Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Happy Christmas and Merry New Year!

Well guys just wanted to wish you all a very good Christmas and memorable New Years!
See you all next year!

I'll be off to Minneapolis tomorrow Dec 29 and returning Jan 2. I hope we'll have a blast up there eventhough it's going to be cold as f#*k!!

Happy 2006!!!!

Monday, December 19, 2005

5 Days before Xmas...

and I have yet to buy any useless gifts presents. Good thing I don't have that many people to buy presents for so that definitely helps. The mall is packed with last minute crazed shoppers.



I will be getting quite a bit of time off and was supposed to be jetting off to Vegas but looks like that plan is not going to work out...bummed out...but I think I've finally gotten something together. I'll drive in to St Louis this weekend with H2, stay with Dave, party a bit & go watch Brokeback Mountain then maybe drive to Chicago on Sunday or Monday. Get a cheap motel and just hang out there; go shop and eat some yummy M'sian food. Nothing grand but sure beats staying home for the holidays.


Short talk:

- Went bar hopping on Fri; going from Tellers to VIP Lounge to A&C and later to Dave's place. Bumped into Jimmy (hottie) at Tellers again and had quite a conversation going. VIP was a cool hole in the wall place and A&C was alright.
- Watched Kong on Saturday, not too bad of a movie, just too long! I think it was 3hrs 25 mins. Took about 1 1/2 hours before Kong even appeared. After movie, went to Soco and had a really good time.
- Sunday my roomate Joel left for Arizona. It was sad to see him leave, he was a good roomate.




Currently reading:

Marley & Me by John Grogan


Rosco the Puppy Genius
(compliments from Joe)

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Leave a comment or I'm sending in the Muppets!

Alright everyone...if you happen to pass by my little piece of internet real estate, could you do me a favor and post a comment! Especially if you don't know me, I'm no scary person (most of the time at least) just say hi and tell me where you are looking at my blog from. I'm really interested to know who actually comes by.

See part of my curiousity stems from this nifty little counter that I've installed for a couple months now and I get to see how much traffic comes by here. In the last 3 months there's been approx 600 people coming by here. So take a few minutes and post me a comment.

D@mn it, you better do it before I get the muppets to attack you!! =)

Alright I'm really eager to see who actually drops by, peeps I know, peeps I don't know, it's all good. So go ahead click on the the "Post a comment" button and say something!

Thanks in advance to everyone who participates!

Friday, December 09, 2005

Anticipation....

Is definitely how we feel with today's limited release of Brokeback Mountain. Unfortunately the wide release is much later and who knows if it's even going to make it to Mid Missouri. Ah well I'll just have to drive in to St Louis to watch if all else fails.

Definitely amazing that Hollywood has finally made a big stride with such a movie and especially with such yummy A list stars. This is one of the reasons I love about this country, for the most part you can do whatever the heck you want to. I know I complain about this and that every once in a while but the fact still remains that I would rather live here than move home (for now at least). Aside from that, I've also lived here for the last 8 years so it'll definitely be an adjustment to move away.

Anyway the conclusion is that I like this country very much and hope that I'll be able to live here on a permanently basis. But till then my plans will be up in the air. Now all you boys go out and watch this movie and help support Hollywood revive their business ;)

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Snowy Thursday

Columbia, Missouri got our first significant snow fall today. I woke up, opened my curtains and saw that all of my backyard and everything else was completely white! As usual for a second I was mesmerized at how calm and pure everything was but that quickly changed when I remembered I had to be at work in 30 minutes.

I think there was a good 2-3 inches on the ground when I left for work. As I drove, I heard on the radio that some schools were shut down and so I wondered if work was actually called off due to inclement weather, I just about choked on my PB sandwich. Dawned on me that work's NEVER called off no matter how bad the weather is. There's a lady that worked there 26 years and she's never had such an occasion. Ahhh the joys of working in Manufacturing. Someone remind me again why I'm in this industry or this company? Oh yeah, guess that'd be for my greencard. That damn card better be worth it!

I better stop talking about that damn card. I've been doing good so far trying not to think about it. Whenever I get even remotely reminded of my Greencard process, I get extremely depressed and helpless. Maybe it's the uncertainty, maybe it's wanting to change jobs, whatever it is it just SUCKS!


