I went to Guinness’ Arthur’s Day on Friday night. Just like last year, it was held in Sunway Lagoon Surf Beach but the line-up of artists this year was different. Instead of Black Eyed Peas that they had last year, this year they brought Flo Rida and Sean Kingston over! There were some local acts too and I wanted to watch Mizz Nina perform with Colby but man I was stuck in the biggest Friday evening jam all the way from KL to Sunway. By the time I reached the outside of the park, I heard Mizz Nina performing already. It had also started to rain and everyone around us was like getting to as much cover as they could.

Anyway I quickly got in and the first person I saw was Eileen here who was wearing this lighted up Guinness sign on her shirt that will light up whenever someone speaks close to it.

I thought it was so cool I took a picture of it and she noted that it was the first time someone had taken pictures of her chest.

After taking photos of Eileen’s chest,  Sean Kingston came on. We braved the rain and I ended up getting pretty wet until I saw some people with rain coats. I went to ask them where they got it from and I found out that the organizers were already giving them out. What good planning!

Once I had my raincoat on, I began enjoying the rain. Loved dancing in the rain and drinking Guinness. I almost forgot about how I looked like a giant blue condom. Allow me to illustrate how I look.

This is me and KY.

Now picture me in the rain, holding a cup of Guinness bopping around to the music and you’ll notice some resemblance to a “condomed” vibrator. I was having a good time though. I was dancing around some random strangers and I just raised my cup of Guinness to them and said “TO ARTHUR!” and they reciprocated. Everyone was having fun.

Soon enough, Kitteh messaged me

She asked me to meet her at Arthur’s Lounge so I headed over there only to find her in a nice sheltered air conditioned area with the rest.

I sat down with everyone for a while to have some drinks and a lot of good laughs.

Here’s me with Desmond, KY, Haze and unknown girl who covered her face to prevent being photographed and put on my blog.

After all the drinks, I felt that I was ready to go… to the FUN ZONE! That means to the big crowd at the front of the stage where we could just stand there and dance to the music. Met up with Pinky and Michelle there and we all just started dancing around.

Let me just say this. Flo Rida is a friggin good entertainer. I mean it’s not just all the great songs he has in his pocket but he did all sorts of things to interact with the crowd. At first he started signing towels and throwing them into the crowd. Then he took it a step higher and removed his gold watch from his risk and gave it to someone in the crowd. Everyone in the crowd screamed to get picked for it! I don’t know which lucky dude managed to go home with it.

Then towards the end when he was singing a new song from his soon to be released album, he had one of his bodyguards carry him into the crowd while everyone touched him and all.

I got close enough to him to take this picture. Flo Rida is the man! That’s all I can say.

One of my favourite parts of the night though was when they released these big soft Guinness balls into the crowd.

Everyone around the balls had their hands in the air pushing the ball around. At first it was far in front and it got closer and closer to me and the rest in the back. I so badly wanted to touch the ball too so I went back and forth chasing the ball but I kept missing it. I was either too short to reach it or not fast enough to get to it.

After like 5 minutes of chasing it I gave up. I went back to Michelle and Pinky who were happily dancing anyway

and I sighed.

“I didn’t get to touch the ball”.

Michelle then pointed behind me. I turned around only to see the ball heading straight for me. I pushed it up again and back into the crowd in front of me. I got to push it a few more times then until it slowly drifted away. Ahh.. so fun.

The night ended with fireworks… a really long one too!

After the performances ended, we spent some time at the VIP After Party but were so tired we went back shortly after.

Thank you for the great fun night Guinness!

TO ARTHUR!

On one of the days that we were in Tokyo, we got up early one morning and started walking to the nearest subway. Right outside our apartment there was a garbage truck collecting rubbish. The garbage trucks in Tokyo are a lot smaller than the ones we’re used to back home… maybe to make it easier to go through small alleys to collect stuff.

At first we couldn’t smell anything so we thought that it was some kind of Hi-Tech Japanese odorless Japanese garbage truck but as we got closer to it we realized we were wrong.

Yep… garbage in Japan smells like garbage everywhere else in the world. One thing different about the truck though was we noticed how they put all these cute teddy bears on its side.

