Trip to PNG

PNG, as in Papua New Guinea... not Penang! Just coz' someone I know made that mistake. Lol.

I went to Papua New Guinea in December 09 for work. It was my first time in the country, and prior to leaving, I had no lack of friends warning me to be careful and watch out for cannibals. Well, I'm still alive and well, not being digested in some Papua New Guinean's stomach, and while I met and spoke to quite a number of the locals in the course of my work, there wasn't a cannibal anywhere. My client also reassured me that if there were cannibals before, the people had stopped that lifestyle ages ago. I didn't even get to see any tribes, and I closest I got were nice paintings and photos of tribal people at the airport, as well as a friendly looking statue at the hotel I stayed overnight at.


Nevertheless, even without cannibals, I was told the place still wasn't all that safe, as the locals are quite poor and are known to do untoward things to foreigners unfamiliar with the place. So I and my colleagues were advised not to go out on our own, ever, which was fine, coz' the clients put us up at a pretty nice hotel (the Crown Plaza) for one night at Port Moresby, before we took another flight the next day to the island where our work was to be carried out at some palm oil mills. It was at the Crown Plaza where I got my first taste of Melanesian food, which is the local food is Papua New Guinea (at least I think so. You can go google the history of it. Haha). And they were serving crocodile meat served in some yellow sauce, which for the most part sounded quite unappetizing to me and also made me feel very guilty about the thought of eating part of an endangered animal. But since I was having a buffet, it was one of the dishes and the crocodile was already dead, I took a teeny tiny bit to try it out, and the meat was, not un expectedly, very tough. With curiosity satisfied, I decided not to take another bite. Apparently though, crocodile meat isn't supposed to be so tough, according to my client, so the hotel folks probably didn't cook it right. Not that I would know the difference anyway. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the crocodile meat, but with all the sauce covering it, it didn't really look much different from chicken meat in yellow sauce.

At the airport, it was also not uncommon to see large groups of people sitting outside the airport, especially the domestic terminal. I'm not sure if they are waiting for people to arrive or just making a nuisance of themselves. I wanted to take a photo of the people, but I was also a bit worried I might get into trouble with some of them for it. So the most I got was this lady making herself comfy in the airport itself.

Either way, I and my colleagues were again advised to just walk as quickly as possible to the check-in counter, check-in and then head straight for the waiting area, just to be safe. Unfortunately even that wasn't so smooth sailing, coz' when we got to the check-in counter, it turns out the plane (which we all had valid tickets for) was overbooked and already full! At first, they said they couldn't fit any of us on the plane, but our client's consultant who was with us, talked to them and after a while they miraculously somehow got 3 seats for us...which was enough coz' there were 4 of us. So the poor consultant had to stay behind for one night while the rest of us went on the plane. And this is apparently why the local airline, Air Niugini, is also known as Air Agony.

That aside, there is very little industry on the island where we flew too, so the greenery was rather untouched, and since the landscape was quite hilly, it made for beautiful scenery from the plane.

After landing and being picked up by our clients, we were driven throughs mile and miles of forest (on surprisingly good roads though) to our resort), where along the way, it was common to see people walking along the road with their baskets, and sometimes children not wearing any clothes, and at one point we passed by a group selling vegetables and other wares by the roadside. Their items were all placed on the ground, no tables. Even though it was raining quite heavily (as in cats and dogs heavy!) they didn't even move to get shelter. They all stayed under their stall umbrellas and continue their business! Food cleaniness must be a major issue among the locals....

For some reason, the locals also have a strange way of disposing of their old and worn out shoes... by chucking them onto telephone lines! Don't ask me why...

Even with all the problems and potential safety issues, there are also of course, good things about PNG. Of course, not all the people are up to no good. As part of my job is to interview the local stakeholders, including the villagers and locals working for the company, to see how the company's activities are affecting them, I had no choice but to go right into some of the villages and talk to the people. Not all of them speak English, but some did speak English quite well, and while I was there I was quite warmly welcomed by the locals. So much that while I was speaking to the members of one family outside their home, my presence attracted a swarm of other local, curious at one this unfamiliar Chinese girl was doing in their midst. After 5 minutes, I was practically surrounded by the locals, young and old alike, all watching me with curiosity while I continued to interview one of the local ladies. Of course, I just had to have some photos with the bunch of people.... And these don't even show all of them!

If you look closely, the second guy from the right on the pic above as a bloody red mouth. That isn't blood and he's not a vampire. It's actually due to a local habit of chewing something called bettlenut mixed with some other spices. The bettlenut itself is white, but red colour comes from the mixing with spices, and apparently it gives them a kick but causes mouth cancer and give them really bad teeth. Kinda like the local equivalent of smoking. All in all, it doesn't make them look very good.

After working for a good whole week, my colleagues and I got a day off to enjoy the place, and so we went off to another nearby resort to enjoy some really holidaying activities. I and the client's consultant went for the diving and snorkelling trip (actually I was the only snorkellor coz' I can't dive, and all the other 6 people on the boat were all divers. Makes me wanna do a diving course, like NOW), while my other two colleagues who can't swim (how sad) went for a village walk to meet some of the locals. Since I had already met some locals, I didn't see much point in going for that, especially since I heard the reefs in PNG are awesome. I did get some photos from my colleagues though, of them visiting a hot spring, and being slapped on with war paint from colours produced from a rock!

They also saw a lot of cute little piggies owned by the locals. Pig butts!

For me though, while on a while, the snorkelling itself turned out to be not really that great (the reefs we went to were pretty shallow and I saw mostly small fish, which I see a lot of in Malaysia as well. There weren't any really big animals at the reef, unlike in Malaysia where I can see moray eels, sting rays, and even huge monster like fishes hovering just a few meters below me). One of the interesting things I did see where apparently people with the ability to walk on water!

Ok lah, they weren't on the water's surface but halfway submerged in it, so it's pretty obvious they are standing on something. They're actually standing on the coral reefs, which as I mentioned are very shallow, and also very flat at the top so people could easily walk on it. All the corals have a steep edge, so basically the coral reef is shaped like a mountain with a shaved off top. The peopl are apparently gathering stuff from the corals, and in destroying them in the process. So sad, but hey they're the locals, so what can I say.

The thing that did make the snorkelling trip really all worth it (and most of my friends would have heard this from me already) was the rare chance to swim with dolphins! ~:O

Well, technically we weren't swimming with them. We were hanging onto the side of the boat watching the dolphins. The boat has something called a boon net, which people can hang onto at the side of the boat, and then with our snorkelling masks on, we can stick our heads underwater and watch the dolphins swim below us. So while the boat is moving, the dolphins will swim alongside the boat. That's me in the middle sticking my head above the water coz' water kept getting inside it, which was rather annoying.





