Actually I mentioned Melaka some postings back. So pls click on Melaka Trip for a refresher of our trip back in history.
Enjoy!
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Seat Belt saves. Take it seriously!
It was not our usual Sunday when I got a call from my good friend mentioning the demise of a mutual acquaintance. He was suspected to have been knocked from behind that sent his minivan careening down a slope. The car overturned many times and he was thrown out of the car. When the car came to a stop, his head was under the car and he suffered severe trauma on the head and body.
He died instantly.
The firemen took 15 minutes to extract his body whose head was under the severly damaged car. The sad part was that if he was wearing his seat belt, he would not have been thrown out of the car and would have survived the accident. Another friend had a similar accident and his car went turtle after turning several rounds but his seat belt kept him in place and he suffered only minor injuries.
The police suspected that he was driving fast and that he was not wearing his seat belt when he was alledgedly knocked from behind. But regardless, driving safe and wearing your seat belt will save lives. If not yours, at least your love ones.
I was pissed when the government issued the law for back seat folks to buckle up, that means I can't take too many people anymore. Now I realize that it's a small price to pay for our lives.
So buckle up and stay safe. Have a safe trip wherever you are.
He died instantly.
The firemen took 15 minutes to extract his body whose head was under the severly damaged car. The sad part was that if he was wearing his seat belt, he would not have been thrown out of the car and would have survived the accident. Another friend had a similar accident and his car went turtle after turning several rounds but his seat belt kept him in place and he suffered only minor injuries.
The police suspected that he was driving fast and that he was not wearing his seat belt when he was alledgedly knocked from behind. But regardless, driving safe and wearing your seat belt will save lives. If not yours, at least your love ones.
I was pissed when the government issued the law for back seat folks to buckle up, that means I can't take too many people anymore. Now I realize that it's a small price to pay for our lives.
So buckle up and stay safe. Have a safe trip wherever you are.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
We Won! We Won! Just what the heck did we win?
And who are these "we"? I am refering to the Kuala Trengganu by-election that was won by the opposition party from BN. BN won this seat by a paper thin 600+ margin and now loses it by 2000+ margin. So the changes that people are asking for is still strong from the March 2008 general elections. But it comes back to what is it that we have won and are all of us part of the "we"?
I am not a proponent of BN, that's for sure. With the kind of goobers we have in office, we are better off governed by the inhabitants of our zoo. We were once one of the 4 tigers of Asia together with Singapore, Taiwan and Korea. Now we are a lame, limping, government depending, race totting has been. At best we are an extinct economy. All the good work that was done in the last 20 years are regressing terribly. In this case I have to fault my hero, Tun Dr Mahathir.
I am not delusional to think he was not corrupted but he had the decency to ensure the country and its people is taken of. In a new country like Malaysia, full democracy will not work. We do need some despot to be brave enough to make tough decisions for the country and lead people to the next level. We don't need despots like Suharto or Marcos who have sucked the country dry for their own well being and have left the people in poverty. I don't mind that a politician is corrupted but as long as the country and people prosper, everyone wins in the long run.
However, Tun Mahathir has made a terrible mistake and for the situation in the country now, I hold him accountable. He had all the power within to set it right and he gave it to the most incompetent dwarves of all....Sleepy and Dopey. Now we are stuck with this comedic team who has all kinds of assholes (that's right, I said it!!!!) running the show for them. From making a mockery out of our justice system to slander and murder.
Our opposition is no better. PAS thinks they are truly blessed people of God or Allah by interpreting the Quran to their own believes and power. They think by telling Muslim kids not to play with non-Muslim kids is Islamic and what Allah has preached. They think raping their daughters is ok or raping is not their fault when the raped woman is pretty. She had it coming!
DAP is all about making noise and whining when things don't go their way. They now have a chance to govern a state and all they do is whine. I have yet to read a good thing they are doing in helping Penangites keep their jobs or ensuring that the MNC factories stay here and not uproot because of Sleepy and Dopey.