It’s like they unwanted teddy bears were pickedup by the guys and they used it to “cute-en” up the truck.

They all look like they were in good condition too.

After we passed the truck we got to the train station and headed to the real reason why we were going to Tokyo: For a tradeshow.

It’s supposed to be the largest trade show of its kind in Tokyo and it was held in this huge convention center.

I’ve never been to anything like it before. I wish they allowed me to take pictures of the inside but they didn’t so I’m going to have to try describe it in words. It’s like they have many many halls filled with booths. Each of these booths are uniquely decorated and they all exhibit products that are really novel or cute. But you can’t buy any of it though because it’s only for suppliers there to find distributors for their products. The only way you can get it is if you order in large quantities.

I’m secretly glad that they didn’t allow me to buy any of the products though because if they did, I would have spent sooo much money. They have all sorts of cool things. Like tissue box covers that make sound whenever you pull a tissue from it, or like modern shaped lamps or even like these little teddy bears that can open up into a eco-grocery bag.

A number of the exhibitors were suspicious of us though. Whenever they saw us, they would get protective, thinking that we’re from China and would just copy their designs and have it made in China for a quarter of the price. It helped when we told them that we were from Malaysia and Singapore.

We spent two full days at the trade show.

On the first day we just went to take a look at the products and the second day we actually went to talk to the people there. We made a lot of contacts and learned a lot of new things about how things are done in the retail world. Like how if a retail product was being sold for RM10, its distributor would be able to buy it from the supplier at half the cost so they would make a 50% profit of whatever they sold. For some products it’s even higher.

It was a really tiring two days though, but it was quite an experience. It was my first but something tells me it won’t be my last trade show. My favourite thing about the trade show though, this little fat cat mascot.

It was so cute. It was so big so it only took very small steps at a time and had to be guided by an official. Then it would stop when it sees someone walk past and it would wave his short little stumpy hand. Damn cute!

All the Japanese women who walked past it went “Kawaiii!!!”

Okay first I have to say this. This is not an advertorial. Nuffnang is running a campaign for Solvil Titus now but it doesn’t involve me as a blogger. I’m writing this entry because this video caught my attention and I thought it was really cute. Ok first watch this video.

It’s basically this love story about this couple where the girl in the end decides to break up with the guy. There are 4 parts of the story that I found amusing:

1) When the girl asked for a break up right after the guy asked for eggs in his instant noodles. The guy then responded saying “I will never ask for eggs again”. HAHA! Poor guy didn’t know what hit him.

2) During the flashback of when they first met when they were on the motorbikes and the girl called out to him. I thought the girl there was damn cute and I thought it was damn funny how she said something like “We have the same helmet!”, pointing at their bright orange helmet. Hahaha.. that’s the kind of stupid thing that I can imagine Kitteh saying to me. Too bad we didn’t meet in such romantic circumstances. In fact the way we met was really really boring.

3) Loved the part at the end when she asked him how much he loved her and he refused to answer and she kept insisting for an answer. What a cute couple!

4) Loved the song from the video too. Ahhh Faye Wong’s the best!

Anyway the story has a bit of a continuation. It shows first the guy’s point of view.

And then the girl’s point of view… of why she fell out of love.

I guess the whole point of the story was to highlight the theme how love changes with time. Speaking of which, the 10th of October is coming up soon and that’s going to be Kitteh and my’s 2 year anniversary. That’s an important mark for our relationship because Kitteh knows that any relationship I have doesn’t go past the 2 year mark much. So… fingers crossed!!!

Before I start with the entry, let me just share something else in the mean time 🙂

Guess what Kitteh and I saw the other day on Federal Highway. While people spend lots of money customizing their car, putting in spoilers that make the car look like it can fly into space and back, this guy had a more creative way of customizing his Pajero.

He put all these little magnet things of different kinds of cartoon characters. That sure caught a lot of attention.

Really cool huh?

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So it’s like that. Kitteh and I were at Gurney Plaza Penang one weekend to catch up with Gin and Natalie for coffee. The next day we checked our e-mail and we got this nice e-mail from our readers. I think I’ve said before that this is my biggest joy when it comes to blogging. Getting e-mails or comments from readers. Eventhough I don’t always get to reply them, it’s something that really keeps me going so sometimes I like to share them with everyone else. So here’s this one, from a nice guy named Sze Ming.

