KL Here I Come!!

Finally, after rushing to the police station this morning to lodge a report on my stolen wallet and also stuffs, I manage to take the Shanghai Subway to Longyang Road where it connects to the MAGLEV bullet train. This is the first time I am using the MAGLEV to travel to Pudong Airport. It's very convenient, and cheap I would say.

If one has an air ticket, discounts will be given. I only paid RMB40 for mine, which otherwise would have costed me RMB60. All I did was just flash my e-Tickets and its done. Pretty neat eh? Anyway the MAGLEV travelled at a very very fast speed (otherwise it wouldn't be called a bullet train LOL). The top speed which the train reached was 431 km/h. It's fast... real fast. 

I am blogging from Pudong Airport now, while waiting for boarding. The flight is departing on 4.10pm and the estimated landing time at KLIA would be 9.40pm. My next blog posting would be when I am back in KL then. 

Cheers!

What A Fu*ked Up Turn of Event

I just realized that my wallet which stored all my RMB was being stolen, and together with some name cards PLUS MY PUBLIC BANK CREDIT CARD!! Lucky me my LV wallet which I use to store all my MYR currency and the rest of the Credit Cards and also Malaysian IC are still with me. 

Now here's the bomb. I fuckin lost the credit card and someone have used it... and now I have to be liable to VISA and pay them a whooping MYR5,700!! I was like -WHAT THE FUCK!!- when I called into Public Bank Credit Card Customer Service Center to report a stolen card. 

Damn I am pissed now... My breakdown kinda indicated that my pocket might have been picked while I was snapping away around Nanjing Road, and with those girls and pimps going around close to me trying to lure me to their dents. FUCK!!! Grrrr...!!! Damn I hate this shit.

Lesson learned (a costly one) - Dont bother splitting currency into 2 wallets, it causes distraction and requires more attention to take care of them.

What an ending to 2008. Fuckin piece of.... arghhh...!!

One Night In Nanjing Road

I finally arrived to Shanghai and get myself settled into the hotel which Tan booked for me. This is the 2nd time I am staying in this hotel and it is strategically located within a stone throw away from the famous Nanjing Road. Think of this road as our Bukit Bintang road and you can pretty much imagine how it is.

I almost took the cab from Shanghai Nan Zhan (Shanghai South Station) to Nanjing Road. If I did, then it would have costed me about RMB90 easily. When I turned down the cab driver, he quickly gave discount from RMB90 to RMB80, then finally to RMB60. It's amazing how prices can drop exponentially and drastically fast as I walked further away from them. I ended up paying just RMB4 by taking the subway :)

I finally arrived and checked into the hotel (Nanjing Hotel) around 7.30pm. Took a quick shower and off I went with my MBP and D700 in the backpack. I knew it would be rather too late to go anywhere far, so I just walked and window shop around Nanjing Road.

Within minutes I was walking and snapping away, I was approached by a girl; "Qing wen di tie shi zai na li?", I somehow just answered in English and said that I dont speak Mandarin. But hey hey... surprise surprise, she speaks English. Later a bit I found out that she is some kinda escort and my best hunch would be she would provide "extra services" too. So... I thanked her and moved on... guess what? Within 3 minutes walking alone... another pretty girls came up and asked me some street's direction.

And this kept on until I made a U-turn and walked into an expensive shopping mall. Had a cup of coffee and a sandwich from Starbucks and rested there to keep my mind straight. Haha... what a day. Ok... I am singing off now to rest for a long journey tomorrow. 

Adios!

Strobed Out Session Before 2009

I think this would be the last strobist session I will have for 2008. Just before I leave for Shanghai tommorrow, Tan and Pey decided to go for a strobist session with one of our fellow colleague - Julina.

It sorta came last minute since we didnt have our batteries to our flashguns charged! I ended didnt shoot much cuz wanna give both Tan and Pey more attempts. They seem very trigger happy and I am glad to see such enthusiasm in them when it comes to photoshoots. Definitely a good way to let go off some steam from the work pressure.

Anyway I'll cut this short cuz I have yet to pack my stuffs and I will be hitting the road heading to Shanghai around 4pm. Enjoy the pics while I continue my countdown... :)

Cheerios!

Nilam Puri Condo

I cant help but to wonder on what are the things which I am gonna do to my new crib which I will have access to just in about a week's time. While other new owners have already started to do their renovation and other stuff, I am still stuck here waiting to fly back to Malaysia. LOL. 

Anyway, here's a list of stuff which I thought of doing to my place. I guess I'll use this as a note which I can tick off in future when I start doing my renovation. :

1. Level up the kitchen area to match dining area (oooh I am just such a bitch to this)

2. I hate electrical extension cords. Will put in more wall sockets where ever they may be needed. Wirings and fuse box change.

3. Add 3 more air cond wiring/piping. Living room, the 2nd and 3rd room as well.

4. Some plaster ceiling and downlights.

5. Kitchen cabinet in dry kitchen and yard (plan to convert yard into a wet kitchen). Cabinet in the yard has to fit a washing machine, and enclosed it.

