Satisfaction perhaps?

Being in the construction industry in this country isn't a good thing....

(Flashback...) I remember in my uni days, my seniors used to tell me their seniors were like hot cakes coming out of the oven, even before they graduate. Everyone of them would have earned a good prospect job when they step out of the uni, into the real world. Their salary highest among the fresh grads, their benefits similar to higher rank managers of today, and their yearly bonus is beyond what you can imagine. Well, those were the days.....Ever since the economic downturn in 1997, construction industry in this country has never been the same. To be frank, we are the ones first to be hit, and last to recover. But why, I wonder....why am I still in construction after so many years?

I was doing construction since graduation. Some of my peers went into consultation, some went to site, some left for other industries. Consultation is boring, basically u use your brains more, which lead to grey hair at a young age. Site work is worse! You don't look like an old man, but you look like a burnt piece of old junk! Many has mistaken me for a malay / burmese / thai / sabahan / whoever that has a DARK complexion! No one who works at a construction site is fair...except for the Boss. He is fair in the sense of skin complexion, and also when it comes to judgement. That makes him the BOSS!!!

Anyway, when I joined this company in Sept 2006, the shoplot looked like this:

In December, it looked like this:



However, in July, this is how it looks like:

If you ask me, with all this hot sun, low pay, little bonus, lots of travelling, etc, etc...why am I still in the construction industry? Well perhaps, "SATISFACTION" is the key word here. Maybe one day I will be building Super Structures such as the Petronas Twin Towers, Beijing International Airport, Beijing's National Grand Theatre, Beijing's Olympic Stadium, Beijing's National Swimming Centre, Beijing's CCTV, and lots more. Who knows, maybe one day, I will be known to the world, to build one of the "7 Wonders of The Modern World". Maybe one day, I will....

Petronas Twin Towers, Malaysia (MALAYSIA BOLEH!!! Tapi Si Korea & Jepun yg bina... Walau bagaimanapun, RAKYAT MALAYSIA punya duitlah...)

Beijing International Airport

(Designed by Foster & Partners. Airport teminal covers >1 million sq metres, bigger than the Pentagon. Handles 43 million passengers a year)

National Grand Theatre, Beijing

(Architect : Paul Andreu. Located near Tiananmen Square. Made up of 490,485 sq ft glass-titanium. Seems to float above a man-made lake)

Olympic Stadium, Beijing

(Idea taken from Rome's Colliseum. 91,000 seats. Stadium's outer grid resembles a bird's nest)

Central Chinese Television (CCTV), Beijing
(Designed by Rem Koolhaas & Ole Schereen, Engineered by Ole Arup. Centre of gravity lies outside of this building)


National Swimming Centre, Beijing
(Nicknamed the Water Cube. Made from panels of lightweight form of Teflon that transfroms the building into an energy-efficient greenhouse-like environment)

Taman Impiana II, Teluk Intan



Ever wonder what the heck am I doing rushing up and down to Teluk Intan these days? Well, ever since Nov 2006, I've been located at Taman Impiana II, Teluk Intan. This is our new housing project, consists of 202 units of mixed development. There are shoplots, which are easily sold out upon launching, semi-d's (1 & 2 storeys) and terrace houses (1 & 2 storeys).

23 units 2 storeys shoplots. Price from RM330,000.00

4 units 3 storey shoplots. Price from RM498,000.00

12 units double storey semi-d. Price from RM293,000.00

28 units single storey semi-d. Price from RM188,100.00

49 units double storey terrace. Price from RM173,850.00

48 units single storey terrace(22' X 70'). Price from RM113,050.00
38 units single storey terrace(22' x 75'). Price from RM 126,350.00

Sales has been good, surprisingly, due to the fact that Teluk Intan is agricultural based, and oil palm price has been soaring like no one's business. The neighbouring town, Hutan Melintang is also one of the contributors to the figures as there are filthy rich fishermen who buy houses in cash....phew.... Anyway, we'll be completing this project soon. Looks like I'll be going further north soon. Where to? I'll just keep mum at the moment and let u guys guess....

Chiangmai, 24th - 28th March 2007


This is the first time we(me, my parents, may & may's parents) travel together in a trip. We had planned for this trip 6 months ago. It was a hot summer in Chiangmai. The temperature during daytime is close to 40 degrees.

Being Buddhist, we visited several temples. We travelled north to Chiangrai on the 2nd day and stayed for a night. On the 3rd day, we managed to visit the long neck village and the Golden Triangle. It's a nice place to be at. For the ladies, I believe the best place is the night market. We managed to grab some funny cute stuff which is not on sale here. Overall, it's a so so trip, 'cos we rushed to finish visiting places that we have planned and the weather is so freaking hot....

