My Very First Blog

Today is Chap Goh Meh, the 15th day of Chinese New Year! How time flies! I still remember Chinese New Year eve when I was looking forward to my holidays! How I wish I can turn back time and celebrate it all over again!

One month before Chinese New Year, I stumbled upon these nice angpow lanterns at Subang Parade.



They were all made entirely from angpows!



I think it was on the top floor of Subang Parade. I always get confused at which floor I am at here because it is, well, a bit confusing!



I wanted to have angpow lanterns like these!



And so I got myself one.



I guess it was too huge! But well, I still like it, though this was not the exact design I wanted.



It was a nice change from the usual Chinese lanterns.

A few days before Chinese New Year, I bought myself loads of prawn crackers. These were prawn crackers from Pasir Penambang, Kuala Selangor. Look! I almost filled up my car with them!



The prawn crackers were absolutely delicious! I think it's the best I've tasted! And it was reasonably priced at only RM6 for a huge bag like this!



One day before Chinese New Year, I ordered this delicious chocolate mocha cake from a friend. It was so yummy, I could not stop eating it!



And I found out that it tasted even better when eaten together with a tub of vanilla ice cream. Yummy!!

Today, being the last day of Chinese New Year, I had to make sure I don't miss out on my favourite Chinese New Year food. If you have not eaten this yet, today is the last day you can eat it!

What food am I talking about? It's yee sang of course!



If you don't eat this by today, you will have to wait till next year! So go and lou sang today for the last time this year! By the way, lou sang means tossing the yee sang for good luck and prosperity.

Have a great Chap Goh Meh, folks! : )

PS: For single ladies looking for a husband, don't forget to get ready some mandarin oranges, and for single guys looking for a wife, remember get ready your net to catch those oranges! And for guys looking for other guys, you can do both the throwing and the collecting! Haha!

Continued from Part 2

Once we came down from the cable car, my friend Ed and I walked around Genting Hotel to look for a place to have our lunch. Finally, we settled for Coffee Terrace.



Coffee Terrace offered buffet as well as ala-carte. We went for ala-carte.



We looked through the menu and made our orders. While waiting for the food to arrive, I took some more photos of the interior.

These were items displayed on the wooden shelf.



Ceiling light.



I was having a little cough, so instead of drinking something cold, I went for hot tea.



Finally, our food arrived. It did take quite long and I was hungry!

My friend ate beef stroganoff. I hope I got the name right! If not mistaken, I think it is a Russian dish of sauteed pieces of beef served in a sauce with sour cream.



My friend said it was so so only. I ate a little of the beef and agreed with him.

Mine was baked salmon. It was not too bad, though I would not say it's good!



The bill came up to RM82.80 which was pretty pricey to me! But I did not mind splurging a little, so it was OK.

After lunch, we went over to First World Hotel and had a tour of the Indoor Theme Park. Anyone who enters this Indoor Theme Park will not fail to see this Statue Of Liberty.



And this Oscar statue opposite.



There's a T-Rex's head breaking out of the wall trying to attack an overturned car.



And of course there was my favourite Superhero, who is none other than Superman! But they replaced his S logo with a G! No prize for guessing what that letter G stands for!



By the way, anyone knows who is this Superhero?



If you have been to Genting Highlands a few times already, these pictures may be pretty boring to you, but for first timers, I am sure seeing these pictures would make you want to go Genting Highlands, am I right? : )



Lots of shops and stalls selling stuffs. I did not buy a single thing. My friend Ed bought some clothes from FOS.





Look at these unique lantern balls!



There are many indoor theme park rides, but I just took photos of a few of them only.

Below is the Venice Gondola ride. By the way, the man steering the gondola is not real, haha.



This is a Rio Float. They come in different designs.



This resembles a dragon.



This is what they called a Reindeer Cruiser.



A Rio Float with Reindeer Cruisers in the background.



After all those walking around, we decided to have a drink at Starbucks. It was here that we took out our laptops and did some online surfing. I had wanted to change my blog's template for quite some time but did not really know how so I asked Ed for help.

He showed me some Blogger templates. I chose one which I liked then asked him to teach me how to replace my previous template with the new one that I am having now. It was all done within a matter or minutes! Simple!

And that, my dear readers, is the story of how I changed my blog's layout at Genting Highlands! Nothing dramatic or exciting about it, I'm afraid! Sorry if this seems like an anti-climax but that's how I make you read Part1, 2 and 3 of this story! Haha!

