KL Birk Park - Stopover at the Royal Palace

As the school holidays "progresses" on, my son was growing very restless by the day. To kill him time, he has indulged himself on the PS2 and already reached the second last stage of the Burnout Revenge. But still he said that he is getting bored at home.

I managed to show him some photos that Uncle Chuah has taken of the KL Bird Park. He was impressed by the birds that were shot by him and mentioned to me to bring him there. Since I am on my annual leave (have to exhaust my leave before the year ends). I agreed to bring him there.

So we started out journey there. Before I start on my story of our trip to the Bird Park, we would pass by the Royal Palace before reaching the park. Everytime, we pass by there we will be able to see the tourist coached parked and the tourist would take their photos with the palace guards and also the horses there. Since, we have not tried stopping there before its worthwhile to have a feel how a tourist feels like when they are there.

luckily for us, there were not many tourist around. The group that have arrived earlier were getting on to the coach and ready to set off to their destination.My son and I in front of the palace guard and horse

The palace guard without a horse

There majestically positioned at the front gate of the palace were a pair of guards on horses and at the same time there were also a pair of standing guards. We took some photos there and while that was happening, fours horses with riders came, well we we lucky to witness the change of horses and guards.

Changing of guards and horses

No fight when you compare with the change of guards at Buckingham Palace

Well the whole thing was nice but not as elaborate as what the Buckingham has to offer when there's a change of guards. I still remembered it from my trip to London. My wife and I waited for an hour standing to wait for the change of guards. The most memorable thing that happened was upon completion of the change of guards, there were four sweeper vehicle which came out to sweep off the horses shit. Well you won't find this happening at the KL Royal palace.

Taiping War Cemetery

There are so many places that you can visit when you arrive at the Taiping Lake Garden. There's the Malaysia's Best Public Toilet, where I have mentioned it the other days, Maxwell Hill, the Taiping Zoo and Night Safari (I wonder who goes there at night) and the War Cemetery.
[ All the photos for the places mentioned (except for the zoo) are available at my photoblog]

The War Cemetery is located just before the entrance to Maxwell Hill. I stopped by for a while there for some photo shot and just to a look at the place. What I like about the place is that it is very well maintained. The grass, the tombstones and monuments were so well kept as if they were only done up yesterday. Just a bit of history of the war cemetery.

At the time of the Japanese invasion of Malaya, Taiping was on the British line of retreat down the west coast. Its normal garrison of one Indian Infantry Battalion had been augmented, a casualty reception station organised, arrangements made with the civilian authorities for the provision of 500 beds for military patients, and 20 Combined General Hospital (Indian Army) had been posted there.

During the fighting the Indian 6th and 15th Brigades used Taiping as a rest and re-fitment centre for a few days; and, as the withdrawal southwards developed, numerous Indian Army medical units worked there for short periods before each in turn had to move towards Singapore with the fighting forces.

Taiping War Cemetery was created by the Army after the defeat of Japan for the reception of graves brought from the battlefields, from numerous temporary burial grounds, and from village and other civil cemeteries where permanent maintenance would not be possible.

There are separate entrances to the two parts, the plots of Christian graves lying on the south-eastern side of the road and the Muslim and Gurkha graves on the opposite side. In the Muslim and Gurkha section the Stone of Remembrance stands in front of a high bank which forms the north-western boundary.

The two small shelters in the cemetery have been constructed of local stone, and a low stone wall flanks the road on each side. There are now over 850, 1939-1945 war casualties commemorated in this site, more than 500 of whom are unidentified.

I also managed to get hold of the site plan of the War Cemetery.




One more good lesson learned from my trip to Taiping. I am still gathering facts on Taiping Prison and Maxwell Hill where I will post them up very soon.

Taiping, first for many things

While the Taiping trip is fresh in my mind, I have been scouting around the internet for information to write more of it. I managed to gathered the following information on Taiping from a site.

It seems that, Taiping had the first for many things like the 1st railway in the country, 1st hill resort, 1st telegraph office, 1st turf club, 1st golf course etc etc.

Below is a complete list.

