A Quick Update of My Life Over This 2.5 Years

   It's have been 2 years and 8 months since I last blog about anything in this blog. Looking back on my record, I gradually reduces my post from 79 posts in year 2009 to 42 posts in year 2010, then 9 post in year 2011, 4 posts in year 2012, and 1 post in year 2013. After the post in year 2013, I have started a new chapter of my life. I take a leap of faith and courage to step out of my comfort zone. That is one of the reason why I did not take the time to blog anything, other than I totally set blogging aside. 

   In May 2013, I took a big change in my life by stepping out from being an employee to become an entrepreneur with Douglas. I used to work with him in the same company before, and we attend the same church, same cell group, and we are best friend as well. This changes have a huge impact in my life and it does grow me to who I am today. He still remains as a best friend and I do hope it will never change. 

   We started our coffee journey by taking up a local coffee brand as we have literally no experience in the art of making coffee. With their help, we learned that there is a lot to learn and work for to be an accountable and reputable café in town. Although we did not have a great experience working with them after half a year into operation, we are grateful because of that, we swore to be better that bring us to what we are today. 

   After about a year, we departed from them and built our new brand together with some new investors and partners. Since then, we have been operating under the new café brand till today for slightly over a year. A lot of great and bad experience throughout this journey, and I appreciate that the Lord keeps shining His blessing over me. 

   Since this post should be a quick overall update of what has been happening around me over the 2 years plus, I will keep things short and simple. Hopefully I can post more post in the future to talk about it and new stuff that happening around me. 

   In year 2013, I had an opportunity to visit London, England and Milan, Italy for the International Hospitality Exhibition - Fiera Milano (HOST) held in Milan itself. I got to visit Singapore for the Food and Hospitality Asia (FHA) Expo in 2014, and travel to Melbourne on the same year. This year, I got another opportunity to travel far, which is to Seattle, Washington, USA for Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) Expo and the World Barista Championship. Not to mention some local short trip to learn about coffee at Johor Bahru and Penang. 

   As for more personal vacation travel, I travelled to Siem Reap, Cambodia in 2012, Bangkok in 2013, Taiwan in 2014, and Hong Kong and Macau this year. Planning to go to Perth next year though. Since I have been in the café business for awhile, since 2014, my trips have include some café hopping in those places that I visited. I have tried coffee in several café around Taiwan and Hong Kong. 

   I have made new friends, meet back some old friends and reconnect with them, and I lost some old friends too. It's part of life that nobody is for sure to be there for you forever, except the Lord. My sister is finally in college, taking the course of interior architecture. My brother is working now with Honda service centre in Petaling Jaya. I traded in my old car for a new car this year. I think that's all about the major things happened around me this period of time I'm not active here. 

Trip to Gold Coast Australia

I wanted to share a little about my trip to Gold Coast Australia.

I will update more stories soon..

Please click on the this link to view all the photos.

US Trip (Part 2)

Let's continue with my Chicago trip. Well, after the Indianapolis trip, which I was required to visit the factory of one of my material supplier with my manager, we have set ourselves to commit to our market research session for the weekday remains.

We woke up on the early Thursday morning (which is not so early) and had our first brunch at UNO Chicago Grill at Ohio Street and Wabash Avenue. It's famous for its Chicago deep dish pizza. So we were so into it and I ordered a salad and a soup to come along with it. Guess what, we ordered a small pizza which turns out look like a regular pizza in Malaysia in term of the dimension, but then its just thicker. How much thicker? The answer is about 1 inch thick. That's crazy. However, the best of all is the soup and the salad. I miss it already.

Later, we had our dinner at Smith & Wollensky, somewhere near to the bridge around Walker Street. That is where we had the largest piece of meat for dinner for the entire trip so far. The service there was great and when we asked him about the size of the meat, he scares us with the information. It's 26 oz piece of meat with bone, which is about 2.2 times larger piece of meat you can get from Tony Roma's in Malaysia. Anyway, in places like Chicago which is cold, restaurant have such service to check your coat for you with some tipping expected from you.

On the next day, we had our breakfast at Corner Bakery Café, somewhere near Elm Street (near to our hotel, which is The Ambassador East Hotel). The cookies there are superb and the pesto is one of the best that I had it again on the day before I left Chicago.

Since we had walked the whole journey back from Walmart at West North Avenue, which approximately 7 miles (11.2km) back to our hotel before heading to the town for lunch, we have to eat at bakery café called Oak Tree Restaurant & Bakery at North Michigan Avenue, somewhere near to the Sear's Tower. The service there is excellent because my manager spilled his smoothies accidentally and the waiter replace a new one for us for free without whining about us messing the place. The salad there was good and the bread there are excellent.

We took our dinner on the way back to hotel at Morton's The Steakhouse, North State Street. Well, nothing much special to talk about steak because I believe you will already expect the same thing - big portion, we have to share the steak, etc.

