Note: Alam won So You Think You Can Dance!!! Woo Hoo!! He is so cute no?


Finally, the Penang trip last weekend.

I know this comes a bit late, as it’s already been a week long since the event was held.

Better late than never I’d say.


So I shall bring you my wonderful weekend stay over at Penang!


My first ever gathering with other bloggers was held that particular Saturday morning just before the Nuffnang gathering at Food Loft started.


X ray? Shabby clinic? Err….


Mrs Lilian brought us out for a nice Nasi Kandar Breakfast somewhere in Penang street (they all looked the same to me), along with Earl Ku and other Penang bloggers I have never met before.




We didn’t exactly click, maybe I’m just not ‘Penang’ enough I guess, or maybe they have never heard of little old me before. No matter… Life goes on. Nasi Kandar was great though…




In the afternoon, I followed Tim’s car to Food Loft for preparation. While waiting for them to set up the booth, I walked around taking shots of the empty restaurant that was meant to be reserved for all Nuffnangers.




All while browsing some paintings they displayed outside.

I especially like this painting entitled “falling in love”.




Does everyone who fall in love felt that they are swimming in a pool of flowers? I get butterflies when I fall in love, or that could be just my hungry stomach.


I like my Nuffnang badge~ So cute~


I went to the middle to reserve some centre seats for Tim & co and Kenny & co. Soon enough, the marathon runner arrived just in time for me to pass him his sticker.




I prefer to stick mine somewhere else.




After much mingling, it was time for food. Food loft has a great ambience to provide you a fantastic dining experience. You get to see the food before placing your order, which then you use your order card and let them scan some deadly price into your card before serving your food.


My lunch~ Yum



Took my chance to cam whore with the Famous mommy blogger


Kenny got bored of eating and decided to flex his muscle by attempting to stretch my poor little outfit apart.


Pink just doesn’t work for you, Kenny.


Argh… So I decided to take revenge




By cutting his chest hair…




And paste it on a paper to auction off for charity.


Which is so kindly bought by my accommodator (without him I’ll be homeless in Penang).




For RM20.




If you asked me, I’d say it is blardy expensive for a strand of hair!!


That night we went clubbing at momo before sending Kenny off to the Marathon.


Cam-whore in the car



I would say, it’s a hell of a weekend. I never had so much fun in a long time, suddenly I’m in love with Penang all over again. :D

Penang trip, move aside; Ipod road trip, step back.

Make way for the movie review of TRANSFORMERS!!




Visit the site, the design is awesome!!


The trailor you saw?! IT IS NOWHERE NEAR appetizers for the movie. It is too good. Too perfect! My heart is still racing and the movie just finished 2 hours ago!


Good


F . U . C . K !!!!!!

There hasn’t been such a good production since … I can’t really remember…

Police story? Love actually?


Evil


In fact, the movie was so good I cum in my seat in the cinema. Orgasmic I tell you!!!

My heart was pumping, I was breathing deeply one sec, holding my breath the next; then shivered and shook while relaxed the other; tell me that is the not the best sexual activity in a cinema! I HAVE FALLEN HEAD OVER HEELS for OPTIMUS PRIME!!! If I were a bot, I would shag him! Unconditional love this is!!!


Optimus Prime, I love you!!!


The cartoon “Transformers” has been my childhood. It still is! I bet many agree too. The marketing was amazing. Just imagine, all 10 halls were showing the same movie at the same time. And can you believe it? This is the first time I have to submit my phone to cinema before entering one! Everyone was queuing up for item check ups and by the end of the movie, people were queuing up to retrieve their phones.

People were clapping hands in the movie. I was screaming and cheering! At the end of the movie, I was so moved and impressed, I clapped my hands and whistled, many followed. Not only the movie itself was well scripted, cast and produced; it’s a journey back to my younger days. The cars will make guys and girls fall in love, nicely humoured and the actors? OMG so CUTE can DIE!! The ladies so HAWT!! The guys? I’ll turn gay for them if I’m a guy!




There are four types of movie I classify. The first one is utterly rubbish, half an hour in the movie I would usually stand up and leave the cinema half way through, and honestly, I have yet to leave the cinema unless it really puts me off; once I even sat through an entire Irish movie (which I rated –2 out of 10) that only “Fook you, fook me” can be heard throughout the screening. And that is impressive. Pay me 10 pounds to watch it again and I would pay you back double not to watch it.

The second type would be a movie that is watchable, not enjoyable; totally forgettable and not worth buying a ticket if I knew the storyline at first.


