Month: June 2010

10 Places I’ve Been to and Want to Go Again!

1. Hong Kong

I grew up watching TVB shows. Being in Hong Kong was really exciting especially whenever I stumbled upon familiar scenes from those dramas. Like this spot where street walkers like to hang out, tee hee hee.

# – Wan Chai Club. Hehe.

I want to go back to Hong Kong again so that I could go to this dessert restaurant called Shi Liu Shan and eat this plate of curried animal organs, pork skin, squid, radish and fish balls again, and again and again.

# – This is how chinese curry is supposed to look like.

I also want to go Tung Choi Street or more famously known as Lui Yan Kai for some mad shopping and eat delicious seafood at Dai Pai Dong!

# – Dai Pai Dong.

Source: philadelphia.grubstreet.com

The dirtier, the better, please :)

2. Siem Reap

I went to Siem Reap, Cambodia in 2006 and I can’t believe I haven’t gone back yet. Cambodia is always at the back of my mind; it’s so beautiful, the people are friendly and the history of the place is just overwhelming.

# – At the backyard of Angkor Wat.

Despite its beauty, it’s unnerving and sad to know that many Cambodians are still at risk of being maimed by landmines left by the Pol Pot’s regime. We visited the landmines museum and that place made me cry.

The museum was also a sort of shelter for people who lost their limbs due to landmines and there was a shockingly high number of young people. It was heartbreaking :(

# – One of the living huts at the museum. The place is peppered with artificial limbs :(

We visited the museum during the last leg of our trip so we couldn’t afford to donate much but the next time I go I hope I could contribute more to the landmine cleaning efforts. And of course, to see Angkor Wat once again.

3. Western Australia

Perth, the capital of Western Australia was the first place I’ve been to the continent.

# – Swan River from my hotel.

My initial impression of Perth was slow-paced and to be honest, I didn’t think I was going to go back again, till I read about the journey of The Extraordinary Taxi Ride’s Malaysian winner, Dr Ling.

I was surprised to discover that Perth boasts of one of the largest innercity parks in the world. At more than 400 hectares, Kings Park and Botanic Garden is even larger than New York’s Central Park! How on earth did I miss that out??? I love picnicking in moderate weather on soft, green grass but you just can’t do that in Malaysia, can you?

# – Picture of Peppermint Lawn in King’s Park & Botanic Garden. I want to eat cucumber sandwiches and roll around on these soft, green grass.

Source: bgpa.wa.gov.au

As for shopping, there’s Fremantle for the weekend markets and King Street for high-street and high-end stores that are opened 7 days a week. King Street is also a jewellery galore as there are unique opportunities to purchase jewellery items made from gold nuggets, Argyle diamonds, Australian opals and Broome pearls. Now I want to go back to Perth so desperately!

As I dig more, I found out that South West region of Western Australia has been named one of the world’s Top 10 Regions in Lonely Planet’s Best In Travel 2010, and is famous for its internationally renowned forests, beaches and wineries. You can also buy those exquisite black truffles fresh or enjoy them in fine dining restaurants from June to August every year as Western Australia is the largest producer of black truffle than all other parts of Australia put together.

# – Black truffles from Western Australia. Oh my gawd!!!!!

Source: abc.net.au

The next time I go to Western Australia I’m going to make sure I will gorge on these babies, I’ll put them on everything, I’ll brush my teeth with them :P

I also won’t be missing out on the experience of walking among tall forest tress in The Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk. It’s the first walk trail of its kind and at 40 metres above ground, talk about a thrilling experience!

# – The Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk

Source: https://www.splateagle.com/blog

I hope to get acquainted with nature at The Coral Coast in Western Australia. I particularly want to see and swim with dolphins at Monkey Mia, where it is renowned for its amazing wild dolphins, which have a daily ritual of coming close to the shore!!!

# – Wild dolphins at Monkey Mia in The Coral Coast.

Source:stinerindstad.vgb.no

Do you know that Ningaloo Reef is the largest coral reef in the world found so close to land making it easily accessible from the shore? Just look at this magnificence!

# – Ningaloo Reef…breathtakingly beautiful!

Source: guardian.co.uk/travel/

Seriously, I can’t wait to go back to Western Australia and truly explore this part of Australia. Thank goodness for value air tickets from carriers like AirAsia.

4. Osaka

My first trip to Japan was to Osaka and it blew my mind!!! I went to the shopping area called Namba and I had never been to such a surreal place. The place was as futuristic as it’s old, what an odd combination!

