The stories of baggy eyed and stiff shouldered lawsh: 09/01/2011

Friday, September 30, 2011

Chengdu : Land of Giant Pandas and MaLat Spiciness

I was recently asked to perform a site certification for the company in Chengdu, China. The reason behind the choice was fairly straightforward, there weren't too many candidates who is able to converse in Chinese in my team. Initially, I thought it was just a 1 person thingy but later on I found out that my boss would be joining me =_=

Anyhows, its not a trip, its for work and its supposed to be huge. I have handled big projects before so this is not really that difficult although it is my first time doing a site certification. In my mind, it is an easy job and it should not take more than 1 day. Boy was I wrong and in the end it actually took around 2.5 days to complete =_=|||

This coupled with the initial confusion on flight dates, it was chaotic. After the dust have settled down, I went 2 days before the actual work started so that I have at least some time to do some exploration of the city. Since my boss would be there, we could go and visit the Panda Research Center together and that would of course cut down on the travelling cost but it would seem that transportation would be provided by our host and that worked out perfectly because that way we would not get cheated by the taxis.

The driver brought us to have local dishes and other places of interest like Kwan Zhai Xiang Zi, Jinli Street, Shu Ma Guang Chang (its Chengdu's Lowyat). These places are the most accessible and not too far out of the city. If you ask for my opinion, I would suggest for you to visit Jinli Street in the city and Panda Research Center. I did not get the opportunity to visit Leshan Buddha or Er Mei Mountain but I think this places would be of interest as well especially for those who like to take pictures. The further place would of course be JiuZhaiGou and HuangLong if you have a couple of days to spare not to mention be willing t0 pay for the flight tickets.

All in all, the foods are filled with spices and almost unavoidable and the sceneries at the tourist attractions are wonderful. The roads will be an eye opener, 3-5 lanes highways and 2-3 side roads just beside the highways to turn off. Visibility varies from 200m to over 1km. Most of the time the city looks to be covered in a haze. I suppose pollution is quite bad there but I did not get breathing difficulties so it should still be acceptable.

One thing which I cannot get used to would be driving. Their cars are like Americans, left hand drive and drive on the right side of the road. When I sit in the front passenger seat, its like the car is missing the all the driver's things where its supposed to be. Almost all the people there drive like the road belongs to them, move and stop at their fancy. Using the horn as if they are the police speeding to chase after fugitives. The traffic lights do not need to be put up because cars can stop in the middle of a major 4 land road and try to make the turn while avoiding oncoming traffic. I was scared stiff and nobody would volunteer to sit in the front.

I declare I is alien

Shuangliu Airport

Panda Research Center

A real live panda upclose

Cute little cubs!!!

Jackie Chan donation plaque

Panda supply truck

Panda bus, additional RMB10

Wooden-like bus

Kuan (Wide) Alley of KuanZhai Alleys

Zhai (Narrow) Alley

I don't think she is model because she ain't that pretty but look at the amount of photographers she attracted

Blown up candy

So many brands of ciggarates

Chengdu's 三大炮 (3 big cannons)

Police, the car reminds me of Japanese police cars

McD, its real

MaLat Hot Pot

Chengdu's Lowyat aka ShuMaGuangChang

Street food : Fried stuff, the pork satay is DELICIOUS!!!

Street food : Fried potato

Jinli Street

3 kingdoms

Traditional building designs at Jinli Street, I love them

Zhang Fei beef

A souvenir from my host

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Cucuk lambat yang teramat

I submitted my taxes before the stipulated due date and was supposed to get my back my overpaid taxes within a month of submission. When that date passed, I started to sweat because I had declared quite a large sum of overpayment but with proof, of course. Well to be honest, I did not know when it was deposited until one fine day when I checked my account balance to have a huge sum which I cannot account for. I received the written confirmation a couple of weeks later when I have already spent the amount returned to me :p

Imagine my utter surprise when I got this email from LHDN titled, "Bayaran Balik Cukai Terlebih Bayar / Pembayaran Balik Lebihan Kredit" :

Tuan,

Perkara di atas adalah dirujuk.

2. Sukacita dimaklumkan bahawa bayaran balik cukai terlebih bayar / pembayaran balik lebihan kredit tuan telah diluluskan dan CIMB BANK BERHAD telah menghantar dana bayaran balik tersebut kepada bank tuan, iaitu MALAYAN BANKING BERHAD pada 28/05/2011.(Rujukan: IRBxxxxxxxx872)

3. LHDNM telah memberi keutamaan kepada pembayaran balik tuan. Bagaimanapun, LHDNM masih boleh membuat semakan lanjut dan mengaudit dokumen untuk mengesahkan tuntutan tuan. Cawangan LHDNM akan menghubungi tuan sekiranya maklumat tambahan diperlukan.

Emel ini dihantar secara automatik dari server unit eKL LHDNM. Surat rasmi akan menyusul.

Sekian, terima kasih.

