Christmas at Cameron Highlands

December 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Every Christmas for the past few years my family and I always make a pilgrimage to Cameron Highlands with a few family friends to celebrate Christmas and to enjoy the fresh cool air. My youngest sister couldn’t make it because she has her Masters to complete in Perth. I think she hasn’t joined us for 2 Christmas already and we miss her…

180 degree view of Boh’s Palas Estate

Christmas eve dinner with family and friends at Heritage Hotel

View of the full moon (taken with my trusty point & shoot camera not DSLR)

My Trip To Sydney

December 20, 2007 | 5 Comments

On my first day in Sydney, I was just exploring Kingsford area which is where the University of New South Wales is located. I also went to East Gardens to shop for breakfast stuff. Bought really fresh and tasty ham off the bone, Hungarian Salami, button mushrooms, alfalfa, onion sprouts, apple and passion fruit juice and yogurt. I can’t wait for tomorrow’s breakfast. The sandwiches are going to be a blast.

Ham off the bone, Hungarian salami, button mushrooms, cucumbers, alfalfa & onion sprout sandwich

Smoke salmon & alfalfa open sandwich

Premium ham, beef pastrami, button mushrooms, cucumbers, alfalfa, 99% fat free semi sun dried tomatos sandwich

Day 2 to 5

2nd day I visited Paddington Market, this arty farty flea market is located in Paddington (quite a hip place). They have nice handcrafts and stuff. I had lunch there, steak and mushroom sandwich. Though it’s called a sandwich, its foot long like the subway one. I had to share half since it was so big.

After Paddington Market, my friends and I went to Max Brenner for our chocolate fix. After so much walking we need the sugar and chocolate to sooth our muscles. We had chocolate soufflé, cookies shake and chocolate shot. Everything was really good…

After tea at Max, we went to Darling Harbour for a walk. The place was HUGE! There are many things to see and many cafes to eat at. We didn’t finish seeing everything at Darling Harbour and will be back to see the Aquarium, tour the Destroyer and submarine too.

Pity it was a cloudy day at Darling Harbour

One of the few curious water features in Darling Harbour

We walked around Chinatown and finally had good Vietnamese Pho for dinner. Its not the best but better than those found in KL. We are going to eat the best Pho later on Wednesday night.

Chinatown

Wow they have Thai durians here!

Sunday we went to the Rocks (Not the prison) in Circular Quay.

Sydney Opera House viewed from Circular Quay while walking to the Rocks

There is a flea market in the Rocks on weekends and it is similar to the one in Paddington. Then we had late lunch, near Sydney Opera House. Along the seaside walk from Circular Quay to Sydney Opera House was a row of yummy cafes and restaurants. I had prawn salad, wedges and a glass of wine, Green Point Sauvignon Blanc. Imagine having delicious food with some friends overlooking Sydney Harbour Bridge while sipping a nice glass of wine in the afternoon…ahhhh…

My yummy lunch at a cafe along the walk to Sydney Opera House, overlooking the Harbour Bridge

Grand view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge

Climbers making their way to the top of the Harbour Bridge

After tea we walked around the Opera House to have a closer view of it. In the evening we proceed to Randwick to meet a friend for Italian dinner.

Sydney Opera House up close

Monday we continued our exploration of Darling Harbour, finishing our tour of duty on the HMAS Vampire, an Aussie Destroyer and HMAS Onslow, a Submarine. The submarine was an eye opener. After the tour, my respect for submariners increase many many fold.

Captain’s chair onboard the Destroyer

Torpedo room on the submarine

Don’t ask me how the ang mos fit through the compartment doors or even sleep on the bunks

Before my tour on the Destroyer ended, my camera batteries died! Oh shit I forgot to charge it. I had to use my phone camera for the rest of the day. After the ships, we went to the Aquarium. It was really cool and we spent so much time in the aquarium, fascinated with the under water world. The Aussies really done it well.

I had dinner at Darling Harbour that night at Ice Cube Seafood Grill. The food was good but the pan seared Barramundi was not as good as Ember’s house special fish which was seared to perfection.

Tuesday I visited Coogee beach and Bondi Beach. I wanted to do the scenic walk from Coogee to Bondi but the weather was cloudy and very very windy. Good thing I brought along my trusty Lafuma Shell.

Cliffs at Coogee Beach

Rock pools are built next to the sea, and the water in the pool is recycled by the strong waves washing through the pool every second

I was shocked that the town council provide sophisticated BBQ facilities at Coogee beach. What is most shocking is the cleanliness of the BBQ stove! This is something you definitely won’t get in Malaysia.

This is NOT a new BBQ stove. Look at the shine, makes you wanna cook on it.

When I went to Bondi Beach later in the afternoon, the sun was up briefly but it was really nice. The air was very refreshing and the view calming.

Panoramic view of Bondi Beach

View from Ice Cube Restaurant, restaurant with top 5 best view in Sydney

Day 6 to 8

Wednesday we visited Mrs Macquarie Chair which have a great view of the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Ha ha now its Hai Liang’s chair!

