Hello hello... time for me to make some use of the time I have outside of work... and maybe some time @ work too :p What have I been doing since the last time I was blogging? I guess I'll sum it up.
The wall in our front yard has collapsed so we have to replace that.
My sister has moved into the Strathcona area, and I'm very surprised at how nice her block is... among the projects.
We've recently had a death in the family. My aunt had a stroke and fell into a coma, she didn't recover and passed-on the following morning :(
Games I've played: God of War II Tomb Raider Anniversary DiRT Zelda: Twilight Princess Rayman Raving Rabbids Transformers: The Movie
Movies I've watched: Epic Movie Transformers (pre-screening) The Good Shepherd Hostel II Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman Sicko 28 Weeks Later 1408 (pre-screening) Hannibal Rising Bin Jip (3 Iron) Devil's Playground Jesus Camp Lucky Number Sleven
TV Series Dexter Red Dwarf Robot Chicken (s2)
Since I've been getting so lazy I'm also getting very restless... the summer has finally arrived, as late as it is, and I'm hoping to have enough motivation to go out and enjoy the sun. The other day I went with AK to a park in North Vancouver. It was perfect out... there was a nice breeze & the sun was shining bright, everywhere but the park that we were in :@ Anyway, we tossed a football around for about 2 hours, my arms hurt :/ Before that we ran around looking for a place to purchase a pair of baseball gloves. I found 2 that I had kickin' around in my house. Problem: they're from the 90s, hence, too small. Problem 2: AK is left-handed so he needs a left-handed glove... shite. Oh well, at least we got to enjoy the evening.
Hmm... what else has transpired? Oh... I attended a Company Golf Tournament on Friday! Haha... what a Gong Show! Drinking from noon... attempting to play 18 holes. Mmm, yes... much tomfoolery amok. We played at the course nearby, Mayfair Lakes. Just by looking at the name I'm sure you can deduce that it's a course with water... too much water :D One of my collegues is reported to have lost 8 balls in the drink :P Fortunately for me, my game didn't suck that bad! Well... maybe I'm lying, but this is my blog and I can make up whatever I want. Heh. Ok I sucked, but only after I left the tee... you see, when I go to the driving range I only ever hit off the tee, never from the matt. As a result, I can't hit a ball unless it's sitting on a tee, grrr. I even have footage of someone getting their golf cart hung up on one of the curbs, how great is that. She won't give me permission to post it :( Maybe if I get her drunk enough I can get her to sign an authorization :D
Hi :) It's me, and I'm back from the dead again.. :p Ya, I've been getting lazy, very lazy, and very bored... and it's hard for me to write about the trip when Jacq's sleeping... she knows the names of all the locations that we went together, me on the other hand... not so much.
Day 4 of my trip was a long day on the road. It was the 16th and we first had to meet up with a friend's friend :D (and her brother). It was kinda weird because we hadn't met them before and didn't know what they looked like. We woke up on time, but we left the flat late and rushed out to Jurong East Interchange. We ran straight into the building and ordered some breakfast :) I had some udon while Jacq had Eggs with Toast & Tea. She also ordered some Bao to go...
I wish I had the mind to get up and take some footage, but I didn't and I'm kicking myself for it. When the bus came we headed over to the Tuas Second Links border crossing. The whole bus ended up having to wait for me while they checked my Passport n crap. I was supposed to fill out one of the white forms. No one told me until I got to the front of the line. Jacq was worried so she came back in to help me :P
After the customs crossing we got back on the bus and started over the crossing. The only thing separating Singapore and Malaysia is the Johor River (you don't know how much research it took to discover that :P thanks Jacq ;)). It looks more like a river, but I guess Singapore is plunked right in the middle of the sea. The drive over the link took roughly 5 minutes, I REALLY wish I caught it on film grr. Once we were on the other side we stopped in Gelang Patah where we were to meet with my childhood friend. It turns out he was still @ work by the time we had arrived there. We sat in a coffee shop where they were selling pirated media... They weren't being very discreet about it... After about an hour of sitting and chatting my buddy finally arrived and we were on our way! :D
I always love going on road trips, provided I am not the one who is driving. Road trips in places that I am not familiar with are the best. The sights are all new you have a feeling of not knowing anything around you, nothing tying you down. On both sides of the road you could see palm oil plantations... There were rows upon rows upon rows of palm trees... not such a common sight here in Canada. Occasionally you could see some housing developments... one thing that I noticed about M'sia is that they like to build terrace housing...
