You don’t really know in detail where the money comes from and how much of it is there but it often seems enough so that’s all that matters.

After graduation though, things start changing. Once you get a job and start earning like RM1,800 a month we begin to really understand what our parents meant when they tell us that money is indeed hard to earn. Still though, we get by. We do a bit of financial planning in the sense that if there is something we want to buy, like the new Blackberry Curve, we just have to save up a few months’ salary and we’re good to go.
Sooner or later though, things start to change.

You start to need a car and a place of your own. So you take on a car and housing loan to buy them, slapping on some monthly commitments on yourself and before you know it, a huge chunk of our monthly salary goes out to pay these commitments.

That’s just somehow the way modern society is like. Most of us can’t possibly afford to buy a house or even a car in cash. Think about how much we earn and think about how much a decent apartment costs. That’s like RM300,000-RM400,000.

How many years do you have to work and save before you have that much money in cash. For many of us it’s tens and tens of years… so we all borrow and we live the rest of our lives working off the debt we accumulate. That’s why banks do so well because they sell products that society needs: Financing. Without financing most of us won’t be able to buy the cars or the houses we live in for most of our lives.

Plus your commitments get even more because sooner or later you get married. I’m 25 and this year alone I know at least 5 of my friends have gotten married.

Then you’ll have to think about how much it costs to raise a family, pay for your kids education and then sooner or later it’ll probably dawn on you that…. While you’re spending so much time and money already trying to survive while you have a job. What happens when you retire?

Well the answer to that is…. Pray that you have enough personal and EPF savings to maintain your lifestyle. Or…. have a retirement plan.

I’ve actually seen quite a number of my friends already sign up for some of these plans where they pay a small amount each month for some peace of mind. So that they know they have some money saved for them when they retire. The question of course is… how much money do you really need?

I mean… you don’t want to be saving every single cent your whole life. You want to be able to indulge every once in a while right?

So the answer to that I guess is a tool Prudential has on their website called the Prudential Retirement Calculator.

This is how it works.

First you put in your current age and when you plan to retire.

Then you put in a scale of how comfortably a lifestyle you want to live when you retire.

For me I put it all the way to the end at “INDULGENT”. Simply because… hey… if I’ve come to the end of my life after spending the past 40 years working, I’d really like to indulge in whatever money I earned in the past 4 decades.

Then they kind of break it down for you where you would be likely to spend your money based on the Malaysian Report of Household Expenditures. Kind of like a study that aggregates where Malaysian Households spend their money.

You can choose to modify some of the categories.

Like for me I decided that by the time I was 65, I would probably own my own home free of my mortgage. So I won’t have to pay rent or a mortgage. So housing would be 0.

Travel & Entertainment is fairly low for me because I don’t think I’d like to be travelling much at 65. Probably would like to stay put at one place.

But one thing I’d really spend a lot on though is… FOOD!!!!

So I put some RM2,000 a month just on food for the household.

Now after you’re done putting in how much money you’ll probably be spending after retirement. The next step is for you to add in how much money you have now, how much you earn and whatever other assets you have.

Then you add in some things like the inflation rate you want to take into account and it finally lands you in this last page where it tells you what your number is. As in how much money you need at retirement.

And whether your earnings right now will give you enough money to get there or not.
This screenshot is just for illustration purposes because…. I shy to show people how much I earn and all. I’ll avoid that.

But based on the variables I put in for my lifestyle in the slide bright before this. My number actually is….

I’m so screwed.

I guess this is where retirement plans come in.

Like the PRUretirement accumulator where you get a guaranteed monthly income after retirement and you won’t have to worry about losing any of the money you put into the plan because they have capital protection and they’re all guaranteed (terms and conditions apply, of course). Plus if you kick the bucket within the duration of the plan, they’ll compensate your loved ones with a lump sum of money.

The cost of the plan can be as low as RM100 a month which my insurance agent will like to say “That’s only RM3.33 a day! That’s parking money… and it’s for your future!!!”

And most of us will then say…
“Well if you put it that way…”

Check out the Prudential Retirement Calculator here anyway to find out what your number is and if you’ll meet it. Feel free to share your number in the comments. See if your expected retirement lifestyle is more posh than mine or not … hahaha.

