PC Fair April 2011

hola...i'm back...went to the PC Fair April 2011 last weekend to grab some gadgets...pushed off from home at about 8.30 am and went to have breakfast first together with my parents as they were around...we pushed out early coz expecting it will be a massive crowd there at the PC Fair based on previous track records...even though we arrived there before 11 am, the crowd was already quite packed...our objective there was to get a NAS (Network Attached Storage), RAM for my laptop, an SDC and a micro SDC card and a wireless optical mouse...can't remember how many halls were taken up by the PC Fair...i think there was about 5 or 6 halls...all major brand products and big names in the industry were there...from HP, Dell, HTC, Western Digital, Seagate, Buffalo, Kingston, to name a few and many, many other brands...

we first went to the Western Digital & Seagate booth as were looking for a NAS...the one that we targetted was Buffalo as Buffalo has much more features compared to Western Digital & Seagate for the same capacity size and for the price...for 2TB, u can get a Buffalo NAS at RM499 and the same as well as Seagate at the same price...however, for Western Digital, for 2TB, it was a little bit higher...around RM500 plus...we then proceeded to the 2nd hall as the brand Buffalo was not exhibited there....the next hall was for audio & speaker gadgets...not interested, so skipped that...then went to the hall where smart phones & laptops were exhibited....not in the target list, skipped as well...then we headed down to the lower floor and came to the hall where things there are much more interesting...we then found the Buffalo booth...after doing some thinking whether to pick up the 1TB or 2TB, we decided to straight away get the 2TB as we do not have to worry much about storage as 2TB of size was more than enough for the both of us...the price of the 2TB Buffalo NAS was RM499...quite a good bargain given the capacity and the features that it has....

for those who do not know what a NAS (Network Attached Storage) is, it's a hard drive that u plug to your home router instead of your PC...the advantage of having a NAS instead of having a normal portable hard drive that plugs to your PC, u do not have to plug it to your PC each time u want to transfer or access files from your hard drive...then u have the privillege to share to anyone who was access to your network...for example me & my wife can access files in the NAS at the same time without us needing to individually plug the hard drive to our PC...what's more, if u know how to tweak the NAS, u can even access your files even though u are not at home via internet connection...even though u are thousand miles away from home, u can access your files at home given that your home has internet connection (and u don't it off ofcourse :P)...some of the other features that the Buffalo NAS has are, built in torrent client, DLNA support, Web Access (which i've explained about accessing files when u are not at home) to name a few...for more info, u can go to their website at http://www.buffalotech.com/products/network-storage/home-and-small-office/linkstation-live-ls-chl/ ....

after purchasing the NAS, me & my wife then went to get our other targetted items, a 2GB RAM for my laptop, an SD and a micro SD card and a wireless optical mouse which we got it for only RM30...the name of the brand was A4 tech...a brand starting to establish itself to be at par with the likes of Logitech & Microsoft...although cheap, the mouse was not bad...SD card was RM25 for 4GB and micro SD card was RM88 for 16GB...after we got we wanted, we then made a move to the klcc food court to have some dessert and get some food to bring back...after that, it was time to hit back home to explore the gadgets that we bought...hehehe~...

stay tuned guys for my next post~...cheers~....

Weekend Chill @ Pee Dee (Port Dickson)

hola2...been a bit bz lately and nothing much of activities recently...only the recent saturday me & my wife joined my wife's family to spend the weekend at Port Dickson...we stayed at the Ancasa All Suites Resorts & Spa...since my father in law is a staff at UDA and the fact that Ancasa All Suites Resorts & Spa belongs to UDA, so the rate was super low but there are already specific rooms allocated to the staffs of UDA....so the room that we see in the website or at tripadvisor are the rooms meant for outsider guests (unless we are willing to pay the same amount that the outsider pays :P )....the set up & landscape of the resort was quite nice as they made it looked like the resort is in Bali...the resort was set up in a Balinese concept & style....

pushed off from our home at around 8.30~8.45...my father in law came to fetch us...stopped by at the R&R Seremban to have breakfast and continued the journey...the journey was short as Port Dickson was not far from our place...in less than 1 and a half hours, we were already at the Ancasa All Suites Resorts & Spa...my father in law checked in and then we went to our units...we took 2 units of apartment...my father in law took the 1 room apartment while me & my wife shared with my mother & sister in law together with our little nephew...after about 30 minutes, my mother & sister in law and nephew arrived at the resort...