# – At the crowded Dotonburi Street.

If you want to know what “sensory overloading” means, you’ll find out in Namba, Osaka.

# – On Ebisubashi Bridge. See the yellow ferris wheel in the background?

I’d love to go back there to ride on that oddly shaped ferris wheel behind me and to visit Fujin Raijin II for the world’s scariest roller coaster :D :D :D

5. Los Angeles

This was where I breathed the same air as Kobe Bryant’s! Yes, ladies & gentlemen I walked three blocks to Staples Center thinking it was only 3 buildings away when it was actually, really, really, really far to watch a Lakers game. It was cool as hell. The atmosphere was electric!

# – Cheap seat in Staple Centre but great cause I could see everything and take in EVERYTHING!

I was on a cheap city tour so I only had about 30 minutes to hang out at the Hollywood Walk of Fame and of all stars, I decided to take a picture with Martin Scorsese’s.

# – Pretty sure Martin Scorsese knelt in the same place many years ago too.

The next time I want to go back so I could hang out at Viper Room (instead of passing it by in a speeding van :P), maybe I could see River Phoenix’s ghost :P

6. Bangkok

Seriously, who doesn’t love Bangkok? It’s a short plane ride from KL and it’s so currency friendly for us, hehe.

# – Bangkok street food.

I want to go to Bangkok as many times a year as I can. The food, the shopping, the nightlife; it’s the best city to unwind.

# – MORE food!

Hope things get better in Bangkok soon, Thais are very resilient they’ll bounce back in no time and I’ll be very happy to contribute to its economy :)

7. Seoul

When I was in Seoul, I had only managed to check out the tourist trap town, Itaewon and ate some not so good Korean food, lol.

# – At a random street.

The reason I want to go back to Seoul is because I didn’t get to eat live octopus and the next time, I’ll make sure I do research on where to get that local delicacy.

# – Yeah, kinda like this :D

Source: hapworkingtheworld.com/

And, I want to go to Lotte World!!!!

8. Sydney

I was really emotional and lonely when I was in Sydney.

# – Even my pictures were emo :P

I explored the city by myself and went to the dodgy Kings Cross where I had the most delicious cannoli. Also went to Sydney Opera House and touched its roof.

# – The details of Sydney Opera House’s roof.

Then I got laughed at by some angmohs because of the picture below…

# – Notice the water droplets on the side of the picture? This was taken of the Opera House shortly before I was splashed by a big wave -_-

It’s such a beautiful city and I wish to go back with the boyfriend in tow and truly enjoy the place.

9. Tokyo

Going to Tokyo was a dream come true. Armed with badly scribbled instructions on a piece of hotel notepad paper, I mustered enough courage to navigate the infamous intricate train system.

# – In a train.

Went to Tsukiji Fish Market where I had the most awesome, freshest chirashisushi.

# – Hard at work at Tsukiji.

Also visited the beautiful Meiji Shrine. It’s so tranquil and peaceful.

# – At the Meiji Shrine.

And finally, experiencing sensory overloading in Harajuku all by myself.

# – Somewhere in Harajuku.

Why I want to go back again? Because this time I want someone to be with me while I get lost looking for Shibuya Train Station -_-. I practically walked the entire Tokyo and it would be nice to have someone to share the fun while on your feet, lost & tired lol.

10. Beijing

Why do I want to go to Beijing? It’s simple, I want to climb the Great Wall again, this time with the boyfriend :)

# – At the Imperial Garden’s frozen lake in Beijing’s Summer Palace.

Check out this picture of the lake in summer I ripped off from Wikipedia…

# – Beautiful!

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Palace

Obviously, the other reason why I wish to go to Beijing again is to be able to enjoy the place in spring or summer as I’d only been there during winter (cheaper mah…).

The great thing about this list is that it’s not really hard to achieve. And I’m happy that more than half of the places on the list like, Siem Reap, Western Australia, Beijing, Hong Kong and Bangkok are highly possible with AirAsia being so friendly on my pocket. Can’t wait for the airline to dominate other routes as well so I can see more places!

Psychotic.

How do you define a friend? Who are your friends to you? Are they a source of comfort or are they just people you add on Facebook?

This week I’ve had a couple of friends confiding to me about their problems with their other friends. Some were purely misunderstandings, which is common in any relationship but then there are the serious ones which beckon the question: Why are they psychotic people in this world?

