S.O.X. – If you’re over 18, you just don’t get it!

Hate to say this but how I wish I was born 10 years later, at least I still manage to enjoy more benefits as a student. Teeheehee =)

Once again, CELCOM S.O.X  the best prepaid plan for student, is organizing the All – Stars Drum & Dance 2011 competition . It attracted 8400 crowds to the National Stadium last year, I believe it can be even better this year’s Final in KL. If you missed out the 2010, then check out their links.

As you know, I was part of Chung Hua band members when I was young, so I’m very alert when it comes to activities that relates to Band. As for the East Malaysia team, they are choosing 4 teams out of 7 that will be competing in KL for the Final. Since the event was held at Boulevard Shopping Complex Miri, both Alex and I spent a little “wild” afternoon joining this bunch of  young kids. Wahahaha, after seeing them I feel that I’m back to 16.

I’ve took a lot of pictures while Alex helps to do the video recording. Before I start covering this event, I think I better show off a picture here as a motivation to go on the entire post. :p

Gotcha! Yah, the Gotcha man is here.

I dare dare go infront and say , “Hi Ean, can I take a picture with you?”. Arrrgh, he’s so cute and friendly. Luckily Alex did not get jealous because personally I think Ean looks better than Alex. Hahahaha

Ok, Let’s begin with the rocking moment and I let my pictures do the talkings =) Sorry there’s really too much to share with you, so it might slow down a bit loading the pictures. Good things are worth to wait!

The Massive Crowds in Boulevard Shopping Complex, 3rd Floor.

The S.O.X registration booth, for those who are under 18, you get it for FREE!

The Awesome Emcee of this event.

And the 1st round qualifying stage begins with St.Columba Miri.

I love this part, very creative.

2nd Team : From St Joseph Miri.

His face is a bit too tense up. Relax..

3rd team is from Kuching, SMK Green Road.

Their uniform is cool.

Then it comes the 4th team, SMK Chung Hua Miri. That’s my school, proud of it right?

Team in Red. Stunning!

Of course, this girl get my attention, she’s rock with her black lips!

These are the big supporters of CH Band, don’t play play, they can shout off your ears!

The 5th team is from Shan Tao. (spelling might be wrong)

I missed out their performance.

6th Team from SMK Lutong, Miri.

And the final team from Riam Road Middle School, Miri.

Total of 7 teams, and they have put their best efforts. The judges would choose 1 team that will automatically qualify to the Final, while the remain 6 teams will have to battling each other.

The judges are cracking their head, it’s hard to make a decision. All the teams are superb!

While the judges are busy, let’s take a peep at the back stage.

Had a chance to see Ean interviewing the contestants.

The 3 young girls from Green Road Kuching. Sweet young 16. Mandy the one on the right say she only join drum sections for 3 months.

The red feather cap of Shan Tao.

She is Brenda from CH Band. Pretty & Confident

Let’s get back to the stage, and see who’s the automatic qualifier for the Final.

All the teams gathered and waiting for the results.

Their names had been called up.

Eliminate or Qualify?

By looking at their expression…

YES! They are the 1st team which is automatically qualify to the FINAL. Congratulations to CH BAND!

Meaning that 6 other teams would need to battle each other.

Shan Tao vs St Joseph  - The winner is St Joseph

Green Road Vs St Columba – The Winner is Green Road

Riam Road vs Lutong, the Winner is Riam Road.

Although the result has been announce, CH BAND would like to give another performance to all their fans and supporter.

Red team in action again.

Playing with confidence.

Risking for something extraordinary.

Telling the world, let’s BATTLE!

I think CH BAND really deserve to be the winner. Despite of their performances, their outfits are also putting 100% effort. Those parents are really rich to invest in these.

So if you wish to watch their performance, here’s a video from Alexallied.com

The event ended with certificates giving ceremony to all the participants.

Mr. Choo Meng Chung , the head of Celcom East Malaysia give all the youngster a big encouragement.