Our first stop was a rest stop somewhere before Kulai. It was a sort of glorified outhouse :p that what it seemed like to me anyways. At first I just stood around while everyone else went... then I had to go myself. The washroom was as ghetto as I thought it would be... the room was filthy, however, they did have running water...
Next was a foodcourt in the middle of nowhere. Again... we were eating :P it seems like everywhere you go in Malaysia there's a hawker stall or some foodcourt in the middle of nowhere. I don't get it, but they sure love their food! This one also had a small market on the side, but we didn't take the time to go check out what was there. Prolly some nick-knacks...
After driving down the highway for awhile, they pointed at a structure that was spanning the road... strange. Surprise, surprise... it was a foodcourt O.o spanning the highway to boot. I thought they were yanking my chain until we passed under and I saw the giant KFC neon...
Further down the road some residentials appeared from nowhere, really... there was nothing in one direction for at least 1 hr, and the other direction was the same. I don't understand... don't get me wrong... they were beautiful buildings, all new and stuff... but you have to travel soooo far just to get anywhere. I wonder how much they cost...
Eventually at the end of our 5-6 hr roadtrip we saw the signs of civilization and KL :D The Sunway Pyramid showed up! L dropped off his friends and we went on to his parents house :) It was nice to see them again!
Not long after were took a drive to L's sister's house. On the way there we drove past an 8 car accident :P At her house we got to meet L's nephew!! :D It looked like he had been born with a full head of hair! Very cute :)
Back at L's parents' house we wound down, got harassed by their JR Terrier and then got ready for bed...
Well... I've switched back to Windows XP professional and curbed Windows Vista for the time being, so I can get back to business!!!
I was soooo close to switching over to Linux or purchasing a MAC.. no, really, I was pissed. Don't get me wrong, Vista as an OS is superior to XP in that it offers alot more, has a fancier User Interface, and nifty little widgets, higher security, blah blah blah.... and I'm sure it runs like butter when you install any Microsoft Product with it... BUT... ALMOST NO THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE IS OFFICIALLY SUPPORTED!!! :@
I was almost willing to just stick it out and bear with it... but I NEED those applications to do my stuff. Something as simple as Winamp is not supported. What did that mean for me? That meant that I was not able to setup my shoutcast server. I didn't even bother to see if there was a hack solution to that problem. I didn't want to messy up my Vista install with bs hackjob solutions. I tried to install Alcohol 120% as well... just so I could make images and burn them for my co-worker... oh, and so I could make a couple of virtual drives... but nooooooooooo... I couldn't install that either.
My solution was to install Windows XP and create a dual-boot system. Easy enough, right? What a crock of shit... apparently Windows Vista and XP don't play nice... If you don't use the Vista boot disc to prepare your HD for an XP install and just decide to use the XP CD... it fracks your bootloader / partition table / don't know what else. :@
I'm no tech guru, but I have enough experience to know how to research extensively and implement my findings. Plus, it's not like I haven't built a dual boot system before... not to mention, I DID graduate from Tech College :)
So anyways, I put in the Vista Boot DVD and then realized that I hadn't partitioned my primary drive... actually, I did, but for some reason it didn't show the secondary partition. Instead of following the instructions that I found online and deallocating some space, I decided to pop in the XP CD and go from there... wow... not a good idea. Even XP couldn't see the other partition. When I tried to boot into Vista to free up some space it would do the POST.. but then just sit there, cursor blinking... fak.
When I used the Vista DVD to boot again, my primary drive wasn't showing up AT ALL!!! I was pissed... now when I used the XP CD... it DIDN'T show up!!!
After fiddling back-and-forth between the two I connected my backup drive to see if it would recognize that. Yes, it did... then when I put in the XP CD... it fracked it again... Either way I couldn't boot into my OS... And when I tried to run Vista Recovery it didn't do anything... there was no drive showing up thus no OS to install...