I can safely say that this is probably the coolest thing I've ever done in my life! Sky diving in Australia comes a close second. The dolphins were so graceful and they were having so much fun jumping up and down in the water in front of us! And there were so many of them! There were 3 main groups, with probably at least 20 in each, based on what we saw breaking the water. Who knows how many more were underneath? I can't even describe it. It's just something you gotta experience for yourself, getting right in there next to dolphins in their natural habitat. AWESOME. Of course, suffering from a sunburn for a week or two after that wasn't so fun. I didn't know we could go snorkelling there, so I didn't being any sunblock. It was also kinda dark and cloudy that day, so I thought I wouldn't get sunburned. Turns out I was WRONG... but at least the burn wasn't too bad. Now I just have really weird looking tan line on me, which hopefully even out with the rest of my body in due time. Still, the dolphins made it all worth it. :)

So there you have it, my first experience in PNG, and it had its ups and downs, but nevertheless a fascinating place to be. Not a place I would wanna stay long term though, and even for holiday, it's so expensive that if accomodation weren't paid for by the client, it might make me bankcrupt. Still it's interesting to see the simple lifestyle of the people there, and to end it all of, here's a lovely serene pic, which I unfortunately can't take credit for coz' it was taken by my colleague... but it's a nice photo. :)

Trip to PNG

More epic debates....

Goodness, I haven't updated my blog in over a month, I think. My days are pretty full now with work, and going to the fitness centre almost every day unless I'm busy, exceptionally lazy or sick (even THEN I still try to go unless I'm really bedridden). That's what happens when you sign up for expensive personal training... it motivates you to makes the most of the money spent on the gym. Heh. I'm also still busy with the whole online debate on Genesis I posted about a while ago, as in the meantime I also got into another debate on the bible's (supposed) contradictions on Bolt.com, which also veered off into other related topics on evidence of Jesus, etc, etc. I was initially replying to my atheist opponents in a very gung ho manner, spending whatever free time I could to come up with good replies. But after a few weeks, I'm taking it a bit more easy coz' I've presented my case for the most part and now it seems more like we're nitpicking on the details. And considering I'm the only Christian defending my beliefs in what I hope is a very logical manner against 3 atheists (with other commenters in between), it's rather the tiring for me, although I carry on in a labour of love because I hope against hope that somehow my arguments will at least cause my opponents and other non-believing readers to see things differently and come to know Christ. If not now then one day. Unfortunately, I think most non-believers hope for God and a good afterlife when they are close to death.

Anyway, on to more interesting posts.

More epic debates....

What to do on a plane if the passenger next to you is irritating

1. Remove your laptop from its bag
2. Open the laptop slowly and carefully
3. Turn it on
4. Ensure the passenger next to you is watching
5. Click on the Internet
6. Close your eyes for a brief moment, open them again, turn your gaze upwards to the skies as if in prayer
7. Take a deep breath and open this site http://www.myit-media.de/the_end.html
8. Observe the facial expression of your neighbouring passenger !!!!

(I ripped this off an email I got from a friend. It was just too funny! :D)

What to do on a plane if the passenger next to you is irritating

The epic Genesis debate

Hi guys, I know I've been rather missing in action lately (and I promised the scoop on my disturbing encounter with one of the local guides at Redang, but until now I haven't gotten round to it and I'm wondering if I should still bother). Actually the reason for my absence is that I joined an online community called Bolt.com, which has a lot of interesting forums and I have gotten myself wrapped up discussing topics with people around the world. I mostly discuss topics on religion, and especially pertaining to Christianity, which is great for me coz' I hardly get the chance to share my faith to my non-Christian friends (I won't bring it up unless someone else brings it up, and even if it does come up, I'm usually to shy to share too much coz' I might end up saying something stupid-ish), and so being able to do online in a forum specially made for discussing these things (and where I can really think about what I say before I say it, so I have less chance of saying stupid things) is a Godsend for me, especially since I spend most of my life online anyway.

Needless to say, discussing religion invites snide remarks from non-believers on the forum, and not too long after I joined, I was already in a hot debate with a very annoying atheist (not saying all atheists are annoying, but this particular one is. Very. Extremely. Rude. Thick-headed. And annoying) who 'claimed' he could debunk the book of Genesis. So I started a thread to discuss this, and along the way a couple of other non-Christians joined the fray (they were much nicer though) and I've had my hands full replying to their arguments ever since. The number of posts on my thread currently stand at 60! And I still haven't managed to reply to everything yet, coz' I have a day job to do. But even though some people might tell me such debates are pointless and never amount to anything, I don't think so. For one thing, it forces me to do my research, and I learned a lot of new things along the way, not just about the Bible, but also science, which I use a lot in my arguments against these guys. And I believe some of my arguments are making good sense (some of it sounds so insightful, I think it could only have come from God!), so I hope that it will at least open the eyes of some of these non-believers, though I think the annoying person is a lost cause coz' the way he replies to me, it's obvious he doesn't really care what I say and he enjoys acting like an retard (I couldn't help taking my own snipes at him, though in a more polite manner). It got the point where my annoyance at the annoying person was reflecting in my responses to one of the other guys posting on my topic, which was not my intention because he seemed like a nice guy (and also much smarter than the annoying person). So once I realized I wasn't sounding too nice to him, I apologized to him (off the thread) and I also decided to stop replying to posts from the annoying person, because I don't want the topic to degenerate into snide remarks and insults.

Anyhow, the thread still continues on, and if you are interested in reading the debate and possibly picking up some good answers you can give to your own enquiring non-Christian friends (or if you ARE a non-Christian and still interested in what I have to say), you can check it out here, under the topic "Debunking Genesis". :)

The epic Genesis debate

Tales of a snorkelling freak and her whacked out underwater photography methods...

I LOVE snorkelling. And I thank God that I am a good swimmer with a bit more confidence then I probably should have, because every time I go snorkelling, I hate wearing the life jacket... I feel so restrained in it and I don't need it coz' it's so easy to float in the ocean (sea water is very salty = good for floating. Basic science lesson #1). And being a snorkelling freak with a bit more confidence than I should have, if no one else is willing to head out to the water with me, I am prepared to go on my own. Even though it's dangerous... if anything were to happen to me out there and no one else is with me all sorts of things could happen. So I try not to be TOO far from people... but I go far enough that I still enjoy the freedom of being alone out in the big blue, admiring the beautiful corals below, with nothing on me but my swimsuit, snorkelling mask, and if I can get my feet in them, a pair of fins (these are much more useful than a life jacket, I say. Helps me to keep my head above water when I need to adjust my mask, and makes me go lots faster in the water). It's ranks up there as one of the most exhilarating experiences ever for me... feeling a mixture of awe at the beauty of creation, adventure at being out there alone, and fear of something popping out from behind a rock or coral and taking a snipe at one of my limbs... thankfully that's never happened before and sea animals in Malaysia, even the sharks, are generally quite friendly fellas.

