Kalare Night Bazaar

14 June 2008 @ Chiang Mai, Thailand

After we came down from the Doi Suthep temple, we bought some snacks at the roadside before boarding our tuk tuk to get back down to town.


First, we saw a stall selling corns. There were 3 last corns left and we bought it all. It's kinda different how they prepare their corns compared to those in Malaysia.

3 cups of corns for them, not me.

Then, we saw this stall selling some sort of sausages and fish balls. It looked really yummy and we bought one stick to get a taste of it.


To our surprise, the "sausage" is actually stuffed with rice. It has a strong pepper smell and the taste is not bad after all!

Then we boarded our tuk tuk and told the driver to drop us at the night bazaar. Before anything else, we went to the nearest public toilet to take a leak, and I saw this...


...a counter collecting 5 Baht per entry and a HUGE LCD Monitor on top of it. I wonder when will Malaysia's public toilet evolve to be like this. Hehe...


We walked around the Kalare Night Bazaar, most shops are selling the same thing; t-shirts, decos, jewelries etc etc... There is where each of us bought a cute Chiang Mai t-shirt.


Well then I saw this sign - Pusat Informasi Pelancongan Islam. Wow, can't believe there are agencies taking care of the welfare of the muslims in Chiang Mai too. Haha... I'm giving free ads to this company.


We walked to the food court for dinner. It has a lot of stalls with all sorts of food you can think of. Food courts as usual, has variery but not quality. The food has nothing much to boast about.


After a while, we heard some music and there were dance performance at the centre of the plaza. I head over to take a look and shot some photographs.



A video of the dance: [warning - boring dance]



Not really satisfied with our dinner. The four of us continue walking around to hunt for more stuffs to munch on.


LeongKee and MinBee bought a crispy pancake each, from this stall. She chose pizza with chocolate flavour while he chose ham with strawberry flavour. Hmm... Both flavours didn't sound very appealing to me.

Ah, don't pretend. I know it's not yummy. Haha!

We walked all the way back to our guesthouse with a lousy map, but luckily managed to scrap our way through.

Then, we discussed with the owner of the guesthouse to arrange transport for us to get to the border of Thailand, because we are going to LAOS! Long journey to Loas though. Billy, out.

Coldest Trip to Genting

3 May 2009 @ Genting Highlands

WoonLee's dad had a free room at Genting, thus she invited the gang to put a night there. How kind of her.

Wilson Tai Kor, HanChin Kor, Mike, JooLi and Me

The five of us departed from KL, took a bus and cable car to Genting to meet up with WoonLee. Put our stuffs and head out for dinner!


Went to first world to hunt for food and took a stroll outside.


It was a very mysteriously misty night. Wet and cold, freezing cold... I was literally shivering after a while.


JooLi and I went to meet up with Leonie, her best buddy, who's working in Genting. The rest went to casino for a gamble of luck.


The three of us went to Starbucks for a drink and had a very long chat.


Later on, we went to the casino to find the gang and found out that some of them did win some money! Wilson who won the most treated us supper at Old Town. Yay!


After supper, went back to the room. Cleaned up. Watched DOA. Took photos. Sleep.

Wilson Tai Kor, HanChin Kor, WoonLee Jie and Me, the youngest of the bunch

The next morning, we had breakfast at some kind of Hainanese shop. Most of us ordered half boiled eggs and the eggs are not cooked properly. Ended up opening up many raw eggs and getting 2 more for free.

the amount of eggs...

Before packing up and heading back to KL, we walked around and enjoy the cool breeze.

WoonLee, JooLi, Me, Wilson, Mike, HanChin

I had a wonderful time in Genting, breaking away from the hot weather in KL. Thanks to WoonLee jie for the invitation. Thank you, thank you, thank you. (enough?) Billy, out.

Thai Massage & Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep

14 June 2008 @ Chiang Mai, Thailand

After the adventurous and exciting trekking in the jungle, all of us decided to go for a real Thai massage before visiting other places. So we had our guesthouse to arrange transport to this massage parlour while we had our breakfast.

The surrounding of the place is very relaxed and calm. We enquired about the rates and decided to take the 1 hour full body massage, which cost us around 200Baht per person (not too sure about the price)


We changed into a set of very loose t-shirt and pants before the masseurs come in. The whole one hour massage was very painful and torturous but my body felt very relaxed after the session.