On Saturday, it's the Halloween Eve. We woke up late so we when straight for our lunch at Frontera Grill, which is a Mexican style restaurant at North Clark Street. I'm not describing it much because it's not really much to talk about as it's almost the same expect that we ate tacos, a bowl of soup and salad.

Our dinner that night was at a Japanese-Western fusion style restaurant at North Halsted Street. Ironically, the street happens to be a Boystown in Chicago. So kinda open your mind that night since it's Halloween Party. You can really see them dressing all sort of character, e.g. Tarzan, Robin, etc. at the temperate merely 4°C. Anyway, the chocolate martini there is really good.

On the Halloween Day itself, breakfast as usual at Corner Bakery Café and we skipped our lunch for both days. Dinner for that night was with our agents at Chicago Chop House, East Ontario Street near North Clark Street. That dinner cost us an arm and a leg.

On Monday, same routine except for our dinner and David Burke's Primehouse and we had a tremendous good service from the waiter, whose his name is Brian. Wonderful experience there. Everything almost the same except I love the steak here the most. That was the last experience in Chicago before we were landed in San Francisco for transit to Hong Kong.

I will soon blog about the event after this and upload photo when I have the time to do so. So mean while, please bear with me with pure dry description. Once upload, you can view it. ^^

US Trip (Part 1)

Well, as everyone should know already that I'm going to the States for business trip. The whole journey was not that great to be told. Lots of hassle we been through before we even lay my feet on the "Land of Opportunity".

The journey begin with my flight being delay for about 7 hours. The flight shall be departing at Narita, Tokyo before heading to Chicago, Illinois. Due to the delay, we are unable to catch up with our connecting flight. We shall be sitting both All Nippon Airways (ANA) planes to Chicago. However, due to the delay, we have to board the United Airlines (UA) which turns out to be disaster for me.

Despite the hyper mode I was having during the 1 hour transit in Narita, the other half journey was not that interesting. At Narita airport, after the long 7 hours of flight in MAS (which is much better than in the UA), we finally landed on the land I always dream of. The only regret I have is that I have only 1 hour to walk around the airport and I can't really lay my foot out of the airport. LOL.

The other 13 hours flight in UA, as I mentioned is a nightmare. The air attendance are not smiling and not that friendly as you see in the movie. Other than that, the sitting is like cramp up. Imagine you have to cramp up in the plane for 13 hours with limited space. I almost can't breath. To make it worst, due to the weather condition, the plane landed hard and lots of breaking when we arrived to Chicago O'Hare airport.

That's not the worst I had so far. To make it even worst for me is that the Transportation Security & Administration (TSA) officer make my life difficult. Coming into the States is hard enough as I had the trouble to get their visa, and now they want me to register my departure when I'm exiting their country. Maybe that's only applies to first timer to the States as my manager didn't have that trouble to get in.

Well, that's the first day experience. Despite all the bad thing, I do enjoy the good things which is the food. We have a nice steak in Chicago on that night. I seriously think that even their so-called normal restaurant are comparable with the standard we can get in Tony Roma's, TGIF, etc. in Malaysia.

Since we are seriously exhausted with that jet lag, we ended up sleeping early. We have to catch another flight to Indianapolis to meet with our material supplier. Travelling to Indianapolis was good. The flight is on time and the weather is brilliant. We have a great tour around the factory and had a great lunch at some local restaurant.

Talk about local food and stuff, their local beers are excellent to try. I had a Goose Island in Chicago which taste better than Heineken beer. In Indianapolis, I have tasted the Upland (Wheat Ale) beer and the Bud Light. It seems that each beer has it's own identity. Upland taste not too bad. Bud Light is good if you want something light. It almost taste like water as in the taste is not strong at all. Maybe that's why their called it Bud Light.

Of course other than all those stuff that you can't get it in Malaysia that I have tried here in the States, I also do go for stuff that you can get it in Malaysia here too. Guess what. It's Starbucks. You can literally find it almost everywhere you go. They look the same as in Malaysia. The only different is the price. You can get a hot chocolate, grande size for $3.50, which equivalent to RM10.94 (inclusive of tax).

One thing about the States is that they usually don't charge service tax or perhaps don't charge at all. Their culture is tipping or they call it gratuity. It's a norm for them the receive tips from you when you pay our bill. Usually if their service is average, tipping of 15% will be the the norm and it's advisable to tip them generously if the service is excellent (approximate 20% of your bill). If their service is bad, tip them less but not less that one buck.

I will be posting those pictures I took during this trip when I get back to Malaysia as I don't have a broadband service here. More updates about the trip will be posted once I have the chance to do so. So see you guys.. ^^

Recent Events & Movies Reviews

There are so many things that happened since the last post I posted here. I watched some movies, meeting up some friends, Mother's Day celebration with family, my grandma's birthday, etc. I'm just too lazy to update it here. So sorry for my readers. Today, I take the initiative to blog here about all of that.