1 Open tin mining activity in the peninsula (1844).
2 Hill resort - Maxwell Hill (1844)
3 Swimming pool - Kolam Renang Kemahkotaan (1870).
4 Mosque - Masjid Tengku Menteri (1870).
5 Rest house (1870).
6 Artillery warehouse (1870).
7 Magistrate court (1874).
8 Balai penghulu (1875).
9 Resident's house (1877).
10 Port - Port Weld (1877).
11 English school - Central School Kamunting (1878).
12 Police force team (1879).
13 Government offices (1879).
14 Telegraph and post office (1880).
15 Lake gardens - Taman Tasik Taiping (1880).
16 Hospital, private and government (1880).
17 Club - New Club (1880).
18 Railway station and warehouse (1881).
19 Museum - Muzium Negeri Perak (1883).
20 Market building - Taiping Market Square (1884).
21 Prison - Penjara Taiping (1885).
22 Railway track - from Port Weld to Taiping (1885).
23 Turf club - Perak Turf Club (1886).
24 Anglican church - Old Saints Church (1886).
25 English girl's school - Treacher Girls' School (1889).
26 Clock tower - Menara Jam Besar (1890).
27 Esplanade - Padang Esplanade (1890).
28 Malay newspaper - Seri Perak (June 1893).
29 English newspaper - Perak Pioneer (July 4, 1894).
30 Tamil newspaper - Perak Verthamani (1894).
31 Armed Forces - Malay States Guides (1896).
32 Teaching college - Maktab Perguruan Melayu (1898-1900).
33 Ceylon association (1899).
34 Punjabi association - Khalsa Diwan Malaya Association (1903).
35 Indian association (1906).
36 Recreation park - Coronation Park (1920s).
37 Airfield - Padang Kapal Terbang Tekah (1930).
38 Golf course.
39 Library - Perpustakaan Merdeka.
40 Fire brigade.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

Well the hyde over this movie finally arrive with its premier on 8 December 2005. My family and I managed to catch up with the movies last night. As usual, this movie is much requested by my children but I was also quite eager to watch this movie after viewing all the trailers and also the making of the movie.

The movie was based on the a series of fantasy novels written by CS Lewis for children. The series is by far the most popular of Lewis;s works. The story describe the adventures of a group of children, the Pevensies siblings consisting of 2 brothers (Peter and Edmund) and 2 sisters (Susan and Lucy) who visit a magical land called Narnia.

The storyline was good where it teaches how siblings should worked and respect each other. I hope that the story would be able to educate my own children on the importance of stick together and respecting each other whether they are the elder or younger siblings.

Much of the movies depended on computer graphics and effect. Just before I went for the movies, I managed to watch the making of the movie at TV3. The lion, Aslan is not a real lion but a totally computer generated image acted together with human.

Overall, the movie is good and worth my money (the show was more than 2 hours long). My advise, go watch it.

Food Poisoning

Yesterday (Friday 9 December) I was not feeling well. Actually, the day after coming back from my trip from Taiping, I had some stomach problem. Purging and going to the toilet much often than usual. It did not bother me much because I thought it was a slight disturbance to my digestive system.

The real problem came on Thursday night when my hands and feet were feeling cold and I was sweating and was tossing around on my bed while sleep. On Friday I felt very tired and had no appetite, fell asleep at every place I rested. By afternoon, I took my temperature measurement, wow... 39.3 Celsius.. high fever.

Next thing, quickly rushed myself to the clinic and the doctor said that I have food poisoning. He gave me some medicine and I felt much better in the evening.

Where did I get the food poisoning? Well I would suspect from the food I took during my trip to Taiping either from Kampar or Taiping (I have to a bit careful on pin-pointing the right location, because I have a alot of readers from Taiping) because these are the two places that I stopped for food. As for dinner, I had it with my daughter where she was OK.

Best Public Toilet In Malaysia

When I reached Taiping Lake Garden (TPG), my bladder was already full waiting for discharge (sound awful isn't it?). That's because all the way from Kampar to Taiping I have yet to make my "pit stop".

