Happy Birthday Mom!

[Wednesday September 26th]
Happy Birthday Mom! I hope you have a great day today. Make sure to put some time aside for yourself!
I Love You!
-Terry

Phuket - Sunday/Monday, Plane Crash

[Sunday Sept 16th]
Today turned out to be a tragic day, but it didn't start out that way...
We got up as usual and had our American Breakfast. Shortly after, us guys hit the pool and the ladies went for massage. There was a basket ball hoop and a basket ball at the pool. We began by playing some friendly Pool Horse. I was in the running for a while, holding my own, quite surprising since I never play BB. I fell apart at the end and the guys wrestled to the end with some long and tricky shots. We started playing a half court game, again it started out friendly. Then we turned it up a notch. We must've played for an hour. We came out with a few scratches and I took an elbow to the lips, nice an swollen ;) Soon enough our game was over. I think I need to get a basketball back home and try some real hoops! It could actually be fun ;)

We headed back to town for some food and shopping. We stopped at a little place for lunch. The amount of food on their menu was amazing, especially since they only had about 6 tables. Looking outside from the restaurant you could see a ton of wires hanging from the street poles. Amazing really. Could you imagine the wiring layout schematic? jeez, what a mess! Anyway, as we were waiting for our food it began to rain. Deluge would probably be more appropriate. Luckily we had taken on of the few tables inside. All the people sitting out side scrambled inside and too the last table. They had one of those pull down security doors like you'd find at the stores in the mall, they pulled that down 1/2 way to help keep the sideways rain from coming into the restaurant. The meal was fantastic, I had a Thai meal *very* similar to Cy's Asian Bistro back in Neenah. Fantastic meal. I have to get one of these Asian spoons, so nice. P.S. Check out the Pepsi logo...

After filling our bellies, we went shopping around more of the street market then headed to the big mall. We didn't have alot of time left before we were planning to head back to the hotel, grab our luggage, and head to the airport. I'll spare you most of the shopping stories but save a few. I met a real nice guy from India who was selling Oriental Rugs. I told him I didn't want to buy but he showed me his rugs, how to tell what quality they were, some of his life story, why he's there. He really wanted to hear what I thought of Thailand from an outsiders perspective. It was a good meeting. Another thing worth noting is the Aliens Vs. Predator store. This guy make these huge scuptures out of old chains, car parts, scrap metal etc. They are really well done, quite amazing. He did other sculptures too like Gremlins, Predator, Boba Fett, etc.

Well we caught our Tuk-Tuk back to the hotel. We got a ride to the Airport. It was about an hour ride. The driver, who didn't speak English well, had mentioned something about a plane crash. We didn't understand that he meant at our airport and a big crash. It became apparent as we got closer and closer to the airport that something major had happened. Ambulances kept passing us, police began to control traffic. It was getting crazy. We started getting quite nervous. We heard updates from the police directing traffic, many dead. Big crash. Just happened. Here we are at Phuket Airport, just a little over an hour after a large plane crashed, carrying over 130 people. In the end, the final death toll was 89. Such a terrible disaster. The plane was trying to land in heavy rain and it broke apart and then became engulfed in flames. Reading the papers afterward was terrible. Account from one of the survivors

Parinwit Chusaeng, seated in 20B, said she climbed over passengers engulfed in flames. “I stepped over them on the way out of the plane,” Ms. Parinwit told The Nation TV channel. “I was afraid that the airplane was going to explode.”

not very heroic stories...

Well it sounds quite trite of me to explain the ordeal we went through due to the crash. Makes me feel like I shouldn't even tell the story, since after all, we didn't experience anything as bad as the crash.

Well we were stuck at the airport, many of the counters had sign up stating that flights were canceled due to rain. I guess they didn't want to say, "The runway if full of debris and bodies, we can't fly our planes...". There was no flights anywhere, the nearest airport several hours drive. It was already 6pm before we managed to talk to a representative. Our airline didn't even have a check-in counter at the airport since it was such a small carrier. To put in perspective, we had to get back to Penang the next day. We had a big audit that next morning and 2 of the people traveling with us flew into Penang to support and that audit. The other 3 of us were key players in it as well. Not getting back was not a realistic option. As the night wore on the only option was to drive back. Phuket is a long ways away from Penang. Ironically both places being large islands off the Peninsula.