Cameron Highlands, 24th October 2006

It was the first day of Hari Raya.











Since my parents were in KL, we decided to go to Cameron Highlands for a one day trip as all the hotels were fully booked.
Altho I know it'll be a very tiring trip, I've got no complains due to the fact that my parents are aging and they very seldom come to KL for holidays. I knew I can never repay them enough for the sacrifices they have made while bringing me up.

We started our journey at 6.00am. Reached Tapah @ 7.15am. We were halfway up the hill when we and many others had to stop due to a fallen tree trunk in the middle of the road. Thanks to the Orang Asli's who cut the tree trunks, we managed to continue our long, winding journey. It took us one hour to reach Ringlet and then Tanah Rata. On the way to Brinchang, we stopped at Cameron Valley Tea House. We took a very nice photo overseeing the hills.


We continued our journey to BOH Tea Plantation at Sg Palas. Everyone was dizzy when we arrived. I regretted for not stopping more frequently, as my parents are not young anymore, and couldn't stand the long, winding journey. Anyway, we had breakfast and tried the variety of teas there namely: Gunung Chantik, Bukit Cheding, Palas Supreme and other flavoured and scented teas.



Very soon, we were on our way down. We stopped at EQ Farm to pluck our own strawberries but to our dismay, their workers were on holidays and we were not allowed to pluck the strawberries ourselves. Then at Kea Farm, we had hoped to stop at the morning market, but to my surprise, there were too many people. We finally stopped at a souvenir shop along the way. We proceeded to have lunch at Brinchang. Then moved on to Cactus Valley. It's a nice place to visit. Entrance fee is RM4 per person. Here we took many photos of the cactus, flowers and sceneries.

It was already 3.00 pm when we finished touring the Cactus Valley. My dad decided that we leave as not to get caught up in the terrible jam. We bought some corns and veges, and left. At Tapah, we detoured to Kampar and met up with May's parents for dinner. Pretty soon, we were on our way back to KL. We arrived at 10.00pm and I remember on that particular day, Man Utd hammered Liverpool 2-0. Sigh.....

Cracks @ The Curve B1 Carpark

I was at The Curve last Saturday 28/10/06. As I walk to B1 to collect my car, I noticed these cracks on the wall. I guess it's not structural crack, so guys....don't worry.

Motorola V3X

I've been using a Nokia 8310 for 4 years now. It's high time for me to change to a new phone. Taking 3G into consideration with budget constraint, I've finally shortlisted 2 phones, Nokia 6280 and Motorola V3X. Finally, I bought a V3X.


Basically, the specs are:

- UMTS(3G) 384 kbps

- Weight 125g (quite heavy tho')

- Dimension ( 99 x 55 x 20mm), 89 cc

- Display TFT 256K colours, 240 x 320 pixels

- External display 65K colours, 96 x 80 pixels

- Ringtones: polyphonic 24 channels, MP3

- Phonebook 1000 x 20 fields

- Cardslot microSD up to 512MB

- Internal memory 64MB

- GPRS Class 10 (32-48 kbps)

- Bluetooth v1.2

- Browser WAP 2.0/xHTML

- Camera 2.0 MP, 1600 x 1200 pixels

- Video, flash

This V3X seems to be user friendly. I like the 3G function very much, altho' there are not many friends of mine who are using 3G. Currently Maxis is having a promotion. 7am-7pm normal call rates, 7pm-7am FOC. I've been 3G-ing with Chrissaro very frequent nowadays....and it's great to be having this kind of technology.

For those of you who are wondering how fun 3G is, wait till u try it yourself....

Ping Pong Table @ Teluk Intan ~ October 2006



Life in Teluk Intan is pretty bored. Each day after work, we will be wondering what to do. After rounds of snooker, mahjong, cho dai di, blah, blah, blah.....we decided to get a ping pong table. The table costs us RM360...shared by 4 person. So, it's a worthwhile sports activity 'in the house'...

TELUK INTAN, 2nd Sept 2006

I've started with my new job in Teluk Intan.
It's a new development of 202 shop/houses at Taman Impiana 2.
It's kinda challenging, new tasks, different type of management and lots of planning needed. Well, hopefully everything goes well....

Teluk Intan is quite a small town, but it's quite comfortable here.
Population here consists of majority Chinese, with Malays and Indians completing a harmonious multi racial community.

Not much could be done here, especially after working hours.
Night spots are dull, with merely less than 5 customers on weekday and not more than 10 on weekends. So, I'd just stay in the hostel, watch some dvds, play some games and sleep.
This is all I would do everyday.