If you’re free there’s also the “What’s Adam’s Number” challenge going on where you figure out Adam’s retirement number and if you guess it right you’ll stand a chance to win a share of RM200,000 worth of prizes. The challenge will run for 4 weeks from 2nd December 2009 and they’ll release new clues each week to help the players get closer to guessing Adam’s number.
So it’s like in Week 1 you get some clues, then you adjust the values into the calculator and you get a bit closer to his number.

Then you wait for Week 2 clues to come out and then you get to put in the additional clues you get.

And eventually you’ll get his actual number.

Adam is a fictional character though. It’s not “code” for “Timothy” ok? You guys already know my number.

Hey look… I’m in … Venice.

No actually…. in Persia.

Okay… truth is, I’m in Disneyland Tokyo (though those pics were more specifically from Disney Sea). Which explains why “Persia” has a belly dancer that looks just like Minnie Mouse.

As I write this, I’m at the hotel lounge leeching off the wireless internet here with Princess both trying to update our blogs. The room actually has internet for a fair rate of RM35 for every 24 hours but I decided to save the money and just use the free Wi-Fi in the lounge.

Besides, they provide free drinks here anyway.

Yes everyone… right after my Disneyland posts, it looks like there’s going to be another one because just 2 weeks after my trip to Hong Kong Disneyland, I find myself in Disneyland Tokyo.

I’m here on a family trip this time. It’s been a good couple of days.

Going to share some pictures.

1) Went for the “Small World” ride again just 2 weeks after going for the one in Hong Kong.

Took a picture of this “Stroller Park” here.

That’s the number of babies we have in that one ride. It’s so well organized. They have a Disneyland “cast member” who does nothing but organize the strollers that come in and leave so that they’re all nicely packed in one area.

2) Went for the Indiana Jones “Temple of the Crystal Skull”.

At first I thought it was a roller coaster like the one in Disneyland Paris (my I really have been to a lot of Disneylands), but it turns out to be a totally different ride. Wasn’t a scary ride or anything. You just got on to this ‘jeep on tracks’ that took you inside this place.

We all thought it would be a “drop ride” or something. Especially all the way to the end when it came to a dead end and our jeep went down this slope. But… no problem. Wasn’t that scary after all.

3) Speaking of rides, one ride I didn’t want to sit on was the “Tower of Terror”. Now I love rollercoasters. I used to be really afraid of them but I grew to like them after I learned to scream just like everyone else. Before I used to keep quiet the whole ride and that was just torture. But when you scream…. it feels soooo liberating.

So I’ve been to a lot of rollercoaster rides with all sorts of fancy things. Catapults, loops, drops, corkscrews… you name it, I’ve been on them all and I love it!

One thing I don’t like though, are ‘drop rides’ or rides just dedicated to dropping you like a bag of crap. The Tower of Terror is one such ride. See that tall building in the background.

That is the Tower of Terror.

What they do is that you sit on this ride that goes up all the floors in an elevator. Then when you reach the top, it opens a window to see the beautiful Disneyland view from up above and in a split second after that it drops you vertically all the way down.

That to me is just sadistic. I would never go for something like that.

My brother though was conned. He thought it was just a haunted house ride or something so you can imagine his terrifying surprise when the elevator dropped like… I don’t know 10 floors down. I wish I was there just to see the expression on his face. Must’ve been PRICELESS.

He said he would never do it again though.

My cousins were even cuter. They brought my uncle and aunty (their Dad and Mum) on to the ride, apparently also not knowing that it was a “drop ride”.

Then when they were being dropped in the lift my 9 year old cousin later told us that he was thinking to himself

4) I did go for the best rollercoaster I could find in the park though. It was called “Raging Spirit” and it involved two fairly decent drops and one big loop. Princess at first was too afraid to go for it eventhough she used to be a rollercoaster junkie herself too in the past.

I guess we all grow old after a while. Haha

I didn’t think the ride was too bad though, so after I went for it I dragged Princess with me for the second time and she enjoyed it. Wasn’t as scary as we thought it would be.

Here’s a picture of part of the ride.

Look closely and you’ll see the rollercoaster doing a loop. It’s upside down right now.

Cool huh. Had to queue for a bit though.