Short talk:

  • Went to watch Rent over the weekend. Not a big fan of musicals usually but this one was actually very touching and good. Aside from that didn't really do much over the weekend. It was too damn freakin cold!
  • Received a brand new desktop at work Monday. Thought it was going to be some hand-me-down POS but turned out to be brand spankin new, complete with flat screen monitor.
  • Went to check out Restaurant Grill 1 five last night with Dave and Em where the food was a little above average. The owner was nice. Talked about Dave drama. Joe joined us after dinner for drinks where him and I got into a little spat :( Stayed way too late, left around 10:30pm
  • May go check out Club Generic this weeked with H2. Also talked about possible Vegas trip for Xmas and Minneapolis for New Years.



Currently reading:

Blink by the author of Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell

Currently listening:

X&Y by Coldplay (I'm totally in love with this Album)

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Happy Turkey Day!

It has been quite a while since I last posted anything here. I've just been really busy, not sure with what though. Two weekends has gone by and I've not contributed a single entry to my blog...tsk tsk tsk...I feel bad now so I'm gonna make up for it by writing an extra long one, so go get a cup of hot cocoa and continue reading. Let's start with the weekend before Thanksgiving. I went in to St Louis with Dave because lately I've been shopping around for a BMW 3 series (I know, I know..I don't need a new car for the current one works absolutely fine but I...ok you got me...I don't have a good reason just that I'm sick of the current one, reason enough?) and I saw an ad from a private seller on Autotrader. Looked good online, it was a 2002 325xi titanium silver.

Beemer that Dave & I checked out in St Louis 2002 325xi

So I called and made an appointment with the guy. Got in to St Louis around lunch time Saturday, Dave & I went to meet the guy and took the car for a spin. He was a nice guy and car looked and drove great. Apparently he was selling it because his 18yo daughter who's been driving it for the year didn't think it was "sporty" enough (GOSH brat alert!) and Dad was going to buy an Audi TT for her (where were parents like these when I was growing up). The bad thing was the inside was pretty trashed up. It was quite dirty, presumably from the daughter, and the guy refused to even match the blue book value. So I was like see you later!

After that Dave and I feasted at a chinese buffet restaurant (Emperor's Palace) at Chesterfield, it was great food they had japanese(sushi), mongolian, vietnamese(pho), american chinese, authentic chinese (dim sum etc) and best of all a giant chocolate fondue where you can dip fresh strawberries, bananas and marshmallows. It was very delish but we both ate WAY too much. We didn't eat anything else for the rest of the day. After the late lunch we rested for a while and then proceeded to Randal Steele's (one of Dave's lawyer friends) wine party. It was fun and we met a bunch of people there who joined us at the Complex later that night. It was awesome, we danced from the time we got there till it shut down. I had a blast!!

Our thanksgiving dinner....see how hard we cooked ;)
So the next week I only had 3 days to work so I was very happy ;) Woke up bright and early Thursday packed and drove in to Kansas City where we helped prepare our Malaysian-American Thanksgiving dinner. We had it all! Traditional turkey, greenbean casserole, stuffed mushrooms, potatos, vege casserole and pumpkin pie! It was all very good! We had our feast and later went to watch Harry Potter at 11:30pm which was a good movie but screening was way too late. We were all falling asleep in the theatre and we finally got out at 2:30am! It was late, we were all mellow from the tryptophan in our turkey and to our HORROR when we returned we found Benji had crashed through his doggie gate and made his way to the dining table where he feasted on our Thanksgiving feast! Food was everywhere, turkey leg bone and stuffed mushrooms on the floor, potatos on table, it was total CHAOS! Everybody was mad and started screaming at Benji including his favourite Aunt Elaine who usually is the first to defend him but this time the evidences were too many and too obvious. Eventually anger turned into sympathy as we were worried if he had ate too much. He had puked all upstairs and later puked somemore all throughout the night. He didn't look like he did so well the following couple of days. Click picture below for a previous article on benji.

Caught red handed. And the verdict for Benji is GUILTY!

