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Kuala Lumpur Day Two, MERRY CHRISTMAS from Petronas towers

Shaun
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Kuala Lumpur Day Two, MERRY CHRISTMAS from Petronas towers
Cable Cars

25th Dec 2005- On the way to KL
The morning call didn’t wake us, so was the phone call from mum. But dad at the door did. Checked out at 8am for breakfast at the themepark hotel happy valley mini cafe before heading to the Cable cars for the connecting bus trip to KL (10.30am). There is a short break at the usual tour shop near the batu caves, then it towards swiss garden where we are the first to alight again from our bus. As the only family too!

KL Swissgarden
One room was ready by then so we checked in to dump our bags before heading for lunch. The room is what a basic five star should be. With proper tv position, bathtub, unlike our so claimed ‘5’ star hotel in genting. There’s even a connecting door between rooms, usually not looked upon & found in older hotels & this one has it! The lift works like the one in berjaya too- requiring access keys to access guess floor levels- all for security.

KL city after 5 months since last visit
Nothing much has changed.

Where excatly are we?
We’re somewhere in there!
KL City
KL City
Downunder the KLCC
Putra KLCC

We started walking in search of the putra mrt station to KLCC petronas only to find it in some old abandoned-like structure under construction. We went in favor of the free shuttle service provided by the hotel & went for lunch at a nearby backlane hawker to eat & pass the time till 2pm, the shuttle timing. Our total orders of 5 dishes for 4 (as usual I had more of a little more) costed not more than 15RM- the price of 2 single scoop icecream we had the day before. Brought some potato bread for a snack together with a slurpee at the nearby 7-eleven before heading back to hotel for the free shuttle…

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Kuala Lumpur Genting Themepark Trip Day One

Shaun
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Kuala Lumpur Genting Themepark Trip Day One
First world stay

Holiday Trip to Genting and KL, Life Update. The travel journal, for now. Click on Read more at the bottom of the post to read more.

Trip to KL, Day 1 23rd Dec 2005- Night time
We started off taking 961 to beach road konsortium to catch our direct bus to genting, later do we know we have to take a sg reg bus to the checkpt because of a jam at the causeway.

24th Dec 2005- Early morning journey
The bus we took is not a konsortium bus,but another green/white vip 22 seater bus with no toilet, the thing is that there were 2 stops, one at a the usual public toilet &other at a bp petrol kiosk, but no supper stop! Grrrrr,

24th Dec 2005- Day time
Had breakfast at 6+am, first world plaza macs. As it was the only outlet open besides starbucks, which was strangely open so early too.
1st world hotel, 1st ever hotel in my life where we have to queue up with queue no to be served at the counter before getting our keys, even with pre booking! No 266. The lobby is big, so is the walkways & the building itself, but the rms are packed like sardines, like 1000 rms I heard, even there’s no place for the tv in front of the beds! 5 star my ass!

First World Styled Queuing!
1st World Queue
at First World Plaza??
The Plaza
Genting Ariel View
Genting aerial view

Rested in the room till 11am (from 6am where we arrived & had dinner at 24hr macs before concussing at the hotel lobby to wait for our checking in our room at 10am. We had lunch at the lao di fang ‘foodcourt’ before checking out the theme park for the day. Alot of youngsters checked in too by the numbers for a christmas party or so, very distinct from the distant noises they make from their rooms, (pity those stayong beside them) & the amount of rubbish they produce,not to mention the tell-tale digns of cup noodle moddle fragments littered at the common hot water dispenser. It like a chalet for them. Goog thing we ae staying about 5rooms plus from any of these groups…

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E-Learning Lagging week

Shaun
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E-<strike>Learning</strike> Lagging week
E-lagging!

Its a first attempt, an attempt leading to a possible bleak eventual future where students have to learn all from home and have wires or so plugged into their brains to communicate, study & retrive data. Not to mention the birth of crimes such as brain jacking or cyber cheating… ahah its the e-learning week for starters.

The week started out pretty smoothly on my side, contray to what my other classmates encountered, like error 404 or 403 on the blackboards due to the intensive load on the servers, thus being unable to do or submit quizzes on time. Maybe because QUOTE: “I’ve got dedicated bandwidth!” Finished 4 of 5 of the required online quizes & assignments by mid week. With 1 more to clear before I leave to KL for my holiday over christmas.

A good thing I find about this is that since everything is done online, we can literally do our research & search for info/answers directly off the net for our quizzes, usually learning & encountering much more interesting resources out of the range of our textbooks, with the exception of the evident blackboard lag that is.

