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Melbourne Part 3: Footy & Crown

After our road trip to Phillip Island, we made it back to the hotel for a quick shower and then off to watch a footy match. Footy is a sport that is played only in Australia and predominantly around Melbourne. But it’s huge there.
I could see how huge it was for Kruppy who was bringing us there. On the way to the Etihad Stadium he was gleaming away in excitement. 
He wasn’t the only one. Crowds of people flocked to the stadium just to catch a match against the Bulldogs and the Magpies (Not their real club names but what they were referred as). 

Lots of people were wearing jerseys of the team they were supporting and it really looked like a football match in England except for one thing: They let the audience for opposing teams sit together whereas in England, the Liverpool supporters are always separated from the Man Utd ones or a fight would break out.
Footy is a bit like rugby and it’s pretty fast paced so it gets quite exciting.

Trying to act it up like the locals, we all had by tradition…. a pie on one hand and a beer on the other. Apparently that’s what everyone here is supposed to have while watching the match though we later realized that we seem to be the only ones holding both during the match.

The people around us must’ve been thinking
“Silly tourists… they must’ve read that in some silly tour guide book and think we all do it”.
Here’s a picture of Princess & me and the Perfect Couple Pierre & Lay See. 

Pierre is in the background eating his pie.

The match was great fun though. I was losing focus by half time so Grace suggested a game with Ming where every time her team scores she would get to punch Ming in the arm and every time Ming’s team scores a goal he would get to punch her.
Grace’s team was winning all the way up to the moment he made the bet so she was pretty happy with herself. Right after she made the bet though, Ming’s team embarked on a winning streak.
By the end of the match, Grace was punched so many times in her arm we nearly had to call social services.
We all left the stadium just before the game ended to avoid getting stuck in a major jam.
Destination was back to the hotel to shower again and freshen up for dinner. Dinner was to be at Crown (the hotel & casino), at Rockpool with the Aussie Nuffies.
The Pierre & Lay See came along as our guests too.
We ended up waiting like 1 and a half hours for our food to come after ordering it. Can you imagine that?
Then we called the waiter with the intent to complain but when we said our food is not here, she calmly replied “It takes at least half an hour to prepare your steak”. It was like her saying “You can’t rush the artist…. and our chef is one… so wait patiently or get out”.
And like art it was…. the steak we had that night was…. GOOD. 
After dinner we all went to the casino for a while where Pierre and Ming bullied me. I budgeted to lose only up to AUD100 that night and we were playing roulette. The money I use at gambling to me is like an entertainment expense. I treat it like money I would spend if I went out at night to a club or bar or something anyway. So I was losing bit by bit but I was having fun nevertheless.
Then came a point where Pierre suddenly decided to be brave and pushed in all his chips on BLACK. Giving him an almost 50:50 chance to double his money or lose everything.
Ming followed in and pushed all his chips into black as well and they both looked at me and told me to do it too. I cowered… “WAN MEHH???!?”
I didn’t want to lose all my money that quickly… but they threatened our friendship so I put everything in except for a small little pile of chips just for me to play another 10 minutes before after we lose that big round.
Just when I thought that I had gotten away with it, Pierre shouted across the table
“TIM!!! I SEE YOU HIDING SOME CHIPS THERE!!! PUT IT IN… NOW”.
And I reluctantly put out my chips waiting for it to disappear by the hands of the dealer.
All of us watched in fear as the roulette wheel spun round and round and I nearly passed out from the anxiety. Then the roulette ball landed on black and we were all saved!!! We all doubled our money!!!!
The next 2 times I did that same thing that night I lost though and I ended up losing whatever money I budgeted for the night.
So lesson of the day…. you never win at gambling.

The Nuffnang Asia-Pacific Blog Awards

I’m really excited about the Nuffnang Asia-Pacific Blog Awards. For the longest time, Ming and I have wanted to do the a Blog Awards. We knew though that we didn’t want to simply do one where you’ll just have a website announce it and then later on announce the winners. 

We wanted to do one that had an actual award show with a grand gala dinner,

something like the Oscars for blogs. Finally after over 2 and a half years of Nuffnang being around we’ve finally found the support and the resources to do a big one. It’s going to be held in Uniquely Singapore and sponsored by Pringles.
I’m excited not just because a lot of top bloggers from all over the region will be there but also because it will also be the first time the entire Nuffnang team from Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and Australia will meet together for the first time.

