Sunday Fails.

A weekend of fails.

Fail #1
My morning gym session, after a week of inactivity, ended with just a short 2 km run because I started seeing 'stars', really big, bright, white ones. The last time I experienced this was during the Tongariro Alpine Crossing attempt, about 7 hours into the journey, I guess I was low on sugar level as I finally felt better after sucking on a couple of candies continuously.

Fail #2
My booking for the best seats (in my opinion) for Justice League ended up in smoke because of screen transition failure between the message and the booking applications. Upon retrieving the one time password and switching back to the booking application, I got stuck in an infinite page screen. And when finally released, my seats of choice were no longer available. Damn.

Fail #3
Due to the unsatisfactory morning session, I went for an evening gym session and from afar, I was pretty surprised to see a treadmill available at this hour. Upon stepping into the gym, the joy was cut short, machine was not functioning. I recall seeing someone manage to restart the machine by fiddling with the plug, and that was what I did. No luck, magic fingers not working.

The thing is, about 10 minutes later, someone did the exact same procedure (plug fiddle, restart) and managed to boot the machine! I mean, what the heck! I can only conclude that the machine hated me.

Fail #4
If you're not aware, StarCraft and StarCraft II (just WOL, not the Zerg & Protoss expansions) are now officially free to play, downloadable by clicking on the links. You might be puzzled right now, wondering what could be the failure associated with such a great deal? My friend, you see, I lost my first ever match, and that's against an AI. That's bad, really, really bad.

But honestly, I should have done my homework in reviewing the troops/units available and its purpose before jumping straight into a multiplayer battle. But still...

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Failed Miserably.

Today, on the sunny afternoon of November 25, the wife and I foolishly attempted to drop by the ongoing expo in Mid Valley mega mall, just to fail miserably.

You maybe asking right now, how bad could that be?

We didn't even menage to set foot into the mall. That bad.

The journey to the mall itself took almost an hour, which is much worse than the congestion we face daily, when commuting to work during rush hour in the morning. And when we finally made it into the mall's parking bays, we ended up rounding for more than 30 minutes before finally giving up and making our way home, subsequently getting stuck in another congestion.

In the end, we spent close to 3 hours in the car, driving around and ended up achieving nothing. We had planned to briefly browse through the exhibition to at least have an idea on what to prepare/purchase at this point of time. Never would have imagined it would end up this way.

The horror.

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New Zealand Trip Guide: The Prelude

Somewhere in NZ which I cannot remember

And so, after much deliberation, due to the amount of information digging and compilation required, I have finally decided to write up on my trip to NZ, which happened back in April. Other than the factor of 'shiok sendiri' during future reads, hopefully, just hopefully, somewhere out there, someone will find these articles (more to come) helpful when planning for their own adventure to the beautiful NZ. Here goes.

Why such a short trip?
Our route: Auckland - Tongariro - Taupo - Rotorua - Auckland

Other than budgetary limitations, we had initially planned to engage a particular local tour company for some free and easy package in which they will help arrange all logistic matters in NZ and leave the schedule for your planning. Unfortunately, since they didn't respond to our emails nor calls after numerous attempts, I decided plan it out myself eventually, using their itinerary as guide - damn smart right, should have done this from the start. And this was after we secured our flights, hence, the strictly North Island tour for 7 days and 6 nights.

Why Malaysia Airlines?
Needless to say, because we're 'Anak Malaysia'. Just kidding. It's because they have a direct route from KL to Auckland and taking budget for such a long flight will be most painful. The furthest I've flew budget was to Korea and it was 7+ hours of pure suffering for me, mainly because of my size. Hence, the decision to fork out a little more for flight this round.

Why Airbnb?
Main factor being the cost because hotels in NZ are pretty expensive. And the other, flexibility, as we were on the move daily across different towns/areas. We did consider renting a camper van initially but backed out eventually because (i) there's only both of us (ii) the wife's concerned to drive (iii) both of us have zero knowledge on camper vans

Why SNAP Rentals? 