And with that long-winded introduction, I now move on to the tale of my snorkelling trip at Redang. As is expected of a snorkelling freak, I went snorkelling every day that I was there, twice a day whenever I could... even right after we just arrived on the island. If you read my previous post, I had survived more than 30 hours without proper sleep coz' I was working whole day on Friday, drove overnight on Saturday morning and arrived on the island on Saturday afternoon. So the fact that I and the rest of my group still had energy to go out and snorkel or dive (most of my group are divers, but not me. Too expensive and snorkelling keeps me happy enough) was pretty dang good. Not much of a tale to tell though... the resort we stayed at organizes two boat trips out to different snorkelling sites each day... one to the famous Marine Park in the morning at 9.30am, and another one in the afternoon at around 3.00pm. When I didn't feel like following these trips, I would just snorkel at one of the beaches near the resort... which were quite nice as well.

In addition to being a snorkelling freak, I am also quite the avid photographer. But unfortunately when I bought my camera and I was trying to decide between a waterproof camera which looked pretty good and a non-waterproof camera which had a few more specs, I opted for the latter. And being underwater without being able to take photos kinda sucks. And I tried to buy a proper waterproof camera casing for my camera but couldn't find one. However me being the humbly ingenious person that I am, I came up with a fantastic idea to keep my camera safe from the water.... And it didn't cost me more than RM8.

Introducing... Carol's Waterproof Ziploc Bag Camera Protecter Contraption!

If you were drinking something, try to keep the liquid from squirting out your nose, ya.

So here's how it works:

Step 1: Buy some ziploc bags. They look like this. The ones I got were Glad bags with double zip mechanism, for extra protection. Extra protection is always good. Unless you want to have kids. ;-)

Step 2: Place camera in ziploc bag like so. And zip it up properly. Make sure you don't squeeze out all the air if your camera (like mine) has a protruding lens, or else it will be very difficult to come out later. Also don't leave in too much air, as the water pressure, even at slightly below surface depth, will cause the air to expand in the bag, and if there is too much, the bag might pop open and there goes goes your baby.

Step 3: Place camera in ziploc bag in ANOTHER ziploc bag. And zip er up! The second bag is for extra EXTRA protection, in case this bag leaks, the bag inside is still able to protect your camera. It makes the photos more blur, but it worked well for me coz' the outer bag did leak a couple of times, but my camera was still safe.

And technically now you are ready to roll and start snapping pics underwater! But the big problem here is, of course, holding onto this contraption while swimming. Not very convenient. And another problem for me was that I sometimes wanted to skinny dip, or dive underwater to get up close and personal to corals and try and catch some clownfish or something. And I couldn't push myself down with my camera contraption in hand, and didn't want to leave it bobbing on the water surface lest it might float away. Of course I came up with yet another solution... a plastic bag and a rafia string!

Step 4: Insert camera contraption into plastic bag like so. The arms of the plastic bag goes around your wrist, so you can swim more easily. Of course, the bag fills up with water and slows you down a bit, so what I did was cut small holes at the bottom of the bag, which allowed water to flow out and reduced the drag a wee bit. One arm of the plastic bag is tied to the rafia string, which leads me to....


Step 5: When needed, tie both arms of plastic bags together with rafia string. This only done in the water and is so when you go skinny dipping and leave your camera contraption floating at the surface, it doesn't come out of the bag. But be warned, only try this if you are a VERY good swimmer and can handle floating out in water while trying to tie a plastic bag up. Not easy, I tell you. Don't come crying to me if you drown while trying this.


Step 6: Tie other end of rafia string around your ankle, swimsuit or any preferred secure part of your body. This is of course to anchor the whole thing to you so it doesn't float away. The ankle makes it very difficult to swim though, I found, coz' the string tended to wrap around my legs, so eventually I tied it to my swimsuit and that worked fine.


And after all that trouble... here are my underwater photos!

This is the compulsory camwhore pic. And you thought camwhoring underwater couldn't be done. Heh.


Some fishy friends...


This is a rather large fish called a Triggerfish. It was lying on its side on the corals for some reason. I didn't complain coz' it made a great photo!


This one is a HUGE fish... though you can't tell from the pic. It was at least 6 m underwater from me and hiding under a big bunch of corals at Marine Park, watching all the crazy snorkellors above.

This is a moray eel sticking out from under a coral. It looked pretty mean. One of the local snorkeling guides was fooling round with by swimming right up to it and feeding it a feed from his hand!

Everyone's favourite clownfish! Made famous by the movie, Finding Nemo... and because of this even the guides call them 'Nemo', and I resist the urge to tell them "Nama bukan Nemo lah, mereka panggil 'clownfish' lah". Since they like to hang around anemones, trying to catch these will likely result in your hands getting stung by the anemones... which is what happened to me. Didn't hurt, but my thumb was a bit swollen and when I accidentally touched my lip, it got a bit reddish after that too. But they're so cute! Everytime they see people around, they come out and look at you and wriggle round a lot, as if trying to scare us away.


I caught this nice pic of an interesting rock structure just when a pretty parrotfish swam past. The parrotfish are all rainbow-coloured like fish. They look very pretty.


I saw big turtles and this is one of them! But it was swimming much too far down below me, so you can only see the silhoutte. Still pretty cool....


This is part of a very freaky looking shipwreck at Marine Park. First time I went there, I didn't dare go too close. All those images of scary shipwreck movies were playing in my mind. Second time I went though, there were people around, and so I was more daring and swam in. It was overgrown with corals, some very beautifully coloured ones too.


Here are some not-too-bad photos of corals I saw.






And last but not least, Christmas Tree worms! These little worms are in the shape of little Christmas Trees that stick on coral rocks... and come in all sorts of pretty colours! And when you touch them, they pop inside and look like a hole in the rock. Dunno why they do that, but it's cool. :)


Wish I could put more photos, but I think my blog would overload. :)

Next up... my interesting and slightly freaky experience with one of the local guides. Brrr...

Tales of a snorkelling freak and her whacked out underwater photography methods...

Road trip to Redang

I went on a lovely 5-day holiday at Redang Island with some colleagues during the Hari Raya holidays couple of weeks ago, and apart from the long 10 hour drive there (no thanks to the extremely bad traffic jam once we hit the highway to Kuantan, due to the Hari Raya 'balik kampung' rush) and a rather strange experience with one of the island's local guides, I had an absolutely fantastic time. The strange experience with the local guide is a whole blog post by itself, so I'll save that for later.

