Archives for 2008

singapore nov ’08 – full report

November 10, 2008 By Suanie 16 Comments

Prince of Wales Backpacker Hostel in Little India

As mentioned earlier, we stayed at the Prince of Wales Backpacker Hostel in Little India. I’d seen it before — when FA and I were in Singapore last year, we stayed at the Perak Hotel, also in Little India. There were lots of people drinking and generally having a good time at the POW when we passed by the place, so that kind of stuck in my mind.

Hostel guests get S$2/3 off selected booze, so it was S$5 for a bottle of San Miguel. I know, I know… normally I’d rather drink my own urine than to consume San Miguel, but… I have no excuses.

Paul, FA and I with our beer. Photo taken by Bob

Would I recommend the place? Sure, if you don’t mind the surrounding noises by the pubs and clubs around Little India.

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Nasi Beryani Ayam @ Singapore Zam Zam, Bugis

Bob suggested that we check out this restaurant in Bugis that apparently serves good nasi beryani and murtabak. Luckily he knew the way (I’m not familiar with Bugis) — it’s right opposite the Sultan Mosque. The place seemed popular and we had to wait a while to get a table.

Nasi Beryani Ayam, Singapore Zam Zam

Doesn’t the photo above makes you want to attack the plate of food? Well, I randomly take okay photos sometimes, so lesson #1: photos can be deceiving. I was unable to finish my dinner, and Bob had a hard time with it too. It was edible lah, just terribly bland and tak sedap. Oh well.

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Esplanade – Theaters on the Bay

The next day we headed over to Esplanade for the reason we were in Singapore — Avenue Q. There was a massive jumbled-up hula hoops thing on display.

Obviously someone else appreciates this more than me

Art is perspective indeed. I don’t remember the description, but it had a very canggih and artsy-fartsy one. Looks like MS Paint to me.

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Avenue Q The Musical

OMAIGOD the show was more than brilliant! We had the best cheap tickets (‘cos we bought them in July) and everything was more than fantastic! The set, the songs, the costumes, the puppets, the actors/ actresses… I loved loved LOVED it!

I heart Avenue Q!

It was a mostly Filipino cast, which was why the songs didn’t sound the same on the soundtrack. Still bloody awesome! We laughed so hard, we clapped after every song, and we laughed again. It’s on-going till Nov 16th, so go catch it if you can! Go alone, doesn’t matter, just go!

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Subway in Singapore

… has bacon as in BACON, and ham as in HAM. And honey mustard! Absolutely fabulous!

Tidak ditanggung halal

I don’t think I’ll be able to eat a Malaysian Subway sandwich for a long time after having the Singaporean ones.

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Brewerkz at Riverside Point, Clarke Quay

My only must-go place in Singapore is Brewerkz after Edwin introduced it to me years ago. If you’d notice my blog banner, it’s a photo of me drinking a Brewerkz Golden Ale. It just makes me happy 😀

A few of my favouritest people!

I think we were the loudest table there, heh. Sorry, but we had a most amazing time!

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Ramen @ Ken, Orchard Plaza

After our pints and a whole beer tower, we decided to have ramen for supper at Ken in Orchard Plaza. Edwin and Pinky insisted that the ramen there is absolutely delicious, and the fact that they close at 2 a.m. (while stocks last) is a major plus.

Japanese ramen with char siew, stewed egg and other random bits

It was delicious 😀 Patrick stopped by for a couple of Asahi, more talking and yapping and gossping — I had an absolutely fantastic time! Thanks! 😀

Click here to view the entire Flickr set for Singapore, Nov ’08. 19 photos in total.

16 Comments Filed Under: Travel + Trips Tagged With: alcohol, avenue q, beer, brewerkz, clarke quay, fireangel, golden ale, nasi beryani, paul tan, ramen, riverside point, sandwich, singapore, subway, the great singapore escape

morib beach photos

October 6, 2008 By Suanie 5 Comments

As mentioned earlier, we went on a road trip to Morib beach.

nmch, the sunset was hidden by clouds

20 photos from the trip at my Flickr set here.

