Climbing Batu Caves August 10, 2008

This post is rather belated (as are all my posts of late) – dates back when AhSiang still worked in Malaysia and when I haven’t fallen into the trap of lazing at home and dreaming about eating McDonalds. Really need to start motivating myself to be a hardcore workout fanatic again. Ben randomly asked me who’s my thinspiration. Thinspi-what?? I don’t want to be anorexic-looking like Kate Bosworth/Hudson or whoever is strutting down catwalks in London. My ideal “I’m so jealous of them” body would be the girls from Sports Illustrated. *sigh* I don’t think I can *ever* achieve that… without surgery. T___T

Nowadays I seem to post more pictures than write, huh? But I think it’s still okay… there’s still some sort of description to tell you what’s going on, right. Some people just write two sentences and paste 800×600 pictures and call it a day. Nothing wrong with that, just that there used to be a time (before the explosion of digital cameras on the market) where I would look at the wall of text that make up each of my post and go, “I wish I could’ve taken some pictures… can post up, make my entry look nicer”. Now, I wish that I had more time to sit and think instead of mindlessly cropping pictures so that I could really put my thoughts into words.

Some people say that blogs that just talk about yourself all the time is a waste of time, and that we should instead spend our time … I don’t know. Educating the masses on what’s going on in our country politically, or talk about how we can improve our country. I don’t think “navel gazing” / “fluff gazing” blog entries are so bad. Before we attempt to understand others, we should try to understand ourselves. If “charity begins at home” and “change starts with oneself”, then why should we point fingers and attempt to pull others down when we ourselves are not perfect beings either.

Not targetted at anyone in particular, and pls don’t take this and miscontrue it to hammer me. I am sick of people hammering me for no reason, even at home I don’t get any rest. Things that are other people’s mistakes, they push onto me for no other reason than they are too lazy to seek the truth themselves.

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Arrived at Batu Caves early in the morning. You’ll have to start early if you want to do lots of rounds and don’t intend to get burnt in the sun. I’m damn afraid of the sun after going to Cambodia. The other day, was walking around Taipan and feeling damn emotional already because I couldn’t get parking near the bank. After walking for few minutes in the sun, my freshly-washed hair after showering in the gym was dry. O_O Yau mo kam fai!!!! I could feel the skin on my arms sizzling…

The golden statue that can be seen from miles away from the highway.

272 steps seen from afar.

Gateway to the next 272 narrow and steep steps!

The Sri Subramaniaswamy Temple

Early morning prayers… obviously a lot of devouts around the place, and not just people doing their morning exercise / training / tourists. We saw a married couple carry their months old son up the 272 steps in a sling tied around bamboo poles. The grandmother and 3 of their toddler daughters also trooped up.

Indian florist looks mad at me.

Climbing up … can see Michael and Pauline. Dunno whose the lady in the middle with “yiu kuat toong”.

Limestone caves.

Blessed 272nd step!

Ah Siang.

I really like this picture!

Very hard to camwhore with my colleagues around. When I was taking this, Siang and Pauline were saying, “So fake!! So fake!!!!”

Tri-color rock!

And then it’s the climb down.

Random snake in a cage at the top of the 272 steps. You can take a picture with it, cheap cheap only RM10. Reminds me of the snake that Britney Spears used in her “I’m a Slave 4 U” MTV performance. Wow, that was like forever ago right? When she was still uber hottttt.

By the way, if you are afraid of monkeys, please do not come to Batu Caves! The entire place has troops of monkeys around! And they are not afraid of humans, so they’ll run across your path, they will grab at your bags (especially if you have plastic bags) to look for food… Gosh, the number of females SCREECHING and running (suddenly lots of energy even if they were dead tired from climbing earlier) is uncountable and unfathomable. Sissies!!!

Sweaty leech!!

Suddenly the monkey also decided to sit next to me!

Mother monkey with baby monkey ; Monkey eating banana.
There was this Indian guy with a sack of bananas… he went up and down the stairs passing bananas to the monkeys. O_o”

That’s how near they are to me.

Pauline & Michael – the aftermath.

Souvenir stand… I would buy a tee-shirt, to commemorate this uncharacteristic healthy livin’… but honestly the designs are quite ugly. -__-

And then we climb back up again… repeat for 6 times!

After all the climbing, the gang invited me to view the giant lake filled with kois… well, it was very hot so I wasn’t very into it. Pauline even bought fish food to feed the koi!! So what can I say, stood in the sun and watched the fish feeding frenzy with them.

Sweaty AND grumpy.

Pauline, Siang, Michael.

Feeding frenzy about to begin. Check out the duck in the upper right corner.
After a while we couldn’t see where it had gone. We’re afraid that the koi’s drowned it. O_O!!!