I'll try to make a really really long story short, we got a Van to take us from the airport to a bus terminal about 1 hour away. We were dropped of there. This is a bus station in the middle of no where. We didn't get a chance to eat any food since lunch so we were getting hungry. None of the signage at the terminal was in English and it was clear that the other people waiting found it quite peculiar that 7 Americans would be taking the Buses. The locals take the buses because they are so much more economical than airfare. They're not used to 'tourists' taking the buses.

Jeff and I went on a hunt for food. We found a small little hawker stand that could make us some chicken rice and pork rice. We intended to order just the pork rice but got some chicken rice too. This is notable because chicken is a lot easier to not cook at the right temperature to kill any nasties on it... While they were cooking, I simply ignored the cock roaches scurrying through the kitchen area and open food areas... We got some Cokes and chips and were on our way.
Back in the waiting area we divyed up the food. The girls were smart and didn't eat the meat rice. I braved one of the Chicken Rices. (I should note that a week later I got very sick..., thats a whole nuther story!). We had these BBQ SpareRibs chips that I though would just be BBQ Chips, nope, actually tasted like spare ribs. Yeech, not good on a potato chip! The things you come across in Thailand.

Well about 9pm we all got on board our bus. I thought it looked pretty deluxe on the outside. The inside was not. We all huddled up as the bus was plum full, and hit the road. I wish I could say it was a nice, uneventful, 12 hour ride but nope... The bus didn't have a bathroom. We two stops along the way, back alleys to let everyone off and use the bathrooms. I thought the bathrooms in Penang were bad... These, not so good. The neighborhoods reminded me of Tijuana Mexico, but worse. Very run down, dirty, delapatated. Every single one.

While we were riding most of us on the right side of the bus (thats me, Jeff, and Marcie) couldn't sleep. We kept getting wet. Couldn't figure that out for a while. Turns out the duct above me which was the A/C duct, it had terrible condensation problems and drip, drip, drip. Right on me and my chair. I was getting soaked all night. Kinda like Chinese water torture. My seat was just underneath the drain, but the seal was busted so when we made stops or turns alot of water went rolling into the drain but most just landed on me, my seat, or luggage. Fantastic! So I got to be up, looking out at the country side allnight. Watching the towns go by. Thailand is a very poor country. Very interesting place to cruise through during the middle of the night

At one point I got very scared. You see I've been told to avoid the Malaysian/Thailand border because there is some non-peaceful strife going on between some factions. Not a great place for tourists. We were in the middle of now where, middle of the night, pitch black and there was a bus stopped ahead of us at a curve in the road. There was alot of cover on each side of the road and due to the trees and poor visibility due to the rain, the bus driver stopped behind the bus and didn't try and overtake the bus for quite some time. This was the perfect ambush setting in so many movies. Stop a bus of travelers and rob them. Well nothing happened, most everyone was a sleep and didn't notice but I sure was scared.

We eventually made it to a bus terminal near the Thai/Malaysian border. From there we got into another Van and road to the border. Crossing the borders was exciting. Full of paperwork and bribes, for both borders! Quite different...

The rest of the trip was uneventful. We made it back to Penang at about noon. After a quick shower and change of cloths, I was going to head to get a bite to eat but got a call from work. There had been a change in plans. The auditors decided to audit my project... Time to head into work... Food will have to wait. Boy, that was on the fly...

Exciting to the end. Here the week before there was Earthquakes in Indonesia, a few days later we flew to an island that was right in Tsunami Territory. Then after that risk, a plane crashes and we make a crazy overnight trek through the back countryside of Thailand to get back to Penang 17 hours later... Whew, we made it.

Hey, whats next? ;)

Phuket - Saturday

[Saturday September 15th]
Saturday we all got up to enjoy our 'American' Breakfast, none of that Continental crap ;) We had eggs and bacon! Fruits, breads, the whole nine yards. Our big planned event for the day? A Jungle Trek riding Elephants! Before the Elephants though we went downtown for some shopping!