This is the most photographed spot of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge combined. Pity it was a cloudy day…

After visiting the chair, we went to the infamous Sydney Fish Market. The fish market has 2 sections, wholesale and retail. Only the retail section is open for public to buy seafood supplies. I think there is organised tour of the wholesale section but gotta wake up really early.

Sydney Fish Market is the world’s 2nd largest seafood market in terms of variety outside of Japan

We had lunch at the fish market, it was value for money and very very fresh. The best is heaps of fresh sea urchin roe! Back home, the Japanese restaurants serve meager portions of the roe in sashimi but we ate lots of it at the fish market.

The Spanner crabs look more like the “face hugger” in Aliens than a typical crab but it looks delicious. I wonder how it taste…

My lunch, clockwise from top right hand corner, mornay lobster, fresh sea urchin roe, grilled lobster set with chips and salad, 6 grilled scallops, 6 fresh jumbo size pacific oysters

Almost can’t fit the jumbo size oyster into my mouth. I haven’t eaten such oysters since I left New Zealand many years ago.

After a wonderful lunch, we travelled to Manly Beach in North Sydney through the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The bridge looks very grand with so many lanes on it, quite confusing for a visitor to drive on it. Manly Beach is the best beach so far. It is so many times bigger than Bondi and of course more nudist sun bathers ha ha.

I’m kicking myself for not taking panoramic shots of Manly beach. But you can look at the size of the beach taken from the left and right.

Thursday is late night shopping night. So on Thursday we spent our time mainly in the city looking at the shops. I got Christmas presents for my parents.

Friday we went to Blue Mountains for a day of bush walks. It was a great day as the sun is bright and sunny. One day is not enough to do all the bush walks and explore the surroundings. I think you may need a week to really explore Blue Mountains and the caves properly.

The walks range from easy to difficult grade, from 10 minutes return to 7.5 hours. We didn’t have enough time so we went straight to Scenic World since it has a cable car, skyway looking at the Jamison Valley, Katoomba Falls and the world’s steepest incline railway.

Bottom of the valley via the incline railway

All the rides were exciting, not roller coaster exciting but it was more of acrophobic excitement. The incline railway decended almost vertically and made you think that you can easily fall head over heels and tumble down the valley. The skyway is a horizontal cable car a few hundred meters above the valley with transparent glass floors. Standing on the glass floor you can see all the way down and it was really scary.

You can see all the way down to the valley and you’ll be too nervous to stand much less walk about!

The 3 Sisters before (left photo) and after they were “transformed” to stone pillars (right photo, bottom left side the 3 pointy thingy) by the magic man

Me attempting to climb up one of the 3 sisters. Difficult to smile properly while climbing ha ha…

The Blue Mountains viewed from Echo Point

The view is really spectacular. I think I understand why the area is called Blue Mountains. But I don’t understand why all the mountains are flat top and almost the same height all around. As if a giant used a giant lawn mower to trim the mountains to same height.

Saturday we made a day trip to Wollongong and Kiama. The lookouts from the various points were breathtaking. Even the pictures can’t show the vastness of the ocean and the bay areas.

Wollongong from Bulli lookout

After fish and chips lunch at a Wollongong seaside cafe, we headed to Kiama to look at the famous blowhole. We had to wait for a long time and trial and error to get a good recording below:

Today is also fish day! We had Smoked Salmon sandwich for breakfast, fish and chips for lunch (battered King Dory) and yes fish and chips for dinner too! Dinner was battered New Zealand Hoki and some calamari (big sotong) rings. Wollongong have lots of good fish and chips cafe and restaurants at the harbour and docks along the Grand Pacific Drive.

One of the lighthouses along the coast of Wollongong that is still functioning today

Sunday we woke up late because even though our mind is willing, our body is really too tired to move. We woke up just before lunch and yum char in city center. The dim sum is quite nice especially those scallops based dumplings.

After lunch, we went to Paddy’s market near Chinatown. Paddy’s market is a rojak of our wet market and cheap flea market. The fruits and vegetable stalls are all manned by asians and I suspect they are mostly chinese from China. There are so many vegetable varieties, much more than back home, bigger and healthier looking too! We got a souvenir for our travel agent aka Super Agent Joyce. She is able to get us flights to various places even though it is fully booked!

For our Sunday dinner we ate at…Doyles Restaurant at Watson Bay! Yay! The Watson Bay restaurant is the first restaurant opened by Doyles himself, the rest are just offshoots. It is also one of the restaurants with top 5 best view of Sydney. Unfortunately that evening it was raining heavily, so we can’t see much. We had the seafood chowder, fisherman’s platter and a braised vegetable on the side.

The seafood chowder is big and we had to share. It had half a blue swimmer crab, mussels, fish meats, prawns, calamaris and scallops. Its really delicious with loads of seafood stuff.

Can’t imagine this platter is for 2 pax. We shared among 3 of us and still can’t finish it. The blue swimmer crab is a disappointment but the rest is really good. The Eastern King Prawns is really sweet. There is unlimted refills of battered fish as well but we can’t even finish the original serving. Oh the best chips I’ve eaten in Sydney is here at Doyles too.

