After 10 years, I meet up with all my ex-colleagues from FAM Interactive for a reunion dinner and drinking session in Puchong. We had a nice dinner at Restoran 8 Road. If you wanna know how the food there was like, you can check out George's Makantrip Blog :-)
Allan, me and KC.
After dinner, we adjourned to Overtime and had a barrel of Stärker Beer, trading stories and tall tales... LOL. Tall tales mostly coming from me... hahaha. A few of the guys got married and some were proud parents. Some remained in the happy realm of bachelorhood refusing to make that final commitment.
Worth mentioning was Eugene, whom have sworn never to ever get married and have any kids, now a proud father constantly twitting about is son, Shane... LOL.
Esther, Eugene, Derrick, me, KC and Leong.
Tapping from the barrel.
Leong and KC having good conversation and catching up with old times!
I totally forgot to take photo and video of the occasion. Luckily, George, the diligent food blogger was there to record some of the happenings. Unfortunately, not in any of the photos above were George and Aaron... LOL.
Also, Boon Hui, Mike and Edwin were not present for the reunion as they were in Japan, USA and New Zealand respectively.
Anyway, the current plan was to do this again some time soon... probably during Chinese New Year at someone's house... LOL.
Recently, an open source company (Open Dynamics) I was involved with, organised a seminar called "Automating Your Business Processes The CODE-LESS Way" in Jakarta, Indonesia. The seminar was held on Aug 9th, I was in Jakarta for a good 3 days.
Here are some of the highlights of my trip... :-)
I discovered this cheese snacks that was really tasty... :-) Brought a bunch home. Will buy more the next time I am there.
A very tired colleague of mine on our way back to KL.
It was really weird for me to see a street peddler selling real human hair!
Check out the complete selection of human hair for sale! Creep me out!
A Night of Fine Chinese Dining and Cooking Wine
The night before the seminar, me and my colleagues were invited to dine in a very nice and classy Chinese restaurant in Setia Budi One. I believe the name of the restaurant was called Ming. Our Indonesian patron was Pak Kuang and through him, we met Jason, although just met, felt like a long lost brother!
Pak Kuang and Jason were very close friends and Jason had just gotten back to Jakarta from Hong Kong, and that night was their night of catching up with old times. We were fortunate enough to be invited along to share in an experience that none of us would easily forget :-)
Before dinner was served, we were surprised to see Pak Kuang and Jason being served a bottle of Chinese cooking wine. The wine was poured into a clay test-tube like container submerged in hot water in a tall clay cup. A smaller wine cup was was placed on top to contain the heat. (I am poor at explaining this. Watch the video :P) In any case, the intention was to heat up the cooking wine before drinking.
Needless to say, we were all very curious. Why were they drinking Chinese cooking wine? Hey... cooking wine for cooking? When we asked, we received a very logical explanation... LOL.
Jason believes that it is the drinking companions that one has, that decides how good the wine and food taste; and how enjoyable the night will be. With that philosophy in mind, if the companionship is not enjoyable, then neither would the most expensive bottle of french wine.
But if one's company is enjoyable, whether it's cooking wine or one of the most expensive french wine, you will enjoy and cherish that moment.
And true to Jason's words, all of us enjoyed the Chinese cooking wine with a taste that was of good friends sharing conversation, laughter and fun. Oh... and the food was good too... LOL.
We drank 4 bottles and wanted more... but it was getting late and we had a seminar to conduct the next day! The episode just begged to be revisited and we intend to do it soon... :-) The following are some videos I took of the occasion.
Recently an old friend of mine came visiting from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I knew Jesse since 1981, back when we were both studying in Vancouver. Basically, we met on the first day of orientation and discovered that we were both from Borneo island and a long way from home... LOL.
Jesse was from Kuching, Sarawak, but has since migrated to Calgary sometime in 1993, I think... LOL.
Jesse and his wife, Melissa and Melissa's sister, Janice.
Jesse and Melissa.
It was nice to catch up with Jess, Mel and Janice. Btw, guys... thanks for that Nike Livestrong t-shirt. I am loving it!