To get downtown we took one of Thailand's famous Tuk-Tuks (pronounced took-took). They're basically a little Daihatsu van with benches in the back. Everyone load up! Now no matter where you are in Phuket, there an absolute ton of these things around. And everyone asks you if you want a tuk-tuk... Very novel at first but trust me, it wears on you, more on that later ;)
Once we got downtown we strolled over to the main street shopping street. Quite an exciting and happening place during the day (and at night, more on that later)... There are shops everywhere! They all have tons of trinkets, t-shirts, purses, cloths, etc. Some even have dvds. Jeff and I got curious about one store's 'back room' selection. They pulled a rack away from the wall revealing a hidden door. Silly and naive us went into the room and they shut the door on us. We'll we're trapped, could have been real bad but nope. Just a hidden room with an absolute ton of boot-leg DVDs! They had practically every movie under the sun there. It'd put Net Flix to shame! Well we didn't get anything, must to the consternation of the shop owner. We told them what the prices were back in Penang and he didn't want to come near those prices ;) Jeff lived here now so he's building a small collection.
While we were shopping the biggest things we heard were the requests to get a tuk-tuk, there are also tons of shops with women wanting to give you a foot or body massage. If that isn't enough there a even more shops selling suits, I guess Thailand is famous for its tailors. They keep asking, do you want to get a suit, good price, just $50USD... We make for you.
This leads me to the funniest T-Shirt... "I don't want a F-ing Tuk-Tuk, Massage, or Suit!". I should have gotten one, but no one would understand it ;)
All in all, nothing to remarkable out shopping, I did end up getting a couple of things. Did you know Red Bull is from Thailand? I didn't, now I do. I now am the proud owner of a Thai Red Bull shirt. The Coca Cola logo is quite different here too, so I just had to go and get one of those shirts too.

Eventually it was time to go Elephant Trekking. Woohoo! I was very excited for this ever since I had heard about it. It was a mere 1500Baht, chump change right? So we got picked up at our hotel in a open top Land Rover. It was like we were headed to boot camp! We all piled into the beast of a truck and started our 1 hour road journey to ride the Elephants. It started pouring on the way, we frantically pulled down the plastic sides of the truck. Sure was some excitement trying to get those down in the deluge ;) We eventually made it to the Elephants though.

Wow, amazing. They gave us a little show with the young elephants. They were so cute. Yeah, I know, paying money to have elephant do tricks and carry people around in the jungle doesn't sound very humane. Well these elephants don't have much choice. Their habitat is gone, the Government now makes it illegal to use them for doing work such as construction, clearing, etc. There is no where for them to go. Quite sad really. So these tourist facilities are their last refuge and they do take care of them well. The trainers live with the elephants and spend nearly all their time with their elephant. Its a great companionship.

After the Elephant show we walked up to the loading station and hoped on our Elephants. These girls are big. They're all female, that way they're more docile on the treks. The Males can get stubborn and mean. Riding is pretty much what you'd expect, but more! The lumbering giants walk slow and steady, On second thought, steady isn't the right word... Boom goes the right leg and you along with it shifting right in your 'seat'. Boom goes the left, and there you go left. Constant swaying. Boom, boom. Such power. Each elephant having its own personality. Mine for example just loved stopping and picking up things. It always had to have something in its trunk. We carried umbrellas due to the rain but the Elephant 'operator's wore their wicker type code hats. It was really neat.

All too soon the ride was over and we headed back the hotel.

Later that night we tried to find Thai Kick Boxing but there were no fights that night. In lieu of the fighting, we strolled through down town. First we headed out to dinner. Believe it our not we had Mexican for dinner, yes Mexican in Thailand, who would have thought? At it was great too! Very authentic, the nachos had a ton of topping. We actually ran out of chips before the toppings, when does that ever happen? And the Chimchangas, mmm.