5) Speaking of queuing right… the night before we experienced an epic queue!

Seriously, if one thing among many many things that Disneyland is good for is planning queues for rides such that they maximize every single bit of space that people can queue up on. Like we went for this new Monsters Inc ride where the queue was all the way from the outside, then into a big round room like this.

Then the queue of people goes round and round the entire room in a circle from an outer layer to the inner layer before it exits into another room where the queue extends. We waited like an hour to get on the ride. It wasn’t worth it though… just a simple ride where they take you around and you shine torch lights on the ‘monsters’.

6) Got myself a Disneyland Tokyo Souvenir medallion. A Minnie one. Cost 100 Yen but I saw so many people buying it I felt pressured to buy one myself. Peer pressure.

It comes out of this machine where they stamp a piece of.. uh… copper I think.

He was with Mrs Incredible who wasn’t in the picture because she was taking a picture with some other people. Right after I took this picture I accidentally walked right into the path of the other people taking a picture with Mrs Incredible totally ruining their shot.

Mrs Incredible then tapped me on a shoulder and wagged her finger at me just like a mother would do scolding her child.

Princess said.. “She is after all a mother”.

9) A picture we took at the Disney Sea globe near the entrance of Disney Sea.

10) And because it’s Christmas, here’s one with the Christmas tree.

I love Disneyland.

I’ve said this so many times before but I’ll say it again and again: It’s the happiest place on Earth.

Ok ok.. after this entry, I promise. No more Disneyland entries for the year. Don’t think I’ll be going to another one again… until next year haha!!! My goal is to visit Disneyland once a year…. providing I manage to save enough money to do so.

Alright… gotta head to bed now guys. Tomorrow I’m going back to Disneyland to face my fears and go for a drop ride they have there called “Splash Mountain”. You know, one of those rides where they drop you on a waterfall.

Will be going into Tokyo city end tomorrow too. Excited!

Good night everyone! Hope you’re all having a great week.

By the time you read this post, I would have just reached Japan. I’m over at Japan for a family trip, something that doesn’t happen as often anymore. When we were all young, it was easier to go for family trips. But after a while everyone gets older, married, have kids and a lot of other commitments that it’s quite often really hard to get everyone together at the same time for a family trip.

This year though, we managed to pull it off. So Japan it is.

Will blog more about Japan in time to come but in the mean time I actually spotted some final photos of my recent Hong Kong trip. Will put them up here and tell the little stories behind them.

1) This is Ming and Mike sitting with me in the lobby of Disneyland Hotel.

What happened was that we had dinner at Hollywood Hotel which was right next door to Disneyland Hotel. We took a bus over there but it’s the kind of bus that goes one a one way track. So if you start at A and end up at B. The only way to go back to A again from B is to wait for the bus to go from A—>B—>C—>D—>A.

So after dinner, instead of taking the bus back which would take a whole round, we decided to walk back.

The girls didn’t want to though. Xiaxue was like.. “Ok you guys walk!! KTHXBAI!!!”

and she quickly boarded the bus. Ming then declared

And we all started our walk back to the hotel while the girls boarded the bus. Princess was being competitive (as usual). She said “Wait wait.. you guys cannot walk yet until the bus leaves!”

So anyway when the bus left we started our quick walk back… and realized that it was actually a lot longer of a walk that we thought it would. It was a nice walk though. The weather was cool and the streets were quiet. Had some good man talk on the way. Then while we were in the midst of enjoying ourselves, it suddenly occurred to us that we couldn’t afford to arrive later than the girls.

If we did, the girls would laugh at us and say “HAHA!!! I TOLD YOU GUYS SO!!!”

So we started walking faster… and faster… and we kept reminding ourselves “If the girls get there before we do, we will never hear the end of it!”.

We reached the hotel some time after. The girls hadn’t arrived yet so we lounged around the hotel lobby and took some pictures.

After a long time had passed, the girls still didn’t show up and we began to wonder if they were already upstairs. We joked about how they would come down like 30 minutes later from behind us and say “OI!!! WHAT YOU ALL DOING HERE? WE WAITING FOR YOU GUYS UPSTAIRS FOR SO LONG DI!!!”

