expect the unexpected - bkt bintang

My weekend was a lazy weekend. I was really lazy to do anything at all.

I wanted to send my car for servicing, but was too lazy. I wanted to settle my statements, I was again too lazy.

In the end, a friend suggested me to bring along camera and just to walk around the city, I may bump into something. Well, I took his advise, and equipped myself with the Olympus camera. Loaded with batteries and memory cards, I was ready to go.

I headed off to Berjaya Time Square. I always park my car there whenever I am heading to Bukit Bintang area. I feel safer to park there. I just hate the traffic around Sg. Wang area, and the parking around that area is too darn expensive for open-air parking. It could cost up to RM 6.00 per entry!!! Bloody slasher!

Berjaya Time Square carpark offers a maximum rate of RM 4.00 for weekdays (Mon-Fri), while for weekends (Saturdays & Sundays) and public holidays charge a maximum rate of RM 6.00. Pretty reasonable.


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Berjaya Time Square... Magneficient-looking piece of work isn't it?

I never really know that there was any activity going on in Time Square. I hadn't got time to read through newspapers or watchout for banners. I was surprise to see people gathering around the centre court of the Lower Ground Level in Time Square.



Red Carpet? Looking familiar?
It's not Oscar... But something similiar.
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Look, Ma! Sid and Scrat from Ice Age 2!

It's the... Movie Carnival!!!

They're having this Movie Carnival 2006 in Time Square from 22-23 April 2006.

They have a range of goodies to put on display in this Movie Carnival, mostly are collectors' items, e.g. LightSaber from StarWars, LOTR's miniatures and etc. Also, they are putting up non-stop trailers for the upcoming blockbusters in the Summer (for U.S., which is equivalent to May-July in Malaysia).

Some of my personal recommendation/preference for the upcoming blockbusters this summer are:

The Da Vinci Code (Starring: Tom Hanks)

X-Men III: The Last Stand (Starring: Hugh Jackman)

Superman Returns (Starring: The man in Red undie!!)

Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest (Starring: Johnny Depp)

Poseidon (Directed by: Wolfgang Peterson)

M-i-III (Starring: Tom Cruise)

Cars (Pixar production)

Others Worthy of a Mention Movies:

Lady in the Water (M.Night Shyamalan production)

Over the Hedge

Open Season

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Doesn't everyone just love Scrat??


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The Ice Age members are giving their best efforts in meeting the fans!

Now, walking on the Red Carpet...



Along both sides of the red carpet, the organizers have displayed a series of movie-related colletor's items.



Looking familiar? StarWars fan (die-hard ones) will LOVE this! Complete replica!



Look like I'm very much of a StarWars fan as well! I forgot to take photos of other items! Not even LOTR's!

The Red Carpet leads to this Poseidon gateway.



The tv was behind a water-filled glass, to simulate the actual scene in Poseidon.

It has very cool motion-detector-image projected on the floor there.



The motion-detector is designed in such a way that whenever there is movement over the projected 'water', it simulates and creates water ripples there. It was fun!

Watch out folks, Poseidon coming to your way this May 11th.. Be prepared, or be washed out!

Now.. another notable structure in the carnival is this X-men stand.



The X-Men stand stood in the middle of a wall made of posters of the upcoming movies.



666 - seems catchy. I wonder what it's about. Anyone knows?



Higher view of the movie carnival.



The only things which I didn't really like were on stage. Hmm.. I don't know who they are.. But to me, they were giving amatuerish view on the upcoming blockbusters. Also, I just dislike their fake accent. Most of them were faking out an accent, which was obvious!! Eeww... The only thing I like on stage at that time was the LightSabre! (Note: Far Right on the picture!)

Guess who else I met that day?



V for Vendetta.



The Black Rider (a.k.a. The Nazgul) of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.



The Nazgul claiming another of his victim in search of Frodo and the One Ring...

More to come on the Movie Carnival.


Some Beauty Tips

Just as I wondered around Time Square, I came to discover of other events going on concurrently with the Movie Carnival 2006. Here's one of them.



It appears to be some beauty tips given by a Taiwanese fame.



The talk or demo is held in effort to push sales for some beauty products.



It doesn't really interest me, so I didn't bother to find out what it's about. Nevertheless, I took some photos just for eye opener!

Will continue on the coverage on Movie Carnival. Tired now, I MUST sleep!

pikom pc fair 2006 @ kl convention centre: the review

Pikom PC Fair was held a week ago at the KL Convention Centre, and it's a shame that I am only able to post these up now. It had been a torrid (not that bad), and busy week for me. The deadline to signoff for project in office is closing by.