The date is the 23rd October 2009. Keep it in your calendars guys!
If you’d like to nominate a blog for the award or find more details on how to go, click here.
PS: Thank you to those who nominated my blog but naturally being one of the Nuffnang Founders I’m not allowed to win 🙁

Melbourne Part 2: Road Trip

My phone alarm clock started ringing away. My eyes painted a picture of my surroundings and sent all that information back to my brain for it to decipher where I was. I wasn’t in my bed back home. I was in my hotel room in Melbourne and the time was 7.30AM.
Next to me I heard a little snoring sound. The little baby dinosaur I call Princess during the hours that I’m awake was still asleep. Snoring away. I nudged her  “Baby wake up… time to get up”.
She ignored me.
On normal Sundays I would have let her sleep for a while longer but not that day. That Sunday, we were all supposed to report in the hotel lobby at 8AM sharp to go for a road trip that Colonel Ming had planned for us in his “military-style” routine.

So I nudged the little baby dinosaur once more and gave her a warning this time “If we’re late… Ming is going to be pissed…”. I knew not only would he be pissed but he’ll probably ask us to “Get down and gimme 20”.
The baby dinosaur comprehended then woke up letting up a little “Roarr!!!!”.
About 25 minutes later we were all downstairs waiting for David to come meet us and take us for the trip. We were going in two cars. David was driving one and we rented another car that Ming was going to drive.
We had some early morning chatter but Princess though was still very much asleep. This is how she really literally looked like the whole morning.
Kinda like sleep walking like that the whole morning. Normally when there’s a camera pointed at her, Princess would get herself to the best angle and make a good pose for herself so she turned out well in the pictures.
That morning though as you can see she literally didn’t give a flying fuck.
It was too early.
Soon, David got here and we sped off on our road trip to Phillip Island. Phillip Island is where people normally go to see penguins early in the morning or late at night but we were going during the day so we were heading there to see some kangaroos and koalas.
The whole drive took about two hours. Just before I fell asleep this was the scenery I was looking at from the car.
And when I woke up… this was what I was looking at.
From city to country.
The little baby dinosaur was sleeping the whole time in the car so she was pretty much awake by the time we reached.
We entered this Wildlife park where they gave us bags of animal feed for us to feed the animals there. The first sign of animal life we saw there were these little duckies.
Princess was quick to draw out her bag of feed to serve them breakfast. Then she saw her first wallaby.

She thought it was cute so she started feeding it through the fence.
I have trouble telling the difference between the kangaroo and the wallaby. They look similar but there are some differences. Like the kangaroo is supposed to be a lot bigger than the wallaby.
Right after we dragged Princess away before she used up all her feed in the first 5 minutes, we walked into this open field to see more kangaroos. We were met instead by emus which I can honestly tell you are probably one of the scariest birds out there.

They’re big and tall and they’re not afraid of humans. When we walked in they came right at us and looked us in the eye. It kinda looks like a velociraptor. You kinda keep thinking that it’s going to peck you in the eye or something.
Not to mention it was a little annoying too. It knew that some of us had the bags of food in our pockets so it kept trying to dig into our pockets with its beak. And when we tried to feed a poor little wallaby it would come over and try to eat up all the food for itself.
We carried on our walk through the park and we saw more kangaroos and wallabies. Princess took the opportunity to feed more of them and have them eat out of her hand.
That was something I honestly didn’t like doing. I just don’t like the idea of having any animal lick off stuff from my hand. Just a little… geli. This is how I feed the animals.
That’s right… no bending down with food in my hands. Just me pouring it out and say “Here… come get it… good boy … good boy”.
Suddenly we heard a little girl shout “NO NO NO!!! DADDY!!!!….. GIVE IT BACK!!! GIVE IT BACK!!!”
David’s eldest daughter, Ariel was just as generous as Princess in giving out food. She saw this wallaby and she wanted to feed it but she accidentally let the entire bag slip and the wallaby was having it all for itself. 
Ariel asked the wallaby to give the bag back but it just went on to take a bite off the paper bag itself.
David and Ariel gave up on that last bag and we walked on. We saw a lot more animals and ended up seeing a cage with eagles in it. 
Kinda felt a bit sad. I mean the eagles in the cage could only fly and open its wings for no more than 3 seconds before it reached the other end of the cage. 

Eagles just look like they should be free… not in a cage. Either that or put them in a really big cage where they can fly around.
A little further down from the eagles cage we saw the cutest animal of all. The wombat!!!
It’s so cute.