By this time I was irate.. and pretty anxious because my backup drive contains at least 3 years worth of data filling roughly 120 GB... about 15-20GB just music and a whole smackload of photos from over the years. Yes, I'm a pack rat :p
I remembered that a co-worker of mine had an external HD housing that I could put my SATA drives in so I drove back to my workplace at 9:30pm just so I could swap out my drives and check to see if the data was intact still. I was soooo prepared to pay a data recovery specialist some big bucks if I wasn't able to see the data on the drives... one thing that I was also upset about is that I couldn't remember if I had xferred my parents' vacation photos to my primary drive or my backup drive... that would have been 600+ photos down the drain.
After placing my drive in the housing I plugged it into my laptop and let out a sigh of relief. Everything was intact!... however, when I plugged in my primary drive, it said that it was not formatted, so ya... XP trashed the partition table!
I ended up formatting the drive and reinstalling XP... no more Vista for me, not until a Service Pack or I find out that the majority of 3rd party companies have announced Vista support. Then I'll go and purchase a new tower and build a new Vista PC. Oh yea, I had the same problem with Windows Media Center on the Final release of Vista Ultimate as I did with RC2. Even after installing the Vista Codec Pack and ensuring that my media would play on WMP 11 I fired up WMC, when I went to play the media... it told me that it couldn't find the required codecs. Screw you MS :@
If I didn't only have 1 tower, I would already be playing with Linux... and if MACs didn't cost so much... then I'd consider one of those too!!! If not just because of their awesome commercials :p
Hey boys & girls... Yes, I'm still here and yes, I still think about how I haven't been posting :(
Work has me very very busy (ya ya.. excuses)... and I've been catching up on my GTA: San Andreas :p. Also, I was in Edmonton the week before. It was nice to catch up with my cousins there. The trip was work related BTW.. and I paid an extra $28 to extend my stay :D weeeeeeeeee!
Anyhoo, hopefully I'll find the time to continue the writeup about visiting M'sia / S'pore. Actually, not hopefully.. I WILL find the time to finish them.
Another thing is that I trashed my Windows XP install while trying to get rid of the Vista RC1 dualboot install... now I'm running Vista Ultimate :D
Since I'm running Vista I haven't reinstalled my Photoshop & everything else soooo... ya, another excuse :p but I'm thinking of installing my XP and dual boot into that... meh...
People were telling me that I was very fortunate when I was over in Asia. It seems that during this time of the year (CNY) it's usually drought season... Strange thing is parts of JB were under water, and there were times in the day when the rain was coming down REALLY hard. This, of course, led to milder temperatures... which I obviously won't complain about :)
M was going to the market again today... a different one this time! We went to Ghim Moh market at Commonwealth so she could pick up her ground pork and so I could experience some more hawker food :P It looks like they take their markets, and 'marketing' pretty seriously... alot of the people have mics around their necks and are hooked up to stereos or bullhorns. There was even a guy in Chinatown who was losing his voice, regardless of the fact that he had a microphone. wth.
While M went to pick out her pork and then waited for the butcher to grind it, we all went to the food stalls. There are too many different foods to choose from. Actually, to more accurately put it, there are too many hawker stands to explore. Many of them offer the same items and choosing one or the other is a matter of personal preference. I'm told that if a stall bears the mark of actor Adrian Pang and the show 'Makan King' then Singaporeans do what many of them do best... begin queuing up!
Anyway, after walking around looking at all the different stalls (and being as wishywashy as I am) I let Jacq choose my meal for me :) I had the Lor Mee & Grass Jelly Drink while Jacq had Fried Sliced Fish Mee Hoon. That hit the spot... I was still a little bit worried because my grass jelly drink came with ice. Even though I know Singapore has very high sanitation standards I can't help but feel reluctant to put a piece of ice in my mouth, especially when I'm in a market eating hawker food. The last time I had hawker ice (in Malaysia) I ended up bed-ridden for 4-5 days and having to eat charcoal pills to purge everything from my system... that sucked arse.
Another interesting thing that I forgot to mention in my other post is... parking coupons. I have to say, the S'porean gov't is brilliant. Here everywhere we go, we have to get out and slot coins into meters, grab a ticket from a box and place on our dash, or slot a card or something when we park. It's a system that we've been using forever and it's probably going to stay that way for awhile. In S'pore, almost ALL parking is prepaid! If it's not coupons that you punch out, then it's the prepaid cards that are mounted on your windshield. Granted, I can see why some people would not want to put those on their car. Apparently, they drill through the glass to get that little electronic box mounted on there. BUT... for that little inconvenience you can go to many underground parking lots and just drive slowly through as you hear a little beep. The drawback to this is... you never really realize how much money is going into parking because you never see anything leave your hands... and that's the genius of it all. The government sees all the money before the citizens get the benefits!