As mentioned above, getting to the island from KL itself wasn't much fun. My boss arranged for us to meet up early Saturday morning at 1.30am and we would drive overnight to the island from KL. He had invited some colleagues from overseas offices (Japan and Thailand) and some of them had just arrived from the airport. Unfortunately one of their flights was delayed, so we ended up meeting and leaving only around 2.30am in the morning. Mind you, I was working on Friday too, and being the gung ho person that I am, I went for cell group on Friday night as well, and attempted to sleep at my friend's house for a couple of hours before leaving to meet my colleagues for the long drive. 'Attempt' is the key word here... wasn't really all that successful since my buddies were all yakking away in the living room where I was trying to crash... not that I blame them since I wasn't supposed to be crashing there in the first place.

So I only sorta slept for about a couple of hours before I met up with the rest of my group in the wee hours of the morning, some of which I had never met before that day, and I ended up driving the car first with 3 German guys from my Japan office in the car, and my boss driving his car with 4 others in it. Everything was smooth sailing on the highway up until we hit Kuantan. Then began the massive crawl for at least a couple of hours... and it was so bad that when I had to stop for the loo at a petrol station, I found that the queue to the ladies room was so long (and only ONE freakin' toilet!), I decided to pass and hope the next one would be better. Well, the next one was only better in that there were more toilets so the equally long queue moved a bit faster, I think. Still had to line up for at least 15 to 20 minutes. Dang.

After driving for bout 4 hours at least and getting through the jam, one of the German guys, his name is Michael, took over. I was wondering of German driving licenses are valid in Malaysia... wasn't too sure so I just crossed my fingers and hoped the police were on Hari Raya holidays too. Thankfully, no cops were in sight, which is especially good coz' we were far behind me bosses' car and worried that we wouldn't make it on time for the ferry to the island, so the German guy really stepped on it. And I mean, he REALLY stepped on it! Like he was going at 170 km/hr at one point, averaging around 150 unless there was a slow poke driver going at the speed limit of 110 in front of him. So early on I very politely told him that the speed limit on the highway is 110. Michael kinda grunted some form of acknowledgement that he heard what I said and continued driving at 150 average. All this time my colleague in my boss's car was constantly calling or sms-ing me asking me how far behind we were and how fast we were driving. One of my smses to her went something like this "We going at 170 now, and I'm praying very hard that we do not fly off the road". By the way, we were driving a Proton Gen 2. A wonderful home made Malaysian car. Anyone ever see those videos where some dudes tested a Proton against other good car brands by smashing them against something, and the Proton always ends up the most smashed. Yeah, memories of those vids didn't really help me at the time.

Eventually I kinda relaxed and stop twiddling my thumbs in the back seat. And after a few more hours (the sun had come up by then) we had to go off the highway and onto the trunk roads, where Michael swapped places with another German guy, Markus, and he took us on the final leg of our long drive through the small town roads, and fortunately I printed out a map of how to get to the jetty (or else we would've been lost without the guidance of my boss!) so once we hit Kuala Terengganu, we were able to find our way to the jetty soon enough and were off on a boat to Redang Island, totally ready for a real holiday to shake off the ordeal of the insane traffic jam and long drive.

Hmm... I babbled on quite a bit about just the whole adventure of getting there (getting back was much less of an adventure. Another one of my colleagues drove and he was so gung ho, he drove 7-8 hours, with breaks in between, til we reached KL and fortunately there was no jam. This was during the daytime though, so not so bad lah). Me thinks I will save the rest of my Redang Adventure for the next post. There will be pictures! Of fishes! Underwater! And my camera isn't waterproof! OOoooOOoo....

Stay tuned....

Road trip to Redang

My definition of uncool and cool deaths (as seen in the Final Destination movie series)

WARNING: This blog post has some (but not a lot) spoilers on the new movie 'The Final Destination' a.k.a. 'Final Destination 4'. So if you plan to watch the movie and don't really wanna know what's going to happen at some parts, then skip this post til you're done with the movie. Also, if you really hate watching or reading about gory stuff, then you should skip this post altogether. Selina Cheng, that means you. :)

I actually can't believe they managed to come out with a fourth installment of the Final Destination movies, but they did, and I just watched it last week (it was a rather impromptu decision with a friend. I was hoping to watch 'Orphan' instead, which is apparently a good psychological thriller, but GSC Summit apparently does not know the movie exists). For those living under a coconut shell, here's a super brief run down on the premise of all the Final Destination movies:

1) Lead character is at a certain location or event with bunch of other people, including friends (eg. in FD 1, they were in a plane about to take off. In FD 2, it was on a highway, FD 3, a roller coaster, and FD4, they were watching a car race).

2) Lead character has a premonition of a horrible accident where everyone dies is a very gross way.

3) Lead character wakes up from premonition, freaks out, kicks up a fuss and gets out of said location a.s.a.p., with a bunch of other people following him or her for some reason or another.

4) Horrible accident occurs as per lead character's premonition. Whole lot of people die except the people who left because the lead character kicked up a fuss. These people are now termed the survivors. But not for long.

5) After a while, the survivors die one by one is really gross and horrific manners, in the same order that they would have died in the accident.

6) Lead character, usually being the last one destined to die, figures out that the survivors initially 'cheated' death, but death (which is referred to as some sort of entity, so to differentiate between 'death' as an incident and 'death' the entity, I shall henceforth refer to the latter as Mr. Death. Of course, they never actually call it Mr. Death in the movie, but it sounds kinda cute) apparently has a designed plan and is catching up with the survivors to make sure it happens.

7) Lead characters and couple of other survivors start their quest to figure out who is the next person to die and try and stop the death in the hopes that this will foil Mr. Death's dastardly plan and save the remaining survivors (including themselves) in the process.

8) In the end, they usually all end up dead anyway, with some exceptions.

Doesn't that all just sound so peachy? And yet with all its gruesomeness, there are sickos like myself who just enjoy watching this stuff, just to see what totally disgusting way a person can die the producers will think of next (and yet we still get away with appearing perfectly normal! >:)). In this respect, FD 4 is ok as it has some pretty creative deaths and some pretty lame ones. And thus leads to the purpose of this post, which is my opinion on what makes a cool death and an uncool death in the FD series. Of course, in real life, death is never cool... but this is not real life. This is the world of Final Destination.

An uncool death is....
1) A rehashed death: Having a person die the exact same way as in a previous movie is BORING. For example, in FD 4 one guy got run over by an ambulance (like the thing just came outta nowhere as he was crossing the road, then 'SPLAT' went the dude). Pretty much the same thing happened in FD 1, where a girl was also very suddenly mowed down by a truck. It's for shock factor, I presume, but rehashing the same kind of death kinda kills the shock factor. Pun intended. Fortunately, I think that was the only rehashed death in the entire series.

