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.

I just had to share this.

So Cindy and Huai Bin did a video for the Guinness Arthur’s Day campaign on their Facebook page where you’re supposed to do a music video of your own to win tickets to Arthur’s Day. To fully appreciate their video though, first… if you haven’t already, watch this.
This is the original video from Rihanna and Eminem where they featured a couple played by Megan Fox and Charlie from Lost.

Now watch their version where Cindy plays Megan Fox and Huai Bin plays Charlie.

Arthur’s Day 2010: Love The Way You Lie from Poh Huai Bin on Vimeo.

Once you’ve watched it, then only read this because spoilers ahead.

Heck when I first watched it I thought it was good and all, then came the part where they were kissing. When I saw that I literally went out loud “WOAH!!!”. I mean heck, I really didn’t expect that and when you see two friends that you know kissing so passionately like that it friggin takes you aback!

Loved the editing though. Heard it was done by Haze. So great job guys. It’s one of those videos that you make that gives you a memory to keep. I only wish that Kitteh and I had a music video made but we certainly wouldn’t make a fitting couple for this kind of hot sexy couple. Maybe we could do it for a Guinness song or something.

Anyway see what you guys think.

PS: Check out the entry on HB’s blog on the behind the scenes of how they made this video.

I just spent the night watching a movie with my Dad. My Dad loves watching two types of movies. The first kind is Action.. it doesn’t matter if there is no plot, it doesn’t matter if the acting is horrible, it doesn’t even matter if it was unrealistic. Throw in some guns, some bombs, some hand-to-hand combat and you got a winner for my Dad.

The other kind of movie that my Dad loves watching is Chinese movies set in the old days. You know about the emperors and all. So tonight I sat down with him and watched the second half of The Curse of the Golden Flower. You guys remember that movie right? With Gong Li, Chow Yun Fatt and Jay Chou.

One thing I found amusing about that movie though was how almost all the actresses had like the most powerful push-up bras in the world to show huge cleavage. I mean most Chinese movies I’ve seen of the older days didn’t really bang on cleavage but this one… woahh…

Nevertheless I can say this, Gong Li is one hell of a great actress!

Anyway if you’ve seen the movie, you’d know the story is fairly complicated. I missed the first half of the movie so correct me if I’m wrong but here’s what I understand from it. Okay so you have the Emperor who has this first wife in which he has a daughter with. And then he decides to marry another woman to consolidate his power on the throne and in order to make sure nobody finds out about the first wife, he locks the wife up but the wife escapes. Then many years later, the second wife which became the empress started having an affair with…. his son (I think). Some incest shit going on there Can’t remember which son but it was one of them.

Then the daughter that the emperor had with the first wife met with one of his sons with the second wife and fell in love. They shagged and all not knowing that they were actually… *gasp* BROTHER AND SISTER! When they eventually found out, there was big drama. This daughter ran outside the palace and got stabbed to death. Her mother then ran after her and also got stabbed to death.

All this happened while the second son of the Emperor played by Jay Chou was trying to have a coup to overthrow the emperor.

So much more happened and I don’t know how accurate I am after this but… one thing that really came to me was…

HOLY SHIT IT SURE AIN’T EASY BEING a Chinese Emperor in those days.

I mean, you gotta worry about your empress sleeping with your son… or your son trying to overthrow you… and all this shit… how do you even find time to run a Kingdom?

I really don’t see why Simba was so excited about being King.

So who wants to be an Emperor?

I did it. Iz true… after all the egging on I had from my friends that Macs aren’t good for playing PC games (and after Robb, SY and many other friends bought new PCs just for Starcraft 2), I finally went to Low Yat on Friday to buy myself a desktop for gaming.

Come to think of it, growing up I’ve always wanted a good gaming desktop, like a really really powerful one but I never had the chance or the excuse to buy one. Ever since I got into college I always used a laptop because it was easy for me to bring around since I traveled a lot between Penang, KL and London. Laptops aren’t great for playing games. Then I started using Macs and I got to play less and less PC games.

I didn’t exactly fulfill my childhood dream of having a super computer with two graphics cards and like… super maxed out RAM or anything though. The man at Low Yat told me a super computer like that can cost RM6,000. Wayyy too much for me so I went for a lower spec computer that can’t play ULTRA high graphic settings on Starcraft 2 but still better than my MacBook Pro that can only go for medium settings.

After I bought it, I started to think of how I was going to break the news to Kitteh. In recent days I had asked her what she thought and she always said “NOooo!!”. So over lunch with some of the Nuffies the other day we were thinking of how I would break the news to her and we came up with some ideas.

Imagine a scene, Kitteh walks into my study after she comes back from work and sees the computer.

She then shouts “YOU BOUGHT A NEW COMPUTER?!?!” and gives me a stare waiting for my explanation.

What do I say?

My imaginative Nuffies came up with these suggestions

“A new computer? Nawww…. that’s always been there baby. Really… how come you never noticed it?”

or

“My brother wanted to buy a new computer so he gave me his old one… but not after he ermm “reconned” it to look different”

or

“Good news baby! Today I went to Lowyat to buy Windows 7 and they gave me a free desktop! Got promotion!”

or

*look surprised*

“WHAT IS THAT STRANGE NEW POWERFUL GAMING COMPUTER DOING ON MY DESK?!?!”

or… just play dumb.