Unfortunately we had to throw away most of the food since Benji had his way with them. We did save some of the turkey for our turkey curry mee which is now starting to be a tradition. We've been doing this for the past 3-4 years. Aside from that, for the next few days we did very little. We just talked, watched TV and just relaxed. I did see another BMW online and called the guy. This one's a 2001 330i Steel Blue, H2 and I met up with him and drove the car around. H2 made an instant connection with him (diesel jeans) and she thought he was hot. He was a young college student who apparently can't "make" the montly payments. It was a very good looking and clean/shiny car both inside and out and drove very well. It even had the premium package with Harmon Kardon speakers and Xenon headlights which was a plus! But upon further inspection though, I found couple of dents on the side and most alarming were the damages at the back of the car, near the trunk. It almost looked like someone was trying to pry the trunk open. I'm still contemplating if I should make the dude an offer. Really depends if he'll lower his price somemore.

Another BMW H2 & I checked out. This one's a 2001 330i in Kansas City.

We also celebrated YS's 28th birthday over the Thanksgiving weekend. It was going to be hard trying to get everyone together again. Elaine baked her a very yummy cheesecake but unfortunately the crust stuck to the pan. Regardless it was still delish and we all just digged in =) Elaine, H2 and me shared and got her an Express gift cert.


Yee Sin's birthday and cheesecake compliments of Chef Ong

All in all It was really nice having everyone around. Eventhough our families were all far far away, we somehow bonded together and treated one another as one of our own. Most of our American friends have their families to go home to, but we had our own little extended family to celebrate with and we've been doing this for the past 4 years. We all left the pretty early on Sunday and that pretty much wraps up another thanksgiving celebration at the Yeoh's.

Monday, November 14, 2005

Cranberry Crawl


Before the run: Joe, me & Steph (L); Steph, me & H2 (R)

Wow...what a fun and productive weekend it has been, but then again when is there ever a "non fun" weekend? ;) The main event this weekend would be the Cranberry Crawl, a 5K run/walk in Columbia that I found out through Steph. I managed to convince H2 and Joe into participating as well. I went to bed extra early on Friday night (which is very rare) and woke up bright and early on Sat morning, at 6:30am mind you. I don't even get up at 6:30 on workdays! I wanted to be well prepared since this IS my first ever 5K run =)

The run started at 8am, weather was great (kinda cool, ideal for running) and there were a ton of people there, by my guesstimate there were approx 150 people who participated and another 20 to 30 who volunteered. We chatted with a few participants before the run and found out that this is one of the hilliest 5K runs in Columbia but I was like "eer ok, not like I'm gonna win anything anyway". All I wanted was to complete the run in under 30 mins, which I did!! YAY!! See results at http://ctc.coin.org/results/ccrawl/cran05.html
The run went amazingly well, I ran the whole way...even up those freakin hills and I was still weirdly energetic after the run ended. Of the experience, I especially liked the part where the volunteers cheer you on and passes out water and people were all clapping and screaming at the finish line, I mean it felt like I was in the freakin New York marathon or something hehehe ;) Putting all jokes aside, I did have so much fun and will definitely do it again, maybe even a 10K in the future. It was just so incredibly motivating to run along with a bunch of other people.


Me, Joe and H2 (L) & A group pic of after the race (R)

Later that night, went to watch Jarhead with Joe, Brandon and Patrick. Everyone I went with thought the movie was really good but I was just like nnyyyaah, I thought it was just a so-so movie. Maybe it's because I'm not American and can't relate to the patriotic side of the film. But regardless, the movie wasn't bad and it wasn't a complete waste of my $6.50.

Didn't really do much on Sunday. It was Joel's 26th birthday and I baked a couple of cheesecakes for him. I experimented with one by adding some bananas and it came out really good. Took him out for dinner at Chilis and later had Joe, Dave, Em, Steph and H2 come over to hang out and celebrate and also watch DHW and Grey's Anatomy. Watching TV with a group of people is somehow more fun. Don't ask me why. Joe & I also gave him a Comic book present. And that pretty much wraps up another weekend....

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

When September Ends

Two more months!! Two more months and we can all say ta-ta to 2005!! Unbelievable how quickly this year has zoomed by. It has been a good year with many accomplishments and achievements. But the standard struggles with career and immigration status still remains.

Anyway my first weekend of November went pretty good. Went to A&C with Matt, Don and Dave Friday night. I really wanted to party (possibly at the new Generic Club) but Matt and Don got extremely drunk/high (who knows? Don later says his drink was supposedly "ruffied") and so the night got cut short. Dave, Em and myself ended up chatting till about 3am.