Monday we slept in again and stayed at the apartment because my friend had arrange for a workman to install the insect screens. After the guy finished his work, we only had time to explore the nearby University of New South Wales and then headed to Bondi Junction for dinner at Sushi Train.

Tuesday we flew back to Penang via Singapore. I need to have a bigger budget the next time I visit Sydney. Must try the Harbour Bridge climb and explore more of Blue Mountains and the surrounding caves.

My Trip To Singapore

December 6, 2007 | 4 Comments

This trip I made a friend whom I met coincidentally in T Harv Eker’s Millionaire Mind Intensive. His name is Leong Wei Ping, the grand winner of last year’s Option Trading Championship. This year his team won the group champion with an overall 48.68% increase in portfolio in just 3 days!

I met Wei Ping on the MRT train to S’pore Expo

After the MMI, I stayed back a few days to sight see the country. On first night of MMI, Daniel and Janice brought my friends and I to Lau Pa Sa “Old Market” for Satay! On our way there, we walked past the Merlion.

The Merlion at night with the Sands Casino Being constructed at the background

After our seminar ended, Daniel and Janice brought us to Sentosa Island to have a look see. Our main intention is to look at Sentosa Cove since our options trading guru Dr Clemen talked so much about it. Its everything Dr claim and even more…but the bungalow units were a bit let down because they are so close to each other. Its like in Penang where bungalows are built so close to each other that you can pass things to your neighbours from the balcony…

My dream boat parked at 1 degree 15 marina club in Sentosa Cove

Its a cloudy day so the view from the club is not so good

I also manage to meet up with my uni and flate mate Kheng Huat. I haven’t seen him since I graduated because he was moving around and finally settled down in S’pore with a Korean wife and a son. After dinner we walked along Boat and Clarke Quay to find a nice place to have a drink and chat. We ended up in Brewerkz. Its a brewery outlet with a range of home made beers brewed according to various type of beer. The beer is nothing to shout about but the concept is rather cool, you don’t get this back home.

View from the bridge

Kheng Huat & I “yum seng” at Brewerkz

I also had dinner at Restaurant Ember, the Foie Gras is really really good. So much better than the miserable piece in Frangipanni Restaurant in KL. If you want to know what does “melt in your mouth” means, try the Foie Gras with mushrooms. The serving is generous and sizable too. The house special pan seared fish is also really good. I had never tasted anyone who can pan sear fish so well. I think almost everything my friends and I tried is really good. They can easily beat good restaurants in KL anytime. Don’t even mention Penang ok!

What blew me away was the dessert and I’m not a dessert guy.

Best dessert I’ve tasted to date. The background is choc cake and ice cream on the side.

The apple pie was out of this world. I don’t know how those guys did it but, the apple slices are thick and chunky but soft and juicy. The pastry was dry and crispy unlike those usual soggy or under baked pastry. Words just can’t describe the bliss when you take a bite…ahhh. I have to go back there next time I go S’pore again.

T Harv Eker’s Millionaire Mind Intensive

December 2, 2007 | 3 Comments

I’ve been away in S’pore for 1 week & attended the T Harv Eker’s MMI. What can I say? Its damn good man! And that is an understatement.

The MMI was held in S’pore Expo and there were about 5000+ participant.

There are about 5 different sections just to register and each section has more than 10 counters.

Registration at 1 of the section

5000+ participants in 1 hall

Harv’s MMI really made us analyse our own money blueprint and help us to change our blue print to achieve our true potential. We get to understand ourselves more and also what is holding us back from being successful. Couples also get to understand each other’s blueprint which help to resolve many money related disagreements.

There were exercises and activities that help us to further understand our current financial status and also to help many of us to let go of our non-supportive thoughts and attitude which are holding us back from our achievements. Some participants even shared their personal problems which were weighing down on them and found peace letting it out. They should be on their way on being a millionaire now!

I learn a lot of things during the seminar, one of which was a systematic and practical way of money management which has a good balance of using the money for education, buying high value stuff, daily necessities, charity, investments and finally to pamper myself.

Harv and his coach, Rob, also taught us the true meaning of financial freedom and wealth. What it means to be financial free, what is being rich and wealthy. All these have a step by step and systematic approach to achieve them. It was really enlightening that being financialy free is not as difficult as what I had thought.

The highlight of the whole seminar was the last exercise on the last day. We had to break a real arrow with our throat. Yup its like those shaolin monks in kung fu movies. The arrow breaking exercise is to show that fear is intangible and its something we perceive in our minds. This fear is holding us back from doing things and being successful too. We have to act in spite of fear and after we have done it, then only we know its not so scary or difficult.

Did I break the arrow? YES!

I’m glad I came to this seminar as I had learn heaps. I hope other will attend this seminar too as it’ll help each of us understand how to be rich. Success Resources, the organiser, said that in May 2008 they’ll bring Harv and his team to Malaysia for the MMI seminar. That is your chance to attend this great training for you to be a millionaire.

You can also read Harv’s book Secrets of the Millionaire Mind which forms about 30% of the real seminar.