Tuesday, March 31, 2015

150331 KL Hotel Transit

you know, this has got to be the worst day of the entire trip. it still pains me whenever i think of today.

the day started off badly enough, when we realised the agency didn't assign us a breakfast voucher. we got up at 8am and had to argue with the receptionist because breakfast was written in the itinerary sent to me, but not given when i received the room. the travel agency only opened at 9am and the staff here were all so inflexible and incompetent that nobody knows how to handle such things except wait and wait for the travel agency to clear.

we only got a final confirmation that our rooms didn't come with breakfast at 10+am (after i made several calls to demand them to be quicker in following up, since breakfast stops at 1030am). i had to speak with kkkl travel directly, and they explained that they forgot to notify that in exchange for the upgrade to the triple room, we had to forfeit our breakfast.

seriously, who asked for a triple room upgrade anyway?!?!?!?!

as an apology, the agency told us that we could get our own breakfast as long as we don't exceed sgd10 per person, which was a rather good way to end the whole episode. the buffet breakfast was almost cleared and not much food was left so we didn't pay the 28RM to go in in the end and ended up having KFC for breakfast. macdonald didn't accept credit card and i didn't want to make a loss with another currency exchange at genting, so we went with kfc. thankfully we could use credit card there, and we treated ourselves to almost 4 sets of breakfast (where the cashier seems to have miscounted all the food and we eventually paid less). the thing is, while i'm writing this, i realised i've lost my receipts and don't think i'll be able to claim for all these in the end. jeez. T_____T

that's not the end of our bad day. we were told to take the free shuttle bus to the bus depot where there's a straight bus to KL. however when we reached there the bus service is no longer available and we were told to take the cable cars to mushroom farm instead. desperate, i asked if the travel agencies could send us to KL and i guess i was lucky because there was a KKKL bus (the driver was the same guy who drove us here!) heading to KL at that time and he could drop us off at the KL mrt station at 10RM per person.

from there, we needed to take either the MRT or bus to our hotel at puduraya. tired, we wanted to ask if the taxis could take us there and they quoted 30RM (it's just 4 stations away, mind you). it was ridiculous and as i saw the bus coming, we hopped on the bus and paid just 2RM per person to get us to puduraya in the end. take that, you lousy cab!!!

even at puduraya i was a bit lost as we didn't have GPS to find our way to the hotel. ended up asking everyone including cab drivers, students, sales people on where we could find our hotel. luckily we managed to find it within 20mins of walking around. it was actually just 10mins away from pude sentral. phew!!

the next good thing that happened was the hotel. it was absolutely clean and they provided toothbrushes! i had dulcolax the day before and it was just nice i was able to use the toilet and flush out everything within me at the right time. yay!! but after that the toilet water was all the way yellowish even after multiple flushing. ewww.


the hotel at least got our bed requirements correct.


oh and water is provided too!! you know how important free water is. genting FWH provided no water. at least there was a pot for us to boil water but it was still a shitty place. it was around 143RM per night here or 65SGD, quite pricey but it was a good stay and breakfast was included.

so after we settled down, we got a map of the place and i chose to go over to KWC, since it looks like a big mall that i haven't been to. the thought of wholesale outlet equates to cheap clothings, so it's an attraction to me xD it's actually only 1 station away but we didn't want to walk 20mins over since it was really sunny out there. but hell, it's 1 station and i took the wrong direction and it ended up being 3 stations and a long roundabout walk for me =_= i even checked with the people around for the direction and they directed me wrongly. pfftttt.

when we got off, the alley that led to the mall was supposed to be a 5mins walk, but the streets looked so suspicious i thought we were heading the wrong way. there were cloth shops around and the streets looked abandoned and dirty. it looked like some sort of slums where you could be robbed or murdered easily without anyone noticing. at the end of the straight slummish road was the huge mall. ta-da! oh some people here don't even know there's such a mall behind their shops. or maybe they just didn't understand english.

so it's like a 16 floors worth of wholesale clothes and stuff, but the layout didn't look particularly appealing and the shops sort of repeat. we changed our $$ there at 2.67, yay! and we walked a few rounds but 00 got tired of the whole quiet and abandoned building (there was really almost no one around) as well as the suspicious streets that led up to here, so we took a taxi to berjaya times square instead. some taxi drivers quoted RM 10 to get there and refused to turn on their meter so i went with a cabbie who used the meter... but it ended up being RM13 instead due to the jam. jeez.

berjaya is a lot more interesting of course with the big shopping malls, more people and more variation in shops. we had aunt annie's pretzels and watched a funny live episode on these parents buying their lot of 4 children ice cream at baskin robbins (man, i would slap my kids if they cry for ice cream in public). then we went for a toilet break. and then things sort of took a downturn.