Frenzzzyyyy!!!

Then I spotted this life saver!

Thankful for any semblance of shade that I can get!

Camwhoring up and down the steps. Again, can hear AhSiang going, “Fake!!! So fake!!!”

Favorite picture of the lot! *love*

After our hard morning’s work, we ended up eating Hoo Yee Kee Prawn Mee. I don’t know how, but Pauline managed to wrangle Michael into treating all of us, hehehe. =) Anyway, the place was alright… not exactly SUPER delicious prawn mee, and very expensive. But at least they had lots of “liu” (ingredients).

Some kinda Malay kueh that Pauline ta-powed for us from the morning market before meeting up.
It’s delicious!!! But I have no idea what it is called…

Dragonfruit juice, chocolate milkshake, yam bubble tea.

Chicken feet skin… yummy?

My prawn mee. ^____^

9-Up Bukit Sungai Siput! June 19, 2008

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIMON CHOY. YOU ARE OFFICIALLY AN OLD, OLD, OLDDDDDD 27 YEARS OLD. Sorry I couldn’t call, been really tied up with work, and I think you’ve been busy preparing for you-know-what. Let’s hope you get an extra special birthday present this year! Remember, I’m buying dinner if all goes well. =p

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So the hill climbing activity was randomly proposed by AhSiang, I randomly answered in the positive because I didn’t think anyone else would say ok and then it would be CANCELLED… but SUDDENLY there were so many enthusiastic hill climbers in the office and the random proposition became reality. Haha, it sounds like I’m saying I got “tricked” into it but I truly have no regrets of going with the gang to climb “Bukit Sungai Siput” @ “Lou Yan San”.

After Sunny & SiuChui’s grand wedding, it was about midnight by the time we reached AhSiang’s house. Sleptover with Pauline and she complained until now how I kicked her out of a queen-size bed. T___T I dunno la how come people always say this about me! When I wake up I’m always curled nicely in my own corner of the bed. *innocent look* Anyway, we got ready by 7:30am to go to meet up with the rest of the gang.

On our way there – giant tap in the sky (SYABAS!). I’m so not a morning person.

At Pasar Taman Cheras, met up with WanLi & boyfriend Foo and Justin. Had breakfast together before meeting up with the rest of Siang’s friends. Their codenames are Jenny (real name), Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, hahaha. The 4 of them are all experienced mountain climbers and even partake in competitions, so yeah, feel very “zhi bei” (low self-esteem) around them!

Creepy picture that Pauline took of WanLi. Looks like WanLi has a hole in her head. @_@

At Pasar Taman Cheras, where among other things, we ate some pretty awesome apam balik. Stuffed with coconut shaving, crushed peanuts and cream corn. MMmmmmm…

Stuffed in the car and on our way over to the hill. Me, Justin, WanLi and Foo. I am *so* not a morning person. -___-

We skipped the whole stretching activity because we were already late and didn’t want to delay the expert climbers as by this time it was already 9am. We originally intended to be climbing by 8am! It’s kind of a mistake not to start with the stretching first, and we all paid for it on Monday morning. T___T

We climbed up…

… and further up…

… scaled down at some points …

… sauntered like aunty in a marketplace when the path was relatively even (look at my arms swinging like an ape!) …

… and crossed treacherous rivers with slippery rocks!!!

At midway point. We stopped for a while because … (you’ll find out later)

Codenames : Shanghai, Beijing, Jenny and Guangzhou, hehe. See how unflustered they are?

WanLi was a lil tired due to indigestion problems… (Foo, so bad of you to put the thumbs up sign… -__-)

Despite the pain she was in, she soldiered on with us for the rest of the journey! Truly, “together we are the best”. ;P

From the stopping point to the top was just another quick 10 minutes hike. It felt great to finally reach the top, but also a little bit potong stim because we thought that we had a long way more to go. Therefore, the main topic that was bandied about was where else we could climb after this jaunt. Bukit Datuk in Seremban, BATU CAVES, Gunung Tahan, Gunung Kinabalu, so on and so forth. Hehehe. Seriously, I have a feeling that Justin and I are just hangat hangat tahi ayam (temporary infatuation) but enthusiasts like AhSiang will start planning in detail and making us train and then one day we will truly be hiking through Kinabalu. =D Well, that’s the ideal ending la.

View of Cheras from the top of Bukit Sungai Siput.

Me and Justin… standing on the edge of the world… KONON.

The path which we climbed up…

The jungle around us.

My relaxed sor por face.

What kinda shoes you should wear for hill climbing / jungle trekking. Everyone else’s one is “acceptable”. The one in blue is the best possible choice.

Jungle Guide Pauline ready to show you the way down.