Next morning, went to have pho with H2 (she's had pho craving for the last 2 weeks, don't ask me why) and then shopped at the Mall where I got 3 t-shirts for the price of 2 at Hollister =) The frat muscle boy that checked me out must have taken one too many steroid pills or he could've been hitting on me but I highly doubt the latter ;) Later that evening, Joe and parents invited me to dinner at Chris McD's to celebrate Katie's (Joe's sis) new place of employment, the meal was mucho deliciousso. After dinner, we were going to join Dave, Mark and Daniel at Dejavu for comedy but since it was too late Joe and I went to see Zorro instead. The movie was alright but I feel like Antonio Banderas is getting a little too old to be jumping around in a black cape and all (A little off course but I wonder if Banderas means flag in Spanish since it's Bendera in Malay, any spanish speaking readers out there?) . I got pissed at Hollywood because half way through the movie the film got off the reel for a good 10 mins and they never bothered to rewind (dunno if it's possible) or apologize or anything. But nobody complained so maybe it's just me. After the movie joined Dave and gang at Shattered and then ended up at Mark and Daniel's place and hung out there till about 4am.

Sunday, the weather was great considering it IS November. Steph, Suzie and me went to the Katy trail and ran/walked a good 4 miles. Then had dinner at House of Chow (Chee Bye, House of CCB is how we usually refer to it) with H2 where we felt that we got discrinated against, at a Chinese restaurant!! But aside from that, the meal was good. Oh also took this picture of my neighbour's trash. They must've had quite a party over the weekend! I counted and it came up to be like 132 cases or 2640 bottles!! Funny thing was seeing the trash guy the next day, they were literally scratching their heads wondering how clear it all...


Beer cases: My neighbours must have had quite a party!!

Friday, October 28, 2005

All-hallow's Eve

Happy Halloween guys!

It's been a while since I've posted anything. I've just been real busy with trying to find a new job (looking at St Louis or KC), getting readjusted to Columbia and my puke my brains out-most hated-dig my eyes out work has been killing me as well with one project after another.

As you know, I am trying pretty hard to secure myself another place of employment but with my current immigration status it's just a tad more complicated. I have also thought about it all and to tell you the truth, I am a little reluctant to leave Columbia. That's because I LOVE everything outside of work; I mean I'm partying, dating again, meeting new people, have great friends, working out, losing weight etc etc etc generally just having a good time BUT (this is a big butt oops i mean but) I'm just really, really, really, really (ok u got my point) unhappy with work. I mean it's a big part of my life, I have to be here 8 hrs/day, 5 days/week, 52 weeks/year!! It's just really bad so I HAVE to do something about it. I have sat back and done nothing for way too long.

Not much has really been going on the last couple of weeks so I'm just going to post these funny pictures in conjunction with Halloween. Enjoy...




PS - Now that I've put a smile on your face, if you know of any suitable jobs in St Louis or KC or San Fran or NYC or any good job in a good company in a cool city I'd really appreciate it if you could hook me up. You will be promptly rewarded, I promise =)

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Wednesday Oct 12, 2005

It's my birthday, it's my birthday!!! Woohooo what a day it has been.
Actually, let me rewind to this past weekend because I celebrated a little early (I know, I know but who can blame me). I just couldn't wait to see my pals in KC (**wink, wink** riiiight) especially since I haven't seen them in ages. We (Tze, YS, Elaine and H2) celebrated at the Cheesecake factory, ate some good food, took tons of pictures (we're asians, enough said) and they got me a Coach GC which is what I totally wanted for I'm in need of a new wallet BAD.


Me, Tze, YS, Elaine and H2 at cheesecake factory and my Godiva Chocolate cheesecake yum :P

So back to today, I went in to work as usual which kinda sucked coz back when I used to work for Dillard's, you'd get the day off. But anyway, Cheryl at work was really nice to make me a triple chocolate brownie icing cake which was real yummy (there goes my diet to lose the 5lbs I gained in Msia). After work went over to Joe's and hung out for a little and then went home chilled and got ready for my birthday dinner at the Pasta Factory ;P


Pasta Factory with Em & Dave and Dave & Joe

The dinner started at 7:30pm but as usual I was 10 mins late (I really need to get this punctuality thing down) and almost everyone was already there. It was great to see everyone again (Joe, Dave, Em, Joel, MexMatt, Steph, Patrick, DrMatt, Lim, Clint and Don) and we just sat back chilled and had some really good and funny conversations. Dinner was delish but somehow it took almost 1.5 hrs to get our food. They all got me this great DQ Blizzard Cake with 1/2 Reese's and 1/2 Chocolate, which was soooo freakin good (now my diet's totally shot!). I got a bunch of gifts, calls, voicemails, emails and SMS's from friends and family from all over the country/world, it was really cool. In retrospect, I'm just really glad to have such a good group of friends/family to have made my birthday into such a special day.

