Kim's Farewell Lunch

Just when I was looking at the calendar on my desk, it has been almost 10 months since I first joined the company. There was a cross marked on day 30/09/09 in my calendar. Yea, that reminds me that today is Kim's last day in the office. We are going to have a farewell lunch for him in the afternoon at Waterlily cafe, Puchong.



BPA-team:






Recalling back, I met Kim on my first day in the office. He was acted a bit cool that day maybe as we did not know each other well yet :). But soon as project coming up, we worked together, eat together and have fun together in the office. He is such a nice lad with lots of funny stuff to share everyday.

Kim used to be the "best" buddy of Ayu! Her dearest fighting buddy ever :p. Both used to fight with each other everyday in the office. I was enjoying so much watching that two nuts fooling each other, making fun out of each other and even till one of them gets angry or "run to the toilet" :p (Don't kick me ok - Ayu).

As project goes on, we are building up a good relationship within the team members and that is a very close bond indeed! We had movie night out together, we had team dinner, we had bowling session and we had even a wild karaoke night out at The Curve!

Sad to say that now Kim is leaving us for a better career prospect. I know that he is going to do better in his coming new job as I know that Netbeans really sucks for him :). Wishing him all the best and please don't forget to catch up with the team once in a while with some of your funny stories ok, my mate!

Ayu:
"Please do not fight with me again when i see you. hahaha".

Su Fang:
"Waiting for ur next event, organiser".

*I know you guys wanted so much to see this :)

Moving Through Herd of Cows

It has been a month since I came backed from Cambodia-Vietnam trip. I never realize that it is taking me almost a month to document down the trip in my blog. There were too many pictures taken and too many things that I would like to them all been documented down but still there was something which is more than words can say.

I find it kinda hard to express some of my feelings and experiences that I had gone through with the limited set of words I knew. Anyway, I was just not been trained up to be a professional writer anyway :). But what I am trying to do here in this blog is to make it a log book for me to document moments of my life and a ground to share my experiences with my mates. Like the movie shared below, it is a moment captured during my ride backed from Kompong Plok. We were riding our bike through a herd of cows. This particular moment gave me a feeling as if I was at India :p. We had to horn all the way to give signal to the cows to move away from our path. I really have to thank my skillful driver to squeeze our bike through big herd of them without having to make a single stop, brilliant! LOL!



Looking forward, there are year end holidays awaiting for me. Christmas celebration and New Year countdown is really something very exciting to think about. At first when I was first came backed from Cambodia-Vietnam trip, I was so excited and eagerly wanted to start my next trip in this coming year end. But after reviewing my travel budget, I just could not afford to go for another long oversea trip as I have gotta spend it on a new camera to get myself ready for next year's Beijing(China) trip. Lots of additional costs needed for that trip on items like winter wear, camera and etc. Moreover, Chinese New Year is coming and most of my family members have their birthday fall on from December to February too. Money, money and money! Every celebrations involve "burning" of money. Well, I have gotta start saving from now as there are just too much costs for me to bare in the coming 4 months.

But in another way, my company has enforced a rule that we must clear our annual leaves before new year. I still have like roughly 8 days of leaves. So anyhow, I am still having a week or 2 of holidays this year end period. I am thinking of whether I can make it for a low budget and short trip for this year end such as going to neighboring country - Singapore for Christmas countdown maybe? Well, we will see later... Stay tuned, dude :)

White Water Rafting @ Sg. Kampar

Destination:

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It has been long since we talked about going for white water rafting. I always wanted to try it out but just could not get enough people to start a trip. It was some weeks ago when Kim suggested to me about organizing a weekend rafting event. I was more than happy to accept his invitation and I remember my mate Liew was looking for people to go rafting too and so I invited him along. So the date was set to be on 26 September 2009 and I was counting down for this trip ever since.

