Month: September 2009

Koh Samui – Overview

My 3 days trip to Koh Samui was great. It was an exhausting but fun trip. I wish could spend more time there.

Koh Samui is an island located at the Gulf of Thailand. It neighbours Koh Pha Ngan, another island which is well known for its full moon party. Other than Koh Pha Ngan, there are various islands around Koh Samui including Ang Thong Marine Park which consists of 40 over islands.

Koh Samui wasn’t the place that I expected it to be. It was like a scattered town with a few spots for tourist. It is highly commercialised and highly popular with Western travellers. I heard that David Beckham and Robbie Williams even own a place in Koh Samui.

A and I took a flight from Subang airport via Firefly. The airport has changed tremendously since I last came here 2 years ago for my Langkawi trip. The interior is now nicer and there are loads of new shops.


Subang Airport

It took us 2 hours from Subang airport to reach Koh Samui airport.


It was pretty cold so I had A’s cardigan on…damn ghey


Ahoy!

I must say that Koh Samui airport was impressive. It had an open styled concept. It felt like a hotel!


Even the toilet has an aquarium. Reminds me of Bali’s airport.

Our hotel, Hotel Impiana, picked us from the airport. Our hotel is located along the famous Chaweng Beach but at the least commercialised area. There were hardly any shops along our road.

I must say that the hotel is quite nice. Great interior and surroundings.

We were initially given a room facing the road but we learn from comments from the Internet that rooms facing the main road are noisy. The other available room faces the pool but we had to wait 2 hours for the hotel to sort out the room. Since we had 2 hours to spare, we rented a Jeep from the hotel for 1000Bath/day (should be lower if I went to shop around for better prices). I heard that taxis are fairly expensive in Koh Samui and the other alternative is songthaews, which I heard slaughters tourist. A motorbike was not an option as the last time I rode a bike was more than 10 years ago.

Driving a Jeep was no easy task and I almost had an accident before I could step into the Jeep. What happened was that someone forgot free the Jeep’s gear and I started the Jeep when I was outside. The Jeep startled front and hit a bush. Thank god no major damage.


Backseat – damn small

We spent our 3 days doing various activities such kayaking, hiking, swimming and even a Muay Thai class.There were hardly anytime to rest and we came home with a bruised knee and sore calves.

Overall, Koh Samui trip was well spent. Many thanks to A for the air tickets and hotel. More details soon!

Google celebrated Doraemon’s birthday

Ah! I forgot about Doraemon’s birthday! It was on the 3rd of September. Google.co.jp celebrated Doraemon’s birthday by having its logo dedicated to Doraemon on the 3rd of September 2009 – even though he won’t be “born” for another 103 years.

Google.co.jp website updated its logo on Thursday to mark the birthday of the robot cat Doraemon — even though he won’t be “born” for another 103 years. According to the background story of the manga, Doraemon was built at the Matsushiba robot factory in Tokyo on September 3, 2112. The occasion is celebrated each year with Doraemon character goods and the broadcast of Doraemon anime specials. The Fujiko F. Fujio Museum, the institution being built in honor of the manga’s co-creator Hiroshi Fujimoto, is set to open on September 3, 2011 — essentially, the -101st birthday of Doraemon.

Two of the letters in Google.co.jp’s special Doraemon logo feature the robot cat’s signature “take-copter.” The official website of Doraemon, dora-world.com, is also celebrating his birthday. On April 7, 2008, Google.co.jp celebrated the birthday of another famous science-fiction robot, Astro Boy (Mighty Atom). According to Osamu Tezuka’s original manga, Astro Boy celebrated his 5th birthday last year.

Source: Animenewsnetwork –
Google.co.jp’s Homepage Celebrates Doraemon’s Birthday

Koh Samui, Thailand

I will be at Koh Samui over the weekend for holiday. A bought me a ticket there for my birthday!

Other than Koh Pha Ngan, I am looking forward to a 2 hours Muay Thai class at a place called Lamai Camp. It’s a Muay Thai camp cum hotel – you can stay there and train at their camp for an indefinite period! Now I feel like taking a break from work and train at this place for a month!

Any other places to recommend people??

Project Alpha

Malaysia’s first online reality show about bloggers codenamed “Project Alpha” was launched on 18 September 2009. I was given the privilege to prepare the agreement relating to the development of these online videos and also the protection of the code name. It was a rather interesting exercise as such type of work is quite rare in Malaysia.

The first episode is about Audrey @ fourfeetnine.com. Check it out!

And here are the 2nd and 3rd episodes.

For more episodes check out http://www.nuffnang.com.my/projectalpha/

Twitter

If you have not been following my twitter, these are some pictures you may have missed out 😀


Mr. Blackberry!

Fellow climber Fai likes to smoke at the emergency escape (located at the second floor). To enter the emergency escape, one has to climb out from the window.