Still, I hope this will not stop you from reading the final part - Part 4 - where I will blog about why we were not allowed to enter the casino. My friend did get to enter in the end though. I did not. Anyone want to guess why? : )

Continued from Part 1

Before we drove up Genting Highlands, I and my friend Ed decided to have our breakfast at Otak Otak Place in 1Utama.



We chose to go there as they were having this breakfast set promotion at RM5!

Ed and I ordered the same set, which was toasted bread with butter and kaya, half boiled eggs and coffee.



The cup of coffee came with a piece of cracker too. At RM5, it was worth it as ordering these 3 items would cost about RM8 at the normal prices.

I love the toasted bread! Well, it was way better than the toasted bread I had at OldTown White Coffee! I would say after eating at places like Otak Otak Place, PappaRich and TC Toast & Coffee, OldTown's food is the absolute worst!

Otak Otak Place also have a nice interior. Look at this bicycle on display there!



I just realised they have a bicycle on display in every one of their outlets. I have been to the outlet in Tropicana City Mall and they have even more things on display there!

I even saw a pack of Happy Families cards on my table but we did not bother to play it. In fact, I don't even know how to play this card game!

Before leaving, we were given 2 complimentary packets of premix coffee with tongkat ali, gano and ginseng extract. Nice!



After breakfast, we drove to Genting Highlands. Or rather, Ed drove while I sat there and enjoyed the view.

It was a breeze driving there as there were not many cars. Well, it was the second day of Chinese New Year so I guess most people were already back in their hometowns.

Well, how wrong I was! When we reached the Skyway station midway up Genting, we were shocked to see the long queue of people waiting in line for the cable cars!



There were many foreign workers from Bangladesh and Indonesia. I guess they must be having their day off and took the opportunity to visit Genting Highlands!

Moral of this story : Don't go to Genting Highlands on a public holiday! Or at least, don't take the cable car ride.

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you will know that I hate queues! Well, as much as I hated queues, I did not ask Ed to drive us up because his car was a brand new car and had yet to reach 1000km in mileage! I did not want to strain his new car too much!

So we had to tolerate for almost two hours lining up for the cable car!



I did not know how I survived that 2 hours but I did! I guess with a friend as company, it was bearable.

Finally, we got onto the cable car. They called it Skyway Gondola which sounded nice, haha.



Now please excuse me if I have to flood this post with pictures taken from inside the cable car as I have not sat in this Skyway Gondola for more than 10 years! LOL!



Each cable car can only take in a maximum of 8 persons. So there were 6 other people with us. Not much room to move around to take pictures!

From this photo below, you can see that we were leaving the cable car station.



I was surprised that as a person who is afraid of heights, I did not feel any fear at that time! Maybe my stint at FRIM's suspended bridge had cured me. Haha!



Yippie! We were on top of the world!



Then Ed pointed out to me our cable car number. Wow! It was number 48!!



In Cantonese, 48 sounds like "sei fatt" or continuously getting rich! What a prosperous feeling up there in the sky! And coincidentally, it was the second day of Chinese New Year. Woo hoo!

My friend would end up using this number later on in the casino but that will be another story.



I really enjoyed the ride. Well, maybe not as much fun as 10 years ago, when I was much younger, but it was still fun nevertheless.



By the way, did you know that Genting Skyway is one of the fastest cable car in the world running at 6 metres per second and also the longest in South East Asia at 3.38km?

OK, here's a question to test your mathematical skill. Using the figures I just provided above, how long do you think our cable car journey was? The first person to answer this correctly will win a special prize from me! : )

Coming Up In Part 3 : My Lunch At 6,000 Feet Above Sea Level!

Mariah Carey did it again!

I am not sure if this will be her next big hit, but I just love this song! It's called "100 Percent".

This song was supposed to be included in her latest album "Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel" but it was taken out probably due to the song not fitting into the theme of the album.

The song was then supposed to be used for the highly acclaimed movie "Precious" where Mariah was finally praised for her acting ability. But the director did not want the audiences to be reminded of Mariah as the singer, so her song was not included. Instead it was replaced with a song sung by Mary J. Blige.

Unperturbed, Mariah had said that she's going to use this song for "something really good" so finally, here we are - this is going to be the song for 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver! Hooray!!

Written by Mariah Carey and Jermaine Dupri, "100 Percent" is a totally inspiring song. A song for dreamers and champions in the making. In other words, my kind of song!