These people use and abuse their friends, spread lies to gain trust and play friends against each other just so they could be everybody’s best buddy. These people boast about their capabilities to help you but although finally end up with none of their promises materialised, they are still thick-faced enough to set you on a guilt-trip to help them because their intentions to help you in the first place were “pure and honest”?

Seriously, is there some sort of chemical imbalance in their brains? Is it upbringing? Is it something in their DNAs? I really don’t know but what I do know is that I’m appalled beyond comprehension by the behaviour of these people.

I mean, don’t get me wrong. I don’t claim to be the best person to be friends with. I am callous, I am bitchy to a fault, I cuss all the time, I’m embarrassing when drunk, I have ego the size of Jupiter and recently, I’m so incredibly stingy that “Kimberly” is becoming the new “scrooge”. But despite all that, I can’t imagine ever in my life to lie to a friend about another friend because I yearn to be his or her best friend? I can’t involve my friends in business deals that don’t benefit each other. I can’t ever put my friends in a position where they’ll be pressured to pay for anything that benefits me. I won’t offer to help my friends in anything unless I know for a fact that I’m really capable of doing so because I don’t want to put my friends in a position where they are afraid of offending me in case they chose somebody else more capable to help them. And more importantly, I don’t want them to lose an opportunity to be helped better because they accepted an offer from someone less capable like me.

And why do I have all these personal rules? Well, simply because I don’t ever want to be at the receiving ends in the situations above. Because it’s common sense. Because friends don’t lure you into a tight spot. Friends don’t use you for personal or business gains. Friends don’t act all nice and kind in front of you but make up nasty stories about you to other people. Friends are naturally proud for you if you achieved something good. Friends are supposed to make you happy, not constantly worried about what kind of stupid shit they’re going to come out with next.

I’m very lucky that I have a group of close-knitted friends whom I trust 100%. Recently, I had some friendship problems of my own too. There was a pair of two-faced couple who almost ruined my group of friends with lies, tricks and more lies but I’m glad to say that they have been successfully weeded out and banished from our lives forever. So what I want to say to those friends who confided in me, don’t lose hope. We all meet psychotic people at various points of our lives but they come and go. Just focus on your real friends who will stick by you through thick and thin.

That said, if you have difficulty of retaining any true friend for more than 1 year, seriously you should get yourself admitted into a psychotic hospital you crazy assholes.

Of Windows 7, Rubik’s cube, mossie bites and green coloured milk.

Oh my gawd, this drilling in the apartment upstairs is killing my braincells. I can’t think straight.

And that is why, this sentence you’re reading now was written about 15 minutes after the one above because I had to lie my head down.

Last week was not very interesting except for the party because the boyfriend was on full work mode and I was kind of left alone to vege out in front of the TV. In between TV times, I managed to upgrade my laptop’s operating system from XP to Windows 7. Ladies & gentlemen, I am in love. Windows 7 is the best thing that Microsoft has ever come out with and it’s so ridiculously easy to install.

This is my desktop now, it’s so clean and sleek.

I hated the tedious, swishy swooshy interface that Vista tried to imitate from Apple but with Windows 7, it’s nothing like that and is very intuitive. Using my laptop now feels like using a Firefox browser, perhaps I should start saying “surfing my laptop” rather than “using my laptop”. I suppose the thing that stands out most about this OS from its predecessors is that it doesn’t operate on the basis that its users are retarded.

Anywayyyyyyyyyy, enough of my pimping on Microsoft :P

Also, I discovered a great way to stop mosquito bites on the feet from itching via Michelle on twitter.

# – Seriously?

To be honest, I thought it was bollocks but curiosity got the better of me so I just tried. No loss except for a short length of cheap cellophane tape.

# – Taped up foot.

What do you know, it worked! The itch completely vanished and if anyone could explain the chemistry behind this I would love to hear it!

By the way, check this out…

# – Solved!

Yes, I have solved a Rubik’s cube, or rather just one of its sides. Haze taught me some of her theories on solving the cube (while I was drunk no less) and lo and behold, it worked! On how to solve the remaining 5 sides she said I could learn another time. Being the impatient brat that I am, I didn’t want to wait much more so I googled it up but hell, those instructions might as be for building a space shuttle. Suddenly, I’m not so confident in learning about solving the entire cube anymore :P

Have resorted to drinking melon milk to drown my sorrows.

# – Melon milk drink.

They might as well call it crack milk cause this shit is addictive!!! I wonder if they have a strawberry flavoured one cause I’ll totally be lapping it all up.

# – Green coloured milk, so wrong but so right.

I think my chest has grown bigger but it’s probably all in my head. Right?