[Child disclaimer, don't read the next passages if you're under 18, sorry to post this but it was part of Phuket...]
After Dinner we went strolling through town shopping again. What we found there was, well 'different'. As you walked down the main street it became quite evident that the exotically dressed women standing along the side of the streets were not there just for the heck of it... They were clearly Ladies of the Night... More over, many of the bar tops were now adorned with scantly clad dancers, not all of them female but all intending to look like it... Quite different. People approached us asking if we were looking for any, 'services'. In one instance a guy suddenly appeared and put one of those wallet fold out picture things infront of my chest. Looking down to see what the ruckus was about, I clearly saw his photos. The pictures he had... How to tastefully express... In a nutshell faceless unclad pictures of the 'goods' 'spread' out for your selection... Shocking in and of itself but also shocking was the perceived age of said 'goods'... I saw first hand Thailand's underground 'trade'... Once we got off that particular street the night scene cleaned up to normal and all was well.
[end child disclaimer]

After shopping we took everyone to Rock City so they too could experience the Metallica tribute band... We tried their Nachos, terrible. Oh well, can't get 2x good nachos in one night so far away from Mexico! We called it a night at a mere 2am.
One more day in Phuket.

Phuket - Arrival

[Friday Sept 14th]
Seven of us (isn't there always a fellowship of 7?) went on a trip to Phuket, Thailand. It was myself, Bruce and his Girlfriend Angela, Jeff and his wife Marcie (sp), Steve, and Chris. 5 of us from Plexus, all from the States. We had an evening flight out of Penang after work on Friday. We had a few hold ups getting out of the office and when we finally did it was pouring out (a common theme to the weekend). Always a great start to a vacation ;) Jeff was driving the 5 of us from Plexus to meet the others at the airport. Traffic was backed quite a long ways along the road to the airport. At that rate we were never going to make our flight! What a bummer! As we approached the jam, I was in the backseat. Jeff casually asked what he should do and I jokingly said, "You're going to want to get in the right lane and start passing". Now its only a two lane road so getting in the right lane is the on-coming traffic's lane... In puring rain. So, he did it! We cruising quite a ways, passing all the people properly waiting in the queue. When an oncoming car came we dodged out of the way to our right and 'parked' along the road. Crazy times! Our little side jaunt saved us at least 20 minutes, allowing us to make our flight. Whew!
Our flight there was uneventful, our landing was in the rain but pristine, could hardly tell we touched down. Turns out though, in bad weather, the pilots should land the craft hard so a gust of wind doesn't crash the plane... That way it 'sticks'.
I didn't know ahead of time where on the island we were staying, or really what we were planning on doing. Adventure 'eh? Just fly to another country and see what there is to find ;) It turns out we were staying along 'Patong Beach'. Its touted as the best beach and resorts in Phuket. Ironically though, it was also a beach that was hit very hard by the 2004 Tsunami. Now the Wednesday before we left for Phuket (i.e 2 days earlier) there were 2x large earthquakes just off the coast of Indonesia, just like the ones that caused the 2004 Tsunami... So when I found that we were staying 'in the line of fire', man, that was a little uncomfortable. I didn't want to tell everyone that I was in a Tsunami warning area. This beach was one of the famed beaches that we all saw video of when the tsunami hit and heard stories of the water going out to sea and people walking out onto the newly receded shore never to be heard from again.
First thing first, we need some local cash. The conversion rate is crazy. I handed over most all the Malaysian Ringgit I had, they gave me 4500 Thai Baht! For US to Bhat is over 30x exchange. So with my thousands of Baht, I was ready ;) I must say, the text on the money was confusing. If you look at the 1000 Baht bill, it clearly has what looks like '9000' on it. Quite strange!
