Life Abroad in U

Hey peeps! Just want to share my experience of the 1st few weeks of campus life in Universiti Teknologi Petronas(UTP) in Tronoh,Perak. On the 11th of July, me and Bui woke up early in the morning before the break of dawn just to catch a plane to Kuala Lumpur. The farewell was short as well as the 2 hour flight on MAS airlines was exceptionally good in service. My dad and Bui's parents were included in the flight plan too. I had chicken omelette for the onboard breakfast. Obviously the chicken was chicken franks in disguise; but a good meal for the journey since we didn't eat anything earlier before we left Miri. Bui complained about the chicken noodles he was served as it was too salty or so he said.

Upon the arrival of our flight onto the vast space of the KLIA airfield(my ears hurt as we were descending due to change of pressure, arghhh), we were taken aback by the huge scales of international planes and the airport walk-around was a long one. After collecting our luggages, we headed for the bus terminal just below the airport. We purchased tickets to Ipoh and waited. And waited. Waited some more until a bus called Star Shuttle arrived. So we boarded it and 'tried' to enjoy the ride. By 'tried', I mean the bus driver so 'sensible' enough played a video to accompany our boredom during the journey which was appealing in a sense. It was a video made by a thailand producer i think but english was the main medium. Mostly the video used english for swearing and I mean swearing once every 2 or 3 seconds. Most said word should be the F word accompanied by MF - if u get what i mean..I tried to sleep during then.

We arrived at Ipoh town after 3 hours of compilation of the swearing symphony. I must say Ipoh is huge with entangled and wide roads which have more than 3 ways which can lead to the same place. Quite useful in midnight racing right? xD The buildings show their age well too. We came to stay in a small hotel somewhere in Memory Lane in Ipoh called Grandview Hotel(or is it Grandville? :O) We were vamished after the long travel hours and went out to try some of Ipoh's dishes. Nice! I tried a Char Kueh Tiaw wif creamy eggs fried canto style wif Ipoh's trademark. Majority here speaks cantonese and I can't understand a word..

We explored abit during the noon as well as shopping for provisions and required items to survive in hostels. I bought some Jacob's cream crackers too. I haven't eaten them for quite a long time already but when I took a crunch once again, I found myself attached to it and find it hard to stop xD A lot of old buildings still stood down Memory Lane. At night, we just ate at a nearby coffee shop. They have many styles of Char Kueh Tiaw with creamy egg. We had to hit the hay early because registration day was the next day at 8 in the morning. Well, the time zone in here is different although it was made the same. In Sarawak, 7pm means the sun is gone and the stars are up with the moon is bright. But in here, 8.30pm only then shows the lyrics.

The morning was definitely cold due to the room's air-conditioning and this made showering a difficult task of courage. After we packed up all our belongings, we headed downstairs to await our taxis. The trip to UTP campus took approximately 1 hour. When we entered, I was awe strucked at the huge land provided- little did we know, the largeness of the land proivided hardships for us walkers and non-vehicle users later. To my surprise, we were the earliest to arrive. So we waited for quite some time until the registration counters open. We took walks around the area abit, especially the Chansellor Complex. It is a landmark of UTP to be proud of which holds the Information Resource Centre(IRC), the most advanced library perhaps in Southeast Asia(correct me if I'm wrong)

Well I have to end here for the time being. Gots lots to tell but due to my increase in appetite for food that is growing while I'm typing out this piece, I'll have to continue my experience some other time. All in all, hope you guys enjoy reading this part of my life abroad with Bui :D

It's Dark: BBQ at Tanjung after sunset

The weather has been playing tricks with us since early in the morning. Sunny-cloudy-VERY sunny-VERY cloudy...but we decided to stick with the plan and went up to Tanjung beach to set up our BBQ site. Me, Sie Kai, Jayme and Clement were all hyped up and raring to go until we realised that all BBQ pits were not usable due to reconstruction. !@#$#@???$!@? Owell...we managed to crack our brains which were innovative (or so Sie Kai claimed) and built our very own pit made of thrown aside bricks. So we waited for the others to come...and waited...and waited...(worth noting here that we waited kinda long...and waited....waited...)


WHY THE OTHERS STILL HAVEN'T COME!? Bah actually we're all there, watching this kinda beautiful scenery (er...). The charcoals were still charging up and the fun was actually only beginning...


See that tiny little red dude amongst the tree trunks? Well that's me, shouting my lungs off to get Jay and Rol (who were both playing beach soccer) back for dinner. It took them quite long to get back. Looking at this picture now I can't help but to think that Jay said: Ignore that moron and let's continue...HUEHUEHUE... (not sure was that what he laughed out but judging by his mouth...maybe that was it...)