I guess a good suggestion is to actually prep the systems before embarking on a full scale e-learning week (i.e bandwidth, system load tests, having backup servers, etc) considering that many quizes on the blackboard actually count as LIFE MARKS in the ICA, it should be fair if the system can actually handle the loads better & more effectively for all students, anytime of the day.

I guess there is still alot to be improved on this e-learning thing & its not very much of a success as it was intended to be I guess, judging from the amount of complains I get from most of my peers. SP, don’t follow the crowd like what the other polys are doing on the e-learing thing & theres nothing to be ashamed about not adopting it. Bring back the teachers! We are Asians after all & learning is still best done face to face with the personal teacher touch – the typical learning environment we all grew up with.

Ice Skating

Shaun
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Ice Skating
The skating group as it is

Its time of the year again for a class outing & they nominees were – trekking at pulau ubin, day at wild wild wet or ice-skating at fuji ice palace. Apparently, not too many were in favor of going for a public fat-exposure-parade at downtown east, nor would any appreciate nature on the tracks, so the Ice-skating option was the most sort after option, thus landing us today at Fuji Ice Palace, Jurong!

:mrgreen: I had not ice-skated before, but being a inline-skater myself, I can say that ice skating is so much easier than inlines, you can really pick up speeds faster, turn & change direction faster without much resistance, not to mention being easier and not as tiring on a whole, considering having ice-skated continuously for 5 hours in a row – a feat I’ve not yet accomplished on in-lines yet, even on ABEC-7 bearings.

😳 Many in my group however, were virgin skaters & greeted the cold & occasionally wet ice more than the number of digits you have to count. & man yes were they wet. But it’s not uncommon though, the all familiar “Thud” is always evident in the ring, the spectacular ones being the “Domino Flop” where a bunch of learners fall together as a group (& all you need is one to fall in order start the chain reaction) yes very spectacular indeed… For me, I was glad to be dry throughout the whole skate session, now wet dark patches on my jeans at all, considering having almost 10 years of skating experience on my back… though I don’t really skate very often either, only very very occasionally.

This naturally put the experienced ones as teachers to the group, having not only act as supports while they make their first “baby strides” on ice but the frequent need to catch/tame their frantic waving arms whenever they lose their balance or fetch them whenever seem to be heading in one direction without stopping. Overall by mid-day, all of them are able to skate, (though awkwardly) without any assistance. A rewarding feat for most of us there before calling it a day with dinner at Long John Silvers.

Dell PDA exchange

Shaun
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Dell PDA exchange
Replacement PDA

It came first as a call to dell yesterday morning as I got too fed up with the online technical support getting me nowhere, except the default answers like “please upgrade your operating ROM to the latest version & try again, thank you”. After getting through like 5 layers of call menus & such, I finally managed to SPEAK to a human being! whoa technology! I explained the problem I was having to the operator, who was commendabley kind & professional in her job, namely the booting up problems & for the last time, the HARDWARE problem I was having with the PDA’s headphone jack. With that she kindly (& promptly) suggested sending in a replacement unit within 2-3 working days – A BRAND NEW replacement unit for my aged & serverely beaten, discoloured & tarnished 1 year old Dell axim X50V PDA, (well partly its still under warranty duh, with like almost like 22 days left duh). The interesting thing was a phone call from their dispatch department later yesterday stating that delivery coulb be done the very NEXT DAY, whoa! Call today, new PDA tomorrow! whee!

The PDA just arrived from a dell dispatch, the hardware revision of the PDA is version A07! yea upgrade! Contrary to my old PDA being the pioneering version A01. Too bad they didn’t sent in the x51v.. darn then that would be a REAL upgrade! Everything works fine, the OS, old trusty WM2003, the headphone jack, now only I could get the hardware buttons to work.. DARN!

Chill out

Shaun
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Chill out
Chillout at breko

With our own private transport, very much spent the last night on a search of the up & coming delsey chill-out area, just around the outskirts of town near the Botanical gardens. The place was actually an old CMPB administrative army camp, with most of its land area, transformed, including its parade square into a few pub & cafe establishments. A very isolated area, but otherwise a good secret place to chill out for a cup of coffee, beer or wine, you name it. The late night was spent past Orchard which was too crowded for the night & finally found our way to Holland Village, where we further chilled out with Sheena at Brekos till late.

Today
Did some site maintenance for the day, at the same time checked out the site statistics for the month of November: 12665 unique visitors & 879040 hits for the month of November, averaging 29301 hits a day. Judging from the numbers, I can conclude most of my visitors are return visitors.