Megatron


Then comes the third type where the movie is enjoyable, laughable, good humour but rather forgettable, this would usually be movies that give me neutral feeling at the end of the show like Happy Feet, Surf’s Up, Fantastic Four…etc.

And then the final type of movie; a movie that rawks so much, the first reaction when the credits started showing at the end is you want to watch it again!!! I mean, that is the ultimate movie. How many movies can prompt you to pay RM11 again just to sit through another 2 hours of your life in a dark area watching something you already knew what is happening?

I can tell you. Not many.

Transformers? definitely the fourth type! Who tell me it's not I'll go kill them. My rate: 10 out of 10! You can leave out 0.2 if you're being so critical, b#$%#.


Decepticons and its leader - They call it 'NBE 1'

And if a movie production is able to do that, they are earning big bucks man! Mega bucks! People are paying twice the amount to watch the movie, getting original DVD after watching the movie and even buy their merchandises!

I mean.. one plastic Optimus Prime helmet is costing RM80 and people are buying them? A lot of them!

My colleague for one~



Go Amir Go!

Note: I got a surprise parcel from a blog reader at my company's reception today. Thank you Sheon for sending me chocolates! That is so sweet!! You even sent me my fav, Meiji and Ghana Chocolates!


It’s official!! I’m the toughest, roughest, baddest, hard-hitting chick there is! Danger means nothing to me! In fact, I should be named NicoleDangerTan.

Working as a travel writer might be tough work, but it is definitely fun. Oh trust me on the tough work part; it’s not easy to juggle between your social life, study, holiday and work.

Most time you tend to jumble them up and by the end of the day, it’s hard to differentiate which is your real personal life and trip and which is work. If you are optimistic, you just treat work as fun and love what you do.

Which is why I love my job!

Not only I get to travel (even within KL itself), I get to capitalize on media benefits which give me more reasons to travel and try out things with and for a purpose.

Life is GUUUUDDD……… *GRIN*


To achieve this, first you need to embrace all sorts of predicament that work usually puts you in. Your role model? Me!

And not everyone is daring with a heart too big to be scared by something as whimsical as eating roaches. Like me.

Most importantly, you need to look good doing it! You guessed it! Yours truly!!!


Take for example if my job requires me to jump off a waterfall while having my glorious free-falling moments taken on camera; I have to grace the fall with the strongest will and bravery, all while smiling and acting happy in front of the camera to convince my viewers/readers that getting push off some rocky-water-gusting cliff is the most awesome-st thing in the world.

Let’s cut the chase and straight to a real life synopsis. Few weeks back, I made an appointment to meet up with AJ-Hackett Malaysia franchise owner Adam at KL Tower (who happens to be a kiwi/NZ citizen) to discuss covering a shoot on the rides they offer. One of which on the spot is ‘Flying Fox’.


This is the other flyer, just for show


Quote from the flyer (will put up actual flyer tomorrow):

“… our longest Fox is an extreme 150 metres long! Step off and fly from tree to tree, feel the excitement as the ground drops beneath you…”

Technically, a Flying Fox is a ride whereby a string hangs somewhat tenths of metres above ground (60 metres in this case) and have you swing (fly) from one higher end to a lower end.




And why rides like these are created? Together with other extreme sports such like bungee jumping and sky diving? My bet is in the ancient times, New Zealand has nothing but sheeps and grass, after getting bored of shagging sheeps, a Kiwi vowed that he would change history and decided to tie himself to a rope and throw himself off a cliff, but forgot to think of a way of climbing back up and allowed himself to die dangling there. The rest of the Kiwis who were so impressed by his insanity to keep himself sane, followed his footsteps and one by one started jumping off cliffs around New Zealand, hence the start of Extreme Sports.




Sometimes I wonder if I was ever a Kiwi decedent, but that thought only crossed my mind for 2 seconds before concluding I probably stand a higher chance coming from an alien womb that has smarter genes in it. That might also explains why I’m fearless for most things.

So yea, after the brief meeting, Adam offered us free rides on their flying fox. I accepted without hesitation (after allowing my editor to go on the rides few times in advance, eh hem, and decided that the strings were safe enough).


Safety harness


I stepped onto the wooden plank, looked down, let out a ‘humph’ and roll my eyes. “This is too easy”. Even babies can do this! Are they seriously calling this an extreme sport?? They are joking right? I mean come on…

Thinking too much makes me tired. So off I jump!!


