Blue Alert!

Approximately 1 year after the Red Alert incident, history repeats itself again.

I think this is the 3rd day of "Paint Your Life campaign", started by no other than our infamous loan shark, yeah, you read it right, loan shark, my neighbour and paint of course.

But this time the loan shark decided to go colourful, adding blue for a change, and unfortunately, yeah, again, my car hit by some of it. 4 large drops, flowed down like a blue stripe, which looked kinda artistic from a certain angle.


2 stripes of the blue paint.


Despite my neighbour cleaned and repainted, it just happen too frequent to do anything. They even put some cover to minimize the damage.

The other neighbour next to this house, was unfortunately suffered some splashes, on his wall as well as his motorcycle. He has already put up a plastic cover over the fence, to prevent unwanted "artifacts" from their "campaign". I put one too over my car, but unfortunately, I was too late yesterday.


Soon it will be everywhere, I guess.

According to my source (my mum again), the husband has been missing for 2 weeks, leaving the wife and children to suffer this kind of threat. And the reason for borrowing money from loan shark is the classic gamble addiction issue.

The medieval town, Tallinn, Estonia

We took a cruise from Helsinki, traveled south, to Tallinn, capital of Estonia. It took approximately 2 hours by Tallink, 39 euros for a round trip ticket, plus 5 euros service charge, for a Sunday trip.


The Tallink cruise.

It was not a good start, because it started to rain after we boarded the cruise.

2 hours later, we landed on the soil of Estonia. We exchanged 20 euros of Kroon, bought a 6 hours Tallinn Card to freely access the museums and other scenery in Tallinn, and began to explore this foreign land.

The plan is to visit the old town.


The entrance we took to enter the old town.


Street along the town.


Seriously, I can't really name all these buildings.

With strong chilling wind and rain, the excitement was starting to die out.


Took from the top of the highest tower in the town.


Another shot of the town.


Old building structures in the town.


Some memorial stone I guess?

We had our lunch in a restaurant at the middle square area, the price is comparable with Helsinki, but the portion is definitely smaller.


Chicken pasta.


Pork chop with wedges.


Another church in the town.


The city wall.

Walking in this chilling weather, with most of your shirt wet, and tired, it's really not something pleasant.


Tallinn was a Russian city, so there's resemblance in their building structure.


Another tower in the town.

The town is awesome and unique, but with this kind of weather and temperature, nothing seems to be catching your eyes, and can't get any enjoyment which we suppose to have.

A country side weekend, Finnish style

We had a local Finnish country side weekend at Pavel's house, food, sauna, snacks and lots of chit chating.


Trains at the station.

Boarded train H at the Central Railway Station, traveling at a speed of average 138km/h, we reached Jokela around 40 minutes.


Houses in the country side.


Infront of Pavel's house.

There were crackers, hot dogs, pizza, red wine and cola served. While chatting away the Finnish culture, we barbecued the hot dogs, drinking and eating.


A feast.

Under the bright sun, it was not burning hot at all, breeze and breeze of cold wind made the environment just nice, you can't do it in Malaysia I must say.


Hot dogs, I know it doesn't look good, but it's yummy, trust me.

We were playing darts, Frisbee, balls, nothing exciting, it just shows how simple life could be in the country side of the country.


The dart board, we played the famous "Killer" game.

Then Pavel prepared the sauna, and we had a mild Finnish style sauna. Finnish sauna, basically you are cooked in a smoky and steaming room at temperature 80 degree Celsius, after that, you run out of the room, jump into the icy lake, or roll on the snow, then you go back to the hot steaming room again.

For us, we just got it till 60+ degree, and there's no icy lake or snow, but icy cold water from the shower. Cooking at 60+ degree, steam and sweat had mixed together, you can feel your eyes like popping, you begin to can't feel your limbs, feeling numb, and your heart is pounding! It's such an amazing experience.


The sauna, photo posing courtesy of SumWai.


We jumped out here for cold shower.

After the sauna, it's tea time with pizza, different kind of German and Finnish cakes and food. We talked about the life in the country, and all sorts of interesting stories.


Tea time with local cakes.


Going back late.

We had such a wonderful day, thanks to Pavel and Olga! By the way, Pavel is Russian, and he likes Malaysia so much, for him, it's paradise, what do you think?

Trombone Show, Helsinki Central Railway Station

Helsingin rautatieasema, or Helsinki Central Railway Station, we went there to check out the routes, and bumped into an open performance, at the entrance of the train platform.

With the words "Trombone Show" on their t-shirt, the Finnish were entertaining the passenger and passerby with continuous great peformance.


The peformance is at the entrance to the platform.


Great performance.


Wave and wave of soothing music were presented.


Expert in music.


The crowd surrounded the area.

After several songs, the vocal came in, living up the performance.


The vocalist, entertaining the crowd with his unique voice.

Some video I recorded:

Video 1 - Prelude performance


Video 2 - Musical


Video 3 - Performance recorded from the side


Video 4 - Vocal performance

The most expensive mixed rice, yet

This is actually a buffet style Chinese food restaurant. But for us, it looks more like our local mixed rice cuisine rather than a buffet.

Sze Siong has being out of the country for more than 2 weeks now, and his urge for home style food has gone to a new height, so we decided to fulfill his urge by eating here.


First round, black pepper beef, sweet and sour fish, mixed vegetable, with rice. Doesn't it looks exactly like mixed rice?


Layout of the restaurant.


