JB Trip in Ziming's Car

Ziming's going to sell his car so he suggested that he should drive us to JB for a spin, (in Ziming's own words, bring his car for a Zhua!)



Got so bored with the jam at the Malaysian custom so started playing with my camera phone. See, so many S'porean simply loves to go JB for it's cheap food. I really have no patience to wait to enter M'sia man. I started playing with the Spiderman in Ziming's car too!


This Bak Goot Teh stall in JB seems so popular. My mum was there on Thursday and there were alot of S'pore cars in front of the stall.


They not only sell Bak Goot Teh, but also claypot chicken. Their Bak Goot Teh quite unique, got golden straw mushrooms, clams, fat pork meat and sea cucumber, it was quite nice. 4 upon 5 stars for them!


What's this??? This is the mud track in front of Ziming's car as we find our way to the kelong seafood restaurant. It took us almost 2 hours to find the restaurant after our bak goot teh and dvd hunting ended at 615pm. So by the time we reached there, it was just about time for us to get hungry and start digging into our dinner!


Finally Found! This kelong restaurant oversees Sembawang Park.


These 2 fellows starring into the empty table which was to be later filled with salted egg fried crabs, cereal prawns, steamed fish, fried baby squids, thai chicken, brocolli, etc... It only costs us $270 ringgit. There were 7 of us, so it make up to about $16 Sing dollar each only! Cheap and good!






3 best friends, Me, Ziming and Yaozong.

Marcus XA
YNWA @ 12:26 AM

At Cheras Hair Saloon

Wee Swan brought Cindy to this hair saloon which she and her mum frequent to have Cindy's hair cut and dyed. The saloon is not your "Kimage" or "Guys" and it is located inside shop houses. Even it's name so sound obiang right?!



Stacks of magazines piled up the resting area. As you can see, this saloon is quite similar to those you find in our neighbourhood estate.


Posing for the camera before getting the "chop"!


Hee hee... getting a new hairdo soon...


Hmm... nice color and it only cost RM120!


Waiting impatiently for the women to get their hair done! No lah, I actually went out to the shops along the shop houses and got something for Chujie too! The magazines on the table provided good entertainment while I was waiting....

Marcus XA
YNWA @ 7:22 PM

Cheras Pasar Malam

Most of us have been to Pasar Malam(Night markets in Singapore. For me, I've been to night markets in Hong Kong, Bangkok and Taiwan, but in nearby Malaysia, frankly speaking, I've never been to one! So it was with great enthusiasm that Wee Swan told me and Cindy that there's a pasar malam near her home. One great difference between this Pasar Malam in Cheras and those in Singapore is that it is open every weekend, while in Singapore, our Pasar Malam always go from one estate to another estate...


Women's accessories were in abundance! There were also stalls selling imitation brand's shoes. Quite similar to those in Bangkok and Hong Kong, unlike in Singapore, we can seldom see them in our pasar malams.


See! This is how they sell their bread in Cheras, KL! You chose the bread you want and the stallholders will put them into plastic bags for you. One bun cost about RM1 dollar.


We saw 3 little cute Shi Tzus being sold for RM$700 each! Really cheap, cos they are selling for around $900 in Singapore!!


To keep up with the global people's tastebuds, they even sell Taiwanese Chicken Cutlet (Ji Pai).


3 for RM 10.00... that's plates of prawns! Wee Swan bought 3 plates and her grandma cooked them for our Tom Yam soup the following afternoon.


Fried Beehoon, Steam Yam Cake, etc... their food looks much more tasty than Singapore's ones.


Guess what are these gory thingy??? They are the "cut out" parts of live frogs!!!You see, human only eat the frog's legs, so they kind of "dismantle" the frog and only sell you the frog legs to you. Frog Legs=delicacy leh you know?!

Marcus XA
YNWA @ 10:03 PM

At Wee Swan Father food court

Always heard from Wee Swan about her father's food business in KL and finally we made the long awaited visit to his foodcourt! As soon as Cindy and I reached Wee Swan's place, our first request was-can we visit your father's food court??!!! Haha... so off we went there for dinner!

Look! This is his drink stall and his work station! The food court name is called San Ping.



This is their famous "Kam Quat drink" Really tasted good! You can never find this in Singapore lor!




These stalls pay Wee Swan's dad monthly rental to run their food business.


Cindy also agree that this "Kam Quat" drink is Bagus!


Wee Swan's brother Eugene never leaves home without his Gameboy!


This is Mee Tai Mak in claypot with minced pork and an egg. Very nice! Can't find this kind of food in our Zi Char stall too.


And this is their KL Bak Goot Teh. They use "San Cheng Rou" rather than spare ribs leh...strangely....but the soup tasted like Bak Goot Teh lah.


After dinner, we were so full but Wee Swan's dad insisted on getting durians for us to eat. Behind us is this stall run by a Malay guy. This stall is along the road that is outside of Wee Swan's house. The durian was simply marvellous! But I was too full to have more. You know, Wee Swan doesn't eat durian and she's a Malaysian! HAha...