A lot of things have been happening since my last blog post in June. Actually, the day I was writing a post here, I received news that a friend had passed away in his sleep. He was only 42 years old. After that, I just could not bring myself to continue.
We mourned his passing. All of us dealt with it in our own ways. The night before the wake, I dreamed sitting in my truck with him. He was showing me where to park my truck to attend his wake... LOL, yah, that would be his weird sense of humor. The spot was next to playground. And during the night of his wake, I had to circle around two rounds looking for a parking, before parking exactly on the same spot next to the playground just like in the dream.
I did not attend his funeral. I had to go to Indonesia to do some work. Can't remember exactly when, but when I got back to KL, I had a dream again. This time, I saw my friend walking towards me in a night market. I asked him if he had any message for us or his family. He did not answer a single word. And then I got a distinct feeling that he was slowly loosing his memory of us. He looked blank. And then he walked through a door and left.
I guess, it was his way of saying, "See you later."
Exactly 10 days ago, a group of friends together with our families went to a waterfall somewhere in the remote foothills of Genting in Karak to celebrate a friend's birthday... sort of... LOL. The place is called Hutan Lipur Lentang.
Actually it was a prelude to a fantastic lunch at a famous restaurant sponsored by the birthday boys, yeah... two birthdays... LOL. We got our families together to let the kids (those of us with kids) experience the "wild". My kids were very excited. They were freaking out when they saw the giant ants foraging in the forest path. Out of impulse, Joel could not help trying to stamp his feet on the ants! I managed to calm him down and got him to appreciate what the ants were doing... i.e. searching for food... LOL.
I had to take this picture... the rocks looked ideal for trials... LOL.
The river was flowing very rapidly... not safe for swimming.
My two boys mesmerised by the flowing river.
Thanks to Uncle Joe, my kids had the paper binoculars to purvue their surrounding with. Blurred as hell!
The guys pointing to the tiny tree growing out from the shadow of the giant tree... :-)
There they go again with their binoculars...
The rain the night before made the river unsafe for swimming.
Fast moving water.
The river, muddy and clouded with sediments.
There they go again.
A view of the picnic site from high above on the paths.
The river flooded, almost overflowing the banks.
The picnic site. Nice and clean.
George, the birthday boy, getting rid of a leech... LOL.
The tent was set up for the kids... but too hot for them to stay inside long... LOL.
All the kids going after the food... LOL.
All in all it was a fun trip. My kids definitely had fun and so did I... :-)
An old friend from Vancouver, Canada came and visited with his family.
I had not seen him for almost 13 years. So it was great to be able to catch up with him. My wife and kids seemed to take an instant liking to my friend's family. I guess being of the Hakka dialect helps. Immediately after they met for the first time, they started conversing in Hakka like long lost friends... LOL.
I wish I had more time to take them around. So many food to try and places to explore... LOL. I had only managed to take them to Seremban to try out the Hakka noodles at the Wet Market and then a drive down to Melaka to try out the Hainan Chicken with rice balls, durian chendol and satay. Of course, they had to conduct the obligatory walk down Jonker Street. We were only in Melaka during the day and hence, did not have the chance to let them savor the fantastic night cuisine.
I did manage to get them to visit one tourist spot though... Mini Malaysia, where they explored the many different Kampung stilt houses. On their own, they had visited most parts of KL earlier... so the customary shopping requirement had been fulfilled.
Jordan, Brandon, Joel Jodene and Isabell in front of my house.
David, Isabell and Brandon.
Jodene, Jordan, Reis, Joel and Jessie.
David and Brandon in front of a Kampung house in Mini Malaysia in Melaka.
Isabell climbing up to a Khadazan bamboo house.
Isabell, Jessie, Brandon and David on the suspension bridge in Mini Malaysia.
On Saturday, David and his family left for Hong Kong. Just before that, I managed to squeeze in a detour to Nilai 3 for a quick shopping break... LOL. They will spend a week in Hong Kong before leaving for Vancouver. I hope I get to see them in 2 years, as we had agreed to go vacationing in Thailand or China together with some other friends.
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