Kacang Goreng Sempalit Raub

I was driving up to Kuala Lipis when I entered Raub town, then shortly after passing through the Raub town center, I drove past Sg Sempalit. Then it struck my mind, Raub was supposed to be famous for some kinda Nutz.... Sempalit Nuts or something like that.

Sure enough, 5 minutes of a slow drive away from Raub towards Benta, I saw this Kacang Goreng Factory. Its called Kebun Sea Loy, Kacang Goreng Sempalit.



Now , this is funny because the factory was closed, but right next to it, they have one stall, that sorta sells fruits. I have driven pass this factory numerous times, I just did not realize that it is a Kacang Sempalit Factory.

Okay what's so special about Kacang Sempalit ? First thing first, they do not have an agent in KL. So it is of limited availability to us people in KL at this moment.

What do you think off when I say Groundnutz ?

So when we talk about groundnutz, first brand we think of is Ngan Yin. What is wrong with Ngan Yin ? Firstly, too salty. The nutz are too small. It is so small, it slips out of your fingers, and sometime it gets lost in your mouth. You remember this logo ?



That brand/picture has always associated with nice tasty ground nuts. Can't remember any other peanutz brands leh ? After trying out the Kacang Goreng Sempalit, my impression of Ngan Yin groundnutz became like this.



Whats the big deal with Sempalit Roasted Groundnuts ?

Size. Its much bigger compared with Ngan Yin's nutz.
Taste. Much better not as salty as Ngan Yin.
FReshness. Much better, not as many nutz lao foong , like Ngan Yin.
Definitely much better quality control when it comes to cracked nutz in the packing.




There you go, some pictures to indicate the size of these nutz. And the packaging although is silvery , glittery stuff, I still think Ngan Yin looks better from outside. But then, once you have gone Sempalit, you wont go for Ngan Yin again...

One Noodles, Kepong

Shrimp Wanton Noodles
Szechuan Dry Noodles

Kepong is considered by most a food haven. Why ? This surburb has got the highest concentration of "good food" stalls. It is not like anyone has made a survey of some sort, but looking for good food in KL can be tricky. You find food stalls at every corner of every street in KL. Which one is good which one is not ?

One Noodle, as the name of the eatery suggests, it serves noodles. The pictures above shows two types of noodles. The shrimp wanton soup noodles and SzeChuan Dry Noodles. The noodles are so so only. Their SzeChuan is not sour and spicy enough for my liking. Perhaps they have to tone down on the powerness of its Szechuaness taste, to adapt to the Malaysian Chinese's tastebuds.

The favourite dish is still the Seafood NoodleSoup which comes in Dry/Soup/Curry and Tom Yam. This is a must try dish, their most expensive one in the menu. Of course if you like to try their starters (dim sum) do try some of the stuff they have.

Over the years, KTZ have grown in popularity, however so , the quality of their food has gone down. I remember those days when KTZ was a small little stall by the main road of Kepong.

Maggi Goreng Sardin @ Jinjang Selatan (closed Down Already)

THIS PLACE CLOSED DOWN LIAO... ANYONE KNOWS WHERE THE STALL HAS MOVED TO ?

Maggi Goreng

The Stall

This stall in Jinjang gets my vote for best Maggi Goreng in Malaysia. They serve really tasty maggi goreng. Their Maggi Goreng is not the normal type where the mamak goreng for you. This maggi goreng is made in a pot, similar to the maggi soup pot. They add their own sambil ikan bilis, their own Maggi Curry Bumbu, and Sardin.....

One more thing is special here, their Nasi Lemak Panas, but have not got the chance to try that yet. Very simple, just sit around the stall and watch what those people eat over there. Order the same thing most people are ordering, you can't go wrong...

Johor and Pahang areas visited, luckilly not flooded

I set off to Batu Pahat on Tuesday morning to do our first installation of the EMS, Environmental Monitoring System. Name only canggih, but thats how the client likes to refer to it. Before going down , everyone was worried about the flooding situation and so forth. As such my installation for the Pahang site will be slightly delayed. But nevertheless, we were to finish installtion at the Johor site and I had to be back in Pahang ( appointment already made) on Friday morning.