5 Comments Filed Under: Travel + Trips Tagged With: morib, morib beach, pantai morib, sunset

updates (mostly for my mom’s benefit)

October 5, 2008 By Suanie 12 Comments

… actually, not that she really cares because Ryan’s with her in Batu Pahat. He has not been enthusiastic to speak on the phone with me – which is a great thing because it sorts of shows that he’s having a great time; which is a lousy thing because he should be missing me like mad!!! Or at least suck up to me a bit because:

1) He will come back from Batu Pahat
2) I frequently babysit him
3) There are certain advantages to sucking up to me, because he being a 3-year old cannot afford certain things such as a RM 2.50 el cheapo badminton racquet.

Hmph.

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I had a wonderful birthday week, thanks to the wonderful people in my life. The lots and lots of birthday wishes on Facebook, MSN, via SMS etc. My eldest sister gave me a Nike Up Or Down EDT and a Nike deodorant, my second sister gave me a bottle of DNKY’s Delicious (Red) and cooked an awesome birthday dinner. Erna belanja-ed me lunch at Kiku Zakura where we over-ordered and overate. Spongefox belanja-ed dinner at William’s. David Lian belanja-ed lunch at Kanna @ Sek. 17. Your votes for my 88db.com entry; I lost but thanks for helping 😉

Spot David Lian!

Thank you all 🙂

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Last Saturday after dinner to celebrate my brother-in-law’s grandfather’s birthday (he turned 98!!), I hopped over to ORANGE for the Hennessy Artistry party. Didn’t stay long for various reasons, but did some camwhoring with the usual suspects.

Taken with a Polaroid camera, I scanned it when I got home

With Elaine and FA

I made my exit as The Dey performed their first song. So I still have no idea who Shayne Ward is, and I absolutely do not give a…

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Speaking of Shayne Ward, someone asked me if I would be interested in interviewing him for a magazine. So I checked out his entry on Wikipedia, read it through and presented my sample questions. That someone shuddered and would probably never ask me to interview anyone ever again 😀

Look, the kid may be the greatest singer since Freddie Mercury, the greatest songwriter since Bob Dylan, the Adonis of this generation, whatever. So he attempted to jump-start his pop star career in 2002, right? So he won the X-Factor in 2005, right? Then in 2006 he wrote and published his autobiography?!? What the…

Why does that tick me off? The same reason why I’m pissed about singers and bands releasing their ‘Greatest Hits’ padahal they only had about 2 or 3 albums before that. The nerve, the gall, the arrogance… How do you say ‘seriously, who the fuck do you think you are?’ in 10 languages?

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I didn’t have to work on Tuesday, so I could go pick up KY from his office for dinner that evening. The roads to and in KL were a dream! Never felt so happy driving around KL before. We had dinner at Wan Hou Steamboat Restaurant; ze pork balls were simply too awesome for words! You must try it if you are in the area.

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Jaime and Janice’s brother, Gerard (aka Calvin) got married on the first day of Hari Raya. I was supposed to go over in the morning but I overslept by an hour, and decided it would be rude to just crash. He had his wedding dinner at Rick’s Cafe Casablanca that evening.

Janice and I

Didn’t stay long because the pins holding my hair together were cutting off blood supply to my head. Two Panadol Actifast and 80 mins of sleep at KY’s transformed my face from the grumpiest piece of shit you’d ever encountered back to my usual awesome self.

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FA’s friend from Colombia, Juan was in town and she invited me to their outings. So we had Paulaner @ Bavarian Bierhaus, The Curve on Thursday evening, and Kilkenny at Champs @ Centrepoint, Bandar Utama on Friday evening.

FA with her uni mates, Juan and Vincent

Hah! The first Colombian I’ve met and talked to! Heh, it was lovely meeting you 🙂

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What I watched on the idiot box:

The Tattooist: I didn’t realise that the main actor was the same main dude in Roswell, the TV series from years ago! Wahey! Actually the movie was a bit stupid. Some dude with a past unintentionally unleashed an evil spirit determined to go on a murder rampage. Then there were a lot of things that didn’t make sense. For example, more than one person in a row go to the tattoo parlour not knowing what they want, allowing the tattooist a free hand in the designs. Then the tattooist really does it free hand, no need to sketch beforehand on a tracing paper and transfer it one! Wtf? I watched Miami Ink you know!! Well, 60% stupid lah. I liked the part where they showed Jason Behr’s naked butt 😛

Wall Street: Charlie Sheen was so young o_0! Daryl Hannah was blah. Someone should remake this movie. In today’s world, it would be faster, more complicated, more ruthless, more everything! Like, Jason Bourne meets Wall Street. That would be fun.

