So as you may already know from my previous entry, I was in the Philippines for some business in the past couple of days. It was a short trip packed with meetings in and out but I made the most of the time I had there at the office.

Every time I go I’m reminded about how I love the area in which our office there is. Fort Bonifacio is to me the most beautiful part of Manila. There are parts of Manila that have more character or are more adventurous of course but I love Fort Bonifacio for how clean it is, how organized and how well developed it is.

Look at it. I took this random pictures while outside the Nuffnang Philippines office. It looks like we’re in California or something.

I had time to catch up with some of the Nuffies in the Philippines there.

And after a dinner together we ended up with a big group photo.

It’s amazing but whenever I visit Nuffnang or ChurpChurp’s offices anywhere in the world I feel the same culture there among different people from different countries. Everyone is young, fun and love what they do. I like how some of our Nuffies have really unique hobbies too. Like Carlos here who has this Mercedes which is almost 30 years old (a car that is older than him).

I asked him why he bought it and he said he just always loved classic Mercedes. So he bought it and then rebuilt the engine so that everything works like new again and the car hasn’t broken down ever since. When I asked him how he knew what to do… he said YouTube videos… everything’s on YouTube these days.

My Little Singapore Airlines Misadventure

I got back from Manila just last night with a bit of an inconvenient trip though. I was flying Singapore Airlines which meant I had to transit from Manila in Singapore before I could head back to KL. My flight arrival at Singapore was delayed some half an hour because we were stuck in a holding pattern above Singapore Airport due to heavy air traffic. So when I finally landed I had just 15 minutes to get to my next flight.

When I got out of the gate, there wasn’t anybody to guide us which gate the flight to KL was so I rushed to a screen to look for a flight and scrambled to my next gate. Fortunately the gate I needed to get to was just next door. When we were at the gate though we were told that they won’t be able to get or checked-in bags on to the flight in time. That I could choose to still get on the flight and they’ll send the bags to KL with the next flight which was an hour plus later.

Caught up in the moment I was furious and lost my cool but after a while realized there was nothing they could do anyway. So I opted to hop on to the next flight and wait for my bags to arrive an hour plus later.  Turned out the flight from KL to Singapore was delayed too for like 30-40 minutes. I asked the flight attendant that since the flight was being delayed, if they had time then to load our bags from our Manila flight but after checking with her supervisor, she said they’ll try but there’s a 50:50 chance. I asked her then to just advise us by the time the flight takes off if the bags got loaded in time or not so that we know if we have to wait for it at the luggage belt upon arrival. She never got back to us on that… so I assumed that they didn’t manage to load the bags.

When I got to KLIA, there wasn’t any Singapore Airlines staff around to help apart from one guy that waited at the arrival gate to tell us to go to the KLIA Lost & Found Baggage department. It wasn’t a Singapore Airlines counter or they had no Singapore Airlines staff there so when we got there initially they had no idea what was going on too. The KLIA staff were helpful though and found out on their own what was going on. I was in a rush to go back so I headed back first and passed my baggage tags to Min (who was travelling with me) to collect for me.

Later on in that night I learned from Min that the bags never came as promised. They said they would deliver it the next morning. I’m lucky that KL is home to me. I can’t imagine flying to another country only to NOT have my luggage with me even for a night. That means no phone chargers, no toothbrush, no spare change of clothes, no nothing.

So that was my slightly unpleasant trip with Singapore Airlines. They’re supposed to be known for being efficient and for the best service but I didn’t see any of that yesterday. I hope my bags come as promised later this morning.

So I’m traveling again. This time to the Philippines to visit the Nuffnang operations there. I initially wanted to fly Malaysian Airlines to Manila but it was fully booked so I ended up flying Singapore Airlines that means I had to transit in Singapore. Can’t believe the plane was half empty too… eventhough it was so much cheaper than the Malaysian Airlines flight to Manila. I guess maybe more Malaysians wanna go to Philippines than Singaporeans. Heh.

Took this picture of the airplane wing. I thought it looked like a road to heaven. More updates when I get back! So much to do!

Shorty has been bugging me for the longest time to get  a dog. I’ve always thought the idea of a dog is cute. I wanted a dog when I was a kid but my parents never wanted to give me one because they thought I wouldn’t take care of it well. Now I find myself in the same situation as my parents… telling Shorty that she won’t be able to take care of it because she already struggles just to take care of herself (though she denies that and attests to having lived 27 years taking care of herself).