But ahh it turned out to be a false alarm. Much much later we saw the girls stroll in. At first they almost had a look of victory in their faces as they couldn’t see us. Then we jumped out in front of them and went “HAHA!!!”

Ahh what a night.

2) Spent the rest of the night down in Mong Kok in Hong Kong.

Remember some time last year when I visited Taylor’s College new Sri Hartamas Campus? Remember how nice it was?

Well this year they’ve decided to do something even better. Something that I have been hearing some people talk about for a while.

They’ve opened up their grand 27-acre Lakeside Campus which is around a 5-acre lake. A FREAKING 5-ACRE LAKE!

If I had to guess, the glass building on the left is the pride and joy of their campus: their 4-storey library that overlooks the lake. Must be nice for studying.

The campus also includes a Multipurpose Hall, 300 pax lecture halls, an outdoor Amphitheatre, multi service sports centre, gymnasium and swimming pool.

What I think is cool though, is that they’ve built it to be an “eco-friendly” campus with the natural coolings systems and ventilated spaces.

Anyway the whole point of this entry is to invite any of you potential students to check out Taylor’s University College new Lakeside Campus at the Open Day happening on the 11-13th of December between 10AM-5PM.

They’ve got quite a bit of things lined up for the day like getting the Emmanuel Stroobant (The Chef In Black from the Asian Food Channel)

to cook something for everyone to try and Asha Gill from Lonely Planet. I remember Asha from my teenage days when I used to watch Channel V. All my friends used to talk about how hot and sexy she was…. Then she got married and broke the hearts of an army of teenager boys.

Open Days are like the kind of things you would go for if you’re not sure what to do after school. I was like that once. Out of school, had no idea what I wanted to do but I guess I wanted to be in finance since my whole family was in finance. So I just studied economics, accounting, stuff like that.

What I did realize later on though was that there was a lot more than that. This Open Day allows you to check out different fields to see what you’d like to do and if Taylor’s University College is the right place for you. Explore the different things you could do for a living. Whether it’s bring an engineer, a marketer, a hotel manager or even a professional gamer. Haha no I was kidding about the professional gamer part. You don’t need to study a course for that, you just need DEDICATION, DETERMINATION, HARD WORK and glasses because by the time you become good enough to be one, you’re gonna need a pair.

Why do you think I wear glasses?

It wasn’t because I was doing research on how to split the atom. It was because of those damn games that still haunt me today.

DAMN YOU CALL OF DUTY MODERN WARFARE!!!

Oh anyway anyway.. back to topic if you’d like to check out Taylor’s Open Day @ Lakeside Campus, click here.

Maybe one day you could play XBOX gam….. I mean… work hard in an internet company like me. *heh heh*

Princess is a little unwell today 🙁

Somehow since last night she caught a bit of a fever and has a sore throat. Just took her to the doctor in the afternoon and doctor gave her some antibiotics. Hope she gets well in time for our trip to Japan in a few days. Fingers crossed also that I don’t get sick myself any time before or on the trip. Otherwise it’ll be such a waste.

Before we went to see the doctor this morning though, Princess and I had another appointment to keep. We headed over to the Female magazine studio at Sunway Damansara for a story about our relationship. Our story was going to be featured in Female magazine for their February issue (in line with Valentine’s Day I think) along with a few other couples.

When we got there, a photoshoot was going on for another couple before us. We didn’t really get a chance to meet but I think the guy’s name was Gabriel.

Our shoot was right after theirs so we quickly got on to doing some make-up. Princess went first.

And me later on. The make-up artist did some touch ups and covered up any pimples I had. See the end result!

They made my skin so smooth. Yes.. it’s not normally this smooth.

I thought the studio was pretty cool. They had a lot of windows so there was a lot of natural light coming in and they could do certain things to adjust the natural light for any of the pictures they took.

Like there was a window on top where the sun would come in and with just a click of a remote, they could close it up.

The journalist said Princess and I had a lot of “chemistry” *yay*.

So after the photoshoot we had an interview where we told the whole story of how we came about, what we’re like to each other etc etc.

If you want to see the result of the interview and the photoshoot, wait for the February issue of Female magazine ok ?

In the mean time and speaking of interviews, here’s the recording of the BFM interview I had that day.

