To The Himalayans!

I will never claimed myself as an adventurous type but one thing for sure is that I love the outdoor and strangely enough, love to go hiking despite my size and weight. So on the 9th of November 2011, me along with another 7 hikers took a flight to India for one of the toughest trekking trip of our life to-date.

The environment were harsh on us all. The pollution in the southern suburb area or to be more precise, the city of Kolkata was bad. Makes me wonder what is the exact air pollution index when we are there. The noise pollution was as bad too. A few of my friends and colleagues were wondering what was I thinking when I told them I was going to India. To them, India was one of the less favorable country so i guess they have their point.

Not planning to go on detail because it was a long trip and not to mention that I forgot most of it. We used most of our time traveling by road and did our share of walking for hours on a daily basis. Altogether, we walked for around 80 kilometer during the whole trip. It was exhausting but at the end it was all worth it.

Do not want to sound too long-winded so here are some hand-picked photos on the final stretch of our trip.

You should check this and this out if you are interested to know a little more about the trip. That is all for now. We are going to return to our usual hobby related post after this. Do stay tune. =D

See ya 2011! Welcome 2012!

Time does fly. We are once again in the beginning of a new year and what better time than present to look back into 2011 for a little bit of reminiscence.

2011 was a busy year for me. I have managed to keep this blog alive by posting 31 entry which is an increase of around 55% compare to the previous year. If times permit, I will keep up with this achievement or even set a new record for year 2012. My new target is a new post for every week. That will translate to around 50 post by the end of the year.

Regrettably, I have been slacking in terms of my model kit production. As of the end of 2011, I have managed to complete only 2 kits, both of them VF-25 from the Macross Frontier series, leaving a bunch of half-build kits on pending status. I would have to revisit my backlog again this year. Not trying to be too ambitious so I will aim to complete at least 3 kits this year.

In terms of reading, I have managed to read at least 5 novels. Most of them were books which I have bought a few years back. Some were borrowed from a friend (Thanks Reuben!) of mine who share the same passion with me. At the moment, I have another 2 books which needs reading and I am still waiting for a book from bookdepository. Hope to keep up with this reading habits for this new year.

And as for spending on new collectibles or gadgets. All in all, I do not think I actually spend much on those this year. I have been restraining myself from buying any model kits lately but I have bought a number of figures such as the Jetwing Prime, Warmachine, X, Zero, Gaogaigar, and Shaina just to name a few. I think it was around 1 figure a month. As for gadgets, I have bought myself an Ipad 2. I have to agree that this is a piece of a neat technology. Still exploring the potential of this awesome gadget. I do not foresee myself buying a lot of figures (there are not a lot of future release which catches my attention) but I am actually looking forward to get myself a PS Vita. Still pondering about it but I will most likely made my decision before I leave for Hong Kong.

Last but not least. I have traveled to India in 2011. It was the most enjoyable outdoor trip to date. I will definitely write an entry on that trip soon.

Oh my, what have I done! I should excuse myself now before this gets too lengthy. So until then, Happy New Year to you all out there. :D

Taiwan Trip Part 5

Here is the last entry for my Taiwan trip.

Day 6 (30th March 2010)

Last day of my stay in Taiwan. I have decided to go out alone for some adventure. Initially, I thought I will rely on taxis but Brother Wong told me that it is easy and cheaper to get by using the bus. So I jump onto the first bus that comes my way and off I go into the unknown. I managed to plan out my trip using a map that was loaned from Julius. Thanks a lot buddy if you read this! :P
My first destination is the natural science museum. I was here just a day ago so I was able to track it down rather easily and did not manage to get myself lost. There was a lot of interesting exhibit presented in the museum. I was quite fond of their dinosaur exhibit. They have a life size T-Rex along with some smaller dinosaurs. They even have a section on Chinese cultures but unfortunately for me, all their information was presented in Chinese. There was another section on the human life. All the stages of human life were presented, from conception to birth until we return to dust. It was packed with so much information that it is very difficult to round the museum in just one day. How I wish I have more timed to there.
I left the museum sometime around noon and went straight to hunt the hobby shop. It was not that difficult to find because it is just around the corner of the museum. I managed to grab myself a few Saint Seiya Myth Cloths and a revoltech figure. They are not as cheap as I expect but it is definitely cheaper compare to the retail price in Malaysia.
I say this is the best trip for me yet. My only regret is that I did not bring my camera along on this trip to capture all those interesting moment. Guess there can always be another next time.

