Halloween Themed Family Day!

Halloween, it is such a hyped up festivity here in US. Considering that it's a festival similar to 14th July of the Chinese Calendar!

In the Chinese equivalent of the Halloween, we would be sitting at home trying our best not to go out at night/go swimming/hiking/practically anything that exposes one to the ethereal beings. However, it seems that Americans are impervious to this threat and it's one hell of a celebration here.

Being a dull guy with extremely thin wallet, I chose not to partake this festivity in the clubs in US. Say whatever you want, a costume can cost 50usd easily! So no thanks.

Lucky me though, my company threw a pre-Halloween party (in broad daylight though). To be precise, it's more like a Family Day/ Fair. Still it's a nice event which scores a couple of first for me.

- 1st Halloween Themed Party
- 1st time eating a whole grilled turkey leg (a popular party food here)
- 1st time tasting chili & cheese on tortilla chips (it's addictive and terrible for the waistline)
- 1st time I caught thieving pumpkin snatchers! :P



Halloween must haves! Witches! (Witch you should get one of these!)


Creepy skeleton guy ogling at hot cheer leader.


Huge oily turkey leg, sinfully tasty chili & cheese tortilla chips paired with cold beer of course!


Pumpkin snatchers!!!


What's Halloween without a huge bunch of these!


Nice pumpkin patch.

Hawker Food!

Oh the joy! The rumbling of stomach, the dripping saliva at the mere mention of Malaysian Hawker Food! I guess any of you, Malaysians who are stranded in a foreign country (especially those not within South-East Asia) would agree with me on this. Such was my feelings when I got to know that there's a Hawker Food Fair organized by the MSAH (Malaysian Singaporean Association of Houston).

The event was held at a pavilion in Bear Creek Park. One and half week ago.

There were loads of food to choose from. Hainanese chicken rice, curry mee, nasi lemak, kuih and others. Some looked and tasted better than others. As instinct dictates, I went for the longest queue. However, good stuffs really do sell fast. One hour is all it takes for the "Penang chee cheong fun" to be sold out. Lucky me, my cousin let me taste some and it was very nice indeed.


Penang CCF, chicken rice, fried stuffs and some kuih

I had myself a huge pack of nasi lemak, a bottle of water and 3 pieces of kuih. Being back in Malaysia not too long ago, the food to me was just average. However, it does satisfy my longing for hawker food!


My huge nasi lemak pack with beef rendang. Not hot enough and the rice is not really fragrant.


Stuffing myself up. I wish I ordered the hainanese chicken rice instead.

Hari Raya at Sg Lembing

Hi... as a new member of this blog, I would like to contribute some posts in this blog to make it more attractive...

This is my first attempt to write a proper blog. Therefore, do bear with me if you find this boring..

Well, as the title suggests, this post is about my trip to Sg Lembing, Pahang on the first day of Hari Raya.

We started off from KL at 12.00 am. There were 10 of us comprising of my colleagues and some of my colleague's friends. So, 10 of us were split into 2 Myvis...

According to SH, the journey was going to take 4 hours. But due to the low traffic in Karak Highway( I guessed most ppl have already balik kampung by that time), we reached Kuantan exit around 3am. After passing through some kampung roads, we finally reached Sg Lembing town. The time was 3.15 am. There were already some cars parked along the road. We parked our cars in front of some Chinese associations and walked to the food court opposite.

This is the Hakka Association opposite the food court

Giant tree in the middle of the town

To our surprise, one of the food stalls had already started to prepare for business.. As per info from my colleague, this stall caters for those who want to have early breakfast before the hike up the Sg Lembing hill. They sell the famous yong tau fu made from fresh mountain water of Sg Lembing. We planned to take breakfast after the hike. Therefore, we took a rest at the food court waiting for time to pass. More and more cars and buses reached and the food court area was getting crowded.

The food court was getting crowded

The clock ticked past 5 am. It was time to start our journey up the hill.. We grabbed our torchlights and start walking towards the hill. It was still very dark and the trail was wet as it was rainy season. The trail begins from a flight of concrete stairs. There were lots of ppl...old folks, young teenagers and even small kids. As we climbed up the hill, we heard cries of little kids who asking for mum or dad, old ppl gasping for air.. We climbed non-stop until we reached the peak.

The sun was still below the horizon when we reached the peak. Therefore, the "professional" photographers take this opportunity to look for a good spot to capture the historical moments.

View before the sunrise

Rising sun


At last.. but I think it looks more like a sunset view :P

Besides the sunrise view, Sg Lembing is also famous for its sea clouds view... Fascinating..

Sea clouds view from the peak

Posing time...

By the time we were ready to go down hill, the hill was already jammed with ppl.. It took longer to descend than it took us to ascend. Imagine.. queuing for you turn to get down the hill .. step by step..

The way down was jammed with ppl...

We finally reached the foothill at 7.50 am. We went straight to the food court for breakfast. But to our surprise, the food court was already flooded with hungry souls..Long queues at each and every stalls...

See the long queue??

Me and SH went around to look for alternative place to get some food. To our disappointment, most of the stalls have already sold out. At last, we managed to find a stall selling chu cheong fun. We queued for more than one hour for some lousy ccf..

The lousy chu cheong fun.. It is actually plain chu cheong fun with egg and dried shrimps..

Meanwhile, some of our friends managed to buy the famous yong tau fu which was quite nice compared to the lousy ccf..
But I guessed they were too hungry to take photos anymore. So, I can't show you the pictures of the yong tau fu.