And so we ate and chatted and drank and whatever. Another friend of mine, Fook Sam was monitoring the kueh tiaw with me to deny the kamikaze attacks from abnormal and hideous looking flies. Soon we got overpowered. (I'm telling you, those flies were so 'fearsome' that they ignored our nerdy looking GO AWAY LAR shouts and arm swingings. They just landed and forced their way into the kueh tiaw. No exaggerations...this was for real.) He was dulan. The end product was that of the picture above. That brown patch of crap were the kueh tiaws, with the stupid flies in them. There went RM20 of food...

Soon it got extremely dark that we needed our hp lights to see our surroundings. I had 100% of battery power with me but I cheated Bennette into using his hp which was of 30% battery power. It was Bennette, so all was good x). Anyway, after having our 'starters' (which were meat balls, salad, sausages, chicken wings, etc.), we got to the 'time-to-rock' phase. Stingray eating! How kewl was that? Have a look see...

Sie Kai @ 'looks-like-very-professional' chef in action... (by the way he IS very good in these cooking stuffs)

Doomed Stingray, Down into our stomachs you go... (RIP bub...you were very tasty you know...)

After the stingray eating ceremony, we proceeded to cleaning up the BBQ site as it was dark as...very dark. The rubbish bins around the area were ridiculous...their covers were made of cement wth...after throwing everything Sie Kai and I were...let's just say exhausted. Before leaving, one of our friends took our group photo. This was by far, the longest 'activity' of the evening. No pictures seemed to be right upon capturing...
Take 1: Clement where you looking at!?
Take 2: Roland where you looking at!?
Take 3: Fook Sam take off your glasses please...
Take 4: Can you all stop closing your eyes?
Take 5: Bennette what's that behind you...?@@; Bennette please smile...*

Take 6: Row 1: Clement; Row 2: Bennette, Jayme, me, Fook Sam, Sie Kai; Row 3: Roland, Chey Yie, Siaw Tien, Josephine.
P.S: Erm...those white patches around Rol's row are finger marks from his camera lens...no paranormal activities were encountered throughout the night x)

We seldom do BBQs, so the chances of us having stomach aches for the coming days are...substantial. We'll see...when sem 2 starts off next Monday.

Movie Reviewance: the Dark Knight

We were all thoroughly exhausted as we drove our way to Bintang Plaza. Two hours of badminton did knock the crap outta our bodies but since Batman's in town we thought heck with the soreness. Me, Howard, Jayme and Sie Kai reached there at 6.10 and the scheduled airtime was 6.30. Thought we gonna have no more vacant seats left as it was premier day, we rushed up like mad dogs but as we looked into the screen of the cashier when we were at the counter, there were only around 15 people in the cinema...we were all like...lol...

After realising we had just wasted the pitiful remains of our body energy we dully made our way into Star 1 which was oddly cold, i mean very. Our sitting sequence was like: Jayme, Sie Kai, Howard, me. As u all know before every movie starts there will be trailers for other movies. There was this, scary movie which was like The Ring. The trailer was compelling and scary. Howard then nudged me and asked me to look at what's he's gonna do. And so, Sie Kai was 'mesmerised' by the scariness of the trailer. Howard tapped his shoulder and shouted...I thought I saw Sie Kai's head rise 2 inches. He was so shocked that he fell flat after that. Downed.

So the movie started bla bla bla. This dude, Bruce Wayne, was the Batman, whom they called the masked superhero...or villian...or whatever they call him these days. The other hero was Harvey Dent, the superhero of Gotham because at one point in the movie he caught all the mafias, which was in fact Batman's efforts. Stupid opportunist...but I didn't give a damn about him because there's the Joker. If you didn't know yet, the REAL actor of Joker in the REAL life died in January due to drug overdose or something. After watching this movie, you would say it's not surprising that he died. Joker was crazy...all madness...his sinister plans and his crazy laughing and facial style were...one of a kind :O. And so, we came to this conclusion that the director of this movie, Chris Nolan brought upon the death of actor Heath Ledger. Ok great the director punya name sama like mine again...wtf...anyway RIP Heath...YOU WERE CRAZY IN THE MOVIE DAMN IT...but cool though...we're your fan now. Joker's fan that is.

