The Plan

Well, I am unwell for the past 2 days ever since I am back from Genting to cover an LG event up there. Really hope for a speedy recovery as I am flying to Thailand this Friday for a week, then back here to Malaysia for few more days before flying off to Hong Kong (HKG) to spend my remaining days & months of 2009 there.

This will also be the very first time that I am out of the country for a long time and to be frank I am really anticipated about it. What I will miss most of course my family & friends here and not to mention the food here.

And to my brothers - Rim & Chong, don't worry I will be back!

What prompted me to do such decision to leave? Am I not worried leaving a stable job in LG and venturing into something that I am totally green about it? Yes, I am especially seeing my bank account decreasing day by day. But at 30, I looked at what I had achieved in LG, I told myself I had enough, I rather stay happy & healthy than to seek & fight for something that I do not foresee that I can achieve there. Happiness play a key role to my decision, and last I heard my junior who I had been working with close to 2 years leaving too! So to the public reading my blog, I should not talk much bout my ex-company, it does not require a genius to understand the culture and work-like there. Brother Jeremy, I wish you the best in your undertakings, been a pleasure to work with you.

So what's my plan next? Travel only? Nah... I am taking up a job of website revamping in HKG, submitted my quotation, been shortlisted and will still need to do my presentation to client and hopefully can beat the rest of competitors mainly from HKG. Should the project be awarded to me, I will be there to coordinate the implementation up to the execution stage.

Since it is the last quarter of 2009, HKG allows Malaysians to stay up to 90 days, meaning I can at the same time celebrate my X'mas & New Year there, an opportunity that I do not want to miss. I will also be meeting up friends in HKG & Macao (Josie & Sexy, see you people soon!). Plus, will have few friends visiting HKG during my stay there, Deric & Alan, see you guys there!

And this period will also be the best time for me to be a bit slimmer. I somehow lost weight each & every time I travel, the place I am staying in HKG will have all the facilities like gymnasium, swimming pool & jogging track. Must be disciplined enough to look better myself!

For those who want to contact me, sorry peeps, I will be suspending my maxis line before flying off but rest assured I will share with you guys my HKG number on facebook ya! And for friends who want me to help them buy stuff in HKG, email me and visit my other blog @ Shop With Mike, I will try my very best to get it for you all ya!

And cross fingers, hopefully I can spare time to visit China, got my China visa standby as well.

I shall be back in February 2010 just in time for Chinese New Year here. And what's the plan ahead? I am seeking a full-time employment job or perhaps a joint-venture in Bangkok, Thailand. Why Thailand you may ask? Well, it's complicated and remember earlier in my post I mentioned, happiness is the key.

Till then people, more updates on my travelogue!

I Love Hong Kong

Getting to Hong Kong from Macao is easy. You can either take the First Ferry or the Turbo Jet. I took the First Ferry which will stop over the Tsim Tsa Tsui ferry terminal which pretty near to Central Hong Kong.

The ferry service took about 45-60minutes and it cost only about HKD$140 (appx RM70) for one way. The service & seating are much better than the A320 Air Asia, believe it! People greet you with a broad smile and inside there is a large LCD screen to entertain you. If you are hungry, you can buy snacks at the counter at a very affordable price.



Upon reaching Hong Kong China Terminal in the heart of Kowloon, public transportation here I give 7-stars rating, Malaysia is no where near or would I say KL not even 10% near to the standard here in Hong Kong. Although the frontliners in the service industry here cannot really speak a fluent English, but if you know Cantonese or Mandarin, there would not be any problem. What amazed me was, most of the workers here, whether the service frontliners, ticketing staff, cleaners, waiters, waitress, etc, majority are local not like back in our country. I start to fall in love in Hong Kong d, at least no issue on ketuanan Melayu or ketuanan Cina here. As long as you can contribute to this country, you will be treated equally.

In the bus waiting area, you will see this bus route signage, find the destination you want to go, and follow the bus number stated in that signage pole. For my case, I took the bus 215x to the nearest Kowloon MTR station. My sister was on a working day, so I told her I would be fine all by myself, as long as I know where to meet her up.



Again, at the MTR station, things are pretty at ease. At first impression, you will be confused as there are 4-5 different kind of MTR lines here, but as long as you know where you heading to, just follow the signage to your terminal. In my case, I am heading to Tung Chung in Lantau Island.