A few minutes away from the peak, there is this plateau-like area which someone turned into a relax-or-do-conditioning-exercises area. This was where we met an aunty who owned two cutest teddy-bear like dogs. And the dogs are soooooo friendly! They allow themselves to be cuddled by anyone and everyone, although they have short attention spans and would be easily distracted by other things. However, the aunty can just call a sharp “Baby!” and they would run back to her at once. SO OBEDIENT!

A place to chat, exercise, chillaxercise!

I’m guessing you can tell that I’m quite smitten by these two.

Only posting this here because the dog looks SO doll-like in this picture. Who cares about Justin’s mug.

The experts relaxing… NOT! After sitting for a short while, they proceeded to lift weights, stretch and Beijing started doing pushups, zomg. So much energy…

Haih, with these two people’s happy faces, I bet you think those dumbbells are fake right? NOooOoo!! They are made of cement ok!! Freakin’ heavy!

My serious workout face. Hehehe.

After we had regained our energy, we then proceeded to make our way down. Seriously, at some points I was running just to be kiasu and make sure that I finish before Justin, HAHA. I think we made it down in about 15 – 20 minutes? Could’ve been faster, but we were not confident about some paths to take, so we would wait til Shanghai caught up with us and then ask him. And then he’d tell us something like, whether you take the left or the right, you would wind up in the same place. T____T

Some parts are so steep that they provide ropes for you to cling on to. Cue Indiana Jones theme song!

Mucking around while waiting for Shanghai to come. Giant log!

When we reached the bottom, we arrogantly timed how much later other people would be compared to us. The rest took about 20 minutes extra, but I think they suffered less leg pain on Monday. Haih, if cannot do then don’t push yourself so much lar, kiasu Leech!’

Playing the fool while waiting for Shanghai to arrive. When he saw us he laughed like mad. Buat malu saja.

Attempted to take a jumping photo but sei Justin and his slow fingers kept getting it wrong. THIS photo was the best one already blardy hell.

Still waiting.

The gang that works together, stays together. Hahaha.

Rewarded ourselves with bowls of yu tao mai (fish head noodles) which were on the 8tv “Ho Chak” program. The store was packed, but the service was fast. Honestly, I don’t like the fish pieces, I should’ve ordered the fish paste version. However, the “yu tao mai” soup was AWESOME. Damn nice to minum, practically drank up the whole bowl! =) Expensive place though, one bowl is more than RM6. Don’t know the exact price because AhSiang paid for us… thanks! Already organised the entire trip and then bought mineral water and lunch for us some more. T____T Such good colleagues where to find.

The stall. Exact directions, not sure. Gotta ask AhSiang.

Yu Tao Mai and Yu Wat Mai..

Kat chai shuen mooi – lime & asam… super sour! Tak tahan…

Fitter Bitter Leech! June 18, 2008

Aiyah, I have no time to blog panjang lebar already. Everyday at work I kena bombarded by these 2 new staff that I have to train. Which reminds me, I have to give them training on another system tomorrow. Already at the moment they are keeping me busy by asking me questions upon questions on their new eSMRs. Haiyoh, I think I’m also a little bit impatient… if you ever work in this Bank, FEAR that I end up as your team mate wey. I guarantee have short amount of patience that can cause me to snap like *that* *snap fingers twice in bitchy manner*.

Should my team’s two new babies ever read this… your dai ka cher is a highly stressed woman at work now. Raymond’s in Cambodia, boss has been promoted and I don’t like to keep running to her like I can’t handle stuff, Sifoo is still in Cambodia, Mr NXY has his hands full with all the EQ related stuff and also preparing to go to Sri Lanka next. OMG. “ETC” falls into my lap and “ETC” comprises of a shitload of stuff, including consoling demotivated users. “Leech, I can frankly tell you I’m demotivated to work here…”
“Don’t say that lar! You’re a really important person in your division!”
“Other people don’t think so!! They shoot me like a dog!!”
“*speechless* *continues to murmur words of encouragement through torrents of angry ranting*”

Ok, it’s 1:15am now and instead of complaining on my blog I should go to sleep so that I can get a head start tomorrow. T____T I leave you with a few of my favorite pictures from the hill climbing outing. I assure you, there *was* hill climbing / jungle trekking. ;P

Leech at the peak. Cheras in the background.
Like my cap? A few of my colleagues saw me carrying it (looped around my knapsack) and LAUGHED at the blingness of it. T_T

Don’t mess with me, yo. This ain’t no styrofoam dumbbell.

With two of the most obedient, cuddly doggies ever! They look like teddy bears!
I have no idea what they are though? Someone told me “poodle” and that is so wrong ok!

All of us.

I’ll dash off a proper entry with more random photos tomorrow! Will be gone to Batam end of this week and might be going to Laos end of next month. Gotta catch up on the backdated entries. SEI FOR!