On that morning, I met up with Liew early in the morning at the meeting point as I will be riding his car to Gopeng. As I have checked the Google Map for a rough guide on the travel time from KL - Gopeng, it was said to be roughly 2:15 hours. We decided to start our journey as early as 6:30am to be able to reach before 9am at meeting point next to Tempurung Cave (Gua Tempurung).

Along the North-South highway, we spotted quite a few of cars parking at the side of the road which was badly damaged after accident. It was day sixth of the Raya holidays and I was guessing the number of car accident will be rising again tomorrow when everyone is traveling back to KL to start school or work.

Thanks to my buddy - Liew for his amazing driving skill, we reached at the meeting point as early as 8:20 am in the morning. It was a pleasant journey on his car with some chit chatting and old times story with him. While waiting for others to arrive, I took my time to snap a few pictures of the lake next to the parking area at the entrance gate of Tempurung Cave.

8:20 am:


8:30 am:










Tempurung Cave from the entrance.


9:00 am


We got our rafting package from a tour provider - The River Bug. So as pre-agreed, they came to pick us up at 9:00 am at the Gua Tempurung's meeting point and we boarded their van to transfer to the river when everyone arrived.


It was a 20 minutes right down a small road into a rubber estate nearby. As our van was winding down the road, I saw quite a number of village houses built in the estate and that really brings up my childhood memories which I was riding bicycle down the muddy road to my aunty's house.

Upon arrival at their agent's camp, we were briefed about the basic rules for rafting at Kampar river like paddling commands, skills, capsize drills, actions when overboard or river rescue. The guide was very helpful in doing real demo to us on what to do if we fall out from the raft. He helped us to put on safety equipments like life jacket and the helmet and we were lead to the river once we were all done.

Everyone was so excited as the real moment is about to come - WATER RAFTING! We helped to put the raft into the water and slowly one by one, we boarded the raft. Now, everyone was waiting anxiously on the raft for command from our guide - Let's start and rock the river!

It was a real exciting moment as there was the first rapid right in front of us some 8 meters away. Damn, I was put at the front of the raft and I can feel my body was shivering down to my spine. Man, this is real excitement! I always dream of conquering the river with a raft!

As we were flowing towards the rapid, our guide was shouting out command for us to paddle forward! Damn, now only I know that we were lacked of teamwork :p ... As the paddling speed from both sides were not of a same pace, the raft was spinning and we were cutting down the rapid with a spinning raft :p ... It was real fun! The moment when our raft hit on the water surface down the rapid, it pushes up a wave which was high enough to wash my whole body wet! YOooo~~~ I was shouting out loud! So much of fun!


As we paddle downstream, we were riding on continuous rapids graded from class 1-3. Our guide was giving us helpful advices on how to tackle the coming rapid. After some 40 minutes ride, we reached at the resting area and our guide stopped us by the river bank and we all jumped down to the river for water fight! As I seen when I was on the raft, the water seems to be flowing slow. But the real fact was that the current under water was so strong, I was hardly able to walk against the current. I was lying down on the river and let my body float downstream and that was real fun with the astonishing view of the rain forest from both sides of the river!


After 30 minutes break, we continue downstream towards the ending point. Go go go, mates!



Right at the last rapid before our ending point, we were dropped from the raft and everybody was told to do the last body rafting down to the ending point. Everybody lined up in a queue while holding the life jacket of the person in front. So when our guide given command for us to sit down and start gliding downstream towards the last rapid.

Damn! I was not prepared at all. I was the second last person and our guide was holding my life jacket so hard until it was lifted up and strangling my neck. I was choking and it was too late, we were going down the rapid =_=! I felt that my butt was bumping on the rocks and my head went into water. The first moment when I came out from water I was trying to breath as hard as I can, but failed =_=". He was just holding it too strong. And I went into water again and came out with my mouth full of water and the third time before we were down the rapid. I was struggling and quickly put his hands off my jacket and breath as hard as I can. I ended up with my stomach full of water, I was choking but I was having real fun though :p.