PKR is all about ensuring Anwar becomes PM so that he can stick it to his former employers and masters. Come on guys, he came from the system. He got greedy in 1998 and wanted to become PM then and got burned BIG time. I won't even talk about his bi-sexuality. Nothing PKR done has helped any of us. First it was about the petrol price which the government very cleverly just lowered according to world price. Then it was about MPs jumping ships. I don't want those MPs if they are looking to jump after the people voted for them!
Now, it's all silence. Nothing anyone has said looks to helping our country in our time of need. I feel very sad for us and it will get worse when more people leave and less investments comes in. So don't tell me we have won. They day I see some serious actions in driving palm oil usage, oil royalty money used wisely, manufacturing of unique products like plastic, chemicals and bio-science and a clear strategy on how we intend to leverage the MSC to build our service industry, its the day we win something.
Now we are just losing out mile by mile against our neighbours and whether it is Dopey as PM or Anwar, we are just as screwed. So, we should follow the Americans and be brave enough to face change. Someone who can put together multiple races and truly, truly knows how to live is multiple different cultures. Only a Chindian can save us now.
I am not a proponent of BN, that's for sure. With the kind of goobers we have in office, we are better off governed by the inhabitants of our zoo. We were once one of the 4 tigers of Asia together with Singapore, Taiwan and Korea. Now we are a lame, limping, government depending, race totting has been. At best we are an extinct economy. All the good work that was done in the last 20 years are regressing terribly. In this case I have to fault my hero, Tun Dr Mahathir.
I am not delusional to think he was not corrupted but he had the decency to ensure the country and its people is taken of. In a new country like Malaysia, full democracy will not work. We do need some despot to be brave enough to make tough decisions for the country and lead people to the next level. We don't need despots like Suharto or Marcos who have sucked the country dry for their own well being and have left the people in poverty. I don't mind that a politician is corrupted but as long as the country and people prosper, everyone wins in the long run.
However, Tun Mahathir has made a terrible mistake and for the situation in the country now, I hold him accountable. He had all the power within to set it right and he gave it to the most incompetent dwarves of all....Sleepy and Dopey. Now we are stuck with this comedic team who has all kinds of assholes (that's right, I said it!!!!) running the show for them. From making a mockery out of our justice system to slander and murder.
Our opposition is no better. PAS thinks they are truly blessed people of God or Allah by interpreting the Quran to their own believes and power. They think by telling Muslim kids not to play with non-Muslim kids is Islamic and what Allah has preached. They think raping their daughters is ok or raping is not their fault when the raped woman is pretty. She had it coming!
DAP is all about making noise and whining when things don't go their way. They now have a chance to govern a state and all they do is whine. I have yet to read a good thing they are doing in helping Penangites keep their jobs or ensuring that the MNC factories stay here and not uproot because of Sleepy and Dopey.
PKR is all about ensuring Anwar becomes PM so that he can stick it to his former employers and masters. Come on guys, he came from the system. He got greedy in 1998 and wanted to become PM then and got burned BIG time. I won't even talk about his bi-sexuality. Nothing PKR done has helped any of us. First it was about the petrol price which the government very cleverly just lowered according to world price. Then it was about MPs jumping ships. I don't want those MPs if they are looking to jump after the people voted for them!
Now, it's all silence. Nothing anyone has said looks to helping our country in our time of need. I feel very sad for us and it will get worse when more people leave and less investments comes in. So don't tell me we have won. They day I see some serious actions in driving palm oil usage, oil royalty money used wisely, manufacturing of unique products like plastic, chemicals and bio-science and a clear strategy on how we intend to leverage the MSC to build our service industry, its the day we win something.
Now we are just losing out mile by mile against our neighbours and whether it is Dopey as PM or Anwar, we are just as screwed. So, we should follow the Americans and be brave enough to face change. Someone who can put together multiple races and truly, truly knows how to live is multiple different cultures. Only a Chindian can save us now.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Listen or I will cut something off!
