As Suanie Sees It

The last time I had a beer in Hong Kong was at Delaney’s along Peking Road. Well, it was actually more like the basement of a building. Back then I was drinking alone. This time round I had a friend to drink with me!

I think it was the second evening when we had our first beer. After walking around Central, looking for Pottinger Street (as recommended by Su Ann), we went back to Lan Kwai Fong to freshen up, heheh. Only a couple of bars looked promising, and we ended up in a cosy little bar along D’Aguilar Street.

Suanie with her Carlsberg

If you know the area well, you’ll surely know where we parked our arses

Some genius in a flashy car braked and a policeman (or traffic dude, don’t know which) hit him from behind. Provided lots of entertainment (for me).

Padan muka

The next day, the pub was closed so we went to a German pub up the street, Schnurrbart where I had a Warsteiner and a König Pilsener. We also had our dinner there but that belongs in the food post.

Yummy German beer

Since some clever peeps did not lock their router, we were able to leech off their Wi-Fi and so had a spanking good time catching up with e-mails and stuff. For me at least, because Erna bought herself a Wi-Fi access thingy.

At Stanley, I saw this poster on the wall and I just had to take a photo of it…

Jet Li endorsing San Miguel

I don’t like San Miguel. It sucks.

Also spotted at Stanley Market, an advertisement for Baileys Haagen-Dazs!

Hello, come to Malaysia, can?

Unfortunately it was too early in the morning for Baileys, ice-cream or not. What, you think I’m Fireangel ar?

There comes a time when you realise that some age-old theories need serious revamping. For example, when Maslow put to triangle his hierarchy of needs (then he sold his theories to assorted ministries of education around the world who then proceeded to bore the crap out of us by forcing the psychological structure upon our already overloaded minds. I mean, human beings need food and shelter to survive? No shit.. ), he forgot to include the very important layer of “fuck you give me a water tap in the bloody toilet”.

To read a previous post on almost the same subject, click here. To avoid TMI and perhaps graphic description of… things, click here.

The last time I was in Hong Kong, I sort of mentioned that the toilet in the hotel where I stayed did not manage to suck in every bit. Initially I thought it was due to the el cheapo hotel I was at; however my friend John who lodged at a hotel where guests have personal butlers reported the same problem.

This time round, we stayed at BP International for the first night. Not sure if they had some renovation work done, but the toilet was awesome From the second night onwards, we stayed at the Guang Dong Hotel… not too awesome.

Hotel toilets are the least of my concerns, for one may easily reach out, bla bla bla yadda yadda yadda. As you may know by now, the rest of the world is not very sympathetic to us Malaysians (well okay, and some Singaporeans) regarding our little penchant for water taps/ dipper/ bidet. Baby wipes just do not give out the same kind of satisfaction.

So the first day in Hong Kong, I was rather conscious about not drinking so much water so I would not have to scramble around looking for a toilet. But I got a bit dehydrated and decided that such senseless self-sacrifice was not worth it. That was when I found out that public toilets are in such great demand that they moved to the first world and operates only on certain hours and days:

At Landmark in Central District. Wtf?!

Yes, I sound bitter because I *am* bitter. You wouldn’t believe how many people I had to ask to get to this damn toilet.

By the way, what do Hong Kong girls, Hong Kong toilets, Hong Kong changing rooms and leprechauns have in common? …. .. …… .. …….. They are all tiny! Bwahahahhahahha!

Whatever.

Anyway, at the Hong Kong airport waiting to board, I had a rather miserable time holding everything back in. Never been so glad to see the KLIA…

Okay, I’m done on the subject.

My friend Richard told me that he’d sometimes go to Banting for work, and occasionally would detour to the nearby beach to see the sunset. Since I’d (obviously) never been there before, I bugged him to take me there, just to see what it was like. Perhaps I had wrongly envisioned the perfect beach ala Redang, but it was a fun trip nonetheless.

Morib is a kampung located about 10km from Banting (which I often confuse with ‘Bentong’). Can’t remember how long it took for us to reach because I was not the one driving — besides we were chatting throughout the journey. We first reached the main Pantai Morib, but I was severely disappointed when I saw it to be too commercialised, not unlike Tanjung Emas in Muar. So we decided to go to the nearby Pantai Kelanang, and…

Life and Death. Click on the photo above for a slightly larger version

A bit sien right? Air surut, lots of dead mangrove roots… left me feeling a bit down rather than calm. Couldn’t wait to leave Pantai Kelanang, so I hassled Richard to take me to Pantai Bagan Lalang instead. Halfway however, we reached another beach which looked nicer. So we stopped there for a bit instead.