Taiwan Trip Part 4

Day 3 (27th March 2010)

I am getting used to the weather here. It’s a bit cold but that is how I like it. We started the day with a prayer session followed by a discussion on the topic of COV. The schedule was not that tight for it is Sabbath. We adjourned for Sabbath service after the discussion and resume our symposium in the evening.
Later that night, I managed to sneak out with brothers and sisters to the little night market situated behind the church building. Saying that it’s a night market would be an understatement. Besides lots and lots of food stall, there are also fun booths such as an airgun shooting range, toss-a-ring, turtle/goldfish scooping and etc. It is somewhere in between a night market and a funfair. This reminds me of those Japanese festivals shown in anime. The only thing missing are those Yukata and Japanese chicks. :P
We had our supper earlier but we were tempted to try some of the food that was offered there. We decide to taste out the sausage store in the market. The sausage was grilled with charcoal and it was topped with pickled vegetables. It was surprisingly simple but it is actually quite delicious.

Day 4 (28th March 2010)

Sunday and it is the last day of the symposium. We ended the day with another few bouts of discussion and a closing ceremony. We have a clearer view of what we are going to do ahead of us in this Internet Ministry Programme. And as for me, I get to know a lot of people from all around the world. This trip is definitely an eye opener for me.
I joined a group of brothers and sisters that night to go food-hunting near the area. We managed to get ourselves some tasty smelly toufu and pig intestine noodles (they sound disgusting don’t they?).
That is all for day 3 and 4. Stick around for my next update.

Day 5 (29th March 2010)

Wake up early in the morning to go sightseeing in Taichung with a few brothers. We managed to visit this park at the top of a hill. There are some familiar tree species there. I say it’s a well managed park. I wonder why we cant have something similar to that in Malaysia.
Sent Brother Wong, Brother Xin Jian and Deacon Tsai to Taoyuan with Brother Chang later that night. Managed to join fellow believers from Taoyuan for a tea session before traveling back to Taichung with Brother Chang. I have this feeling that I am causing a lot of trouble for the others.

Taiwan Trip Part 3

Day 2 (26th March 2010)

Everyone woke up early to attend the prayer session except Bro. Leo Lam and I. Both of us wake up rather late but fortunately we make it in the nick of time. Before I forgot, Bro. Leo Lam shares the same room with me and he represents Hong Kong. All the participants were divided into 3 groups for discussion. We had a discussion on how to manage the global resources for the IMP. We had lunch later in this fancy restaurant which offers a wide variety of food in buffer style for as little as TWD300! I have some Japanese food (mostly sushis), a steak, and a Taiwanese dish called “stir fried shellfish”. The translated name does not tell you much. If you want me to describe it, it’s actually shellfish meat and vegetable stir fried before it was cooked into an omelet. It was served with this orange colored gravy which tastes great. I will try to get a picture of this and post it in the blog. A picture is worth more than a thousand words after all. I think I will try to get myself some of this again before I leave Taiwan. :P

We have another discussion on how to fully utilized and inventory all the materials we have in the e-library.

Well that’s all for now. Later dude!

