Ngongkong 4D/3N ... not for the shopper hor!

In case any of you want to follow our path :) ..

Day 1:

• 6AM flight SG-HK: One of the earliest flight from Singapore for the kiasu folks like us :)! Reached HK @10:20AM, took AEL and the free shuttle bus, reach hotel @12PM (just nice for a quick lunch and check-in). Separate AEL ticket and Octopus MTR card cost actually less than the overly promoted 3 day pass for tourist. If you come in group, ask for AEL group package (come in a group of 2, 3 and 4) that can give you up to 40% discount for your AEL ride. For those travelling with kids/eldery, Children/Seniors Octopus card will save you ~50% discount for most of their transportation cost. Also remember to ask Seniors/Children discount when you visit any sights as some of them do provide discounts accordingly.
  
• Chi Lin Nunnery: Covering a space of 30,000 square meters, Chi Lin Nunnery has strikingly beautiful statues of the Sakyamuni Buddha, the goddess of mercy Guanyin and other bodhisattvas. These statues are made from gold, clay, wood and stone. Its buildings are the only ones to be built with wooden rooftops in modern Hong Kong, without the use of a single nail in its construction. This is based on a unique architectural style from the Tang Dynasty which uses special interlocking systems cut into the wood for construction.
  How to go: Diamond Hill MTR, walk cross Hollywood Plaza and follow the direction (5 minutes walk). Admission: Free
  
• Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple: One of the most famous temple in Hong Kong. Big and very crowded temple with lot of fortune teller ready to open the secret of your future :).
  How to go: Wong Tai Sin MTR, look for Wong Tai Sin temple exit (just above the MTR). Admission: Free (for the temple), donation of 2 HKD for the garden behind the temple.
  
• Yung Kee Restaurant, Wellington Street: Famous for the BBQ goose and Century egg. The goose was a bit overrated but the Century egg (the black, ugly, yucky thing) has made me a believer. Surprisingly it taste good! Some say that lot of famous people eat there but unfortunately we could not recognize any when we around.
  How to go: Walking distance from Central MTR (5 minutes walk). Budget: approx 150-250HKD/pax
  
• The Peak tram, Madame Tussaud's: Try to go there on your first not-so-hazy night, else you won't be able to see a thing. Unfortunately lot of people (and I really meant it) think the same way. The viewing platform is simply over-crowded by people for us to enjoy, Duh! Obviously the most sceneric way to go there is to take the Peak Tram (45 degree ascending tram). Peak Tram/Madame Tussaud's package is really worth the extra 100 HKD you pay as it allow you to cut the queue to go to the tram (especially if you plan to visit the museum anyway). The que for normal ticket is worst than the NLB sales queue.
  How to go: Walk 15 minutes from Centra MTR or take bus 15C from Star Ferry terminal/Admiralty MTR to take Peak Tram from the Peak Tram station. Admission: Peak Tram is 30 HKD (round-trip), Peak Tram/Madame Tussaud's package for 125 HKD (inclussive of round-trip Peak Tram).
  
• Star Ferry ride back to the hotel: A must for visitor to HK to cross between Hong Kong island and Kowloon. A sceneric trip cost 2.2HKD, it's really worthed :)!
  

Day 2:

• Maxim's City Hall Tim Sum breakfast: Nice Tim Sum place with ocean view. The dishes are paraded by the waiters in small cart for you to pick.
  How to go there: Walking distance from Central MTR or Star Ferry Terminal (the Star Ferry Terminal is closer though). Budget: approx. 100 HKD/pax
  
• Ocean Park: A mix of Dufan and Sea world with rides, giant Aquariums, a scenic cum scary cable car ride, and Panda exhibit. If you plan to go to Ocean Park in the weekend, try to take the 629 city bus from the Star ferry terminal to avoid the crowd. The queue in Admiralty can easily beat the queue in The Peak tram (see day 1).
  How to go there: Take bus 629 from Star Ferry Terminal(weekend morning) or Admiralty MTR. Admission: 185 HKD/pax
  
• Temple Street Night Market: Hong Kong pasar malam :). You can find all the fake and cheap items here (clothing/toys/hand bags/everything under the sun). Lot of food for those who have appetite of "exotic" meals. How to go: 5 minutes walk from Jordan MTR.

Day 3:

• Disneyland: The magic kingdom! For those that love Disney and want to take as much rides as possible, I recommend you to come early :).
  How to go: Take MTR to Disney resort MTR station. Admission fee: 300HKD/pax (adult)

Day 4:

• Po Lin Monastery (Giant Budha): A monastery situated in the middle of nowhere in Lantau island and famous for the giant Budha statue and its vegetarian meals. The meals was actually overrated.
  How to go: Take a ferry to Silvermine Bay (Mui Wo) from the Central Pier, and Bus No 2 to Po Lin. Or take the MTR to Tung Chung station, and Bus No 23. The Ngong Ping cable car is on its way to give you direct access from Tung Chung MTR. Admission fee: 60-100HKD/pax for vegetarian meals buffet.
  