Much better… muddy, but hey, it was air surut. Click on the photo above for a slightly larger version

Turns out that it was another side of Pantai Morib. No dead mangrove roots, best!

Me! My normal glasses broke so I am stuck with my emo ones

Self promotion

We’d wanted to go to Klang for a seafood dinner, but as we passed by the roundabout where the nine o’clock would take us to Pulau Carey, I hassled Richard (for the 10,000th time) to take us there instead. I’d never been to Pulau Carey but now I can say that I have! That is one time more than a lot of you!

Well, we drove about 1km in, then decided to turnaround because it was getting dark, and there was nothing in sight except for palm trees. At the bridge going to Pulau Carey was a restaurant by the river called ‘Kang Guan’, and we decided to have dinner there instead. Richard said that it’s a very popular seafood restaurant; many companies have their company lunches and dinners there. Non-halal, but no pork served. The view (if you could get a table closest to the river) was splendid.

Old man and the river. Click on the photo above for a slightly larger version

Sun setting, overlooking the bridge going to Pulau Carey. Click on the photo above for a slightly larger version

Can you hear the ‘plop’? Click on the photo above for a slightly larger version

The food was not awful Even after all my nagging and hassling, Richard kindly paid for dinner. Only a 12-year friendship could endure me, heh.

*For the Bahasa Malaysia-challenged, ‘pantai’ is ‘beach’. ‘Air surut’ is ‘low tide’. ‘Pulau’ is ‘island’. ‘Sien’ is not BM, and there is no appropriate translation to describe the essence of the word.

(Note: Relatively lengthy post ahead)

Sometime last month, Val who was home for the holidays wrote on her MSN status that she would like to go somewhere, anywhere. So I talked to her, and after going through a short list of where we could go (only day-trips; no overnights allowed due to non-parental consent reasons, lol), I finally decided that we should all go to a waterfall. It is awesome being a dictator. You should try it sometimes.

There is a website called Waterfalls of Malaysia that I have known about for a while now. So I checked that out, and bla bla bla, decided on Chiling Falls. The website listed Chiling Falls‘ accessibility as ‘moderate’, which means some trekking required, a.k.a. not as easy as parking your car right in front of the waterfall. Which suits me (and all of us) fine, since we I am an unhealthy sod and it’s about time I sweat it out.

Since I have absolutely no idea where, or how to get to Kuala Kubu Baru/ Ulu Yam/ Selangor Dam (aku orang Johor, ok), or what the trail would be like, I thought we would need the services of a guide to help us along. There were a few comments on the Chiling Falls page at WOF stating that one would not require a guide, everything is easy like a pea, bla bla bla. There was also someone by the name of Happy Yen writing stuff about ropes to cross the river etc. Doesn’t sound like an easy pea to me. So I wrote to ‘Happy Yen’, asking about his fees and such. His fee sounded very reasonable, so we decided on a date, I rounded up the usual suspects, and that was that.

So on the morning of Hari Raya Aidiladha 2007, we got together at a meeting point @ Damansara Jaya, waited for the rest of the noobs to arrive, had something light to eat, then headed for our destination. We had an extra person with us; an Ethiopian dude who was in the country for business, bound to leave for home later that day and had wanted to do something ‘different’ on his last day in Malaysia. I guess at some point or the other, people do want to NOT visit more and more shopping malls.

Yen’s itinerary included a short visit to a Buddhist temple in Rawang where we had an interesting discussion on what is ‘real’ or ‘fake’ Buddhism (if there is such a thing). Then it was off to Kuala Kubu Baru for an early lunch of wantan mee, followed by a visit to the Sungai Selangor Dam.

It was a beautiful day. Rather windy at the dam, very picturesque

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If the photo is linked, it will take you to the 800×600 version on my Flickr.

A couple more photos taken at Wave Rock. This was my laptop wallpaper for a couple of days…

This road reminded me of the forest in LOTR. Sort of.

Me returning from one of the many wineries along Swan Valley, yay!

Was at Subiaco, looked up and saw this.. I just like it

From left to right: me, buckie, Dabs, Kian and Cynthia.

Perth city at night from King’s Park.

I like this one… grandpa with his grandkids at Queen’s Garden.

Black swans at Queen’s Garden… they looked mean

Buckie at Mends Jetty.

Looked up and took this along Mends Street… also my current laptop wallpaper.

Perth city from Mends Jetty.

Sekian.