On Tuesday, it rained the whole time we drove down, but the client was having meetings so he delayed us one day. So the next day, lucky for us, we were "blessed" with good weather, in other words, hot and sunny. Little did I noticed it until we got back to our hotel room, that I realized I got sun burnt, on my neck and face. Darn !! Kononnya good weather la.

FOOD

The first night we were on our own, and with a little research and talking to the locals, Briyani Gam, is famous here in this region. Had to try it, and found out there is this restaurant called, Beriani Power Restoran. Got directions to go find this place, but it took us 45 mins to finally find it. It was fragging closed at night. Mahai !! nobody told us they were not open at night. So we ended up having food at a mamak stall in town. Restoran Meriyiam, Nasi Kandar. But there weren't selling Nasi Kandar, Sup and Nasi Lemak saja ada !! Ok lor, ordered Nasi Lemak Ayam Goreng and Zup Campur ( Ayam, Kambing , Daging Campur wo). Nasi Lemak wasn't good, because their sambal was burnt, like my face. But their Ayam Goreng, fuiyooo, punya la bes rasanya. Its along the main road in Pusat Bandar Batu Pahat, opposite of Maybank. Ayam Goreng panas... bes !!

When you drive to Batu Pahat, you have to try their APAMS and Putu Bamboo. Where ? After exiting the Air Hitam Toll Plaza, you will see very prominent signs put up by stalls there, at this moment there is only one and that stalls sells superb apams and putu bamboo. They are nice and cheap. On Thursday, it rained in the morning, until the evening , non stop. We rushed to finish installation and testing of our equipment before we headed back home. All wet and soggy, we began our journey home after a quick change of clothes. As we reached Air Hitam town we stopped by a place for lunch. Thats where we saw a goreng pisang stall there. Pisang Tanduk prominently displayed on the booth. I call them Pisang XXX , why ah, you go figure out yourself la. The Pisang goreng was superb. This one from Air Hitam town. Go for the pisang tanduks, the huge ones, because they are very sweet and aromatic.



After lunch we left in a hurry. It has been raining the whole entire day , as far as we were concerned. The little lake where we installed the equipment recorded a 0.6M rise in level. I had to be in Kuala Lipis the same night.




The black marking is the road up to Kuala Lipis. Its via Bentong, Raub, Benta and then you will finally reach Kuala Lipis. Siti Town they call it. Spent the night day before I began on another crazy day, of driving up to Kuala Medang ( Felda ), visit 2 sites. From there we had to drive back down to Kuala Lipis en route to Jerantut. Red markings , the Ikan Patin Trail I call it. Why Ikan Patin ? Simple, you drop by any Malay stall, you are surely to find Ikan Patin sold. My favourite style too, Patin masak Tempoyak ... yummy.. The kicks come after eating the dish... when you begin passing gas !! hehehe

On the way down to Jerantut we were met with a long queue. Wondering what the commotion was , I took a slow stroll to see what was happening. It is not common for this alternative trunk road to be congested like this. Then we saw this. It had some sort of a fiesta feel to this.


Some smart ass decided to set up stall to sell his Petais. So this is the first time I had so much company driving on this road to Jerantut. Lucky for us, all this lasted no more than 15 minutes before we began to inch our way through. The Crane decided to stop rescuing for awhile so that the kilometer long queue could move.



We then drove up to the Sg Tembeling area, pretty much very close to Kuala Tahan. Here if you are lucky, you could catch yourself Ikan Kelah. Apparently this fish has been fished out to almost extinct. It is an endangered species now, however so, the Wildlife department has set up many Kelah Sanctuaries in Taman Negara's rivers. This because Ikan Kelah can not survive in dirty or turbid waters in the wild. Therefore, the only place it could survive is in National Parks like Taman Negara, where the river is clean.

So I came back via Jerantut - Temerloh highway to the New EastCoast Expresway. Nice drive back home and it took me only about 2.5 hours to reach home from Jerantut.

Basically I have never seen so much rain before, I mean in KL everything seems to just pour out and stops. In Johor it just never seems to stop. Luckilly there were no floods at the places where I visited. Even for the Pahang rivers, they did not seem to be as high as when they were in December.