Taiwan Trip Part 2

Day 1 (25th March 2010)

I was half conscious half asleep all the time while I was in the airport. The bench is not as bad as everyone assume and the environment was serene in the early morning but it gets a bit noisy sometime around 0300 when people started to flock into the airport. Like it or not, I will have to wake up and get myself prepared for the day. Somehow, I managed to stumble into the departing hall in my pitiful condition and meet up with Pr. Fung before the flight. The trip took approximately 3 hours. Fortunately for me, I spend most of the time sleeping in the plane so it’s not as boring as it seems.

The plane touched down on Taoyuan International Airport at around 0930. The first thing that caught my attention is the weather. Although it was suppose to be Spring at the moment, the weather was exceptionally cold. Sixteen degree Celsius! That’s colder that the air condition in my office! Both Pr. Fung and me waited for another 20mins or so before the representative from Taichung church pick us up with Dn. Andrew Chu from Australia. It was another 2 hours plus trip to Taichung church from the airport.

We were given a warm welcome by our fellow brothers and sisters when we arrived at Taichung. We felt that we were at home although we are foreigners in a foreign land. We were given a brief introduction regarding the programme of the symposium before calling it a day.

Taiwan Trip

The day is here! I have been waiting for this trip for months. I am finally going to go to Taiwan in a few hours! Prior to this trip, I was in Keningau helping out with the "Workshop for Conservation of Trus Madi Forest Reserve". The workshop ended around 1500 on the 24th and I have to travel back to Kota Kinabalu on the same day or else I might miss my flight. The road trip through Tambunan was hellish. It was full of so much twist and turn that I almost throw up in the car. Despite all that, I endure all of them because I know there is a long trip ahead of me. After a backbreaking 2 hours. I am backed in Kota Kinabalu again.

Drop by HobbyKingdom to check out on their latest product before meeting up with Collin, Hadri and Math. We spend quite a lot of time chatting about models. I decided that it will be the best if I were to stay overnight in the airport for I will need to check in at around 0400 so I have Collin send me there after our chitchat session. I thought I will be able to spend the night in a one of the shop but I was wrong. Most of them were closed when I was there and there are hardly anyone around except for some security guards and a few travelers like me. I managed to keep myself busy until around 0200 when I succumbed to the exhaustion and fell asleep on one of those long benches...

To be continued...

Mount Kinabalu Trip 2009

On the 4th to the 7th of April 2009, I embark to Mount Kinabalu with a group of free-spirited people to scale this majestic mountain. I will try to share my experience of the climb with you here.

Day 1
4th April 2009

I woke up early around 0500 to prepare myself for the road trip to Kundasang. Alex mentioned that he wanted to start off early so that we can rest early and prepare ourself for the big event the following day. The whole trip to Kundasang was a bit uneventful but I have managed to catch up alot with Alex, whom I seldom have the opportunity to talk with. For those people who is not familiar with the area surrounding Kinabalu Park, there are actually numerous lodge, resthouse, villa, etc and yet, we are not able to find our accomodation. Finally, after searching more than an hour and making some calls, we realized that we were misinformed and we managed to locate our resthouse soon after that. The resthouse that we are going to spend the night in was a neat little bungalow in a area called "Sunny Village". We spend the rest of the day watching a movie while waiting for the rest of the group from West Malaysia. We were later joined by Willy, Wilson, Pang, Albert, Kah Seng, Siew Meng, Jennifer, Siew Ting, Mavis and Prissilla. We had steamboat that night and we went to bed right after our briefing session.