I was scouting around for a public toilet at TPG when I spotted one where I could also parked my car. The public toilet required a fee of 20 sen, which is reasonable. However, I noticed that there were caretakers at the public toilet in which they treated the area like their home. I did not suspect much and started to enter the toilet. To my surprise, the layout and design of the place created as if it was not a toilet but like a home. The place was clean and does not have any smell (maybe it was because my nose wasn't working that day.. I had a blocked nose).

The standing toilets were and clean and guess what, there were no graffiti on the wall, the basin were all clean and in good working order.

When I finished my "assignment" and walking out to the enterance , I was surprised that there was a sort of a Balinese garden inside the toilet. I couldn't help but to take a picture of it.

I have never been so happy and amazed going to a public toilet and would like to vote the Taiping Lake Garden public toilet, MALAYSIA"S BEST PUBLIC TOILET.

Day trip to Taiping

Wow it's been so long since I have made a new posting. Noting much to write mah!!

OK , this time around I had some spare time on my hand and have decided to travel to Taiping yesterday (7 December). Why Taiping? well, there are various reasons:

• The rest of my family was off to Genting, I have been there so few time and I have got fed up of that place.
• Taiping was always mentioned by our fellow blogger Chuah Lye Hock
• Taiping is the hometown to a few nice people that I know
• Taiping has not been visit by me for a long time, hearing and reading about the changes at that town made me curious for a visit.
• Taiping can be reached in a day's travel, have fun and come back without having to spend a night there.

So off I go from my house just before 7.00 a.m., fill up my petrol tank and the first stop was Lata Kinjang. Where's this place? Well if you are traveling along the North South Highway after Tapah, you would notice a waterfall on the right side of the road. I was always curious about that nice waterfall which look magnificent but did not have the opportunity to visit it.

To reach the waterfall you have to turn off at Tapah and go to Chenderiang village and you will reach the waterfall. The waterfall is 800 feet high and one of the two highest watefall in Malaysia. The water was constantly splashing down with its roaring sound. No one was at that place when I reach there except the orang asli who were staying around that area. As usual, the ugly Malaysian littered the surrounding area of the waterfall with rubbish.

Next stop was Kampar where I had my breakfast, it was my father's hometown and in my younger days, we used to stop here to visit his aunt. But all of them are either dead or have moved to KL, no one in Kampar to visit now.

From Kampar, it was straight to Taiping. The last time I visited Taiping was during my audit assignment there which was in 1995, 10 years seem not so long a go because the condition of the town looks almost the same the last time I left there. Panaroma Hotel, which is the hotel that I stayed was still there, Fajar supermarket there, BCB branch next to the clock tower was still there. The only major changes were, the flyover just after Simpang, the big Public Bank branch which was converted from Public Finance Taiping. I took a drive around the town just to reminisce the last time I was there.

A must visit place in Taiping is the Lake Gardens. I noticed from the sign board that Taiping Lake Garden is the oldest lake garden in Malaysia. One thing that I like about the place is that it is very well kept by the town council. Another thing was the lovely old tress that have matured in this garden long before I was born.

Then off to Maxwell Hill or Bukit Larut which is now known. This my first time there. There are two ways of going up to the peak of the hill which has an elevation of slight more than 1,000 meters, walking up or take a ride on their Land Rovers. I took the latter instead and wow, what a ride. I have been to Cameron Highlands and Frasers Hill where you can drive up in your car. At Maxwell Hill, the road can only accommodate just one vehicle at one time and it really require a skill drive to drive up. Why? There are a total of 72 tight twisting hairpin corners leading up the high. The hairpin corners are almost 300 degrees turn and coupled with the slopping turn, even Micheal Schumacher will find it difficult to maneuver up this road. it took half an hour to reach the top and wow, the place is great even though there are not many houses or bungalows there. Took some photos there and waited for the next ride down the hill. The weather was cool and was foggy which blocked off the view of Taiping town from the hill. Then as usual, being the wettest town in Malaysia, it started raining.

Next lunch in town where I was recommended by Chuah to have the fried koey teow at stall 78 at the casual market. I was there slightly soak wet and cold. When the food was served, the taste was great where the warm reached my mouth and into my stomach on a cold, wet raining day in Taiping.