I did a fair amount of research (read through tons of comments) before finally settling on SNAP and frankly, I was very satisfied with my decision because:

• Value for money - vehicles are in good condition and the full insurance coverage offered is much affordable
• Simple process - from online booking to payment to confirmation to vehicle collection and return, it's quick and hassle free
• Airport pickup available - just needed to call them upon arrival (toll free) to arrange for pickup and chauffeured to the departure hall upon returning vehicle, all within 20 minutes
• Variety - compacts, hatches, sedans, SUV, trucks - a vehicle that suits your needs for any occasions  

Last but no least, overall budget
About RM 9000 per person (pp), inclusive of flight (RM 2000 pp), car rental (RM 1100), accommodation (RM 1400), local attractions (RM 2100) and spending money (RM 5000 pp)

More to come!

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Cleanup.

Yes, that's what I'm doing on this blog right now, massive clean up. And still churning out new posts, I'm feeling more productive than ever now *laughs*.

On browsing through a couple of previous posts, clearing some irrelevant labels/categories - still in progress though - I realize that almost none of the image links were working anymore. And after numerous attempts for recovery, I had no choice but to give up because for one case, the image hosting site no longer provide its services for free and for the other one, smart me was using a non existential email account making recovery impossible - seriously, what was I thinking!

Well, I should have a backup of those images stacked somewhere in one of my hard disks - if there ever comes a day when I'm motivated enough, perhaps I'll switch to another image hosting site and re-link some notable ones. I just shuddered at the thought of the amount of work required.

One of the reasons why I was contemplating to start anew.

And some other posts just made me cringed reading them, like total *wtf*. It's painful enough for me to want to build a time machine, travel back in time and punch him straight in the face.

I guess the future me reading this post might be having the same thought.

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This was 3 years back.

Was browsing through my phone and came across this gem, I consider this as one of my all time favorite photo. There's just something magical about this photo that gives a serene yet captivating feeling whenever I look at it. And this was taken with an iPhone if not mistaken, as I do vaguely recall our dear friend Rames repeatedly failing to upload the photo but eventually managed to, which was almost a miracle considering our location, just like like how I ended up there at the summit of Poon Hill.

Photo credit to Rames, taken by our beloved guide Deepak.

On a side note, 3 of my uncles, all beyond their fifties, recently completed the Everest Base Camp (EBC) trek - really salute them, totally admire their determination and tenacity in doing so, affirming that age is nothing but a trickling number. And perhaps, just perhaps, some day (not that soon), I'll make that trip as well.

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Lobster Dream.

Had this damn weird dream where I was travelling in Singapore with some friends and we came across this restaurant offering an 'all you can eat' promotion on lobster dishes for a few hundred dollars. After some heated discussion on how the promotion was super worth it, we were comfortably seated in the restaurant, making crazy amount of orders.

And then out of no where, appeared this super elegant and refined waiter with French accent, inquiring if we would like to experience the restaurants ultimate specialty, lobster thermidor and of course we obliged, one each - I think there were ten of us.

Then he continued to recommend some 'atas' seasonal scallop dishes which we just 'layanly' agreed since we were totally engrossed on the lobster options. How much can scallops costs anyway, I remembered thinking.

Upon completing our super satisfying meal an on receiving the bill, my jaw practically dropped as the amount totaled two hundred thousand dollars (converted, that's over half a million ringgit). A bulk of the cost went to the lobster thermidor and the scallops cost eleven thousand dollars, something along that line. We quickly summoned the waiter for answers and he explained in the most calm and regal manner on how this dish was prepared with the most exquisite ingredients from truffles to saffrons to gold leafs and such.

Then we were arguing on why were we not informed that this was not part of the promotion and how he should have told us first hand to which the waiter nonchalantly replied, 'Did you see this dish in the promotion brochure?'. Furious but defeated, we had no choice but to complete the payment by maximizing all of our credit limits. Upon leaving the restaurant, some of us deciding to lodge a complaint via the consumer rights agency while others decided to highlight it via social media.

My knees went weak thinking of the debt I had accumulated from this meal and I broke into cold sweat.

Then I woke up. Sweating.