2) A death due to idiotic carelessness: The actual death may still be interesting, but if the reason the death occurred is due to somebody's pure carelessness, for some reason I get rather annoyed. And this happened a LOT in FD4. For example, a nurse left the water running in the bath tub of a incapacitated hospital patient's room and left the room, causing the tub to overflow (what kinda dumb nurse is that?). A mechanic in a car repair shop put a can of drink on a vibrating machine (I don't think any normal mechanic would be dumb enough to do that). And the guy who simply threw his shirt on top of a device next to the pool, activating the pool drain pipe (the device should have been properly enclosed in the first place if it was used to activate something potentially dangerous!). I mean if a death happened because it was part of death's plan and Mr. Death caused certain events to happen to lead to a death, then it's a pretty justified death. But if a death was due to someone's dumb carelessness, then it feels very unjustified. Like you want me to believe Mr. Death caused someone to become extra dumb or something? D'oh!

3) A 'so-quick-they-don't-know-what-hit-him/her' death: Referring to deaths that happened so suddenly and so fast, with no clue that something was about to happen. Like, one second the fella is chatting and alive, and the next, the same fella is mowed down, impaled, etc and they're more instantly dead than instant noodles. Examples are like suddenly moved down by a truck or ambulance, which I mentioned under Uncool Death #1. Again, these deaths are purely for shock factor, but due to the lack of build up of clues to how the person will die, and also since the person doesn't really suffer anything coz' he or she dies instantly, the death isn't as interesting. It's kinda like "Ack! Oh! He got mowed down!.... That's it??". Blah.

Now my opinion of a COOL death (with reference to some of my favourite death scenes in the entire FD series) is:
1) The death of an annoying character: Well, the actual death of the annoying character itself may not be particularly interesting... but coolness factor lies in the satisfaction of watching that annoying person finally get killed and then feeling no sympathy afterwards. Good example was this guy who played the school jock in FD 3. He refused to believe the warning that he was about to die, and kept going on and on about how strong and invincible he was. So why he was lifting weights at gym and the protagonists were again warning him of his impending death and he was still behaving like he had an overinflated balloon in his head, the weights released from the machine, came down and smashed together with his head in between. The method of death itself kinda falls under uncool death #3 (there were clues shown that it was about to happen, so not so bad lah), but I was rather happy to seem him go. Yeah, it's sadistic, I know, but it's only a movie, people! I would've been more sympathetic if an annoying person I know died in real life.... I think.

2) A slow but totally gross death: These are fun coz' while the character is suffering an obviously painful death, but isn't dead yet, the viewers can have all sorts of funny reactions. This is where people bring out the pillows or whatever they can to block their view coz' it's too gross to watch, but keeps peeping to see what's happening to the person... and for people like me who refuse to take our eyes off the screen, I'll wince, shift around in the seat, cover my mouth and make all sorts of funny grimacing noises something along the lines of "Oooh! Eeeee! Wah liow! Aiyaiyaiyaiyai! Whoaanellyyyy!!" and hope that the person sitting next to me can't hear me. One of my favourite examples of these scenes is in FD 2 when a woman is in a lift with another survivor and a old man carrying a box full of hooks attached to plastic arms. While in the lift, she gets a call from one of the protagonists (who just saw a clue of her death) that a man with hooks will kill her. Naturally, since a guy with hooks is standing right behind her, she freaks out but her braided ponytail gets stuck in one of the hooks. When the lift opens, she tries to run out, but as her hair is caught, she falls on the floor and the lift door closes around her neck. Then the lift moves up while she struggles to get her head out, but of course, it doesn't happen and when the floor of the lift reaches the top of doorway, her head gets ripped off. You can watch that slow but totally gross death scene here ! Another cool slow but totally gross scene is in FD 4, where the lead protagonist and his girlfriend is escaping from a cinema that exploded, when the escalator collapses to reveal the churning mechanics beneath. The guy tries to save his girl from falling into the mechanics, but her foot gets caught and the rest of her body is sucked in and flattened like a pancake. Oooh yeah, I was really squirming around in my seat and making weird noises that time. Bleh!

3) A series-of-unfortunate-events-death: My most favourite type of FD death ever! This is when several freaky things happen in succession to the character or the environment surrounding the character, to make you think he or she is going to die coz' of that something freaky... but the character still survives for a while until he or she dies anyway. One rather good example is the death of Ms. Lewton (a teacher) in FD 1 (I won't go into the details though, you can go Youtube it yerself!). However, that example is not as fun as my favourite FD death scene of all time, which is Evan's death scene in FD 2 (this is the guy who just won the lottery in the movie). In this scene, a newly rich (but soon to be poor, in another sense of the word!) Evan just got home from buying a load of cool stuff with his lottery money, including a nice new ring and watch. He then put something on the stove to cook and also throw one of those weird Chinese takeaway boxes into the microwave to heat up. He doesn't realise that one of his fridge magnets fell into the takeaway box. Good ol' Evan then tries on his new watch and ring, but then drops the ring down the sink. He so cleverly decides to reach into the sink hole (using the hand with the watch on it) to try and grab the ring, but his hand gets stuck. Meanwhile, the stove pan get too hot and catches fire. And if that's not enough, the microwave overheats due to the plastic magnet in the takeaway box, and the microwave bursts into flames. And Evan, still stuck in the sink, tries to put out the fire with his free hand using a cloth to swipe at the pan. The pan falls and sets his house on fire. Fortunately, he manages to free his hand from the sink and tries to put out the fire with a fire extinguisher. Of course, the fire extinguisher stops working, so he's forced to exit his house through the windows, which mysteriously shut themselves tight. But he wisely smashes through the glass and climbs out the fire escape ladder, but the ladder refuses to drop down to the ground. He shakes the ladder (while hanging on it) to try to make it move, and eventually it does, and he lands on the ground. But then he slips and falls on some old spaghetti he threw out his window earlier and land with his head right under the ladder. The ladder drops and lands inches away from Evan's face. He swears in a matter of thanking his lucky stars. One second later the ladder drops further and impales his right eye. And you can watch that fun death scene here. I just thought the whole thing was totally hilarious coz' he managed to escape his hand getting stuck in the sink and a burning inferno, but in the end the ladder got him.


Ah well, they say FD 4 is going to be the last movie in the FD series, which is good I guess. They milked the concept of the movie for all its worth and there are only so many totally gory ways you can make people die in a movie before viewers start getting bored, right? And I'm starting to think there are probably better things to blog about out there....