Thanks to Celcom for organizing this great event in Miri. I’m hoping to see for the Finals in KL. All the best to the teams that qualify to the finals and please make Sarawak be proud of you all!

Day 4 of my China Trip.

It also recorded the day of I’m not able to login to FB and also days of running nose. Achooo! Luckily, Mr Sunshine seems to protect me in Su Zhou.

The weather has turn better, roughly around 15′c daily. So we’ve actually took down a few layers of clothing, and look less bulkier from now on.

The Liverpool hotel does give a better standard of breakfast compared to previous. Seems like our hotels are getting better day by day.

Although we have a tour guide with us, somehow when we reach to Su Zhou, the tour agent arrange another local tour guide to bring us around. Met Xiao Liang, which I think he is quite professional. He actually brief us a lot of Local Cultures, the place where he grown up.

The first stop that we visited was the 耦园 , Couple’s retreat garden. Sounds cool right?  Personally I love this garden compare to the next one.

All these are so movie scene, isn’t it?

There’s a lot of flowers and rocks inside the garden. So just take as much photo as I could. :p

We were actually too happy to see the sunshine, it makes the whole garden lighten up! So do our mood!

We spent about 30 mins in this garden.  We took a boat ride back to the main entrance. It’s purposely arrange by the tour guide, he says he want us to experience their cultural. The old nanny will sing us some oldies, such as Teresa’s song and we will give some tips for her hard-work.

The boat ride was intent to be short, is just giving us a chance to take a look of the river view. There’s also a nice sakura inside this garden. This is the 1st time in my life to see sakura too!

The next garden we’re heading , would be 狮子林 Lion Grove Garden.  Sounds like a zoo more than a garden to me.

This place is over crowded compare to the previous garden. Maybe it’s smaller, and its located near to town area so there’s more visitor going into this garden. There’s a lot of street hawker trying to sell us some preserved fruits. Basically they are targeting tourist,  and they will sell you the fruits at a ridiculous price as if you have never seen fruit before.

So what to see inside this Lion Grove? It is famous for its large and labyrinthine grotto of taihu rock at the garden’s center as cited from Wiki. For me, personally, due to the crowd, seriously I can’t find any good spot to observes the rock. So , forget about it. Just take a few photos for remembrance.

That has been very kind of the tour guide, for arranging us to both of UNESCO garden of Su Zhou.

Before he ended the tour of Su Zhou, we were introduced to the Silk Factory. They said, this is government run organisation, so that the tourist should not have worry about purchasing their product.  The silk product that was being introduced by the tour guide does sounds so good somehow the quality of the product could only be justify after a few years of using it.

Again, the whole group, only the elderly couple bought a few products.

So cut the crap, let’s go to Can Ting. Anything wrong? Ya, it’s call 餐厅.   That was the pinyin translate.  Hmm, or why don’t they name it Canteen, it’s more similar to the translation.  Anyhow, the meal from here are consider good. Not too oily, which is more suitable to our taste bud.

Look at that huge pork leg, oh… that’s William’s favourite.

This conclude our Su Zhou, garden tour in the morning.  I will update more on shopping is Su Zhou in my next post

Finally after the 2 hours “pee holding” road trip, and shortly we arrived Wu Zhen 乌镇. I’m proud to tell you that this is my 2nd visit to this beautiful scenic town. Somehow, I’ve lost my memory for the past 10 years, so now I’m here again to recall it back!

Although this place has been one of the most popular tourist spot, somehow, the historical & cultural scene within this wall are well kept & maintain. Believe or not , it has last for more than a thousand years. There are still residents living in this water town, living on a simple life and doing some small business for living.

Take a look at the whole structure, its very classic with historical interest.  There’s only one best word to describe Wu Zhen, a peaceful water town.

Our tour guide, Xiao Yuan brief us some chinese beliefs in the olden days. In all the architectures built, they have their own reasons behind.

This little girl who also grow up in this town, earning by selling the handicrafts for living. Some of the houses are selling some local desserts.

The classic windows and doors which you only found in Chinese Ancient movie, but now the modern “us” are standing inside.