Thanks Y'all!!!


Blowing out my delicious DQ reese's chocolate cake, yum...


Group pic and all the stuff I got yay :)

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Happy Birthday Papa!!

Just a quick note, it's Dad's Birthday!!!
I know I just saw Dad like a week ago but I already miss him :( I've gotten a few very sweet text messages from him. Here're a few of them:

  • "By the time you receive this you will be having dinner, take care and love you-Dad" (Awww....sent right after I boarded the plane from Malaysia)
  • "Hope you enjoyed your stay in KL and hope to see you in a few years time Love-Dad"
  • "Thanks for the message (Birthday SMS from me) I really enjoyed when you were here (Malaysia) hope we can do it more often Love-Dad"

Aren't they just so sentimental? It's even more so if you knew my Dad better. He's never the type to send letters, care packages etc, never received any of those in the 8 years I've been in the USA. So getting little notes like these from him means even more to me. Also it's really weird to think of my dad as a 64 year old person. I don't know but to me he seems like he'll forever be in his 40's. I know it doesn't make any sense but it just seems that way to me. But just hope he had a great Birthday, knowing my brothers, I'm sure they took him out for a nice dinner :)

In a couple of days it'll be my birthday!!! YAY!! I'm so excited, have to definitely do some partying this week.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Around the World and Back...

My trip's over..waaahhh...it's OVER!! *snif* *snif* After being gone for 4 incredible, amazing, fabulous, speedy weeks I'm finally back. I saw so many people, ate so much food, took so many pictures and had so much fun that it's humanly impossible to do so again. I also managed to survive my 36hr journey from Columbia to KL and another 36 hours coming back (sit until my backside pain) but what can I say, it was all well worth it! Amen =) I will be posting some of the pictures I took in the next few days but for now I just want to recap my trip. Warning: It's gonna be loong, the trip was a freakin month! What did you expect? It's actually really short considering this article constitutes an entire month of my life! So get yourself comfortable, grab a cup of coffee and read on...

First Week
Woke up super excited on Sat morning, H2 and me travelled from Columbia to LA and met up with KK. From there we boarded Malaysian Airlines MH 95 to Taipei where we took a break and ate some delicious Taiwanese Pork Ramen and continued our journey to KL. Watched Mr and Mrs Smith on the plane and enjoyed the MAS cuisine.

H2 and me at Lambert Int'l Airport in St Louis on the way back to M'sia YAY!!

I was soooo excited when the plane touched down on M'sian soil. KLIA still looked great and washappy to use my new high tech passport with imbedded chip (Malaysia boleh!) for the 1st time. Walked out and saw Michelle waiting for KK, she looked good but somehow different which I later realized was her without glasses and a different hairdo, duh! H2 soon spotted her Dad and I was still desperately searching for a familiar face which was a little disappointing but later realized that Dad was outside waiting by his car smoking (which means he lost his bet, never mind understanding it's an insider story).

The first week I met and spent alot of time with my now sis-in-law. She was very helpful as to drive me around town getting my US visa, the new MyKad (Nat'l Identity Card with imbedded "smart" chip, again Malaysia Boleh!) and some legal documents completed. One of the things I noticed most about KL was the incredible growth and because of that the air was incredibly dusty and it caused me to sneeze non stop, I swear I sneezed so much, I almost blew my head off. KK and me had dinner with our old Hostel buddies in Puchong and then later partied at Sunway. It was really good meeting up with the old gang again, they all looked like they were doing pretty well. Later that week I went to see my niece (that's right, I'm now a proud Uncle so shut it) for the 1st time and she's gotta be the cutest baby alive ;) Just sad that I'm not able to hang out with her as she grows up. Ean, his fiance and me left for Penang on Saturday.