My definition of uncool and cool deaths (as seen in the Final Destination movie series)

If there were no choices...

Last week I was coming back from an outstation trip and being driven home by a guy friend, with his brother and another gal in the same car. As I had just recently moved and they weren't familiar with where my new place was (not that they were really familiar with where my old place was either...), I had to give them directions. At one point we came to a junction, and I said something along the lines of "Ok, you came keep to this (the middle) lane, but it would be better to keep left coz' you have to turn left right after you make this right turn". My guy friend who wasn't driving, and also happens to be particularly blunt person, promptly turned around and asked me if he could ask me a question. And since his question on whether he could ask me a question was rather unexpected but suspicious, I didn't have time to come up with a witty reply other than a wary "Yeeesss?".

"Why is it women always have to give choices when they are giving directions?" he asked. Then he went on to explain that whenever women gave directions, they almost always give choices like "You can turn left or turn right here", which men find really annoying. He said that he would appreciate it if a person giving him directions only gave him ONE route and simple directions, without the driver having to make any decisions. "Turn right here. Turn left there. Keep to this lane. Don't go on any other lane til I say so..." etc, etc. My friend's brother who was driving supported his brother's comments by adding, "Yeah, if you tell me that I can either turn left or right, I'd stay in the middle and bang into the divider!".

I, being a woman, was of course rather intrigued by this line of thought. I mean, to me, if someone tells me I can either turn left or right, I simply make a choice and turn either left or right. I don't get all hung up over having to make a decision while driving! But after some thought, I realized (or should I say, had a revelation?) that this is probably significant evidence of one of the most fundamental differences between males and females. My revelation is... men HATE making choices.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that men are incapable of making choices, or that they tend to make bad choices. When they have to make a choice, by all means, they can do it, and they are just as likely to make bad choices as, well, women (although some people might differ on opinion on that aspect, but that's another debate!). However, I believe, men would prefer never to have to make a choice if possible. And if they have no choice but to make a choice, they will choose the most convenient option available.

Think about it ladies! Why do you think guys don't like shopping? Well, it could be partially because they hate sitting around for half an hour waiting for their wife/ girlfriend / daughter to decide between the pink top and the blue one. Or it could be partially because they hate having to carry around all your shopping bags, including your handbag (which will immediately be termed the 'man-bag' by any friends of the poor man who happens to see him in that predicament). But even with any females out of the picture, men STILL don't like shopping. Because when it comes to shopping, there are TOO MANY choices. Which brand to buy? How does the price of one brand compare to another? What about the quality? Most women would happily scout around to see what are the options available and make a decision from there. But for men, the more options they have, the more it drives them nuts. As long as they find an item that meets their needs, no matter what the price, they can't be bothered to go hunting for other options anymore... they just buy it. And this is why there is a saying that a woman can spend RM10 on an item that she doesn't need why a man can spend RM50 on the same item that he does need.

(Note: The only time this does not apply is when is comes to purchasing electronice devices or gadgets such as mobile phone, computers, tv's, etc. Only for these will men find out everything itty bitty piece of information about the device they want to buy and similar models, and compare all the specs of each model before deciding which one to buy. It is truly anomalous among the decision-making processes of the male species...)

Unfortunately for men, we all know that life is made up of choices, so making decisions is a rather unavoidable task for you guys. But I had a funny thought about what would a man's (almost) ideal world be like if my revelation was true and men could do away with having to make choices completely....

Scenario 1 - At the supermarket:
Sam: Hi, I need to buy some coffee. What do you have here?
Store clerk: We sell only Brand A coffee here, sir. And they come only in 25 kg bags and extra caffeine.
Sam: Extra caffeine. Sounds fun! I need some sugar to go with that too...
Store clerk: Oh, we sell only Brand B sugar here, which comes in boxes of 60 extra large sugar cubes.
Sam: Sugar cubes. Great! Good way to ensure consistency in my morning coffee. Right... and where can I find a new toothbrush here?
Store clerk: Those are on Aisle 2. We sell all large size, medium-soft brushes toothbrushes, with those flexible bendy necks, in fluorescent green. And pictures of Barney the dinosaur on them.
Sam: I love this place! Are you open 24 hours?

Scenario 2: Naming a pet
Mrs. Jones just bought a dog for her teenage son, Mike)
Mrs. Jones: Look at what I got you for your birthday! Isn't he adorable?
Mike: Alright! I've always wanted a dog!
Mrs. Jones: So what are you going to name him?
Mike: Hmm.... err... I'll get back to you on that....
(15 minutes later...)
Mike: I'm gonna name him Rufus Terminatrix!
Mrs. Jones: What?? Where on earth did you come up with a name like that
Mike: I got it online from the Most Awesome Pet Name Generator website! Don't you just love modern technology, mum?
Mrs. Jones: .....


Scenario 3: Getting married
Priest: Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness the holy matrimony of Bob and Mary.... (*insert long speech here*)... and finally for the moment we've all been waiting for! Bob, you may now kiss the bride!
Mary: Wait! Wait! Aren't you supposed to ask Bob whether he takes me to be his beloved wedded wife, to love and cherish til' death do us part, or something like that? And ask me the same thing too??
Priest: Hmm...well, Bob has already asked you to marry him before during the proposal, and you agreed to his proposal. So assuming throughout the time of engagement and preparation of this wonderfully elaborate wedding, paid mostly by the groom, that the agreement is still valid, I hence fail to see the need to ask redundant questions. Go along, kissy kiss now!
Mary: But... but...!
Bob: I love this priest! But now as much as I love you! *smooooch*

If there were no choices...

A very poser pic!

I'm sure anyone who enjoys the world of Marvel superheroes or X-men would have thought about what cool superpower they wish they had if they were a superhero. Well, for me, it's always been either one of these:

1) Ability to fly. It sure beats the KL traffic jams, though I might die early of air pollution!

2) Telekinesis ie. ability to move things through thoughts. Just coz' I hate climbing up a ladder to get stuff from the top of my cupboard.

3) Ability to produce fire from my hands. No need whole body on fire like the Human Torch. Just being able to toss a few fireballs at annoying people to set their pants on fire is good enough. And also coz' it just looks reeeaaallly cool.

And so after recently buying some gym gloves (coz' I'm now turning into a gym freak after joining True Fitness... which is quite funny to me coz' before I became a member and they kept calling me to bug me to join, I saved their number as 'True Fatness' on my phone so I knew it was them calling me and I wouldn't pick up and I would have a good laugh at the same time. Bygones!) and with the help of my wonderful (and free) photo editing program, I sort of managed to live my flame-thrower wannabe dreams with the ultimate poseeeerrrr pic!!!