Onward... Jacq decided to take me to Chinatown that day :) Chinatown over there is alot nicer than Chinatown in Vancouver. Our Chinatown covers an area of about 5 blocks by 5 blocks... I'm not even 100% sure about that... the area between Keefer & Union, Gore & Jackson are like thte Chinese Projects. Some people will argue that but I knew someone who lived in there.. and trust me, it's like the projects. Just west of that the 4 blocks between Hastings & Union, Main & Gore is the main Market area of our Chinatown... there are, of course, more restaurants and other storefronts even further west for the next couple of blocks, but it trickles off.
Singapore's Chinatown kicked arse... they even had a FOOD STREET!!! wth :D Unfortunately, during the time that we were there we didn't go down that way. I briefly stopped to take a shot of the street. The only one place that Jacq wanted me to try (in Chinatown) was a place that served Frog Congee... *sigh* it wasn't open when we went so I didn't get to try it. While we were ther, however, I saw one of the crazy long queues that I'd heard so much about. During CNY people like to give out BAKKWA it's a sort of overrated (hope I'm not offending anyone :P) beef jerky that's given out as a gift. Sure, some of them ARE pretty good.. but it's still not worth queuing up for like this...
And it's all because of places like this...
I'm thinking that the closest thing that we have to Bakkwa here is the Soo Jerkey that we can buy here... but then again, I haven't gone looking for it here, soooo.. don't take my word for it ;)
Aside from all the beautiful red decor there were stores that made it blatantly obvious that it was CNY...
Towards the end of one of the streets there was a stall setup where you could go to get your name put on a Chinese Name Seal. There were two of them... it was obvious that one of them was the Master and the other one was the Prodege. Anyways, I took some footage of the guy when he was making my seal. I requested that he do it in the traditional (old style) characters... It's very impressive because they don't use any clamps, and they only use one tool throughout the whole process...
Just a heads-up the video is over 18 minutes long... enjoy...
Here's some footage of the Master doing a carving, how could I tell? well, first of all he's not leaning on the table. Secondly... it took him a fraction of the time carve the name.. and he did it freehand!
[oops... haven't recompressed the vid yet :(]
Just around the corner from the carver stand was Sri Mariamman Temple, the designs were elaborate and statues of cows and a lion looked on from atop the ledge. Towards the entrance was a tower of platforms held up by statues. I'm told it is a Tamil temple. Apparently my sister tried to take pictures of the temple when she was there last year... they allow photos from the outside, but when it comes to photos from the inside, you have to pay. I didn't bother trying to find that out for myself so we crossed the street and took photos from there :)
Round and round Chinatown we walked, it was much of the same thing... nick knacks here-and-there... immitation brands everywhere... we got tired from walking in and out of stores and then found the foodcourt area, right across from the Chinatown Heritage Centre, a storefront with a museum in the back. The man that served us was an older man, he reminded me of my grandfather. Jacq and I ordered some popia and some sort of kway, it wasn't bad, the old man gave us a special price :)
While we were eating then deciding where to go next it began to piss down rain... I hadn't seen a heavy rain like that in ages. People here complains when it rains hard but they don't know what HEAVY RAIN is. Not until you've experienced Tropical Torrential downpours. We had to yell at each other just to hear what each other were saying :P See for yourself...
When the rain finally stopped we took the MRT over to VIVO CITY, the newest shopping mall in Singapore. Vivo City is linked to Harbour Front and from there you can take the new Mnorail over to Sentosa Island. Something that wasn't there when I was visiting last year. While walking around we found my favorite store... only to be disappointed when I stepped in, it was womens only! :@ Yes, I was upset.. I was hoping to be able to get some cheap Mexx clothing :( While exploring kids' stores and looking for gifts for people we ran into Toys 'R' Us and this sight...
Wow... we don't have those over here!
Oh yeah.. before I forget, we saw this creepy sight in Chinatown too...
Time for me to get some rest, I'm sure we did something that evening as well... I think it was dinner with Mary, but I don't have those photos prepared atm, so I'll see if I can add them later.. ciao for now!