Thank you for the e-mail Sze Ming.

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Hey Tim and Audrey,

My girlfriend and I were behind you guys at Coffee Bean Gurney Plaza on Saturday. Audrey caught my eye then my eyes automatically tried hunting Tim down. The monkey on your T-shirt served as a good confirmation. Started telling my girlfriend all about you two and how entrepreneurial you are, Tim . Think you might have overheard her saying repeatedly “Do you want a picture? Sure you don’t want a picture with them?” Cause she could see how excited I was by just describing you two to her. And I was there telling her “Nah…don’t need to disturb and interrupt people’s day out”. If you two hadn’t noticed or heard the mumbling behind you, yea.. that was going on behind you two. haha.

Just wanted to say you two are really so awesome together. It was great reading about you guys online especially how you two go about in life as a couple and it was certainly even more awesome just seeing you guys out and about..right in front of my eyes. And Tim, I really look up to what you have made out of your life especially at such a young age. Keep up what you’re doing and believe me..you’re inspiring alot more people than just this Penang Boy here.

Hope you guys had a pleasant trip back to Penang and hope to see you guys around Penang once again.

Best regards,
Ming.

P/S. From time to time, I can find myself drifting away and imagining myself being part of the Nuffnang group. lol. And yes..I do regret not grabbing a quick shot with you guys on that pleasant Saturday afternoon.

Kitteh and I were always talking about how we’ve become a “boring couple” since we got together. We used to go clubbing all the time or to bars or all sorts of different things when we were still dating. But now all we do is watch TV at home or tap away on our computers. So on Malaysia Day Eve this week Kitteh and I decided to go with some of the Nuffies to Velvet. The plan was to go just for a while and just have a few drinks since I had to dial in to a conference call early the next morning. That plan though, went out the window when we got there.

We bumped into some friends who were celebrating a birthday so drinks were going around like Coke bottles being filled on a conveyor belt. I can’t remember how many drinks I had but I remember feeling a kick by the time I got to the champagne. Finally the clock hit 1.30AM and Kitteh came up to me saying that she wasn’t feeling well. I decided to call it a night and told my friends that I was leaving… I was met with a few “WHAT?!?! SO EARLYY?!?!” and “LAST DRINK LAST DRINK!!!”.

After the goodbyes we stumbled out of Velvet (Zouk), walking past the Ferraris, Lambos and SLs parked outside. I was admiring the cars when I happened to notice that the cars were all slightly and slowly swaying left to right. Then it hit me, the cars weren’t moving.. my head was. I knew then I was totally unfit to drive home…. legally and even practically. I had a flashback to a conversation I had with Kitteh a few hours ago before we left for Zouk. I was suggesting that we didn’t drive but have a friend pick us up.

Her reply:
“Nooo laaah! No need lahh! I drive la I drive.. you can drink.”.

Back in present time, I took a look at Kitteh and she looked so drunk I was sure she wasn’t even in a position to ride one of these tricycles let alone drive a car.

Fortunately I didn’t listen to her. So my friend dropped us back.

At my front door, I was fidgeting with my house keys when Kitteh told me
“Baby faster open the door, I need to puke”.

Normally upon hearing declarations like this I would freak out and kick the door open or something. In that instance though, I don’t know if it was the alcohol hardening my nerves or something but I somehow didn’t think then that it would be a big deal even if she threw up all over me. Plus it was so hard trying to get a key into a keyhole when you’re high. When I finally did, Kitteh shoved the door open and ran for the living room toilet. By the time I closed the front door behind us I heard her puking from the toilet. My first instinct was to walk to the toilet to see if Kitteh was okay but my body wouldn’t let me. I needed to go pass out somewhere, preferably my bed so that I wouldn’t wake up with a bruise on my head. So I just went upstairs and was about to collapse on to my bed before I realized that I hate smelling of smoke and sleeping on my bed. So I dragged my drunk ass to the shower, forced a quick shower and even brushed my teeth. By the time I got out of the shower, Kitteh was passed out on the bed. I tucked her telling her to sleep but she said “Nooo!! I need to get up to shower”.