Black Sheep: Hahaha, this was a bit stupid but damn funny and enjoyable! Forget the lousy rating over at IMDB — you should watch it, if only to see the special effects by Weta Workshops.

True Blood: Never liked Anna Paquin, still don’t really fancy her. But I find this new series interesting, especially with the cello sounds whenever something creepy is about to happen. In fact, I’ve dumped ‘Ugly Betty’ for ‘True Blood’, and I really loved ‘Ugly Betty’. Unfortunately its first episode of the new season seems well and truly lame, and that’s not a good indication for the rest of the reason. Not worth my time and effort.

Anyone has The Sopranos Season 6 and is willing to lend it to me? 😀

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KY had to go to Computer War for something. While waiting for his something, he spotted this truly awesome copywriting work at the back of a device:

A for amazing!

Just had to share, you know 🙂

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Yesterday Rachel, KY, LucyLiu and I went on a mini road trip to Morib. The last time I was there was in April, so I had quite a time trying to remember the correct turnings and what-not. Got owned by a young Indian chap at a shop, when one of this two directions took us to a road that seemed to lead to a plantation.

Suanie at Pantai Morib… again

Took a few nice photos. Will upload them on Flickr and create a set for it when I can be arsed.

We had dinner at Restaurant Kang Guan at the bridge entering Pulau Carey.

Dinner!

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K, dowan to blog already. Tina Fey as Sarah Palin on SNL last night is calling me 😀

12 Comments Filed Under: Assorted Blah Tagged With: crabs, hennessy artistry, kang guan, morib, morib beach, pantai morib, seafood, shayne ward

the great penang getaway: august ’08: day three: beach, food, ludo

September 29, 2008 By Suanie 20 Comments

After breakfast at the hotel, we decided to walk across the road (there’s a connecting pedestrian bridge from the hotel to the other side of the road) to the beach.

Photo of the hotel swimming pool area taken from the pedestrian bridge

We passed by a flight of steep and uneven stairs, and an aquarium with a couple of hideous looking eels. I hate eels.

Unagi? Not for me

It was early-ish and there were not many people around. Was lovely to just walk a bit and play with the water and sand. You can view the rest of the beach photos at my Flickr set.

Leave nothing but footprints

We went back to our hotel room, packed and checked out. HPC came to get us and took us for lunch at an open-air food stall next to Fort Cornwallis (Padang Kota Lama). She said that they have the best mee sotong ever, never mind that I never had mee sotong before. There were a lot of people so we waited a while for our food.

The most fanfuckingtastic mee ever, sotong or what not!

The mee sotong was ridiculously delicious! It was also the one and only thing I craved for after coming back to KL. I was on MSN with Pinky the other night, and we both went, “I really want to eat the mee sotong now…” You must have it when you go to Penang. Like I said, it’s just next to Fort Cornwallis, you can’t miss it!

After lunch, we had nothing much to do so we headed over to Starbucks at Gurney Hotel. They had board games, so we played snakes and ladders and Ludo. Couldn’t really remember the rules for Ludo (or how to play it, even) so the instruction leaflet came in handy…

I have not touched one of these things since I was a child

HPC won the game. I was the first runner-up. Guess who was second 😛

Then HPC decided that we’d rested on our laurels long enough, and took us to eat char kuey teow at Macalister Road. I first had it when I was in Penang with KY many moons ago. Maybe we overate earlier, but the char kuey teow didn’t seem to be as fantastic as I’d remembered it to be.

Sisters’ char kuey teow

After our second lunch, HPC took us to the bus station for our ride back to KL. There ends our great Penang getaway. Thank you so much, HPC for everything you’ve done and more! We had a FANTASTIC time, and your company made it even better. Cheers!

*Click here to view the entire Flickr set for ‘Penang, August 2008’, which includes photos not published here. No. of photos in the set: 73.