Lantau Island is the largest island in Hong Kong hosting the new international airport, the Disneyland & Ngong Ping 360. My sister stays in Tung Chung, a huge metropolitan. Pretty posh area (do not ask me how much she earns :P)

The ride from Kowloon - Tung Chung via MTR is about 20minutes. And upon reaching Tung Chung terminal, you will arrive in another enormous shopping mall called the CityGate. This area housed all the factory outlets, big brands like Nike, Adidas, Puma, Polo RL, Esprit, etc got their outlets here.



OK, I will put shopping aside at the moment. Felt blardy hungry at this point as I reached about 2pm here and not been having breakfast & lunch, at this point hungry man is an angry man d. So I head straight to the Food Republic, City Gate. So my first meal in Hong Kong is...



Hainanese Chicken Rice... :) Happy, happy man now. But the cost pretty high HKD$55 (appx RM25) excluding drinks. It came close to HKD$70 with the iced milk tea. No matter where you go in Hong Kong, always order iced milk tea, as nobody in Malaysia can beat them, not the artificial Wong Kok Char Chan Teng or KimGary in Malaysia, they are nothing!

Soon after lunch, it was still early, my sis only can meet me up at about 7-ish, so decided to pimp their local Starbucks. But this Citygate complex unfortunately does not house Starbucks, in substitute to it, it's the Pacific Cafe. They make fantastic latte & chocolate to go! I did not see any Coffee Bean in HK throughout my stay here. Pretty nice place to hang out - why????



Besides the wifi that kept me occupied, do not forget Tung Chung is the metropolitan nearest to the airport, meaning to say, you will see dozens of air stewardess walking around this complex. Now you know why I am not boring ya :P

I will write more the next post ya, it is pretty late now, gotta do my final packing before I am heading back home tomorrow. The post above was on my encounters in HK on the 16/04/08, it had been like my 5th day here already. Be right back on Tuesday with more pictures ya :)

I "HEART" HONG KONG!!!!!

Finale in Macao - The Town is Red Now!

Short Note: Typhoon Level 3 was declared in Hong Kong. I am experiencing typhoon, what an experience. My day round the city with my sister was cut short. I just witnessed a big dustbin flew across me. Phew!







We were lucky to be given half day city tour after 2-days of boring informative seminar & roadshow. This is more like a photoblog, many photos ahead, expect a bit of loading time. Macao with a population of 500k, but this tiny island is really wealthy.

We first pimped this world's 10th tallest free-standing tower, Macau Tower Convention & Entertainment Center.



Up the 58th level, the observation deck, this is a see thru glass panel, I am amazed and at the same time could feel my legs shivered. I never been to the top of KL tower, so I cannot compare who is really better. But one thing I am sure this tower is better than our boleh-land tower is there is bungy jumping available from the 61st floor of this building.




View from the Observation Deck

Then we went to this oldest and most famous temple in Macao. One of the 25 monuments designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.









We then proceeded for one of the most famous landmark in Macao, the Sao Paulo Cathedral or the ruins of the St. Paul's Cathedral.







Self camwhore, and from this cathedral, we walked towards the Senate Square or Largo do Sonado in Portuguese. This is the most happening place in Macao besides the casino. You see plenty of chio bu hanging around here, many shopping joints and every corner of this area, you will see this....





And many many more of this....







Basically, all these shops are selling the same blardy thing, the portuguese egg tarts and what they so called meat jerky (hope after eating this, won't make us a jerk), they got this pork jerky, beef jerky, sweet jerky, etc... niamah what a jerk!

This is a very very busy square, besides tourists, the locals will hang out around here as well.





You will see famous brand like Giordano, Bossini, EDC and Body Shop here. A very unique feel as the old building were all transformed to carry many big brands. I spotted a fashion boutique using LG air conditioners too :P









You will see a church right in the middle of this square and as you approached the end, you will see the city main hall & a fountain.









It was a very rushing tour ever, and we were then ushered back to Venetian as we had this gala dinner that night, nothing much to shout bout the dinner, I did not take much photos, went back to bed early as it had been a long day for me and my last night in Venetian.



I got to wake up early the next day to check out and continue my journey... just a bit of a teaser...



See you guys tomorrow :)

B2B Commercial Seminar & Roadshow

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!

Mikemmery Pimped Venetian, Macao

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