I told her she didn’t need to and after that… I fell asleep.

I woke up the next morning fortunately with no hangover and in time to dial into my 10AM conference call. It was a public holiday in Malaysia but the Nuffies overseas were all working so I had to dial-in. Kitteh got up shortly after me and we both laughed about the night before. We agreed that was the most drunk we’ve been in a long time. It was certainly our first time being… drunk couple.

Because Ming is all about culture and all that, while we were in Tokyo he got us to visit another shrine! The Asakusa Shrine. This one is much bigger than the Meiji Shrine we visited and because it had a lot more people, we didn’t have to worry so much about keeping our voices down. Back at the Meiji Shrine everyone was so quiet that whenever we talked I felt as if the whole Shrine heard us and it’s not like we were shouting or anything.

The entrance to the Shrine is represented by this big gate with a lantern in the middle. Right after the gate is a long row of shops where tourists can buy all sorts of different souvenirs. When it comes to like Japanese-sy kind of souvenirs, Ming says that nothing beats this marketplace. They sell everything from Kimonos to Japanese hand-painted fans to even food stuff like biscuits and seaweed

We saw this shop that sold cold green-tea and we all bought a cup each. All we were expecting was a good cold drink because it was so hot but we were all pleasantly surprised by how good it tasted. It had so much flavour it tasted like green-tea X 1,000!!!

Bought some souvenirs for the Nuffies too. Ended up buying these little things that are more expensive than it looks. Heck they were like RM12 or something each but they’re not just any little keychain thingies. They were special!

They had a hole in each of them where you could look into it and see some kind of image inside. Sort of like a kaleidoscope! Like Mr. Sumo here.

Also saw this old Japanese man making some fu chuk stuff. He did it so smoothly like he had been doing it for many many years.

After we got through the shopping we finally reached the Shrine.

Before you get into the shrine you’re supposed to do two things though. First there is this little pavilion with burning incense where you’re supposed to use your hand and slowly fan some of the smoke to yourself (just like how people in the picture are doing it). It’s supposed to ward off evil spirits.

After that you go to this other corner where you’re supposed to use the water there to wash your hands before you go into the Shrine. Everyone had to do it. Even this cute little girl here that was dressed in a Kimono.

Once inside the shrine you can do something that really reminds me of all the Hong Kong TV dramas I’ve seen while growing up. You know in those TV shows, you would have one of the characters go to the temple and then shake this cylinder thing until a stick comes out that reads your fortune? Well in Japan we have that too.

This is Pinky finding her fortune.

She shook this metal cylinder thing until that stick came out. The stick then had a number on it that told her which drawer to open to find her fortune. I know some people who’re afraid to do things like that and would rather just not know their future for fear that it might be bad but Pinky certainly wasn’t one of them. Her fortune turned out to be good though.

We decided to head back after we had finished seeing everything we could in the Shrine but we had a nice little surprise at the end. After we exited the Shrine we saw a couple of Japanese girls fully dressed in Kimonos. The girls decided that they thad to take a picture with them. I thought they were really pretty.

Something about Kimonos just make girls look even prettier to me!

So that was Asakusa Shrine 🙂

While I was in Tokyo last week for the tradeshow, we found some time over the weekend to do a bit of sight-seeing. One of the places we visited was the Meiji Shrine in Harajuku. I remember Kitteh and I tried to go there  the last time we were there but it was closed or something.

The walk to the shrine goes through a really long road surrounded by lots of trees. It was a really pleasant walk… would’ve been more pleasant though if it wasn’t so hot. When I was over, it was supposed to be Autumn but for some reason it still felt like summer and summer there is a lot hotter than it is back in Malaysia. We were sweating all over while trying to play tourist and take pictures of the little things we saw on the way to the shrine.

Xiaxue wasn’t really enjoying the walk. Before we came she had made good effort dressing up with her hair made into a bow or something, all ready to go kai kai! The heat though made her grumpy just like how it makes Kitteh grumpy because it ruins your make-up and stuff like that. Wish I had taken a picture of her then but I didn’t dare, she looked so on the edge that she might’ve just grabbed my camera and jump on it 3 times before throwing it into the jungle.