after we have setled down and put all our luggages, we then went down to the swimming pool to watch our little nephew take a dip into the water...this short weekend trip was more of a relax trip mainly to bring our nephew to take a dip into the swimming pool...after almost 1 hour, we then went out for lunch and went around and walk around at the Teluk Kemang beach...our nephew benefited the most out of this trip...he even rode on a horse and on a kids mobile vehicle, u know the ones that u see children riding in a shopping complex...after that, went back to the resort to have some rest....later in the afternoon, my father in law took our nephew to have a dip again in the water....

then at around 8 pm, we went for diner at the Ekspress Steamboat at the resort's restaurant...we had steamboat as my father in law has already booked...it costs RM20 per head...the steamboat dishes were only average...i think steamboat at Johnny's was much more better...my wife, mother & sister in law did not enjoyed the meal as to them it was quite tasteless...but for me, anything that is edible would be sufficient and as long i'm full, i'm happy & satisfied, hehehe....after diner, we went for a walk at the beach and later then went up back to our rooms to call off for the day...

the next day morning, we had breakfast at the beach near the hotel...after breakfast, my father in law took our nephew to the swimming pool for a last dip before making a move back to KL...then at almost noon time, we headed back home to KL....

till next time...stay tuned...

Weekend Splash @ Wa Wa Splash Tour, The Mines Cruise

last weekend, me & my wife went to The Mines to spend the weekend...the main reason was because we had to 2 free vouchers from the Palace Vacation Club to be spent on The Mines Boat Cruise and its all other types of cruise...we went for the Wa wa Splash Tour as its package had the most components, Wa wa Splash Tour+Dine at All Time Favourite Kopitiam+Animal Safari admission and the fact that the voucher's value was the highest :P ....we reached the Mines Shopping Fair at around 11~11.30 am...went straight to the Mines Cruise Counter to redeem the ticket...the Wa wa Splash Tour will start at 1.30pm so went to had our brunch first since we haven't took our breakfast...ate at a Vietnamese restaurant there and the food there was not bad and the price were quite reasonable...the name of the restaurant was Pho Hoa i think....after our brunch we then head up to IT Challenger to look around and do some window shopping of IT gadgets...my wife bought a couple of items and then it was then 1.20 pm...so headed down to the Mines Cruise Counter to wait for the guide to bring us for the Wa wa Splash Tour...

the guide brought us out of the Mines Shopping Fair to where the bus was waiting for us...it looked like a bus but there is more than meets the eye...that same bus can even move at the water!....some may call it an amphibious vehicle and it is actually an amphibious vehicle....it can move on land and on water...wow~....i think that was the 1st in Malaysia and i dun think we can find it anywhere in Malaysia other than at the Mines Cruise...here's the highlight of the tour from their website...

" The first Amphibious tour (Duck Tour) in Malaysia, offering Malaysians and foreign tourists a chance to tour Mines Resort City on land and on water. One of the newest attractions in the country that encourages domestic tourism and the arrival of foreign tourists. "

pretty cool and that was the 1st time me & my wife ever rode on an amphibious vehicle...was quite interesting...according to the tour guide, the vehicle has 2 gearbox...one for land movement and one meant for the movement during in the water...the moment the vehicle is in the water, it had to stopped for a while to shift to the water mode and vice versa when on land...the cruise departed from the Mines Shopping Fair and splashed its way to the lake next to the Mines Shopping Fair where the lake was also surrounded by the Mines Wellness Hotel, Mines Waterfront Business Park and also Sapura's office...the view was quite beautiful for a lake in the middle of the city...there was even water sport there...one would never expect to see these kind of things in the middle of the city...quite a brilliant idea by the Mines actually...

the amphibious boat took us round the lake while the tour guide gave a brief explanation of the surrounding buildings and the lake itself...the lake was actually a left over of a tin ore mining site...probably they got the name of the place as 'Mines' caused it was previously a mining site....hmmm, could be...hehehe...and also the depth of the lake was 200 meters deep!....wow~...it's that deep...no wonder according to the tour guide, most Malaysians dare not play the water sports there coz the lake was super deep...most of the regular water sports customers were foreigners according to the tour guide....and probably due the depth of the lake, there was also a small cruise ship owned by the Mines for the purpose of renting it out to those who wants to have functions on the ship....they called it as DME, Dining Meeting & Entertainment on water, also known as the Malaysia’s Most Premier Dining Boat...the cruise ship can accomodate 100 pax for a particular function....having a birthday party on a cruise ship at the middle of a lake, how cool is that....hehehehe...

after almost 30 minutes, the amphibious boat then made it's way back to land and dropped us back at the Mines Shopping Fair...went back in to the Mines Shopping Fair to have some dessert at the Sweet Chat cafe...ordered our favorite Durian pancake and a glass of drink...we shared since we were still full at that time...after that, went to do some household shopping and made our move to head back home...