The structures of all the building are almost the same, but the most similarity would be their roof & tiles.

We enjoyed photo taking.

I love the street view.

I love the water town scene.

I love the old buildings.

It’s really a great place for visit.

At least for me, who has never grown interest with Chinese history, would gain a chance by witnessing by my own.

Somehow I dislikes the dinner provided. I think they purposely want us to taste what the locals are having. It looks so home cook right?  That’s absolutely right, the restaurant name were also very classic, it’s call Grandma’s Home, 婆婆家·  See, non of us appreciate the dishes, seriously I can cook 10x better than this.  Hahaha, don’t challenge me. :p

Sky is getting dark, we departed Wu Zhen around 7pm, and reaching Su Zhou 苏州 by 8pm.

Su Zhou welcome us with strong winds, I believe it’s reaching another 4′c coldness. We went to the lake side to have a night view of Su Zhou industrial park which is a project cooperation of  China & Singapore. No wonder, the buildings does resemble a bit like Singapore’s!

Then we witness the biggest LED Screen in the world , which is located at Su Zhou.  It’s located along the street and it’s outdoor type. Once again,an eye opener for me, woah, that’s really awesome! I truly understand, why people classified China as the fastest growing country.

We were staying at Liverpool hotel, where MU fans were also have to stay here. Ahaks! This is the hotel room that we’re staying. Although the TV program is not as good as previous, but its located so near to the Universities. We can access to all kind of student’s night life, and this is a great place for us to hang out.

Having our mid night supper at one of the restaurants. We’re not alone, there’s still a few student hanging out although it’s getting late.  Feels like we’re back to 18 again.

That’s conclude a long haul journey. Pretty tiring with running nose with me. Took a good rest and we’re going to visit lot’s of Su Zhou classical gardens tomorrow. Stay tune ya!

After staying 2 nights in Hang Zhou, today we will be heading to Su Zhou.

The weather is good, about 13′c, it’s still cold but at least it’s not raining.

The last destination in Hang Zhou will be visiting their most famous Long Jing Tea Factory, 龙井茶. Honestly, I think our Cameron looks better, but the tea leaves I’m not the expert to compare. According to the experts from the tea factory, whom so called himself as Tea Expert saying that Long Jin Tea is good for health, and that is what Japanese call it Green Tea.

This is actually a shopping stop, which is compulsory included by the tour. The expert is trying very hard to sell off his product, telling us jokes and do so much demonstrations on how great the tea is.  I believe that the tea is really good but well, non of us purchased except Uncle & Aunty, the only elderly in our tour whom are the parents of my best friend, Yen.

Initially Alex thought of getting me a can, which is about 125g only. Somehow they are  selling in bulk, which cost ranging from RM600 to RM1200 for 500g. This is way too expensive for the people whom don’t know how to value the tea. It’s a waste, I thought. Somehow, I think that Long Jing is actually smell very nice compared to other tea that I’ve ever taste.

According to the expert, everyone in China loves tea, especially Long Jing Tea. It can be drink even its cold. Alex keep emhasizing to me, it can helps to reduce fat! OMG, that’s the thing that he actually wanted me to have this.  Still, I said it’s too expensive, so he ended up didn’t buy any. Hahahhaa , evil is laughing!
Since nothing is bought, let’s take some photo for remembrance. Yay! =)

Finally we had a better lunch somewhere nearby the Tea Plantations.

The special dishes are finally here, 东坡肉 and 叫花鸡 . Taste absolutely great! Compared to what we had yesterday, this is heaven privilege.

Not only the food is great, the whole surrounding are with great views of Hang Zhou.

The remaining afternoon, we shall not drink too much. Have to make sure the bladder is empty, because we are taking another 2 hours journey to Wu Zhen before we could reach Su Zhou.

After 2 hours ride, we reach this little town, but it’s not Wu Zhen yet, it’s a Chrysanthemum factory, another shopping stop.  I get frightened by the toilet, which make me lost confidence with whatever product sold from this factory.  The toilet trauma is still deeply remembered.. its better not to share here.

