Hey people, I am back. It felt a bit weird not being able to online for the past 4 days. To cut long story short, I was away for vacation with my family in Hatyai, Thailand since it is a long Raya break. And my apology to all Muslim readers, I take this opportunity to wish all Muslim friends a very happy Raya Aidilfitri.
How to get there?
Back to my trip, this time around, dad decided to go by bus. Hatyai had been a yearly destination for my parents during Raya break. This is my 2nd time there with my parents. Little do I know, now there is a daily direct bus from Melaka to Hatyai, saving all the hassle of driving there. Cost is about RM70/pax from Sentral Melaka up to Hatyai City Centre. For fellow Malaccan who needs more info, here is the number, KKKL Tour (06-2881399).
Where to stay?
I had been to Hatyai for a few times now, still our favourite hotel will be BP Grand Suite located along the busy Sanehanusorn Road mainly because of the location and the price. For a decent queen size bed, it cost RM80/night. There are many other hotels along this stretch, there are many new hotels in this area too.
Food & Beverages
I always love Thailand, whether it's Hatyai, Bangkok or Chiangmai because of the food. Everywhere you go, you see pork, very nice pork or "moo" in Thai. And not to mention too their chicken rice is very yummy, none of the joints in Malaysia that I know of that can beat the chicken rice here. So, if you are going Hatyai, chicken rice & bak kut teh is a MUST.
And also right opposite the BP Grand Suite, there is this fried kuey tiaw stall which only open late noon til late night. Highly recommended too.
As you walk around the busy street of Sanehanusorn, you can see a lot of stalls selling Thailand junk food. Try as much as you can. But price nowadays is not as cheap as 3 years back. Price very likely similar to KL rate but worth a go.
Do not forget the mango with glutinous rice, pineapples and coconuts.
Activities in Hatyai
Shopping - for ladies. Cheap imitation jerseys, fake Polo Ralph shirts. The most expensive boutique here is Lacoste followed by Nautica, both in Lee Garden. The girls commented the bra & the panty are cheap here. Few shopping malls in this stretch of road - Central, Odeon & Lee Garden. Tips: for discount on the street always offer 50% lower than the price quoted. As for in the shopping mall, go to Odeon, the promoters there can give discount if you sweet talk them to bed
As for guy like who does not fancy shopping, always can opt for a hair cut like I did during my trip. I had a hair cut & coloured my hair plus shampoo & washing - total cost about RM70. Where to get such rate in KL? Loreal somemore, don't play play.
Also massage - plenty of massages. Farking cheap making you feel like a fool paying double/triple the price back in Malaysia. Standard 1 hour 45 mins full traditional body massage cost only 240baht (appx RM24) and for foot massage 1 hour 30 mins 250baht (RM25). I had all of them and it's heaven. You can also walk in any saloon, get your nail cut (RM15), cleanse your ears (RM8), dead skin removal (RM15). Highly recommended - Apple Saloon (2 blocks away from BP Grand Suite). As for full body massage - go for Sakura.
Night life & activities
In Hatyai of course a lot of guys will be there to enjoy their escort services. For those who are not there for this, you can always go to pubs scattered around the Hatyai City. Their live bands are really good and interactive. There is one just below the Odeon Shopping Mall, and another one called Westside. For disco you can go to Paragon or Kiss Channel. The damage for alcohol here is much lower than in Malaysia. As draft beer is not that popular here, go for big bottled Heineken in any pub/disco you go. Price per bottle not more than RM15 and the waitress here are much friendlier and much fun to be with :)
I sang a song too.
Things you must know
Since my last trip there 2 years ago, a lot of changes now. Smoking is prohibited in most indoor area, this includes pubs, discos & restaurant even if they are not air conditioning joints. Good for non-smokers! And convenience stores or supermarts cannot sell alcohol drinks within a certain period of time. Good rules innit?
