Doctor: "Morning, what's the problem?"

Me: "I am having sorethroat, since last night."

Doctor: "Come, lie down on the bed and let me check."

I was puzzling, was this neccessary? I am just having sorethroat.

Doctor: "Take a deep breath. Breathe... Breathe... Breathe..."
(she was placing her testoscope on my chest and the back to check here and there)

After completing the check on the bed, we were back to our respective seats and she checked my blood pressure.

Doctor: "Open your mouth and say "ah"."

I followed her instruction.

Doctor: "Why ah? You can't open your mouth big ah? Just open your mouth big and say "ah"."

I was trying to do what she asked. She found it hard to see the condition of my throat or place the thermometer underneath my tongue to meassure the temperature.

Doctor: "Don't move your tongue. No, no, don't move your tongue. Ok, look at me. Just open your mouth like this."

She opened her mouth widely. I looked at it and felt like staring at a big black shark jaw. Ahahaha...

I tried hard to coorporate to fulfill her instruction but I just couldn't open my mouth wide enough and control my tongue which moved unknowingly and caused her difficulty to place the thermometer.

Me: "I can't. It's painful on my right jaw joint."

Doctor: "I notice that you have a problem opening your mouth big."

Me: "Sometimes, when I chew hard food, there's sound at the joint of my right jaw and I feel uncomfortable and slight pain as if it's not properly joint."

Doctor: "Can you put a lot of food in your mouth, like other people eating a big burger?"

Me: "I've never tried that. I just eat with the normal portion of food in my mouth."

What's the definition of normal portion when it comes to this case? I wonder...

Doctor: "Ok, place your fingers at both the joints near your ears. You see ah, when you open your mouth, you can feel the gaps deepening as you open it. Can you feel it?"

Me: "No, I can't. it's painful on my right jaw joint."

Doctor: "No, no, no. Look at me."

She demonstrated how she opened her mouth big and asked me to place my fingers on her jaw joints to feel the gaps deepening as she opened her mouth. I did as asked.

Doctor: "Now, do it again. Can you feel the gap?"

Me: "Yes, I do. On the left joint but not the right joint."

She held her fists, simulating how the upper jaw (maxilla) and the lower jaw (mandible) meet to form the emporomandibular joint (TMJ) and the correct movement when we open our mouth. She also demonstrated creatively how the lower jaw and upper jaw move when they are not properly joint. Hahaha...

Doctor: "Well, there's nothing we can do about this problem."

She then moved her jaw vertically and horizontally continuosly to show me how I should 'exercise' my jaw. Hahaha... like a robot, damn funny.

Doctor: "Do this, ee.. oh..ah... ee...oh.. ah...but don't over do it lah. Maybe you try to practice opening your mouth wide, say 10 times a day."

Me: "Doctor, I am going to KK on Thursday. Can you give me something strong to cure faster? "

Doctor: "I will give you antibiotic for 2 days. Should I give it for 2 days or 5 days? Ok lah, 5 days lah."

I was in the consultation room for about 1/2 hour, with majority of the time spent on having the mouth opening lesson. Tuoi ngiao....

At the dispensary:

Nurse: "Lew Man Lee. This is for sorethroat. This is the antibiotic. This is for fever and this is for cough."

Me: "Huh? I don't have fever and cough, why are you giving me the medicine?"

Nurse went to check with doctor and came back to her "window".

Nurse: "Doctor said, the fever and cough will come soon."

Me:".... what? So, I don't need to take the medicine if I am not having fever or cough, right?"

Nurse: " So you wait lah, take the medicine when you have fever and cough."

Wah, like this also can???

I left the clinic speechless after paying the bill. Yiii.... Where is the lozenges for sorethroat? I went back to the clinic and asked the nurse.

Me: "Why isn't there any lozenges for sorethroat?"

Nurse: "Sorry, we don't have lozenges. You have to go to the pharmacy to buy it yourself."

Tuoi ngiao.... Speechless....

Hell, I was sneezing non-stop after I took my bath at night. There's symptom of having blocked nose soon. Issshhhh.....

Keeping my fingers crossed and pray hard that I have a speedy recovery and will be fit to proceed with my KK trip . I just don't want to miss the white water rafting and mount KK. God bless me.