DISCLAIMER: The contents of this email and its attachment, if any ("message") are intended for the named addressee only and may contain privileged and/or confidential information. If you are not the named addressee or if you have inadvertently receive this message, you should immediately destroy or delete this message and notify the sender by return e-mail. Lembaga Hasil Dalam Negeri Malaysia (LHDNM) disclaims all liabilities for any error, loss or damage arising from this message being infected by computer virus or other contamination. All opinions, conclusions and other information in this message that do not relate to the official business of LHDNM shall be deemed as neither given nor endorsed by LHDNM.
Perhatian:
Dimaklumkan bahawa efektif dari 1 Julai 2008, Domain LHDNM telah bertukar dari hasil.org.my kepada hasil.gov.my

I was just a little hoping that the government would tell me that they owe me more :p Look at the date which they supposedly returned the money and today's date. Its a 4 months difference and the also the announcement at the bottom. Thankfully I use Google to search the site instead of remembering which URL its supposed to be using else I would be thinking it went bust or something.

Although they have made a good effort to process things faster but this email was definitely an epic slowpoke. Please don't go wasting my money to buy another email system to be able to send out emails on time, almost nobody cares because the most important thing is to return our overpaid money even faster :)

Sekian terima kasih. Majulah sukan untuk negara.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

My Bangkok experience : Do and Don'ts

Although it was not my first time in Thailand but I don't remember it being so difficult to communicate or wanting to go somewhere not to mention expensive. Well the expensive part would most likely be partly due to the fact that I was travelling alone in metered taxis but its really true that you won't want to trust a tuk-tuk =_=

Do :

- Try to at least have basic conversation notes in Thai, my notes was mostly based on numbers for shopping purposes but it was not really enough
- Insist on taking metered taxis because tuk-tuk although seems to be a cheaper alternative might charge you more expensive ...
- Always have a map and there are plenty of free maps starting from the ones you can get from the airport :)
- Tolled roads are usually the better option but if possible have your GPS with you
- Try to bargain on the price of the item(s) which you want to buy, check out Platinum mall and Pratunam mall
- Try to get your budget hotel to be nearer to a BTS station OR live in the area which you want to go around eg Pratunam for all the shopping malls
- Bring a fan to cool you down when you do your exploring, especially Chatuchak
- Try out the foods which are native to Thailand eg tomyamgung, pad thai, pork satays and etc :p
- Eat out at your convenient roadside stalls to get the real tastes of Thailand
- Have a good knowledge of the prices of the items which you think might be cheaper in Thailand as compared to your home country because some places, the prices are more expensive eg authentic Nike jerseys

Don't :

- Believe 100% what your taxi driver tells you
- Forget your sunblock!
- Be ashamed to ask your hotel attendants to help you explain to the taxi driver where you want to go
- Need to go Khao San Road
- Go up to the second floors of ANY show places in Patpong, you are guaranteed to be a lamb ie slaughtered
- Forget to grab your free water from the hotel before going out
- Expect that all high class hotel staff will understand full English

Well basically that is a summary of my experience in my very short stint in Bangkok. I would really love to go back again BUT this time, hopefully much better prepared.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival

My loot from Bangkok includes the following :

Since I dislike yolk-ed mooncakes so I just bought all plain ones. Jujube is something like Ng Yan mooncakes

Snow-skinned mooncakes

They don't taste so good but its expected because its not really their festival so I don't really blame them. Im just testing them out and also to fulfill a request by a colleague for her souvenir.

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Bangkok : Fast, furious and spicy

Warning : VERY long post ahead.

2 weeks just before Raya, I was informed that I will be given the opportunity to go to Bangkok to attend a conference by a vendor. The conference will gather customers, distributers and collaborative vendors from Asia to showcase their products and offerings. That's the good news. The bad news is that the travel date falls on Raya week and I will be going with 2 Malay colleagues and eating logistics was ... sigh have to find halal where possible. Oh well, a free trip is a free so I won't give too much crap.

Thinking ahead, I planned to extend my stay because the conference was on Thursday and Friday so I might as well stay until Sunday. I made my hotel bookings searching for the one of the cheapest hotel and on Google Map looks quite close to the shopping malls. I have heard a lot from my friends that Bangkok is a shopping haven and I do like a little shopping.

I flew in on the 31st and as expected the rest of the participants were non-Muslims. The vendor who was accompanying us have a presence in Bangkok and therefore their counterpart arranged the transport to the hotel. The first thing you will notice in Bangkok is the way MOST people drive. It gives a whole new meaning to fast and furious, the van that was bringing me to the hotel was going 130kmph almost all the way to the hotel slowed down only by the tolls and traffic lights. Other Toyotas were zipping us by like were not over 100kmph =_=|||

The first evening was like a registration cum cocktail reception and most people were in a relaxed state and your's truly went to the registration counter wearing bermudas and slippers :p All's well because they did not specify the attire anyways and we grabbed some finger food and ate quite lightly because we were told that we will be going out to try the local food and of course to check out the highlights of the city.