Bring an international adaptor for your phone & laptop charging. The currency rate at the time of my traveling period was RM1 = 9.80Baht
And big Heineken selling in Tops Supermart for RM6 per bottle. Damn!!!
That's about it all for Hatyai this time around. Come this November I will be going for 9-days free & easy Hong Kong, Macau & perhaps China trip. Life can be wonderful.
Happy weekend ahead!
Short Note: Typhoon Level 1 Red Alert in Hong Kong today (18/04/2008)
My trip to Macao was not all fun like in the previous post. This post will elaborate more on my 2nd & 3rd day in Macao in more details. The seminar officially started on the 14th April, basically it was a seminar for the internal LG staff and the roadshow was on the next day on the 15th April. I came with a co-worker in my department. Unlike the consumer electronics business, this seminar I attended, stressed on Biz-2-Biz (B2B), more leaning towards commercial or corporate sales. Many would not have know the importance in Malaysia yet but we soon to see a booming as we all know Malaysia is always slow in adapting new stuff.
So what actually is the product we talking about here? It is more on digital signages & TV with hotel mode. In many other more developed countries, fluorescent light advertisement board & neon lights slowly extincting. Welcoming LCD technology into digital signages world. It is amazing to see how software does magic to these screens.
From left to right. The very first large screen of 4 pieces is what we call the video wall. It can go as many screens combinations as you like, imagine 9x9 42" screens across or 1x16 screens horizontally, how impressing it is to onlookers. Fluorescent box & neon lights are so dull & plain and the consumers now are much sophisticated than before, go to Venetian, you will see more LCD screens than any other hotel in the world. The second screen from the left is pivotal 3-sides, one of its kind. Too technical and interested party can always contact me. The third kinda of screen is more towards special stretched screens where it will replace those LEDs signages, or even be used in casinos, many casinos in Vegas already start using this kinda screens.
Besides the digital signages screens, we were introduced to the new hotel mode LCD TVs. With the extension of Visit Malaysia Year 2008, many hotels are doing revamping, who still want to stay in hotels with CRT TVs? LCD is the in thing now.
As these are seminar for distinguished guests from Asia Pacific including Middle East, Australia & New Zealand, there were sharing of ideology on how to improve the business and many success stories all over the world. Anyone interested in these screens in Malaysia, please drop me a mail k.
And for lowyat.net forumers who are following my blog, just a teaser on the LG Voyager phone to be launched in US.
And for those 2-days of seminar & roadshow, my next post will be on a short city tour in Macao. More photos coming along.
Out of topik sikit - I was following on some other political blogs in Malaysia and I got a message to this old man who started blogging sebab pasal BN kalah internet war at the GE-12. Ali Rustam, jangan sekadar nak rakyat komen yg bagus, dan tak terima yg tak bagus, pakai otak sikit kalau nak blog, get your facts right, kalau nak blog, terima lar kritikan juga, penakut macam you, bagus tutup blog site you. Malu oi Melaka! I am a Malaccan you know, though you win, I never regret my vote went the other way. If you guys got no idea what am I ranting about, this Mat Ali wrote about piggy story bashing the new Selangor government, after Malaysiakini found out who spearhead the project, this mamat deleted his post and disabled his comment but kita rakyat bukan bodoh, nak menang undi internet bukan senang mat, check here to read the 300+ bashings from the rakyat before this mamat deleted the post. Hadiah kandang babi tu sebelum ni satu lagi projek Barisan Nasional. BERANI KERANA BENAR!!!
Kandang Babi Thumb Up!
As many would have know, I was away from town for the past few days. I am now in Hong Kong and will be here for another few more days. I can sense hell awaiting me when I am back in Malaysia as calls flooded in when I am here.
Anyway, put that aside. I reached Macao last Sunday via MAS. My second time to Macao but this time around I will be staying in one of the world's best hotel, The Venetian Macao. I did read KennySia's experience here and I never expect to enjoy such luxury until my company's HQ in Korea held a commercial seminar here.