And so the story unfolded with Joker killing people bla bla bla. Reached to a point where Joker kept Harvey Dent and his fiancee locked in two seperate places filled with explosives and gasoline. Our super duper hero Batman has to make his choice to save one of them and of course being a man his hormones must be growling with machoness and he chose the girl. What a fool, the girl was not pretty at all. This was in fact the downside of the Joker...he called the girl Pretty at one point...and we were all like...!@#??!@##?. Anyway, during the countdown of the detonation, we all had the luxury to watch the iloveyou-imsorry-marrymeplease-loveyoudarling thingy. And so this pitiful couple continued to lame around. Dent even told the girl that BABE, DON'T YOU WORRY THEY ARE COMING FOR YOU and the girl replied YALAH I KNOW SO U GO DIE LA...i mean, I DON'T WANNA LIVE WITHOUT YOU*. She even said yes to his proposal, which was proposed in the early part of the movie. So to all the men out there who wanna propose to their partner, hang on tight for the reply because they might just say yes amongst tons of explosives instead of flowers and beaming smiles. Like the oldie: GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN~. yeah you bet on it. But eventually the address from the Joker on both of them were switched...resulting in Batman saving Dent but not the girl. What were you saying again Dent? Nice move man bravo. Well after that incident Dent became the two-faced bad guy as one side of his face was burnt when the explosives went kaboom.

The fighting scenes were kewl. The BatMobil was fast and furious but damn vulnerable. One hit KO wth...i thought there's backup power of something but no...sekali tio bazooka mampus. But Batman got a new toy named...BatBike? First time I knew he had a bike, ejected from his doomed BatMobil. He also had sonar eyes like real bats, transmitted to him via Mr Fox, his office colleague who mastered the invention of all his equipment. Joker also had cool equipment...poker cards which were so kesi that they deal 0 damage as they are practically harmless. For the two-faced Dent, his 'weapon' was the combination of a coin and gun. Earlier in the movie he said he lived his life on chances with the flip of his stupid coin and he was always lucky, because BOTH SIDES ARE HEADS. What kinda coin is that...no wonder he said he create his own luck...but during the explosion one side of his coin got burnt, so it's either heads or 'tails'. Heads you live...'tails' you die getting shot.

Anyway, the movie was the longest I've seen so far, finished around 9. It was very very cool and you all should really go watch it. I don't wanna spoil it for you all so I'm not gonna continue much. The title of the movie was very nice...instead of the conventional Batman: something something they name it ''the Dark Knight''. The title was so meaningful that it only came out once in the movie...once and the only time: at the ending, last three words of this 2.5 hour movie.

potatoSLAMmers...status quo...?

My fellow dogs...potatoSLAMmers* all left Miri last friday, leaving this blog to rot...flourish*. It has been quiet really but I've got to say, I really had anticipated some posts on their situation over at their respective places. Well with my anticipation being rewarded with nil, I began to ponder what is it like over there...filling their shoes...

Bufospecies (UTP, Perak)
1) Thinking of...charity funds.
2) Wondering if his Bufospecies ID at gg will ever gain anymore exp to rise from lvl 29.
3) Envying ChrisJvk as he can enjoy online gaming back in Miri.
4) Wants to go the nearby CC but ioxygen says no.
5) Feels stuck at UTP but knows he is stuck...for good.

iOxygen (UTP, Perak)
1) Thinking of Hayden.
2) Wondering if his ioxygen ID at gg will ever gain anymore exp to rise from lvl 22. (is it 22...?)
3) Misses his family very much...not.
4) Says TAK NAK to Bui's pleas to go CC.
5) Roommate is Bui...enough said.

hach (Forgot-what-name, Selangor)
1) Thinking of Belden.
2) Wondering if his hach ID at gg will ever gain anymore exp to rise from lvl 23. (is it 23...?)
3) Doesn't give a rat's ass about ChrisJvk's luxury to game back in Miri.
4) Misses 2020's laksa.
5) Naps, naps and more naps...

Rolando (KL-holiday)
1) Thinking of nothing.
2) Hanging out with Jayme and gang at I dunno where in KL.
3) Happy to miss form 6 tests back in Chung Hua.
4) Might bumb into Kee Hong in KL, which will literally tear his eyes apart.
5) Nightlife in KL rocks...ka?

Anyway, they have kept contact with me via hps. So to all the fans of Bui and Twins, don't worry because they're all still in one piece whist for Rol, I dunno =X. Last but not least, I'm bored.