My mum enjoyed listening to it but when it came to the part where I talked about Princess, my mum said “Why you proclaim your love to Princess on radio? If break-up then how?”

I just said… “Aiyah if it’s not meant to be and it ends then it ends lor.”

But right now it still feels like it’s meant to be.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Princess is a little unwell today 🙁

Somehow since last night she caught a bit of a fever and has a sore throat. Just took her to the doctor in the afternoon and doctor gave her some antibiotics. Hope she gets well in time for our trip to Japan in a few days. Fingers crossed also that I don’t get sick myself any time before or on the trip. Otherwise it’ll be such a waste.

Before we went to see the doctor this morning though, Princess and I had another appointment to keep. We headed over to the Female magazine studio at Sunway Damansara for a story about our relationship. Our story was going to be featured in Female magazine for their February issue (in line with Valentine’s Day I think) along with a few other couples.

When we got there, a photoshoot was going on for another couple before us. We didn’t really get a chance to meet but I think the guy’s name was Gabriel.

Our shoot was right after theirs so we quickly got on to doing some make-up. Princess went first.

And me later on. The make-up artist did some touch ups and covered up any pimples I had. See the end result!

They made my skin so smooth. Yes.. it’s not normally this smooth.

I thought the studio was pretty cool. They had a lot of windows so there was a lot of natural light coming in and they could do certain things to adjust the natural light for any of the pictures they took.

Like there was a window on top where the sun would come in and with just a click of a remote, they could close it up.

The journalist said Princess and I had a lot of “chemistry” *yay*.

So after the photoshoot we had an interview where we told the whole story of how we came about, what we’re like to each other etc etc.

If you want to see the result of the interview and the photoshoot, wait for the February issue of Female magazine ok ?

In the mean time and speaking of interviews, here’s the recording of the BFM interview I had that day.

My mum enjoyed listening to it but when it came to the part where I talked about Princess, my mum said “Why you proclaim your love to Princess on radio? If break-up then how?”

I just said… “Aiyah if it’s not meant to be and it ends then it ends lor.”

But right now it still feels like it’s meant to be.

Have a great weekend everyone!

A few weeks ago, I snuck out of the office on a hot weekday afternoon and hopped into my car. Destination was at this place just off Jalan Duta, a place I’ve never been to before but no matter. I had my GPS! Sometimes my GPS gets me even more lost but that day… it brought me where I needed to go. To the Bombshelter office.

The office was at this really old apartment block that was constructed decades ago, far before I was born. Cool thing about it though was that while the outside looked like it was decades old, the inside of the Bombshelter office was really nice. Spacious, homely, big sofas and even an XBOX 360.

My reason for being there… was to shoot a video for Heineken in their festive campaign. Now it’s no secret that I am a Heineken fan. Heck everybody knows that. I drink Heineken anywhere I go… even on the beach of Phi Phi Island.

So much that every time I’m forced to drink any other beer (due to the unavailability of it at the outlet or something), I feel like I’m cheating on Heineken.

I have a nagging feeling too that I’m not the only one. I did a poll on my blog some time back on your favourite beer and 66% of you guys answered “Heineken”.

So I was happy to be a part of Heineken’s Festive video. Here are some pictures of the filming.
This is the living room of the Bombshelter office where they had a lot of the filming after moving some stuff around to add some variety to the background.

Here’s Cynthia who had her shooting just before mine. Joyce was right before her but I didn’t manage to take any pictures of hers.

The director was saying how hers was good and how she managed to get it all done in just a few takes.

Then came my turn *slaps forehead*. They decided to do it in one of their rooms right in front one of their supercomputers with a desktop wallpaper of a nice car.

It was right next to a window and the mic was pretty sensitive so I had to take many retakes. Like sometimes I talk halfway then a motorbike on the road rides past and makes an earth-shaking noise. Then the director has to “CUT!!!” and I had to start all over again. That is … until we finally put a mic on my shirt. Hehe.

The video is all part of Heineken’s Festive campaign where you can add the Facebook app and then throw a party by inviting your friends on Facebook. If you collect enough points, Heineken will give you a party kit to help with your festive party.

If you’re not planning your own party, you can always attend one of the Star Parties that they have planned. Party info can be found on their app too under the “Star Parties tab”. Or if you’re a blogger, there’s going to be a blogger party on Christmas eve. You’ll hear about it as it comes closer to Christmas but keep an ear open.