Day 2
5th April 2009

All of us managed to wake up early in the morning. I guess everyone is eager to climb Mount Kinabalu. We took a light breakfast and later proceed to Kinabalu Park for the registration. We were introduced to 2 mountain guides, Hensen and John who will accompany us during this trip. I got a mixed feeling towards our guides but overall I think they are good. Soon after that, we departed once again to Timpohon Gate where we are going to start our ascend. Everyone started happy and spirited in the beginning... yes... they always do... For anyone who have not been to Mount K before, the Timpohan Trail is literally a uphill slope full of stairs that stretch 6kilometers. If you have this fetish of climbing stairs... please go and help yourself with it. And as for me, I know that I will not be alright climbing those dreadful stairs. It could have been my weight for I find it difficult to climb those stairs without suffering from cramps from time to time. The only thing that keeps me going is my endurance and stubborness. I do not see how a little cramp can ever stop me from reaching the top so I drag myself slowly up the stairs. By the time I managed to reach Laban Rata (a checkpoint on Mount Kinabalu), it was around 1500 and I am among the last to arrive. After cleaning myself up, change a set of clothing and ease some of the muscle pain, we prepare ourself for dinner and we went to bed straight after that. I did not even bother to go take a shower because it is so cold up there. If I am not mistaken, the temperature is around 8-9 degree Celsius.

Day 3
6th April 2009

I can hardly sleep the night before. It might be the cold but ultimately I guess I am just overeager to get this over with. I was secretly hoping that it will rain that morning but unfortunately, the sky was clear and he moon and the stars can be seen. I put on my jacket, strap on my backpack which hold my rations and armed myself with a torchlight. We took our breakfast and off we go into the darkness. For the record, it was around 0200 when we continue our ascend to the submit. The climb to the submit was not really that difficult compare to the climb from the gate to Laban Rata. We started off climbing stairs, how I loathed those stairs... After a distance of about 500m from the Laban Rata, the scenery took a dramatic turn. We are no longer climbing stairs but we are now scaling a steep surface of the mountain which is about 20-30 degree. It was not really that bad if you can take it as though it was a walk in the park but I bet a walk in the park would not be as hazardous and life threatening. I would like to remind everyone that we are actually climbing in a pitch black environment. Our one and only light source (the stars and the moon does help if it is not cloudy) is the torchlight that we are suppose to bring along with us. Without it, I dont think we are able to go anywhere. After walking for about 1 hour, our next challanege is a slope that is around 45 degree. The area is so steep that you will need to pull yourself up using a thick rope that has been allocated there. Ooo, an advice for those who might attempt the climb, do not ever, ever look down when you are on this part of the trail. It will not help you if you are attacked by vertigo and you end up stranded there until your guide comes along and errr... remove you from the spot. Furthermore, there is no point for you to look around because you can hardly recognize your environment, just focus on going ahead and you should be fine. After walking on a steep plateau for about another 500 to 1000m, you will see the final destination that is one of the submit of Mount Kinabalu known as the Low's Peak. I managed to reached the submit around 0530 right before sunrise but the sun was blocked out by the cloud so I cant snap some nice picture of the twilight. There is this sense of achievement when you reach the submit. Here are some photos that I would like to share with you guys on this wonderful trip.






These pictures were taken while I was still in the base camp. The scenery of the sunset was magnificent.




These pictures of Mount Kinabalu were taken during my stay in Sunny's Village. You can see Laban Rata in the first picture.


This is one of the picture I took when I reached the submit. The whole place is brighten up by the sun.





The submit looks like a barren land.


All the vegetation up here looks like bonzai.


Remember that part I mentioned earlier regarding pulling ropes?



I am practically on top of the world up here!


Another peak situated close to Low's Peak.


Looks like a scene from a fairy tale? The only thing missing here are fairies and perhaps a few dwarves.

I was a bit beaten up after the trip but it was alot of fun. I will be heading up towards the heavens again when opportunity arise.

Thailand Trip Part 2

Fifth of March 2007. It is the first day of the agarwood conference. Started the day early in the morning although I was a little reluctant to leave my cozy bed.

Like all other conference that I attended. We begin with an opening ceremony which is boring in my opinion. Then we continue with some presentation from delegates from around the world. All the presentation was interesting but I felt sleepy nevertheless. There are more to agarwood than I have thought. Farrah arrives to the conference during the first tea break.

