Cafe 1986

26th July 2014

Me and a few friends were not able to meet up during Chinese New Year, so for the Hari Raya Holiday, we finally made a plan to meet up. Initially, we planned to go to Pavillion or One City, however decided to just choose a cafe nearer to home because we just needed a place to eat and talk. A friend suggested Cafe 1986, since no objection, Cafe 1986 it is. 

Before I left for the place, I googled and searched Cafe 1984, and the top results were all related to George Orwell's 1984. Hahaha, I typed wrongly, it should be Cafe 1986. I guessed the Cafe 1986 came from the year the owner was born. Anyway, if the owner put named his cafe as Cafe 1984, I am pretty sure it won't show up in the first 10 or 20 pages in Google Search.

Dates

During the month of Ramadan, there were many advertisements on dates on the radio station. So, I kept hearing the name of the brand "Yusuf Taiyoob, Yusuf Taiyoob ....." everytime I tuned to the radio station. Well, after some time, I guessed the advertisement worked, when I saw the Yusuf Taiyoob dates in supermarket, I bought one packet. 

Normally, I only eat dates during Chinese New Year because that was the only time where my family bought many kinds of dates (red dates, black dates, etc) for praying. This Safina dates was very different in terms of taste, texture and size.

Pacemaker, As One and Champ (Korean Sports Movies)

I watched a Korean movie late at night yesterday, it was scheduled to be shown on TV at 12 o'clock midnight and initially I was going to give up because I was very sleepy, then before I switched off the TV, I became energized after watching the last few minutes of funny ghost show "Sini ada hantu". Since the sleepiness faded, I watched the "Pacemaker", a Korean movie about a marathon runner. 

Like any other sports movies, "Pacemaker" is a very inspirational movie. The protagonist Man Ho was a professional marathon runner that suffered a leg injury and became a delivery guy for a fried chicken shop. Then, Man Ho former coach came back to ask him to go back to the national team to be a pacemaker for a promising marathon runner. Since Man Ho couldn't let go his love for running, he agreed to that. However, initially his coach didn't tell him that his leg injuries were so bad that after the competition, there was high possibility that he couldn't run anymore. When Man Ho knew about that, he left to pursue his dream of actually complete a marathon race to end his career, not as a pacemaker. However, due to some circumstances, he went back to the national team to join the Olympic game as a pacemaker for his teammate. During the game, his estranged brother came to see him and this motivated him, he actually finished the full marathon.

A Short Trip to Daikanbo in Aso Kumamoto

20th March 2012

Google search the keyword 'Daikanbo' will show many beautiful lush green images of field and mountain. So imagine my surprise when I reached Daikanbo on a still chilly day in March 2012, what I saw was nothing but patches of black burned ground. It was so different from what I have imagined. At first, I thought a big wild wire had burnt out the whole area, then thanks to the information board, I learnt that the area was burnt on purpose to avoid reforestation to maintain the grass field. Well, at least I never suffered from any hazy conditions for my one year stay in Kumamoto City. So, no complaint here. 

In Aso, there is even a Fire Festival 火祭り every year where two big huge "火" characters were arranged in two peaks and burnt at night. It's something tourists can go to. However, in the Aso tourist website, it mentioned that although the Fire Festival is open for tourist, the open burning is not and they hoped that non related persons will not go and disrupt the operation.

A Short Trip To Taman Negara

12th to 14th October 2013

15th October 2013 was a public holiday. Initially, me and my friends were thinking on a 4-day trip in Taman Negara. However, after much considerations, we decided to just have a 3-day trip. Well, since we were not interested in camping out in the middle of jungle, 3 days in Taman Negara were more than enough. To simplify the trip planning, we just booked everything from NKS. We chose the cheapest package, around RM150.00 per person. It includes 2 nights hostel stay, meals, tour guide and the transportation in Taman Negara. 

First Day

On the 12th October morning (a fine Saturday), I met up with my friends for breakfast before departing. It will be a long ride to Taman Negara from Selangor. Then, we tried to pump fuel when we passed by Telok Panglima Garang. However, before we entered the first gas station, the worker there was waving to us, signalling us to leave, so we thought that the gas station was running out of RON95, so we left and drove to another gas station. The next gas station was quite empty too and a staff walked out to tell us that the area was experiencing power outage, so they couldn't sell us anything. Then, my friend got a call from the factory. The power outage affected the factory we worked too, so not only the production line was affected, even the system was all down, so even though there were many finished goods, none of the stuffs could be shipped out. Then, another friend got a call from his boss, asking him to access the situation. Both my friends answered that we were going for a holiday and out of town, not able to support. Coincidentally, my trip-mates this time were all company colleagues, luckily, all 12 came from different groups. Hahaha! Our bosses could find other members to help.