Happy Birthday, Wei Ping! 0 lalalas
My brader, in front of the first StarbucksThe untimely departure of Teoh Wei Ping 0 lalalas
Today, at about 3:50 a.m., my brother boarded a Yellow Cab Taxi to Vancouver Airport for a flight to Chicago, then back to Wisconsin. Originally I booked a MacLure's cab but it was 15 minutes late already, the operator didn't call back as she had claimed earlier and I couldn't contact her. Thinking that they might not even have a cab available, I called Vancouver Taxi and the operator told me one is coming in 2 minutes. After I end the call, a cab stopped by - a Yellow Cab. Don't know how it got there, but my brother took it anyway. 3.50 a.m. as opposed to the originally planned 3.30 a.m. So after hugging my brother farewell, I cancelled the Vancouver Taxi and went back. At 4.02 a.m., guess what? A Maclure's came, 30 minutes later than requested and without advanced notice, and my brother's catching a flight! What if he missed the flight? What a mofo! I'm really disappointed at their service, but I still said sorry - without meaning so - to the driver.
My brother's departure signifies an important event: the end of my winter break. Although it officially ended on 8th of January, but with my brother around, I'm still more or less in the holiday mood. We couldn't do much because I was studying. But we grabbed some really good food and walked a bit in Stanley Park. He also explored UBC and Gas Town - even I haven't been to Gas Town. Too bad the snowstorm during the winter screwed up our Capilano trip. I felt sorry that I hadn't had the time or initiative to bring him to more places. But at least he got to taste some really really good Chinese and Malaysian food.
It was nice to have him around. Although sometimes it's frustrating when his hearing fails, it feels so natural and ... I don't know how to describe it. And because of his visit, I got to travel to places I've never been before, and we even went to a Chinese supermarket.
Here's some pictures by the way:
Wun tun noodle, ngau nam min, loh hon zai, wok tip from Hon's Won Ton House. Cheap and nice!
Found some familiar products in the Chinese supermarket, T&T...
And some frozen durians....ewww... poor Canadians...
Some nice dim sums at Sun Sui Wah. The service and food quality is excellent, but the price is unfortunately directly proportional to those. Most expensive meal I've eaten.
We also tried out some Malaysian food at Orchid Delight and Banana Leaf. While the price is slightly higher in Banana Leaf, I think the food is better. The rendang lembu and coconut rice were excellent. The satay wasn't that authentic, but it tasted good in its own unique way. My brother's nasi lemak also looked very mouthwatering. Since my brother's visit, I've come to learn about one of Vancouver's strengths - good food. There're several good spots in UBC too, like Vera's Burgers and the village. The dining hall's seem like cut throat in comparison. Poor white people....
Now that my brother's gone, I'm alone again. There'd be no people blocking my wardrobe door (my brother insisted on sleeping on the floor); my room would be colder; there'd no people washing my dirty dishes and doing my laundry for me; no people to help me carry shopping goods; no people to speak Malaysian Chinese with; no people to make silly jokes which only my closest friends would understand; no person ... I've lost a brother, a soul mate, a tutor, a partner..... a servant and a slave. Funny? I'm actually crying now.
Stupid old cliche: You'll never know how precious something is until you have lost it. I miss the company of people who talk to me in IM, who would want to hang out with me, who approach me even when I don't approach them, who truly want to listen to what I want to talk about, who doesn't pretend not to know me, whose conversation with me doesn't end with "Hi" or "How's it going?".
Perhaps I'm just imagining or exaggerating these things, just to find a reason to cry. To cry over the loneliness of typing a blog at 5.00 a.m. thinking of his old friends and his family, to cry over his social impotence, to cry over his reluctant indifference over things, to cry over the helplessness and the frustration and the powerlessness over the complicated problems that never ends...
Perhaps this is just one of the nights he gets emo or gay or whatever. Better wash his face and his eyes, it'd be embarassing if other people find out.
p/s: I'm just joking about the 4 last paragraphs. Nice eh?