Went on to check out one of the very very long lost pages of the site – the long forgotten guestbook. It a simple script I got up early this year, but have not actually found time to customise it. To my astonishment, it has grown with 1700 guestbook entries! oh man, actually I thought it was spam or so, but after going thru a few pages, every post is uniquely interesting to read. Man do I really love to read guestbook entries as I do enjoy receiving christmas cards at this time of the year… (Thanks all!) Man I do really have to find some time going through all of them!

sux is the brew of the day

Monday tomorrow.. darn!
Would be driving to school tomorrow.. early for breakfast that is.. class starts at 8am so I guess an early breakfast with coffee at foodcourt 4 is a good way to start the day. There will be materials test tomorrow afternoon, after lunch… duh thats when all our energy be devoted to the stomach & not the brain… “aka the zombie hour” thats gonna be bad… bad… oh well wish me luck for the test then.

😉 My horoscope calls for a social meeting or so coming soon. Where someone will open up on their social life.. Mmm interesting….

Parents Overseas

Shaun
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Parents Overseas
Got Holiday?

Today is the day where my parents are flying off for their intended break/holiday with grans. They would be away for 5 days & back early Thursday morning. With that, its only sis & me in the house, duh! Not to mention, having to do house chores & stuffs… grrr especially looking after dad’s plant collection! huhuh, well at least I have his car all to myself now… hehehe. Cousin Gordon, accompanied with his mum arrived at our house in their “boggie van” to give us & particularly the luggage a lift to the airport. Good thing they have a van though, so its like a large space for even 8 people seated comfortably even with gran’s 3 giant luggage cases at the back!

We all chilled out @ a kopitiam cafe in the airport, (contrary to Starbucks to suit Granny’s taste) after checking the bulk luggage in at the departure counter. We had a hearty talk, coupled with either the standard coffee, tea & dim sum before its time to start departure. (Partly because mum couldn’t get enough of duty free goods, she just have to get in the departures early to shop!)

Business granny on the mobile
Executive business granny on the mobile…
Excited Mum &amp;amp; Dad
Excited Mum & Dad.
Off to the departures...
Off to the departures!

Now if only granny know how to use Skype, then our international calling costs would definitely be so much lower!

Checkin the departures

Cous Gordon’s family invited us to dinner at their house thereafter where hung out for the rest of the day. Re-knowned is his mum’s fabulous cooking which I’ve always missed & loved since primary school. & she had a 6 course meal to prove it! With that, got to know that Gordon actualy re-signed from his previous job at Microsoft, as he felt the job offered no career advancement opportunities & is looking into the customer/public relations industry for his next job.

The Funny thing is that though this is a holiday short trip my parents are having, this sudden sub-led of “freedom” is kinda interesting. Though independent living is not new to me, considering that I actually did easily spend like 5-6 days to even weeks in a row away from home when I was in the army. This felt different though, kinda unreal.

Update: Just got an sms update from mum that they’ve arrived at their destination safety. Wish them all the best in enjoyment & safety in their trip!

Geoff’s visit from Melbourne

Shaun
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Geoff’s visit from Melbourne
Dinner at Swensens

Geoff’s back in Melbourne now, on a flight last Tuesday. But I didn’t actually found time to update (because of tests & such) on the gathering last Saturday:

Its the time of the year again when my old classmate Geoffery come through thousands of kilometers back to Singapore to meet up & catch up on time as old JC classmates. The old 5 musketeers of St Andrews. The day started with an invitation, the usual gang, Shup, Yingxian, Zongjie & me to Geoff’s pad in celebration of his niece’s 1st month birthday. & everyone’s invited. A mini buffet was held at the corridor together with lots of fast food (which I could never consume due to my sore throat & cough) . We ended up booking tickets for Harry Potter through Geoff’s home only to find out how slow & disorganised Golden Village online bookings can be if we were to add additional seats at the last minute. With that saw a change in plans & a cancellation of the reservation at merchant court (our intended place for dinner). Which is too a good thing as it was expensive anyway! In place was the movie & dinner at Marina Square Swensens thereafter.

& man! did Marina Square change alot. But any old timer to the place will instinctively know that its actually still built on the old floor layout, with some minor touch ups, openings & coverings here & there, & did I mention the air-conditioning is like super-new? & brrrr cold too? We had a good chat, not only at dinner but amazingly at the end of everything when we even found a nice camping spot to talk on standing for like 30mins or so before calling it a day due to “last buses” (it was late anyway!). Till then through next year, we will meet again.

Standard Chartered Marathon

Shaun
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Standard Chartered Marathon
Stand Chartered Marathon

It was already 10.30am, the time where most marathon runners would start finishing. A very hot day last Sunday, with the sky clear blue & only a thin streak of white in sight – a morning scene to behold too at the Padang. Only thing is that I am not clad in my running attire, neither was I exhausted. Yes, I didn’t ran the marathon. Contrary to what you may think of me as a siao-on runner. Partly as I was down with a fever since last week’s Trialthon & didn’t have enough time to fully recover to take on the 42.195km this year. But I was very much there in person to cheer on the community runners, not to mention my school mates at the finishing line.