Ok ok, so there are probably tonnes of other better photoshoped photos of people throwing fire out of their hands (thanks to my brother for bursting my bubble!)... but I still think it looks cool. :P

A very poser pic!

Less one little bugger...

Anyone who knows me well enough knows that I take care of a rather large family of gerbils, ie. African rats (which are smaller than normal rats, and don't bite fingers with vehemence, unlike some crazy hamsters). The family is large enough that I could've had a football team of gerbils, if I hadn't given a couple away and one adult died years ago due to unfortunate circumstances (which is a whole other story altogether!).

Anyhow, I've been keeping 3 males and 4 females for the past couple of years, whom I know all by name though they don't really know their own name, and so far they've all been really healthy... except the oldest female gerbil which gave birth to all the other gerbils. A few months ago, I believed she was attacked by one of the other female gerbils for reasons unknown. She sustained quite a few wounds and I even took her to the vet to get some medication for the poor bugger... and since then, thankfully the other gerbils don't attack her anymore. However, she really looks like grandma gerbil now coz' her fur is dull, her body is scrawny, and one of her legs seems to be eternally cramped, so she can't walk properly and can no longer climb up the cage tunnels. I was expecting her to kick the bucket soon after she got attacked... but until today my grandma gerbil is still going strong, even though I think she's more than 3 years old now, which in gerbil years means she's ANCIENT.

Sad to say, one of my gerbees actually did kick the bucket. But not the one I expected.

Yesterday morning, before heading to work, I sat down at my gerbil cages to give them some bits of apple as I usually do, coz' the little buggers just love their apple bits (but not as much as sunflower seeds!). The past few days, I hadn't had much time to play around with them, so I had only checked their cages for water and food, and wasn't really paying attention to my gerbils themselves. So while giving them apple bits, usually if they're asleep, all I need to do is make that 'tsk tsk' sound or the midly annoying lips pursing noise, and that will wake them up in a jiffy so they will come to the side of the cage for their food. After feeding almost all my little buggers, I noticed that Peanut, one of my male gerbils wasn't coming to me. And the cage for my males is quite large, so I had to poke my head around a bit to see where he was, and I saw him lying down at the bottom of the cage where it was difficult for me to look into from where I was sitting. So usually, if my noises don't wake up my gerbils (sometimes I suspect they have hangovers from the night before), then I knock gently against their cage to wake them up. And I thought Peanut was asleep, so I knocked the cage. No reaction. So at the this point, I was thinking Peanut must've REALLY had a big hangover the night before (note to self: no more putting beer in my gerbil's water bottles).

So after that I got up to have a closer look at Peanut, and as I walked around to the other side of the cage to get a closer look, I saw... (cue Psycho movie theme song NOW), the other side of Peanut's face had already been half eaten out by ants!

And a piercing scream of horror filled the morning air surrounding my condominium.

Ok, ok, I wasn't that dramatic. But of course I was shocked. And in disbelief. And I made quite a few weird whining noises while calling Peanut and hoping that he would miraculously get up. But he didn't. And that would've really freaky if he did with his face half eaten out. But after a few minutes of making weird whiny noises and getting over the fact that Peanut was dead, I had to do the dirty work of cleaning up the body. And that's never a fun thing to do. Especially with the whole half eaten out face thing. I could hardly bare to look at him. But I did manage to gingerly pick him up with a paper towel in hand, and then wrap him up with a newspaper. I would've have liked to give Peanut a proper burial, but living in a condo and having to be at work soon (I highly doubt the idea of giving me time off to mourn my gerbil's death would've gone down well with my boss), I had little choice but to unceremoniously dump Peanut's body in the trash outside.

The thing that bugs me is that Peanut was perfectly healthy, and he didn't seem to have any problems the few days before when I was playing with him. And he was one of the younger generation of gerbils in my brood of little buggers. So I have no idea what happened to him, and I kinda wished I had checked properly on my gerbils the few days before, then maybe I would've noticed something wrong. *Sigh* Well, the only theory I have is that Peanut died of some sort of cardiovascular disease, coz' he was the fattest gerbil of the lot. So much that my nickname for him is Fatty. But my mum has a theory that he may have choked on the food. *Sigh*

Anyhow, I remember when he was still a teenage gerbil, and I was keeping him around the females for a while, he was pretty small compared to the other males. I thought he would stay that way, until eventually I moved him to the male gerbils cage where he belonged... then he gradually grew until he gained his status as Fatty. He was a very 'kwai' fella, every time I held in my hand and gave him a nice head and ear massage with my fingers, he would just sit there and enjoy it. Well, most of my gerbils enjoy it too, but after a while they get active and start wanting to jump off my hands... not so much for Peanut though.

Anyway, he was a beautiful, big, fat but cute gerbil and I am saddened by his mysterious death. Bye bye Peanut! May you enjoy an abundance of sunflower seeds and apple bits in gerbil heaven, if it exists. If not, then, well, errr.... you be a good floating gerbil spirit, and don't go haunting your gerbil friends now (I hope my pastor doesn't start rebuking me for this...).

Sorry if this post is a bit emo because of one rat, but yeah, I am rather sentimental about these things, especially since I had Peanut since he was born. I'm not quite sure how to deal once the rest of my little buggers start dying too. Good grief. I'm already traumatized by the thought. :-(

However, there's always a little silver lining, and today I noticed my grandma's gerbil is walking around better, which shows her leg is healing well. That cheered me up quite a bit. Keep going strong, grandma gerbil!!! Woo!

Less one little bugger...

Photos of a strange world...

Here's a small collection of some random photos I took from here and there, guaranteed to make you smile, laugh, scratch your head or at least raise an eyebrow....

Random pic 1: "Honey, what does the sign at the spot where I just threw the garbage bag say?"

Sign says "Littering is prohibited. Fine RM500.00". I saw this in Ipoh during my amazing Ipoh trip, and it goes to show that people in Ipoh don't seem to be able to read Malay very well.... or it could've been opposites day!


Random pic 2: "We Fight for Free!"


I took this photo a couple of months back on one of my work visits to Jakarta. Translated in English, the sign means "We are willing to volunteer to fight with Malaysia!!!". Needless to say, I wasn't particularly tempted to stick my head out my car window, wave to them and say "Hey there! I'm a Malaysian". That would probably have been equivalent to saying "Hey there! Come beat the crap out of me now!". Apparently this had to do with some tensions between Malaysia and Indonesia over an area of sea called Ambalat containing quite a bit of money-making oil. Ah well.


Random pic 3: "Hyperactive kid? I got just the thing..."

Leashes for kids! I'm torn between thinking this is some form of cruelty to kids and that it's a most brilliant idea. Well, I did notice this kid was particularly active and couldn't stop running and jumping around (I'm quite sure she would've jumped over the railing if not for the leash) so to the parents, I can't blame them and I wish them good luck.