20 Comments Filed Under: Travel + Trips Tagged With: batu feringghi, beach, board games, char kuey teow, feringghi beach, george town, ludo, mee sotong, penang, pulau pinang

the great penang getaway: august ’08: day two: more food!

September 25, 2008 By Suanie 16 Comments

Just realised that Pinky took a photo of the Air Itam assam laksa. You can view it here.

I’d made plans to meet up with Bryan, Peter, Wuan and ReallyBites for dinner. Unfortunately HPC was not able to join us as she had work to do. So she dropped us off at our hotel, not before getting Pinky a crispy Chinese pancake with peanuts and bananas inside, and fried bananas for snacks. By the way, I am still in amazement at how much food we ate when we were in Penang…

We chilled out and slept for a bit, and I took a couple of photos of the sunset.

7 p.m. : I was there!

At about 7.30 pm, Bryan picked us up at our hotel and drove us to Chulia Street. He said that the two things famous there are the curry mee and the wantan mee. So Pinky chose the former, I had the latter.

Pinky’s curry mee. She said it was a bit too oily for her taste

The wantan mee was the BEST I’ve ever had! The noodles tasted so fresh, light and springy! it was too delicious for words! Well, if I had to, here’s my Chulia Street wantan mee poem:

I went to Chulia Street
I had wantan mee
And now I’m fucked
Because
I’ll never be able to look
at wantan mee the same way again.

Wantan mee at Chulia Street

By the time we had our food, Peter was still nowhere in sight. So Bryan called him up and suggested that we go someplace else for food (our second round, heheh). We reached New Lane and Peter, Wuan and ReallyBites were already there. We passed by this:

It didn’t look all that great until they chop it up to little pieces and add it to porridge

Bryan helped us to order oh jien. He also got us a bowl of pork porridge to share. It had pieces of char siew, and boiled and deep-fried pig’s intestines in it. It was THE MOST AWESOME THING I’D EVER HAD! Have another poem:

I went to New Lane
I had porridge with pig’s intestines
It was too damn good
So I had another bowl
All by myself
And I want more
And more
And more and more and more!

This bowl of porridge is more precious than new-born babies

I really, really miss Penang 🙁

*Click here to view the entire Flickr set for ‘Penang, August 2008’, which includes photos not published here.

16 Comments Filed Under: Travel + Trips Tagged With: chulia street, curry mee, intestines, new lane, noodles, penang, pork, porridge, pulau pinang, sunset, wantan mee

the great penang getaway: august ’08: day two: being tourists

September 24, 2008 By Suanie 13 Comments

I don’t remember why but we ended up at Khoo Kongsi in Cannon Square. The RM 5 entrance fee includes a couple of postcards of the famous clanhouse. I suppose you can read up its Wikipedia entry or go to the official website for more information.

Pinky and HPC in front of the main Khoo Kongsi structure

It was interesting and quite pretty lah; the detailed carvings and ancient paintings all over. But being Chinese, I suppose I’m unable to appreciate it *that* much, having been exposed to these type of… uhm, cultural-ish stuff since young. The only thing that fascinated me was the structure of the clanhouse; the main temple in the middle surrounded by houses and courtyards. Then my mind began to create mental images of the people who used to live there, their daily lives etc. I suppose they are still restoring the houses closest to the main temple. Maybe they should put up mini museums in the currently-deserted houses… I don’t know, to make the place more lively and worth visiting?

Pinky and I say, welcome to our humble abode 😛

Don’t get me wrong; I suppose it’s fine as it is. But it could be more! Imagine one house showcasing ancient Chinese attire, one house showcasing this and that Chinese handicraft from the past, one house showcasing paintings from past and current painters, one house filled with books and what-not on Chinese history and culture… There are so many houses there! Heh. I’m sure they have their own problems, so moving on…

Random photo of Kek Lok Si temple

Next up: the famous Kek Lok Si temple. Because Pinky and I are so fit and healthy, we decided that we did not require the exercise where we’d have to walk uphill past souvenir shops etc to get to the temple. So HPC drove us to the very top instead 😛

Before heading to Kek Lok Si, we stopped by Bukit Bendera / Penang Hill to see if we could take the tram up the hill. Turns out, the tram service is not available till next year! Just our luck eh 😉

Look ma, I’m about to jump!