It’s like this little giant hamster that moves really slowly. Kinda looks like a big furball. It was very popular among the girls. Just because everyone thought he was cute, they were all showering him with food.
He was having a breakfast buffet!
The next cutest animal to the wombat is of course the koala. The koala though has got to be the laziest animal in the world.
All it does is hang on a tree and sleep. We saw so many of them and not one of them was awake.
Pierre, Ming and I decided to take a picture with a couple of them in the background.
We reached the end of the park really quickly after the koala bear. We paid a quick visit to the souvenir store and I saw this really cute stuffed wombat that I was thinking of buying for Princess.
Then I thought of all the tens of stuffed toys she had at home and of how she really didn’t need another one to take up its place as much as she tried to make me grow attached to it by placing it on my shoulder.

So she kissed the stuffed wombat goodbye… 

and all 12 of us left in the two cars and headed back to Melbourne.
We were going to catch a footie match in the afternoon. Will blog about that soon too. I shall leave you guys with a picture of the little baby dinosaur and me in the Kangaroo park.
Ahh what a start to a Sunday.

DAVID TAO IS COMING TO THE T.MUSIC FESTIVAL!!!

I AM A FREAKING BIG DAVID TAO FAN!!!

The T. Music Festival is a concert by Tiger which will bring in some of the top artists in Asia.

So when I heard about T. Music running a campaign on Nuffnang to promote the T. Music Festival I jumped at the opportunity and begged they give me the advertorial.
Begged… as in I almost went down on my knees and said
“PUH-LEEEEEEEEEZEEE!!!”

I also begged that they give me not just tickets for myself… but also for me to give away to some of my readers who are equally huge fans as well. 
Let me first tell you what the “T. Music Festival” is about. It’s a 5-hour long marathon concert brought to you by Tiger Beer and it’s going to be held in Bukit Jalil National Stadium on the 12th of September.
The singers who are going to be there are….

From Hong Kong: Joey Yung, Justin, Kay Tse, Khalil Fong, Soler and Kenny Kwan.

From China: Jade Liu and Ocean

And from Taiwan: Power Station, Sam Lee and DAVID TAO!!!!
DAVID TAO!!!
I LOVE DAVID TAO. Let me show you guys his songs that I love.

First there’s this one

Then there’s this one
And this one. A song about a situation a lot of guys face in their lifetimes. About a guy liking a girl and wanting to be more than just a friend. Ahhh we’ve all been there.
And then…. There is my ALL TIME FAVOURITE…
I CAN’T MISS THIS!!!!
The tickets though are RM268, RM168 and RM118 for the numbered seating and RM68 for free seating but I have something better.

Tiger has given me 10 pairs of tickets to give away to my readers!!! So 10 of you (with a friend or a date) can go for the concert as well. If we’re lucky we might be able to go together.

Don’t you guys just love Tiger?
The thing is though, there are thousands of you out there and I need to figure out a way to narrow down who to give the tickets too. 
So I’m going to run a simple contest okay?
Leave a comment and tell me what you would do if you had a chance to meet any of the artists that were going for the T. Music Festival. (I’ve opened it up so anyone can comment as opposed to in the past where only Blogger Account holders can comment) I’ll pick the best few comments ok?

Please also email me your comment at lengmoublogs@yahoo.com so that I can contact you if you’re one of the winning comments.

Deadline in 2 days (Closes 7th Sept, Monday 12.00AM)!

Melbourne Part 1

I spent a whole week in Melbourne and now when I sit down and want to start to write about it, I can think of so many things to cover. So many things I did.
So I’m going to kinda split this into two or possibly three parts to avoid me writing too long an entry.
Here’s what I did in the earlier part of the trip.
1) Spent the first few days spending time in the office meeting with the Nuffnang Australia Nuffies on some things.
2) David brought us out on Thursday night to Chadstone Mall. He brought his new born daughter along: Charlotte.
She’s adorable!
Ming at first thought Charlotte was a he… in spite of the white bow on her head.
3) We were there for dinner. I wanted to try something new but Ming and Princess insisted on eating Nandos.
NANDOS!!! OF ALL THINGS!!! They came all the way to Melbourne… just to eat Nandos… *bangs forehead against wall*
4) After dinner we spotted a cute stuffed toy of King Julian from Madagascar in this machine.

