Category: Travel

Fukuoka, Japan – 2012 – Overview

They say one thing always lead to another.

It all started with a blog post entitled, “All Lawyers should have an iPad!” at LoyarBurok which talks about the use of iPad by lawyers. I wrote this post on one of the many nights that I couldn’t sleep.

Immediately after posting that article, I was invited by the Bar Council to speak on the topic, “Use of Technology amongst Lawyers“.

Most of the participants of my talk were practitioners senior to me. However, Gaythri, the Head of Marketing of LexisNexis SEA, a multinational legal information provider, attended too. She found out about my talk through Twitter.

After the talk, I was invited by Gaythri to review their upcoming LexisNexis iPad App which I gave input.

In early January, Gaythri invited me to attend the LexisNexis Customer Engagement Workshop at Fukouka. And at all expenses paid!

And weeks later, there I was, sitting in Business Class sipping champagne. Just one article led me to this. Amazing what the power of social media can do!


Business Class Seats – I could almost recline the seat 90 degrees.


Food


Awesome free stuff!

There were only five people (including me) invited by LexisNexis to attend this event namely a Managing Partner of an Indian law firm, a partner from a large Singaporean firm, a Chinese legal counsel of Foxconn (manufacturers of Apple products) and lastly a Japanese legal counsel from Lotte.

The event was held at Luigin Spa and Resorts, a hotel 40 minutes away from the city.

My room was spacious and it faced the sea.

Great view. Great service too.

The customer engagement session was great. Many ideas were discussed and exchanged. We had two sessions. In the first session, we had a panel discussion on how will legal profession be in the next ten years. The five of us gave our views to 50 over participants. My views were quite similar to what I presented in my “Use of Technology amongst Lawyers” talk. Briefly, they were:-

1. The new generation of young lawyers (namely the Gen Y) prefer flexibility over money. They no longer like 9 to 5 working hours. With this, mobility is important. The ability to work wherever and whenever are important in the future. Cloud computing and light weight and portable devices will be useful.

2. Touch screens, mobile devices and Apps are the way forward. Due to the need for mobility, documents will be in electronic form. I said that the use tablets and ultrabooks in legal practice will flourish. I also said that we may one day have paper thin touch screens and the Courts may use touch screen tables.

3. Apps will be developed to help legal practice. Currently, Dropbox, text convertors App and Penultimate (handwriting app) are useful.

4. I also said that thumbdrives will be one day as cheap as CDs. In the future, thumbdrives will be sold in bulk and people may even give thumbdrives as namecards (and also in the form of namecards) where their profile will be saved.

Before the presentation, the Indian lawyer told me that he goes to Court with three iPads and he doesn’t bring the physical file to Court. Each iPad would have all the relevant documents. If he needs to refer to two separate documents, he will use two iPads. Browsing and highlights are done through PDF reader Apps like GoodReader.

For thick documents, the Singaporean lawyer told me that she indexes her PDF files which will appear on the side of the document. These files will be indexed before e-filing them in Court.

5. Social media is the new marketing tool for lawyers and law firms. Many law firms have embraced social media to market their services. I gave an example of a UK law firm having their lawyers to have their own professional LinkedIn and Twitter account.

The second session was a breakout session. I was interviewed by the Malaysian LexisNexis team on various issues. I told them the story on how I ended up having a share in Nuffnang and also in Fukuoka.

The last session lasted until lunch time. We had lunch with the top management of LexisNexis including the South East Asia Head and Group CEO. It was a real privileged for a young practitioner like me to be there.

Due to the short trip, I didn’t have much time to visit Fukuoka. I did manage to visit the city and have some good food. Will talk about this later.

For my participation, LexisNexis presented me with a Kindle Fire. I can’t wait to download ebooks!

Many thanks again to LexisNexis for the opportunity!

Ipoh Road Trip 2011: Luen Foong @ Tanjung Tualang

One of the highlights of this trip is travelling into the outskirt villages outside Ipoh. I used to spend my childhood at the Chinese villages around the tin mine lakes of Balakong. Such trips brought back long forgotten memories. I remember the days of running around wooden houses with worn down cement floors. I also remember once that I picked up a vintage one cent coin on the floor.


Video rental shop. Now a sunset business.

In Tanjung Tualang town, there are numerous seafood restaurants – all boasting to have the best prawns. My Dad told me that the seafood restaurants have been around since he was my age!

One of the most well known restaurants is Luen Foong Seafood Restaurant.