Vietnam Kitchen - Neither here nor there

Have you been eating a lot of good food lately or your tastebuds are becoming increasingly picky ? Thats the first question I asked myself when I looked at the bowl of noodles the waiter. It wasn't even aromatic, instead it smelt like blend soup with hor fun in it.

I have had two other unsatisfied visits to this restaurant, Vietnam Kitchen ( Leisure Mall branch). Name only Vietnam, but instead it actually serves up a Vietnamese - Chinese fusion cuisine. Whatever the want to claim to be, they do not serve good food, neither do they serve authentic food.

I ordered a special Beef Noodle Soup. I could easilly quote two other places , Jln Alor and Jalan Silang Beef noodle stalls that serves much better beef noodles than this restaurant. And those are only Standard beef noodles.

The other dish is Special Seafood Fried Noodles,at first sight came to me instantly as Kong Lam Mee with Seafood in it. Alamak, how lame can a Vietnamese restaurant trying to be ? Viet trying to be Chinese or Chinese trying to be Viet ?

My recommendations for Vietnamese Fusion Cuisine - Go to MidValley , CoDo... you will enjoy the food, its really a twist of Chinese and Vietnamese Cuisine combined, with a very nice environment to savour your food in.

Six Treasure Drink

Special Beef Noodles

Stir Fried Seafood Noodles

Saravana Bhavan - Food Undertakers

It was one of those Sundays which we decided we wanted to be lazy and not do anything. So after sleeping in and all went hung out around Bangsar and ended up in MPH. Its that corner bookshop which is 3 floors high. Looked really huge from the outside, had lots of books in it, but not many titles in it. Sayang bought a FITBALL book , so now hopefully we can complement our training program with a few fitball exercises . Yeay!!

Opposite of MPH I spotted this Indian Vegetarian Restaurant, called Madras Woodlands. Just a few doors away from McDs. Wanted to go put something in my mouth, but Sayang, suggested why not we go to Saravana Bhavan's !! I was like, eh whats with this place la... ok la lets go try it.

When we arrived at the place, I found out that Saravana Bhavans are undertakers of food. Or according to their signage, they cater for Outdoor Undertakers ?




Anyway they might have some superb Indianglish, but they do boast of serving many types of Indian food. Its a vegetarian restaurant, which obviously means, no lamb, mutton, beef, fish, etc. In front of their cashier counter , they put a fridge, just like secret recipe would. Instead of cakes they put sweets. Indian sweets are definitely not something I like to try. Why ? Imagine eating something sour.... your face will smudge rite ? Mine would after eating indian sweets, because they are too sweet. Then they have another counter where they sell, murukus, nuts, and so forth.




This is a first for me, Indian Ice Cream, Kulfi. This one is Almond Flavour. Has got lots of nuts and lots of milk in it. It tastes good though. It also comes in more fruity flavours. I wasn't over whelmed by the smell of almond, neither was the milk. So all in all, pass la. My first time with it wasn't a bad one , means it is good.

Almond Kulfi

Now when you walk into a vegetarian restaurant, you have to try their Dosa/thosai, their dhal. We ordered a serving of the Dosa Masala. The Dosa was huge, and the filling was of adequate proportions. Just nice to me, although some places might give you a thicker filling. It comes with a small bowl of Dhal, and the usual 3 types of chutneys that acompanies a Dosa. I gotta say the Dosa was ok, so so only, but the Dhal/ sambar, and chutneys when combined with their Dosa, the taste was almost heavenly. Some of the better Dosa Masalas I have had.

Dosa Cut In HalfDosa Masala Filling

This place, got me hooked. Must go back and try their again sometime. This restaurant is situated a long the same row of shop houses as Maybank. Or when you reach Bangsar just ask around, its supposed to be famous.

Kopitiam in Bangi

When the word kopitiam is said, what rings in your ears ? Kopi-O Ping, Kopi Cee Ping, Teh Cee, Teh O, etc, right ? The other thing that comes to mind, and I begin to visualize, Ah Hia, Ah Pek and Ah Bengs playing chinese chess, or a bunch of Ah Peks playing Mahjong.