To get from the Airport to our hotel, it was slated as a 1 hour drive. We hired a van to take us there. It cost 1500 Baht (Crazy large price tag right?) Surreal to pay 1500 anything on a whim like that ;) So our trip was exciting. First we hit the road for a while, not to much excitement, dark out by that time of night. The place didn't look out of the ordinary for SE Asia. Eventually the driver pulled into a place and we stopped. He said he needed to talk with his boss. What a scam, it was the van's operators office. They sent out some sales people to get use to commit to paying for a ride back. After quite a long time we got them to leave us alone. They were nice and cordial, just persistent. We eventually got back on our way. It started to absolutely pour. One of our windshield wipers broke, thankfully it was the left one. That way the driver could still see, whew.
We went up and down some seriously step road ways, winding up then back down. Similar to some we've been on in New Zealand. The trouble he was with all the rain coming down in droves, the roads turned into rivers flowing down the hills/mtns. It got hairy there a few times as having 6 inches + of water raging down the road, criss-crossing it as the road did its loop-backs to go up and down was, erm, exciting... ;)
We didn't know it at the time but we stopped just shy of the enterance to our hotel. There was what looked like an impromptu lake in front of us. The water was up and over all the sidewalks and heading into the nearby shops. It had to be all of a foot or more deep. Cars were driving though with water above the bottom of their doors, people riding scooters (in torrential rain mind you) rode through the deep murky water, the water sizzling and steaming as their exhausts became submerged. Our driver went for it and we charged though, no issues. It was like crossing the River Anduin back in NZ. Just as we got out of the water, we turned into our hotel. Whoa, we're here! So up, up, up we went. Steep hill and our hotel is resting snuggly up the hill in the trees.
Ah, tonight's adventure doesn't stop here. We had 2 rooms booked for the 7 of us. They were going to have 2x double beds in each room. They refused to let us sleep 4 to a room though, even though there was clearly plenty of room. So after much debate we agreed to an additional room.
We got settled in a little bit and headed to the Hotel's restaurant. We had a very nice Thai dinner. We ate it family style where everyone ordered a dish and we passed and shared so we could try everything. They had a powerful red curry, a fantastic Pad Thai, some sweet n' sour chicken. Mmm, Thai food... Who would have thought, I got to have Thai food in Thailand! How kewl is that?
After dinner it had stopped raining. Some of us decided to walk down the hill to check out the beach. Nothing to see at first, but we soon discovered a very rocky 'beach'. It was very pretty and scenic but it was no where to go swimming. The water churned, and the waves crashed and sprayed against the rocks. I could of sat there for a while just taking in the setting.
The guys decided we'd walk into town and see if we could find a place to relax. Not far down the road came the real beach. It was very nice and long. The large waves were crashing and rolling. A constant and soothing ebb and flow was rumbling on the shore.
We stumbled upon a place called 'Rock City'. Quite an interesting place. Here we are, midnight in Thailand, going into this Bar that has a Metallica Tribute band playing. Just seemed out of place. The lead singer, a German in a Ski Hat, yelling, 'Make some F&(*ng Noise!' We hung out there taking in the ambiance. There were 'nurses' bringing around needle-less syringes as shots, and a shot lady fully equipped with some holsters full of booze and ammo straps of shot glasses... No one tried any of it. As we gazed around the crowd, we started to realize that the majority of what we had originally thought were females, weren't. Apparently its quite common here.
Anyway, after the band was done ~2:30 am we went back to the Hotel, climbed back up the hill and went back to our rooms. The two couples had one room, Chris had another, and Steve and I had another. Ours being much further up the hill overlooking the roofs of the other's.
Quite an adventure for just arriving. More stories to come ;)