Click video to see my dashing take off





Piece of cake.

Note: Penang nuffnang gathering was a success, sadly there were people who didn’t know the meal limit was RM15 and therefore ‘forgot’ to pay when they go back, so Timothy was kind enough to foot the remaining bill. Bless his soul..

And I can’t believe there are bloggers who thought I work for nuffnang. o.O


No I am not going to blog about the gathering this time round. Because…. I’m too lazy to upload my photos to the pc~~ Haha

But here’s a preview anyway,



Photos courtesy of Blogwawasan



Poor Kenny being used as a card holder, lol



Cutting Kenny’s hair to auction off for charity



Group photo, See me with my pillow, Yay! :D



Just had lunch with Timothy, Samantha, Kenny and IcyQueenGoddess, and by god, Timothy’s mom can whip the BEST death-inducing curry noodle in the history of Penang!!! It’s the finest creation made by human since the invention of paper clips. GOD!! Why!!! Now I can never eat another curry noodle~~~ *drown in sorrow*

It is that nice. I am not exaggerating; they bought the best cha siew too to mix with the noodle. I wish I can ‘ta bao’ back to KL. And I can’t get my hands off the huge tub of Haagan Daaz green tea ice-cream (thinking of buying one myself, but realize my freezer is not big enough to store such a big tub *pout*).

Kenny is walking as though someone just stick a pole up his ass. Serve him right for blogging four hours before his marathon when he was suppose to be in bed!!



Back to my topic, after the confession on my profound love to the best doughnut in the world, I have received quite a number of feedbacks that somewhere in Malaysia, in our own very PJ, there lies treasures to be unfold. An outlet that is second best to none and almost as good as the king of doughnuts is hidden in the depths of none other than our very own The Curve shopping complex.




So I decided to hunt down this, so called queen of doughnuts, outlet by the name of Big Apple one day.

The expedition took place few weeks ago; I made a dinner appointment at The Curve with some friends just so I could get myself a bite of this delicious doughnut for my appetizers.

After obtaining my direction from the concierge, I doubtfully made my way to the back of T.G.I. Friday’s and saw a beautiful fountain but still no sign of the restaurant.

As I walked towards the fountain, I took a left look and Bingo! I spotted it!




Over-enthusiastically, I walked up the place and browse the selections of doughnuts they have to offer.







I was so excited I couldn’t decide which to choose. So I asked for their best selling doughnut.


Mmm… sounds yummy


So I bought that to eat in and another Orea flavour to take away. (just in case)




I sat down, while trying to hide my excitement, I took my first bite and….

Well….

No explosion.


In fact,

No heaven,

No angels singing… Nothing…


How shall I put it, the doughnut is nice, tasty, banana flavour compromises the dark chocolates… But…. Well…. It just isn’t what I had expected. Coming at a price of RM2 per doughnut, same price to Dunkin Donuts, I would say it is reasonable. I guess it is unfair to judge since I put in too much expectation out of it, but seriously, compare to Krispy Kreme, there is simply no competition.

It could be just my preference; I find the bun for Krispy is way better flavoured and filling than Big Apple, Big Apple’s bun texture is airy, soft and airy. It’s like you’re biting into nothing and it can hardly make you feel like you’ve eaten anything.



I ate the take-away doughnut cause I felt rather empty eating the first one


So yea, quite disappointed. But if you like doughnuts and you have never tried Krispy Kreme before. I’d say go for it, give it a try. You might love it more than I do. ;)

Note: I will be attending Nuffnang Gathering in Penang this Saturday, try to chat me up cause I’m shy in person.


I didn't realise it was the time of the year again two days before the event when an old schoolmate reminded me over Msn.

I remember my high school years, down it might be, every year in June when the anniversary is approaching, the entire school is hype up for preparation.




We will spend almost an entire month preparing for the event. Buying materials within class budget and decorating the classrooms, going out to sell charity vouchers to public, our relatives and sometimes when out of desperate measures, we will 'eat up' the coupons ourselves (buy what we sell).

It’s one of those peak moments in dull school life that you actually get some activities away from class. Even though we have to go out of school after class in small groups and walk from shops to shops or area to area under the hot sun, just like those American high school girl guides selling cookies to their friendly local neighbourhood, only, people in real life are not so friendly.

And even though people say that this is child labour or student abuse since we were ‘forced’ to become volunteers and do this in the name and for the sake of our dear school (private school needs financial funding constantly); it were these little things that kept us looking forward to going to school each day, decorating and competing for the most creative looking class became the main highlight during our school years.