We are going through the fever of another by-election in Kuala Trengganu. Everything today can be politicized and build to epic propostions under the guise of "making it better for the people". The latest is the Malaysia's opposition party's wanting to implement the "hudud" law if they came into power.
Briefly defined by Wikipedia, hudud is "Hudud (Arabic حدود, also transliterated hadud, hudood; singular hadd, حد, literal meaning "limit", or "restriction") is the word often used in Islamic literature for the bounds of acceptable behaviour and the punishments for serious crimes. In Islamic law or Sharia, hudud usually refers to the class of punishments that are fixed for certain crimes that are considered to be "claims of God."
The offenses under hudud are:-
Drinking alcohol (sharb al-khamr, شرب الخمر)
1. Theft (sariqa, السرقة)
2. Highway robbery (qat' al-tariq, قطع الطريق)
3. Illegal sexual intercourse (zina', الزناء)
4. False accusation of zina' (qadhf, القذف) [1][3]
5. Rebellion against the ruler (sedition or high treason)
6. Apostasy (irtidād or ridda, ارتداد) includes blasphemy.
Punishments include:-
1. Capital punishments - by sword/crucifixion (for highway robbery with homicide), by stoning (for zina' when the offenders are mature, married Muslims)
2. Amputation of hands or feet (for theft and highway robbery without homicide)
3. Flogging with a varying number of strokes (for drinking, zina' when the offenders are unmarried or not Muslims, and false accusations of zina')
The beauty of the hudud law are the requirements for conviction. They are:-
"Only eye-witness testimony and confession were admitted. For eye-witness testimony, the number of witnesses required was doubled from Islamic law's usual standard of two to four. Moreover, only the testimony of free adult Muslim males was acceptable (in non-hudud cases the testimony of women, non-Muslims and slaves could be admitted in certain circumstances). A confession had to be repeated four times, the confessor had to be in a healthy state of mind, and he or she could retract the confession at any point before punishment."
So this seems to leave a lot to the discretion of certain people who have to be very trustworthy when left in charge. These laws and applications probably made sense during the time of the Prophet Mohammad but in these days where law and order are more matured and men are more crooked, I don't think it is applicable anymore. There needs to be more check and balance when it comes to the application of such laws.
How do you trust only one eye witness and one jury to pass judgement and punishment even if the crime cannot be proven?? Can you trust people who can blow others up with C4 to this kind of power? Or those who have no regard for other races and drum up their mosque loud speakers 5 times a day or those who call non-Muslim names and try to deprive them of basic civil rights??
If at all, leave the hudud to the Muslim folks and let it be applicable to them. I don't really care. But the hudud needs to be applicable to all, including those who are championing it now like those PAS cretins.
A more rationale way would be to study the law and evolve it to suit a multi-religious society. We don't have to adopt all of hudud. After all, the hudud law while being an Islamic law is also just a set of regulations that can be passed through the parliament. Just like our moronic ISA which states that you can be held indefinitely without trial (I think they may have changed it to 2 years...like that makes it better). So non-Muslims need to be clear how this will impact us.
From the looks of it, the full definition is obviously not for us. I mean for a Chindian, pork and alcohol are our staple diet. It's like telling a Malay that he/she has to work for a living and not depend on government hand outs. That would kill them, just like it will kill us pork loving, alcohol chugging and hard working non-Malays. (I realized I just made a race base generalization but like I said before, if God didn't want us to make race based generalization, he wouldn't have given us races).
So, as with the arrogant leaders of this country, no one feels the need to explain things to anyone and they just go about implementing policies as they see fit. When there is a protest, we are threatened with ISA or some other stupid name calling crap. I do hope hudud is passed so that we could use it to kick these idiots with it. For lying, we will cut off their tongue and for blowing somebody up with C4, we will stuff every orifice with C4 to blow them up. Hey, seems like hudud not so bad after all.