Oh well, I must learn to strip myself of these stereotypes. I was in Bangi Seksyen 8 recently, looking for a 120Ohm Resistor ( Pasar Road too far), but instead I found this Kopitiam.



The decorations were all nice , floor tiles were the ones bercorak corak, marble top tables and kopitiam style chairs, everything in there gives you a retro feel la. Even the lighting was nice and dim. The owner definitely spent quite a bit on renovating this establishment.

So now even Bangi also got kopitiam, but I don't know yet, what they serve in there.

Resolutions - A bloody waste of time

Why do people make resolutions at the beginning of the year ? Most people I know will forget about their resolutions by Chinese New Year. Why can't we make up resolutions as we journey through the year.

Why annual resolutions instead of monthly or perhaps a habit of making weekly resolutions ?

How many of us review our resolutions every month or every half a year ?

Do we make new resolutions , set new goals should we meet them earlier ?

For those of us who have made resolutions please feel free to read this

or you can look at the Top Ten New Year Resolutions

Tau Sar Pneah

Tau Sar Pneah - Penang Wan

Pic from Doctor Chan's Flickr Chest

Other than memories of our trip to Penang, we brought home some authentic traditional Tambun Biscuits. What gifts do you get your family when you go to Penang ? Tambun Biscuits and Nutmeg. Not only did we get these stuff for friends, we also got one box for our own consumption.

Coincidentally, my brother has also recently went up to Penang for a short holiday and brought home some Ghee Heangs. As for me, I followed Scully's advice and brought home a box of Him Heangs. GH's packaging is somehow more thoughtful as compared to HH's. GH packs them in fours and sealed so that we can store them longer. HH gives them all to you in one box.

Taste wise, I really can't tell the difference. Personally I am not a Tambun Biscuit Fan, as such, has not much experience as to which one is better or how Tambun Biscuits should taste like. When it comes to the question of who makes better Tambun Biscuits, GH or HH ? You will divide the Penang people into half.

The box of HH's we bought, although was not warm, but it was crispy when we opened it, almost immediately after we purchased it. That was just how fresh it was. Then another thing struck me as I finished the last piece of HH. Something is written inside the HH box. It says, that HH does not appoint any agents to bake or sell their biscuits. These biscuits can only be purchased at their HH shop in Jalan Burmah in Penang (I was dumbfounded). No wonder GH more popular then HH la.

However so, I believe these two GH and HH are the most popular Tambun Biscuit sellers in Penang. Of course they are other players too, for example, Halal biscuits are now available in the market for the consumption of our muslim friends. Which to me, tastes a lot sweeter and instead of putting lard, it is substituted with Onion Oil. Still very tasty, but I bet not many people tried it, because it is not as famous.

Penang Trip - Part 3

Our next destination takes us to , another great tourist attraction, Kek Lok Si temple. For a more politically correct explantion click on this , Kek Lok Si. The picture is taken upon the arrival at the foot of the hill which the great temple is located on. Found a car park usherer and followed his directions, RM5 please, non negotiable. Private parking ma, so pay lo.

As we made our way up we had to walk past small little stalls before we reach the courtyard of the temple. It reminds me very much of my last trip to this temple which was more than 15 years ago. It hasn't changed much. Still selling junk to rip off small kids. The only things that have changed is that they now have Chelsea Football Jerseys for sale at this stalls, it used to be Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United Jerseys only.

At the half way point you will reach a small, filthy pond, filled with tortoises. The water so filthy it was green and sticky, just imagine slime. One guy was seen arranging vegetables , tied up in rubber bands. Caught his eye and he spoke in English, RM1 for each to feed the turtles. I said no thanks. We walked on.



We walked further up and we managed to see a very nice vegetarian restaurant. Looks posh but I wondered who would be eating the food in there. Took a peep, and found it to be empty. It was about 1pm. I thought this restaurant might signal that we have arrived at the temple site itself. But we reached another landmark, a mini pagoda, with two Buddha Statues, open air one. I believe this to be the actual court yard which leads to the main temple grounds. We found another attraction. There were a few persons sitting by the walkway, I assume they were attractions too, but when I tried to take a picture, the old lady snarled and spoke in perfect English, " No Pictures Please !"