Princess jumped in excitement so Ming tried to help her win it. He ended up spending something like RM30 without managing to get it in the end.
5) Then we popped by this candy shop that made tiny cylinder shaped lollipops which started off with this big piece of candy glob.
Then they shape up pieces of it into rods and heat it up to harden it.
The end result is little candy like that.
6) Having seen enough candy, we went for ice-cream!!!

7) Friday came and we spent much of the day in a little workshop our Aussie Nuffies were conducting. Ming and I watched as David gave a presentation about Nuffnang.

David is very very experienced in digital media, having worked in the industry for many years before Nuffnang. Was so interesting watching how someone else presented Nuffnang.
8) After the workshop we opened the doors that led to this nice chill-out area with a fireplace. Just to have drinks and chat.

9) For dinner on Friday night, I met up with my friend Hsin Yi and her boyfriend Brad. She took us to this really really quaint Japanese fusion restaurant somewhere on Liverpool Street. One thing I like about Melbourne is these really small restaurants with only 5-6 tables that you’ll find down some alley.
Had a lot of raw food (something I never really eat much of) but it was nice. 

10) The next day was Saturday. Pierre and Lay See came down to Melbourne to meet us too. 

Both Pierre and Lay See studied in Melbourne for years but Lay See is apparently the only one who knows Melbourne well. Pierre apparently spent most of his student life in Melbourne watching free -to-air TV (that’s right… not even cable TV). So I guess they complemented each other well. Lay See knew where to go in Melbourne and Pierre always knew what was on TV! I bet he knew his TV schedule so well he knew exactly what time he had to turn on the TV to watch a Dove commercial or something.
11) Lay See decided to take the girls shopping. So shopping we went.
I was enthusiastic at first. But it quickly wore off. You know when you tell people that you’ll bring your gf shopping and carry her bags you feel proud of yourself.
Then I would spend like an hour following Princess around while she picks clothes and I soon realize that I lose focus. It’s just something the male mind often fails to concentrate on. Especially when Princess asks me a million times about whether I like a particular dress. And when I say “YES“. 

She picks the OTHER dress. But she doesn’t buy it on the spot. No no… that would make the shopping experience too easy. She would say “Okay let me go look around first to see if I find something better”.
Then she goes around to look for something better (and never finding it) and eventually decides to walk back to the same shop we were at an hour ago. By then, probably like 20 minutes walk away or something. Ahh that is…. the National Service experience of following your girlfriend shopping.
Fortunately with technology, men find things to do. I ended up playing Paper Toss on my iPhone.
While Princess browsed through her clothes.

The salesgirl walked past and saw me playing the iPhone. She said “Oh how fun” but deep inside I knew she felt my pain.
12) After a while I gave up and went outside the shop to wait with the rest of the guys. They looked very bored. Pierre was playing table tennis on his iPhone and Ming was looking… well.. angry.

Soon enough, Princess was done.
And we all went for dinner at Pacific Seafood where Ming said he had the Best Lobster Noodles. We all went to bed early that night. Because the next morning, Ming demanded we all be up at 7AM to go for a road trip. We managed to get up that morning… but with Princess feeling so grumpy it looked like she would punch an elf for the fun of it.
To be continued…
Will blog about that soon 🙂

Cute Princess

Hi Everyone!
We’re back in Malaysia now. After a whole week working in Melbourne. Will blog about the trip more in time to come but in the mean time let me share a really cute picture with you.
This morning we were at the Melbourne airport waiting to get a flight back home. I was tired from carrying all the bags so I collapsed on some seats while Princess filled in our Departure Card. You know the card where you have to fill in your name, address, which Aussie state you spent the most time in etc etc….
I looked up only to see this view of Princess. I quickly took out my camera to grab a shot.
Notice how the counter was so high that Princess literally had to reach up to her chin level just to write on the cards?
Hehehehe so adorable.
She shot a look at me after I took the first picture, so I took another one.

Hehee… I’m convinced that I’m going out with one of the cutest girls in the world.

Nuffnang Australia’s Melbourne Office

For those of you who have been following me on Twitter, I’ve been in Melbourne for the past week with Ming to handle some work stuff.

