So long ago have I been on a bus tour

I rarely use public transport especially the bus and when I got the invitation to to Singapore to attend an award show, my wife asked me when was the last time I got on a bus to travel especially a place which took nealy 4 to 5 hours drive. That is also the question we asked ourselves as when we drive the car, it took us just 4 hours to drive from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore.

It was a nice ride as the bus only stopped at one rest area and was very comfortable. I slept halfway and when it stopped at the final rest area before crossing to Singapore, we were already excited.

The ride back was a bit tiring especially as it was done on a Sunday evening, one of the busiest day on the highway as people from the south returns to Kuala Lumpur. We boarded at 2.30pm and arrived at 8pm. Tiring to say the least but what happened in between made it worthwhile...

Keep on watching the clock

At one of the stops

I think riding a bus to Singapore is not too bad. I love to do it again and I heard there are a few bus company which has comfortable buses...

What has been happening here?

This is very rare for me as I have never really been away from blogging for so long since September last year. I did not even update or commented on any blog since one week ago which was one day before I went to Nuffnang Awards in Singapore. I know some of you have had enough of that award show but I do want to tell my side of the story. Let me give my perspective of it and it may not be as beautiful as some of the 'sponsored' post try to make it be. Heck, if you look closely between the line, you may even find a few disgruntle updates here and there.

Some of the post I need to put up is :

1) The people at the Nuffnang Asia-Pacific Blog Awards on 23.10.09;

2) The tour of Singapore courtesy of Tourism Singapore on 24.10.09;

3) My stay in Tune Hotels Kuala Lumpur a day before the Nuffnang's Singapore trip on 22.10.09;

4) The disastrous Comedy Club Kuala Lumpur show outing on 21.10.09;

5) The free show at the new Actors Studio Kuala Lumpur on top of Lot 10 a week before that;

6) The launch of the Bob Dylan Oris watch;

7) My 3 days getaway at Pullman Putrajaya Lakeside;

8) The new John Grisham book which is made for movie more than ever;

9) My weight which is yo-yo-ing like a er....yo-yo?;

10) My birthday celebration and the 'present' that I got from my wife

That is the 10 that I can think of right now. There are still 3 hours before I have to check-out from this hotel in Putrajaya. I am going to make the most of it and catch on my blogging later. See you guys in a few...

I have been to Singapore before...

I think in one of my last posting about my impending trip to Singapore this Friday, I have put out wrongly that I have never been to Singapore. Even my wife had commented that I wrote as if we have never been to Singapore. Maybe how I worded my

I actually have frequented Singapore in 2 different times.

One as a kid when my parents were posted in Johor Bahru as Felda officers. I remembered those time as the time Singapore was the choice shopping destination. I remembered my father always bringing me to this place called Geylang and Arab Street for us to enjoy murtabak.

As I become an adult, Singapore become more expensive and even their citizens cross over to come to our shore to shop. As I become more culturally affluent, they have more and more interesting musical talents and theater shows. I have been going there on a one-night stay just to enjoy certain theater shows which I have missed when I was in London. I still went to the same murtabak shop in Arab Street just to enjoy the food.

So, tomorrow, I will be going to Singapore on a sponsored trip with Nuffnang. I hope for it to be good as it is sponsored by Tourism Singapore whose branch at Orchard Road I went into the last time I was there. Quite impress with their amenities there and has high expectation of their hospitality...

Being told off in public

When I came to the office today, I had my usual partners meeting with my business partner and reviewed the events that we attended yesterday. One of it was the final corporate Eid open house for this season in which we came in different cars. She arrived first with my senior associate and she was making the rounds nearly half an hour before I arrived. It was a stately affair as the host for the evening is one of the well-known state linked company which has 7 other subsidiaries (some well-known, some are not).

There were many corporate big-wigs in that event, top civil servants and top management of those companies and other companies. We were there more than for the food. We were there just to reconnect back with all of them and to reestablished our connections. It worked in a way as many of those we have not met for some times remembered us. Those who never met us got to know us.