After the meal, it was already 3.00 p.m. where I have to start my journey home. Non stop rain all along the highway. Guess what I was driving down the highway at 120 to 130 kph on the wet highway. No problem, it was thrilling but I do know the danger. Once in a while I have to raise the adrenalin in my body to keep me excited.

The heavy rain took its toll at the roads of KL where I was stuck in a jam from Jalan Duta right up to Jalan Cheras before reaching home at 8.30 p.m.

For more photos of my trip please visit my photoblog.

Congratulations on the birth of two new boys!!

Congratulations for the following friends of mine who have newborn babies:

• To Laily Mastura - Laily gave birth by caesarian to a boy on 25 November 2005. I always teased her that she will giving birth to a girl but my prediction was wrong. Never mind lah.. at least her daughter have a new brother to play with.

• While I was at shopping at pasar malam yesterday (26 November), I received a SMS from Tham Weng Onn who announced that his wife Sandy has given birth to their second son. The baby came two weeks earlier than scheduled. His son Edmund managed to chit chat with me when I called his father to congratulate him. Edmund is three years only and will also be having a new brother to play with.

Superman Returns?

Following a mysterious absence of several years, the Man of Steel comes back to Earth in the epic action-adventure Superman Returns, a soaring new chapter in the saga of one of the world's most beloved superheroes. While an old enemy plots to render him powerless once and for all, Superman faces the heartbreaking realization that the woman he loves, Lois Lane, has moved on with her life. Or has she? Superman's bittersweet return challenges him to bridge the distance between them while finding a place in a society that has learned to survive without him. In an attempt to protect the world he loves from cataclysmic destruction, Superman embarks on an epic journey of redemption that takes him from the depths of the ocean to the far reaches of outer space.

Directed by Bryan Singer (X2: X-Men United, X-Men, The Usual Suspects), SUPERMAN RETURNS stars newcomer Brandon Routh.

Superman Returns will be released on June 30, 2006.

Close down my photo blog?

I am considering to close down my photo blog. Any comments from any one?

Why I choose to close..

1. No photos to post (I don't shoot the food that I eat cos I have home cooked meal where I am too shy to disclose what I have)
2. Very low number of visitors (maybe nothing much to see and no new photos)

Harry Porter and the Goblet of Fire

Like the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings trilogy, Harry Porter "trilogy" is another must watch movie in my books. Not to watch it from the DVD but to enjoy such movies on the big screen with full DTS effect. Well, the whole family managed to watch Harry Porter and the Goblet of Fire on the second day of its premiere. Actually, we were suppose to watch it on 17 November, but seats to the 9.00 p.m. show were only available from the second row from the screen onwards. The next show was at 11.55 p.m. but that's way past our bed time, so we have to settle for 18 November 9.00 p.m. show.

I have watched all the three previous Harry Porter trilogy, would not miss this one. My opinion, this is by far the best one. The effects were great plus a good story line. But still Lord Voldemart remained alive... but if he's dead the trilogy would not continued unless there is a new villain.

My advise.. go and see this movie it's worth your money. No regrets.

My daughter's blog

My daughter, Carrie started her blog which she informed me today. Have a visit to her blog "Here in my heart" from this link before I change my template to accomodate the link.
She is currently having her SPM examinations and the first two postings are on her experience going through the examinations.

My son's try on the Life Quiz

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	5.8
Mind:	6.6
Body:	8.2
Spirit:	5.8
Friends/Family:	5.2
Love:	0.7
Finance:	4.5
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

My son, Darren was also curious about the Life Quiz results that I have posted earlier. He requested me to allow him to try out the quiz, the results were as above. Be mindful.. he is only 10 years old, so his Love is very low since he has yet to start his relationships. His Finance is not bad considering being backed by a reasonably well to do father! The rest of the results are quite normal.

Eddie Guerrero - RIP

For wrestling fans, you would sure know who Eddie Guerrero is. Well he passed away suddenly on Sunday, 13 November in a hotel room in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was 38. Guerrero is survived by his wife Vickie and three daughters. It was now known that Eddie died of heart disease. His wife said "" that the blood vessels were very worn and narrow, and that just showed all the abuse from the scheduling of work and his past. And Eddie just worked out like crazy all the time. It made his heart grow bigger and work harder and the vessels were getting smaller, and that?s what caused the heart failure. He went into a deep sleep." (credit slamsports.com).