Okay , the was something I did not expect. But a short climb of a few flights of stairs ( the beginning of many that day) we arrived at the actual Temple grounds. Kek Lok Si, is nice, beautiful , and we managed to get to the summit of the Pagoda. Then we went on to the site of the huge Kuan Yin Bronze Statue, located at the summit of the hill. Awesome sights. Tourists here and there, but for us we just took a few pics and left before we have to que up again to go back down the hill. Oh ya , we donated a few bucks to see the Pagoda, and then we donated another a few more bucks to use the Horizontal Lift to reach the Kuan Yin Temple. Walking is no longer encouraged. There was a prayer room specially dedicated to the different types of buddha too. I thought this temple is one of the nicest compared to Thean Hou Temple in KL.




So after visiting the temple, we managed to sample Air Hitam Market's Asam Laksa. Personally I think that this Asam Laksa was quite tasty compare to the Pg Road one. It looks dirty, but surprisingly no LAO SAI after eating this. We also managed to find , Tau Sar Pneah, Halal Ones. We grabbed a few boxes for our office colleagues. I must say these biscuits are quite tasty, my colleagues loved it.

After temple, we met up with Scully. He brought us to Balik Pulau to try his favourite CKT. But the stall not open. So we came back, and had Lrg Selamat Big Prawn CKT instead. Yum yum. But the highlight of the day was Roti Babi, home made from his house. When he mentioned his aunties were making Roti Babi, my eyes widened. Most superb tasty Roti Babi.



We got back by 7pm. Sun set was never spectacular in Penang, at least thats the impression you get from the view in the hotel room. We made arrangements with Tamiya, to meet up later that night. He will bring us to sample , what they claim to be the best WanTon Mee and Best Hokkien Mee in Penang. So they brought us to one eatery in Third Street. After trying it, so so only. Cheh. Prawn mee oso, like that only. I just noticed something. Penang Hawker food serves their chili sauce, prawn sauce, sambal , in the soup spoon. In KL, they will give you a little saucer to store your kicap, chili sauce or sambal. So in Penang they expect you to pour everything into the noodles.


We had a little party at a place they call SS. The mood for partying also SoSo only, just likes the initials of the place. Anyway the next day we were heading towards Jerejak Island. I like to call it the Island off the Island of Penang. Before we went to the jetty we headed towards Feringgi Beach, then off to Balik Pulau to find that illusive CKT and Prawn Mee and Pasembor. All three also we found, and the food was awesome. Although the CKT was probably not the same one Scully mentioned, but it was nice. We found this kwai lou trying the famous Asam Laksa for the first time. It was so tasty, his lack of ability in using the chopsticks didn't stop him from eating his asam laksa.


After lunch we headed towards Bayan Lepas to the jetty. Our tummys turned on us once we reached the island. Must have been food poisoning. Overall the island was relaxing and slow. The service was nice, and place was quiet. For two days, Sayang wasn't feeling very well. We had to look for something light and watery to eat for dinner. So we drove around town for awhile and we found this porridge shop. Unlike most CKT and Prawn Mee Stall owners, these fellas do not speak Cantonese. It means , it is not very popular with tourists.

We ordered Teo Chew style porridge, the ones made with long rice and was very watery type. Ordered black meat ( something like char siu but is not), mui choi ( nice one), ordered one vege and we had Stewed Phoenix claws ( chicken feet la).... wakakaka. Everything was nice. Definitely stumbled upon a gem here. This porridge stall is located at Lrg Selamat and open only at night.



By the next morning we were eagerly going to check out after breakfast. Tummies still not feeling very well. We happilly left Penang Island as soon as we got into our car. Heading south , we were comtemplating whether to stop by Ipoh or not. In the end we did.

Onn Kee Taugeh Ayam. From no appetite , also made us got appetite. I ordered a bowl of Kwai Teow Soup while Sayang had her rice. She finished everything (not bad for someone who has tummy ache), that just proves how good the chicken was. Simply the best la.