btw, we did not used up the voucher to dine at the All Times Kopitiam since the kopitiam is outside of the Mines Shopping Fair, not inside...so was kinda lazy...and also for the Animal Safari, we skipped that due to laziness and the weather was hot that time... :P

i would recommend to have a try at the Mines Cruise Wa Wa Splash Tour...u can find more details on their website http://www.minescruise.com/wawa_splash/

till next time...cheers~...

entering adulthood ep. 5

last 2 week, me & my wife went to Penang to attend one of my coursemate, Nurul Iman's wedding...the wedding was on sunday but we went to Penang the day before to do some sight seeing and look up some dvds at Batu Ferringhi...it was a 2 week school holiday so expecting a little bit of a heavy traffic...but luckily the traffic wasn't that bad...pushed off at about 9 am...the journey from our home and exactly to the hotel where we stayed was about 5 hours plus...instead of taking the ferry to the island, we used the bridge instead as i was a bit lazy to go to the ferry terminal and to wait for the ferry...

the hotel that we stayed at Penang island was Naza Talyya Hotel at Tanjung Bungah, Penang...we booked the hotel thru booking.com...total nett rate was RM121 including tax...but there was no breakfast included...didn't really need the breakfast as the next day we are attending the wedding...so can eat all we can at the wedding reception :P ....the hotel wasn't really bad at all for that price...the room was quite spacious and our room had the seaview....just perfect!....after checking into our room, we relaxed for a while and then went out to have lunch as we were already really starved...we went to Gurney Mall as it was the nearest that has a wide variety of food choice....had lunch at The Chicken Rice shop and after that walked around Gurney Mall...even though previously i was at Penang Matriculation College, that was the 1st time i set foot inside Gurney Mall....hehehe...

after about almost 2 hours at Gurney Mall, we then decided to head straight to Batu Ferringhi instead of going back first to the hotel...journey there took about 20 to 30 minutes...it was raining so couldn't drive fast...reached there and it was still raining...so we made a quick shopping of DVDs and my wife's brouch and straight went back to the hotel....reached the hotel, took our bath, watched tv and call it off for the day...

the next day morning, got up a little bit late...checked out from the hotel at 12 pm at straight headed to Bukit Mertajam....seriously, i did not know the way to go there and was not confident with the map given....luckily i have my thrustworthy & reliable Garmin Asus Nuvifone...the journey was a breeze...in around 1 hour, we were there at the wedding reception and we joined the rest of our friends there...

after 2 hours spent on photograph session, eating and chit chatting, we then left Penang to head back to KL...








congratz iman on your wedding~...

Travelling Tips

hola2...juz to share some useful travelling tips here...fyi, both my HK & Phuket trip were organized by us alone...juz ourselves without involving any travel agency...not to brag here but to share what we've done to plan our trip so that we can save up some of those cash for other purpose eg. shopping, instead of spending onto travel agency...some might think that it is hard to travel by themselves without guide from travel agency or tour guide and yes that's true but with proper planning and information gathering, it will be an easy task...so to those who plan to travel by themselves without the aid from travel agency or tour guide, u can rest assure that u can do it all by yourselves given that u've done the proper planning & information gathering....besides, you can have the luxury of your own sweet time if u travel by yourselves without needing to rush with the travel or tour agency schedule...here are some of the tips i would like to share...

1) Flight

Before deciding to purchase the flight tiket, do a proper survey that gives u the best offer...no doubt that most of the time, Air Asia provides the best deal compared to other airline company but there are times when MAS deals are more tempting than Air Asia....the point is, no harm surveying all available airlines...

2) Accommodation

hey...it's the IT era...almost everything can be done online including booking of hotels or resorts...for us, we usually prefer www.agoda.com or www.booking.com...but there is also www.asiarooms.com...however, so far the best deals & rates are from agoda.com...our accomodation at Macau & HK were both done via agoda.com...select your destination, pax & nights and proceed with the payment using a credit card...once payment done, a confirmation slip will be emailed to u and all u need to do is print the slip and present it at the hotel when checking in...it's that easy...but one thing about agoda.com is that if suddenly u need to cancel the trip, there will be no refund...that's one disadvatage to that...however, if u booked via booking.com, if something turns up and u r not able to go for your trip, u can cancel your hotel booking...this is because the payment of the accomodation will be done when u check-in at the hotel on your check-in date...but, during making booking at booking.com, u will still need to fill in your credit card details as it is a guarantee that let's say u did not cancel and did not turn up during your hotel stay, they will charge it to your credit card...so, that's the advantage of booking.com over agoda.com but the rates of booking.com is a little bit higher than agoda.com...u can try it out for yourselves...also, before making the booking or reservation, it's highly recommended for u to check the rating & actual condition of the hotel or resort that u r going to stay...this can be done via www.tripadvisor.com...go to the website, key in the name of the hotel and u can see other people's ratings and comments about that particular hotel...this is very useful as we can predict how the actual condition of the hotel is as the pictures of the hotel are taken and uploaded by people who have stayed there...the fact is that, u can 100% trust on the pictures of the hotel at that particular hotel's website...sometimes they aren't as they look in the website when u get there...but u can rely on tripadvisor.com as the information there are from those who have stayed at that hotel...