Bon Voyage to Bui and Twins

It was a sunny day in 2004 when I walked to the office to hand up some stuff to the I-forgot-which-one-liaw teacher. 12.45 p.m that was if my memory serves me correctly. Sure enough, that big butt dude was standing by the window of Form 2A, chit chatting there... I was wondering what on earth he's doing there almost EVERY recess time and he-should-go-home-liaw time. My buddy Kelvin was with me then and told me that guy's name was Jong Yik Chieng. He said it was JYC's desire to get into A class. What kinda nerd would want something like that!? Same surname like mine lagi...!@#$??. Bah, fair enough, as I dropped from 1A the previous year, I didn't bother to give a rat's ass about it.

Recess time was always a time which I didn't enjoy back then in form 2. All those students running around like mad dogs and shouting about, hate it. As a matter of fact, I only leave the classroom for W/C. There was once when I was going down to the toilet, when for some odd reason, I glanced to the door of the class below mine, Form 2D. Saw this guy standing by the door, by looking at his pose he was obviously waiting for someone. I thought...pfft go toilet also want people to follow? Well it only took the other dude 5 secs to get into view and I almost fainted. I mean, I was very surprised. (fainted was just a word to make the scene more dramatic, like that can fainted meh!!??) What the mamamia...cloning allowed ka in Malaysia... Both of them then turned to me. They looked damn alike. Thought I was suffering from double vision. Twins huh...double the excitement. I glanced to their tags and saw Hayden Chin and Belden Chin. Still didn't know them at all back then, so I remembered them as Chin X2s.

2006, hell yeah the best year in secondary school life. Walked into Form 4C and saw Chin X2s. Cool. Roland was sitting in front of me back then. Kesi guy, call Hayden or Belden at different times with ease and one of them will come. I was like wtf!!?? How he recognised them so easily? But it soon came into my mind that 3 of them must have been classmates for the previous years. There was once, I've got this pile of moral exam papers to give back to the class. Mr Ng Voon Kong was lazy i guess, didn't want to come to class, screw him, same name like me again, VK, wtf... Anyway back to the topic. And so back then one part of the Chin X2s was sitting with Sean and the other part was sitting with Jion on subsequent rows. I called names and gave the papers back...soon I got to Belden's paper. Okay great now what how which where who!!!?? No choice. I just called Belden's name to that direction and the Chin X2s that was sitting with Sean came to me and he didn't have his tag with him. ............. I gave it to him and the next paper was Hayden's. Then the Chin X2s beside me which I THOUGHT was Belden said that's mine x). ..................
One thing good about that day was that I 'think' I could differentiate them both.

As the year progressed and we stepped up into Form 5C, I could differentiate them easily alright. Hayden Chin...more open, talks more and more lojoi. Belden Chin...more quiet, talks less and less lojoi x). I realised Bel likes to WEE! EEX! WIKI and what not. Wonder what's up with him...sounds like he's gonna pee in his KIKI LALA pants or smth...but that always lightened up the atmosphere, much to Howard's wtfs...Coincidentally, me JYC and twins were all in the prefect board. I have known JYC liaw by that time and call him Bui. Bui was then in A class liaw. BRAVO! BRAVO! BRAVO! Heck cares...anyway I have no idea who came up with that nick but his body physique suggests likewise. Twins were both in Bui's department in logistics and Bui, till the end of Form 5 still told me he couldn't differentiate which was Hay which was Bel. I told him to differ them via their heights and so he did. Sorry Bel don't eat me please.
All of us work as one unit under the board so it's often that I carry stuff with them. Twins and I ALWAYS carry chairs and stuff in proper proportions. But for Bui...hell yeah - Man of the Hour, Superman, Bufoman, Bufospecies, Cicakman, Hancock or whatever-choo-call-him. Chairs often stack up to a height double his height. We were amazed that he still could see what's in front of him. Kesi that budak, make us grunts look like skinned ass powerless amateurs.

Well, those were the great times back then. As holidays after SPM came into our lives, all four of us game together. DotA, NOTD, MOOMOO, kiss-the-charity game whatever. It was fun. All credit to Bui's modern kick ass pc which restarts at will for ruining some of our games and wasting our time. We would know that his pc restart when we see Bufospecies disappear from GG and his emo msn gets offlined. Our reaction? - ChrisJvk: Bui pc restart, 20 minutes.; hach: wth...again!?; ioxygen: xD....; AdamHan: asdasdasdasdasd; rolandviper: ok i go watch porn.
Bui's trademark signatures in DotA is to .... when kena pawn, MACH**** when kena pawn like shit, !@$@#@$!#$@#!@# when he failed or missed to pawn. Twins and I thought he owes a trip to the mental hospital but he continued weirding around.