EDDIE GUERRERO = REST IN PEACE

Rate my Life Quiz

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	6.6
Mind:	5.7
Body:	7.6
Spirit:	5.2
Friends/Family:	6.6
Love:	5.5
Finance:	7.6
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

Tried rating my life, not a bad result but it may not the true picture of me!!

Easy blogging

Seeing that the prices of Dell notebooks are going down I decided to get one myself. The Dell Inspiron 6000 with 15.4" screen was going for RM3,099. I ordered a unit before Hari Raya (i.e. end of October). Due to the long Deeparaya holidays, the notebook was safely delivered to me on 8 November.

Why did I choose to get a notebook? Well I bought a Compaq notebook in three years ago which cost RM3,499 with AMD processor. Three years after that, the price of notebooks did not change much but the processor, hard disk space and RAM have improved by leaps and bounce. I needed another notebook because the Compaq is placed in my daughter's room where they have easy access to the net from the room (my whole house is wi-fied). I also require the notebook for some work and presentation when the need arise. The biggest reason for getting the notebook was that the deal was so good. It came with following specs and offers:

• Intel Pentium (M) Processor 1.60 GHz, 2MB Cache 400 MHz FSB (whatever that FSB is)
• 15.4" XGA TFT Display with resolution 1280 X 800
• Upgraded to 512MB DDR2 SDRAM
• 60GB Ultra ATA Hard drive
• 4 USB 2.0 ports
• 1 SD card slot
• Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Combo Drive (yeah baby I can now burn DVDs)
• Dell Large Backpack (to put the notebook)

Total price RM3,104-00 plus delivery payable by 12 months interest free instalments (that's RM259 a month)

Damien bought the same model with lower spec about 6 months ago at RM3,900, Monica bought the same model 3 months ago where the price is about RM200 more. Today, Damien showed me the Dell catalogue where the price of the same notebook is now RM2,099-00. Price tumbling down again.

Guess what? I am writing this posting with the notebook on my lap and on my bed ready to go to sleep when I finish this posting.

What a wonderful world... oh yeahhhhhhhh

The stork's in town

Just to keep Siva who is in Aberdeen updated, the stork's in town. Two new babies arrived late last month.

The first was to Tan Shien Doon, he became a father again (sorry did not information on the gender of the baby) on 7 November.

Three days later, Rubagan was the father to his second child who is a girl.

Before this was a girl to Shaiful who was born in September.

The next baby coming will be for Laily. She walked like Humpty Dumpty where I always tease and imitate the way she's walking. Best of luck, good wishes and safe delivery to her where I think the baby will coming anytime very very soon.

Great to be back

Hey, it's been a long long time since my last posting. Why so long did not post? Ehhhhh... lazy mah!!

Been busy with my goldfish. The story will come later (I hope).
Well I am currently having fun using Google Earth. It's the software where you can locate any place on Earth (well almost any where). I managed to locate my home. Here the photo of it.
I am terribly terrified by the details of the picture. The coordinates can be easily obtained and just imagine that the coordinates can be loaded into a missile. Bullseye.. the missile can destroy house with a blink of an eye. But the picture was taken about two years ago. How do I know? Well the surrounding areas around my house has been fully developed now. I had stayed in this house for 1 year. The semi-Ds located before my were not built yet, today all the semi-Ds are completed and ready for occupancy.

Another surprise was the "Kuala Lumpur" map indicator was dead centre at my office. Very very dangerous, missile also can be targeted at the building.In the end this shows how technological advance are the images taken with satellite.

Larger photos above are avaiable at my photo blog.

Honda Civic coming!

I refer to my posting on the new Honda Civic in September. Here are some photos from America (the design should not varies much for the local version). As confirmed in the paper, the Civic will be in Malaysia end of next year.. interested, save up to get a piece of this machinery.

Movie Marathon

The first day of Hari Raya, another holiday, my son again (I keep use him as an excuse) pestered me to take him to the movies. Today is the first day premier or the Disney Movie "Chicken Little". As usual, the promotion of the movie in the TV he insist that he wanted to see the movie. Then there's another movie which my daughter suggested, Tim Burton's "Corpse Bride".