Lady in the Water

This is a very lousy movie.....I don't understand the whole movie, it's something like a bedtime story, where there is no sense in everything.

Could have probably won the lousiest movie of the year.....

WORLD CUP 2006...Fanatics....Part 3

I love this game.....

who cares what the score is anyway...Brazillian babe on the loose.....

Can I have one of those?

Shout all you want...Argentina has crashed out in the Quarterfinal. But I would be happy if you could stay for a few more days.....

The new German face...Germany football has evolved, it's more interesting, so are the babes.

No wonder Italy reaches the final.... with this kind of inspiration, I bet they are gonna take the World Cup.....yummy!!!!

WORLD CUP 2006...Fanatics....Part 2

Here comes the scary photos....

"Big Momma : Son, you better do well or I'll see you in Hell...." No wonder Ivory Coast played some good and interesting football, but unfortunately crashed out in the early stages.

"Mana ada semangat...bang...." Ghana fans with their usual drums and whistles.

Superstitious three headed monster. Mexico showed improvement but has no luck.

Chezh-mate. Despite at no.2 in the FIFA world rankings before the tournament, they are out in the early round.

Oh my God. Hooligan in bikini. No wonder Lampard, Gerard and Carragher can't score from the spot kick.

WORLD CUP 2006...Fanatics...Part 1

The world cup 2006 is getting nearer to an end. It's just so fast, time really flies.

Ever wonder why some teams do well, and some just underperform? Maybe these photos will tell you why....

Equador boleh....no wonder they reach the last 16.

Nasty Swedish babe...Sweden too, reaches the last 16.

Holland...lucky to be in the round of 16. But unlucky to crash out too early.

Maybe you should take off the jersey and show us the bikini. Then Poland might go futher.

Nice bikini and babe....but Paraguay crash our in the prelim rounds. Maybe my "bikini" theory isn't true after all....

MOVIES

Suddenly I felt that I haven't watch a movie for quite some time.
It's true tho', I recall the last movie that I've seen is "The New World"....trust me, this movie sucks....

I guess I'll spend some time over the weekend to watch these movies:

- The fast and furious - my fren rate this 9/10
- Superman Returns
- Take the Lead
- The Omen
- 16 Blocks
- Cars - worth watching or not? can anyone tell me?
- X-men: The Last Stand
- Da Vinci Code

CAMBODIA, ANGKOR WAT - 13th to 17th May 2006

This is our first trip to Cambodia, so we decided to focus on Siem Reap and Angkor Wat.

We spent our first day visiting the cultural village, just to get an idea on the Cambodians lifestyle and culture. Quite a big place to walkabout which cost us $9. We spent the whole evening there.

2nd day marked our real exposure on the temples of Angkor Wat. We started with Angkor Thom South Gate, to Bayon. This temple is huge. We were really excited. We continued with Baphoun, Phimeanakas, Terrace of the Elephants, Thommanom, Ta Keo, Ta Phrom and Banteay Kdei in the morning. Just like what everyone recommended, Ta Phrom, the jungle temple is very artistic with huge tree roots all over the temple. Ta Keo is nice and huge too. In the afternoon we finally step foot in Angkor Wat. It's magnificient. No wonder it's one of the 7 wonders of the world. It took 30 years to build, only with manpower. We climbed up the hill to Phnom Bakheng to see the sunset, but rain caused us to rush down in 5 mins, which took us 15 mins to climb.

On the 3rd day, we went northeast of Angkor Wat. Our first stop was Prasat Kravarn. I like this temple. Then there is Pre Rup, East Mebon, Banteay Srei, Ta Som, Neak Pean and Preah Khan. Today is a short day in the temples, and we headed back to Siem Reap Central Market where the girls did most of their shopping. Being unsatisfied, we went back to Phnom Bakheng in the evening and managed to see the sunset. There were about 300 others at the same time waiting for the sun to set.

4th day was dedicated to Tonle Sap Lake and the Roluos Group. The lake tour took us 1 hour and 30 mins. At the centre of the lake, we could feel like being in the middle of the sea. This is the feeling we get from the biggest lake in South East Asia. Later, we went to the Roluos Group, consist of Lolei, Preah Ko and Bakong. It's the end of our temple visit and we headed back to town for some souvenirs.

5th day was a rest day. We packed our bags and came back to Malaysia.

Breakdown of our expenditure:
Air Asia Ticket RM143.00.
Cultural village ticket $9.00.
3 day Angkor Wat pass $40.00.
Boat ride $8.00.
Taxi $80/4 = $20.00.
Hotel $60/4 = $15.00.
Airport tax $25.00.
Food $30.00.
Misc $50.00.

TOTAL = RM143 + USD197

Worth it or not? You tell me.....