00 ended up losing his phone in the toilet, because some guys took it after he left it on the toilet cubicle ledge. it was too late to chase them back and i really didn't want to describe what happened afterwards. i don't know what went into him or me, but it blew up into a horrendous quarrel and night, which lasted past 10pm.

we eventually had dinner while walking along the night streets near berjaya at a french place. i'm surprised i was even selecting a place for dinner. hmph.

Monday, March 30, 2015

150329-30 Genting FWH

sunday was a pretty normal day cos our bus was all the way at katong around 1030pm, so we had to hang around woodlands till it was time to go.
not a big problem since we woke up late (as usual) and didn't have that much time to go any further. went home around 7pm to pack our stuff and get ready to take the looooong bus trip to genting.
almost got lost by alighting at the wrong bus stop - seriously google maps make me lost 30% of the time - but managed to see that the bus was already returning the trip at the roundabout. our dinner was macdonald on the bus, and we watched big hero on namchin's G3.

when we reached genting it was around 3am in the morning, which was wayyy too early than expected. we couldn't check in and we were so damn tired! early check in costs 220RM per night at first world, and we wanted to know if the price was actually cheaper online. we found a wifi spot near kenny rogers and saw that first world hotel charged 45RM per night at the lowest. geez. some random guy kept appearing beside us to offer illegal hotel rooms at 150RM per night too. he claimed that we could use the key and check out the room first, then pay him when we're satisfied. it was all too suspicious so we didn't take up the offer.

ended up walking 3 more rounds at the empty mall, and sat at the lobby chair area to watch a vampire movie till it was about 10am. we walked to the genting resort area to get breakfast - macdonald again - before we went back to the lobby area and thankfully managed to check in at 12pm. had to change our money at the casino inside since it was the only booth working 24/7. exchange rate was ridiculous of course - 2.53 =_= if you change 1000sgd you can buy at 2.65, which was still lower than the outside market rate of 2.67. so never ever change your $$ at genting (made the mistake after having forgotten to change our money in singapore). here's an awesomely tired face of ours.


our bed was a triple sharing room that the agency upgraded for whoever stays at the newly-built annex (not that we have a 3rd person with us, the upgrade was rather meaningless). the room is clean, but it doesn't come with toothbrush and toothpaste, which is really annoying. there's also no free wifi, you have to pay like 10-20RM a day and you can only access from the lobby area. the cafe downstairs also sell sandwiches at like 15RM per piece, an absurd price for malaysian food.


since we have more or less explored the whole area, we began to replenish our lost sleep till evening time, when we got out to walk a few more rounds of the opened mall. interestingly, the stage area was opened to freelance performers, who took their hats out for money donation at the end of the show to sustain their living.

this fire performer was a guy from Venezuela or brazil.




the interior design of FWH mall is rather strange i must say.

it's an indoor theme park mixed with venetian themes with an indoor lake and random retail shops littered around. we ate dinner at a bahkutteh mee sua shop (about 18RM, so expensive) and returned to the main stage area to find another freelance performer - this time it's a south korean magician. pretty cute too!


had some kenny rogers muffin which namchin rather liked - there was pandan, mocha, vanilla and banana flavours, which are all not available in singapore. pandan is the best!

we walked all the way to resort mall and back to first world and finally rested for the day. really not much to do when you can't get out to the theme park. it was under construction and fox theme park is expected to be built in 2016.

the weather is cold and i had to borrow namchin's jacket... for some reasons he brought 3 and i didn't bring any. haha!

Saturday, March 28, 2015

150328 Science Centre

whoa.. it's been like years since i've been to science centre. i think my last trip here was in primary 4 or 6, and i'm not quite sure how things have changed since i don't even remember it.

we spent most of the day here, because every other thing we were seeing is either interactive or makes you think.here's a spot that turns your face into something ghastly or puts a wig on for you when you sit on the chair in front of it. kinda like augmented reality!


there's a world of sounds corner, and namchin decided to make a call and talk to the unknown person on the other side. there was really a voice speaking btw.


there was also a fire tornado show in between. think it was around 3pm or so?



and it becomes a smoke tornado after all the oil burnt up.


and we continue walking... and challenged ourselves to a balloon game. haha. it's like being in the arcade!

there's also an eco garden if you're feeling sick of the air con.

we came to this ez heroes place where there's a lot of interactive games going on and we participated in all of them. it was pretty fun! and at the end you get to wear the ez hero hat.

but something went wrong here...


i had a crazy laugh over how the machine detected a head on namchin's chest. and when he raised his arm there's a head as well. so now he's really 3-headed. hahah!

there's a nice wired tree here!


nice trees deserve some selfies


and the high voltage performance comes on!