-Terry

Phuket

[Friday Sept 14th]
I'm sorry for the late posting, its been a hectic week! I first want to let everyone know that we are all safe! For those that don't know, last weekend some colleagues and I took a weekend trip to Phuket Thailand. Unfortunately there was a tragedy at the Phuket Airport on Sunday, just hours before our planned departure to return to Penang. Many of you did not know we were going there. I'll share more details about this part of the trip in a future post...

[Note: Though usually in English 'ph' is pronounced 'f', in this case its not ;) Phuket (Pooh-ket)].

[More info to come...]

Anna's Coming to Town!

[Friday September 21st 11:35pm]
It's official, Anna's coming to town! Two weeks today, at the same time infact! I'm so excited to get to see her! She'll be flying into Singapore and I have a flight to go meet here there. We'll spend a few days there checking out the area (if you have any suggestions on what to do in Singapore, please share). We'll have about 8 days back in Penang before she departs. Then I leave back to the USA 1.5 weeks later (Sunday Oct 28th is my departure date).

[sung to the tune of 'Santas Coming to Town']
Anna's coming to town, Anna's coming to town, Anna's coming to town... ;)

I Love you Anna,
-Terry

I Just Can't Wait to be King!

[Saturday September 8th]
Welcome! Come one, come all, to the Greatest Show on Earth! Oh, wait, just a moment... Thats for a Circus... Hmm, what do Zoo's have for a song or a tagline? Hmm... Well, uh, Welcome to the Taiping Zoo! Nick and I headed to Peninsular Malaysia (Across the big bridge) to Teiping.
It was my First time at this zoo. I was excited to get to go! In the past year I've had some wonderful opportunities to see exotic creatures on their home turf. From Kiwi's in New Zealand and Whales off of Kaikoura to Kangaroos in Australia. Now I'd get a chance to see the locals here in Malaysia! They've got my favorite Monkey, the Orangutan, favorite Cat, The Tiger, and favorite Animal, the Elephant!
Like many zoos, they have a mass transit system here. Its not a monorail, but a several car cart system. To our surprise most of the visitors see the zoo via the cars! Too me, getting to walk through the park, stopping as long as we'd want at each exhibit is key. They missed out on some of the best parts of the zoo as you'll soon see. Well starting out there was some fun loving monkeys. These gibbons were out and having fun. I took a snapshot of one of them just hanging out on a tree. He was real cute. Just hanging there looking at us as if we were the animals in the zoo. The park is really open here, many of the animals such as the Monkeys really have the run of the park. You'd see them just about anywhere, in any enclosure, and out. They seem to like staying at their 'home' though. Below these guys was a moat-like pond. Nick, who'd been here before, was telling be they had a fish in there that must be 20 foot long. I was thinking to my self, whatever Nick... Well I didn't see anything... at first... We walked past a placard that showed an illustration of a man next to one of the giganto fish. It was twice as tall as him! A fish from the Amazon. Again, 'whatever' crossed my mind. Then, in the depths of the murky water I saw a growing orangeish shape. Then a few feet down another, a few more feet, another. Must be some Koi in there I thought. Then, wham, this massive fish came to the surface, and its full size became apparent. Wow, must have been 14+ feet long! No kidding! Too bad I didn't have my camera ready, ok it was ready but I was to stunned to take a photo. As soon as it appeared it was gone back to its murky depths.

A little further down the path we saw some Owls. Now these owls gave me the Heebie-Jeebies! As you can see in the picture, they have sheer black eyes. They look at you with these empty eyes. They brought back some old feelings. After a while I recalled what it was. An old animated move, 'The Secret of NIMH'. Oh, that was it. That scary Owl in that show . Well now I've seen the real owl, he's no to big and terrifying... ;)

Ah, onto to the next, and my favorite event of the day! Nick and I were chatting away as we were walking from one exhibit to another. A guy walked up holding a big cat. No it wasn't just a cat, and big isn't quite right. He was holding a Lion Cub! He said it was about 2 months old. He asked if we wanted to hold it. We had a bit of apprehension, as one could imagine. Well we got over it. I got to hold little Simba! I felt like Rafiki in the Lion King! He's bigger and heaver than I would have thought. Man, I want one! So cute and fluffy. Awe...

Well not far down the path was the little guys Dad. He seemed quite agitated, maybe he was a bit upset his son had gone missing? In the video I compiled below, you can hear his roaring. I've never heard a Lion grunt like that! Poor guy!

So as we were walking along there was a 'African Plains' exhibit to our right. Any guesses as to what the first animal I saw was? Well I bet you're wrong, it was a Cow! It looked like a Texas Long Horn (but it wasn't, whew). Take a good long look at this picture. Which animals don't belong? I don't think I can answer that one but it sure is an eclectic group of animals. Lets see if you can find a: Cow, Zebra, Ostrich, Gazelle, Monitor Lizard, Crane, and a strange bird...

We came across a set of Sun Bears. These guys look excited and seem to want to say Hello! They are at the edge of their enclosure leaning out with a big grin. They might look a little cognitively challenged but don't forget about the big claws they have, seriously, take a look at them! Jeez! The last time I'd seen one of these guys was at the San Diego Zoo.