Cute little Naomi and a shot of progressive KL from the sky bridge of the Petronas Twin Towers

Stayed in Penang for 4 days. The first thing we did on Sunday morning was to visit the temple that houses Mom's remains, we spent a couple hours praying a reminiscing about her. I truly do miss her, this is the first time I've returned home and not see Mom and that felt a little strange. We later visited all our relatives and ate till our hearts content. I swear we were eating like very 2 hours. We had the very delish Curry Mee in Air Hitam where the very old sisters (whom we dubbed Old Ladies of the Hill) serve the noodles sitting on the floor and scooping gravy out of charcoal pots, it was very authentic. They were Mom's favourite. Not too far away, also in Air Hitam, we had the famous Penang Asam Laksa at the wet market. We also had the fantabulous Ais Kacang with attap chee at Sua Tow Lane accompanied with some refreshing fruit rojak served in spicy "hako" sauce. Wan Kor2 also took us out for Seafood at Batu Feringgi in a small but scrumptious restaurant that was near the "Beginning of the World/End of the World" restaurants. We had among other things fish, huge prawns and best of all crabs! We managed to cramp in some Padang Ha Chi (Indian rojak) and on the final day we had some very good beef noodles.


Amazing view from Air with my Sis-in-law, Ean and Aunty Bee (left)
In front of Aunty Wan's (middle) house (right)

It was good to see that majority of my relatives were doing better and progressing in life. The Eggs on Mom's side however seem to still have a really hard time financially. I felt really bad and gave them some money but there's really not much I could do to get them out of this hole in life. While in Air Hitam, we visited the Kek Lok Si temple which houses the new Goddess of Mercy statue which stands a few hundred feet tall. It was spectacular. I found out from my Aunt later that this is in fact the 2nd statue, the first was ordered to be removed by the govt because it stood taller than the national mosque, what bullcrap. I also truly enjoyed talking to my Aunts about their lives when they were 20 somethings asking questions about Mom, Dad, Grandma and Grandpa. I don't know why but I really enjoy hearing these stories, I later asked Dad the same questions and heard many more interesting stories, especially one very dramatic one about Aunty Bee ;) We returned to KL on Tuesday and on Wednesday KK, Michelle and myself left for Bali.


At KeK Lok Si with the Statue of the Goddess of Mercy in background (left)

Bali was awesome! We booked through the Air Asia website where the entire trip (3 days/2 nights) including Hotel, Air fares and breakfast was a reasonable US$338. I spent US$100 on souvenirs and food the entire time I was there. We stayed in Kuta's Hard Rock Hotel which was rated at 4 stars. The rooms were amazing, we got "loft styled" room where there were 2 queen beds downstairs and 1 up in the den. After we checked in, we went to Jimbaran for a romantic (unfortunately I was with a straight guy and a girl darnit!) seafood dinner by the beach watching the most spectacular sunset ever! Later that evening we walked to Mbargo (straight bar but ironically KK got hit on by a guy) and partied till 3am. Next day we lazed by the pool where 2 smartasses (KK and myself) neglected to apply sunblock and was terribly burnt. We also spent time at the beautiful Kuta beach where KK and myself were pummeled by huge waves and we suspected that's where we got burnt the most. We got all cleaned up and headed out for shopping and dinner at Batam Warung, the food was so-so and was rather expensive. Later that evening we were going to head out to some fab bars but we were too worn out from our sun burn and shopping which I later regretted because the guys at Bali, I swear were all hot, majority of them were hot surfer dudes ;P On the final day we checked out and then had lunch at the delicious Ketupat Restaurant and spent the rest of the day shopping. I bought some framed art which was great but heavy :( We got back in to KLIA on Friday around midnight.


Amazing picture I took in Kuta, Bali and in Jimbaran with KK and Michelle


At the Bali bombing memorial and HRH Bali with KK and Michelle

Third Week
This is the week for me to shop till I drop. I took full advantage of KL's partially new mass transit system. Every morning from Monday through Wednesday, I had Ean drop me at the KTM Komuter station where I'd take an electric train down to KL Central and then take the monorail to KL's golden triangle for a whole day of shopping. I visited Sungei Wang Plaza, Lot10, Starhill then later took the Star/Putra line to KLCC, Central Market and Chinatown (Petaling Street). I bought clothes (which was not as cheap as I'd expected), bunch of bootlegged DVDs, souvenirs and went up to the sky bridge of the Petronas Twin Towers (the ex-tallest buildings in the World).