Overall the trip was a success. My face was round before the trip , and it got rounder after the trip. We managed to try out some of the best hawker foods in the country. Best chicken from Ipoh. I certainly did not realize how cheap the food was until we came back and had Chili Pan Mee in Chow Kit. It was RM4.60 per bowl and we had to order 3 bowls for the two of us.

Our friends from Penang , definitely made this visit a special one. They really brought us around and showed us around really very well. Special thanks goes to Karyn and Shades(wink). Of course Scully who provided us a piece of his Roti Babi.

Penang Trip - Part 2

After checking into the hotel we managed to jump around on the bed a little. Never jumped on my own bed before but this one is not mine, so I ran 2 meters and jumped onto the bed. Yipeee.. Decided to get some rest before we ventured out into the streets of Penang. So by about 8pm we were hungry and thought it would be nice to have some nice authentic Penang Hawker food. For Sayang, it had to be Hokkien Mee, which I did not understand why. For me it was Char Kway Teow, Asam Laksa and whatever I could find. We drove for a short while, called Shades and he gave us directions to McAllister Rd. We parked near some Chettiar place opposite of Sunway Hotel and romped off towards the crowd.



We were obviously pretty confused, Sayang and I. Is this the place ah ? Which stall nice ah ?
Gung Ho as usual, my reply was lets try la. So we ordered Lin Chi Kang from some old auntie (yucks), Satay and Chicken Wings from across the road , nice. Prawn Mee which was quite blend. Char Kway Teo which was quite ok only. We finished that and I remembered my last trip here, I visited different stalls, one which was along the Main McAllister Rd. So we decided to walk off the food we ate, just about 100m up, we found two old hawker centers with one new Center which sprung up recently. Opted for the old dirty one. We were quite full so we just ordered Fried Oysters and Herbal Tea. This one was quite cute, we don have bottled Herbal Tea like this in KL. Oysters were normal. Fresh to say the least .




So the night ended with O Chien. We noticed the two Hokkien Mee stalls in this hawker center. One was open at night and the other not open. The one which was closed had newspaper cuttings on its stall. All in chinese therefore did not read further. Two very distinct differences when compared with KL Hawker Food, Price and Serving. In Penang, the food costs very much less and the servings are much smaller compared to the hawkers in KL.

Got back to the hotel and slept. We managed to make an appointment with Shades and Karyn for brunch the next day. Excited, as this would be our first guided tour of Penang Food, since our arrival.

Day Two - Brunch



The first restaurant we raided was the Penang Rd place. Famous for Char Kwai Teo and Assam Laksa. Which one ? The one with the famous Cendol stall outside. We managed to pose for the camera as it was still early, we could use one more table to put our camera and self time it to take this pic. Nobody touched the Nasi Lemak on the table. It was transferred to another table soon after the picture was taken (till today I still do not understand why that Nasi Lemak was there) . We ordered our Fried Kwai Teo and Assam Laksa. Verdict: Standard Drop until nothing to say. This was the place I thought would give me the No1 Fried Kwai Teo in the world. With the first bite, I tell you... no way...

The Cendol Stall however, maintained its position in the number one spot for best cendol in town. Best in Penang, Some Say best in JB, but definitely Better than most Singaporean Cendols.


Next stop was Swatou Lane ( Sin Sai Kei I think). Famous for Rojak and Ice Kacang. Kekeke, now I see where the put Banana in Ice Kacang thing happening. They now put in fruits, kiwi, watermelons, apples, oranges into the Ice Kacangs. Oh ya they even put in Ice Cream. I remember having enjoyed ice kacang must better at one of the lesser known stalls in Kepong, and obviously the Famous Madras Lane Ice Kacang, its unique, Ice Kacang served in a Cup would have been better. Nevertheless, this Ice Kacang was still considered quite nice. The rojak was very very nice. The sauce ah... fuiseh, really different. Definitely can't find this rojak sauce anywhere else. It had everything in it, not too fishy, not too hot, and not too sticky. This Rojak at Swatou Lane definitely gets the seal of approval. According to Shades and and Karyn you can also buy the Rojak paste and enjoy Rojak Penang at home. Shades ordered two plates, one just with Sengkuang only, and the other the standard affair of mixed fruits.