Parties aside, what I think is a lot cooler though is this: You can get all these Heineken postcards at outlets like Laundry Bar, Terrace Bar , WIP and Havana.

The postcards look like this.

On its own it looks.. incomplete…

But when you put it on… jeng jeng jeng…

You kinda get what the mask is supposed to do then.

All of these postcards anyway have this unique code behind it. You can take these unique codes, redeem it and use it to plant a ‘virtual tree’.

When I started doing it, it’s so far an empty plot of land but I’m sure by the end of the campaign there’s going to be an entire forest there.

The trees will be planted at conservation areas in Pahang in conjunction with Earth Day next year. You know to try make up for the many many trees we consume each year. I remember when I was interning at a bank once, my bank printed the entire Annual Report of a company twice (by accident).

He walked to my desk and dropped a big heavy pile of paper on my desk and said

Clement if you’re out there… plant a Heineken tree!!!

Anyway, check out the app and the parties guys. Happy New Year! Party hard but drink responsibly ok?

Know your limits!!! I know my limit. My limit is when I turn so red people mistake me for Sebastian.
“Sha-la-la-la-la-la my oh my, look at the boy too shy, he ain’t gonna.. kiss the girl….”

I just got back from Penang after spending the long weekend there. Spent some good quality time with my parents who I now only get to see not more than once a month. Parents are like that: Like they’re really happy to see you and really happy whenever you’re back home. What they also like to do sometimes is to take you out for lunch or dinner with their friends.

Yesterday I went followed my mum and her friends for lunch at this really interesting restaurant somewhere in town. I can’t remember now what it’s called but I was really inspired by the story behind the restaurant.

Here it goes. The owner who is also the chef and a Datuk is a very famous and successful businessman in Penang, He’s more widely known in Penang as the “Jostick King” because he is the main supplier for all the josticks that Buddhists in Penang use for prayer. He’s also in quite a number of other businesses and has a big house on a hill.

Interesting thing about him is that he loves cooking so much that even the kitchen he has at home is apparently like some commercial restaurant kitchen with all the equipment any chef could ask for. So one day, he decided that because he liked cooking so much, he was going to start his own restaurant and be the chef for it.

That’s right. He’s the actual chef in his own restaurant.

Here are some of the dishes he had at his restaurant.

Some prawn with Mayo salad and crab ball thingy.

His very famous Hokkien mee.

And Hainanese Chicken rice 🙂

What’s even more cool is that a lot of his friends always have known him to be a really good cook so they come regularly just to eat at his new restaurant. He has the usual menu for but for his friends he has a special menu that changes every day. He basically doesn’t tell you how many dishes there are going to be, or what he’s cooking. He just looks at what fresh ingredients he got in the market that morning and cooks whatever he feels like cooking. So if he got really fresh fish that morning, he would cook something with fish.

The food was great but what I couldn’t get my mind over was this amazing story. I mean here you have someone in his 50s or so who has worked hard and earned a lot of money all his life. He has a hobby which is cooking and he decided to take that hobby to a whole new level. Not to just own a restaurant, but to be the chef of his very own restaurant.

That is… quite a story.

What would you like to do one day if you had earned all the money you needed?

I’m back in Penang this long weekend to see my family. Brothers and all are all coming back too so it was a family reunion that I couldn’t miss.

Princess decided to tag along since she wanted to attend her cousin’s wedding in Penang this weekend. Rather than drive back this time and risk being stuck in a huge jam, I decided to fly. And in deciding to fly, I decided to give Firefly a shot after the many urgings from my Dad to try it. The big plus of Firefly of course is that it leaves from Subang Airport which is a lot nearer than KLIA or LCCT.

Princess doesn’t like Firefly. She had a really bad experience last year and she swore never to take it again but since I really wanted to try it, she decided to give it a second chance. I booked a flight for 11.50AM on Friday morning.

Just when we were about to leave for the airport… say at around 9.30AM we got an SMS from Firefly saying that the flight had been delayed an hour from 11.50AM to 12.50PM.

We were glad Firefly let us know before we actually got to the airport so we happily called our taxi driver to tell him to pick us up later while we got a bit more sleep.

