Before the April Fool comes

31 March 2011

At this late night of 31st March, I am feeling much heavier heart beats in my body. The clock is going to strike 12am, and the April Fool will arrive very soon. On the April Fool, it would also be my last service day with the company. It is not a joke.

People around me wonder if I would cry, and most of them guess I would. Perhaps I am a young little girl in their eyes, or they feel I am a sentimental person.

Long time ago, I had been trying to imagine how I would feel when I need to officially leave the company one day. And I can tell my actual feeling now is far different than what I imagined.

I have been seeing colleague leaving one by one over the past one year. Well, that is acceptable as I still have a big gang of good buddies with me in the company. But I truly do not feel okay to leave all of them in one day.

All good things shall come to an end. I shouldn't feel sad for my own's leaving as we can keep in touch with each other. I am sure we will. I definitely will miss the people a lot. In order to cherish the memorable moment we had together, I have compiled a video clips for easier review in future.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evwLhl12jRE

Farewell at Levain Bakery

26 March 2011

This is a French style bakery shop (bungalow) recommended by one of my colleague and many other bloggers. I had been wishing to give it a try since a few weeks ago, but its far location was always the major obstacle. And today, I finally made it with two of my friends.

pic: pizza

pic: cuppocino

pic: pasta at RM9.90. Forgot its name, but it is something like "pesto". I would only give it a rate of 3, though I like its garlic smell.

pic: Toasted Chicken Cutlet Sandwich at RM 9.90. Rate: 3.5/5

pic: The best I had tried, and it is my favourite. I like the aroma of the egg mayo. Rate: 4.5/5

pic: The filling is actually mashed potato with mayonese. If you have tried egg and ham, you may not like this which tastes lighter. Rate: 3/5

pic: It is not too sweet. Rate: 4/5. The curry chicken donut (behind) is quite nice. The spices taste differently than what we normally eat. Rate: 4/5

pic: Nothing special except for its outlook. Rate: 3/5

pic: One of the sweet bun. I like to bite the walnuts in the bread. Rate: 3.5/5

pic: The environment is quite nice. with the flowery balcony and yellowish lighting. The only complaint about the environment is the cloud and noise. It looks like a bazaar.

Address: No 7, Jalan Delima

Website: www.levain.com.my

"7-star" fish

16 Mar 2011

One of my teammates, who is from Sabah and outgoing person, brought us a big "7-star" fish from his deep sea fishing over last weekends.

Guess what. He went on Thursday, and on Friday, there was a tsunami in Japan. Being at somewhere out of the network coverage, he was not aware of the danger. When he was back, he told us about his exciting experience of the strong waves, which were actually resulted from Japan's tsunami. Thank God he returned safely. Despite the danger, it was indeed a rewarding trip which brought us an enjoyable lunch eating the fish.

Intel Atom N450 vs N550

16 Mar 2011

I am deciding to buy a netbook, which is not too expensive, and yet provides higher value. I am choosing between Dell Mini Inspiron 1018 and Asus EeePC 1005P as both of them are just within my budget, sold at the price of RM999.

I was told that both of them have dual core chipset. Thank god I did some research and obviously I was fooled.

Read this:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Buying-A-Dual-Core-Netbook-Intel-Atom-N450-Or-N550

Later, I found out N550 actually performs faster and can support DDR3, but then it would cost me another RM300.

http://www.netbookreports.com/2010/08/atom-cpu-showdown-intel-n550-vs-n450/

梦

11 Mar 2011

人家说，日有所思，夜有所梦。 我觉得，日有所听，夜也会有所梦。

平日在别人嘴边挂着的，和我耳朵里听见的话题，偶而晚上在我梦里会演绎成一个我在现实生活中不敢想象的画面，既是令人觉得抗拒，却又发觉这样也不错。

就当我梦到那一幕，也就是我一直都认为不可能会发生的事情，我的第一个心情竟然是温暖和甜蜜。至今我还回味着。但是接着的就是错乱的心情。脑子也开始出现种种负面的想法，视线也开始放得更远，看到前方的路将会是那么的坎坷，要经的风雨是那么的多。

也许因为现实不能让它发生，所以就在梦中实现它，好让我搁下耿耿于怀的事情。这不就正正是人需要发梦的原因吗？

Farewell of my first formal job

9 Mar 2011

There are three more weeks to go until my last day. But one of us (among three) who resigned will be leaving this week. So our three team leaders decided to organize the farewell for three of us together. This time was unusual. We made it at Kura, a restaurant which provides Japanese cuisine in One World Hotel. It was indeed sumptuous dining.

I had a set of Shashimi and Salmon Terriyaki. It was served with a bowl of rice, miso soup, steam egg, salad, and fruits at the price of RM38. Without the Shashimi, it would be RM25.

pic: Three of us who resigned, me, ying hui, and wee loo

pic: bee kheng and I

pic: about 15-20 of us

"Updated on 10 Mar"

And today, we had another private farewell among the closed colleague, without the bosses. Once Again it was still too early for me. But still I enjoyed the fish at Lan Je. I believe we all did. There were 14 of us and each of us had one medium-size fish. Thank all of them for the treat.