KL cum Genting Trip Day 1 Part 2 0 lalalas
Our next destination is the Royal Mint - not peppermint factory, but the place where they produce 1, 5, 10, and 20-cent coins. The guide is an Indian lady who knows a wee bit of Chinese - "lai-lai", "bai dui bai dui" (distorted pronunciation of queue up). There's a lot of rules - no cameras (darn!), no wallets, no bags, no children under 7, no cellphones, no coins, etc. Then we have to be scanned with a metal scanner before we can go in - high security huh? nice.
Since no camera inside, here's two pics outside:::
>> I don't know why this weird big-ass fish, labelled as "ikan ganas" in a warning sign, is here
>> Me, me sis, and me mom in front of the logo
The factory stank of machinery and oil. The process of making coins is roughly like this: The company imports the blank-faced coin from India (Bank Negara's going to make their own soon) >>> They weigh the coins to make sure the quantity is correct (I forgot the weight already) and pack them in boxes (like RM20 one box and stuff). They use some kind of vacuum machine to suck up boxes of blank coin to put into the stamping machines >>> New 2006 coins come flowing out like when you get the 777 lottery (but slightly slower)
KL cum Genting Trip Day 1 Part 3 0 lalalas
The third spot, not a factory, is Sin Chew Jit Poh Publications - publisher of SinChew (the most popular newspaper in Malaysia!), Xiao Xing Xing, Xue Hai, and Guang Ming Ri Bao. The hall was quite nice. I liked the dui lian (picture on the left - click to enlarge)(don't know how to translate it into English)
We were introduced to the 3 main buildings - printing, management, and the editorial/news. First we visited the printing department, which was very noisy.
They've got this big-ass printing machine (on the left) which works very fast, tens of thousands pieces of newspaper per minute I think. Then we went into the rooms where they made pre-print carbon copy of the next day's newspaper. Only 1 copy is needed for a B&W page, while 4 copies - of different colours - are needed for a coloured page.
Then the copies need to be imprinted on a metal piece (not sure whether it's zinc or aluminium) to be used as the base reference (like the original copy) for the printing machine.
Then we also visited the office of the journalists and the editors of Sin Chew and Guang Ming. The 1st picture is the people evaluating the 
papers and discussing methods to improve them. The 2nd one is the journalist's workplace - reminds me of the the staff room at school. The 3rd one is people doing researches and material-hunting on the internet. Some people is also typing news articles in the old BIG5 chinese font - they say that the software doesn't support simplified Chinese. Weird.
Here's some interesting pictures that I saw, and captured in the corridors while we were moving from offices to offices. I apologize if the pictures 2 and 3 are too disturbing or repulsive to you. Picture 2 is a dead tiger, violently killed; But the
dead guy and the hand in picture 3 is actually a bread (look at the bread in the background)
KL cum Genting Trip Day 1 Part 1 0 lalalas
This Monday, 13.3.2006, I followed my family to a trip organized by SJK Pei Chai, my alma mater. We went to visit lots of factories - which, according to my humble opinion, must be damn boring. But it turned out to be alright, in fact, it was a real eye-opener.
The first day was hectic. The trip started at 5 a.m. Damn tired and slept in the bus until we reached the 1st stop - Royal Selangor company, Malaysia's premier pewter producing company. Our guide was a young man with connected eye-brows. He gave us a brief history of Royal Selangor (Founded by a Chinamen in 1885 - the rest was forgotten (which is common when it comes to history stuff)) and some talk about pewter before leading us to the processing unit.
My dad drinking soft drinks from a pewter cup.
Next, the guide led us to a demonstration of how pewter products are being made.
1. Molding the pewter into its basic shape of the product
2. Carving the pattern on the shape. Some of the patterns are also hand-made .
3. Making the product shiny shiny.
4. Products like this are done (Actually there's still one step before this, but I forgot what it was)
Next, we visited its exhibition hall of the various products - and they were magnificent, but the price isn't.
>> Pewter dragon
>>A nice Chinese chess set - a must-have for those who doesn't know how to spend his money
>>Old man Guan Gong
>>Some cute Alice In The Wonderland stuff
>>Istana Alam Shah
There's also some nice drawings (not made of pewter, mind you!)
After much lingering and photo-taking, we left the place - without buying anything, of course..
>> The big-ass tankard which can hold up to 2800 litres of beer
