Pre-Wedding Pictures by Dev Lee

The past few days was hectic. I was running around to prepare for my pre-wedding photo shoot. Something unpleasant happened last week so we had to find new locations within days and gladly we found a few. The whole photo shoot was fun but very tiring.

Shot by my personal friend, Dev Lee. We got a few locations such as Gita Bayu award winning club house and Werner’s at Changkat Bukit Bintang (thanks Andreas!!)

This are a few preview pictures, untreated, unedited and in low res. This picture is taken at Gita Bayu’s award winning clubhouse. The gown is included in the package, Rachel loved it.

This shot is taken at the clubhouse as well. That’s why they are award winning.

Loved this picture. We wanted something like this before the shoot as we showed him and Dev captured it well in his own style.

This was totally unexpected.This is taken at Werner’s Changkat Bukit Bintang. I loved the mood and the ambience of the place.

The cheongsam is belong to Rachel’s mother. Her mother’s actual wedding dress so this is quite nostalgic. The dress is at least 30 years old.

Lastly, I must thank Andreas for the Werner’s location and Gita Bayu management office for the permission of the club house. Not forgetting Dev for helping us so much on this.

Please do check out Dev’s profile at http://www.devleephoto.com/

We had fun for the photo shoot with him!

Comic Con International 2010: Bret Ratner, Steve Austin, Iron Man, Stan Winston, Prototype Optimus Prime Pictures by Chun Seong

This is a guest post by my younger brother, Chun Seong who went to the Comic Con International 2010 last week. Being a 3D Modeler himself in Los Angeles, this was his first time visiting the Comic Con.

He was pretty excited this time around as his new project will be showing at the Comic Con. However, due to confidentiality issues, he couldn’t tell me his latest project. His past projects include The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Avatar, The Hulk, Wolverine, AVPR, Meet Dave and many more.

The convention center was packed by enthusiasts for the Comic Con 2010.

The turn-out was pretty good especially at the famous gas lamp area. The crowd was massive that day.

As he entering the convention center, he saw director Bret Ratner. One of his works is the movie X-Men 3.

The Hall H is the biggest hall at Comic Con.

Guess who he saw in Comic Con 2010? WWE Legend Stone Cold Steve Austin (he is in the picture, can u spot him! He was there promoting the action packed movie, Expendables. Expendables is a star studded movie which the cast includes Stallone, Jet Li, Bruce Willis and many more.

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Famous Petaling Street Hokkien Noodle Kim Lian Kee at Lot 10 Hutong, MALAYSIA

I went shopping a few days ago with my mum and my sis at iSetan Lot 10. Since we were there, I decided to bring them for a treat, a lunch at Lot 10 Hutong. They had no idea what’s Lot 10 Hutong is all about, though they had been shopping in iSetan Lot 10 for years.

My mum’s first impression was like; there’s so many good food here! Not just my mum, my sis was impressed as well. Lot 10 Hutong is located at the LG (lower ground floor) of Lot 10 shopping center. The best part of this new food new food court is, it’s NON HALAL. I believe it’s one of the few NON HALAL food court in a shopping mall.

I’ve tried almost most of the stall but there is one I loved most, the famous Petaling Street Hokkien Noodle, Kim Lian Kee. As famous as the original outlet, the stall is usually packed with customers queuing up to order. Luckily, that day we got our order fast.

To be frank, I am always cautious about food branches like this. Some might question the quality of food comparing to the original place. Well, I am one of them. I tried on their Hokkien noodle at their main outlet in Petaling Street before and I even did a review back then here.
I ordered a plate to share and it cost RM8.90 per plate (US 3). Price is slightly high most likely due to the high rental of Lot 10. Yet again, for that price and for that good food, it’s all worth it. After a good 10 min wait, I got my Hokkien noodle.

A quick glance at it, it looks like the same to other hokkien noodles. However, don’t be fooled by its outlook, it was good. I can gladly say, the quality is maintain and almost identical to the original shop in Petaling Street. Well I would prefer it with more lards, the hokkien noodle would be more fragrant. Other than that, I would say the noodle is pretty good.

We had a heavy lunch that day, with my mum planning to bring my dad over for another feast. The Lot 10 Hutong is really a great place to dine in for the famous local food. Since my first visit to Lot 10 Hutong, I had been dining there for a while. We will definitely going back for more.

Kim Lian Kee Lot 10 address:
Lot 10 Hutong,
LG, Lot 10 Shopping Mall

The Legendary Meng Kee’s Char Siew (Caramelized Roast Pork) at Glenmarie, Shah Alam, MALAYSIA

One of the most popular char siew in Kuala Lumpur, the Meng Kee Char Siew (Caramelized Roast Pork) has been around for years. However my first visit to their shop is at their branch in Glenmarie, Shah Alam.