In order to convince me she somehow got herself a tamagotchi from Jipaban.com and is taking care of her virtual pet. The first pet she had looked like a piece of poo with a hat and died in the first week of hunger (well ok not died, apparently newer tamagotchis are more kid-friendly so the pets don’t die, they just run away).

Now she’s onto her second one.

So my condition to her was that ok fine she CAN have a dog but it must not trouble me in any way to take care of it. I travel and work so much I don’t know how to find the time to take care of a dog and I’m sure it’s a lot of work! She excitedly agreed and gave me her word. Now we’re looking at what kind of dog to have. The one on top of our list is a pomeranian… especially after seeing the famous pomeranian named Boo.
Here’s a video of it.

We’re already talking about what to name our dog. I suggested something silly like “Banana” and so far Shorty seems to like that idea.

What do you guys think?

Are pomeranians really hard to take care of?

It was Shorty’s birthday yesterday. I had a small surprise organized for her but a few days before the surprise, Shorty kept begging me to tell her what it was. So I did. She then proceeded to scold me for telling me what the surprise was and in my confused state I reminded myself how I will never understand women.

So we just did a simple dinner with some of her friends at Watami in Pavilion. One of Shorty’s favourite restaurants.

Every year, getting a cake for Shorty is no easy feat. Why? Because Shorty doesn’t eat cake. She used to be allergic to eggs and when she was a little girl she had cake and had some allergic reaction. So ever since then she never ate cake. So I would normally buy her an ice-cream cake but even then she would eat only the ice-cream part of the cake and nothing else.

So this year I decided to try something different. I bought her a jelly cake.

Can’t say I liked it though. Thought it was kinda weird.

As for Shorty’s birthday present, I actually gave it to her a few days before. See Shorty has been using this same laptop that she’s always been using even before we got together. That’s like more than 3 years ago. So seeing how it’s slowly dying I decided that she needed a new laptop. She doesn’t like Macs so it had to be a windows laptop and knowing her.. it had to be pink.

So I went out and bought the best pink laptop I could find. But I didn’t just give it to her like that. I gave her a decoy present that was a laptop bag wrapped up in Chinese New Year wrapper.

I thought that first she would complain about why I gave her such ugly CNY wrapping and second she would say… what’s with the laptop bag?

To my surprise though when I gave her the present she was like “OH WOW CNY WRAPPER HAHA!”.

And when she saw the laptop bag (that was a free gift along with the laptop I bought) she was like “Wow cool! Thanks Fatty! I need a laptop bag! (she actually already has one). Then she said “Speaking of which I probably need to buy a new laptop soon”.
That’s when I gave her the real present wrapped in some slightly nicer looking wrapping.

It was a pink Sony Vaio.

She loved it. But the best part about Shorty… is that she loves everything I give her. Doesn’t matter what it is 🙂

Today I:

-Had dim sum in a Chinese restaurant in Pavilion. I ordered food in Cantonese.

-Ordered a jelly birthday cake for Shorty (cuz she doesn’t eat normal cake) at a bakery. Spoke Malay to the really nice salesgirl who took a long time helping me decide which was the right cake.

-Went to Low Yat in the afternoon, bought a new laptop. Spoke English to the sales person there about Windows vs Mac.

– Ended up in the gym before dinner. Chit chat a little bit with one of the staff there in Malay about the parking in the building.

All the people I spoke to today were Malaysians. Sometimes we take these little things for granted. How all of us speak at least 2 languages and how we switch between languages like its our second nature when speaking to other fellow Malaysians. Think about how you know what language to speak to another Malaysian when you see him/her. If you’re a Japanese in Japan and you want to speak to another Japanese, you speak Japanese. If you’re American, you speak English. What about if you’re Malaysian? English doesn’t always work, neither does Chinese or Tamil (and for some of us Malay isn’t our first language).

Sometimes you find immediately that other person speaks English just as well as you do. Sometimes though that person doesn’t… then you try to switch to another language you think that person is better in (even if you’re weaker in that other language) whether it’s Chinese or Malay until you both find a common language you’re both comfortable with.

I’ve never seen this linguistic culture among people of the same nationality anywhere else in the world. It’s amazing how we embrace our differences and unconsciously make so much effort to blend in with each other without realizing how much we do. We talk about 1Malaysia, we talk about tolerance. Look hard enough at the little things we do each day and I think you’ll see plenty of that. Sometimes we just forget to stop and look at what we have.

Today was the first day of our long weekend! Whee!

It’s the kind of weekend where Shorty and I would normally take advantage of to go on a long holiday but we had so much going on this weekend we couldn’t get away. Plus we got really tired of traveling so for once we decided to stay put.