• Ladies Market: Another Hong Kong pasar malam (much bigger than the Temple street).
  How to go: Walking distance from Mong Kok MTR.
  
• 8PM flight to home :)!

Marley and Me by John Grogan

A funny, heart warming, and tear jerking story about a man's best friend. Highly recommended to all animal lover!!!

More on the book and the author here.

PS: If you promise to be nice and good (with the book) we may consider to lend our book to you :)!!

(don't want to) back to work ...

Some of you might know that I was out of town in the past few days for vacation. Oh well, I really think I need another one to recover from it.

If you think that going on a shopping trip with this buruh-kantor is tiring, try one with my Mom! She can move as quick as a fox if she want to, (mostly not in the right direction though) .. and require full-time attention as she can dissapear in the blink of an eye! I learnt it the hard way by going up and down this Giant Budha twice because I can't find them :( ..

As the theme of the trip was sightseeing, we did not really get chance to go for proper shopping :(. Surprisingly this buruh-kantor actually managed to "shop" more than us without her joining the trip :)!! My Mom manage to snatch 5 hand bags along the way though, while my haul is just 3 Giordano boxers :(. Maybe next time we should go with an empty bag so we are forced to shop :)! Sounds like fun isn't it (just learnt from Princess that I am actually quite stingy in shopping for myself, other than electronic probably :)... ).

Went back at wee hour this morning due to our flight delay, we reached home to found that our bathrooms are in complete mess. Apparently some smart ass decided to clean the exterior of the building with blower and all the dust end up messing up our bathroom :(!! Argghhhhh end up having to clean both toilets in the middle of the night (was planning to knock off rigth after we reach home).

Lucky for me I can "work" from home today, but poor Princess has to face the reality earlier this morning and I wish her all the best!

Current state: Extremely tired and broke :(

... a puppy called Panda (no ?!?)

... ding!

Message from my Sis-in-Law, "we are buying a puppy, can we call her Panda?" Ehm ehm (pretending to think hard) ".. of course, as long as she is cute :)!"

Well it turned out that she is Panda no more :( ..

To quote from my Sis message "After calling our pup "Panda" for a day, we realize that the name doesn't fit her as she's too hyper and has shown her no-fear quality. So with great regret we let go of Panda and now she's Zoe :-P"

Hmppphhhhhhh! I wonder what does that mean?

Anyway, got her picture today and she is soooooooooooo adorable and kawaaaaiiii! How I wish she is mine :( ...

Can't wait to play with her and teach her all "nasty stuff" this Feb :)!!!

.. Elementary dating by Rowan Atkinson

.. Potty training anyone ?

.. the invasion of Mama Panda :)

Nothing beats home cooked food, your Mum's cooking that is ...

This morning I saw my childhood flash right before my eyes. Not that I was halusinating or in a life-threatening situation (like those in Hollywood flicks) but I just spent my entire morning looking at all my childhood favorite dishes, Gule, Rendang, Garang Asem Ayam, Garang Asem Iga, Gudeg (complete with chicken, koyor and krecek), Rendang, Tempe Bacem, Martabak Manis Jagalan and the list goes on and on and on ...

My Mum is in town. Despite numorous attempts by her daughter in-law to "tone-down" her enthusiasm to cook for her starving and underfeed boy, she still managed to prepare tons of home cooked (enough to feed small army), and packed it along with her to Singapore :). And so, with the "if-looks-could-kills" eyes of Princess Panda behind my back, I spent the whole morning unpacking, reheating and repacking all the dishes (two big boxes of them). To make things a little bit more complicated, we found out that we don't have enough pan and bowl to store/reheat all the food at one go :)!

My Mum loves to cook, which can be easily seen in how healthy my brother and I are :). Unfortunately, or actually fortunately for me, most of her dishes involve meat! Raise from not-so-meaty family, Princess Panda really struggle to eat meat and meat and more of them :)!

My Mum also have a very short term memory problem, especially related to my diet. In between her constant nagging of me to slim down and Princess Panda to watch over my diet, she continuously ask us to eat more of her food, which cannot really catagorized as healthy food :)! Luckily for us we have our tetangga and this poor buruh kantor that drop by yesterday to help us savour portion of the Gule, Rendang and Martabak Manis :). So watch out guys, in desperate measure I may call out to you again!

Oh well, at least we don't have to think of what to cook for the next 3-4 months!

.. sejuta Coro dan istri tercinta

Sebetulnya kejadian yang saya blog ini gak baru .. tapi berhubung terlalu banyak hal-hal yang gak penting jadi gak pernah kesampean menulisnya ..