Initially we were told that we would be going to have dinner on a boat but we were all gathered, our host informed us that the restaurant have already closed and it was only 9pm local time (Thai time is 1 hour behind Malaysia time). It was quite disappointing and since my colleague have been harping to go visit Patpong since the day he was told that he would be going and that was where we went >_< After another super fast taxi ride, we made a pass into Patpong all the way to the end and to me it felt like Petaling Street but the shops are all about pole dancing bars and pubs. We had our so called dinner nearby before heading back to check out the notorious second floor and its shows.

However from my research before going there, Patpong is not a place where you want to go and see those kind of shows because they are littered with scams. My host fell for it and although the shows were an eye opener to all, the bill was a complete shocker to my host. Vendors being vendors especially those who are good at negotiating managed to bring the bill down to a more manageable figure but still it did set them back quite a bit and to make it worst, the owner of that place refused to give them a receipt meaning to say they cannot claim!

On the second day after the conference ie the last night for many guests, we did get our dinner on a river cruise. The food was so so but the view is actually quite good although it did drizzle a little but avid photographers, myself included did not let the rain bother us from taking the pictures of lighted structures on the riverbank. After dinner, we were suggested to visit a disco which was supposed to be famous but to me it was quite a sorry place to spend the night. The supposed shows features girls and guys who would strip down to their underwear but the girls were wearing skin colored under underwears =_=

On the third day, my colleagues went off earlier to do their shopping of which this would be their last chance. I stayed on at the conference hoping to win lucky draws again :p Unfortunately, the Ipad2s were won by other participants but the last draw was totally unfair because I was still in one of the sessions and they did not wait for us ... 2 vendors and another participant extended our stay and we went on our own adventure after bidding farewell to the others.

We went to Khao San road after reading much about it telling us that there were a lot of things sold there and the expectation was quite high BUT it was a major letdown. Nothing worth buying nor spend too much time on. We had our dinner and an extremely nice coconut water each before heading to another recommended club. This place I like, the idea of the place is superb and if I have the opportunity, I would extrapolate on this concept in KL. This place was MUCH better and there were many many Thai girls to "wash eye" :p

On the fourth day, I was alone because I booked my hotel myself and it was quite a distance away from the rest. It did not matter because the place I wanted to go they were not so interested in. I woke up quite early had my breakfast and immediately set out to Muang Boran aka Ancient City located in the outskirts of Bangkok about 35km away.

The signs leading to the place was not fanciful and most people would pass it by without much thought BUT I can vouch that they really made a bad decision not to visit this place. I have read the warnings before deciding to go there when I was researching and I was somewhat prepared but it was still not enough by the end of my visit there. I had with me just 2 bottles of water ie 1 liter and a shirt for change when I leave the place. Good idea on the shirt but bad idea on the water, my advice is to carry as much water as you can carry because you will need it! I spent 5 hours there and drank 2 liters but I was totally dehydrated just visiting over 60% of all the exhibits. I carried on as much as I could until my camera's went flat and that broke me but I still went on but with much lesser enthusiasm because taking pictures with my phone was downright poor quality. Make sure your camera battery is at 100% or have a spare batteries, bring as much water as you can, bring a shirt for change and the most important is to apply loads of sunblock!

I was glowing red by the time I reached the exit and only buying some food to bring back. The taxi ride back was a killer, it cost the same as the entrace fee of 400B ... whereas my trip there only took set me back 300B. I went to the shopping district to meet up with my hosts and also to collect my colleague's custom made suit. The shopping malls did not differ much from the malls in KL and the prices are higher so I totally lost interest at wanting to shop there. I went to a mall which supposedly does wholesale and the prices there were more acceptable but some of the items are still quite highly priced.

After meeting up with my hosts, we had dinner by the roadside after a sudden thunderstorm and a light flashflood. The 2 of them ordered quite a number of dishes and in the end we all ate until we were full. Tomyam, shabu shabu (Thai style), siham and a big grilled fish. I was too exhausted to follow them for another round of massage because I have been too tired from all the cycling in the morning and walking around in the shopping malls. We decided on some plans tomorrow to meet up and go to the airport together despite having different flight times to save on travel cost.

The final day, I went to drop off my bag at their hotel before we go on our final excursion. I made a bad decision to walk from their hotel to the shopping malls (about 2 BTS stations away) only to find that the shopping malls have not open for business. Realizing that I quickly changed my plans and went to Chatuchak. I was quite ready for what I was about to enter but I was totally taken aback by my daunting task of finding my way around the place. I have exhausted my water supply within the hour of my exploring. In the end I just bought some shirts for my son and a jersey for myself :D

Before I left there to join up with my hosts, I bought an iced chrysanthemum tea to help cool me down. I used the bottle to help cool my face which was still red hot from my previous day adventures. Overall I would say that Im satisfied with what I bought and seen BUT given another chance, I would definitely want to finish checking out Muang Boran and the other shopping malls.