I dragged Princess along with me too. When I told Princess I was going to Melbourne for business for a week, she said “So you’re going to leave me alone for the long Merdeka weekend?”.
My heart softened and I said “Okayyyy you can come along…”.
Not sure if she kinda regretted it though because for the first few days of our trip here I was spending most of my time working in our office. Most of the mornings she didn’t even make it up in time for breakfast so I always ended up stealing a muffin for her at the breakfast buffet so she can eat on the way to the office.
This is where I feel really stupid. I just realized that I didn’t take any pictures of our office in Melbourne. I mean I have a picture of how it looks like on the outside.

But not on the inside.  Shall make it a point to take some tomorrow. In the mean time for illustration purposes, I’ll steal one of Ming’s older pics of the Nuffnang Australia office.
I did however take a picture of our hotel room at the Westin. 

It’s really really nice.
Working in the Nuffnang Australia office was a bit of a culture shock for me. I mean… back in Malaysia, the Nuffnang team starts work between 8.30AM-9.30AM and they finish at least around 7PM. Some even stay till 12AM or later. 
If you leave at 5.30PM or something, someone will surely shout “OI!!! HALF DAY AR?”
In the Nuffnang Australia office though. Everyone starts work at 8.30AM and starts leaving by 5.30PM. By 6PM… the entire office is empty! But in those 9 hours though… everyone is extremely focused on work and nothing else. No water cooler chatter, no Facebook, no nothing.
Just serious work for maximum productivity.

Lately, the Nuffies here in Nuffnang Australia have been working on a number of blogger initiatives. Like the Challenge 1000 where they send out all these gifts to some of their most loyal bloggers. 

And if you walk around Melbourne you’ll see they’ve been doing some guerilla marketing. Sticking these Nuffnang stickers all around.

Our meetings are very very intense and very very productive. We cover a lot in a short time. But after a while we all decide to take a break from it all and go for lunch… like the other day we went to this really nice cafe.
This is David, one of our local partners who has been extremely hospitable to both Ming and I. Taking us places and buying us way too many meals!

This is Princess and me.

And this is Ming. At first I wanted to take a nice “gazing into the sunlight” picture of Ming since there was sunlight coming into the window he was sitting next to but he only ended up with this angry face.
Ming and Pinky
This is David Krupp, one of our latest additions to the Nuffie team. 

Because he has the same name as the other David, we call him Kruppy. He used to work in MySpace before he came to Nuffnang.
He’s really really intelligent and very passionate about social media and blogs. He’s also really really nice, easy to talk to and of course charming on the ladies (I can tell). We’re lucky to have him.
Did I mention that he’s also really tall?
Much taller than Princess.
I really like the team here. Maybe I’ll blog more about them someday. In the mean time, here’s a picture of some of us in Nuffnang Australia.

There’s Pinky, Ming, our partners Martyn and David and Kruppy.

It’s been a fun trip so far and the Aussie Nuffies have been extremely hospitable towards us. Gotta go to bed now everyone. Tomorrow morning I’ve gotta get up to go buy some stuff from the market then head to the office for some work. Yes… I have to work even on Merdeka.

Have a great week ahead everyone!

My Five Stones Home

Hello!!!

Welcome to my new home

Come in come in. Let me show you around.

This is my living room.

This is me getting drinks for my guests at my kitchen.


This is me entertaining my guests on my balcony


This is me watching football with my friends.

This is me deciding what to wear on my dinner out in my huge ass walk-in closet.

This is me reading a book in my bedroom while waiting for Princess to get ready.

This is me relaxing in my living room on a nice Sunny Sunday afternoon


This is me in my home office at home where I do some work over the weekends.

This is me taking a crap in my nice beautiful toilet.

This is me scolding my son for having an untidy room….

And this is my living room with…. With some strangers in it.

Ok fine… I’ve snapped out of it. This beautiful exclusive condo isn’t mine *cry
Last week Selangor Dredging Berhad invited me to view the show units of their new development in SS2, Petaling Jaya. Desmond and Paul came along as well for the little advertorial adventure. We were given a tour by a nice lady named Lina.

Just listening to Lina, you could feel the passion she had for the development that was called Five Stones.
Everything down to the principle of it.