Coro dan HDB sayangnya adalah dua hal yang tidak bisa dipisahkan :( .. mau sebersih apa rumah anda, pasti ada juga coro-coro canggih yang bisa mampir, entah terbang lewat jendela atau menyelip ke kiri dan ke kanan lewat lubang-lubang yang tak terbayangkan sebelumnya .. dan jangan keliru antara coro sama Churos ya .. kalo yang itu sih saya suka :) ..

Anyway, sampai di mana ya saya tadi, oh ya .. coro dan HDB .. Nah di HDB tuh biasanya ada acara bulanan untuk mengasapi lubang sampah (jangan keliru dengan acara bakar-bakaran tetangga kita di bulan ke tujuh ya), tujuannya adalah untuk membunuh coro-coro dan binatang binatang lain yang dengan happy-nya menghuni lubang hitam nan seram itu. Biasanya beberapa hari sebelum kita sudah di wanti-wanti sama HDB untuk menutup lubang-lubang sampah di hari itu sehingga binatang-binatang jahanam itu tidak mengungsi ke rumah kita, dan beberapa minggu yang lalu kita lupa :( ...

Pagi-pagi bangun dan mau mencuci baju eh tiba-tiba saya melihat satu, dua mahluk seram berjalan jalan dengan happynya di dapur .. hiyaaaat gubrak .. kuhajar dengan semangat .. eh ada lagi, satu-dua-tiga-empat .. wah mulai keringat dingin .. persenjataan mulai berubah dari gulungan koran ke semprotan baygon .. eh bak pahlawan kemerdekaan, mati satu maju seribu .. gawat bok .. terpaksa mundur teratur dan mengatur strategi baru ... ternyata saudara-saudara dengan bodohnya saya baru melihat kalo ada lubang di samping gorong-gorong sampah saya .. lubang kecil sekali tapi entah bagaimana si coro-coro ini dengan langsing dan rampingnya bisa merambat masuk :( .. gak heran kalo ada yang bilang coro adalah "the last life-being on earth that can stand a nuclear war", biarpun sudah habis satu kaleng baygon dan dapur mulai berkabut mereka masih dengan gagah-gagahnya main petak umpet di dapur :( ...

To cut the story short .. setelah dengan paniknya melihat rumah di serbu mahluk-mahluk seram dan bisa terbang itu saya hanya bisa bengong, mundur teratur, ngegebukin coro yang berhasil melewati kabut baygon dari dapur, dan menelepon 911 eh istriku ...

Untuk yang mengenal nyonyaku ini, sudah pasti dong tahu betapa takutnya dia dengan coro .. eh ternyata hari itu beliau dengan gagah beraninya menawarkan diri untuk kabur dari kantor dan membantu seekor Panda yang lagi histeris di rumah!!! Do'i yang sakit perut dan pusing aja susahnya setengah mati di bujukin ambil MC or pulang pagi, eh tanpa di minta langsung pulang untuk bertempur dengan coro (not one of her favorite past time) .. Sampai rumah, berbekal amunisi baru (3 kaleng baygon), si Panda yang acem dan belum mandi ini dirangkul dengan penuh cinta dan dikasi semangat untuk menghajar jahanam-jahanam itu .. hiks .. jadi terharu ...

Yah biarpun kita sering berantem tentang hal-hal yang gak perlu, it's really comforting to know that you have someone to rely on when you need it the most ...

So ... untuk istriku tercinta .. Cup-cup .. makasih ya ...

Luv, Panda :) ..

Foot note (from wikipedia):
"Cockroaches are insects of the Order Blattodea. The names of the order are derived from Greek language blatta, meaning "cockroach". There are roughly 3,500 species in 6 families. Cockroaches exist worldwide, with the exception of the polar regions and in elevations above 2,000 metres (6,500 feet). Cockroaches are also simply known as "roaches".

Among the most well-known species are the American cockroach, Periplaneta americana, which is about 3cm long, and the German cockroach, Blattella germanica, about 1½cm long. Tropical cockroaches are often much bigger, and in turn prehistoric forms such as the Carboniferous Archimylacris and the Permian Apthoroblattina were several times as large as these. When infesting buildings, cockroaches are considered pests; out of the thousands of species, however, only a handful fall into this designation."

"A churro is a fried-dough pastry-based snack, which originated in Spain, and is popular in Latin America, the USA, and Spanish-speaking Caribbean islands. It is sometimes referred to as a Spanish doughnut or Mexican doughnut. Porras are similar but with a round thicker cross section, so named due to the fact that they usually resemble the form of a club.

The traditional seasoning of churros is sugar. Many churro connoisseurs swear by the combination of chocolate con churros, wherein the churro is dunked into a mug of piping hot chocolate, thick in the Spanish fashion. Churros may also be served sprinkled with cinnamon. Like pretzels, churros are often sold by street vendors who in many cases will fry them freshly on the street stand and sell them warm or hot."