Tonight we visited the I-City. Located just a few minutes from our home, we decided to go there since Papa Bear’s Mom is here visiting and she has never been there. We just need a reason to go there… In fact, all of us have never been there since it is too near to us. You know how people always prefer to visit places that are far far away rather than those places that are within a walking distance from them…

From a distance, that would be the first thing that you would notice. Colorful trees! At first we thought that they were real trees but when we got there, they were not real trees… That’s good! We would not like to see real trees being treated like that… Anyway, it was a breathtaking sight!

Mama Pasha, Bear’s Mom and Pasha posing among the colorful trees…

Now it’s Papa Bear’s turn to pose and Mama Pasha take the picture…

It was not easy to get Pasha to stay still while we took his photo without the help of the flash. Anyway, Pasha had a great time walking around the park. He must have felt like a big boy as he refused to let us hold him. The yellow thing that he hit was actually a crescent moon shaped lamp. Now it looks like a tanglong…

This shot of Pasha and Mama taken at the bazaar area. Pasha was already preoccupied with the flashing and twirling light stuffs that were on sale there. He finally chose a remote controlled car with lighted tyres after spending some time trying to decide what he actually wanted out of the many interesting stuffs sold there…

Peace!

I-City is a good place for a whole family to just hangout and go for a fun stroll at the park. Located in between Shah Alam and Bukit Raja, it is open from 7pm to 2am. Don’t go there during the day okay!

Our trip was worth it!

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We had food and we had fun and those are two of the most important ingredients in leading a happy life. Betul tak? To start off, Mamapasha’s giraffe cake made it to Restoran Rebung! Do you know this restaurant? If you don’t then susah la babe… This is the restaurant owned by the famous Celebrity Chef Ismail. Now you know.

Can you see the giraffe at the center of the pics above? For your information, that is not a soft toy or plastic giraffe but it is a real cake. The first standing and kept on standing cake made by Mamapasha. Bravo ayang!!!

Chef Ismail did not order that cake but one of our customers did and it so happen that he was having his surprise birthday party event at Rebung. So, we tumpang the glamour arr..

If you want a cake like that, visit us at http://cuppies.kisahberuang.com/ and talk to Mamapasha. Free advert nih… ha ha…

Next, we went for our late lunch at Chawan in Bangsar Baru. We went there many times when Pasha was schooling at Gymboree.

Mamapasha would always ordered the same dish over and over again and that was the Lontong. I, on the other hand, would always go a dish that I have not tried and this time it was the Curry Laksa… It was not as nice as I expected… My fovourite would still be the Beriyani Kambing, Nasi lemak, Nasi Dagang and Ubi Kayu Rebus….

Enough food for all. Next stop was KizSports at Bangsar Village II. We paid Rm25 for an unlimited session plus another RM17.70 for 3 pairs of socks. Next time must remember to bring our own socks ha! To make the story short, that place was Pasha’s heaven. I wouldnow let the pics do the talking…

Anyway, both Mamapasha and Pasha had a good exercise that evening. Papabear cheated and decided to only do the pic snapping… hehe.. Furthermore, ayang, I might get stuck in one of those colourful tubes you know…

Finally, we were back in Shah Alam and before heading home, we had dinner at Kedai Kopi by the Shah Alam lake… If you want some reasonably nice food at a price that would not make hole in your pocket, this is one of those places that you can go.

Mamapasha ordered the fried kueyteow or kuetiau or I don’t the know the right spelling for that and I had the Mee Bandung. Pasha had some fries and shared the coconut water with Mama…

Shortly after we paid for dinner, Pasha want to sleep and he was still sleeping when I typed in this entry…

That was our Sunday…

Penat but lots of fun!

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We left for Dumai on the 3rd around noon. The thought of having to go through the roads again was enough to make us feel tired even before the journey started… Banyak lobang dan lama dalam kereta….

Anyway, we stopped for lunch in Kandis, at a roadside restaurant called Bersama. They served nasi padang and some of the gulai were spicier than the nasi padang that we are used to but tasty enough for me.  I loved it. Maybe lapar punya pasal kot…

On the 4th, we left Dumai for Melaka. Nothing much about the ferry ride home but when I tried to start my car that was left at the jetty for 5 days, the battery just went flat.

I called up Etiqa Auto Assist and rescue came in less than 1 hour. That was the second time I used their services and so far they had been quick in coming to the rescue. I used to subscribe to AAM but not only I had to pay for the membership but also the time that they took to attend to my problems were always more than 1 hour.

Why should I pay for late service when I could get better service from Etiqa and it came free with the car insurance? Promosi sket…. No lah… saja lepas geram kat AAM… sombong…

Anyway, we got home safely and now looking forward for our next mini vacation… Bila ada budget la….