Anyway after the 15 minute walk or so we reached the Shrine.

We saw a group of people all formally dressed up, some in some traditional Japanese costumes taking a slow and quiet walk. We were trying to figure out what they were doing. At first because a lot of them were dressed in black suits we thought that it was a funeral.
But we later concluded that it was a wedding ceremony…. for some rich and powerful Japanese family or something.

One thing that impresses me about Japan is how they’re such a modern and developed country but yet they still keep and hold a lot of their old Japanese traditions.

Further inside the shrine we came across this section which had a lot of these wooden plates hung up.

We went to take a look and I notice that written on these wooden plates were wishes by people from all over the world who visited the shrine.

I took some time to read through some of the wishes and it just felt like you were hearing echoes off a wishing well. It’s just… something to get a glimpse of what people all over the world are wishing for.

I didn’t want to take pictures of too many of them but this is the one that touched me the most.

I know that it could mean almost anything but for some reason my first interpretation of it was that it was some friends of Nicole asking her to fight on against a life threatening illness be it cancer or something.

Most of the wishes were written in other languages too. Like this one looked like it was written in Vietnamese probably by someone from Vietnam who dropped by the shrine a month ago.

Or this one in German that I am guessing is written in German.

Inspired by all this! We all decided to write wishes on our own. We took this piece of paper, wrote a wish, put it in a given envelope

and put it in a box

.

It was only after we all had put our wishes into the box did we learn that we were actually supposed to put in some money as a “token” offering. Of all of us, only Mike knew to do that but funny enough he didn’t know they gave our envelopes so he put his money in just with a piece of paper. The money probably slipped out once it got into the box and whoever opened the box probably wouldn’t know that the money came from him. So to make up for it we all later went to another part of the shrine and made some token donations.

After our visit to the shrine it was time to take the long walk back, a walk that Xiaxue was dreading. So when she saw a cab right outside the Shrine she took it as a gift from up above and quickly hopped into it offering to pay for it and inviting us all to go with her for the short cab ride. We all felt guilty about taking a 1 minute cab ride that would just take us outside the temple so we decided to take the long walk while Ringo went to keep her company.

The truth was halfway back on our walk we took a wrong turn and ended up taking an even longer walk so much that at some point we wished that we had taken a cab back too. Haha.. don’t tell Xiaxue this though. She would gloat till the day we all die and even after then her great grandchildren will be telling our great grandchildren about how their great grandmother was smart enough to take a cab many decades ago in Tokyo.

The saving grace though was that on our long walk back we bumped into an ice-cream parlour and had some nice Japanese green tea ice-cream.

And that made the walk worth it 🙂

Really… ask Maylene and Elaine here.

Hey Guys, I’m back in KL now… for about 12 hours before I hop on to another flight to head back to Penang for the weekend to see my parents. So here’s a quick entry.

I was at Narita Airport in Tokyo earlier today about to hop on a flight back to KL. I had checked-in, gotten my boarding pass and heading towards the departure hall. When I reached the Departure Hall there were some people outside saying their goodbyes to their loved ones just before they were sent off. My eyes went to the sweet sight of a father who was leaving and was giving his daughter a long goodbye hug. The father was in his 50s with some white hair and carrying a briefcase with him while his daughter looked like she was at most in her early twenties. I didn’t really get to see her face though.

They were both just standing there, undisturbed and unperturbed by the people around them… hugging each other and stroking each others’ back. I wish I knew a bit more about their story, like how close they were or how long the Dad was going away for. I gave them a smile as I walked past them, something they both didn’t notice. A few moments after having walked past them I turned my back again to get a last memory of that sweet sight and what I saw changed everything.

They weren’t hugging anymore… they were both kissing with their tongues down one another’s mouth like they were looking for diamonds at the back of each others’ throats. Suddenly it dawned on me that they weren’t “father and daughter”. More like “older man and young girlfriend”. That kinda changed that sweet sight so much I kinda wish later on that I hadn’t turned back. I mean I don’t have anything against young girls who date much older men. Heck I have friends (guys and girls) who do that and if they’re happy (which all of them are), then I’m happy for them.