We landed at Sunway Pyramid because Tanjung Village cinemas are they where they have the exclusive for "Corpse Bride". Guess what, we ended taking both movies in a go. It started with "Chicken Little" at 1.40 p.m. and the next movie "Corpse Bride" at 3.15 p.m. It's actually started at Cineplex No: 4 and then to Cineplex No: 8.

Actually, I want reluctant to see both movies because I don't fancy much about "Chicken Little" where it's just a story about a little chicken. At the movie, the story was a bit lit "Wars of The World" where earth is being attacked by alien when the child of the alien was left back at earth during their"stopover".

I am not a fan of Tim Burton's film because he has a weird way of making movies. Take for example like "The Night Before Christmas", "Edward Scissors Hand" and "Batman 2". I fell asleep during the movie because the story was slow and not much of action. What do you expect when the movie is made using stop motion method. The story is about a writer named Victor who was destined to marry a woman of his parent's choice named Victoria. Victor did not performed well during his wedding vow ceremony and landed at a cemetery where he accidentally married a corpse.

Burnout Revenge

One of my favorite game currently in the PS2 is Burnout Revenge which is the latest version of the Burnout series.

It a game where you need to drive and crash into traffic from the back and earn money and medals from it. It also provide you to challenge other cars in a "Takedown" mode to win a race. In previous car racing games that I have played, those games only offered you to challenge other cars to win a race. With Burnout, you get to crash into them and the crashing part is very dramatic:

1. You can see other cars flipping in front of you when you get a "Takedown".
2. When you crash again on going traffic or against a wall, you car get busted into bits.
3. Better still is when you get to fly off a bridge.. wow the scene is spectacular.

My son and me enjoy to challenge each other in the game where there were times where we took each other out instead of taking out the opponent cars. We had such a good time playing with it where our screams and moaning were even heard by our neighbors and to mention those in my family.

That's why I recommended to stay at home and enjoy the PS2 instead of risking our lives on the road during the festive season. At least, no matter how I crash my car in the game, I am still in one piece (I only pity the PS2 joystick which I am using),

Day trip to Genting Highlands

Today, I took my family up to Genting Highlands, why? Ahhh. just to let the kids see the changes there since we went there about a year ago. Furthermore, my daughter, Carrie, is organizing a trip there with her friends after completion of her SPM. The place as usual was packed with people but what was worse was the favorite ride were decommission for maintenance. I think they purposely did that so as not to stress the ride too much with unstoppable queue of people waiting for their turn for the rides.

The eateries were packed with people. From the hotel restaurants to the fast food outlets... packed with people. So we decided to go to Gotong Jaya to have lunch. Less crowd and more reasonably priced food.


Spend about five hours for the whole day trip. That's only for today, there is still a strech of holidays to go through... have to think of ways to keep my children sane!!!

Wasted lives

Every year when the festive season begins, be it the Chinese New Year or Hari Raya Adilfitri every one's rushing back to their kampong or for those who are not celebrating the festival, they will rush off for their vacations in some places that the like.

Every year the same old story, people dying on the roads when they are traveling. Not surprisingly for this year Deeparaya, forty people (40) people died on the road on Sunday and Monday (30 and 31 October 2005). The police reported that there were 1,892 road accidents in the two days.

Despite the Government effort and campaigns, still it is very sad to receive such news. What if the news received involved the people that we know or even worse, the people that we loved.

So my advice..... stay at home, watch TV, play with your PS2 (buy one if you don't have it) and keep yourselves off the road.

Happy Deeparaya

To all my Hindu friends who are celebrating Deepavali, I would want to wish you all the best wishes for the light festivals. Not forgetting the one who is in a foreign land at the moment who will be celebrating the festival for the first time away from the country.

Kepada kawan Muslim saya, saya ucapkan Selamat Hari Raya Adilfitri. Semoga beraya dengan sepenuh hati dan berhati hati lah di jalan raya. Jangan lupa KM444 Lebuhraya Utara Selatan, ada perangkap kelajuan di sana!!!

New Bra - Made in Ipoh

My sister sent me an email which have the following photos which claimed to be the new type of bra from Ipoh.