“What computer? Where? I don’t see any computer?”.

I hadn’t decided which line to use even by the time I picked Kitteh up from work for dinner. So we went to Bangsar Village and that’s when we happened to bump into Linda who just finished dinner. You guys remember Linda right? This is Linda.

The perpetrator of what was about to happen.

Linda started talking to Kitteh and said

“I was sooo hungry before dinner! You la (pointing at me)… deserted us during lunch today and went to buy your new computer!”

Kitteh’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates and I heard the most frightening 5 words of my life.

“YOU BOUGHT A NEW COMPUTER?!?!?!?!”

There was a moment of silence then that actually only lasted for like 2 seconds but really actually felt like it lasted for 30 minutes… it’s like everything slowed down in that 2 seconds and my life flashed before my eyes. I saw a fast forward of my childhood growing up, then going to secondary school at Saint Xaviers Institution, then in college, university and eventually coming out to start work.

When I didn’t respond, Kitteh gave me a little push and repeated
“YOU BOUGHT A NEW COMPUTER?!?!?!”

The rest of that was a massacre. There I was trying to justify to Kitteh why I needed a new computer because it’s just so much better for games than a laptop but Kitteh lectured me on “wasting money” and she won the argument.

So that everybody, was how it all came about. Kitteh and I strike a good balance. On one hand, I’ve slowly become the kind of person that just wants to live life and do whatever that I think will make me happy… but Kitteh slows me down a bit and helps knocks some practical sense into me. The result is well.. we rub off on one another. Not just in this way but in many other ways.

Ending note for the guys though: Mannnn I can’t believe I never had a proper desktop to play my games much earlier. It’s soo much smoother to play and a lot easier on the eyes too especially for Starcraft 2!

PS: This blog entry was brought to you by my new desktop… hehehe… see? see? Can not only game but also BLOG!

I read this article on TIME some time ago and I thought it was one of the most important insights in life that I’ve ever had. Basically the gist of it is that there was a huge survey done among 136,000 people from different ethnic and economic backgrounds in 132 different countries all over the world on whether money makes them happy and this is what they found.

“Yes, money makes you happy — we see the effect of income on life satisfaction is very strong and virtually ubiquitous and universal around the world… But it makes you more satisfied than it makes you feel good. Positive feelings are less affected by money and more affected by the things people are doing day to day.”

The second part of that paragraph was what really made sense to me. When you think about it, it’s really true. Money does make you happy but it takes more of a satisfaction joy rather than really really make you feel happy! The things that make you really happy? What you do each day and the people around you.

That’s why you see people leaving really high paying jobs for lower paying ones because once they reach a certain threshold of having “enough money”, they find that it’s more important to do things that they like rather than things that pay well. So why are so many of us chasing money all the time? Is it because all sorts of different things in society “manufactures” that desire to need lots of money? Or do we not know yet, that having a lot of money doesn’t really make you as happy as you think.

I think of the things that really make me happy. It’s not really how much money I earn… I’ve always been this happy. What has made me even more happy today is the friends I have at work and on weekends.

The family I have and the girlfriend.

What makes you happy? Is it money? Or is it something else?

Haih … it happened again. My MacBook Pro that is only some 4 months old just died. In the past few days it started getting really really slow. So slow that I couldn’t even back it up. Then this morning, it couldn’t even start up. I took it to the Apple Store today and after some tests they concluded that my Hard Disk had “bad sectors”. In other words my HD was screwed up. So they need to send it back to Apple to fix and it’s expected to take between 10-14 working days. Given the number of public holidays we’ll be having in the next month, it’s expected to take a month before I get the MacBook back.

Now I have two problems here. One is that I’m going to be traveling around a lot in the next month or so for work and not having a laptop is going to be hard. Sure… having a Blackberry sure does save me a lot of trouble because at least that means I will still have access to e-mails no matter what but still I need a laptop. I thought of buying a new laptop but I decided not to be extravagant. After all, a great entrepreneur doesn’t do great things by throwing more and more resources at it. An entrepreneur uses whatever limited resources he/she has and puts it to the most efficient use.

So I dug up my old MacBook from 4 years ago and started preparing it for use.

Man it feels so old now I feel like I’ve gone back the Stone Age but this is the very same laptop I used to start Nuffnang (note that picture above is an old pic I took of it when it was still new. It still looks like that, just a lot more blacker but I decided not to show it because I want my trusty MacBook to look its best 🙂 ) . All my early meetings, all the work that I did, all the Help Desk tickets that I used to answer was all on this old trusty laptop that was still working so well. Gotta appreciate that about laptops that live long!

The second problem I face though was…. without my MacBook Pro, I won’t be able to play Starcraft 2… for possibly up to one month.