Luen Foong consists of two separate shops. It used to be one until it caught fire last year. They are now rebuilding it into 3 storeys building. We were told that it will be ready by next Chinese New Year.


The new building

We ordered their famous steamed drunken prawns. The mid sized prawns arrived very quickly. It was fresh and sweet. The tender prawn meat was fragrant with Chinese wine.

We were told that large prawns are not recommended.

We also ordered chiew pai taufu, assam sotong, cheung ching fei chau yu. I would recommend these dishes.

The prawns were not cheap. It costs us RM150 for 8. That explains why they could build a 3 storeys building from scratch!

Address
No 19, Market Street,
31800 Tanjong Tualang,
Perak, Malaysia.
Tel No : +605-360 9276, +6012-533 6166, +6016-590 0038


Local sundry store – with worn down cement floor and wooden racks


Contributing to the local economy

After dinner, it was time to head home. Our GPS guided us to KL using trunk roads. We had to find a way back to the North South highway. Unfortunately, the highway was jam. So jam that the emergency lanes were open to the public.

We arrived home at 10pm – tired and sticky. It was a great trip in any event. Great times and great company!

Ipoh Road Trip 2011: Ipoh Town – Funny Mountain & Nam Heong

Funny Mountain

Dim sum was enough to fill our stomach throughout lunch. We settled for light meals such as tau fu fah at Funny Mountain and white coffee at Nam Heong.

Funny mountain tau fu fah also had a long queue. We had to line up under the sun to get it. Nevertheless is well worth it as it was smooth.


Lady Boss’ awesome shoes.


There are no proper seats for patrons. Only benches and chairs.

Map

Nam Heong

White coffee at Nam Heong is much better than the ones we drink at Oldtown Coffeeshop. This place is somehow linked to Oldtown Coffeeshop. I was rather excited to try the white coffee until some kid vomited on the table. -_-

Map

Ipoh Road Trip 2011: Ipoh Town

We started Day 2 with dim sum at Foh San. Foh San was crazy. It was packed with people! There is no proper system for people to get a table.

We couldn’t get a table for half an hour. We only got a table after standing by the side of a table waiting for the people sitting there to leave. And we’re not the only ones doing it!

I wonder what’s so good about this place. It’s self service and hence you need to line up to get your food. Most of the time, the good stuff have been snapped. Siew mai is abundant though.

Nevertheless, food is still good but I don’t think it’s worth the hassle of lining up and fighting for seats. Sometimes you just feel like punching the guy who sits there reading newspaper.

I stopped by Poh Wong Thong for some herbal tea. I was feeling “heaty” from the excessive food and fried stuff and slight flu. Poh Wong Thong is a small herbal stall.


Guy on left looks like Obama

I told the boss that I’m about to have sore throat and flu. He gave me some sort of dark concoction to drink. It was rather bland. Fortunately, not bitter.


I was given this sweet after my drink.

I felt better in no time! It works!

Ipoh Road Trip 2011: Xin Kuala Sepetang Seafood

KF’s mum highly recommended that we have dinner at Xin Kuala Sepetang Seafood Restaurant located at Kuala Sepetang (formerly known as Port Weld), a small fishing village 60KM away from Ipoh City.

Thank god for GPS, we managed to maneuver through narrow kampung and village roads.


Kuala Sepetang is formerly known as Port Weld.

This part of Kuala Sepetang is a small tranquil Chinese fisherman village. It’s amazing to see Chinese villagers staying deep inside Malay villages. According to my Dad, this place was the hot bed for Chinese gangsterism during the hay days of tin mining. Gang wars were frequent here.

There are two well known seafood restaurants in Kuala Sepetang. We chose Xin Kuala Sepetang Seafood restaurant because apparently the locals prefer Xin.

As soon as we arrived, we were greeted with loud continuous chirping sound of swiftlets. Bird nest farming is a thriving industry here.


There is no proper entrance to Xin but a small alley to the restaurant. Fat people would to use a different entrance.


The restaurant is build on wooden planks next to a river. It is surrounded by docked fisherman’ boats and mangrove trees.
The best time to be at Xin is during sunset. The sight of the river, estuary, fisherman boats and mangrove trees was picture perfect!


To order dishes, we need to choose our meals over a counter. Fishes were displayed on the counter for people to choose. Loads of flies were flying around. Some seafood is limited hence be early.

We ordered steamed fish, chiew chau style fish, fried mini crab, tomyam soup and a few other dishes. I must say that their fishes were fresh and delicious! Tom yam soup on the other hand wasn’t spicy but sour.