About the Chrysanthemum, it’s consider very cheap, it sells in bulk as well, RMB100 for 4 boxes. Still, you can’t get my business le!

Alright, enough of shopping, enough of the eerie toilet, we still need to take another hour ride. We will be reaching Wu Zhen 乌镇 shortly, kindly follow the next blog post.

Before that, let’s enjoy the wonderful country side view. I’m hearting it! =)

This is the first time I visit to Hang Zhou 杭州 , China. Like I mention in my previous post, by judging it’s Airport Terminal, I’ve already have some high expectations over the development of this city.

Our tour guide, Xiao Yuan tells us some great stories of china. I cited up here one of  the Chinese sayings, 生在苏州, 活在杭州, 吃在广州, 死在柳州.  I roughly translate it, born in Su Zhou, Live in Hang Zhou, Eat in Guang Zhou, Die in Liu Zhou. So why is that live in Hang Zhou? That’s because Hang Zhou is popular of its beautiful scenery. A lot of them find it peaceful to stay here compare to other developed city. In fact, they are very proud to be part of Hang Zhou.

The main tourist attractions in Hang Zhou would be the Westlake 西湖。It’s not only attracted tourist but during the public holidays and weekends the locals would get around. The city is build around the lake, which is around 600 hectares and there’s a lot of scenic place around which are worth for visits.

Our 1st destination of the day will be taking a boat ride around Westlake. It’s around 4′c and everyone of us were challenging the coldness with the rain!

The lake itself is very big, but by taking the boat, we can view up all the scenic spots and the tour guide will give us a little knowledge of the love legend of Westlake.  Seriously, I can’t recall of what I’ve heard.

By walking distance, we reach another attractions, 雷峰塔  , a pagoda which is built along the Westlake. There’s of course another historical story of this pagoda, but cut the crap, we are taking the lift and going up to the 4th floor. The great scenic view of the lake  was really awesome.

Shortly, it reach lunch time. I’m a bit worry of the food in China. You know, there’s always article saying that food in china were processed by unknown materials. We shouldn’t bother much, and I have faith with the travel agent they don’t dare to play fishy here. Isn’t it?

We were brought to this restaurant which is also located by the lake. The eating hall looks grand, but dishes ain’t giving good appetite.  Maybe this is our first meal in China, we haven’t get used to the food.

1. It’s too salty

2.It’s too oily

3. Food ingredients are weird

4. The portion are damn HUGE

5. Their fish has a lot of BONES

Out of the above, actually we do enjoy the meal. Every meal, we would have at least 8 dishes on the table. Non of the meal we could finish up the whole portions.

Let’s continue our Westlake journey to the long bridge 长桥. According to Xiao Yuan, this is a lover’s bridge. So he advise us to cross the bridge by holding our partner’s hand tightly. Sweet & Romantic right? Not only that, it was still raining, we were walking under the rain and crossing the bridge. <3

After the heavy lunch, Xiao Yuan told us that the afternoon programs were mostly by foot and there’s a hill to climb.  What? In such cold weather, you expect us to climb hills?  He must be kidding right?

We did take a 40 mins walk around the lake, surrounded with beautiful peach blossoms.. I’ve almost forgotten the cold. Do you like the flowers? Let’s have a closer look

Hope you like it

The whole group of us refuse to go up to the hill, in fact we ask the tour guide, what could we see from the hill? He answered us, “West lake”. Enough, we had enough of westlake. So just take a photo at the entrance and we proceed to other places. At least we’ve been here, Gu Shan 孤山。

The next destination would be the “岳王庙” , the Temple of Yue Fei.
There’s some old folks story, but I’m totally blank of these. Alex knows better, he’s interested with all the historical stories.

It’s almost 5pm. Near to closing time.

Before we proceed to Dinner, we have a little street walk again by the lake.  The whole day program was totally all about the West Lake. There’s nothing much here, just crossing some streets, and take some pictures. Our dinner were somewhere nearby, so around 6pm we proceed to have dinner.

This time, the restaurant looks a bit classy. It’s on the 2nd floor inside a building.