Each stone in the name was meant to represent the 5 precious values that create a great living experience: A spacious home, a lot of outdoor space & facilities, the sense of a community to grow up in (where you would know your neighbors’ well), getting to spend quality time with the family and being in the middle of all the action in PJ. The sculptures in front of the show room represent the Five Stones.
I thought the facilities were really cool: the gym, the sports complex, the huge swimming pool but what caught my attention was this modern looking playground from Denmark apparently meant for kids.
Heck even swings these days have gone modern. Look at this!
I was sitting there for like a minute trying to figure out how to “play it” when the security guard came over and spun me round and round. My guess is he was probably playing a lot of it to become the expert he was.
But as much as I thought all that was cool, the most important thing to me was the space. The units I saw were about 1.800 sqf & 2,400 sqf which is a lot of space for a Condo. Yet, it’s only about RM450 per square feet so the price of the unit starts from about RM 800k. In some other areas around the Klang Valley they sometimes cost 50%-100% more than this.
My Hong Kong friend Joe was down from Hong Kong. I showed him photos of this apartment and told him how much it cost he was shocked. “RM 1,000,000 will get you nothing in Hong Kong” he said. Then again, Hong Kong’s property prices are just insane!
I don’t know whether it’s something you experience when you grow a little bit older but I kinda grew to like shopping for houses (or at least looking for them). When I was younger, I only thought about buying cars. How it would be nice to have a Lamborghini… but somehow those luxuries don’t matter as much to me now.

*looks at picture of the beautiful car*
Okay fine… I mean the Lamborghini is really nice but it still don’t really matter as much.
What matters to me now is the home that I choose to buy and stay in for the rest of my life. 

When I think about this home, I think about the memories I will have in my many years staying in it and I think of the kids that I will eventually raise in this home and the memories that they will have in that home.

Then I think of how that home will always leave a mark on my life, more than a car or any other material thing will. Growing up, I will always have a nostalgic feeling towards the home I grew up in, but not as much of a feeling towards the car my Dad used to drive us around in.
So now every day when I save as much money as I can, believe it or not I’m not saving towards buying a nice car or to go for a luxurious holiday somewhere. I’m saving to be able to buy a nice home one day. There are so many nice homes out there….
The Five Stones development is one of them.
I guess that’s why according to Lina they’ve sold over 65% of their units just a week after launching.
I think I’ve found a new hobby… looking at beautiful homes and dreaming of buying them. I just gotta make sure I start saving enough money to have one of these beautiful homes some time in the future.

If you already have saved enough and are looking to buy a beautiful home… you can check out Five Stones here.

Thank you for showing us around Lina.

The Gap Shopping Spree

Early last week, I got something from the nice people at Gap. They gave me RM1,000 worth of cash vouchers and asked me to do them an advertorial at one of their stores.
I jumped at the opportunity of course.

Me and Gap go a long way back. I first started buying Gap while I was studying in London. They had a flagship store on Oxford Street that I used to get a lot of my clothes from. Even the jacket I wore in the first year was from Gap.

So last weekend I made it to the closest Gap store to my home. The one at Pavilion.

Princess, who also doubles as my fashion consultant came along with me. I’m not allowed to shop for clothes without her for fear that I might end up buying jumpers and looking like a hillbilly.

I remember the first time she came into my room. She headed straight for my closet and then she went through everything, putting together a small pile of clothes. Then she pointed at the pile and said “This… is what you are allowed to wear from now on. If I see you wear anything else….”.
That is how she officially became my fashion consultant.

Anyway, I had never been to the Gap store in Pavilion before.

It’s pretty big!

And with clothes everywhere.

Having RM1,000 to spend in a store filled with clothes is like the shopaholic’s wet dream. I was spoilt for choice but I made a dash first for their new 1969 Premium Jeans’.

Heck I wear jeans every day. I wear it on weekdays to work and on weekends to wherever I go. It’s like the most versatile form of pants. You can wear it for anything and you don’t have to worry if you spilt anything on it. They’re hardy, comfortable and they work for everything.

To satisfy my jeans appetite at Gap, I tried on jeans after jeans….

There was straight cut, standard, loose and a lot more but soon enough I had found a winner. Or more like two winners.

The “Standard” and

the “Authentic” cut which had only just been launched.

They were really nice. I mean they were really comfortable, fit well and I really liked the cutting of them both. The length of the Standard cut was a little too long for me though, so I got the really helpful staff at Gap to help me alter it.
After I had gotten my hands on 2 pairs of jeans, I attacked the shirt department.

Check out a couple of the shirts I bought.

Princess said she liked shirts with white collars so I also got this.
Heck it’s like I have a whole list of things that Princess likes and does not like to see me wear. I know she likes shirts and t-shirts but she doesn’t like collared-t’s. She also does not like (or more like hate) any shirts with stripes on them. It took me a long time to learn all that.
Both the shirts though were stamped with Princess’ approval.