Briefly defined by Wikipedia, hudud is "Hudud (Arabic حدود, also transliterated hadud, hudood; singular hadd, حد, literal meaning "limit", or "restriction") is the word often used in Islamic literature for the bounds of acceptable behaviour and the punishments for serious crimes. In Islamic law or Sharia, hudud usually refers to the class of punishments that are fixed for certain crimes that are considered to be "claims of God."
The offenses under hudud are:-
Drinking alcohol (sharb al-khamr, شرب الخمر)
1. Theft (sariqa, السرقة)
2. Highway robbery (qat' al-tariq, قطع الطريق)
3. Illegal sexual intercourse (zina', الزناء)
4. False accusation of zina' (qadhf, القذف) [1][3]
5. Rebellion against the ruler (sedition or high treason)
6. Apostasy (irtidād or ridda, ارتداد) includes blasphemy.
Punishments include:-
1. Capital punishments - by sword/crucifixion (for highway robbery with homicide), by stoning (for zina' when the offenders are mature, married Muslims)
2. Amputation of hands or feet (for theft and highway robbery without homicide)
3. Flogging with a varying number of strokes (for drinking, zina' when the offenders are unmarried or not Muslims, and false accusations of zina')
The beauty of the hudud law are the requirements for conviction. They are:-
"Only eye-witness testimony and confession were admitted. For eye-witness testimony, the number of witnesses required was doubled from Islamic law's usual standard of two to four. Moreover, only the testimony of free adult Muslim males was acceptable (in non-hudud cases the testimony of women, non-Muslims and slaves could be admitted in certain circumstances). A confession had to be repeated four times, the confessor had to be in a healthy state of mind, and he or she could retract the confession at any point before punishment."
So this seems to leave a lot to the discretion of certain people who have to be very trustworthy when left in charge. These laws and applications probably made sense during the time of the Prophet Mohammad but in these days where law and order are more matured and men are more crooked, I don't think it is applicable anymore. There needs to be more check and balance when it comes to the application of such laws.
How do you trust only one eye witness and one jury to pass judgement and punishment even if the crime cannot be proven?? Can you trust people who can blow others up with C4 to this kind of power? Or those who have no regard for other races and drum up their mosque loud speakers 5 times a day or those who call non-Muslim names and try to deprive them of basic civil rights??
If at all, leave the hudud to the Muslim folks and let it be applicable to them. I don't really care. But the hudud needs to be applicable to all, including those who are championing it now like those PAS cretins.
A more rationale way would be to study the law and evolve it to suit a multi-religious society. We don't have to adopt all of hudud. After all, the hudud law while being an Islamic law is also just a set of regulations that can be passed through the parliament. Just like our moronic ISA which states that you can be held indefinitely without trial (I think they may have changed it to 2 years...like that makes it better). So non-Muslims need to be clear how this will impact us.
From the looks of it, the full definition is obviously not for us. I mean for a Chindian, pork and alcohol are our staple diet. It's like telling a Malay that he/she has to work for a living and not depend on government hand outs. That would kill them, just like it will kill us pork loving, alcohol chugging and hard working non-Malays. (I realized I just made a race base generalization but like I said before, if God didn't want us to make race based generalization, he wouldn't have given us races).
So, as with the arrogant leaders of this country, no one feels the need to explain things to anyone and they just go about implementing policies as they see fit. When there is a protest, we are threatened with ISA or some other stupid name calling crap. I do hope hudud is passed so that we could use it to kick these idiots with it. For lying, we will cut off their tongue and for blowing somebody up with C4, we will stuff every orifice with C4 to blow them up. Hey, seems like hudud not so bad after all.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Part IV : Pearl of the Orient, Pulau Pinang
One of my favourite states who was accorded the name "Pearl of the Orient" for its simplicity yet complete, charming yet bashful and all-round good-time-having place. It has since lost a lot of that and while the name has not been taken away, it is not being used much. Penang is a bustling state with its capital Georgetown (motto : We can drive on the roof if necessary) splitting at its seams. There is just no more way to widen the roads here or create more highways without crashing into its rocky middle. They can consider building the highway into the sea like in some parts of Hong Kong.