Atop the Petronas Twin Towers in the sky bridge and a picture of the buildings from outside

On Thursday, after much missed appointments, I visited my company's M'sian operations. I was obligated to my boss for letting me take 4 whole weeks off so I had to do it ok, so no more questions. If it wasn't for that, I would've screwed this whole idea and enjoyed one more precious day in KL. But nonetheless, some good did come out of this. In one of the plants, I bumped into an old college friend and she was totally surprised to see me. We took a really cute picture with both of us in work "uniforms". I also chatted with my boss's boss's boss's Boss (pretty much the big enchilada) for 2 whopping hours. The funny thing is I pretty much figured he was a dumbass after about 10 mins in his office. That night I had dinner with my friend and then met up with David and Kok Yu whom I've not seen in donkey years. Came out to them and had a good time hanging out and showing them pictures of my life in Columbia. Later that week, we celebrated Michelle's birthday at Madam Kwans and after that KK and myself ventured to Liquid, one of KL's best gay bars, and had an amazing time. We paid the cover, drank the complimentary Kampai (pretty good beer, similar to America's smirnoffs) and pretty much danced the night away. We were grindin and shakin our booties to some really good music, kudos to the DJ.


The bride and groom in front of their house and the wedding car. Nice!

Sunday was the big day. It was my 2nd bro's wedding day and I was expected to help out. I had a terrible headache from the previous night's crazy partying till 5/6am and had approx 3 hrs of sleep but I did not complain one word, aren't you just proud of me? We started early, going to the bride's house for the formal groom meet bride event. My brother croaked out some love song before they'd open the door to the bride's room. I recorded him on video, hehehe (I'm sure this will be very good blackmail material in the future, muahahaha) . We also had the traditional tea ceremony for the bride's side of the family. There were so many unfamiliar faces which I'm now strangely related to. After that I got home and totally crashed but I was only able to take a short nap. After the nap, I had to put on my fancy shmancy shirt & tie and travelled down to Cyberview Lodge with the rest of the family. We performed the tea ceremony for our side's family at the hotel. The wedding was a success, I took alot of pictures, Ean gave a really good speech, collected a bunch of $$$ for him and ate a pretty decent 10 or was it 12 course dinner.


Family picture before and after the wedding.

Fourth Week
This is the final week of my trip. I cannot believe it, the entire trip felt like it went by in 2 days. We rested on Monday and left for Port Dickson on Tue and stayed at Guoman resorts which was owned by my company so I managed to get a corporate discount, yay=D I was disappointed that Ewe flaked out on this trip, I really felt like it would have been nice for the family to go on a getaway together but what can I do? Like someone smart once said, I can bring the horse to the water but I can't force him to drink! The trip was great nonetheless with Dad, Ean+wife, grandma and Aunty Bee. We took a bunch of very memorable and funny videos of Dad, Ean and myself fooling around in the resort pool. You would think that I would've learnt from the Bali trip but again I had forgot to apply sunblock so again I got burnt while kayaking with Ean.


Picture by the beach (L) & Guoman PD Resort in background w/ Ean+wife, Grandma, Aunty Bee, Dad and me.(R)

Got back to KL on Wed evening. Went to dinner with Aunty Paulina (Her family's been great, she's hosted countless dinner parties for me while I was back, Winnie and KH were great supports to Ean during his wedding, I really need to get them more stuff the next time I go home, that's the least I could do) and ate again a ton of seafood. We had so much food, it was fit for a king. The next day, I did some last minute shopping and went to Lunar bar with WH, Sani and gang. It was really good partying with my old college buddies again. I truly miss those times and know it will never be the same again. We talked alot about old times and you could see it in everyone's eyes that they would give just about anything to go back to that time of their lives.


Old college buddies (L) & Aunty Paulina and our family's picture (R)

Saturday was it, it was the last day. Had lunch with my family and they all saw me off at KLIA along with KK and H2's families. It was a happy but subdued time, everyone smiled but you could tell everyone was sad too. We took the escalators down and wave to everyone one last time and that was it. My trip was over. I must say, I truly enjoyed this one month being home and away from work. I made a promise to myself to visit home more often. It's different now with dad being 64 and grandma being in her 80s. Every year means more now. I told myself the next trip home will hopefully be Chinese New Year of 2007 so till then...


Family pic at the airport b4 I leave :( & KK and my family also at airport


Arrival at LAX, it's officially the end of our trip waaaaaah!!!

KK, H2 and me at LAX about ready to part ways. So sad trip's over :(