I did said once in my other blog. My partner is a kind of my firm's secret weapon. Rarely people not notice her when she goes into a room. That evening she wore a red suit and pants with a dark blouse. The blouse was a bit low cut and that was the bane of her existence that evening.

When we finally met each other she did say something vague to this one VIP whom I was sitting with. I actually did not understand it. When I talked to her yesterday only then did I understand. She was actually very angry with the VIP as he was acting like an old man mentioning about how low cut was her blouse. She even called out a lady CEO of another subsidiary company and pointed out my partner's outfit as inappropriate. My partner was livid with that comment that when she went off, she did not even shakes hand with the man although he has a file in our office.

We were actually wondering, as much as an older person has the right to comment on a younger person's outfit, if it is at an event such as that, should such reprimand be allowed without any need to do it subtly? Isn't it a bit embarassing?

I am glad Beyonce didn't come to Malaysia

There is a big hoopla about Beyonce not coming to Kuala Lumpur this 25th October, just 2 days before my birthday. I had actually planned to go to the concert and let my wife who is the one who really wanted to go to the concert to enjoy herself. I have not bought the tickets yet although I got an invite to go to the Beyonce pre-concert party last week in which you could even win an upgrade for your tickets. I was planning to buy it this week but my plan was further delayed when I got an invite at the end of last week for a fully sponsored trip to Singapore for this little thing called the Nuffnang awards.

It is not the Nuffnang award night which my wife and I are really looking forward too (we feel we are too old to be excited about something which we are not going to be participating in full except as audience). We are also not that excited because we have never been to Singapore. We actually have made Singapore our yearly destination since 2006 as we tried to catch a lot of theater shows which did not makes  its round yet to Malaysia.

As for my wife, she intends to shop although we have just been back from the Singapore sale in June. Go figure...

We are excited to go to Singapore as it is FREE. That is it. Free ride and accommodation. Not the food, but just those two. Quite a half past six deal actually as most tour usually have the food part included but I think the organiser is on a tight budget and couldn't get any sponsor for the food. But, what the heck. I take what I can and hope to have fun there. Considering it as my early birthday present....

When the battery is down

A man rarely act when he feels a bit of hot temperature on his body. I mean unless you are the lazy type who looks for a reason to sit at home and do nothing, a man who has ambition or somewhere to go (like getting that million dollar contract) will just brush off any feeling of a fever and still go out to work.

That is until he is hit by a real disease like a heart attack or hypertension. I actually was a workaholic once as I don't really have a life outside of my work. Nowadays, I just take thing easy and run the administration part of my business like someone who owns the company, not like some worker who needs to show his mettle to his boss.

So, when the battery is down, a person like me can take things easy and delegate. Like my wife always says, I am one person who really know how to delegate...

The mystery of the women's handbag

As a married man, I always know what is in my wife's handbag or I can actually garb it and have a lookee inside of it. However, when I was younger and single, I am at a lost of what is inside a woman's handbag as any other single man. We even think of it as a combustible thing which may explode any time we put our hands into it.

Nowadays, I even buy my wife his handbag like the coach bag below which can even cover up as a laptop carrier. Mystery? Not anymore.

Beer Car Wash

The top floor sign says

BEER CAR WASH

Anyone? Want to have your car washed using beer?

Actually, if you come to this shop in my office, the bottom shop (which you can see the word Car Wash there) washes cars. The shop on top with the sign which is blurred as the sign is too bright is actually a pub.  Both shops have the same owner. So, the shop's window on the 3rd floor which can be seen quite afar, in order to attract customers has the sign "BEER" which has an arrow on its left pointing up and "CAR WASH" which has an arrow pointing down.

And you get that nonsensical sign which is kind of a great idea too? If Singapore can have their topless car wash, we wash ours with beer....