There isn't anywhere that you can go without either hitting a restaurant, coffee shop or hawker center as well as a traffic jam. Wonderfully though, they have been added to UNESCO's World Heritage List. For one thing Penang will always be rich in, is history and culture....and carbohydrate.
It is definitely the place to get FAT! The food (while has been more commercialized) is still gorgeous. Just a note to you gullible folks out there, Hokkien Mee, Char Kuey Teow, Prawn Mee, just to name a few, made its name in Penang. NOT Singapore. That's just a bunch of copy cats who are just leaching off the success of Malaysia as always.
You can get good food almost anywhere in Penang. There are some of my favourites like the:-
1) Sotong Mee (Squid Noodles) at Fort Cornwallis. They cook the Mee Mamak with the Rojak Sotong sauce. It is soooo good and spicy. Don't forget to order the coconut float while you are at it.
2) I love Kuay Chap which is lean pork and bits (spare parts) in light soya sauce with thinly sliced rice noodle. Check it out at Kimberly Street.
3) I also enjoy Assam Laksa at Kek Lok Si. While this may be one of the most unhygienic places, I find it worth the while but it is definitely not for the faint hearted and weak stomach.
4) Pulau Tikus Char Kuey Teow to me far surpass "The Sisters" Char Kuey Teow at Lorong Selamat. They use duck egg instead of chicken egg (not sure why but is seems to taste a wee-bit better) and they are not as pricey.
5) Ais Kacang at Lorong Selamat still managed to retained its charm and hope for a long time to come.
5) Banana leaf rice at Jalan Perkerja called Kerala. They cook to order so the food is piping hot and fresh.
6) Hawker Centers near Sunway Hotel, Batu Ferringi, Green Lane and along Gurney Drive.
There are also very interesting places to stay and check out in Penang. My favourites are Northam, Gurney and Rasa Sayang. I don't mind the E&O which is very historical and has excellent architecture. However, its haunted. The last time I stayed there, I was awaken by people running along the corridors in the middle of the night. I thought it was an emergency so I opened the door to look outside. Just before I opened the door, I could still shadows of people running from under the door but when I opened it, there was nothing in the corridors. Believe it or not.
You can also find out which places you can go to in Penang from any website or brochure as Penang is truly a targeted tourist spot. They have very nice shopping malls for your shopping needs and tons of Buddhist, Hindu and Thai temples, churches, old Government houses and cultural houses that will showcase the many cultures and history of Penang. The 2 places I truly enjoy are the night market in Batu Ferringi and the War Museum at Batu Maung.
The night market has many eating stalls and flea market type merchandizes. You can bargain for your favourite items but be sure to tell them you are local and not a tourist.
The War Museum really used to be an army camp for the British with 2 large gun pointing out to see. The barracks, mess, offices and dungeons are long abandoned and is now donned by photos and articles of the war. While it was under Japanese rule, there is a tree stump which was used to behead war criminals by the Japanese. It is not a place to visit alone or in the evenings.
So take a ride along the Penang Bridge from the mainland or if you are a romantic, ride on the ever present and reliable ferries that are still plying the short straits as they have been for decades to Penang Island. And let your senses be thrilled and your gastromic needs satisfied.
There isn't anywhere that you can go without either hitting a restaurant, coffee shop or hawker center as well as a traffic jam. Wonderfully though, they have been added to UNESCO's World Heritage List. For one thing Penang will always be rich in, is history and culture....and carbohydrate.
It is definitely the place to get FAT! The food (while has been more commercialized) is still gorgeous. Just a note to you gullible folks out there, Hokkien Mee, Char Kuey Teow, Prawn Mee, just to name a few, made its name in Penang. NOT Singapore. That's just a bunch of copy cats who are just leaching off the success of Malaysia as always.
You can get good food almost anywhere in Penang. There are some of my favourites like the:-
1) Sotong Mee (Squid Noodles) at Fort Cornwallis. They cook the Mee Mamak with the Rojak Sotong sauce. It is soooo good and spicy. Don't forget to order the coconut float while you are at it.