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We decided to sleep in Melaka before the trip to Dumai. Well, the trip was originally planned to be today but then since I just found my car key, we missed the ferry… Anyway, instead of having to wake up very early and drive to Melaka tomorrow, the better thing to do is to just go to Melaka now and get a hotel and take our own sweet time tomorrow morning.

After surfing for a budget hotel, yup, budget tak cukup so sebelum budget lain lari, kena la cari budget hotel kan kan kan…, Diah found RS Park Hotel. I called up the hotel and one Miss Hanim told us that the hotel is just at the back of Mahkota Parade. Sounds easy enough to find… Tetapi…

Pasha took a long nap after lunch and we only left Shah Alam after 5 pm. By the time we got there, it was already 8 something at night. I am not a fast driver and I like to make a few stops here and there hence the 3 hour drive… 90kmh tu dah kira laju dah tu…. We went to the back of Mahkota Parade and look for RS Park. Tak nampak pun? We could not find it and that one Miss Hanim did not pick up my call and out of over confidence, we did not copy its address and by this time…..

Pasha: “Papa…”

Papa: “Ya Pasha.”

Pasha: “Ni udah mayam…” (it’s already night)

Papa: “Ok…”

He repeated the above for about 20 times with a 10 second break before he went “Papa…” again. Imagine that while you were frantically trying to locate a building in the middle of an unfamiliar territory…

Tried to locate using Gamin GPS… That place was not even in the list… Cap ayam ke tempat tuh?

Tired, disoriented and unable to focus in between “Ni udah mayam…”, we found a little hotel called The Motel. At RM68, we settled in for the night…

In the morning we saw the hotel and it was not really behind Mahkota Parade… It was just across the street from where we stayed… Cis…. Banyakla dia punya belakang Parade…

Do You Want Fries With That?

That would be one of the most asked questions at some fast food restaurants but that would not be the case if you are buying something to eat at the Machap rest area. Over there, the question would be: “Do you want flies with that?”

If you are travelling between Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru on the NSE, you would not miss a rest area called the Machap R&R. Last week, while driving back from Johor Bahru to Shah Alam, we had the “luxury” of stopping over for a short break at this rest area . From the car, everything looked great as the rest area was recently renovated by PLUS.

They Are Everywhere!

However, once I stepped out of the car and went to one of the stalls there, I was greeted by hundreds of flies. While the few hundred of them were doing the welcome to rest area Machap song, there were few thousands other flies were busy “promoting” the food and goods for sale to travellers… What a sight!

I went to the upper portion of the rest area. The automatic escalator was impressive and once I reached the top floor, I saw the whole eating place was sealed by glass walls. I thought that was a noble idea to ensure that the flies stay out while people are eating inside…

Let’s Do Some Maths

Well, it did not really 100% work as there were thousands of flies queueing up on the glass walls and doors waiting to enter the area. Imagine this:

1000 flies waiting to enter the eating area. If one person open the glass door to enter, and1% of the flies would take the opportunity to sneak in. There would be 10 flies per person. If 100 people went in, there would be about 1000 flies and each person that goes in must come out and that would mean at least 2000 flies in there…

They Can See You

With that, you can imagine that whatever you order in there, flies are complimentary… Not bad for a free source of protein ha! At the same time, you would get to experience a scenario that is normally common in some sci-fi movies and in this case, you would be trapped in a glass enclosure surrounded by thousands of flies staring with their compound eyes… Would you still eat there? Some people did but no way for me…

Blame It On The Chickens

I talked to one of the sellers there and I was told that there are some chicken farms nearby and things would get extremely bad during the rainy seasons and there was no way to get rid of the flies…

Luckily my son was asleep and therefore, he stayed in the car with my wife… If not he would have a freaking time chasing after the flies and my wife would have been having a busy time wiping his hands and feet shoes…

So, the next time when you drive on the NSE, look out for Machap rest area and stop to look at the wonder of the flies.

P/S:

There was a fly in our car a day after we came back and looking at the size, it must have followed us back from Machap…

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With Google Maps at my disposal, I have no need for a global positioning system (GPS) device. I was thinking dreaming about getting myself a GPS enabled cellphone but since I discovered what Google Maps can do, I can just forget about GPS. GPS may have its own advantages over Google Maps but what Google Maps have what I need and therefore, that is good enough for me.

Using Google Maps for the first time: I had the opportunity to use it for the first time when I had to visit a client in Batu Pahat, Johor last Wednesday. They have shifted to a new office that was quite a distance away from the old place. I am not at all familiar with Batu Pahat and therefore, it would be an opportunity to put Google Maps to the test.