Random pic 4: "Some cream to go with your banana?"

If your bananas aren't big or hard enough, you could just always go back to the supermarket and complain to the manager for a refund.... 0 :-)

Photos of a strange world...

The Amazing Ipoh Trip - Part 3 (FOOD Glorious Food!)

Sorry for the delay on Part 3 of the amazing Ipoh trip. I just got back from an 8-day trip in Indonesia and Bangkok for work again, where as usual I suffer severe internet deprivation (I’m seriously wondering if I should invest in a Blackberry now…). Although I did get to spend the weekend in Bangkok and visit a couple of places, as well as come down with another bout of food poisoning where I threw up in somewhere in Chatuchak market. Hmmm, wonderful way to start a post about food, eh? But I’ll save that wonderful experience for another post.

So the one thing famous about Ipoh which every true blue Malaysian Chinese should know is the food. Not, to be discriminatory or anything, it’s just that the only thing my family ever does eat in Ipoh is the Chinese food and far as I know or care, there’s no other type of food in Ipoh. :P And the first place my parents also zeroes into once we reach Ipoh is this really old school place called Restaurant Tuck Kee, along Jalan Yau Tet Shin at New Town, Ipoh. Unfortunately if you were to ask me how to get there I wouldn't have a clue coz' my dad always does all the driving around in Ipoh and I just sit in the car, usually asleep or half asleep. So if you wanna try the place, have plenty of time on your hands and feeling adventurous, you could take a road trip and drive around Ipoh town til you find it. If it makes it easier, the restaurant looks like this:

However, be warned that there is another restaurant along the same road with the same name, apparently a spin-off of this one, but since it’s not the 'original shop', we never go there. Coz' you know... if it ain't original, it ain't good, or at least that's the general consensus. Just remember the original shop is on the left of the unoriginal shop, and you should be fine.

Once here, we only order the same dishes, which are Fried Kuey Teow, Fried Mee Hoon and ‘Wa Tan Hor’ (flat rice noodles in egg soup), and sometimes bean sprouts, but we skipped that this time round.

Hmmm… Just looking at the pics makes me start hankering for this stuff. And if you’re thinking it all looks really greasy and unhealthy, well, IT IS. It’s all fried in a very un-healthy and un-halal amount of pig’s lard to make it taste like no other fried noodles I’ve ever tasted. Yum! Plus the flat rice noodles (kuey teow) are really nice and smooth, which makes it better. Not something you eat on a regular basis unless you don’t mind looking like the State Puff Marshmallow Man. Nevertheless, taste-wise, I think no other fried noodles in KL, Malaysia or the whole world can compare to this. *Drool!* And of course, my whole family loves it, so much that my brother had to give his 'I'm-so-full-of-good-but-unhealthy-food' look.

Somehow or another that also looks like a 'I-really-need-to-use-the-bathroom' look. Ah well, he enjoyed the food, that's the main thing.

Another unavoidable stop on our ‘makan’ trip is Ipoh’s famous Chee Cheong Fun, which in English would be something like flat rice noodles topped with any kind of sauce, although common sauces used are chilli sauce, soy sauce, sweet sauce or mushroom sauce. Now there are several places in Ipoh that sell really good Chee Cheong Fun, one of which is from another old school shop, quite near to Restorant Tuck Kee, sold by this Chinese lady who recognizes my family even after all these years, coz’ we used to visit her stall often. Here she is, chopping up the Chee Cheong Fun, which initially is made as sheets of flat rice, to make the shape of flat noodles (any self-respecting Chinese would know this, of course, but just in case you’re not one. :) ).

My dad also took us to this other Chee Cheong Fun shop, which is actually the owner’s house, where her noodles sell so well, we has to take orders in advance and then the person ordering can only collect it 2 or 3 hours later. Just goes to show how crazy Ipoh people are about their Chee Cheong Fun! Unfortunately I didn’t get a pic of this other place, and even worse, I forgot to take a pic of the Chee Cheong Fun itself before wolfing it down. But Ipoh Chee Cheong Fun is so famous, that pretty much anywhere you find it, I’m sure it’ll be good.

The next place we visited this trip was one we don’t really consider compulsory but of course the food is still good – meatball and fishball noodles. We actually ate this right after we had our Chee Cheong Fun for breakfast (just so we could get a taste of everything!). So here’s the dingy looking shop where we ate:

Another important thing is Ipoh is... never doubt the dingy looking shops. They usually sell the best food. Perhaps not the cleanest, but the best. And here are the owners of the meatball noodle stall doing their thing.

We came a bit late, so the amount of meatballs and fishballs left wasn’t much, but thankfully there was still enough for us.

The meatballs and fishballs are all homemade, so they have a bit of a weird shape as opposed to processed ones, but of course they taste much better than processed ones.

Another place we went to, but again I committed the cardinal sin of forgetting to photograph the food, is this rather famous chicken rice shop called Lou Wong Beansprout and Chicken, which is also just down the street from Restaurant Tuck Kee (everything’s located so conveniently close to each other, you could have a whole day ‘makan trip’ right there in that small part of new Ipoh town. :) ). The shop not only serves chicken rice, but also pork balls, beansprouts and noodles (and God knows some other stuff we didn’t order). And as you would expect, everything there tastes awesome too. As with most chicken rice shops, you can choose between roasted chicken and white chicken… we went for the latter and the white chicken was juicy and tender. The pork balls came in a pretty generous helping, and since I’m totally in love with pork balls, I wasted no time in wolfing that down too. Man, I can’t believe I forgot to take photos!

So after enjoying enough of good Ipoh to last us… a while, my family decided on our last day there that we ought to give our tummies a break and eat something healthy for a change. So while hanging out at Jusco Ipoh, my dad bought some ‘jambu merah’ and ‘lo hong ka’ drinks. Unfortunately I don’t know what the English name for ‘jambu merah’, but the ones we bought tasted kinda like apples, but softer, and were juicy and sweet (even the fruits in Ipoh taste wonderful!)… and they looked like this.

‘Lo Hong Ka’ is a Chinese name for Aloe Vera drink (or at least, that’s my deduction coz’ that’s what it read on the bottle label). I don’t usually drink this kind of traditional stuff, but was pleasantly surprised to find the drink was naturally sweet and refreshing.

And with that, we ended our amazing Ipoh trip, enjoying some healthy food on the drive back home to Subang. I made myself go on a oil-free diet for a few days after that, but it was well worth it.
You 'Lo Hong Ka' makers owe me for free advertising!

The Amazing Ipoh Trip - Part 3 (FOOD Glorious Food!)