And I'm going to dedicate this song to none other than my friend QuaChee, who is an inspiring dreamer himself! I'm also dedicating this song to all of you who are currently struggling to make it big, to achieve your dreams.

Watch this live footage video taken from Mariah's recent "Angels Advocate" Tour in Toronto, Canada. Enjoy!!



I am a dream, just beginning
Truth is I prayed when you'd open my eyes,
And you reveal, something to me,
Suddenly, I am no longer confined!

My life ain’t defined by limits
I don’t need no permission to live it
I’m a break through the door til I get in
Everything that I got I’m a give it
100 Percent and I ain’t stopping til I reach the finish

I’m a believer, not just a dreamer
I’m givin everything I got
I’m a go-getter
100 Percenter
Undoubtedly I can reach the top and I ain’t gonna let nothing discourage or dissuade me
Coz I’m walking out of here a champion either way babe
I am givin 100 Percent
So go on put your ones up

If you’re putting in a hundred put your ones up, ones up
If you know that this is something, put your ones up, ones up
If you really comprehend this feel, your ones up, your ones up
If you’re walking into victory keep on shining
One hundred percent

You can only do it if you do it like I did
Cause suffering ain’t easy
But if you can turn your wounds into living proof that you’ve survived the fight
And you're no longer defined

My life ain’t defined by limits
I don’t need no permission to live it
I’m a break through the door til I get in
Everything that I got I’m a give it
100 Percent and I ain’t stopping til I reach the finish

I’m a believer, not just a dreamer
I’m givin everything I got
I’m a go-getter
100 Percenter
Undoubtedly I can reach the top and I ain’t gonna let nothing discourage or dissuade me
(Nothing can discourage me)
Coz I’m walking out of here a champion either way babe
I am givin 100 Percent
So go on put your ones up

If you’re putting in a hundred put your ones up, ones up (Put your ones up)
If you know that this is something, put your ones up, ones up (Everybody)
If you really comprehend this feel, your ones up, your ones up (Put your ones up)
If you’re walking into victory keep on shining (One hundred)
One hundred percent

Don’t you ever be discouraged, let nobody take your courage
If you gonna pray don’t worry,
If ya gonna wait don’t pray
You just keep the faith and listen to me

If you’re putting in a hundred put your ones up, ones up (Put your ones up)
If you know that this is something, put your ones up, ones up (If you know you were)
If you really comprehend this feel, your ones up, your ones up (If you ever hear something)
If you’re walking into victory keep on shining
One hundred percent

I’m a believer, not just a dreamer
I’m givin everything I got
I’m a go getter
100 Percenter
Undoubtedly I can reach the top and I ain’t gonna let nothing discourage or dissuade me
(Percent I will share with you)
Coz I’m walking out of here a champion either way babe (Either way)
I am gotta givin 100 Percent
So go on put your ones up

If you’re putting in a hundred put your ones up, ones up
If you know that this is something, put your ones up, ones up
If you really comprehend this feel, your ones up, your ones up
If you’re walking into victory keep on shining
One hundred percent!

It was unbearably hot this Chinese New Year. There was hardly any rain and the sun was shining down in full force every single day!

And so when my friend asked me if I wanted to go up to Genting Highlands, I was all for it! In fact, I was so happy he asked as I wanted to get away from all this heat!

He actually texted me on my handphone the night before. The sms messages went something like this. I shall call my friend Ed.

Ed : Are u interested for a trip to Genting tomorrow?

Me : Tomorrow? What to do there?

Ed : Hang out, makan and etc.

Me : Ok, sure. U drive?

Ed : You mind if we try take the bus? If can't get ticket then drive.

Me : Can also. Have not tried taking a bus to Genting!

Ed : Will call u later to discuss.

So he called me up later and we decided to start our journey from 1Utama bus station at 11am the next day. I thought it would be fun going to Genting in a bus as normally I go in a car. The bus would drop us at the cable car station midway where we would be taking the cable car ride up to Genting. For your information, I had not sat in that cable car for more than 10 years already, I think! So I was all eager to go!

The next day, which happened to be the second day of Chinese New Year, Ed drove over to my house at 10am to fetch me to 1Utama. After parking his car in 1Utama, we went to the ticket counter to enquire about the tickets.

Imagine our shock when we were told that the only available tickets were for the 12.30pm bus and for return journey, only 4pm bus was available. All others were sold out! It would be pointless to sit the 12.30pm bus to Genting and return on the 4pm bus!

So we decided to drive there instead.