Well It started to rain on us. Its kind of funny actually, the locals scamper to find shelter but we're out just getting a little bit of a sprinkle. The animals didn't seem to mind the rain either, just out enjoying the nice drop in temperature and soothing water. We stopped and took a look at the reptiles briefly, and we found this guy. This has got to be the biggest monitor lizard on the planet! Just below him is a a 6 foot long crocodile, lets just say that the Croc has nothing on the lizard ;)

What Zoo wouldn't be complete without some of the big gray beasts? Namely Hippos, Rhinos, and Elephants? Well this one had all three, yippee! The Hippos seemed all too content to wallow in their big pond so not much excitement there. The Rhinos though, nature's natural tanks, they seemed to have taken a bit of a likening to Nick and I. Once they spotted us the seemed to follow us around as we walked along their enclosure. They are lumbering beasts thats for sure. Don't let them get mad at me!

Well Finally, at the very end, saving the best for last, was the elephant enclosure. They had a herd of them. Strangely they called them 'Malay Elephants'. Sadly, there are only two species of elephants left in the World. Namely the African and Asian species. I'm sure that these are Malaysian 'native' elephants but are of the Asian species. Anyway, the elephants were awesome. They had baby elephants, awe the little Dumbo. I could have just stood there indefinitely watching them. I don't know what it is about elephants that I like so much but they seem so human. They cry, they dance, they protect. Check out the video I compiled and you can see some elephants in action.

The Zoo tour was over, time to get some refreshments. As everyone knows, I'm a big Root Beer fan and disappointingly they don't have Root Beer here. Or so I thought! Looking for some water I found this in a store. Ah good Olde Rut Bir! So Klasik! ;) Though I only gave it a 3 of 10 on the Terry Scale of Root Beer, it was refreshing.

We left the zoo and headed to the Lake Park just down the road. Wow, what a great park to stroll through! We didn't walk much ourselves but we had a good vantage point to look around. The water was eerily calm, the lawns rolled gently down and into the lakes. It was beautiful.


Oh, check out the video compilation I put together of the zoo. Its worth it ;)


-Terry

Malaysia POS...

[Monday September 2nd]
Irony, yes that's it. Its pure irony... So I went to the Malaysian Post Office. In Malay their word for Post is Pos. They also capitalize it as POS. So its not a Post Office but rather a POS Office. Even their website is clearly and unambiguously www.POS.com.my. They just call it POS.

So since I failed to get postage the other day on a Holiday... I decided to try to get it today over lunch. My poor unsuspecting colleagues who took me out to lunch... We drove to Sunshine Plaza to grab a bite to eat. After arguing over the parking price, we went straight to the POS. Once there we were taken aback by the droves of people! I took a ticket, it was 1289. Unfortunately for us they were currently serving 1200. We decided to go eat and come back and see if they caught up. You may be asking yourself, "Hey, why didn't he just buy stamps at the [Grocery Store|Gas Station|Stamp Vending Machine|Office]?" Well none of those are options here...

After a hearty meal at McD's (yhep, McD's, we felt like skipping out on the Hawker food for a day). We returned to the POS and found they were only serving 1233... Ugh, I began waiting in the Parcel Line. Well the line seemed to be moving quick so I chose to commit to it. Once the line got me close to the POS counter the ladies in front of me magically had several packages each. Now nothing is automated at the POS and there was a quite a bit of paperwork for *each* package. To make a long POS story short... Our lunch out took 2 hours, any we all know McD's doesn't take that long...

They collected my 50sen per stamp (~14 US cents) and I was on my way. Gosh, I hope they post cards make it! Tell me how mailing a letter in the US to the US costs ~40 US cents but mailing one from Malaysia to the US only costs ~15 US cents? Somehow I suspect that even though I went to the counter and showed them my postcards with the destination clearly labeled, and requested airmail, that they won't make it... ;(

Irony...
-Terry

Rubik's Cube

[Sunday September 2nd]
Who was Rubik and why did he make a cube? Well none-the-less I decided to pick one up. So far so good, I've got one side solved and the 4 adjecent edges, so basically on of the 3 'layers'. Well wish me luck!
-Terry

Montag Does it Again...

[Sunday September 2nd]
Today I finished reading Ray Bradbury's Dystopian novel, 'Fahrenheit 451'. It occurred to me that I only started reading it a week ago! Anyway, once I started reading it I had realized that I had 'read' it before via Audio CD in my car. Though I had read it before it was still quite a good read. Its amazing how much he foresaw of today from the 1950s... I suppose its a matter of debate or opinion if today's world is getting close to his concept of the future back then but I'd argue that it is. Give it a read and let me know what you think ;)

Off to reading 'Slaughterhouse Five' by Kurt Vonnegut... Maybe this one will last a bit longer ;)
-Terry

Elixir of Coke

[Sunday September 2nd]
The other day when I stopped at Tesco's for stamps, I found a couple of interesting cans of Coca-Cola. Where do I begin...