A two-hour massage would be much better, but we didn't have that much time and money to spare. Thus, we head for lunch while we wait for the rain to stop before taking a taxi to Doi Suthep.

Taken in Chiang Mai city

Doi Suthep is actually the mountain where Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep sits on. It's 15 km away from Chiang Mai city, and it's way way way up the hill.


Well, to get to the Buddhist temple founded in 1383, we climbed 309 steps to reach the top. Alternatively, one can pay 50Baht for a two-way tram to get to the temple.



The weather was quite cooling and windy at that place, resembles a bit like the weather at Genting Highlands.


Before reaching the top, there were stalls selling souvenirs and local stuff. There were also a few kids dressed up in their traditional clothings awaiting foreigners to take photos with them.


We headed to the top and saw this magnificent temple sitting there. The view from the top was also breath-taking.

A brief history about the temple

The view from up there

There were also a lot of bells lined up around the temple. We couldn't help ourselves but to hit on them.


To get into the compound of the Chedis and Buddha statues, one must not wear shoes and properly dressed. MinBee had to borrow scarf and sarong as she was wearing singlets and very short shorts.

Ta-Da! The aunty look of MinBee

Inside the compound, all we see is gold, gold and gold. The chedi is coated with gold and almost everything inside there are in golden colour.


There's also an Emerald Buddha where many locals pray at.


There wasn't much to see in there as the temple isn't very big. I was just very impressed with how gold-ish the place is.

Cat & Chedi [This cat never move an inch]

We headed down to buy some street food and head back down to the city. Till then. Billy, out.

Previous post: Bamboo Rafting in Chiang Mai
Next post: Food, food and more food!

Happy Burstday, Senior!

25 April 2009 @ Red Box Sunway Pyramid

Went karaoke to celebrate HanChin's birthday. Sang for 8 hours.

MIA: Eugene & Cheryl

This time the colour theme is Red and White. Eugene and Cheryl wore red too but not in pic. Mike didn't get the notice...

Bought a little cake from Starbucks.


Head on to our favourite hang out place, McDonald's to pass him his birthday gift - a steering lock.



27 April 2009 @ Food Garden, The Gardens

His actual date of birthday. Had a simple dinner with TM gang.


Had a larger cake. Made his second birthday wish for 2009.

[top] Mike, WoonLee, Jacky, JooLi, Me
[bottom] Wilson, HanChin, Cheryl, Eugene

Simple and fun celebration.

My posts are having fewer and fewer words, aye? Today is Sunday. Just lazing at home. Hope to do something productive today. Billy, out.

Cyber Fusion 2009

10 - 12 April 2009 @ Multimedia University, Cyberjaya

It's the biggest gaming event I have attended thus far. It's the Cyber Fusion 2009!!


I went to Cyberjaya to visit some of my friends there and took a peek at the grand event (at midnight). There were lots of banners, booths from games publishers and vendors.


The main event of Cyber Fusion is breaking the Guiness World Record for having the Longest LAN Party in the world. The previous record was 36 hours by 203 players in USA.

This time, they attempt to break the record by playing non-stop for 38 hours. In the end, they decided to extend 2 more hours, and 274 players broke 40 hours of non-stop gaming LAN party!


When I went into the grand hall, the players have played for almost 24 hours already. Most of them are still immersed in their own game, while some are yawning away.


Some of the marshalls are my friends, and they're working really hard to make this event a success. Bravo to them!


Looking back at the event, the players brought their own PC to the hall. Some even brought their favourite figurines to accompany them throughout the night.

from another angle

Redbull was kind enough to be one of the sponsors for the event. Every once in a while, the organizers will distribute Redbull energy drink to the participants. Guess it really helps to keep them awake.


While the 200 over players are fighting their way to glory, there were replays of DotA matches, with a commentator commenting about the game! It was my first time experiencing live game commentary. Cool!

Esports Commentary

It was already past midnight when I reach that place. Nothing much left but there were 2 PS3 still available for visitors to play. [There were 8 during the day]


Both PS3 were having the Street Fighter game, which I have not played for a very very long time. I waited a while for my turn to get a hand on PS3. About the result of my game... let's skip it, ok?