Photoblog - Fully Operational

Finally, I managed to upload photos to my photoblog.

Thanks to the advise by SooHK.

My Photoblog called KK's Eyes

I have today created a photoblog to put in my photos. It's call KK's Eye.
(oops... left out the "s" at the end of the word eye).. It's OK now, I got it corrected.
It's called KK's Eyes

Following this link http://caesda.blogspot.com/

I am having some problems to upload the photos from Photobucket.com. It seems that to prevent spamming, Goggle has implemented some sort of word verification system called CAPTCHA just like the one use when putting in comments for a posting. I will try to resolve this issue to upload more photos to the photoblog.

The permanent link will be updated to the template later on.

Another new toy - Playstation 2

With the school holiday coming, there would be a need to keep my children not to be bored for the 2 months holidays before they restart their schooling in 2006.

They already are accessing the net but the most interesting thing to keep them at home is a Playstation 2. It has been a long desire of my son Darren to have a Playstation 2. Actually I have bought the Playstation 1 about three years ago when my children was hooked to the game Tekken which was played with my brother's PS One.

They soon got bored with the PS One because they only know how and like to play only one game... Tekken. In the end the PS One was chucked one side with no one playing it with. I passed the whole set of PS One to by brother whose PS One was quite old (his older PS One was passed to his brother-in-law, who treated it like gold).

Yesterday, when Darren and me were at Cheras Leisure Mall, we stopped at the video game stall. A lady was getting her son a PS 2. We were just watching the lady getting the set and when they have completed the transaction, I approached the stall lady boss to asked the price of the PS 2. The price was reasonable considering that when the PS 2 was first launched it cost RM1,200. Now it cost RM760 which comes with 12 free games.

What the heck? Got to get the PS 2 and cannot wait for the PS 3 to come next middle of the year which would cost more than RM1K.

Twelve games free..which inlcude Tekken 5 and Tekken 4 which were the two of the games that were selected. Also was Burnout Revenge, which is an exciting game where you need to crash your car to get money and to win your position.

Today, Sunday (23 October), the PS 2 dominated the TV in my living room with no opportunity for the rest to watch Astro programs. The favourite game played was still Tekken 5 where my children battled it out against each other on the console. While I am writing this posting, Carrie is still playing Tekken 5, it her favorite game.

Let's just see how long will the PS 2 last with my children before it will chuck one side with no one playing with it. Maybe I will try the same trick and offer the machine to my brother again!!!

Property market in KL

It's been a year now since I have shifted to my new house. The whole family has adjusted to the new environment and routine in the new house. However, there is still one sticking thorn which has not been resolved. My previous still remain unsold till today.

The house has been up for sale since we shifted out last October. The house was first assigned to be sold by my long time friend. He left the bank and joined a realty company to start his new "venture" and selling my house was his first assignment. He managed to get a buyer within 2 months but the terms did not worked in my favour and the deal was aborted. I have even put in my own advertisement in the papers and calls that I got were all from agents and not from individual buyers themselves. The worst was when I advertised it in the Malay paper... not a call was received.

Just to change things, I have now assigned the sale of the house to a friend of my wife. A change to a female "property negotiator" might change my luck. Any how, I was on leave and took her for a ride to the house and told her the various good selling points to get the house sold.

In our discussion, what I gathered now is that there are many houses being built in and surrounding KL. There are buyers but the sale of these houses (which include condos) are rather slow. To add on to the number of houses for sale are houses which were left vacant when the owners upgraded their living quarters, just like me.

With house prices going above RM150K to nearly RM200K, it is not easy for a person to fork out 10% of the purchase price. Bank borrowing is easier nowadays as there are ample choices from the various financial institutions but then again the purchases repayment capacity will be the determination factor to get the loan. There are those who have been staying in flats and lower cost apartment who have accumulated enough funds to get a new house.

Most current house owners now have more one one piece of property. Take for instance, in my case, I own 2 houses now, even my wife owned an apartment of her own (which is now rented out). Then what about others who have better financial standing.

Conclusion, there are property buyers out there but the market is in the favour of the buyer at the moment. So I have to wait for my property to be sold.