The rafting event ended and we were took to the Adreline guest house for lunch.


Our outdoor canteen.


The lady was serving us food.


Everyone was starving after heavy exercise on the river moment before. With nice food put right in front of them, no more waiting and we were all started to eat!


Our lunch meal.




After lunch, I was walking around the guest house and take a few pictures.


Apparently the guest house was built along a small stream. Some of the houses were built on top of the stream too. That reminds me of mother bringing me to the rubber estate when I was small. I was put in the hut by a small stream while she headed to collect the rubber. I normally will walk down from the hut and play around the stream catching a few shrimps.


Crystal clear water flowing in the stream.




A mesmerizing rain forest view from Adreline guest house.




In case anyone who has never seen a rubber tree before, here it is. This picture was taken at the guest house and apparently the tree was used to demonstrate how to do rubber tapping as part of the eco-tourism tour package offered by them.


We were sent back to the meeting point where we met up in the morning for a quick bath or cloth change. We headed back to KL after that. Liew and I opted to go for the old road back to Tapah town before going back onto the highway. Here is some of the pictures that I took along the way. We past by small villages down the winding old road. Some of the scenery along the way was just amazing!




It was a nice weekend getaway and I think everyone was really enjoying it. A big thank you to Kim and Keat for organizing this fun trip. Another big Thank you to Liew for the pleasant journey and his courtesy for me to ride on his new Honda City sedan! I was really having fun mate catching up with you in the car with some old time stories. As promised, I am really looking forward for our next trip to Kuala Selangor in coming weeks :).


**P.S. Photos above shown during rafting was not ours but taken from a few websites as there was no camera crew that morning. :)

A Day Out @ Pulau Ketam

Destination:

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It was some months back when we spend a weekend out at the Pulau Ketam (literally means Crab's Island). I remember we complaint about boring weekends doing some routine stuff like going back to home town then sitting there doing nothing for the whole afternoon and waited till evening for a family dinner. It was kind of like repeating every weekend and we were looking for some sparks to bring life to our dull and boring weekend.

So one day when I was doing some net surfing in office while waiting for my program compilation, I came across a news reporting about Pulau Ketam. It caught my attention as the report was about the worsening stray dogs problem on the island. A plan struck my mind immediately and I was thinking that it could be a perfect weekend getaway for us. The jetty to the island was located at Klang, some 20 kms from where we are staying. So there it is, we were heading to the island on that weekend (March maybe?).

There was sign boards in the Klang town leading us to the jetty. But due many road constructions along the main road in the town as part of the plan of the state government to upgrade the roads in Klang, we were caught up in a routine weekend jam at Klang.

We managed to arrive to the jetty before 11am and was able to catch the 11am boat to the island. It was a long ferry which can fill up to 40+ passengers as seen in picture below.


It was a 30 minutes boat ride to the island.

A shop that was providing bicycle rental for use on the island for those who is lazy to walk.


A huge memorial arch built next to a Buddhist temple.




The local Buddhist temple.








Lion statue in front of the temple.


Moving on from the temple ...


School on the island. Nobody was in the school as it was a Sunday afternoon :). I think it was the biggest open ground on the island with a basketball court. Most of the areas in town was built on top of the mud/water with wooden pathway linking all the shops and houses on the island. I am guessing this would be the biggest flat playground for the local kids.










Local was drying the squid on top of a net. It was kind of like our Asian's way to preserve the seafood by soaking it in salt water then put under sun to dry it up. The end product can be save for years and these kind of dried squid is best to grill or deep fried it and made as a bite which goes well with beers!










It was a rather small town that we were only spending an hour walking around. The sun was so hot that day and we were all damped with sweat and felt dehydrating. The houses were built so close to each other and there was no wind at all that day. It was kinda like in a hot oven under the afternoon sun. After lunch, we took the 2:30pm ferry backed to port Klang and that ended our day out at the Crab's Island.