As what we’ve been told, the signature dish in Hang Zhou are the dong po rou 东坡肉 and Jiao Hua Ji 叫花鸡。 However,  Xiao Yuan says that tonight they are unable to provide us, I don’t know what’s the reason behind. What to do, just eat what is provided. The size of the prawn are really pitiful. In Sarawak, we don’t eat such a small prawn, we’ll put it into dishes as side ingredients.

After dinner, we were given self activities hour. Of course it’s shopping time.

I did not get myself anything, I don’t know why, perhaps its just not my shopping mood?

We were back to Hotel around 8.30pm. The night is still young, but someone will grow older over this night.

We celebrated Robert’s birthday in his hotel room. It was suppose to be a birthday surprise, but so sorry, I spoiled their initiatives :p

Nvm, as long as everyone is happy, we did enjoy the moment!

Lastly, a closing to this post.

Our late night supper. This is is a Muslim Beef Ramen shop. Unbelievable that we found out Muslim shops in China.

We’re going to visit the most popular Long Jin Tea 龙井茶 factory tomorrow. See ya!

416, the long awaiting day for most of us in Sarawak was finally over.

Too much controversy, too much propaganda, which I don’t think with my little knowledge of politics could do much explanations here. Somehow, as a citizen of Miri City, I think I’ve done what I should have done.

Few years ago, my mom asked, “Why didn’t you come back to Miri for vote?” I replied, it’s non my business. With me or without me, the result will still be the same. SUPP will always be Mirian’s leader. That was 4 years ago, when I was still totally a noob.  After years of rolling in the society and being brain washed by either party, I know that’s my responsibility to cast my vote.

Well, on 16th of April 2011, I’ve done it.  It’s my “Virgin Vote” but I believe there’a lot of you who are still holding the “Virgin Vote”.

My assigned polling station was at SM PEI MIN , Krokop.  I saw a lot familiar faces here, this year I think Mirians are really looking forward for a change. Is either a threat for SUPP or it could be a room of improvement for them.

My voting area is under N64 PUJUT , SUPP -YB Andy Chia vs Fong Pau Teck from DAP.

Over the past few days, DAP has been working very hard on the election campaign every night and they’ve attracted massive crowds. These people who attended, might be those who are seriously supporting  a change or they are just being an observant?

Messages has been spreading over internet, advise and warning all the voters to take a clearer looks on our voting tickets. Rumour says, some dirty tricks could be played on our tickets. I did not bother much. I know it’s always ended out with some black magic which is out of my control no matter how hard we try to prevent it.

It has been the most aggressive weeks I could see Mirians posting up in their facebook & twitters.  I’ve been trying hard to stay neutral, but it’s pretty hard to make a decision.

I’ve crossed on the column whom deserved my vote.

It’s the most crucial day for both parties, but it’s also to all the Sarawak people. Even my friends from Johor would drop me a call and message to concern the situation over here.

Results were slowly being announce through the Internet and also live report from TV 1.

In Miri, both Rocket flies defeated Datuk Patinggi George Chan & YB Andy Chia.  Honestly, I have mix feeling, not sure I’m happy or I’m sad. But I want  to see a change at the same time.  I can’t deny that SUPP did a lot of contributions to Miri but there’s too much of dark side stories too at the same time. It’s really awful to know that.

Meanwhile, in N65 Senadin area faced some difficulty in their vote counts. It has been announced that SUPP YB Lee won by razor thin margin of  58 majority.  PKR side request for recounts. Riot happened at the Miri Indoor Stadium until late night and ended up in Police Stations. This is going to be a never ending story I bet.

Now we are looking forward for the Parliament Election. I’m not sure when that’s gonna be, but if you haven’t done your registration as a voter, please do it now. It’s very easy, you can just do it at any post office nearby. Our future is control by our own.

All the best Miri, we hope to see a better change from now on!

I’m back updating my blog, just because I would love to share something out of the politics topic which is so HOT in town these days.