6. Ceiling-to-floor wardrobe for 2 rooms. 

7. Plans to convert 1 room into a study... so need a cabinet here too.

8. Ceiling mounted clothes hanger at the balcony.

9. Brick work for a support top for bathroom washbasin.

10. If it fits, plan for glass divider for shower area.

Thats all for the moment. While I am sure there will be additional items to be added, I'll just leave this at it is first. :)

Meanwhile, the countdown continues.

New Year's Resolution for 2009

I'm sitting at this local cafe in Jinhua with a buddy of mine, browsing thru various Flickr pages and photos - and I kinda came to realize that there are actually many people out there who don't really know much about the power of Photoshop... especially for Digital Photographers.

One of the things that I am gonna set out to do for this blog in the coming year is to provide my readers simple Photoshop Tutorials from time to time. Probably once every month, and on various level of difficulties. I am no professional graphic artist, and all that I will be providing are purely from my own self thought know-how. So spare me the chopping knife if my future tutorials are somewhat noobish.

Anoher project which I am gonna set out to do is to provide monthly calendar page in high resolution which you peeps can download and use as a desktop wallpaper. I am putting a stickie note on my Mac's screen to remind meself of this :) Watch out for January 2009's desktop calendar soon before 1st Jan 2009 hits.

There ya go. 2 simple new years resolution which hopefully I can accomplish.  

Counting Down To Kuala Lumpur

I'll be back in Malaysia for New Year!

I'm definitely happy, and I am counting the days now... although tomorrow and Sunday are working days for me due to project requirements; but I am definitely in the mood to go back after 6 long months here in Jinhua. 

However, I think I am more excited... confused... happy... sad... and all sorts of kind of mixed feelings I am having now regarding this trip back. I guess I know what's in store for me when I am back and it may be an emotional roller-coaster ride.

At the mean time, I am listening to Jay's Capricorn album too.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

I would like to take this nice day to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. May the year 2009 bring us all more joy, an upturn of the global economy crisis and definitely a better health for us and the loved ones.

Taking some time to reflect back on 2008, and it sure does reminisce on a lot of occurings in my life. Some were bad, while mostly are good. Leading an expatriate life in China now sure changes a lot of things, and on top of that it opened up more experiences to me. 2009 is gonna be a challenging year for me - I can already feel that. Challenges from job, to my freelance business is gonna be somewhat major. As for personal life and my surroundings - well, I'm sure changes will come too.

For one which I am very much looking forward to now is to get my condo delivered. It is ready and I am scheduled to go to the developer's office for key delivery and joint inspection this 2nd January 2009. Not a bad start for 2009 I guess. Since my contract in China will be extended until April 2009, I am planning to have renovation and stuffs done by then when I am back in KL. Then probably have the official move-in on my own birthday! 

Anyway, I'll just opt for a wait and see stance since I've just being informed that another full scale project has already being signed and this alone might take us directly into 2010 (based in China). 

Again... Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2009! 

warmth

I just did my first MV slideshow with the applications that came with my new MacbookPro. The iMovie which came pre-installed as a bundle of iLife is pretty nifty. However I find it rather cumbersome initially, when compared to Proshow Producer which I have grown to used to back in PC days. Anyway, here's the slideshow MV and I've titled it : warmth 

It was a rather warmish day when we went out for the shoot. Tan TS and I brought our model, Yingzi to a nearby lake and I commenced the shoot. The sun was setting and the natural lighting was just simply brilliant. All it needed was for me to tweak the WB a little bit to get the warmish golden hues. Simply love this color scheme. And hey, it fits well with her outfit's color scheme as well hehe... plus the dry grass too of course!

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy the slideshow MV just as much (if not more) as I spent some time creating it. Cheers!

Wang Lee Hom - Heartbeat

I am following closely to Lee Hom's upcoming album which one of the songs that will be featured is called Heartbeat. I think its a lovely song and it would be a big hit. Found the latest MV on YouTube, so thought that I would wanna syndicate it and share it here in my blog. :)

Some of the lyrics are kinda meaningful...

Don't really know how to express it... but yeah, these words are definitely meaningful.

What A Weekend...

It's actually far from over - and I do mean the weekend.

I've been partying since Friday evening, right after work. Office organized a Christmas Party in Yiwu, and all the staffs went. Ironically, it was held in an Arabic restaurant called The 1001 Nights. The LOTUS peeps took up an L shaped corner of the restaurant and we had loads of food to chump down.

It was pretty cool to be having dinner there, as there were belly dancing show off and on every 15 minutes or so. Once the peeps got warmed up, some went up to dance off their big beer bellies as well (together with the pretty belly dancers of course! Haha!)

Right on after dinner was a KTV session, and I stayed on over night in Yiwu together with Tan. Decided that I wouldnt wanna take the 1 hour journey in the middle of the night, and after all I could do some shopping in Yiwu as well the following day. So... ended up buying nothing much more than just 1 BALENO sweater, and thats about it, for when shopping list is concerned. Tand and I had to rush back to Jinhua for a second session of clubbing - and by 9pm or so, we were down at BAIDU Club. Not a very exciting night... but kinda had sh*t loads of beer without knowing or realizing it. Haha. Happy endings after that.