Time passes by in a blink of an eye. Adam has since long gone to KL. Hayden just left for Selangor last week under jpa scholarship. Bui and Bel's gona leave for Perak under Petronas scholarship tml. Sure is a sad thing to have them leaving but it's life and time to move on with it. We had dinner at Pong's, which stuffed the meat outta my stomach with their large portion of food and watched Hancock. Last but not least, we chit chatted at Coffee Beans for awhile but had no drink as we all bankrupt jor. This was the moment which will last long in our memories.

From left to right: Jayme, me, Howard, Bel, Rol and Bui.

PS: Hay ran to Selangor so he missed all the fun.

Well, that's that! What else to say but Good Luck, Bon Voyage, All the best, gonna miss u 2...wait, this aint no brokeback. Enough with the crap and bye!

Trip Out To The Skirts - LoLa

Well it's been quite awhile since my last post. Since no one has written for some time, I'll share my part of my current life with you peeps out there.

Quite recently me and Hay and our mom as well as sis, went on a trip to a village/really very small town on the outskirts of our little town, Miri, or should I say Miri is an under developed city which is still in progress to reach higher standards. Or rather, we refer villages as 'kampung' in Malay language. The offset was that we started packing an hour before the arrival of our transport. The days to spend there were decided to be 3 days and 2 nights so packing wasn't that hard. The only problem involved was entertainment to be brought. Fortunately a lappy (laptop) came in handy, with a novel and some other gadgets. When a semi-black 4x4 vehicle parked itself smoothly up our gates, we knew it was go time. And so we hopped to it with a few luggage and off we go!

Why were we going to this village you may ask? The occasion at that time was for a family gathering in event of a wedding to be taken place a week after in the village named Long Lama. It is a wedding planned by my mom's side of the family. It should be grand as the whole village population is invited. But alas, we won't be there when the event goes off because we'll be else where outside our humble home!

The ride was no easy gulp down the throat. Massive hills and large potholes were of the obstacles involved. Dusty and rocky roads laid a long distance in between dense jungles. It was dusty because it didn't rain earlier and likewise we were fortunate of not getting stuck in muddy sticky situations. But the ride gave me a headache with all the ups and down. If it weren't for an experienced driver-for-hire, I would've thrown up at least twice; which accounts me to being the type of person who gets vehicle sickness on long travels.

After an immense amount of perseverance (I might be exaggerating) and approximately 3 hours of "joy" ride, we finally arrived at the village's river - which was connected by a ferry. The welcoming was warm and a feast it was for a home dinner. Kampung style dishes are unique and remind you the naturalness of nature, at least it's home cooked so I trust they're clean.

We spent the night at our cousin's place and had some kicks while trading stories. Sadly, the internet line was terribly slow over there. More surprisingly is that the kampung has a cyber café too-an illegal one. With only 6 PCs up for grabs and a slow internet line, this CC dominates the fees of RM3 per hour. Still we played a bit to pass the time in the morning after breakfast. As for the afternoons, we took a long nap oblivious to the heat scorching the concrete roads. Then basketball was next in line in the evening. A full court with 2 baskets and short rings was filled with many youngsters. A game of 7-on-7 was not so bad (at least we did not need to run so much). As usual, our cousin was a good contender on the court. We had fun!

The night ended smoothly as we tried teaching our cousin chemistry. His experience and opinions of the school in Long Lama seemed pitiful since he used to study in the same school as us. After about 2 hours of teaching, he slept peacefully. It must be the large amount of understanding of chemistry’s Electrolysis pounding on his brain. So eventually, we hit the hay early as well since we would be heading back early the day after.

I must say the ‘kuih’ or rather the traditional Malay and Chinese types of cakes and cookies in Long Lama are fantastic. We had some for breakfast with Milo in our other hands. It was a great start and a good way to end it as our ride came right after we’re done. So we bid farewell to everyone, we won’t be seeing them for quite a while. Our cousin told us not to forget him. Of course not! His name is Jian.

And so the ride home always seemed faster for some reason. Still I didn’t enjoy all that well during the journey back home. And here I am, writing this piece after a week after the trip, due to tiredness and perhaps the sickness of the joy ride.

By the way, Long Lama has cute and nice animals and birds as well. Maybe you guys should try going there sometimes .

Oh and here's a picture of Hayden, me, Jian and my other cousin, Mandy. I think this pic will suit this piece according the Hay's gesture of his face expression. xD Click on the pic for a better view!

PotatoSLAM games

now heres another game to run over time when you are bored. ping pong BOUNCE!. see how many times can you bounce the ball!!. its kinda simple and judgement game, lets see how far can you go. i did 32 bounces so far... magu so hard