2) I love Kuay Chap which is lean pork and bits (spare parts) in light soya sauce with thinly sliced rice noodle. Check it out at Kimberly Street.
3) I also enjoy Assam Laksa at Kek Lok Si. While this may be one of the most unhygienic places, I find it worth the while but it is definitely not for the faint hearted and weak stomach.
4) Pulau Tikus Char Kuey Teow to me far surpass "The Sisters" Char Kuey Teow at Lorong Selamat. They use duck egg instead of chicken egg (not sure why but is seems to taste a wee-bit better) and they are not as pricey.
5) Ais Kacang at Lorong Selamat still managed to retained its charm and hope for a long time to come.
5) Banana leaf rice at Jalan Perkerja called Kerala. They cook to order so the food is piping hot and fresh.
6) Hawker Centers near Sunway Hotel, Batu Ferringi, Green Lane and along Gurney Drive.
There are also very interesting places to stay and check out in Penang. My favourites are Northam, Gurney and Rasa Sayang. I don't mind the E&O which is very historical and has excellent architecture. However, its haunted. The last time I stayed there, I was awaken by people running along the corridors in the middle of the night. I thought it was an emergency so I opened the door to look outside. Just before I opened the door, I could still shadows of people running from under the door but when I opened it, there was nothing in the corridors. Believe it or not.
You can also find out which places you can go to in Penang from any website or brochure as Penang is truly a targeted tourist spot. They have very nice shopping malls for your shopping needs and tons of Buddhist, Hindu and Thai temples, churches, old Government houses and cultural houses that will showcase the many cultures and history of Penang. The 2 places I truly enjoy are the night market in Batu Ferringi and the War Museum at Batu Maung.
The night market has many eating stalls and flea market type merchandizes. You can bargain for your favourite items but be sure to tell them you are local and not a tourist.
The War Museum really used to be an army camp for the British with 2 large gun pointing out to see. The barracks, mess, offices and dungeons are long abandoned and is now donned by photos and articles of the war. While it was under Japanese rule, there is a tree stump which was used to behead war criminals by the Japanese. It is not a place to visit alone or in the evenings.
So take a ride along the Penang Bridge from the mainland or if you are a romantic, ride on the ever present and reliable ferries that are still plying the short straits as they have been for decades to Penang Island. And let your senses be thrilled and your gastromic needs satisfied.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Happy New Year!!
It seems only proper that I post something on the first day of 2009. I'm not sure why. It was still a hectic day for me on the first day of 2009. Still much shopping to be done for Chinese New Year (have to do the Kiasu thing since the sale ends on the 4th) and of course school opening. I was out all day from 11am until 10pm. But last night was a blast. We opted to head out to the Curve where they had their annual countdown carnival/concert/fireworks thing but mainly because of Rynn Lin.
We went in around 6pm. Did a bit of shopping and had dinner while we waited for the concert to begin at around 8.30pm. There was a host of local artists but we were there to see Rynn Lin who happens to be a favourite of my daughter and wife. When he was escorted pass us by security, my wife jumped out and waved in front of his face while screaming his name!
I was afraid of 2 things then. First, she may have been wrestled to the ground or she may injure herself thinking she is still 17. But Rynn was really cool. He just smiled and was kinda amused with this "girl" jumping in front of him. There were other artists which were actually not bad and I feel kinda guilty not taking the trouble to know our own singers. Anyhoo, the concert went right up to midnight, we had our normal countdown, then the hugging, fireworks and all those queasy SMSs wishing you well from people who normally wouldn't call you but will send you these SMSs just to fulfill an obligation, making you guilty and you crack your head trying to figure out a reply, even if you don't know who sent you those messages.