Cheerio Day

Was invited to a birthday party of someone turning 21. As someone who is nearing 35 (Gah!!! That is just around the corner), never have though I will be coming to a birthday party of someone turning 21. I am the youngest in my family and my wife is also in the 3 series bracket. So, logically, I don't have friends in that age bracket. Until I joined the blogging community and meet all sorts of friends. Who is she? She is an awesome blogger who has a lot of friends. I was invited to her birthday and was just there to wich her a great birthday.

So, Missy Cheerio or Ellie in her real life turned 21. Advertlets was kind enough to throw her a birthday party and as you only turn 21 once, of course it was awesome. It was at Heritage Mansion. near Heritage Row ,Kuala Lumpur It started at 10pm until late. Really late. I left by 12pm as old people need more sleep than younger people. Read her postings about the event here and here.

Here are some pictures from my camera :

The place people can sign and leave birthday wishes

 Me and birthday girl

The cake

The special drink

Yep, flaming lambo...

 

 

Pictures of the awesome place, Heritage Mansion

Late night returns

My wife and I seem to be to a lot of events these days. We live within an area where most people are asleep by 10pm or at least have retire to their house much earlier. There are rarely people hanging out or have parties or make much noise within the area. There are a few youths within our area, like in a any other housing estate, but they usually hang out in the confine of their house or at the local coffee shops which are 3 km away. So, basically, after 10pm, our housing area is very quiet.

When we come back late, with our cats excitedly meowing when they know we just came back and the sound of our car, it is quite hard for us to keep our arrival low-key. Our house is in between houses which are occupied by couples who have small kids and babies. They have good relations with us and as we are nearly the same age, they did raised the issue of the noises we make. We do know our neighbourly duty and we do try to keep it down.

However, being just the two of us, it is not easy to spend time just within the confine of our house for our daily activity. Even if we are in, we love to watch movies or television series. And as we love comedy, the sound of us laughing can still be heard even if we close the door.

Maybe that is why living in apartments or condominiums are great for people like us as most of them are soundproof and it buffered the sound of canned laughter and our laughter when we are having too much fun...

Even if you are in corner lot you can still disturb your neighbours with your late night returns

My report on Good Coffee Day

Last week, I saw a tweet (from thousands of tweets) from StarbucksMY with regards to something they call 'Good Coffee Day'. It seems that the next day, which was a Wednesday, was a day for us to get free coffee from Starbucks all over Malaysia. For 2 hours between 10am to 12pm. Pure black freshly brewed coffee. Not some latte or those sissy designer coffees but the one which can jolt you from your slumber like an elixir of youth applied to your aged skin.

Yes, that is how much I love my coffee. Even willing to have to whiten my teeth every other month as coffee makes my teeth a bit yellow. So, on the day itself, I went there at 10.15am at my local Starbucks and got it for free. I actually waited to have my coffee although I had breakfast from somewhere else. I think it was a matter of principle of getting things for free. And I also wanted to send in my picture of the coffee that I got to StarbucksMY.

Thanks a lot for the free coffee and do tell us of such event again...

The barista at my local Starbucks

 

To be 21 again

I seem to be friends with younger people nowadays. It has become such as I blog and tweet and meet them at events unlike when I was keeping to myself and telling myself that all my 30s friends are cool. Even if we get to know people below our age bracket, it is always someone's sister or brother. We think that 30s is the new cool. As we are all in our 30s, so we are the cool crowd.

Not anymore. I think the word 'Youth is wasted on the young' does not apply to the younger generation. I have met a few of them who are CEOs, business owners, innovaters, motivators and various other professions which we can only imagine when we were in their shoes.

Their writings in their blogs. Their ideas. Their passion.

Oh, to be 21 again. In this age....

This Blog Anniversary

Today is this blog one year anniversary.

Although this is really more of a diary especially with regards to my relationship with my wife, family and friends, I consider this as a place where I go just to chill and not being a lawyer. More of a human than a cold calculating machinated person lawyers are supposed to be. A person with feelings and understanding. My wife did say that a blog about men and women and relationship will never runs out of ideas. I hope so.