It was a hot day and my clients tagged me along to one of the unexpected food, char siew. After reading the signs in front of their restaurant, the place needs no more introductions. Thus, it was packed and we were lucky to have a table in minutes.

The restaurant was not air conditioned and luckily it wasn’t that stuffy inside. After getting our orders, the roast chicken came first.

To be frank, there is nothing more than amazing about their roast chicken. The skin was slightly crispier and the taste was more the less the same with other usual chicken rice stalls.

We ordered the grill sausage. To be frank, since I came back from Argentina, I began to fancy grill sausages. Compare to the roast chicken, this was better. The taste and the fillings, this was pretty good.

Lastly, the legendary char siew (caramelized roast pork). I noticed that the skin is darker and stickier than usual. My guess would be more sugar was applied on the skin during the grilling process, which resulted darker char siew skin colour and I wasn’t wrong. It was sweeter than usual char siew and I loved how they use layered pork for it. It was really up to the expectation.
The bill came about roughly around RM 10 per person with drink. Slightly expensive than usual, but its worth the price. Thank you for reading.

Restoran Meng Kee Char Siew Glenmarie, Shah Alam Address:
20 (Ground), Jalan Pekedai U1/36
Hicom Glenmarie Industrial Park
Shah Alam
Tel: 019-379 3629

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Visiting Tehran, the Capital of Iran: The First Contact by Gary Leow

This is a guest post by KLStuff.my’s Gary Leow. Gary is a personal friend and he traveled to Tehran last year for a working project. As we heard so much about the beauty of Tehran, Gary explains his first contact or first hand experience with the beautiful city of Tehran, IRAN. He writes:
The flight was approximately 8 hours from KLIA to Tehran. Tehran is the capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Located on the slopes of the mountains and at the foot of the magnificent Mount Alborz, it has been the country’s capital city for over 200 years now. The population of Tehran City itself is close to 14 million people.

First impression of Tehran – feels very uptight because, minutes before the plane lands, there was an announcement to all female passengers to ensure that they put on their headscarf once they leave the aircraft.

While walking towards the check-out point, the airport seems very quiet though it is the main airport in the capital city. Unlike KLIA, it is not buzzing with activities and you see Iranian Police guards along the way. They have that terror looking face whereby you will be killed if you commit an offence kinda look.
At the check-out counter, the immigration officer is very unfriendly. Initial thoughts when they spoke to one another was Arabic but to which later was being told it is Persian. Wordings and markings all around the airport is not Jawi nor Arabic but Persian also.

Coming from an Islamic country i.e. Malaysia, the immigration officer does not ask much questions. They just do their routine check and I’m thru the check-out point in 3 mins. It was very fast but also very quiet. This is suddenly when you notice that everyone around is also very silently queueing for their turns to get thru the check-out counter.
Once thru, we took an escalator down to the luggage bay to wait for our luggage. Surprisingly, the service was very efficient because by the time we got there, our luggage were already out there waiting.

It was still sunny because it is only 3:30pm Iran local time. Malaysia was 8:30pm then. It was Spring and the temperature outside was approximately 16C. A very cooling and nice temperature compliments after a long tiring flight.

Once all my partners has re-grouped, we headed out towards the arrival hall where our liaison person from Tehran is already waiting there, holding on to a card with my partners name on it. “Mozer” was his name.

We greeted and shook hands trying to get acquainted with our liason person. His name was Javan and he speaks a perfect English except for the slight American accent. We chatted while walking towards the entrance of the hall where our car was waiting for us.

As we were walking out, I notice that there is a lot of Peugeot on the side road. Peugeot is somewhat like their national car as in comparison to Malaysia. I was driving a Peugeot then and I was under the impression that we would be picked up by a Peugeot. Unfortunately my dream was cut short when suddenly out of the corner a very familiar looking car turned and stop right in front of us.

Then we all suddenly burst out laughing. What more can we ask for of this trip than to be transported for the whole 5 days with our very own national car a Proton Waja to which in Iran is called a Proton Impiana, left hand drive though. The Proton Waja was our official car for the next 5 days and we have a English speaking guide and a driver for us as well. Apparently Malaysia exports 3 version of our national car to Iran namely Waja, Wira & Gen2.