As soon as the sun sets, insects came out to play. They were sticking all over our clothes and hair.

Overall, the bill came up to RM210 for 8 people. It was slightly pricey due to the fishes we ordered.

The shops were all closed when we left around 9pm. Strangely, saloons were open. I guess small town folks have nothing to do but have their hair done at night.

Most of them seem to be contended with life. Corruption and crime may be scarce here. This is probably why it is very difficult for Pakatan Rakyat to get them to vote for them.

Map

Address
Lot 155B, Tepi Sungai, 34650 Kuala Sepetang, Taiping, Perak

Ipoh Road Trip 2011: Pun Chun, Ritz Garden Hotel

After Tanjung Malim, we stopped by Bidor for duck noodles at Pun Chun. As usual, it was packed with people. I’m not a big fan of Pun Chun duck noodles and in fact, I think the duck noodles at Sun Hing Loong, SS2 is much better.


We had some wu kok (yam dumpling). Quite nice.

We stayed in a hotel by the name Ritz Garden Hotel in Ipoh. Although the name sounds grand, the place isn’t. We found cigarette ash next to our bed -_-


However, our room has a nice view and the TV channels were ample.

Ritz Garden Hotel has a cafe by the name Ritz Recipe and a restaurant by the name Goldtown.


Think Ritz Carlton, Secret Recipe and Oldtown.

It also has a very small pond, gym (with an instructor), massage parlour, karaoke outlet and a fengtau bar. Apparently, you can see many “dragon ladies” around the bar.

We had a short rest before driving to Kuala Sepetang for dinner. Poor WK and Elaine waited for hours to check into their room cause it was not ready.

It was RM150 a night for us. When I arrived home, I realised that the reception erroneously keyed in the wrong room number during my check out! Aiyoh!

Veranda Resort and Spa, Chiang Mai

The conference organisers put us in this RM500 per night hotel located at the outskirts of Chiang Mai.

The place was incredible. Beautiful, spacious and filled with greens. It has a panoramic view of a jungle and mountains. So incredible that it deserves a blogpost on this blog!


The bar is just next to the pool. Some of my friends decided to swim in their undies after a few drinks.


The room comes with a massive bathtub. It reminds me of an Egyptian mummy’s tomb.


Everyday around 530pm, the hotel will send us some desserts to warm our palates before dinner.

The only problem with this place is it is quite far from the city. It takes about half an hour to get there. The other problem is the mosquitoes. We usually have dinner in the hut and drinks thereafter. Many of my friends became mosquitoes’ dinner. Wearing long pants is highly recommended at night.

Website: http://www.verandaresortandspa.com/chiangmai/

Nimmanhaemin Road Food Guide

Wawee Coffee

Since I only slept an hour before my flight, I was dying to have coffee. We stopped by Wawee Coffee for their Wawee Coffee. It was thick and aromatic. Fueled me to walk around this place for hours.

Address
Nimmanhaemin Soi 9

Nimmanhaemin Road Ice Cream

The highlight of Nimmanhaemin Road to me is probably is home made ice cream by Home Fresh. Their ice cream is sold at a house. You need to ring the doorbell for service.


Jack @ #277, Nimmanhaemin Soi 5 (B2)

It has numerous unique flavours such as mango sticky rice, pandamus with young coconut, toddy palm and red ruby. I went with mango sticky rice and I must say it was good. Never I had rice in my ice cream before! The texture is a little hard but you have to wait for it to melt a little to enjoy it.

Address
#277, Nimmanhaemin Soi 5 (B2)

Khun Mor

Lunch at Nimmanhaemin Road was at Khun Mor’s Cuisine, a place recommended by a guide book.


I ordered Pad Thai. It was good save for the bloody bean sprouts. I hate them.


Jack ordered Khao Soi Kai which is Chiang Mai’s signature dish. It comes with deep fried egg noodles, chicken, pickled cabbage and lime. It taste like curry laksa to me.


As a side dish, we had Sai Aour, which looks like their well known dish. You can even buy a packet of it to cook at home. Sai Aour is basically spicy sausage. Taste good.

Address
10/1, Nimmanhaemin Road

Nimmanhaemin Road, Chiang Mai

On our first day, we had couple of hours to kill before the start of the conference. Instead of sleeping, we got our hotel to drop us at Niammanhaemin Road.

This place is filled with trendy pubs, cafes and boutiques. Filled with is an understatement. The whole place is packed with them!