It was hot, but the breeze at the top of the temple was really nice. Uhm… what else? It’s a Buddhist temple lah. You’ve seen one or two, you’ve seen them all 😛

The famous Air Itam assam laksa is just at the foot of the hill, so we had post-lunch pre-dinner there. Again, I found out that I was not the bottomless pit as I thought I was. So when you mencapai kepuasan tahap maksima, there’s no way you can enjoy anything after that.

I’ve heard of Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion many times, but I’d never been there until this trip. KY and Rachel, both Penangites don’t even know what or where it is, heh. When we reached the place (which is along Leith Street), we were told that the afternoon tour (which costs RM 12 per person) would only begin at 3 p.m. Since that was only about 45 minutes away, we decided to hang around and wait.

Pretending to be old skool

An older lady appeared. She turned out to be the tour guide. She seemed nice, though she was very particular about us (around 15 people including a few kids) sticking together as a group, not touching anything, not wandering anywhere without permission because it’s a private property (it came off as if we should be really grateful to be able to view this place, never mind that we paid RM 12 each), else she’d make a face and tsk with displeasure. Sometimes even muttering not so nice things about the offenders.

She spent a good part of the one hour tour talking about Cheong Fatt Tze’s history, basically his rags to riches to rags story. A small group of tourists, most likely from China ~~flaunted~~ flouted almost all of the tour guide’s rules and after being incessantly clucked by her, left the tour. Don’t think they understand English at all, or could even hear the tour guide from where they were standing.

Then a skinny, middle-age man with a backpack joined the tour. Rather creepy, because he was overly friendly and touchy-feely with the kids in the group. Close to the end of the tour, one of the parents told him off sternly, “Don’t touch other people’s kids.” I didn’t catch that because I was somewhere up front but Pinky and HPC heard it loud and clear.

HPC, Pinky and Suanie at the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion

We were not allowed to take photos inside the mansion. That privilege is reserved for paying guests — the mansion doubles as a boutique hotel, where you could spend a night with some antiques in your room (comes with air-conditioning and a modern bathroom) for just RM 320 a night. I don’t think I’d ever do that — staying overnight in really old buildings creep me out.

On the day we were there, the mansion was being used as a movie set. There was no shooting that day but we saw plenty of props laying around. Can’t wait to see Patrick in ‘The Funeral Parlour’ 😉

*Click here to view the entire Flickr set for ‘Penang, August 2008’, which includes photos not published here.

13 Comments Filed Under: Travel + Trips Tagged With: cheong fatt tze mansion, george town, kek lok si, khoo kongsi, penang, pulau pinang, the blue mansion, unesco world heritage

the great penang getaway: august ’08: day two: beach & beef noodles

September 23, 2008 By Suanie 12 Comments

After breakfast at the hotel cafe, Pinky and I got on the hotel’s free shuttle van to the happening part of Feringghi Beach. That would be somewhere near the Golden Sands Resort and Shangri La’s Rasa Sayang Resort. Well, that was where the van driver dropped us off anyway. It was drizzling as we walked to the beach but luckily the rain clouds went away, and the sun shone as if it couldn’t wait to make roast meat out of me.

Suanie at the beach

As it was still quite early in the morning, there weren’t too many people, except for the water sports handlers inviting you to get rent their sports equipment. We had fun watching some tourists fucking up at the jet ski and the handlers screaming at them to get away from the buoys.

Hot Hot Hot!

After mucking about with sand and sea for a bit, we walked to the Golden Sands Resort to wash our feet. Luckily they weren’t too fussed about non-guests using their water pipes and stuff 😛 Actually it was just a matter of casually walking about, acting as we belonged there.

This feels like a holiday

We took a taxi to Gurney Plaza (RM28) and HPC picked us up to go for lunch in town. She claimed that it was the best beef noodles she’d ever had, and she and her boyfriend would not fail to eat there at least once a week. After yesterday’s tandoori chicken, I was inclined to believe anything she says.

Most fantastic beef noodles, ever!