It is simple to use. I have already saved my home location and all I need to do is get the direction to my client’s place by by entering his new street address. Once that is done, I was given a map and a detail instruction to follow. My client had advised me to take the Ayer Hitam exit since that would make my finding the new place easier and due to that, I just need to drag the exit suggested from Yong Peng to Ayer Hitam and Google Maps plotted the new directions for me to follow. It was as simple as that.

On top of that, I was given the estimated mileage to the location as well as the estimated time that the trip would take. With that I was able to provide my ETA to my clients and it was quite accurate. Based on the ETA given, the average speed calculated was about 70 km/h. That must be the combination of highways and normal road used. Anyway, I managed to find my clients new place easily with the help of Google Maps.

Google Maps vs GPS: During lunch, I told my client that I found my way using Google Maps. He has a GPS enabled Blackberry cellphone and I have Google Maps loaded to my cellphone and we decided to run some test for the fun of it. The first task was to locate his house. Google Maps managed to locate that within seconds while his GPS system returned an “address not found” message. Round one goes to Google Maps.

The second test was to do the “Where I am” task. Google Maps showed my location within seconds while even after a few minutes, the GPS was still searching for a satellite. Google Maps scored again.

In conclusion, Google Maps is a good alternative to GPS and all I need was an internet enabled cellphone for it to work.

To use Google Maps on your computer, go to http://maps.google.com/.

To use Google Maps on your cellphone, go to m.google.com/maps on your cellphone or go to http://www.google.com/mobile/default/maps.html on your computer.

Hey didle didle… It’s Friday again and it’s time to write about the beautiful Malaysia again. I left my wallet at home today and luckily I managed to find enough coins in my car to pay the toll to the office. If not, I had to do that cat face, the one that the cat with the big eyes in Shrek…, and get away without paying the toll… one more time…

This post is neither about me forgetting to bring my wallet nor will it be about the toll that I have to pay but it will be more than just that.

How many months have passed since the historical victory of the opposition parties in the last general election? Many months is the answer. Not an exact answer but should be good enough. What has changed besides the people and parties leading some of the states?

From where I am standing sitting typing, I do not see that anything has really changed. Where are the pre-election promises made? Now you know… When the so called pro government mainstream media talked about the bad sides and the failures of the newly elected Pakatan Rakyat government, they and their die hard supporters screamed about how unfair the news are lately. Have they ever stepped back and looked at how such opportunities are given to the media?

That’s the beauty of politics. Good politicians would look for sensitive issues to politicize and for as long as there are gullible people out there, these schemes would work wonderfully. All they need is to work on the emotional aspects of these people and they would get truck loads of fanatic supporters who would miserably fail to see beyond the reality of promises made.

For example, you live at some places where you know that once you drive out of your house, you have to pay toll and when you do that, the image of Samy Vellu will be popping up automatically… So when somebody promised that if they are elected, you would not have to pay toll anymore, some of you got really elated!

You voted and a new government was formed. Even a stuttering Chief Minister would not bother you as you were so confident that the changes were finally here. After a few months, that was the only change that you would ever get.

Well, don’t blame them. You are the one who have failed to see that to do something such as getting rid of tolls on our road is not as simple as the promises made There are legal implications, contractual details and many others have to be taken care of before it can be done. In the end promises were promises and you will be waiting for the cow to jump over the moon….

So, when the new government could not deliver the promises, what do they do? Don’t ask me. Anyway, I like to touch a bit on the die hard, fanatical supporters of a political party. These are the people who thought that they are always making the right choices and would not listen to anything else…

For example, what benefits would you get when a political party that you support wanted to change how the street signs should be written? Would it give you better income or your child would be smarter by doing that? Is this something that really needs to be looked at rather than the failing global economy?

For all I know if that is approved, some politicians would be laughing all the way to the bank after securing some contracts to replace the street signs, one way or another. And you will get brand new street signs and throw a party, at your own expenses, to  celebrate the victory… That’s pathetic!

As for me, it does not matter who rules this country but what matters is whether the government can bring the changes that the people wanted and walk the talk by delivering the promises made. The promises made should be realistic and not just for the sake of winning votes by taking advantage of lots of politically blind people out there.

As for those who would do anything for your beloved political party, make sure that you know the difference between “will try to do” or “will do” and “have done that” as it is very easy to use “will do” than “have done” when saying something…

So, hey didle didle, when will I stop paying toll? When will I get free water? Is there any new hope in the new year? New Year… New What?

Are we doing things for us, our children, our future generations, our country or just for some charismatic politicians?

I need to go home and get my wallet.

By the way, this post came right out of my head without any draft and therefore, I should stop before I give you some headaches…

Ps:
Will somebody please fix all the pot holes in Shah Alam before somebody got seriously injured or died or should we wait for the next general election for that to happen?

Pss:
It is too early to wish happy New Year, so I will do that later…

Psss:
I am not an UMNO, PAS, DAP or PKR member…