So the only real winners are the telco operators who make a killing during festive seasons on SMS revenue. It was an interesting situation at the Curve. They sealed off the roads to accommodate the building of the stage but then lots of people didn't know how to get it since there was no signs to route you. So when we were came in, there were lots of parking spaces and very little people at the mall. It was very weird ro know there's a party happening later but hardly anyone's around. Most people came a lot later and parked by the roads outside.
We had steamboat dinner at the Pulau Ketam steamboat restaurant at Ikano. I found it to be very relaxing and quaint. We each had our own pot to cook our "ration" from the set we ordered but the soup was good, adequate and service was not bad. So it was a reasonable dinner since most places were packed with set menus that cost half my retirement fund. We rather enjoyed it and took a very leisurely stroll to Baskin Robbins, finished our dessert and got a seat with a great view of the stage.
As Rynn Lim was leaving after the concert, Melissa and Mandy again jumped in front of him and this time he waved at Melissa and patted Mandy on the head, smiling graciously and said "Happy New Year!". Mandy hasn't washed her hair yet. So it was a good day for Melissa and Mandy, coming up close and personal with their favourite singer and he was really a great guy for a celebrity.
We took about an hour to get home from the Curve. Getting out of the parking lot took about 10 minutes but then everywhere was jammed up. My cousin KLY took 2 hours just to get out of the parking lot. So the girls were still talking about Rynn Lin's expression and how he smiled, etc. Mike and I just fell on the bed and were knocked out within 10 seconds. For the new year, just remember not to send me any well wishing SMSs. Send me money instead and I will pat your head to wish you well! Happy New Year readers and God Bless!!!
We went in around 6pm. Did a bit of shopping and had dinner while we waited for the concert to begin at around 8.30pm. There was a host of local artists but we were there to see Rynn Lin who happens to be a favourite of my daughter and wife. When he was escorted pass us by security, my wife jumped out and waved in front of his face while screaming his name!
I was afraid of 2 things then. First, she may have been wrestled to the ground or she may injure herself thinking she is still 17. But Rynn was really cool. He just smiled and was kinda amused with this "girl" jumping in front of him. There were other artists which were actually not bad and I feel kinda guilty not taking the trouble to know our own singers. Anyhoo, the concert went right up to midnight, we had our normal countdown, then the hugging, fireworks and all those queasy SMSs wishing you well from people who normally wouldn't call you but will send you these SMSs just to fulfill an obligation, making you guilty and you crack your head trying to figure out a reply, even if you don't know who sent you those messages.
So the only real winners are the telco operators who make a killing during festive seasons on SMS revenue. It was an interesting situation at the Curve. They sealed off the roads to accommodate the building of the stage but then lots of people didn't know how to get it since there was no signs to route you. So when we were came in, there were lots of parking spaces and very little people at the mall. It was very weird ro know there's a party happening later but hardly anyone's around. Most people came a lot later and parked by the roads outside.
We had steamboat dinner at the Pulau Ketam steamboat restaurant at Ikano. I found it to be very relaxing and quaint. We each had our own pot to cook our "ration" from the set we ordered but the soup was good, adequate and service was not bad. So it was a reasonable dinner since most places were packed with set menus that cost half my retirement fund. We rather enjoyed it and took a very leisurely stroll to Baskin Robbins, finished our dessert and got a seat with a great view of the stage.
As Rynn Lim was leaving after the concert, Melissa and Mandy again jumped in front of him and this time he waved at Melissa and patted Mandy on the head, smiling graciously and said "Happy New Year!". Mandy hasn't washed her hair yet. So it was a good day for Melissa and Mandy, coming up close and personal with their favourite singer and he was really a great guy for a celebrity.
We took about an hour to get home from the Curve. Getting out of the parking lot took about 10 minutes but then everywhere was jammed up. My cousin KLY took 2 hours just to get out of the parking lot. So the girls were still talking about Rynn Lin's expression and how he smiled, etc. Mike and I just fell on the bed and were knocked out within 10 seconds. For the new year, just remember not to send me any well wishing SMSs. Send me money instead and I will pat your head to wish you well! Happy New Year readers and God Bless!!!
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