I have filled this blog with sexual stories which seem to be a favourite among a few of my friends. Some I got through experience and some are actually work of fiction.

One year is nothing. Like all relationship, it is just a number that you build year after year. As a celebration, maybe I will change the layout or something. Stay tune...

Here's to many more...

...and there goes my weight

I had managed to do some dieting a few months ago as I think I need to do something before I am synonymous with the word 'FAT' and my health deteriorate. I managed to do it with a diet which did not even left me feeling hungry at all and allows me to eat almost everything. It was the best decision I ever did and I even have to buy new clothes to allow me to look like not as if I am borrowing some hand-me-down clothing.

Then the usual culprit which makes diet goes awry came. The season to be jolly, Malaysia style. Eid Mubarak celebration which has to be celebrated for 1 month. With it comes the open houses and the food.

I ask you, if you love grilled lamb and nearly all the houses have it, wouldn't you at least have even a small piece. That is until that satay and that briyani rice to seem to call your name as you are passing them.

As I said, there goes my diet...

"Blame it on the lamb" - sings it like Milli Vanilli's Blame it on the rain...

Saturday night on wheel

No wonder they are one of the premiere export from United Kingdom. They are well-known to have very good music and their parties are legendary. They even have it on wheels. What I am talking about? Just look at this :

MINISTRY OF SOUND truck...

What do they carry actually, do they cater to live deejay session?

This is how much I love walking

I walked once every day for nearly a week in the early days of summer from a hotel near Notting Hill to another hotel near the Marble Arch in London. The walk is a scenic route as I had to past Hyde Park which was nice during the summer of 2002. It was actually in one of the day, I read a newspaper that within during one of the day I was there, it was the first day of summer.

However, my wife kind of hated me when I asked her to do this on all of our holidays especially if we are in a hot tropical weather like Malaysia. I remembered that she missed out on one beautiful sunset at one of the most beautiful island in Southeast Asia (which is Phi Phi Island) when she refused to follow me to go around the island on foot. I managed to get the picture on the sunset (which I still have not upload as a soft copy) and that is the motivation for us to go back there.

A few weeks back, right before Ramadhan, I picked up walking again and one of my most memorable walk was from the Bukit Bintang area in Kuala Lumpur to the Bar Council near Bangunan Sultan Abdul Samad. That walk brings me back to my school days when walking is the mode of transport. The building I past became a fodder for my memory....

Sex toy 2

Continue from this posting

I was waiting for an appointment with a client when I decided to look for some skin for my Blackberry Storm. As always, the best place for something like that is a place called Sungei Wang Plaza in Bukit Bintang. As the office of my client is only a short distance from there, I did just that.

And that is when I found a sex shop nearly the same like I found in Europe. When I tweeted about it a few tweeplessaid it was there for quite some years already. So, what the hell was I doing smuggling those things I bought before in?

Just look at what is on offer :

Hmmm...

How jealous should a partner be?

Weird huh? To ask this question. In these modern time surely there are no man or woman jealous enough to make their partner too restrictive in their movement. But, without any jealousy it all, a relationship, I believe, cannot be sustained.

Being jealous is being caring.

However, it is still need to be done in moderation. If both of you are working, it will be impossible for any one of you does not deal with any other people. What is important is for you to get to know your partner's colleagues. Do know what happen in your partner's life at work and who is who?

I am one of the jealous type and my wife was too of my business partner when she just got to know me. The solution for us to bypass our jealousy was different.

The greatest compliment vs. the worse insult

The greatest compliment a man can get to boost his ego is :

"Who needs sex toy when....(insert your performance rating here)'

And the worse insult a man can get is :

"Are you in yet?"

And whoever said size does not matter really loves you....