We reached the airport at around 11.30AM and went to check-in. Just when we got to the check-in counter, we saw an announcement that said the flight had been delayed a further 1 and a half hours to 2.20PM.

Princess and I were a bit annoyed but we decided to just chill and let it go. After all, the reason they gave for the delay was that they were having problems with the plane so I’m happy to wait a bit longer until they fix the plane, for safety’s sake. We went to the pub to have lunch and decided to hang out there using their wi-fi until 2.20PM.

Then just shortly after, say about 12-1 something I got another text from Firefly saying that the flight had been delayed to 3PM.

I went to the counter furious. Wanting to know what the hell was going on but I wasn’t the only one. Lots of people were queuing up at the counter making complaints, trying to see what they can do. It seemed that it wasn’t just the Penang flight that was rescheduled and delayed. The other flights to Singapore, Langkawi and all these other places were retimed too.

By 1.30PM or so, the flight had been delayed to 4.50PM. Our 11.50AM flight delayed to 4.50PM which would make it 5 hours. I called my Dad to tell him this and he was like “Wtf?”.

I asked the Firefly staff if they could guarantee us that 4.50PM was to be the last change but they couldn’t. Because I didn’t want to potentially wait until nightfall for the flight to come, I decided to try booking MAS from KLIA. There was a 4.10PM flight on MAS but economy class was fully booked. The only seats left were Business Class I was forced to take the two Business Class Tickets back.

I reached Penang on the MAS flight at 5PM and looked at the Arrivals screen only to see that my Firefly flight was delayed from 4.50PM to 8PM Arrival. That would make it 7 hours before I could get on the Firefly plane and fly back to Penang.

I was so glad I ditched the Firefly ticket and took another flight back.

Firefly promised to refund me my tickets but they said they will take 14 working days – 2 months to do it. Can you believe that? I think that’s just unreasonably long. Not to mention the extra costs I had to incur, taking a cab from home to Subang Airport, then another one to KLIA. Each cab ride cost me like RM75 – RM90.

And above all this, the most important of all was time cost.

So you can imagine how furious I was. I went on a freaking Twitter rampage man. Tweeting all about it.

Then a lot of people started Re-tweeting my tweets.

And I also saw a lot of other Twitterers even on other Firefly flights tweeting about their bad experiences in flying Firefly including Elaine Daly herself who happened to be flying to Singapore that day.

Man I went on a freaking Twitter rampage but after a while I managed to cool down after relaxing a bit in the MAS Business Class lounge at KLIA while waiting for my flight back.

Had some Vietnamese noodles there to feed the hungry and angry man.

Now it’s been more than a day since the incident and I have SIGNIFICANTLY cooled down. If you notice, I hardly blog anything bad about any brands. I just don’t like to flame people or brands because behind every brand is a company that hires people who have families that depend on their jobs. I think it’s not a nice thing to do but I felt this one really pushed me over the limit.

Then again, perhaps it’s just bad luck on Firefly’s side. Bad luck that their plane had problems on a busy weekend. I kinda put myself in their situation for a while trying to think how I could’ve handled it better than they did but I couldn’t immediately think of anything. They did issue an apology in the press a day later.

One thing I think they could do to turn this crisis into an opportunity to make good isn’t just to apologize but to somehow make it up to the people who were affected by this.

For me it’s simple. I just want my refund quick.

And finally, while I’ve told you guys about this really horrible experience here. I’m going to be objective about this and tell you that I was at a friend’s birthday party today telling everyone there about my bad experience.

There were a few of them there who told me they regularly flew Firefly and they typically didn’t have any problems with it. Plus they said it’s just a lot more convenient. Not just because Subang Airport is nearer but the time they take to Taxi the plane is a lot less since they don’t have much air traffic there. So they generally had good experiences with Firefly.

So the truth is because I still hear good things about them, I may fly Firefly again one day (unless they piss me off again by not refunding me or do something else to upset me). I’ll probably give them a second chance so if you have other booked flights with Firefly, don’t worry. I may just be one of the unlucky people.

I’m not sure if I can convince Princess to do it again though. She wasn’t happy that afternoon. I think she was thinking “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

Okay Day 2 at Disneyland Hong Kong.