This China Trip were planned in July 2010, we grabbed the cheap tickets from Air Asia and the travel date was actually 10 months ahead. Initially we have 16 travel members, however, 2 of them did not manage to join in, hence we ended up 14 people in a group.

Honestly, going travel can be very tiring, especially when you are going in a big group. The lucky and sweetest thing is, all the travel members are all working adults, we ain’t the 1st time traveler, we don’t need a leader as all of us can take good care of our own. Some of us were close friends, friends of close friends and family members. We could get along very well and give the most co-operation all the time.

Here’s a brief summary of our Travel Itinerary before we start this Travelogue.

8 days 7 night – Go around China Trip

• 2nd April 2011 – Kuala Lumpur to Hangzhou. Arrive around 10 pm.
• 3rd April 2011 – Hangzhou day tour
• 4th April 2011 – Hangzhou to Su Zhou
• 5th April 2011 – Su Zhou day tour
• 6th April 2011 – Su Zhou to Wu Xi
• 7th April 2011 – Wu xi to Shanghai
• 8th April 2011 – Shanghai day tour
• 9th April 2011 – Shanghai back to Hangzhou , Flight from Hangzhou to Kuala Lumpur
• 10th April 2011 – 4AM arrive Kuala Lumpur LCCT

Air Ticket price : RM 540 (Kuala Lumpur – Hangzhou) by Air Asia not inclusive of baggage fee & food.
Travel Package Fee : RM 900 per person – Include of 4-5 star hotel accommodation, food & transport.
Ticket & Tips : RMB 350 / RM 175 – Extra tour fee for ticket entrance and some other tourist spot.
Cash money to spend : RMB 1000/ RM500 per person

After 5 hours flights from KL to HGH, finally we arrive Hang Zhou Xiao Shan International Airport. According to the tour guide, this airport was newly renovated 2 years ago. Basically it looks grand, far more improve than the 10 years ago when I firstly step into China. Very impressive, really impressive! By judging by the airport, Ive already put some expectations on the cities.  Let’s follow me!

China welcome us by rains. It is spring season now, which it is suppose to be around 11-17c daily. However, it welcomes us with 8c… this is really awesome when you see your own smoke while talking!

The one holding mic is our tour guide for the whole trip. In China, they will prefer people to add “小” xiao in front of their surname for us to remember them easily.  So as our tour guide, we call him 小圆, but of course this is not his real name.

We were staying at Ramada Hotel. The hotel distance from the Airport took around 30 mins. This hotel locates quite far away from the city center, but I like the environment, it’s quite and peaceful. A great place for us to rest after the long hour flights.

The average rate for this hotel cost around RMB 890 / RM 445 per room, dividing into 2 person, its RM222.50 per person.

Remember, we only paid RM900 per person for our travel package. It’s worth right? We are able to enjoy the 1st class facility by paying little affordable amounts. Another credits the travel agent

Our Hotel Room, clean and modern.
The best thing, it comes with the  network TV, which acts like PPS. You have all the latest drama and movie from the list.  I’m loving it!

All of us were very hungry, we are looking for food but too bad most of the eatery place were close. The only place we could go is the convenience stall. All of us went into a little shop and bought a lot of foods from here. There’s a lot of beverage for you to choose. Variety choices of Instant Noodles that you hardly get it in Malaysia.

Don’t bother so much, the weather was freezing cold outside. It’s better we go back to our room, and grab a hot bowl of Instant Noodle while enjoying the full list of channel.

Let’s call it a night. After a long day of waiting and transit, finally we settled down in the hotel.  Till then, will try to update again by soonest!

Hello from china!

Its been day 5 since we arrive china. Our first destination was at hang Zhou. Follow by wu zhen and soo Zhou. Today we are heading to wu xi before we reach the final or our main destination shanghai!

The weather has been very cold. If it’s raining, it’s about 4-6 c.. Average is about 10c!

The hotels are excellent, we’ve chosen 5 star hotels for the package. For the food, some are quite disappointing.

This has also recorded of days I’ve not been using Facebook!

Great, will be back blogging soon.