After the unsatisfied breakfast, we moved on to sight-seeing around the town. According to KF, there was a suspension bridge nearby. So, we were back into the cars, heading to the suspension bridge. Once again, the place was crowded!!! Long stretch of cars parked along the roadside. I did not find anything special about this suspension bridge. I have seen even longer ones in Sabah..

The suspension bridge that connects the villagers from the other side of the river to Sg Lembing town

After that, we moved on to the underground tin mine. It was an old abandoned underground tin mine. Originating from Kampar, I have seen lots of tin mines but not underground ones. However, the underground mine was too dark and slippery. So, we did not proceed further.

Entrance of the underground tin mine

In the underground mine.. So dark!!!

Layout of the underground tin mine as portrayed on one of the school wall..

Since it was still early, we went to Teluk Cempedak which was around one hour drive from Sg Lembing.

Teluk Cempedak

Lepak-lepak by the seaside... Everyone looked so tired already..

We had lunch at McD which was situated by the seaside.. By this time, everyone was very tired. We started our journey back to KL after the lunch at 2pm.

By the time the car hit the highway, I could hardly open my eyes and dozed off into my dreamland... zzzzZZZZZ

New Orleans: The Big Easy.....it’s not that easy actually

Well, as mentioned earlier, I will now tell the story of my unfortunate vacation to New Orleans. I have just arrived in Texas after my LA trip when my colleague, after being alone here for 3 weeks, asked about our plans for the long Labour Day weekend. San Antonio was the first choice, but we were told that to spend a long weekend there is really too much. In the end, The Big Easy was selected as our vacation destination.

The trip began with a long leisurely drive, 7 hours inclusive of a BK breakfast stop, along Interstate-10. It was a very nice drive where we started our journey at around 5.30a.m driving eastwards, facing the rising sun. The rising sun over the horizon along the long straight Interstate is truly a sight to behold. Then after hours of driving, there’s this very long bridge on stilts that crosses the vast lake.

Ain't that a nice sight? Though it's a bitch to drive with your face to the sun without proper sunglasses.

This is actually the longest bridge over water on earth. It spans across the Lake Pontchartrain.

It’s almost 12.30p.m when we finally reached N.O. One big problem we found out after we reached is parking. It is freaking expensive!!!!! Garage parking is 20USD per night! That is RM70 at current exchange rates! As true blue Malaysians, we tried to save and drive around to look for cheaper parking options. However, we still end up paying 15USD for parking.

Oh, oh and I forgot to say that we stayed in Hilton! :D. And it cost only about 56USD per night. The secret to this is Hotwire.com.

Our room in Hilton. Sweet eh?

After checking in, we go directly to the heart of tourism in N.O the French Quarters. I really love this place. It is a nice part of the town with narrow roads and alleys, secret gardens within the buildings, artful iron works, etc. Architecture and sights are not the only attractions; food is another must-do experience here. I simply love the fresh oysters, but gumbo (a soupy rice dish) does not agree with my Malaysian palate.

Lunch spot. The oysters are really fresh!

Oysters are so good that I only remembered to take pics of them after I'm finished.

Seafood Gumbo. Not really my taste.

We walked along the French Quarters, went to the French Market (some kind of flea market), and had drinks in roadside cafe listening to live jazz music. It is really splendid, if not for the heat and also the hurricane at the back of my mind.

Pretty French styled buildings along the French Quarters.

The alley cafes, the lampposts ... if only the weather is cooler and I have CH by my side then it would be perfect.

Curious posts along the street. I suppose it was used for parking horses :)

The details of the iron lattice work. Nice...

A small plaza in the center of the French Quarters.

Quaint streetcars, which we sadly did not ride on.

The view around the garden cafe we had our refreshing stop.

The bad news arrived when we step back into the hotel. Hurricane evacuation notice was given out. We were advised to evacuate N.O by the next day and latest by Sunday! We never realize that it would come to this. Weather forecast says that it’ll be bright and sunny for the next 2 days! We thought we had it all figured out by planning to leave N.O one day before the hurricane strikes. Apparently, we were idiots.

Still, the night is still young. We stepped out of the place that gives out sad news into happy land. Back to French Market for dinner! The service was splendid, if all the waitresses work this hard to please the customer, I’d be happy to pay the compulsory tipping in US. They sat next to you to take orders, make recommendations, sounds sincere enough when making small talk and even whoopee when you tell them you plan to hit the bars! After dinner, there’s the famous Bourbon St. Of N.O. Neon lights, live music, live “shows”, lap dance bars and the atmosphere on the street. As ‘nice’ boys, we chose a rhythm & blues bar with live music and enjoyed ourselves there....or rather enjoyed myself as I’m the only person interested in jazz and blues.

The atmosphere is simply electric. Neon lights and throngs of people along the street.

This is what Bourbon Street is notorious for! It's like Patpong Street of Bangkok!

And... urm...the nice views along Bourbon St. as well.

Well, being the unadventurous goody-two-shoes that we are. This bar is where we spend the rest of the night. Accompanied by great music!

After the happy times, we went back to reality. The gas tank was just 1/3 filled, drove to the nearest gas station to find out that the whole neighbourhood is out of gas! Everyone is filling up and getting out of town. For us, we slept over our troubles. Journeyed back to Texas early the next morning. With a stroke of luck, we managed to find a gas pump and filled it up to the brim. The drive home after that is a stop and go disaster that lasted more than 10 hours without actual food other than Oreos.

The freaking traffic jam from the exodus of Hurricane Gustav's Evacuees.