Thumbs up for both of the dining.

Introduction to Short Stories

8 Mar 2011

Two days ago, I found a piece of my hard work done during college time. It was my first ever video production. It was indeed a tough work, which took a lot of my effort and time. Despite the fact that I came across with some minor problems that prevented me to finish it in a smooth manner, it turned out to be a successful and satisfying video eventually.

Each group with members of three, was assigned with different stories and each group could freely utilize own's creativity to present the story. I was assigned the story "The Cask of Amontillado". The story is about how Montressor executes his revenge plan on Fortunato (used to be his friend). He attracted Fortunato to his house with Amontillado, which is always Fortunato's favourite wine, got him drunk, and finally chained him in his vault and let him died of suffocation.

Here is the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayxhNSApf7Q

Another group presented the short story "It used to be green once" very nicely too. It is about the relationship between mother and children.

Here is the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxzg9OHIshU

Accommodation in Auckland

1 March 2011

After we have settled the flight issues, we started doing some research and booking on appropriate hostel for at least the first few nights in Auckland.

Here is a good website which allows you to search hostel across the world, along with description and reviews of the hostels.

http://www.hostelworld.com

We would only have YHA member card with us which we will bring from Malaysia. Hence, we wanted to get a YHA hostel so that we can get the NZD3 discount per night. However, the pricing is not cheap. There are some other BBH which offer a similar price even before discount, and yet with better environment. The YHA Auckland international doesn't look good to me. It looks more like a university's hostel. But their kitchen looks really spacious.

http://www.yha.co.nz/Hostels/North+Island+Hostels/AucklandInternational/

We were greatly interested in Yaping house, which looks so warm and quiet to us. Yet, it is far from city. It is only 25NZD per person for a 4-bed room and unlimited internet connection.

http://www.yapinghouse.co.nz/

Then we found K Road City Travellers which is very near to the city centre and provides unlimited free wifi connection. But we felt that NZD30 per person for a 4-bed room is too pricey.

http://www.kroadcitytravelers.co.nz/

Later we found Choice Backpackers which provides nice environment too, but it costs NZD27 per person.

http://www.hostelnz.co.nz/home.html

Finally we came across with Frienz Backpackers Accommodation. I love their stylish and modern design and decoration (though I still prefer Yaping's environment). It is closed to the city heart too and it costs only NZD25. Internet access is free using their desktop provided at the first floor but wifi would be charged. This would definitely be our first choice. With a BBH card, NZD2 discount is applicable. Hopefully we would manage to get our BBH card done at the airport before we check in the hostel.

http://www.frienz.com/

"Updated on 6 Mar 2011"

Unfortunately, we have just realized some real bad reviews about Frienz. We want to change our mind now. YHA International is in our list, and at the same time, we are looking for a better one. Here we got to know about Pentlands Backpackers, with superb good reviews. If you want to know about its reviews, simply search it in hostelworld.com. I am truly captivated by the scenery outside of the window :)

http://www.pentlands.co.nz

Air New Zealand - Flight booking trick

28 Feb 2011

There is a quick update to all of you. I would no longer fly from Christchurch to Wellington, but to Auckland instead. The reason is very simple and obvious, if you heard any news regarding the higher earthquake risk in Wellington after the earthquake happened in Christchurch on 22 Feb.

Guess what? I was only aware about the higher risk the next day after I have made a flight booking to Wellington. To bring down our worries, also our families', we have decided to change the flight, despite the NZD50 extra charge.

To our disappointment, it was not as easy as what we thought. Changing destination online was not allowed and we were asked to make a call. At that moment, we were actually not sure if changing destination was not allowed, or just simply we couldn't do that online. We tried to call but it was not answered.

We had to make a decision, whether to wait for a few more days until the call was successful, or we just grab a separate ticket (NZD79) before they were sold out. A miracle appeared. Just right after 12am NZ time, we saw they are giving hot fare. For our desired timeslot, there was only one ticket left at the price of NZD40.

There were some confusion working with their booking system. Hopefully our experience can help you in your next booking. In the booking request form, we were asked to key in the date and number of persons as usual. The result turned out to be different when we searched for single person and 3 persons.

Here was what happened. There was only one hot fare ticket left for the slot 8pm. When we searched for 3 persons, we can only see a normal fare row item for 8pm time slot. But if we searched for 1 person, we can see one hot fare row item for 8pm time slot too. Please take not that they actually belong to the same flight. I think the reason was there was only one hot fare ticket left. When we searched for three, the hot fare didn't show up as it was not enough for three. The system just can't display hot fare row item and normal fare row item for the same flight separately.

Unfortunately we were not aware of this at the beginning. We searched for three persons all the while and we thought there was no hot fare ticket until my partner searched for one person.

So it is good that we always check for the flight number, departure time and different number of persons.

We end up purchased one hot fare ticket, and two normal fare tickets and we shared the total expenses among three of us. It saved each of us around NZD10 and yet we still can travel on the same flight, sitting at the same row.