And now, its 4.07pm Saturday... havent makan yet. Woke up a couple of hours ago. Watched 2 movies. And planning to get some food before heading down to another club. :P Bloody hell... I'm partying so hard I think I will soon pass out and forget what the hell is going on with my life. Hahah...

Wait a minute, have the alcohol passed on over yet?

Bah... might as well just catch some sleep now.

REVIEW : The New Unibody Macbook Pro

Now that I finally have some time to write about my latest gadget. Pheewww... Anyway here's a quick technical spec breakdown on my new Macbook Pro (MBP) which I bought for RM8,450.

- Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.53GHz, 6MB L2 Cache & 1066MHz FSB
- 4GB DDR3 1066Mhz
- 320GB 5400rpm HDD
- NVidia GForce 9400m GT @ shared VRAM 256MB
- NVidia GForce 9600m GT discreet VRAM 512MB DDR3
- Single Aluminium Unibody
- Full size backlit keyboard & a huge glass trackpad
- Glorious LCD screen with glossy glass layer
- iSight camera
- Bluetooth & 802.11N WiFi

After using the MBP for a week now I can say that its been a pretty breezy experience. Although the initial start up was a bit of a struggle, due to the various differences the OS-X has compared to MS Windows - I somehow manage to balance it all out and get along. Icons are clear, big and beautifully designed. It's kinda pain to have to hunt for torrents or installers to find those 3rd party software for Macs (ie. Photoshop, Office etc). But I soon realized its not really that bad actually since there are many alternatives to certain applications. For an example, I am currently using a FREE Office application called NeoOffice and it works and looks just as much like the Microsoft version!

One thing I love about the OS-X is how easy it is to back up my system. With just an external hard drive plugged in, and a flip of a button it auto backups my system. This is of course thanks to the feature called Time Machine. Love feature I must say :). There are many other nifty features such as this which sure makes life a much easy one, and a definite heart capture for those who just switched to Mac from PC.

I've yet to encounter any pop ups while surfing the web with Safari (MS Internet Explorer equivalent), and this alone I am sure is a value for money attribute. Connecting to my workplace server was a breeze, which I never would have thought how to do so when I was on PC - LOL! Same goes with setting up the email server. And here's the best part... INSTALLING and UNINSTALLING external applications/programs. It appears to me as if there is no such thing as REGISTRY like how MS Windows is being operated with. Thus, Uninstalling applications was just as easy as Installing them. All I gotta do is just drag the darn application and drop it into the Bin. Wahhlaaahh its done! No more "Windows cant remove certain .dll files due to it being shared by other programs" Haha...

Overall, I can say that this has been one of the best buy gadget I've made so far. For those who are looking for a new notebook PC and have a budget of about RM5,000. My advice is go for the 13.3" Macbook which comes with the NVidia GForce9400m GT intergrated graphics card. I personally think this baby should be more than enought to meet daily computing needs. Unless you would want more 3D rendering capabilities, then you ought to go for the MBP.

Overall ratings : 9/10

Minor nicks : I wish there are more USH ports. At least one more on the right side of the unibody. The Kensington lock slot is definitely not being well located. Lock your MBP and you can't use the SuperDrive anymore. Apple should provide some kinda soft cover bag for this baby with the purchase!

Karide KTV With Leong

Finally me and Leong, 2 banana guys went to Karide KTV with a mission in mind. Sing some Chinese songs! Can you imagine? 2 blokes who can't read chinese fiddling around with Chinese Language based GUI (Graphic User Interface) trying to pick and choose chinese songs. These chinese characters know me more than I know them. LOL. Yet, we managed to scrape thru and sang our heart out. 

Leong and I had this idea of practicing chinese songs on our own for some time now. So, we both set out a couple of weeks ago to accumulate as many chinese songs' lyrics in pin yin (romanized chinese words) from the web. Its pretty simple actually, especially when the web has everything you wanna find. As for myself, I kinda narrowed down my pin yin lyrics library to only 2 artistes - Wang Lee Hom and also Jay Chou.

Song of the night which I enjoyed singing most, and kinda brought some feel while singing is Lee Hom's Forever Love. Leong and I sang for almost 2 and a half hours and the bill came up to RMB120. Pretty cheap for 2 person to let go off some steam from the few weeks non stop work.

Oh by the way, I am slowly adapting to my new Macbook Pro's OS X interface and all that. It's really kinda user friendly. No more messy and weird installations and also un-installs which one normally gets from Windows based PCs. And the best thing is - I've yet to need to press the dreadful CTRL-ALT-DEL to terminate any programs which hangs halfway! Haha... makes me wonder what the heck have I been doing meddling with Microsoft Windows all these years.

Anyway, here's to another long week. 4 more days to go before I hit the weekend where our company will be having a Pre Christmas Party in Yiwu. Let the countdown begin! :)