She said they were really nice and she also particularly liked this shirt.

Went well with my new Gap jeans.

Then I got a bit more ambitious and decided to try on a Gap hoodie.


When I put on the hood and pulled the strings to tighten it, I ended up looking like this.

Princess thought it was funny so she took a picture.
After what was like… 45 minutes in the store. I settled on what I’ve decided to spend the RM1,000 on.

Went to the counter and it turned out to cost more than the RM1,000 of vouchers I was given.

I had to make a choice…. Take out something from Gap pile or…. pay the extra in cash.

I decided that… you just can’t let nice clothes go to waste. So I ended up paying close to a hundred bucks more. It was totally worth it though. Got some really really really nice clothes then. It’s true. I’ve started thinking like a Shopaholic. I blame Princess!!!!

After we were done shopping, Princess and I went downstairs to look for the person who made this little fun shopping experience possible. We found her in this big Gap truck parked outside for anyone to go in and try on the new 1969 Premium Jeans.
The nice lady’s name is Jeanine.
They were having a little contest in the truck where they put up pictures of people holding up a white board to say what they were “Born to be”.

Gap jeans are born to fit… but we had a lot of people with different things altogether.

Princess liked this one though.


I think she could relate 🙂
Princess and I had an idea. We decided to write the white board for each other. So on her white board I wrote (with my poor handwriting and my pathetic attempt at drawing a heart)…
And on mine she wrote.

I got Jeanine to do one too. Wrote this on her board.
And yes if you’re wondering why the hand-writing on Jeanine’s white-board is so much nicer. It’s because it was written by Princess. Even the small little t-shirt on it was drawn by Princess.

Before we left the truck, they gave us some souvenirs including the pictures we had just taken a few minutes ago.

I thought it was really thoughtful.
We left the truck then to go back to the store and pick up my altered jeans but not before I took this last picture with Jeanine and Claire from Gap.

By the time I got back to the store to collect my jeans, they were all ready.
They fit perfectly.

Thank you Gap… for the wonderful shopping experience. And for some really really nice jeans 🙂
If you’re a fan of Gap, you can join their Facebook group here. I’m already a fan!

A Mister Potato Love Story

A few weeks ago I got an e-mail from a reader of mine named Intan.
Hey,
 
I read your blog all the time and this is gonna be so weird and I’m so sorry if this takes up your time.. but I just gotta try it.
 
My bf loves a particular flavor of Mr. Potato which is so difficult to find in Malaysia. It’s mayo&ketchup flavor. Anyway, he managed to find one can from an old store in Penang and he decided to share with me (eventhough it’s so rare) and brought it to our date. Unfortunately, he put it in my bag and the lid was opened and the content went everywhere inside my bag and no longer edible of course. I feel so guilty and wanted to find him a replacement but it’s so difficult to find.
 
I checked mamee’s website and turns out it’s export merchandise. I really can’t find it anywhere (and i’ve been searching for months).. and I noticed in your latest blog entry you mentioned your friend Pierre whose family owns Mamee right?
 
I would love to get a few cans for my bf. There didn’t seem to be any appropriate channel for me to ask in the website, and umm, if it’s not much trouble, could you help me? or at least forward my mail to your friend? It’s simple but I know it would mean so much to him. 
 
Thank you soooo much even for just reading 🙂
Right after I got this e-mail, I sent it off to Pierre and asked if he could help. And… he helped. So one day after a nice Bak Kut Teh lunch, I went over to the Mamee office in Subang to collect the mayo & ketchup flavour Mister Potato for Intan.

This is me and Kenny, one of Pierre’s essential colleagues.
To my surprise Pierre decided to throw in something a little extra for me too. 

Knowing that I love both Corntoz and Mamee he got a forklift to lift out a box each! 

I don’t know if it’s just me but I felt a rush of excitement watching a forklift bring me two large boxes of Mamee snacks. 

After Kenny helped pack everything into my car. Pierre showed me around his office.
This is where you would work if you owned Mamee. 
I went home that day with a lot of Mamee and Corntoz… which I brought to the office to share with everyone. But I also went home with these little Mamee folders that Pierre gave me. 

Thanks for all the Mamee and Corntoz, Pierre. 

And on behalf of Intan… thank you. She collected it from my office while I was sick so I didn’t manage to take a picture with her. But she blogged about how she surprised her bf here.