Javan told us that he is being assigned to us for the next 5 days and he is to ensure that we get all that we asked for throughout our entire stay in Iran. This trip to Iran is to recee a site for our clients in Malaysia who has engaged us to consult them on how to operate and run a hypermarket. So this trip to Tehran is to see and understand the Iranian culture and also to meet up with a few influencial people in Tehran (namely the investors for this project) so as to convince them that they are making the right choice in trying to bring in a shopping mall concept with a hypermarket built in just like our very own Mid Valley Megamall.
Once we have all had a good feel of the cool and nice air around, we all jumped into the car and our journey into the City of Tehran begins. Javan told us that since it is 4:30pm then at that time and the after office traffic has begun, hence the journey will take us approximately 1 to 1:20 minutes to reach our hotel. Also it is because our hotel is situated at the other end of town. So instead of us traveling into town to cut our way across and get stucked in the rush hour traffic, he says we would be taking the outer route (something like MRR2 instead of going thru Pudu) to get to our destination. Traffic jam is still unavoidable at this point but it will not be as horrendous as the one if we are to cut across town directly.

So while we are on our way, we got to know Javan a little bit better and understand the culture of Iranians. Javan is married with no kids. Iranians speak Persian in Tehran but on the northern part of Iran, the language is different and so is south and east. It is only in Tehran that everyone speaks a pure Persian dialect whereas the other parts of the country, there is sort of like a blend to the Persian language depending on where one is.

On one part of the journey, we were passing by areas that look like the desert and it is very dusty with all the vehicles and lorries moving along the highway. Our driver is a speed demon. We were traveling at approximately 130 to 140km per hour. Zooming left and right overtaking cars and lorries on the highway. Thank god it is a Malaysian made car!!

After 30 minutes on the highway, we then hit into town and passing by another airport in town. Javan told us that in Tehran there are 3 airports all together. One is the new International Airport i.e. Imam Khomeini International Airport, one is the old international airport which is now being used for domestic airport and it is known as Mehr Abad airport and the last airport is the Army airport which is on the other side of town.
Our intended project site is actually very near the Nehr Abad Airport according to Javan. In fact the Mehr Abad airport is just exactly behind our project site.
(the project that we will be working on then was the Ekhbatan Mega Mall project and you can find out more information about it here at this URL

After almost 40 minutes into the journey, then we saw something breathtaking. It was the magnificent Mount Alborz, the very sight of this beauty is enough to make one speechless. For me, it was definitely the first time seeing a real snow capped mountain.
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World Class Dining at Marina Bay Sands Singapore Preview: Food Tasting session with Santi Santamaria, Guy Savoy, Tetsuya Wakuda, Daniel Boulud and Justin Quek

This could be one of the rarest occasions in the culinary world. Six world class celebrity chefs: Santi Santamaria, Guy Savoy, Tetsuya Wakuda, Daniel Boulud and Justin Quek were altogether at Marina Bay Sands Singapore.

I walked slowly into the event hall as the chefs were chatting with each other. Approx. 300 media representatives around the world, awaits the 6 world class chefs for the Q & A session.  The one hour media session was filled with laughter and joy. Hosted by the founders of AFC, the Asian Food Channel, the chefs were having fun answering questions from the press and media.

As the media conference concluded, everyone fled to the food tasting session hall where the real feast began. I must admit that never in my life, I’ve tasted any of the 6 world class chef’s food. Never would I think that I could have tasted all of their food at one time, at this event. The experience was extraordinary.

A short conversation with other foreign media agreed that such rare occasion was a memorable experience indeed.

With unlimited champagne from Piper-HiedSieck, I could not keep track the amazing food I had.

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The Chinese Museum Kuching Review: The History of Chinese in Kuching

Located by the river, opposite the Tua Pek Kong Temple, the Chinese Museum is one of the must visit attraction of Kuching. The single storey air conditioned building might look small but inside the museum, it is rich with information and artifacts of the history of the Chinese in Kuching.

This historic building that houses the Chinese Museum was built in 1912 and used as a court by the Chinese community until 1921. With the aim of portraying the rich and enthralling history of Sarawak’s diverse Chinese groups, the museum was officially opened in 1993.

Being there for the first time, I must voice out my disappointment for not allowing me to take pictures within the museum. For the first time in my life, I was disallowed taking pictures in the museum.  I respect the rules, but by not allowing me to take pictures, how can I help promoting such an important tourist attraction in Kuching? Well, I hope their management should do something about this.

Back to the museum, as a Chinese I do always wonder how the first Chinese came to Kuching. Well, most of the information in the museum is descriptive. Not forgetting also the important information about all the Chinese clans that help to build Kuching are there. It is interesting to read so much about them and also the leaders of past. Most of them still reside in Sarawak. I stayed there quite a bit, reading most of the stories. There are more stories than artifacts in the museum, just to let you all know.

It is a must visit place in Kuching in my opinion. If you love history, this is a must place to visit. I hope I can visit there again with the green light to take pictures inside.

Chinese Museum Kuching Address:

Jalan Main Bazaar, Kuching, Sarawak (opposite Tua Pek Kong temple)

Thai Food Cooking Classes at Blue Elephant, Bangkok, THAILAND

This could go to one of those untold stories of mine. Last year, at the last few days for my Tourism Of Thailand media trip, I was given the chance to learn Thai food at the famous Blue Elephant Cooking Academy in Bangkok.