3) Food

if u aren't a Muslim, then u can skip this part :P...but for us Muslims, it's no easy task to look for Halal food at a foreign country...to share what we've done, before going to HK & Macau, we Googled Halal food in HK & Macau and print out the list of the Halal foods that are available there...and we also surveyed the way to go the Halal food places...this is important so that u won't be totally lost there to find the Halal foods...also saves up a lot of time searching & wandering endlessly....

4) Things to do

nowadays, there are many travel bloggers...so, u all can always refer to these blogger's blog...it's very useful as u have a rough idea where to go & what to do once u r at your trip destination...u won't be totally lost in the dark...when travelling, time is precious (unless u have all the time u want)...u can't afford to waste time when u r there...it will be time consuming if u only started planning where to go & what to do when u r there...so, plan where to go & what to do wisely...u can save lots of time there...

5) Own Itinerary

speaking of planning, it is advisable & i strongly encourage that u do your own itinerary....we've done that for our recent trip and we managed to go to all of the places that we planned to go...moreover, we even managed to go to other places which are not in our itinerary due to the spare time that got, all because of proper planning & drafting out our own itinerary...plus, we got to have our own leisure of time at each places due to proper planning and not tied up to travel/tour agency...it's very useful to have your own itinerary draft out as it will help us keep track on our trip activities...we will know how much time we can spend on one place and we will know where to head after that...but, if u have drafted out your itinerary, please do stick to it...otherwise your activities will be messed up unless u know & sure the change of plans will not affect your trip planning...

6) Budget

this is the most important thing that we should pay attention to (unless budget is non of your concern :P)...u need to decide how much cash u r going to bring...how much money u would want to use for food, how much money for transportation, how much money for park/entertainment admission...the best would be to Google the price or rate beofre going there as then u would know how much u will need to dump out for the entrance fee...also, always train yourselves to check the exchange rate...this is quite important as if u found a better rate, u will have that extra cash compared to a rate that is not favouring...i understand that sometimes we do spent over our budget...that's normal, but we need to bare in mind not to over spent too much....otherwise u will get a headache paying up those credit card bills :P

hopefully these tips will be of use to all of u going for a vacation especially to foreign countries...cheers~.... ;)

honeymoon getaway : episode 2 part 5 (Back 2 KL)

woke up a bit early during the departuring day back to KL from HK....we went out to do some last minute window shopping of IT & electronic gadgets at Sham Shui Po....but it was raining and it limited our movement...also, most of the shops were still closed that time as it was still early...due to those reasons, we decided to go somewhere else...after doing some thinking and contributed by our starving, we decided to go for a 2nd round of dim sum at the Muslim Centre at Causeway Bay/Wan Chai...before that, we managed to bought some cleaning kit for our Nikon D3100...so the visit to Sham Shui Po wasn't really in vain :P....

took the MTR straight to Causeway Bay and straight to the Muslim Center...before we went out of the hotel, we checked out straight away so that we dun need to go back to our room...but we left our luggage at the hotel's concierge...so, when we arrived at the Muslim Centre, we straight away ordered a plate of yee mee and took a few plates of dim sum....the cuisine there was really delicious which explains why we went there for the 2nd time...hehehe...

after brunch, we then headed back to the hotel to collect our luggage and went straight to the airport...it wasn't an easy task carrying those 2 huge bag especially going down the flight of stairs to the Yau Ma Tei station...but luckily after that, all of the stations have elevators...phewww~...as we reached the airport, we walked around & hanged around there till our 5.30pm flight...however the flight was delayed and only after almost an hour, we managed to board our plan back to KL...

this trip was by far the best trip i had compared to the previous trips...the only down fall to it was our hotel room size at HK and the Ocean Park visit as we couldn't really explored it due to the weather...if u ask me, i'll definitely want to visit HK again...there are still many other places to visit & to explore...even the Disneyland we did not managed to go to each attractions...so Hong Kong, wait for us...till then, cheers~....