PC Fair was held from 14-16 April. This is a fair where all computer vendors were gathered together in this event, to offer a series of exhibition on latest gadgets, as well as price-slashing offer to the gadget fans. Pikom is holding PC fair concurrently in several venues, e.g. Penang's PISA sports arena, Kuantan's Berjaya Complex (I hope I got it right) and etc. Other venues like Malacca's Mahkota Parade and Kuching's Taman Kereta would be held on different date. You can log on to Pikom's website for further detail.

This time round, Pikom has expanded the venues by addding a few more halls to their exhibitions. The halls at the ground floor (Hall 1 to 5) are still dedicated to the vendors' selling point. The additional move, was the Banquet Hall. The last time I was there in December, I don't recall them having this. (Or do I have bad memory?)

Anyway, here's the venue guide for reference.



Conference Hall was appointed as an exhibition hall for Notebook resellers. There were vendors from a wide range like HP, Dell, Acer, Fujitsu, Sony and etc. I guess I am safe to say that there isn't much happening in this Conference Hall.

Also, there was a disappointment when I entered this hall. I remembered the lalst time I was here in the PC Fair, the first thing that caught my attention was few Sony girls greeting me with laptops and leaflets in their hands. This time round, there were nowhere to be seen. Not even the whole conference hall.







Next - Banquet Hall.

Banquet Hall was made into a venue especially for Audio System only. All the participating speaker vendors gathered there, displaying their products. They all wanna show off their respective products, blasting all their speakers with different tpye of music and noises.

Thanks to that, we have a Banquet Hall of Noise Pollution. I didn't stop by that hall long cos it was too noisy. I didn't even bother to go deep into the hall, noise pollution level was too much for my liking.





The Banquet Hall and the vendors. Creative was upfront in the hall. First partition you see once you entered.

Moving on to the next hall - the Ballroom. Now, this is the hall where I find more promoters around. This is a more happening hall. Most of the vendors are of Notebooks, though there are other type of prodcuts. I saw Haier booth promoting some gadgets that compliments with Microsoft's Media Center.



An overview of the crowd in the Ballroom.



It sure was a crowded Saturday. 'People mountain people sea'..









Caught in the act! This guy is snapping the pretty promoters of HP Booth.



The 3 girls in white top and jeans skirt, they are from the Haier Booth. You know what's on their shirt? A MS Window trademark logo, with a word Mula printed in front of it. At the back there, if not mistaken, it was Komputer Saya. That translates to "Start button" and the "My Computer" in Bahasa Malaysia. Freak!





Sony's booth. Always nice to see, just like its VAIO. But sad to say, their Sony girls this time round weren't as attractive as they used to be.





The Sony Girls out in action!



The BenQ girls.





The ViewSonic girls!

I must say, I have this inability to approach all these promoters to pose a shot or two for me. It's a shame. I didn't have the guts to ask them to do so. *sigh*

If it had been a motorshow, it'll be a different story.

Oh, another worthy to mention, the Toshiba girls' outfits were pretty impressive and attractive. Too bad I didn't have a clear shot at them. As Toshiba will be the official partner for the upcoming World Cup 2006 Germany, their promoters had a red football jersey-like slim Tee, with numbers printed on the back, with white short skirt. It gives us a sporty feel. Slick! ;-)

I think their pics are available in some forums out there. Man, I need to work on my guts to approach these promoters or models. Can anyone give me any advise on this? I'm kinda shy in nature. *blush*

Next Pikom PC Fair - should be around August.

langkawi trip: trip concluded

Day 3.

It was a Monday. It was time for me to leave the island now. Day started early for me as I needed to catch ferry to Alor Setar, then make a transit to airplane. Since my friend was heading to Alor Setar as well, I may as well bought the air ticket to fly from Alor Setar. I could have flew directly from Langkawi.

Morning View in Quah

The morning view in Quah was soothing. Blue sky, with nice cool breeze touching your face. The sun slowly shines through the island.

Pardon me with the lack of angle for the morning shot. I was restricted. I took the shots outside the balcony of my friend's apartment. There was no other choice.


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The Jetty

We arrived at the jetty around 8am, and got ourselves a ferry departing at 8:30am.


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Outside the jetty, while waiting for the departure.