The exterior the Blue Elephant Cooking School

My days of cooking have long gone passed by since my university days where I used to cook for Rachel. Since then, even staying on my own, cooking is never a necessity. Somehow, I find cooking for 2 cost more than dining out.

The beautiful interior of the place, loved the chandelier.

When the coach stopped in front of the pre-war building, there was a sign reads “Blue Elephant Restaurant”. We were brought to classrooms where chefs were teaching us the “theories”. After given us the explanations about the dishes we are going cook.

Cooking class made easy, check out the mirror on top of the chef, reflections made everything easier.

I took some notes as it wasn’t easy to memorize so many things at once. It is always simple to look at the chefs preparing the dishes but doing it on our own will be a different story.

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My MAS (Malaysia Airlines) Experience from Buenos Aires to Cape Town: The Story of the Shameless and Disgraceful Argentine Rugby Players

Read the headline right, there are no better words to describe the Argentine rugby players during my flight from Buenos Aires to Cape Town on 24^th of February, 2010 (MH 202). Along with other travelers, we had to bear the noisy Argentine rugby players throughout the journey.

Yeah, they had fun. These are the Argentine rugby players that turned rowdy in the plane.
I asked an air stewardess about their behavior, apparently a week before my flight, on 17^th February, 2010, they created a scene where they were complaining the food was lousy. Well, on my flight, these rugby players threw pillows around within the seating area (with other passengers) while their coaches and their staffs ignored the situation.

Look at what they did on the plane. Rubbish was everywhere.
My pleasant stay at Argentina left in a sour note due to such idiots. As most of the Argentines I met were friendly and I was also amazed by their culture and history but the behavior and attitude of these Argentine rugby players didn’t represent what I’ve seen.

A scene after the pillow fight. Beware, they represent the Argentine Rugby Union (pillow fight section?)

Regardless, I must praise the Malaysia Airlines cabin crew for putting their hard work to control the situation.

A nice work from the Argentine Rugby Players. Probably, the Argentina Rugby Union never teach them manners.
As they left the plane in Cape Town, the plane was in chaos. They threw rubbish and pillows everywhere and a created a mess out of it. I wonder how such shameless and disgraceful people could represent their country in their country’s uniform. And one should wonder as well how could the coaches and the working staffs of the Argentine rugby union turned their eyes blind on such situation. Probably, they were as disgraceful as their players.

Malaysia Airlines cabin crews have to put up their smiley faces on this type of situation. Don’t they deserved the Best Cabin Crew Award?

The Argentine Rugby Players, what a way to represent your country! No discipline and no manners!

Mind my language for this as I strongly felt that the passengers of MH 202 as well as the cabin crews deserved an apology for their disgraceful and shameless behavior!

*My traveling friend left a week after me, in early March had the same experience with the Argentine rugby players. He got hit in the face by a pillow as a rugby player throwing the pillows around. He complained it to the cabin crew. Argentina’s Rugby Union, shame on you!*

Travel Moments of Elena Khoo: The Encounter with Shinkansen (Bullet Train) Photographers

This is a Guest Contributor’s story from a buddy, Elena Khoo. A client turned friend, Elena has traveled to various part of the world and her last year’s trip to Japan was a memorable one. Spent 14 days backpacking in Japan and traveled to 6 cities in 6 days, her trip to Japan was awesome!

We’ve heard so much about Shinkansen (Bullet Train) of Japan throughout the years. In fact, the moment that Elena encountered one in Japan, the attention was not so much about the bullet train.

It was the photographers camped for the Shinkansen that caught Elena’s attention.

“I shall wait with my 2 cameras”

Elena hitch hiking a Shinkansen

Look at the speed of the train

Apparently, she was told, it is a common sight that photographers will camp to take the picture of Shinkansen. As she traveled to quite a number of places in Europe, this was her first. Elena used to stay in France for a few years, and she traveled quite often in Europe back then. The photographers would spend hours a day trying to capture the best shot.

Well, we heard so much about the discrimination on girls in Japan. For that, they had boarding point for ladies only as well as “ladies train” only. Unlike in Malaysia, Japanese line up to board the train. Not forgetting also the cleanliness of the whole place.

Her experience on the Shinkansen was comfortable. Elena didn’t feel the speed at all and the train was definitely faster than Eurostar based on her experience.
It was definitely a great experience from her. There will be more stories from her on her Japan trip from time to time. Thanks again buddy Elena for the story, she’s a darling.
*I am trying to work on the consistency on the guest posts here. I would also like to thank my friends for supporting this guest post column. There will be more interesting stories around the world coming soon. Thanks. *