Man that addiction is so bad on me that I nearly went on ahead to buy a new PC just to be able to play Starcraft 2. What makes Starcraft 2 even more addictive is because all my friends are playing it. Log on to Battle.net every night and you’ll see lots of your friends asking you for a game. Ming was telling me to go ahead with the new PC… and that I needed a gamer desktop anyway since I can’t play most games on my Mac. But Kitteh told me that I was crazy and told me not to do it. I walked around Low Yat for 20 minutes trying to decide if I should buy one when I finally decided to call Tim2.

Tim2 is a fellow Nuffie. I called him because of all the people, he’s the one who’s the most level-headed to give me objective advice and  yet he plays a lot of Starcraft 2 so he knows what I’ll be missing if I don’t play for a month. Tim 2 told me not to buy it. So I left Low Yat a sad man. But still I knew that it was the right thing to do.

On the way back home though I had a thought. That maybe I can actually still play Starcraft 2 on my office computer. So maybe I’ll just bring it back on weekends or something just to play and in the mean time work can be done off my old trusty MacBook.

So well, that’s what I’ve decided to do for now. I hope it lasts!

OK BACK TO STARCRAFT 2 NOW… RAYNOR NEEDS ME!!!

About 1-2 weeks ago, the Twittersphere was buzzing with people talking about free beer being given out at Asia Cafe in Subang. At first I heard that a lot of people thought it was a prank or a hoax but then as more and more people talked about it and an actual date,time and venue was confirmed…. I guess people kinda decided it was worth while checking it out. I was one of them.
So I went to Asia Cafe and by the time I got there… man there was a long queue of people waiting to get their hands on Tiger.

Each person was given like 6 cans of Tiger beer and the queue stretched from one end of Asia Cafe to the other. At the front of the queue though was this booth set up with a huge stockpile of Tiger beer!

I saw all sorts of people queueing up for it. Even Asia Cafe staff. The funniest though was this guy I saw dressed like he was ready to go jogging. He was probably jogging past when he noticed the queue and decided “Bah forget calories.. beer for me!”.

And here’s a pic of some of the Nuffnangers there that day: Dustyhawk, Simon Seow, Suresh, Jess, Bryan and WenPink.

Look at all the free beer they collected.

—————–

Last weekend I was down in Malacca for Pierre’s baby’s full moon.

Ming and some other friends also made their way down from Singapore to attend it so we decided to all stay a night.

And you know what happens when you go to Malacca for a weekend. It’s the kind of trip where you have 6 meals in a day…. or one in other words.. one loonng endless meal that starts in the morning and ends only late at night. The last time I was down in Malacca, we had chicken rice ball, satay, mille crepe, nonya food, cendol and satay celup all in a day.

This time though we took it a bit easier and paced our eating.

I still made it a point to go for chicken rice ball though… even if it meant having to queue in the hot sun for 15 minutes. It was worth it!

I love chicken rice ball… how do you not love it? It’s the kind of thing right next to Mille Crepe that makes me wonder why nobody has brought it to KL. I’m sure whoever did would make a lot of money. Why bother starting all sorts of other businesses? Just bring chicken rice ball over!!! And yeah I know that there’s a shop in PJ that sells Mille Crepe but I’ve only bought it once and never again since because it just wasn’t even close to being as good as the Malacca one.

I always wondered how it must’ve been like to grow up in Malacca or even towns like Ipoh though. Like growing up in a town like that. When I grew up in Penang, I never realized how big the outside world was. I always thought that Penang was the world and that it was a really really big place. Sure I’ve heard of KL and all but I just never thought that KL was so much more bigger than Penang.

Penang is a small place though. So you kinda know or sort of know of everyone your age who grew up with you. Plus if you do something wrong, then everyone will hear about it. Heck back in those early days of the internet, I remember there was a site called Kaypo Corner that was popular among the young in Penang where people would all post up silly gossip. That site is still up today, but nobody uses it now and it’s covered in spam.

Life in Penang was really simple though. When I was a kid, I hardly remembered any traffic jams. The weather never seemed as hot as it is today and life was going to school, then to tuition and on weekends going out to KOMTAR with parents for lunch at this Taiwanese noodle place called 600cc. Ahh I miss that place.

Yes… last time I used to go to Komtar every weekend! It was the IN place man!

When I look at my life now… it’s sure grown a lot more sophisticated with more things to do, more malls to go to and all.. but it’s also gotten more complicated. I sometimes wonder if it still feels the same, living in a nice small town. KL today though reminds me of New York. When I was in New York, lots of the people I talked to there were from all over the world… and the locals there were from all over the USA. KL feels a bit like that too. Like you meet lots of people from Seremban, Ipoh, Malacca, JB… who have all settled down here in KL. Kitteh told me that during our parent’s generation it was even more obvious. Like everyone who lived in KL, isn’t from KL but from all over Malaysia. Today more and more people are born in KL though.

Speaking of the next generation KL-Lite… yesterday Kitteh and I paid a visit to Joanne’s baby!

Such a cuteeeeeee boy! Kitteh said that looking at him made her want to have a baby of her own quick. *hyperventilates*

Ahh the life when we were all babies. Not complicated or anything. Just simple… eat, sleep and be happy!