Saturday afternoon for me was spent following Shorty around to try wedding dresses. There was a wedding dress designer named Gilbert who suggested sponsoring the dress for Shorty’s wedding so we went to try out some of the dresses he designed. Here’s one.

And here’s another…. that he designed for a competition in Hong Kong.

He won runner up for that.

Which do you guys think fits Shorty better?

After an afternoon of trying out dresses (well Shorty did all the trying of dresses, I basically just sat on a couch and read a book), we went home for a quick pre-dinner nap. We had to get all rested for the night because that night we were going to the Kechara Soup Kitchen to give food to the homeless in KL.
When we went there this round we met a number of my blog readers. Some of them who read my first entry about the first time I went and started going since then. I met a Nicole there and a Katy and Vicky that have since gone much more often than me and are pros now.

My route this time was the same as the last time. We went to Chow Kit and gave out food to the homeless.

The difference this week though was that we all had apples (that were hugely popular) and t-shirts that were even more popular.

Apparently one of the volunteers managed to get some t-shirts from a production overrun for us to give out. Here’s a picture of the volunteers that decided to take time off on a Saturday night and help feed 650 homeless people that night.

Including fellow Nuffie Yee Hou and his girlfriend.

 I had also been doing a small part on my own. I heard that the homeless people really love the little shampoo or bath foam bottles that we get from hotels when we stay there. So since I travel a lot and stay in hotels a lot, I’ve been making it a point to collect them and give them all to the soup kitchen to give to the homeless. To us it’s just something we take for the sake of taking it (since we paid for it already) but to the homeless, taking that small bottle of shampoo and washing their hair once a week is a luxury.

So we went out to the usual spots and gave out food while the homeless lined up orderly.

David took this picture of me getting ready to give out the apples we had. I have no idea what Shorty was doing tugging at my leg. But I think she was trying to tell me to look at the camera. Heh.

Every time we go we meet some new people. Here’s a few that I met:

1) The KTV Hostess

We met this woman who looked like she was in her fifties now. Homeless and staying on the streets but seeking refuge every night near a Chinese temple. She used to work as a KTV hostess in her day where she would earn RM1-2K a month. She said she could’ve earned more if she had gone further and slept with her “customers” but she didn’t want to sell her body.

Her job did cost her health anyway. She had developed liver cancer from all the heavy drinking she had to do in her earlier days.

2) The HIV Victim

We met this really nice and grateful Malay lady in tudung. She was in her twenties or thirties. She used to be from a Kampung but her husband came to KL to work so she followed. They eventually ended up on the streets because the husband started getting into drugs. His drug habit one day gave him HIV from sharing needles. Eventually I’m not sure if through needles or unprotected sex with her husband but she got HIV too.

So now there there were living on the streets, not able to afford a lot of HIV treatment (apparently HIV can be treated and controlled if you have the right treatment). One thing I admired about her though was how she was still so bubbly. I can never imagine the strength she must have… to know that you have a deadly disease and still be able to smile so much. I wish she could be cured and given another chance at her life.

3) The Wanker

We were at one of our stops giving out food to the homeless when we saw this Indian man standing in a dark corner in the distance. We shouted out to him many times and asked if he wanted some food but he kept saying “later” and just stood there instead. We eventually found out what he was doing. While he was standing there in the dark corner under the shadows, he was giving himself a wank… probably looking at the girls in our group (or the guys).

These were people I met today on this trip. Regardless of whatever their stories, we all fed them all (except for the wanker who decided not to take any food and instead spend some alone time for himself). I still find feeding the homeless a fulfilling experience.

Now I shall go to bed guys. I’m sooo tired.

PS: If you’d like to volunteer, call Kwok Wai at +603 2141 6046.

In the past week I watched two movies. Both which I would highly recommend.

The first movie is one of those movies that I think gets a lot less attention than it truly deserves. It’s called Devil’s Double.

It’s about Uday Hussein. Saddam Hussein’s eldest and notoriously cruel son. Here are some excerpts from Wikipedia that describes the kind of things Uday used to do.