 


we went upstairs to watch the show as the sound effects were pretty loud. 


but we weren't alone... look at einstein crawling up and down on the ropes here...


the show ended with a bang. literally. the balloons there just blew into flames. whoa.




then proceeded to look at some weirdest japanese invention ever.

and there's a photography corner where it renders a picture of you into many styles. can you see us?


there's a body museum going on too so we took the path as well. you crawl in via the mouth, then travel through the guts and stuff and eventually come out of the anus. pretty interesting! doesn't this remind you of shingeki?


we went to watch a 45mins documentary on sharks at the omni theatre around 6pm, where namchin fell asleep.zzzz. so much for showing him the queer theatre... /hesnotimpressed

for dinner, we hopped over to JEM and Westgate and ate at Menya Musashi. desserts was at miam miam!!


didn't expect the french toast to have a ball of cream, thought it was ice cream. nonetheless, when you spread them over the toast it's actually pretty nice. we drank lots of water before heading to woodlands, where we spent a bit of time chatting at macdonald's before heading home. whee hee~~


Friday, March 27, 2015

150326-7 Namchin's arrival

i knocked off at 6pm but i had nothing better to do so i walked over to city hall to see if i could visit our forefather but gave up halfway after i ran out of time. took 2 hrs and i returned back to office to grab my stuff and head to the airport. i reached a tad too early, and ended up waiting for another 2 more hours before namchin arrived.

spent my time at yakun watching sailormoon... and wondering why on earth kids study at such ungodly hours these days.


we took the bus back in time and reached home around 1-2am.

the next day we just bunked in till late and kicked off around 2pm. hehe. went to walk along bugis and met with tkh and steph coincidentally. ended up having tea together at MOF, before we scoot off to melben at tpy for a crab night out!


may not look it but namchin lost a good 15kg since a year ago. whoa. and he's gotten so particular over his hair and clothes that it drove me nuts sometimes.

we had pepper and shimmering crab at melben with vio and yumi~~ then ice cream at Creamier. they sold this sea salt gula melaka ice cream which i rather like but was too odd fornamchin, so we ended up eating hokey pokey (something like caramel/honey).

Monday, March 23, 2015

Remembering Mr. Lee Kuan Yew

Singapore's forefather, passed away at 3.18am this morning. He was 91.

I've probably seen him at National day from far far away, but I remember him from my social studies and history text. I remember having to read his book and write a review on it in secondary school.

It is heartbreaking to see such a great man pass away, though life will always have to pass on. I had hoped that he would be able to see Singapore through its 50 years, but it seems he had to leave early.

I hope whatever legacy he has built and left behind will be cherished by all Singaporeans. His hard work gave us all the safe, comfortable life and clean environment we enjoy today.

He was, and forever will be, a great man in my heart.

RIP, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew.

Monday, March 02, 2015

Lunar New Year Hanbok

i made a little hanbokh for CNY, for prince KJE to wear. hehe.




the first day she wore this i had to come back to change the skirt to a zip behind cos ribbons were too troublesome and the straps were too long. but she looked cute~! insisted on riding the little bike after we changed her. =_=



can't resist putting on wu mei niang make-up for her. lolll.


Jian Xian 3 - Qin Feng Tao ver WIP

ok, this is actually not my project - i've just been commissioned to work on it. it's giving me a pain for something so simple actually, because this PVC is hard to stitch properly on without getting stuck in the pedal.


1. i have to cut off all the pieces first, pin them together and stitch them with the machine.
2. then i have to cut all the pvc bias tape, sew them on one side, and pin the other side down
3. and lastly is to place paper on top and bottom of the brown pvc, stitch over them and tear off the paper. then repeat the process for the bottom and top. have to stitch 2 separate pieces in an arrow shape before sewing them on the edges. it is horrendous i tell you. gahhhh.

i took the whole day and i've only managed to reach this far. bleah. 1 piece completed to far T_T 5 more to go....

maybe i would rather do seaming than pvc bias tape. mamaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!


Granado Espada - Asoka WIP

started on a new project with the materials i ordered over CNY, but i'm still far from completion - asoka from granado espada. i'm a sucker for fancy and kinda challenging costumes and whilst this isn't exactly a complicated costume it's gonna take a fair amount of patience with all those pearls... good to do while watching boring dramas!


i figured out a really time-consuming way to do those pearls on the leg. sorry for the x-rated picture but... i had a hard time looking at all these while searching for the right cross-hatched stockings too. well anyway i managed to find one that looks almost the same... so i bought it here.



then i wear the stockings and paste on half-pearls... for around 2 days or over the weekend i was just pasting this while watching zhen huan, this china drama. (which is kinda boring but interesting at the same time. thank goodness the character only wears this on one leg cos i'm still not done with this TwT. maybe another day will do, but i don't know how to reach the back of my leg properly without strenuous yoga bending. urgh.


i took a little break and worked on the easier parts first... still gotta decorate em with patterns. grrr.


not the exact same patterns but they are the closest. these are like real thai silk. expensive...


all those funny patterns on her dress is killing me... grrr...