If you noticed the ABC Special words below the plate, I think I ordered the ABC Biasa, which is how I like my Ice Kacang.



After we finished our jalan - jalan cari makan for brunch, Shades took us on a guided tour of places of interest in Penang. We managed to drive by certain places of interest, like Kapitan Keling's Mosque, Kuan Yin Temple, eh Penang's own Broadway, Bank Street buildings were beautiful, Beach Street stuff like the Fort Donowat, various beautiful churches of different ages and teachings.

What to do With Rojak Sauce, after you finish your rojak ? Featuring Shades.

Happy New Year

Hello 2007 goodbye 2006. It has really been quite a year. Nothing much planned, but I did tell myself I'd kick the habit of smoking in 06. And so I did, very much with the encouragement of Sayang. Kicking the habit of smoking has been made much much easier with Sayang going the extra mile, with me, especially during the first 3 days of going cold turkey. Thanks Sayang !!!

06 also marked the year I met Sayang, kekeke. As well as the year I regained some of the weight I lost in 05. It is sad to say that I have ended 2006 with a lot more pounds then what I have begun with. Some say, that it was because when you are happy , you tend be have a bigger appetite. Whatever la, what's been done has been done. This coming year, I will strive to manage my weight closely.

Anyway here is the year in Review ( sorta kinda thing)

Jan - March were pretty much dark months which I prefer not to remember. Anyways it was filled with spending lots of time partying at Zouk, Bar Flam, Rum Jungle and Thai Club. Pretty much spending most of my free time outside of gym clubbing away into the wee hours of the night.

April marks the beginning of a lot of visits to the jungle, in search for a suitable site to install our monitoring equipment. As such less partying and the beginning of a busy year. Jan - March was marred by frequent breaks and festivities.
March - As part of our aggresive marketing strategy, we demonstrated how powerful our new equipment was and succesfully gauged a 120m wide river in 2 hours, and with pretty good accuracy too.



April - PDRM's contribution to my life on April 01 2006 this year. They raided Bar Flams in Bangsar as a gesture to patrons of nightclubs in the vicinity that big brother is watching us. Nothing much was done except that they had a film crew from TV3 which accompanied this raid. Footage of the girls which were on the other side were shown in 999 Tv Show. I pity those girls whose images were shown on TV.
May - We made the first Vectrino sale in Malaysia. A very precision measurement instrument that can detect the smallest movements of water. Met Sayang at the gym and one day she was doing boxing training at Leisure Mall. SO loud went to see what's the noise, and I saw her throwing those powerful punches. Stim liao !!


June - We visited more rivers and finally I found a building similar to St John's Institution's building. This one can be seen in Kuala Lipis, it houses the government offices for the district. Lovely building and very well maintained.

June - I discovered an erotic form of dance at Thai Club - upstairs. Pole dancing. Young girls que up to take turns showing their dexterity around the pole. While the boys strut their stuff below them. Apparently these girls are pole dancing for fun, I do not believe that they are paid dance at this club.


June - Miracle 2006 , Les Mills program launch for FF clubs.

July - Probably the fittest condition I achieved since I joined Fitness First. Now far from that.

August - Had the most wonderful Birthday celebration ever. But no pics. :(

August - Fitness First Screwed up their marketing promotions by out sourcing it to Pro Direct. They must have under estimated the power of direct marketing. Too many new members flooded the gyms for one month causing much discomfort to loyal members.



A quick fast forward to tonight. A tired and determined me, still blogging in the wee hours of the morning. Will go to gym for first Combat Class of 07. The year 2006 ended with a cocktail party hosted by Gobi Huang a very good friend of Sayangs. Pickles and BF was there too, infact the invitation was from them. The picture shows everyone before they were wasted.



This picture shows them playing Indian Poker and in the progress of getting Wasted, definitely having a good time.


The mascot of 2006 , Year of The Dog was also enjoying himself watching us humans getting wasted. Seen here chilling out in between having to be forced to layan so many ppl.




And of course the countdown.

HAPPY NEW YEAR