Here are the pictures.

1) Was down by 9AM for breakfast in the Enchanted Garden restaurant in Disneyland Hotel. Princess is never usually up so early on weekends but traveling with Ming is like that. Ming demands that everyone is up early so that they can get more done.

In fact he initially ordered everyone to be downstairs for breakfast by 8AM but the Disney Cast Members saved us by telling us that the park only opens at 10AM anyway. So Ming let us sleep an hour more.

Then went on to the buffet line to stock up our plates.

They had everything from Japanese food to Mickey Mouse pancakes.

This was what Mike was having for breakfast.

Halfway during breakfast, Minnie came by to say good morning and take pictures with us.

3) Went for a few rides in the park. Starting with Space Mountain which was a fun rollercoaster.

4) Estee bought herself a big Disney glove and we were playing with it while queuing to ride Space Mountain.

Princess and Estee with the big hand.

Me and Ming having a serious handshake.

5) Then our turn came to ride the rollercoaster. I kept telling the rest that it wasn’t a scary ride. I mean scary rollercoasters to me are those with big loops, corkscrews and huge drops. The Space Mountain had none of that. It was just a lot of sharp turns and moving up and down. Just a lot of good fun. Not scary at all.

Judging by the pictures though, not everyone agreed with me.

Check out Ming and Estee in the front row. Ming looks like he’s blasting off into space.

and this is the picture of the rest of us.

Princess and I were in the front row. Then right behind us is Ringo and Redmummy, blocked by my big fat head. And on the last row is Xiaxue and Mike.

Xiaxue wasn’t pleased. She came out from Space Mountain cursing loudly “WHO SAID IT WASN’T SCARY… WHO!”

I acted like I was invisible.

6) We went for a few more rides and performances after that. One of my favourite rides is “Stitch Encounter” where they got a cartoon of Stitch to interact with the audience.

The cartoon is controlled by someone hiding behind the screen or something and he made really cute expressions.

Wish I could’ve taken pictures of that but no photography was allowed inside.

7) Went on for the Buzz Lightyear ride.

This is me trying to look like the green alien.

and this is me and Princess trying to look like the green alien.

and Princess here trying to look like Buzz Lightyear getting a briefing from Star Command.

The ride is this game where you go around in this ride and shoot targets with your laser guns. Ming and Estee were fiercely competitive in this game.

Managed to get them out of their competitive spirit for a few seconds to take this picture.

Princess here trying to look Mrs Smith-ish.

And me here just looking like a boy with a plastic toy gun.

8) Went to see a few more things. Took a raft across the river.

To go up Tarzan’s treehouse.

9) Walked past a homeless man.

HAHA nono he’s not homeless. There are no homeless people in Disneyland. He’s just a guy taking a nap.

10) Then we went to take some pictures with Pooh!!!

until I saw him hug Princess. *jealous*

I’m watching you POOH!!!!

11) Princess and me in front of the Disneyland Castle.

12) Princess, Ringo and me.

13) Spent the rest of the day going on some more rides in the park and a great deal of it shopping for Disneyland Souvenirs.

They had these little cute Mickey Mouse chairs on the dinner table.

Lots of great food at the buffet. I remember the lamb and the beef being absolutely fantastic!

Had Sashimi and all that too but my favourite of the night… was the ice-cream machine for dessert.

Where you can make your own ice-cream with all the toppings you wanted.

Here was mine.

BWHAHAAH

14) The dinner was a great way to end the trip. We all talked about what a great trip it was and how much fun we had. Even on small small things we did like right after dinner the girls wanted to take the bus back to the hotel which would take them a whole round around the park eventhough Disneyland Hotel was right next to Hollywood Hotel.

Mike, Ming and I decided to go our own way and walk and we were all racing back to the hotel to make sure we would reach before the girls. We knew that if the girls reached before us, they would never let us hear the end of it.

You know something like “HAHA!!! See lah you guys! Not only have to walk in the cold but also arrive later than us!!”

15) It was such a great trip. Great company at such a magical place!

Totally worth the memories we brought home. Great traveling with you guys: Mike, Xiaxue, Ringo, Redmummy, Ming, Estee and of course, Princess.

Thank you Disneyland Hong Kong… for having us over.