Then one day, we decided to lock him out.

One hour later…


Justice for Teoh Beng Hock banner outside the Shah Alam Court.


Cool car belonging to political party PKR. Check out the speakers.


Massive jam @ KL. I see this every weekday @ 5pm to 7pm.


Picture taken to show my client to substantiate my bill. I had to show her that we have done a lot of work .


Coconut Bikini Top!


Kiddos Ride @ Giant, Kota Damansara – get your kid to sit on a remote control car! Rm10 for 30 mins.


I wonder what does honey massage means. Massage with honey or massaged by ‘honey’?.

Proton Saga SE

If you remember my blog entry on whether to get a Myvi, Proton Saga SE or a Suzuki Swift, I have made up my mind.

Thanks to my 7K payment from Nuffnang, I finally could afford a new car. I traded my 10 years old Proton Satria for a Proton Saga SE (special edition) recently. It was recently launched and the newest batch has just rolled onto the streets. It only comes in 2 colours, red + black or white + black. I chose the former.

I was quite sad to let go of my Proton Satria. It had served me for 10 years. Now I understand that why some people don’t want to sell their old cars.


I bade Mr. Satria goodbye at Seapark’s Proton showroom.

Proton Saga SE is so far so good. The interior is nice – with leather seats. The exterior is also not bad. My dad mistaken my car for his Honda City.

However, I have few complains:

1. The windows at the back seat doesn’t come with powered windows.
2. It doesn’t have automatic lock i.e. The car doesn’t lock until I manually lock it.
3. There is no option to get the air conditioner to blow my feet.
4. The location of the control of the lights and wiper are continental style i.e the control for the lights is on the left while the control for the wiper is on the right
5. There is no buzzer to warn if I forget to turn off my lights.

Because of 4 and 5, I left my car lights on for 4 hours and the battery died thereafter. I couldn’t jump start my car because the battery was absolutely flat and the jump start cable wasn’t thick enough. Kevin was nice enough to help and even sent me home.

On the next day, I got Adrian to help the next day. He came with a battery booster to charge my battery and got the car started in no time!

This little thing called battery booster is a life saver. However, this little thing is not cheap. It can cost up to RM600 per piece!

Note to self: Install a buzzer + automatic lock soon!

Hong Kong 2009

I will be attending another Intellectual Property Conference by the name Asian Patents Attorney Conference @ Hong Kong this November. The event will be held at the Hong Kong Convention Centre. This 6 days event would be a great opportunity for us to network there. Last year, it was in Singapore.

This time round three (3) people from my firm will attend. Once again, I am in charge of registration, fixing meetings and also accommodation. The conference organizers have set out some recommended hotels nearby Hong Kong Convention Centre. We may book hotels through the organizers but the availability is not guaranteed by them. Hence, I decided to book our hotel through the internet.

I browsed this website by the name AsiaRooms.com for hotels nearby the Hong Kong Convention Centre. I was interested in this hotel by the name of Harbourview Hotel. The price is not too expensive than the other recommended hotels. Further, it’s just a few minutes walk from the Convention Centre.

Asiarooms gave me the rate of US137 (~RM490) per night.

It was above the quoted rate by the organizers. So I decided to try out another website called Hotelscombined.com which was also recommended by Melissa.

Hotelscombined gave me the rate in RM320.86 per night.

w00t! RM100 cheaper!

My firm better pay me better bonus for saving them so much money!!

Up

Couple of weeks back, A, Licia, WH and I wanted to watch Pixar’s new animated film Up. Few months back, I read a news about a dying girl’s wish to watch the show Up before she dies. Pixar had a private screening for her but she was too ill to open her eyes to watch the show. Her mum had to describe the show to her. She died 7 hours after the show. That really made me wanted to watch Up.

I was tasked to purchase the tickets and I got a good seat – right at the middle of the cinema.

A and I ran a little bit late hence we got into the cinema late. Fortunately, the show wasn’t about to start when we got there.

Once I sat down, a girl sitting next to me asked me for my ticket. I was puzzled but nevertheless I gave her my ticket and she returned it after looking at it.

Few minutes later, the girl asked for my ticket again. This time round I was a little bit annoyed and wanted to bitchslap her. But I gave her my ticket anyway.

Moment later, she said, “Sir, your tickets are for tomorrow…”.

FML!!!!!

Apparently, I was sitting on her friends’ places..we had to move.

FML x 2!!

So A, Licia, WM and I moved from our seats when the show was about to start. We decided to find empty seats and plonk our butts there. We found a row of empty seats 3 rows from the screen.

We were fortunate that the cinema wasn’t fully packed. We settled down with our pop corn and drinks.

As the movie was about to start, A said, “I dont think we’re in the right cinema…”.

WHERE THE F IS CARL FREDERICKSON?!?!

FML x3!!