The failure to return the champion timing chip will result in a $50 penalty, it being a loaned item from the Singapore Sports Council so all non-finishers have to return it hook or by crook. But why mail it in when I can return it at the event? The interesting thing is that upon personally returning it there, I was immediately given a finisher medal & shirt… duh regardless who whoever did it, even if you never ran it!

Heard that baggage collection & distribution was as messed up as that of AHM this year, haha looks like the professional reputation & organisation SCm04 had was definitely tarnished by that of this year’s event.

Back at home, I made a stand not to wear the finisher’s shirt, nor display the medal till I rightfully clear the 42km, next year of course! Infact I shouldn’t have taken it as I didn’t deserve it at all! I won’t take “qualifying the 42km distance from past marathons” a benchmark to don the medal nor the finisher’s shirt but only ones which I yet to face & complete. Only when then a new benchmark will be made, then the fruits may it be reaped.

Oh yea, last but not least, to those who ran & completed this year’s marathon with whatever timing you made, whether its even sub 8hours, 4hours or even made your PB, Congrats. See you all at next year’s marathon! & remember always as quoted in the Olympic creed, its not the competition which keeps the games on, but the desire to participate & complete.

– Pierre de Coubertin

Day at the Boys Brigade

Shaun
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Day at the Boys Brigade
The afternoon at the boys brigade

Located near Zion road is where the Boys Brigade (BB) HQ is. The class pretty much spend the whole friday afternoon there. Part of the CIP hours programme thingie, most of our time packing boxes clothing, toiletries, foodstuff & toys collected/donated into the Sharity Gift Box 2005 onto pallets going out to various homes such as the Singapore Christian home, Centre for exceptional Children & the Hougang Care Centre. All for a good course of course! We even got 5 CIP hours in return, with very good working altitude in the remarks! whee! Good thing the place is also near my home, so I very much know the best eating places around the vincity for lunch & breaks. Good thing we were there to help out today as they were really shorthanded on manpower & volunteers to cope with the Christmas donation & giving efforts, guess will be dropping by again to help in fortnight or so.

With that, here are some eye candy!

Packed stuff
Packed stuff
A salty situation
A salty situation
Thats 4 pallets for the day!
That’s 4 pallets for the day!

If you would wish to contribute & help out for a good course for the Sharity Gift box/warehouse this december before christmas, feel free to check out the Singapore Boy Brigade website for details or call 6737 0377. The BB HQ address is 105 Ganges Avenue, Singapore 169695.

SP Mini Triathlon

Shaun
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SP Mini Triathlon
Sp Mini Trialthon

This was old news last saturday, but didn’t find time to update the site due to a small fever coming out since last friday. Yes I ran a triathlon on the 27th Nov with a FEVER hahaha, slight though & came in the 10 top too. A mini one though: 200m swim, 6000m bike followed by a 2400m run. May it be in 34mins total for me, slow for the tops, but the fastest in my group. My timing could be faster if it won’t for the Bikes provided by the SP cycling club, which gear shifters can’t even go beyond GEAR 3! So its like you can’t go any faster on the downhill, pedal & you are just kicking air & won’t go any faster! darn! If not I could easily be up in the top 5 or even 3!

Its organised by the Singapore Triathlon Family, aka trifam together with SP, in SP. Track practice was on the whole morning too, where they cheered us on as well, very motivational. The thing about exercising when you are sick is that you can’t really feel the fever or so when you are in the heat, only when you are cool & rested, guess so as your body temperature is significantly higher on the run. Popped in self-medication of paracetamol thereafter, wishing that I will be well in this for the Singapore Marathon.

& old school 4-bit players, check this out this classic pong clock!

MRT no petrol ah?

Shaun
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MRT no petrol ah?
Mommy the train broke!

No, its not your typical excuse to give when you are late. Apparently the MRT I was on today “broke down” because one of it’s 48 doors refused to close, resulting in a 15min delay on a train packed no other than a can of sardines similar to that of Tokyo’s rush hour. The staff all tried frantically to isolate & close the door, but to not avail, its stuck half- open.

Its all underground at city hall, they kept trying to open & close the doors in so many configurations till one point, all the train doors remained open while all the outer platform doors closed, tunnel-ly freaky. They eventually came to a concluding point where it too dangerous to run a door open with full passengers, so everybody have to “abandon train” turning city hall into a scene no different to that of a sell-out Rock Concert. Thank goodness the next train arrived within the minute, also all packed… dammit!

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