• As head of the Iraqi Olympic Committee, Uday oversaw the imprisonment and torture of Iraqi athletes who were deemed not to have performed to expectations. According to widespread reports, torturers beat and caned the soles of the football players’ feet—inflicting intense pain without leaving visible marks on the rest of their bodies. Uday reportedly kept scorecards with written instructions on how many times each player should be beaten after a poor showing. He would insult athletes who performed below his expectations by calling them dogs and monkeys—considered insults in the Arab world—to their faces.[8] One defector reported that jailed football players were forced to kick a concrete ball after failing to reach the 1994 FIFA World Cup finals.[9] The Iraqi national football team were seen with their heads shaved after failing to achieve a good result in a tournament in the 1980s.
• Allegedly kidnapping young Iraqi women from the streets in order to rape them.[2] Uday was known to intrude on parties and otherwise “discover” women whom he would later rape. Time published an article in 2003 detailing his sexual brutality.[2][11]
• Usage of an iron maiden on persons running foul of him.[12]
• Allegedly Uday beat an army officer unconscious when the man refused to allow Uday to dance with his wife; the man later died of his injuries. Uday also shot and killed an army officer who did not salute him.[10]

I know I know!

Haven’t been blogging but I can explain…. I’ve been sick for the past few days. So if I were to blog, most of my entries will be of how much I slept in bed.

I got bored of sleeping at home today though. So I went to the office to work for a couple of hours. It was an extremely productive couple of hours and I felt all alive again! Somehow I come from the school of thought where I believe if you’re sick, you don’t wanna be doing sick people kind of things like staying in bed or eating porridge. I like to eat GOOD food when I’m sick.. even if the doctor tells me I should avoid it.

At the end of my 2 hours in the office my body punished my defiance with a fever so I went back home to sleep. Only to pick Shorty up for dinner at Publika. After that… here I am. Playing Battlefield 3 before I go to bed. Somehow playing games when I’m sick make me feel better too. I remember when I had my knee injury in secondary school and couldn’t walk. Playing Counter-strike made me feel like I was walking all fine again!

So now it’s time for me to head to bed now. Good night guys!

FOOoooHH!! Haven’t updated my blog in 5 days. That’s gotta be a new record!

I’m sorry guys. Let me explain. Haha truth is I don’t really know what to update in the past few days. I’ve been back in Penang for CNY but my parents have made me promise not to put any picture of them on my blog. So the only CNY picture I can actually put up here is of this.

The one thing I get very addicted to every CNY.

We had a game going on among my cousins to see who could eat just 3 pieces of this and nothing more… while watching everyone else munch away. Nobody won this challenge. It was wayy too addictive.

One thing I noticed this CNY is how all my little cousins have the best of phones now. I remember when I was 13 years old, we had our little Nokias and all. Kids today don’t have Nokias. They have iPhones and along with their iPhones they have cute iPhone covers just like this.

I was supposed to go for an old school reunion dinner tonight but I can’t make it because I’ve finally fallen sick today and spent most of the day today in bed. I met up with some old school friends last night and they were telling me how I should go. How I would be “amazed” to hear what some of my old school mates do for a living now.

Sure many are engineers, accountants etc etc but one of them for example is a pimp. That’s right… a PIMP. He supposedly makes the most money out of everyone else too haha.

I don’t know what to tell my old school friends when I do see them one day either. If I did see them this year I would tell them the biggest change of my life this year would be getting married. Just a week before I followed Shorty to go try on some wedding dresses that she liked.

Only to realize later that the groom isn’t supposed to follow the bride wedding dress shopping. So I shall make it a point not to go anymore. Heh.

Ok I’m not feeling well now so I shall go lie down for a bit. I actually feel like having frozen yoghurt all of a sudden but I’m not sure if that’s the best thing for my cough right now.

In any case, Gong Xi Fa Cai everybody! May the year of the Dragon be a wonderful one for us all!

I gotta admit, when I first watched Tangled and saw the scene with all the “floating lanterns”, I didn’t believe that there really was such a thing in real life.

I thought it was just a Disney fantasy. Then one day I heard from my colleagues in the Philippines that Nuffnang Philippines did a blogger gathering some time last year where they got bloggers to release floating lanterns up into the sky together. When I knew there was such a thing… I knew I had to do it.. at least once in my life.
I just never knew I would get to do it so soon.

That “soon” for me was just recently on our company trip in Chiang Mai.

We had this nice company dinner on our last night at Chiang Mai. Right after the dinner everyone gathered around and the resort staff had a little surprise for us. They were going to let us release floating lanterns like this.

Everyone got excited and started letting go of them. When one of them floated into the air it was beautiful, when a few more followed it was a sight you would never forget. We didn’t have as many as the movie Tangled. But we had loads.

The Singapore team even released one together.

The one I released though had a little wish written on it. Got a video of it here.

Hope that wish comes true.