The Airport in Alor Setar, Kedah

The ferry ride was approximately 90 minutes. This time round, the ferry was much better than the one I took in Kuala Perlis. Nevertheless, there was a similarity. Majority of the passengers in the cabin was Malays. I wasn't the only chinese around this time, but I was one of few non-Malay in the cabin.

After arriving the jetty, I went straight ahead to take a taxi to the airport. The Alor Setar airport is about 25-30 minutes drive from the jetty. Along the way, you can see many paddy fields. There weren't many highways, or big roads. Most of the roads are like the kampung roads (village roads).

Alor Setar Airport was pretty small and old one. It seems worse than our old Kuching International Airport (prior the renovation and reconstruction). Have a look.



5 check-in counters.



That glass-door leads you to the departing terminal.



Passengers waiting for time to go into the the terminal.. So M-A-N-Y people ah.. But the number of people eventually increased much later that morning. Most of them were taking the AirAsia flight...



.. same flight as mine. AirAsia is not my personal preference, but I had no other choice. MAS was offering much higher price. It's not worth spending that much on a one-hour-flight. Taking bus back to KL, means enduring another 6-7 hours bus ride during day-time, is not a wise idea for me, as it will cause fatigue. Furthermore, it's much tiring to take long hours bus ride during day-time. Travelling on the long journey on the highways during daytime could be really tiring.


The Loot

Here is the loot I got from the Duty Free Island.

Taa daa...
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Not that much la.. But still a loot ma.. I had to spend a combination of cash and credit on the loot. *sob*


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2 litres of liquor - Chivas Regal 1L, and Sheridan's Coffee Layered Liquor (I think it's also 1L)



2 cartons of Dunhill Red, King Size Filter. (I don't smoke! I swear it's a favor asked from my friend!!)


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Last but not least... Chocolates! A dozen of Ferrero Rocher.. 2 pieces of Bisquil Liquor Chocolate (V.S.O.P).. and couple bars of Tablerone dark chocolate!

The Bisquil Liquor Chocolate tastes great! I still have some in my fridge! ;-)


Recommendation I have left out...

I have left out some recommendation in my previous entry, as I didn't take any photos on them. I'll just fill it up here.

Food:
I have been dining for two straight days in this chinese open-air restaurant. It's called Wonderland. It's not far fron the place I was staying, Quah. The food's nice, and the price was pretty reasonable too.

3 of us went for dinner there, we had grilled fish, dried-chilli squid, butter prawn, and kangkung belacan. That costs us RM 47, inclusive of drinks. 2nd time round, we had similar type of dish, but different style of preparation. It costs us RM 51. It ain't too bad for seafood.

Try it! ;-)

Drinks:
Now, if you're beer lover, you gotta love this. Beer is cheaper than soft drinks! Yes, a can of beer is CHEAPER than a can of Coke islandwide!

Others:
I have noticed that most of the cashier counters I visited in Langkawi, they are putting different 'dosage' of condom there. Normally, what we have in any counters, be it in KL or other city, are those small packets which comes with 3 condoms each packet.

Here in Langkawi, they're all selling by dozen! One box with a dozen condoms inside. I don't see them selling the small-box ones. Hmm.. I wonder if the need or demand of condoms are really this much? I didn't compare the price though. *wink*


Getting there...

How much?

Bus: KL - Kuala Perlis: RM 35

Ferry: Kuala Perlis - Langkawi: RM 15; Langkawi - Kuala Kedah: RM 18

Flight: KL - Langkawi: RM xxx (check AirAsia.com for the best price), no idea on MAS flight.

How long?

Bus: KL - Kuala Perlis: about 6 hours (at night)

Ferry: Kuala Perlis - Langkawi: 1 hour (barring any engine failure); Langkawi - Kuala Kedah: 1 and half hour.

Flight: KL - Langkawi: approximately 1 hour

Where to stay?
I bunked at my friend's place, so pratically free stay. But you can get a range of hotels and lodges to choose from, e.g. FourSeason Resort, or Tanjung Rhu Resort.. Chennai area has got a lot of budget places to stay.

Transport?
I would recommend renting cars to get around the island. It's a common practice there. This way, you can have a thorough tour on the island.

The Equipment?
For this trip, apart from my shirts and shorts, and swimwear.. I had these:

Camera: Olympus Camedia C-3030 Zoom

Tripod: Sakure 5ft-tall tripod

Mp3 player

That would do fine!

Next island target..
Probably Redang Island, Perhentian Island, or Tioman Island.. or maybe a more developed Singapore. Undecided yet, but will try to make it there! ;-)