Day 2 began with a trip to the market with mary :)... She had to go see the fish monger and pick up some prawns... or something :p We all headed off to Farrer Market. I always liked the markets in Asia, there's so much going on there... and the Asian markets have a different air about them, it's not the same as going to the market when you're in Canada.
We don't have people screaming at you to buy things... we don't have people wearing headsets broadcasting what they're selling over loud speakers, crazy stuff... our markets don't feel like real markets. They don't even smell the same as the markets elsewhere... they're too clean.
Another reason for us to go to the market was for me to taste some more of the local food :) In Vancouver it's hard to get a decent plate of Char Kway Teow, and when you can find one it costs you your arm and possibly a leg as well. In Singapore... it costs $2 in most places and they're all better than the ones that we get in Vancouver.
Mary ordered us a Pancake thingy (forgot the name) and 2 Roti Prata...
Jacq ordered the Lor Mee. She's a noodle person and I'm more of a rice person :) and She can eat stuff that's damn spicy. I'm not just talking as a Canadian... per se, cuz I can take things that are pretty spicy, the stuff that she can take is insane! I stopped doing that to my body looooong ago ;) After we ate Mary brought us over to her fish monger... while we were there we ran into... none other than...
Jackie Chan!!! He was doing a shoot in the market, posing as a fish monger O.o... wait... ok, fine. It wasn't Jackie Chan, but the resemblance is pretty good :) He REALLY looks like Jackie from other angles, I was laughing when I saw him... btw, Chris still thinks that it's him ;) Mary has run into Jackie twice before and gotten his autograph :), not the fish monger, the REAL Jackie Chan.
When we were done at the market M dropped us off @ Holland Village. I wanted to have a look at the cameras and M recommended one of the shops there. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough information from my dad (he wanted me to pick up a camera) so I was not able to compare the price and make a purchase.
Holland Village is a pretty nice area... there are a variety of little cafes, hawker stalls and more contemporary watering holes tucked away in that area... one of the more interesting ones is Eski Bar.
When I was in Singapore last year, my good friend Leon brought me there... crazy stuff. There's a sub-zero degree bar where you can go and have a drink while you freeze your balls off... coming from a colder climate like Canada, it's still fekkin cold... like stepping into a meat freezer. Apparently people go in there wearing their everyday clothes... a round is ordered and the first one that can't take the cold and has to leave has to foot the bill :D funny :P.
** k... I'm getting really hungry so I'm going to continue this post later... ** btw.. I'm in Tokyo on my 12hr layover as I'm typing this up... :'(
Ok ok... On with the tour :) While we were sauntering around Holland V I noticed some weird little signs on top of the tables... It appears that Singapore has put in place a no-smoking ban... even in outdoor areas...
Interesting. Kinda stupid if you ask me. We have a no-smoking ban in Vancouver as well, but it's restricted to indoor areas and within a 10 foot radius of entrance ways (or something). What's the point of banning smoking outdoors? The smoke is going to travel anyways. Blah.
A map of the path we took around the Esplanade area :)
After Holland Village, we headed down by the Fullerton Hotel, by the Boat Quay/Esplanade Park area. It's interesting to see the mix of modern vs. colonial structures all over the place. One thing that struck me is all the colonial buildings look VERY well maintained. The structures are beautiful and spotless :) Just across from the Fullerton Hotel was the Cavenagh Bridge with an interesting sign posted... I can't imagine many Cattle and Horses in the city :p
Granted, it's also an historical term used to describe Asian laborers, but I'm sure that when Americans or Canadians stumble upon this they're trying to figure out what the government was thinking when they posted the description. I was surprised, because Singapore seems to pride itself in its ability to keep up-to-date with Western trends and be politically correct with everything (catering to everyone... al la 4 national languages, etc...) yet they still chose to use those particular words.
If you look further down the water you can see the Boat Quay. Apparently there are boat rides that you can enjoy while you're there. They will ferry you around the Singapore river and drop you off where you desire (or something ;)). It would have been nice to go on a ride, but I was having such a great time just being with Jacq ;)
Contrast between new and old... and a reminder of the days when children used to play in the Singapore river.
