S7 Penang trip December 2008

12.00 p.m. on 11/12/2008 (Thursday)

Arrival at Bayan Lepas International Airport, Penang Island.


Interpreting the maps.


Lepaking while some were busy negotiating to hire vehicles for our transportation.

It was set. One (1) KIA Pregio- thirteen (13) seater and one (1) PROTON Persona 1.6 at RM950 for three (3) days.

You come to Penang is for no other reason than food, therefore first stop, food. Located near Jalan Kimberly if not mistaken. The asam laksa was quite alright, nothing spectacular about it. Then we went out of the shop to have cendol by the side of the road. It was typical Penang style so to say. Dirty or not its up to personal preference. If fussy don't bother coming to Penang, because it is apparent that dirty and small places serve the best cheap food. Price per bowl of asam laksa is RM3 but small portion. The term very 'cheap food' is no longer valid or inexistence due to te financial meltdown across the globe, catalyst by the fall of the US economy. Well known fact by many.

The cendol outside of the shop. Long queue which means it should be good. Truth is, yea it was damn good. Heavy gula melaka man. (Wasn't sarcastic, it was really good)

The asam laksa lady.


Full exposure to the lense.


You have no idea how hard it is to take a shot out of this brother here. Presenting to all, Mr Gun Wei Chye. haha. Going to get murdered by him. >.<

CX Tan being the loan shark calculating the loot.

The apartment's name was Golden View Apartment. And upon looking out at the apartment's corridor, a wonderful so-called golden roof was spotted about 1km away.

At Gurney Drive walkway. The entire plot of land was full with mud result of the 2006 Tsunami. The water level rises till it reaches below the walkway during the night. Mud skippers were spotted frequently too.

Nice scenery taken. Cool eh!.

Somehow it was terribly polluted as a result of the 2006 Tsunami.

That was our dinner. Located along Gurney Drive walkway. The food is commendable to say the least.

Nicholas Chew (Brown) and Wei Liang.

The car park below the apartment. Quite cool in the sense that it is movable to accommodate more cars by moving up or down. Nevertheless it didn't move throughout our stay in there.

Back at the apartment, Wei Liang is given the hint to Chick.

Chick is moving in to begin.

Wei Liang's turn to see.

Caught both crooks peeping the next room. Never thought they both were such ahem. LOL!
(P/S: There was no untoward incident in the apartment as the next room was not accommodating any super duper hotchick/opposite sex or what!! It was clean for the fact) Wei Liang and Chick were not as what they were. lol joking haha.!!

This feller can sleep 24 hours continuously. He slept nearly most of the journey in Penang. Sleeper by day, Balanar (Night stalker) by night.

All waiting to bath. Bathroom only got two (2).

Li Ter and Jo Wee getting bored of waiting.



Back to the road at 11 p.m. Midnight supper.

Serious wei Roti babi. Actually its French toast fill with minced pork.

Ah Seng: eh mamak apa ada makan kat sini?

Mamak: Mee goreng, nasi lemak, roti canai. What you want sir?

Ah Seng: erm ada roti babi kah?

Mamak: !@#$%^&*&^%$#@!_+

Remember the story?? We tried to on it loud during Mr Woon's specialist maths class. OH! the joy we have. haha

CX, Gun, Chew, Chick & Kee Siang (Left-right)

The first Persona driver fall sick on the first day at Penang. So Chick took over the next day.

10 a.m. on 12/12/2008 (Friday)

Early morning play Big Two (2). Are they Tou San or what!

As usual lining up to bath.

Look at the shoes.

The gambling table added more kakis

Doraemon promotion at Queesbay mall. I think so.

See, told you he's asleep most of the time. Chen Siang...ah...Chen Siang.

At the all time famous three sisters Char Kueh Tiau.

Personally, I didn't find the third sister. Only two (2) was spotted. I don't know la, maybe only but maybe she's not there anymore.

On the way to the Sleeping Buddha temple and the Burmese Temple. They were located side by side.

This was just one of those weird country names in Penang streets. There were even a Jalan Burma and Klinik Singapore.

At one of the beach located at Batu Feringgi.

Nice scenery.

Jo Wee's sandcastle The sand is very moisture therefore the castle can even be build 5 metres away from the shore line.

Everyone was somehow posing automatically for this picture. haha.

Jenny, Chick, Chew, Lam, Tian Wen, Chen Siang & Kee Siang (Left-right)

Warren got the inspiration after visiting the Sleeping Buddha's temple and begin carving out the sand sculpture of a standing Buddha.

Just lepak-ing around the beach.

Warren's buddha sand sculpture.

Christmas decorations outside the hotel that we passed by.