It's been years since I returned to my high school for a visit. After five years of torment that sent me swirling in dark moments of my past, returning for a visit is the last thing I ever wanted to do.

"But heck" I thought. It's been years, if all the lecturers and juniors during my time have not already retired or graduated by now is not a convincing excuse; it's time to get over it and put the pass behind me. So this year, I decided to visit my high school anniversary, and rid of that melancholy within me once and for all.

There I was, at the entrance of my high school, with a friend (of course), looking at the entrance where I once stood as a prefect (worst decision ever made) every morning to be on duty and check for late students.




On duty by the gate thing is so utterly pointless. Why can’t they just lock the gate when the bell rings like traditional Japanese high school?


The structure of the school changed a lot. The four main buildings: South, East, West and North blocks still stand, imposing extensions and renovations have obviously been carried out, heck they even have auto student log in and out machine and pass! I don’t remember having a student card even back in my school years, man we were like, dinosaurs.

Or prisoners… who the hell have their student numbers sewn onto the front of their uniforms! It’s like a code that assigned to you from the first year of your imprisonment till the day you are released six years later.

“Hi, I’m 97-018, what about you?”



Young prisoners… poor souls


One thing I used to dread was bumping into those school bullies in school, before and after graduation. This year was no difference, though I don’t see them bullies anymore, I mean, they turned out, well... pretty normal after graduation. They always do, don’t they? I could be stereotyping but popular girls and guys back in school always seem to turn out either horribly unsuccessful or just your average Joe or plain Jane.

But even that, I still don’t fancy meeting them. Could be my personal grudges or they make me feel that they’re still living in the glorious past when they are just so normal in the present. It could be both. Don’t know don’t care.

Don’t flame me for chauvinism. I’m mentioning this in an ex-unpopular-ugly-nerd point of view and this is how we (or I) feel.


So I entered the school, with four coupons bought from some little prisoners wondering around town few weeks ago in my hand, I headed for the canteen to see what they were selling for charity.

There was some pretty awesome cheap tasteless-looking food selling at the stalls, which I’m too reluctant to buy even with my coupons. As I stroll along the stalls, heaven forbade I met a group of my old classmates!! SHITE! Pretending to be oblivious of their existence, I walked pass through too quickly despite some of them trying to call out my Chinese name. Ewe….

“See no evil, hear no evil…”


We proceeded the tour and decided to look around some of the classrooms made and decorated by kids age 13-18 and laugh myself silly by the amateurish construction of newspaper and cheap glue and paint. Probably going to have Pikachu soft toys everywhere and childish drawings just like old times.

I couldn’t be more wrong…

Most of the classrooms turned out so impressively creative, they would make a 15 year-old me feel so stupid and fallow. (No, I don’t need your opinion here, growl)


Fee-fi-fo-fum…



Chu-chu~~


Some are so cute you want to kiss them,




Or bring them home,




Some are remarkably realistic,


Tea shop..


You become part of the theme


Omg, this sewing machine is antique!


From gun shooting in the West,




to taking a stroll in the alleyway in the East..


Hong Kong red light district?


Some of the drawings are so real you can taste them,


Yum~


This is also my favourite classroom design, cause it matched my dress that day and I love the entrance hallway they built too.


Grapes are never too sour here



Ribena fountain! :D


But the most creative classroom belonged to a class of senior threes of Science stream,


“I have a feeling someone is looking at me…”


Theme: “Hell”

Upon entering the place, visitors can sense an eerie vibe and faux blood couldn’t look scarier in dark, some kids were even too scared to enter. In fact, the place was so spooky, flash photos just don’t do them justice here.






“Are you afraid of the dark?”


Creativity is not the only thing kids have these days, after an eye-full, I decided it was time to head back.

At the entrance, I saw this bunch of kids (elementary-level?) holding boxes of prizes (Mamee and tissue packets, yea, sad prizes) so I went up to ask them for a photo. They couldn’t be more enthusiastic.





Then a phone rang, and one of the kids picked up his phone…

“Jie Jie (elder sister), wait a, I got a call”





o.O!!! How old is he? He looks too young to own a phone man!!





Shit! Even talking on the phone also like big businessman~ =.=



PS: Talking about the 94th Anniversary of Pay Fong High, CONGRATULATION on NicoleKiss for achieving 100 post today!!!! Never knew I could be so long-winded~

Now go buy me a cake