I walked around and saw the fixtures for FIFA, DotA and Call of Duty. There were also e-sports tournamnts organized by Game Developers Club (GDC) of MMU as part of the Cyber Fusion 2009.


Not only cybergames were involved, there were also various board games exhibition, card games tournaments and console community gathering.


Besides the gaming part, GDC also has its focus on the game developments. Among the events brought up in were Codeplay2 (game programming competition), Future Games Creation Seminar (FGCS) and Overclocking Showcase.


Later in the night, some gamers start to bring in their own PS3 for the console gathering. There were hundreds of LCD monitors for them to plug in and play with. Some even brought their own drum and guitar (for PS3). Estimate around 50 PS3 were brought in! WOW!


There wasn't much left to see as it was already 3am in the morning. Me and my friends took a quick round again before heading back to their rented apartment.


I'm glad that I managed to witness a couple of hours in the making of a world record, though I may not have the stamina to withstand 40 hours non stop gaming. Good job to all the players for breaking the record! Good job to GDC and thanks to all the sponsors. Billy, out.

References:
MMU Game Developers Club
Cyberfusion 2009 | Multiplay

Bamboo Rafting in Chiang Mai

13 June 2008 @ Chiang Mai, Thailand

It's the last day of our 3-days journey into the deep woods of Chiang Mai. Our final activity is bamboo rafting! Yay!


As usual, we woke up early, around 7am for breakfast. We had eggs and toast! Yummy~


After breakfast, we have to pack all our stuff into our bags, and important stuff to be put into plastic bags. I hope you know why...

Too bad all our cameras are kept tightly inside plastic bags and inside the bag. We didn't managed to take any pictures on the raft! *sobz*


However, I found this photo above that resembles pretty much how our rafting goes. Just imagine one pro (so called River King) manuvering in front and 2 noobies (Me and Kuan) manuver at the back, while others stand in one line in the centre.

Well, it was pretty fun to have a chance to control the bamboo raft. One very malu-fying stuff happen, which I lost my stick when I press to hard into the bottom of the river and couldn't pull it back up. So, I was stick-less for about 15 minutes, before the River King picked up another stick for me.

The whole journey on the river was 3 hours, with a pit stop at a small village.


We arrived at our destination around 1pm. It was raining heavily, all our clothes are soaking wet. Got changed and had beehun for lunch.

Little pondok where we had our lunch

After resting for a while, we left that place around 2pm with a tuk tuk and reach our guesthouse around 3 hours later.

failed SS shot in tuk tuk - Me, LeongKee, MinBee and Kuan

We had a simple dinner for the day. Decided to walk to town's 7-11 and eat cup noodles for dinner. We went on to buy a bottle of beer since it's quite cheap.


We poured the beer into the Coffee cups (like slurpee cups in M'sia) and got ready to drink it. Suddenly, the staff in 7-11 stopped us and told us to buy cups for beer. He threw away the Coffee cups we used.

See this cups without labels?

No choice, we bought a few cups from the shop and drank the beer. Cup noodles and beer, cheap and nice.

It was a really exciting day, full of new experiences. Bamboo rafting is really cool. I'd like to try white water rafting next time though. Hehe... Billy, out.

Previous post: Trekking in Chiang Mai - A Night in the Dark
Next post: Thai Massage & Wat Prahthat Doi Suthep

Happy Burstday, Wilson!

20 March 2009 @ Kokopelli Traveller's Bistro, Petaling Jaya

Went to Kokopelli Traveller's Bistro, situated at the back of Dataran 3 Two Square, Petaling Jaya to celebrate Wilson's birthday.


The interior design is quite unique, with a lot of little stuffs to decorate the place.

the counter

the dining area

the washroom - unbelievable, look at the deco in there...

Here's me with the birthday boy - Wilson.

Tai kor and me

Now let's look at the food.

Carbonara

Lasagna

Seafood Olio

Burger and fries

Colourful drinks

The food ain't that bad but they aren't the best in town though. Worth a try though.

Wilson and the big cheese cake

ChiaPoh, Cheryl, Mike, Wilson, JooLi, Stanley, WoonLee, Me, HanChin

It may be the last outing together for some people. Nevertheless, I'm still very glad to have such nice friends all around me. Cheers for future outings. Billy, out.