In the far off Kingdom of Azeroth, there lies a region called Khaz Modan, home of the Dwarves. After the Guilded Age and the Third War, a peaceful lull emerged. The Dwarves, having honed their blacksmithing skills to weapons and armor, expanded their skills. After having to venture far and wide to fight against the Horde, a need arose for portable containers that were not as fragile as the common and time trusted Vials. A new way to carry the Gnomish Elixir of Coke was needed. The Dawn of the Coke can had come! The early cans were crude but soon a more advanced form emerged. Artisans were enlisted to decorate the 'cans'. Soon the cans were being sent to the front lines and used Stamina Boosts and Rest Bonuses. Eventually, pictographs of the enemy were emblazed onto the cans. Now these cans are only found as mere relics, a snapshot of time long lost. A time where pull-tabs were used, and the elixir came in a mere 355mL container.

Cherish the rare photos, as these may be the only known photos of such a grand relic.
-Terry, NaugrimOhtar (Elvish for Dwarven Warrior)

The Monkey in the Coconut Mask...

[Saturday September 1st]
Today Bruce, Jeff, their significant others, and I went on a hike to Monkey Beach. I've started out on that hike a few times but never made it there. Today was the day! The weather was nice, a little warm but fine. The hiking was good, the trail stayed along the coast and was primarily flat with some ups and downs. The scenery was wonderful, sea to the right, jungle to the left. I was thinking to my self, just how many of the people I knew from Highschool have gone jungle trekking in South East Asia? Then I started thinking, how many people are sweating so bad that it just keeps dripping down their nose, or around their lips, tasting the salt? Wiping it off became futile as within 10 seconds it was back again! It wasn't an overheated sweat though, just a nice feeble attempt to stay cool in the humid jungle. Thats what 100 Plus Isotonic Drink is for! ;)

Well along the way, about 30minutes in, we came across a beach. We thought, no way we could be here that fast! Well it was a great beach but we were right, it was no Monkey Beach. We strolled along the beach and then back into the jungle. There was one spot along the way that I needed to stop and think about how to proceed. It was like Indian Jones, hoping over some rocks, just touching the tops, and keep going, let you momentum and fancy foot work keep you safe. Don't look down though, it a ways down ;)

Finally we made it to the Monkey Beach. True to its name, it had Monkeys! I love Monkeys! We got enamored by one group of Monkeys by the trash bins. They were being feed fruits by some locals. They were fairly friendly and a curious bunch.
Unfortunately there was this one unfortunate one. We'll call him, "The Monkey in the Coconut Mask". This little guy appeared to have placed his head into an open coconut to eat. It seems that his head got stuck in it! I don't know how long he'd been that way but he did look malnourished ;(. If it weren't for the fact that we felt he couldn't get the coconut off and his future was grim, it would have been funny. Some how there a was a moderate hole at on end that he could use to look out, he'd move about just like the others, but he wasn't quick enough to get the food himself. We didn't get to seem him eat so we weren't sure if he was eating through the hole or not. We wanted to just walk up to him and pluck the coconut off him. Ironically he was the most skittish of the bunch! I suppose I can't blame him.

The others were a bit more lively, chasing each other around, playing, trying to break into people's garbage bags attached to their tents. They were even doing 'other' things.

We hung out at the beach for about 20-30 minutes before he heard a crack of thunder. Uh-oh, time to head back! We started hiking back hoping to get back before the rain. I just wanted to get past the 'hopping rocks' before it rained, those silly things could get slippery! Well long story short, though we were already drenched from sweat, we got drenched some more with rain. It sure made it cool down though ;) Walking through the Jungle while its raining isn't bad, just watch your step it gets slippery. You can hear the rain falling through the trees, the animals taking shelter, the breeze pick up. Its nice.

We made it out, safe and sound. Time to shower up and figure out whats next ;)

-Terry