Open Communication

I always believe in a relationship, regardless of the feelings of the parties or the arguments that may ensure, the best way to foster that relationship is to talk. You may want to sulk in a corner and cry your eyes out. That will be fine too but the best way to keep on talking to each other after that.

Sometimes, as a man, although people say men who sulk look ugly, I sulk too. And sometimes it become a silent treatment competition between the two of us. Then the monotony will break, either because there are only the two of us or because of friends, things will be okay again. Do we let what happened to be something we let go and just be water under the bridge?

Usually, we still talk about it. And I think that is for the best...

Sex toy

I had this one flirtation with disaster once when I travelled from the United Kingdom to Malaysia. I was trying to bring in into Malaysia some sex toys. Not those hard core one which have association with the word S&M but just those curious toys which I might not even used (actually all are properly used until they were unusable).

This particular one was not even for me. It was for someone else. It was those type of sex toy that is to substitute the genitilia that men have. It buzz and it is easy enough to be hidden in my luggage. Except it was not with my checked-in luggage. In my haste, it was left in my carry-on.

That was until I had the bright idea of asking my female colleague to carry it in her purse. I said to her at least if it was discovered when we were still in Heathrow, it will just be a nod, nod, wink, wink type of embarassment and if it was in Malaysia, they would just confiscated it.

In UK, it passed the x-ray machine.

In Malaysia, it was nearly discovered but thanks to some ingenious method of luggage packing, it passed the muster of the immigration.

Then just a few days ago, I discovered the existence of something which rendered all those mission impossible style of smuggling of the 'toy' useless

To be continued in tommorrow posting

Who do you look for when you need an ear

As someone who has been married for sometime, the only person I look for is rarely other than my wife. I talk to her about nearly everything, except for business decisions which I discuss with with business partners (although I do tell my wife certain things too).

There are a few instances, which usually involves family and even friends, when I was asked to be that ear where people use to tell their side of the story. As a practising syariah lawyer once, who handled Muslims family matters, I had my share of sob stories. As a man, who was single nearly all of my teenage life and twenties (never really had a steady girlfriend) I sometimes crossed over to the 'friend' zone and that is the position where you are the place the other half comes to tell their stories. Nowadays, I even had a few encounters, where men comes and tried to get me to be their shoulder to cry on (long story).

My best advice to everyone, either they are a man or woman, who are in a long term relationship is to always to have a friend. You might not know when you need one. This is not just in preparation of any disagreements or even heartbreaks which might then lead to bitter separation between you and your spouse/partner or whatever you call your other half, but this is also for any untoward accidents which people pass through in life due to natural disasters, wars or better known as force majeure. 

Unless you are quite good at drowning yourself in sorrow. Alone...

And off they went to Bristol

My elder brother and his family went off to Bristol in United Kingdom last Thursday. As it was quite a while since anyone go off to study within our family, there was quite a crowd sending them off. He was not as sad as he was first send off somewhere when he was younger. I remembered he even cried when he was sent off to boarding school. He was 13 then. Then he furthered his study in USA and he then became a seasoned traveller.

As for me, I rarely tell my parents where I was going in my globe-trotting days, which is way past. Then, I only go anywhere if I don't have to pay anything. Oh, there are ways to get that and that was another lifetime ago. I don't do that anymore. Nowadays, all my travel is paid for by myself and for my own pleasure.

The one who has a reason going to Bristol is my sister-in-law. She is furthering her study. She is an English teacher with a Masters from a local university. So, I guess she is going to Bristol to do a PhD in English? Anyway, they went there with my niece and nephews. There are 5 of them and as my SIL is qualified, they all got to travel in business class. Lucky them!

They will be there for 4 years (unless they suddenly migrate there) and that will mean my siblings will be less one during Eid Mubarak next year. With only 3 of us, that will be a small gathering indeed.

Here are the pictures of them flying off :

Business class check-in

Their luggages

Auntie taking her final pics with the kid

With their cousins

The grandma starts to cry a river

Uncle's turn