Trays of dishes, I just can't get the mixed rice image out of me when I see this.


Soup, and salad on the other side.


The shop, Hang Zhou Chinese Restaurant. Notice the small note on the yellow notice at the left side of the door.

How much was it? 7.5 Euro, that's approximately equivalent to RM37.5. Hang Zhou Chinese Restaurant is located at Itäkeskus Shopping Center, next to Itäkeskus metro station, Helsinki, Finland.

Anabolic Diet

Starting my Anabolic Diet today. Hop over here to see my daily journal, mental and physical status, the tears and sweat, the joy and hope, the bad and good, the.. well, everything related to it!

Let's ride!

Even mobile phone wears condom!

Yesh, you saw it right! Condom like mobile phone protection wrapper.


Amazing, they even roll it exactly like a condom initial ring shape!

When Jerome showed me this(that's his handphone), me too, was stunned like you!

We had a water rafting activity last week, apparently, these wrappers were bought and given to those that wanna carry their mobile phone during the all time wet activity.

Working in the freezer!

20.5°C, look at the temperature next to the date.

The current temperature in my office is 20.5 degree Celsius, although it's no where near a freezer temperature, but imagine staying here for whole day with strong wind blowing from the vent...

As quoted by one of my colleague: "When will the winter stops?"

Happy Chinese New "RAT" Year

Happy Chinese New Year!


Year of the rat!

I wish my family, all my friends and their family, and everyone else a very wonderful, amazing, healthy, lucky, prosperous, happy Chinese New Year!


Some decorations.

Some of the things I notice which is different than before (when we were young) during Chinese New Year:

1. Ang Pao (Red packet), you feel not so excited anymore, even lost of the excitement, when you started to contribute money to the family, parents, etc.
2. Reunion dinner becomes less merrier, the night getting quieter, because children has grown up, firecrackers has been banned (although most people still illegally lighting them), tradition is fading...

Some good fortune phrases decoration.

Anyway, lets the party begins!

Near extinct honesty

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A grandma from Macau

Friday, which everyone unofficially entitles a long lunch break, therefore, we took the opportunity to visit the library at Japan Foundation.

When we came back, it's almost passed 2 hours, but only found out that our LRT ticket was under value - we mistakenly bought previous station ticket. So we quickly walked toward the counter to top up our ticket value. We saw the staff waving at us when we were approaching, "Can you ask her what she wants?" Pointing at an elder woman, in front of the counter.

I turned and looked at her, an old lady, around her 70s, spoke softly in mandarin "I just want to submit my flight ticket, so that I could goto the airport, but he couldn't understand me. I came from Macau". Apparently she mistaken this as the check in counter. I tried to find out which LRT station she came from, but perhaps she couldn't understand my rusted mandarin. So we decided to bring her to the ERL counter.

While we were walking toward the ERL counter, only I found out that she was taking AirAsia flight, how silly was I. ERL connects to KLIA, but not LCCT. To go there, you have to take bus or taxi. So we decided to bring her to LCCT bus station instead. "When is your flight?" I asked, "3 something" she answered. But it's already 10 passed 2! She was unlikely able to make it. So I asked for her flight ticket and itinerary, to confirm the time.

"RETURN: 18 February 2008" Huh? But today is 25 JAN, she must has mistaken the return date! So I told her about it, "Oohh, I want to go back earlier." She replied. "Are you sure you can change your flight date earlier? Who told you that?" I asked. After few rounds of questioning, I found out that apparently she came here with a friend, but due to some reason, she wanted to go back earlier, while her friend decided to stay. And she was told by the hotel employee that she could change her flight date, but unlikely they have given her any details. This is getting complicated, it's better we check it out first at the AirAsia counter here. So we brought her there.

And that's the time we bumped into our big big big boss! Our R&D director, with others! We smiled, and was thinking, "SHIT, GREAT!"

"1270", that's the queuing number we got, "1257", and that's the current number. Swarm of people already gathered there! Pressure already forcing on us, we took a peek at the counter employees, make sure there is Chinese that could help her, we gave her advice to talk with the Chinese staff there, and with no choice, we left her there... Her words of thankful still non stop replaying in my head when I walked back to the office...

Back at office, I told Jerome about this, he had this totally huge reaction! "Old lady in this age wouldn't travel alone! They usually travel with tour! Must be her son in law or son, or daughter, treat her badly, she cannot stand it so wanted to go back! Come, lets go back and check on her!" "You serious?" I was surprised "YES!" Due to guilt, so we went back to look for her. But she was no where to be found, we looked around a while, not there. Hoping she's alright, we went back to office...

I still feel somewhat guilty that I didn't help her all the way, due to selfish and afraid to get into trouble, I left a helpless elder in a place that's totally alien to her! I am such a bad person!! Sigh... I really hope that she is safe, and got her way back to Macau... I'm sorry grandma...

Canned drink frenzy!

I remember that day we received an email from our APAC Managing Director (we are a small company establishment here, so sometimes our MD also handles minor cases), the content is somewhat like this:

"...due to we can't meet the 500 can per month requirement, the distributor is planning to remove our vending machine. Therefore, after some consideration and negotiation, we have decided to subsidize more for the canned drinks, to 50 cent a can..."


It's 50 cent! Oh yeah baby!

And guess what, from a previous mere 200 cans a month, till a fast depletion of 500 cans in 2 weeks! Sheessh! All these people! Even one of the manager said "Great, can buy some back home and sell now!" Malaysia BOLEH!