Each road has a list of the shops

The facade and interior designs of these places are very well designed. So good that it makes you think that whatever that they are selling are good too.

One of the nicest shops I went was Silverbirch, a shop selling wooden carving. The entire shop is dedicated to selling miniature wood carving which are mostly pigs.


Jack bought a few pigs with letters and had the shop glued them together to from a word.


This place has a few stand alone premises with different stores. Interesting concept.

The only problem with this place is that they don’t have many boutiques that cater men. I wanted to get some local designer’s stuff but unfortunately, I couldn’t find many shops that cater men!

In any event, this place is a good place for photography. I’ll definitely come back again.

Multilaw Academy 2011 @ Chiang Mai

Multilaw is an association of independent law firms around the world.

My firm sent my colleague, Jack and me to Chiang Mai for this week long training. The training given was fairly simple but focused on interesting topics. But most importantly, it was an academy for all junior lawyers from all Multilaw members.


Infinity pool @ Verandah Hotel!

We were put in a very nice hotel by the name Verandah Resort and Spa. I will talk about this place on a separate entry.

The week long conference was very memorable. Our day would start with a class by Multilaw senior lawyers. Our night would start with dinner and end with heavy drinking – everyday!

The participants were mostly young lawyers ranging from mid 20s to early 30s. We had lawyers from Brazil, Netherlands, Philippines, China, UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Canada, Turkey, Denmark, Ethiopia and Poland. Every night we will stay back for drinks after dinner. It was a good mix of people. We all got along really well and had loads of fun. I don’t think there was a day which we didn’t drink.


The participants and trainers. I’m the tallest one. Stand out, don’t blend in!

In respect of the training, there were two things that I remember the most. The first is the mock negotiation. We were split into groups and given a scenario. The scenario relates to a share purchase agreement. We were given instructions from our mock clients and then we have to negotiate a deal between the two groups. I partnered a Dutch and we were tasked to negotiate with a Dane and Filipino. It was tough but fun! I learned so much!


Training in progress

The second training was on what an in-house lawyer wants from his lawyer. Multilaw invited an in-house counsel from a large multinational company to speak. It was highly informative. For the benefit of my readers, I’ve summarized some of the points given by the counsel:-

1. Get law firm partners’ and associates’ comprehensive details on firm website. In-house lawyers always look at them.
2. Put pictures of partners and associates in a presentable manner. Not too casual.
3. Details of associates in the website should include a capability list.
4. Get into Chambers Guide (law firm ranking guide) if possible.
5. Lawyers should specialize. In-house lawyers always look for experts.
6. Once engaged by a company, ask in-house counsel on what do they dislike from a lawyer and try to avoid doing that.
7. Always understand and read about the client. Sign up with Google Alerts for daily updates on client.
8. When meeting clients, don’t start rambling about yourself. Ask open ended questions like what their views are and how we can help them
9. Ask the client how they like to be contacted. Eg phone, email. Some clients like to speak on phone and some like emails.
10. Be known to be giving a lot of value. Tell client that you are not charging for certain work.
11. Billing is an art. Only bill things that are of value. Don’t bill for things like looking for phone number or files.
12. Be known to be responsive. Always reply queries immediately. Get back to people promptly.
13. On emails, not necessary to give answers immediately but respond with some pseudo substance response eg I’ll get back to you tomorrow

We were given a one day tour around Chiang Mai. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to see many things. We went to the night market and find that most of the stuff sucks. And as usual, we ended up drinking at a pub.


Our hot Turkish lawyer. She doesn’t drink beer. She only drinks tequila.


We had dinner at one restaurant that allows its customers to draw on its walls. We had all our names written on the wall.

We ended our academy with dinner at a nice place called the House. Jack and I sat with the guys. It’s been a while since I had so much fun.


At the dinner

After the dinner, we headed to Mandarin Oriental for drinks.


Mandarin Oriental. Yes, Mandarin Oriental. No kidding!

We ended our night around 2am. By then, all of us were dead tired and many had to rush back to their hotel room to pack for their early flight. Jack and I slept only an hour to catch our 9am flight.

The gang shook hands and hugged before departing. Although it was only 7 days, everyone bonded very well. It was kinda sad to see the academy ending. There may not be a time where all of us would be together again.

Nevertheless, in order for us to keep in touch, I started a Facebook group. Almost everyone that attended are now on that group.

It was a great experience. I hope the new found friendship will last until the end of our lives.