After taking a couple more random shots, we headed over the smaller bridge, I'll just call it Fullerton Bridge because I don't remember what it's called :P On the other side there was an old man with a cart. I was wondering what he was selling and Jacq suddenly got excited :) He was selling some funky Ice Cream Sandwiches. I hadn't seen anything like that over here but I definitely wish we had them too :).
Moving on, we reached the Singapore National Museum, another colonial structure...
Right next to it is the Victoria Memorial Building, on the left-side is the Victoria Theatre and on the right-side is the Victoria Memorial...
We sauntered around for a bit and read about some of the history behind the buildings... and then we walked towards Fullerton Road. There were lanterns strung all above the roads, you could tell that they were preparing for a CNY celebration.
We walked North on Connaught Drive, along side Esplanade park... It was amazing how elaborate the setup was... It looked like the Esplanade park celebration was going to be a big one.
I was wondering if it was gov't sponsored but then I noticed that each display had a banner associated with it... (or I associated the banners with each display :P). Still, somehow I can see the gov't dumping quite a large sum of money into decorating the city for the holiday :)
We continued down Connaught Drive along the park eventually we cut through to get to the underpass that led to the Esplanade... The Esplanade houses Theatres on the Bay (official site).
On the way towards the building we were approached by a Filipino student selling trinkets to raise money for her schooling... she wasn't so bad, we said, "no" and she left. What pissed me off was that she told one of her other 'partners' to talk to us, EVEN after we made it clear that we didn't want anything, WTF. If you don't have enough money to school in another country, don't go.
Below is footage of the front of the Esplanade buildings... some say they look like Dolly Parton's boobs :P others say they look like 2 Durians...
Here's a map of the site...
Inside the building was a nice little lounge area, the air-con welcomed us as we cooled our heels. There was a library, various restaurants & other establishments, some shops... then we went out by the water to sit under some trees and take in the scenery...
After awhile we began to make our way back across Esplanade Drive over towards the Fullerton Hotel again :) as we walked under the bridge I saw some people loitering under it... people trying to get out of the sun.. but loitering nonetheless. I also noticed that it was mostly Indonesian or Bengali workers who liked to do this... Not once did I catch a Chinese person doing something like this... I pretended to pose as Jacq took the photos of them in the background :P
Back across the way we walked to the Cavenagh Bridge to cross it :) and backtrack to the edge of Esplanade Park again... that's where I saw the little Zodiac Animal display that we had missed the first time we were there... yes, I know there are 12 animals in the Zodiac... I got 10, not sure what happened there :p can you spot the missing animals? ;)
We cut across the large field to St. Andrews Rd and I snapped a picture of this building... I think it's a courthouse, I also think that there's a good chance that I am wrong, hehe. So don't take my word on it. I'm going to leave it at that, because this post is already taking waaaaay too long so I'm not going to look it up at this time :P
Jacq and I walked to the Citylink where we saw more people loitering... this time it was more disturbing because the people were just sleeping there on the floor... and it wasn't outdoors. The underground link is actually quite a nice place. It's spotless and the floors are nice and shiny... this is something that we don't get in Vancouver, we get them outdoors, but not indoors...
Jacq brought me inside the Citylink mall to do somemore shopping, but by that time we were both spent... all we wanted was food. There was a nifty little place called New York, New York. I was hankering for some 'American' food. On the way through the restaurant I was doing a little window shopping and just looking around when I saw this bizarre display :P
New York New York is a restaurant made to capture the American spirit... The walls are graffittied with American sights and articles and their menu contains 'American' foods... unfortunately, they don't give 'American Quality of service' :P We had a look at the menu and I HAD to order the Crazy Dog :P a 12" hotdog on a 4" bun :D I wanted to see if it looked (in real-life) as it did in the photo. Jacq ordered the Spaghetti Bolognaise and told me a story as we were waiting for the food :) Oh yea, I also ordered a Root Beer Float to drink :)
We were stuffed by the end of the meal and decided to call it a day... we waited for the bill while all the waiters ignored us. And when they finally brought us the bill and I left money, they took their sweet time to bring our change back. So long, in fact, that I got up to get it myself :P Ah, well... enough for now... this was only day 2!!!
Hello hello... time for me to make some use of the time I have outside of work... and maybe some time @ work too :p What have I been doing since the last time I was blogging? I guess I'll sum it up.