Plot twist. I was totally clueless on this lobster thermidor thing until I googled it up this morning and according to Wikipedia:

Lobster Thermidor is a French dish consisting of a creamy mixture of cooked lobster meat, egg yolks, and brandy (often cognac), stuffed into a lobster shell. It can also be served with an oven-browned cheese crust, typically Gruyère. The sauce must contain mustard (typically powdered mustard). Due to expensive ingredients and extensive preparation involved, Lobster Thermidor is usually considered a recipe primarily for special occasions.

Lobster Thermidor. Image Source: http://allrecipes.com/

I am currently super puzzled as to how something like this ended up in my dream. And super curious on it's taste as well.

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Most Dreaded Question.

In my opinion, this has to be the most dreaded question a person has to face, on a daily basis. I even dare say that this could very well be a global phenomenon. The annual Chinese New Year 'yee ma ku jeh' questions pales in comparison to this. Are you ready for it?

What to eat?

And since I'm Malaysian, let me introduce to you multiple variations to this question. In Malay: Makan apa? In Cantonese: Sik Mat Yeh? In Mandarin: Chir Shen Mer? (吃什么) In Hokkien: Chiak Ha Mi?

No matter who you're dining with, or who's territory you're in, it's almost the exact same routine. With your colleagues, you'll be looking at each other until someone suggested something - we've tried the 'random pick from pool' approach but it failed miserably, pity the fella who prepared the selection 'sticks'. 

With your parent's, they'll routinely ask for your suggestions and end at up dining at the same place eventually most of the time, bah. 

With your friends, there's usually an unofficial 'food god' that takes care of such delicate matters but in the unfortunate event that the 'food god' is absent, a round robin approach would be your best alternative.

And with your partner/spouse, it's a questioning game that lasts for a couple of minutes - due to the need for elimination, rice or noodles, Asian or Western, something light or heavy, location A or location B, and so on. 

One thing I have to admit though, when dining with the wife, I'm usually the picky one - my record breaking feat being strolling through the entire mall and still failing to decide on where to eat (we either ended up not eating or having instant noodles. 

Win.

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Pearl of the Orient.

# Made a quick trip to Penang over the weekend because it's been a while - time to visit the in-laws and the wife had been missing (and nagging over) 'local, authentic' hawker food

# On our way there, there was a long crawl on Penang bridge heading towards mainland, backing up all the way into the island. Due to maintenance works, one of the lanes was closed temporarily. And I can't help but to wonder if the 2nd bridge is jinxed or really inconvenient or something because even with such traffic conditions, it's still not utilized

# I think I have finally adapted to the Penang way of driving

# I chanced upon an 'ang mo' couple carrying tiffin carriers while driving, not something you see get to see much eh?

# Honestly, the city council officers are like ninjas lurking in shadowy corners all the time, ever ready with tickets on hand like shuriken. Once you see them, it's already too late

# Bicycle lanes (though I don't use them) and proper pedestrian walkways that's disabled friendly. Seems like the only infrastructure missing is mass rapid transit system, can you imagine how much easier it would be to get around the island then

# The magical Penang hawker food, it's like, no matter where you are within the island, you can just stop at any random 'kopitiam' or hawker centers, and you're bound to find good food there. Perhaps not the best, but still pretty darn good

# 2F+ Coffee by Yellow House - my current favorite spot for coffee in Penang (for single origins)

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Hello there, end of 2017!

I missed this spot! Like, really, really, really missed it.

At the same time, I wonder if anyone blogs anymore, considering the variety of platforms available for one to express themselves, and how the trend is shifting towards short, simple and brief updates/contents.

Anyway, I lost track on the infinite number of times when the blogging bug bit me but I guess those were just minor ones, obviously since it resulted in nothing - maybe just nights of contemplation but eventually brushed aside.

Not really sure what happened now, perhaps the need to have an avenue to release my jabbering is strong this time round with so many life events (and some are huge!) happening in parallel. Initially, I had thoughts whether to continue here or to start anew - well, you know how starting fresh always give you the extra boost of motivation and determination. But alas, feelings attached to this one won over and, here I am.

Stay tuned (most likely addressing myself with this one) and like I've always done with previous 'restarts', let's see how long this phase will last.

Signing off and have a good day!

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