Mother's Day celebration was great. I think Mum enjoys her day as we brought her to Shogun Japanese Buffet Restaurant in One Utama. Well, we split the bills into 3, where my brother and me pay the biggest shares. Then, we went to get some facial product, where my sister and me shared to get my Mum some nail polish and some eye liner. I think she is happy with what we have done for her. What she is caring about was am I able to survive after all the splendid. Well, I told her not to worry. I'll sees how to manage my own finance. I think I ought to do that. LOL.

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~My sister, Mum & Me^^~
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~My brother (Weasley) & my Mum~
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~Me~

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Enjoy some movies such as Sell Out!, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Star Trex, and Angels & Demons. I think the best movie I watched right now is Angels & Demons. I love the story. Well, I think you guys have to watch it yourself to know more about it. Here is some of the trailers for the movies and my own rating for these movies. Hope you guys can get some idea which movie you don't wanna miss it.

Sell Out! ($311.0u7!)

Overall rating: 5/10; Plot: 4/10; Acting: 5/10

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X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Overall rating: 6/10; Plot: 6/10; Acting: 8/10

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Star Trex

Overall rating: 8/10; Plot: 7/10; Acting: 8/10

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Angels & Demons

Overall rating: 9/10; Plot: 9/10; Acting: 8/10

I went to Kluang, Johor for a sight seeing. I think it's kinda plain there but I did enjoy the trip there. I got to enjoy the beauty of nature, slightly lay back town. Although the food there is not that great and not so variety, but I think it's still not too bad. What can you expect in a small developing town? LOL. I did went to Zenxin Organic Park and tried the organic dragon fruit juice there. It's totally amazing and refreshing that I don't know how to describe it. You guys should try it if you have a chance. Some photos to share with you guys for the trip.

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When I get back to KL, the very same day, it's my grandma's birthday celebration. We went to some restaurant near my grandma's place in Kepong. Actually, nothing much I can say regarding the celebration cause I'm not too close with the relative there myself accept for one of my cousin (Chun Kiet).
I think that's is all for now. I'll try to update my blog as often as I can.

Genting Trip 06/05/08

I know it's kinda late to post this outdated stuff about my Genting trip... Lately have been busying with different stuff... After the trip, gotta be home as soon as possible to study a bit for my proteins & proteomics supp paper... *sad* Further more, things is bothering me as well...

Today I got to know that neurobiology and genetics paper result both are out... I'm so lucky to pass my genetics that I thought that I'm gonna flung it... God bless me... However, my neurobiology didn't survive it... I wasn't feeling well that time anyway... Kinda guess I'm doing it badly already... But just don't hope it really that bad...

Ok... That day was kinda fun anyway... I meet up Lit Teng at Titiwangsa around 11.20am... I was waited her there since 10.30am like that... LOL... We got the bus ticket for 12.30pm to get to Genting... We went to mamak stall for a light breakfast before getting to the bus... Reached there around 2pm already... Meet up with Wie Kee and Yin Sian for awhile to get the apartment key...

It wasn't so cold at that time... So Lit Teng and me went to the apartment to settle out baggage... Well, there wasn't anything much we can really do there... The rest of them went to theme park already... We didn't really wanna go for it... So we catch some tv show... We watched Numbers and House from AXN... LOL... I know it's kinda stupid to go to Genting to watch Astro (AXN Channel)...

Around 5pm, we wanted to meet up with them but it's raining heavily so we decide to eat at the apartment there itself... We took the nasi goreng pattaya... I wanna nasi goreng USA first but then it was out... After dinner, we went to meet up with them... We played pool with Chien Wei, Jin Yung etc...

Walked around Genting but then nothing much special there... They resume their play in the theme park (indoor), so Lit Teng and I gotta float around... At last, we went to the Casino de Genting... I only can see all the gamblers evil eyes and smelly smells of cigarettes... Hardly even stand it... But then it open my eyes as well about what is casino all about... LOL... Wie Kee and Lit Teng shared some cash and played the jackpot machine... LOL... They lost all of it...

Then went back to the apartment and chit chat till around 3.30am then only we get to bed.. It was a tiring day... I hardly sleep due to the cold... Not to mention the 'band' of the guys (snoring band)... I ended up sleeping at the living room around 6am... However, I woke up at 8am with Lit Teng and soon follow by Eric, Seng Hong's girlfriend, and so on... After the cup noodle as breakfast, we headed home... I took the Genting bus with Lit Teng headed back to Titiwangsa and i got into LRT back to Sri Petaling... I was so sleepy that day but I still gotta prepare for the protein & proteomics supp paper... So pity myself...

The bus that we took to get to Genting...

On the way to Genting... Can see the signboard there?

The pool games with Jin Yung, Eric, Seng Hong, Chien Wei, Jeff, Moses & Lit Teng

Sleeping~ from left to right - Moses, Jeff, Chien Wei

Blur blur Seng Hong

Jeff eating his cup noodle... He look so blur... Pay attention to his hair...

The morning scenery... So misty and I hardly see anything... It was freezing that time...