Well that covers most of the first part of the day. The exciting part of the night just started. It started as an innocent trip to a shopping complex right after dinner. I was dragged out by Farrah who insist on going out for shopping. We took a taxi which drop us in a shopping complex called MAH. It was refreshing to see a big shopping complex that is different from those that you can see in Malaysia. Even though with all those differences, the people inside the complex all looks so familiar with all the Chinese, Malay and Bumi excluding Indian. Alas!!! All the goods there were expensive. So we decided to leave that place and took a MRT to a place which is suppose to be an open market. We got some direction from a Singaporean couple to go to a market called “PatPong”. We did not know of the terror or should I say the surprise that awaits us there…

We finally found our way to the market. The entrance that we found was in an alley which we thought were safe since there is a lot of tourist and people around it. Not to mention that there are a lot of shoplots along the alley so it was brightly lighted so we assume that it is safe.

The first shop that we came across in the alley is a shop selling leather goods. Leather goods is one of our buy list. So we browse the goods in the shop. There is quite a l;arge variety of leather goods. Ranging from the most common cow leather to the exotic sting ray. Nothing reallyn interest us so we move along the alley. We were impressed by all those leather goods for sale. Without realizing it, we came across a dark corner of the alley. We were quite shock by it. Farrah was so excited that she was staring at the shop for quite a long time. It look like a bar with a few exception of female bondage statues on the wall for decoration.

I thought I could find a picture somewhere to prove my point here but it is nowhere to be found. Dang it!!! I should have look for the pictures earlier!!!

Back to the story, reluctantly, I was dragged away by Farrah to the open market which is known as Pat Pong. Guess I did not regret going there after all. Well, Pat Pong is not your typical market like Petaling Street in Kuala Lumpur. There are all sort of goods and not to forget a variety of “services” that you can acquired there. There are tons of stuff that you can get there. One of those are leather goods. All of these are pale in comparison to the strip bar around the market. There are a lot of girls in bikini with their butt-swinging dance. I was rather curious to go in and have a look but like what they always say, “Curiousity kills the cat”. Once again I am grateful that I have Farrah around or else I will surely go in and have a beer or 2 (although I do not know how to drink).

I bought 2 leather belts there along with Farrah. The most important when you go shopping there is that you have to haggle for a good price or you will most probably get yourself butchered. Lucky me, I got Farrah around with me. A lot of people mistook her for a local Thai. If only she could speak Thai then we might be able to save alot more in our shopping spree. =P

Where as Farrah bought some leather belts along with some clothes and jacket for her brothers and herself. We saw a lot of interesting stuff on that trip. It was something that you cannot simply see here in Malaysia. How I wish I can actually visit Bangkok again in the near future.

Thailand Trip Part 1

Dear Blog,



I started the day off early today. It is a big day for me since I will have to travel to Bangkok, Thailand for the first day of the “Second International Agarwood Conference”. I have been looking forward to this trip dating back as early as the first day of the Lunar Year. I was reluctant to leave at first because there are so many things that I have to catch up on. I need to complete my Zaku Black Trinity, play some of those Planar Chaos league game, and finish SRW Alpha 3 as soon as possible and a lot more.



I have to travel for almost 1 day but it was worth it. I have always enjoyed traveling alone. This is how I think everyone should enjoy their life. Now I know why those European/American like to travel so much.



I touched down in Bangkok International airport around 1630. There is quite a lot of procedure to go through. Cannot imagine what will happen if I actually lost my passport somewhere. =P I was eager to go out of to see the Bangkok. To my surprise, Bangkok is more or less the same with Malaysia. The people look the same, even the smell of the atmosphere is the same. The only thing that might give out the similarity is all those billboard and signboard, which is in Thai.



I got a ride to Chaophya Park Hotel, which is a nice hotel. During the welcome party at night, I was able to meet quite a lot of people. I got to enjoy a nice hot bath, which is so relaxing. It is going to be a big day tomorrow…



To be continued…