This hotel has 3,000 rooms & the largest casino in the world. Their smallest room is as per picture below...
I got to say this gotta be one of the best hotel room I stayed in my entire life and it is a little too big for me and how I wish I can be with my loved one here where we gonna enjoy making love all night long in this room. Basically it has all business center services you need, fax machine, card reader, wifi, printing services, blah blah blah... And this is the standard room, I am wondering how other suites would look like. DAMN!
Enough said bout the room. Let me take you guys for a tour around Venetian. Basically Level 1 is the casino, blardy big and obviously I am not allowed to take any picture in this level, much much better than Genting. So let's go level 2 - The Canal Shoppes. In Venetian, the night comes pretty late.
This is how it looks like at 9pm.
These are men-made indoor artificial clouds and it felt like as if you are not in an Asian country, felt like as if you are in Venice. Few hundred shops around selling branded stuff, jewelery, MAC Store, boutiques & food court. There is a canal too, they hired 'guai lous' to ride sampan and sing some opera songs.
And of course for food, you will never find McD or KFC here. The most affordable food around can be found at the food court. On my first day there, I had this beef tenderloin noodles. And the food... hmm... tasteless, sucky! And it costs me about HKD60. But it definitely has a very nice & clean food court. Not all the food is bad though.
A free & easy first day for me and Venetian is so big and I never got to tour all of it. Went to the casino and played the roulette machine. Made a bit on the first day. Happy happy day with happy happy ending :)
I would be super duper happier if Pak Lah resign! :P
As of July 2007, the population of China was estimated at 1.3billion people. As much as I understand that China is one of the most advanced country in the world especially when you look at their metropolitan like Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzen & Beijing. However, I believe among this huge population, there are indeed very poor people there.
We can see China girls everywhere in the world and star studded hotel like Venetian Macao is not spared too. Macao is just separated by Gongbei Gate and it allows easy access for these China girls to cari makan in Macao and I can tell you, Macao is nothing if there is no casino here.
These China girls are eyeing big fishes that may have won a bit more in the casino. How I found out? For the past few days, I had been walking around the largest casino in the world and on the second night I was hanging around till wee hours and there this lanky fair complexion girl walked to me, and blurted a question, "去? 不去?" (meaning go or not go?) - thx maegen for teaching me these words over MSN
As usual, my half past six Mandarin, I was stunned and blur and asked back "去那里? (meaning go where?). The girl looked at me one kind with her face darker than Darth Vader and walked away. Feeling curious, I asked one of my counterpart from Hong Kong who happened to be with me in the 3days seminar the meaning and in the end I know the udang sebalik batu story behind it.
To summarize it all, prostitution in Venetian Macao. And I heard from my counterpart it is not cheap either, HKD1,000/hour. It is like giving away RM500 for an hour. Damn! So easy to earn meh? If one day I go walk around and start to ask to some girls, "去? 不去?"
You think I got business ar?
People, I arrived in Macao in one piece. And to those who have not been to Venetian. It is blardy huge, beyond my imagination. The hotel is the best I ever stayed. I had just finished my seminar & dinner. I have yet to find time to compile the pictures to update here.
Yesterday when I arrived, basically was just looking around the hotel. They hired mat sallehs to sail around gondola like in the parit besar in Venice. Seriously, if the seminar is not held here, I would not have spend my own money to come here. I am now sitting in my suite with fax machine, wireless, my own living hall to do this post.
This is my second time in Macao, this country is developing in a crazy mode, too fast. You arrived here, you see tons of cranes around the city, sky scrapers mushrooming, branded boutiques all over and it is seriously the one of the fastest growing metropolitan in the world.
It is a short one though, I had to run for shower and rushing to the casino. Their casino put Genting to shame really. If only our government grant another casino license, I am sure the Sands Group people will invest.
Win more! Win more!