While it was still father and daughter though, it was a nice sight. If I have a daughter some day, I wish she would give me a loooong goodbye hug at the airport before I leave for work.

When I came to Tokyo last December for a year end family trip, I thought it would be the last time I was going to come to Tokyo for a long time. So I did as much shopping and saw as many things as I could when I was here. Ate a lot too so that probably explains my cholesterol and how I put on some weight.

Funny enough, less than a year after I was in Tokyo I find myself coming back again. Not for another holiday but for work. I’m here in Tokyo now with Ming and some of the JPB team to attend a trade show here. Supposedly a really big one that starts on Tuesday till Friday. We decided to come right before the weekend starts though so we had the weekend to spend in Tokyo so right after work on Friday night, I went straight to the airport then caught a flight to Tokyo. Slept on the flight and I woke up the next morning in Tokyo. I don’t sleep well on the plane usually… because I’m not used to sleeping at such vertical angles but fortunately I actually slept quite well that night.

To add in to a little bit of the fun, hearing that we were going to Tokyo some friends decided to follow us too. Xiaxue, Cheesie and a few other friends timed their trips to coincide with us so we spent the weekend hanging out with them.

Here’s what we did on our first day in pictures.

Arrived and then started walking to lunch. Walked pass one of Kitteh’s favourite streets in Harajuku.

Went for lunch at this Japanese Pasta place. Was this really really quaint and small restaurant that didn’t have many tables so we had to wait to get a table.

This is what I had.

I love how the Japanese always know how to make their pasta al dente. Heck I’ve been to a lot of Italian restaurants in Rome that don’t even make their pasta al dente. You know when it’s not too soft and a little chewy.

After lunch we walked around Shibuya and we walked past the dreaded Shibuya 109.

I was hoping the girls had no idea what the place was about but Kitteh had told them about it. Shibuya 109 is like Sungai Wang X 1,000 except that all they have inside are clothes only for women. Nothing for men. NOTHING. I went in there with Kitteh on my last trip and spent a looong time there just watching her shop. She paid me back with the time though by following me to a technology store in Akihabara later on.

We walked past Shibuya 109 but came across this place where they had a lot of sticker photo booths. The girls insisted on doing one so we all went ahead and took a picture.

Man these photo booths have features that purposely make your eyes look even bigger!

Then the girls started putting flowers or pink bows or all sorts of girly stuff on our picture.

I was afraid to see the end result. So this is what I last saw of it.

After that we all went for dinner at this place for Yakiniku.

And after dinner we took a long walk home in the city. Tokyo is so brightly lit at night it’s crazy! I was telling Pinky that London or New York at night is brightly lit but not too brightly lit. Kind of like a nice restaurant kind of lighting. Tokyo on the other hand is like a HUGE FLUORESCENT LIGHT.

So bright that the sky above the city even looks bright.

Oh well that’s it for Day 1 guys. Blog about the rest later on. See you. Have a good week ahead.

Ok gotta go for the trade show now.

So my brother, sister and I were planning a trip back to Penang one of these days. It’s been a long time since we’ve ever been back to visit my parents. At first we were thinking of driving back together but due to some complications we all decided to take a flight back. So I called my Dad one day and told him that I’m booking a flight for all of us to go back to Penang together.

In response to that he said
“WOAH WOAH! WAIT……. why are you all flying same flight? Go separate flight! Safer that way”.

Of course what my Dad meant was that he didn’t want all of us flying on the same plane because if that plane so happened to *touch wood* crash, then we’ll all be screwed! Instead he wanted us to take different flights so… well, we spread the risk. My smart Dad.

You know this is something even many companies do. Like I know for some companies when they go on a company trip, people from the same team don’t fly together for fear that if anything happens to the plane, the whole department doesn’t just disappear all in one go. Or there’s an urban legend that there are only 3 people in the world who really know the secret recipe for Coke and these 3 people are never allowed to fly on the same flight or be in the same place.

Ming and I too follow that policy as much as we can (though there have been some exceptions).

You know, whenever we go anywhere we try to fly separate flights. It’s funny though why people have this policy for planes but not for cars. I mean the chances of you getting in a car accident is supposed to be higher than a plane crash right?

Well that’s one of the things that just makes me wonder.