Marcus XA
YNWA @ 12:33 AM

Passionate mykk?

This day, i have been asking myself this question? Am I passionate about everything that i'm interested in? I think I am. Look at me, I'm passionate over my nationaol football team, I can scream and cheer even though there were alot of passive fellow citizens around me. Sometimes, I risked getting into trouble, and it drives Cindy up the wall. I remember at the S'pore V China match, this man was leaving the stadium and saying loudly "Waste my money and time!" I replied loudly, "Get lost! If you are not here to support your country! Go Go!" See, can you imagine if Cindy was there? But that's who I am now, not afraid to speak out, not afraid of the starry eyes around me. I have also been asking myself..."Do I love to be at the center of attention?" Yes, I am! But not always and not in every situation. I only love to be at the center of attention only when I'm passionate about that particular thing. For e.g., when I'm watching Liverpool play, say at a public place, I will shout and scream, no matter where I am and what kind of crowd I am watching with. Be it alot of the opposing team's supporters, I will still react passionately towards my team!

In church today, the priest was talking about being passionate towards Christ. He suggested us to sing with passion, to praise God with all our heart and soul. Have I done that? I believe I have! In my church, I see people who said "Amen!" so softly that I feel they are too embarassed to admit they believe in God, they love God. Why is this so? I told Cindy, it's not because my fellow bro and sis in Christ don't love God enough, it's because Singaporean are generally reserved and feel "paiseh" to say out what's on their mind. There're so many examples out there on the streets.
Let me list down some - 1. When people say thank you to you, isn't it so often they said it with their head bowed down, having no eye-contact with you? Does this mean they are not sincere with their thank you? I don't think so, it's just there are paiseh to make eye contact with you. 2. When the sales person says "Welcome!". I know alot of you think these sales persons sound fake. Yes, I do agree with you. But it's not because they are not sincere, I believe they really meant it but then again, they are just "paiseh" to say it heartwarmingly! 3.When I said thank you to the cleaner at the foodcourt who clears the plates for me, he or she will usually just ignored me. Why? They are paiseh to reply "you're welcome!" not because they don't appreciate my thank you!

I was telling my cousins today that I started to feel confident of myself and not afraid to speak my mind when I was in Pre-U. During that time, I turned from a shy and reserved person to someone who dare to do anything and to me, "Impossible is Nothing!" Hmm... maybe that should be my motto from today onwards... These past few years, I have definitely became a person who will go all out to anything. To me, nothing is no possible and in doing anything, there's always a way if you have the will.

So the moral of my posting today is... Singaporeans too reserved because our gahmen has trained us well to shut up, follow the rules and you still earn your salary every month. We have became cold outfront but that doesn't mean we are not passionate inside our heart. We should show our passion if we really like something so much and stop caring about what others will think of us! In other words, let us rediscover the child in us whereby we don't put on a fake front but let our mind be written on our faces and body language!

C'mon Singaporeans, you can do it!

Marcus XA
YNWA @ 1:12 AM

Hello September
September has started well, 1st Sep was Teachers' Day and as usual it was presents galore for me. But seriously speaking, i really dunno where to keep the presents so they are still lying on my office desk. But it is really nice to know you are appreciated by your pupils during Teachers' Day. You can see the excitement on their face when they gave you the presents!

Cindy and I finally went to Wee Swan's house in KL! What a great trip it was.


Are we there yet?! Oh well... it was actually a short 4hours plus trip only, from Bukit Timah Plaza to KL.



There's even tv in the bus and they were showing Narnia.

This is the CEO bus which we took, really comfortable.


It was all trees and hills along the North-South highway.


We stopped at Yong Peng for some nice Ramly burger!



At one of the gantry in Selangor... so funny, so took a pic of it.


We boarded the bus at 630am, reached Tuas 2nd Link at around 7am, went thru the custom smoothly(there was actually no one to screen what we brought into Malaysia can u believe it?! really kelong one lor...), and we reached Berjaya Times Square at around 1215pm.

We were warmly welcomed by her family. Her parents and grandma reallys made us feel at home the moment we stepped into their nice, homely house in Cheras, KL. Wee Swan's dad picked us up at Berjaya Time Square in his nice Proton car (hmm...might just change my perception of owning a Proton!) and we reached their home in around 10mins.


See! This is Wee Swan's lovely pink house. Us posing with her little cute chubby brother, Eugene!


This is the guest room which Wee Swan's family had prepared for us. They even on the air-con before we reached home after all our shopping so that we can cool down in the bedroom! How thoughtful they were really!


As soon as we reached Wee Swan's home, she brought us to this place called Leisure Mall which was just a 5mins walk from her house. This place has lots of shops and you can get almost anything you want, just like our Jurong Point or Tiong Bahru Plaza.

Marcus XA
YNWA @ 12:55 AM