Warren's surpise 19th birthday celebration. It wasn't the the actual day, just that mostly everyone was there at that time so we just celebrate it there and then.

5 p.m. on 13/12/2008 (Saturday)

As usual discussing where to eat.

It takes the whole world's time to decide.

Lok-lok. I got diarroe the next day thanks to this filthy place. After having our dinner we rushed to the airport and were told that the flight has been delayed for an unspecified time.

Overall the entire Penang trip was awesome. It was our annual event for a reunion with fellow S7 from Taylors SAM 2007. Some were abroad during 2008, return to Malaysia during the year end break and we held this gathering to reunite everyone after one (1) year apart. Hopefully next year we will have it again and turn it into a yearly affair. We started with having it at Genting Awana during the mid-second-semester break on August 2007, then Langkawi on the 1st January 2008 and now Penang on the 11th December 2008. Excellente !! Special thanks to Wei Liang for organising this trip despite the hectic schedule of finishing your assignments prior to this trip, Lam; Chick & CX for driving everyone around with the KIA Pregio and PROTON Persona, Warren for his GPS service and everyone for attending this trip.

Institute Jantung Negara (IJN)

To kick start with the continuation of the previous post, I would like to extend my greetings of Merry Christmas to everyone, young and old, sick and healthy, staunch believer of religion and non-believers. Christmas was never an isolated celebration catered only to one religion but a moment of celebration of happiness and joyfulness and certainly togetherness as well. It's the year 2008's Christmas and 2007's Christmas theme of 1 Utama's decorations are still fresh in my mind especially with it's previous toy soldier theme. Nevertheless time passes, even though we are still feeling stuck in a particular time frame. Before the Penang trip goes for a full wave of explanations, I would like to touch on the issue of the government's interest on privatising IJN (Institute Jantung Negara/ National Heart Institution) by selling 51% of it's equity stake in IJN to Sime Darby Berhad. Better or for worse, this is easily summarised as an attempt of pure corruptions by our 'elected' government law makers.
A brief history of IJN. IJN was initially a unit under the wing of the government hospital. It was a unit that was dedicated to heart complication matters. In the year 1989, when former Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohammad succumbed to a heart complication disease and was warded into the heart unit under the general hospital's wing for a heart bypass. He then realised that this country is lack of a specialised hospital that provides cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery services for Malaysians. After that onwards he begin a plan to institutionalise the heart unit under the government hospital's wing into a full fledged institution that is now called IJN. IJN comprises specialised cardiologist, from cardiac surgeon to cardiologist that are well trained to meet the rising demand of heart medication throughout the nation. The first chairman of IJN was Dr Yahya. Dr Yahya was the doctor that had conducted Mahathir's bypass surgery in the year 1989. Therefore IJN was institutionalised officially in the year 1992 and later incorporated in the year 2005. It is now own by the government under the purview of the Ministry of Finance led by Najib Tun Razak, Prime Minister-in-waiting.
The above context are the ''stories'' that are circulated around. How genuine? May the readers decide for themselves, especially with the appointment of Dr Yahya as the first chairman of IJN.
IJN was constructed through the use of public funds that are derived from tax collection. Therefore it would be counter productive to sell it off to Sime Darby Berhad as this moment. The moment when people and I meant rakyat are going through a very hard time to acclimatised the bearish market, the fallout economy, the financial meltdown and everything that America had done which gives and delivered a negative and a horrible outlook to so many average Joes' that are working 10 hours a day, 5 days a week. Like it or not, Najib is compromising with the welfare of the general population. And bloody hell, Najib is capitalising this issue when everyone is having a hard time to make ends meet. We have a whole general population of low-class, low-earning rakyat and he wants to send IJN off. Fuck it, Sime Darby won't give a shit of capitalising their CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility). What the hell would Sime Darby Berhad wants to buy out IJN if not for the profits. Yes, IJN is a very extremely successful institution that is earning big bucks. IJN doesn't only provide services for the local but also overseas patients. For your information IJN is one of the most advance heart institution in the South East Region. It would be immaterial if IJN do take into consideration the welfare of the low-earning rakyat when the fact is they bloody hell don't. Is Najib hoping to commit suicide because if this privatisation exercise do take off, I swear he'll be out in no time from the government office; from the premier's chair right after the 13th general election. I am harping on this issue is for a particular reason. Non of you people know that I, THUM CHUN HON, was one of the very first young infant heart patient of the IJN unit under the government hospital wing. I did my first operation in the year 1989 (49 das old) and had my picture taken as a commemoration of the successful operation. My parents paid RM5 for both of the operations. Imagine if IJN was a privatised institution during that time, then the heart operation would have cost between RM10,000 - Rm15, 000 each. Imagine now if its privatised, then it would be around RM50,000, and that's for an operation equal to my case. What about the complicated ones? This is not an isolated case, as the welfare of the rakyat must never be compromised at all cost. We paid taxes for it's establishment and we will enjoy the services of it freely. Penang trip postpone to next post. Promise.

Trying times, are they versatile right to the core?

Ticket is settled, AirAsia one-way flight to Melbourne International Airport on the 13th February 2009. Now left the accommodation (still waiting for offer letter) and acceptance (yet to accept). Then *Boom* time flies and I'll be there in Monash University, Caulfield. Can't wait. Much ado I've anticipated the surrounding of the University. No doubt people whom I mix would be by the highest possible rate to be Asians. The Australians would less likely mix with the Asians. Admit it, the issue of racism is not a Malaysian issue but a world pandemic. That's one of the main cause Mr. Obama mounted an astounding victory in the US 2008 Election. Voted for his skin and not for his policies. Many might disagree with me but the facts are clear. There are still no any stimulation plan that is sufficient to counter the growing destruction of the financial crisis. All the while Mr. Obama had just stated "he will" ; "try to" and etc. that doesn't gives us a very clear picture of his major plans to curb the growing concern of a financial meltdown looming anytime during early 2009. What's more when the current situation is proving the date of "judgement day" to arrive as predicted. As I've told Kar Kien while we were in the LRT during our way back from Petaling Street on the 19th November 2008, that what ever companies that we see today, the weak once will be perished during the year 2009, and what ever left in the beginning of 2010 are the really though companies. At first I expected automakers such as General Motors (GM) and Ford might withstand the financial crisis invasion, but looking recently with reports after reports of them begging the US congress to allocate funds from the 700 billion stimulus package for their survival had changed my perception immediately. Moreover GM was never in a very healthy look since the early 2000's. Standard & Poor's, as I've read had degraded GM to BBB+ during the early 2000's which means they're bonds are of near junk bond level. And by the mid of 2005 or so, GM had been degraded to total junk bonds. Recollecting the entire episode since the sub prime mortgage loan crisis or low-doc crisis that had spurred a spiral or domino effect to the entire financial markets landscape, I with no doubt that one day we might hear the collapse of a once mighty automaker player, GM. Unemployment rate in the US had been slowly meeting all time high. Couple of months back, Australian, Rudd government had just announced the lack of workforce and declared that Australia is willing to receive unskilled workers to feed their growing economy appetite, and just a day ago, 20th November 2008, Australia was reported to be on the brink of a might-come recession. So far the third largest economy, European Union, had declared an overall fallout to recession. Previously Singapore was the first to fall into recession with double quarters of contracting economy size. The general method to indicate a recession is when a country reported two (2) consecutive quarters of economy contracting. Downsize in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The whole world is submitting to the treat of the financial crisis. Malaysia as they say might not be affected as bad as the Westerners however, we are still stabilise for the moment only and not long as we are equally dependent to the US economy. China, one of the growing giants of Asia was also reported to be cutting out jobs. If China, a country that had reported double digits of growth since 2000, after liberalising its economy under the premiership of Deng Xiao Ping, and now in the year 2008 reporting a cutting of employment due to its single digit growth would utterly means the whole world is coming to a World War Three in the form of economical crisis. Crude oil had fallen to $USD 55 from a skyrocketed all time high $USD 147 in the month of July. The Malaysia government had initiated their 5th time of petrol ceiling price reduction to RM2 after an all time increase of 40% to RM2.70 in the month of July to combat the overstating crude oil price ($USD 147). Our minister overlooking the petrol prices are had recently declared that our federal government coffers is earning a profit form the overall price reduction. This means we are paying a higher premium for petrol. Consider this example: When crude oil price was $USD 70 per barrel, our petrol pump price was at RM1.92. Since now the crude oil price had fallen to $USD 55 per barrel, wouldn't it be logical for us to pay a petrol pump price that is lower then RM1.92 instead of RM2. The government is taking a very prudence stand to slowly reduce the petrol price not significantly but by intervals to show that the incumbent government is working extremely hard to reduce the rakyat's burden. However I believe the crude oil price per barrel will continue to fall to an all time low because people are more conservative in their spending. The American market for petrol had seen a significant immediate drop. However since demand was dropping, report stated that Oil & Gas players are still continuing investing much of their cash to locate new areas with oil utilising the equipment provided by the oil & gas exploration industry players. With the demand from America drops, GM will need to re-engineer it's products to be more petrol efficient as people/consumer are now more prudence in their spending. Nevertheless, I believe the real testing time for all these companies is during the year 2009. Their resilience to financial meltdown will be tested to its core during 2009. Honda had slashed their estimated profit for 2009. I wish them all the best.