Sunday, June 8, 2008

Monkey Rehab

SUNDAY 27 APRIL 2008

Suprisingly, I woke up quite early today. I thought I would be very tired and would want to sleep in for a bit but I must've been looking forward to go to the restaurant and stuff my pie hole in the morning.

Seeing as I splashed out and paid extra to stay in the club rooms, I get to enjoy this view while I was having my first coffee.

I could've had breakky at the club lounge and avoid those noisy children and tour groups but I'm not going to miss out on what the restaurant had to offer downstairs .... the biggest breakfast buffet ever ... LOL (close to it anyway).







New Zealand hotels might want to learn from this breakfast buffet. What we have is ... um ..... I won't bother explaining.

After I stuff my pie hole with food until I could not move, we took a few pics ... suprise suprise and headed off to the airport to catch out Air Asia flight to Sandakan. We've heard interesting stories about this cheap Malaysian no frill airline so I was quite curious on how it would go. We managed to get $0.00 fares for our return trip and only had to pay the taxes so it was great.

Because these cheapy flights are so popular, they had to build another airport to cater for the demand. The airport was nice....

You even get free smells (I didn't know you have to pay for them ...)

The experience with Air Asia was .... um .... rather interesting indeed.
- They do not allocate a seat so when you board the plane, you have to fight your way through everyone to get the seat you want
- Because they do not allocate you a seat, everyone runs to the gate and jump queues so that they can board the plane first when the boarding call is made
- You can also pay RM$20.00 extra if you want to board the plane first. These people can line up with the grannies and noisy children and board the plane first

Well....seeing as I am such a smart person, I saw the shorter queue and have decided to line up there. A few other foreigners also did the same. We later realised that this was for the people who have paid the $20.00 ... whoops! .... I played dumb and pretended I didn't know what was happening. The girl had to let me board because I was holding up the queue. I wasn't the first person to do it. I was only following the other dumb tourists in front of me LOL ...

So....I got on the plane first and I've decided to pick the best seat I could find.... errr ....


This brand new aircraft also had no air conditioning to top it off. It was a plesant flight. NOT! lol

My aunt was kind enough to let us stay with them for the 2 days so after we dropped our bags, we headed off to Sepilok, Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre .... I'm hoping to see an Amy Winehouse monkey .... We were welcomed by this lovely sign

Luckily, the monkeys we saw did not look like that.

The trek into the viewing platform was rather .... um .... fun for me anyway. Because it rained the day before, parts of it was rather muddy. I had the joy of seeing a group of asian women and kids scream, run and falling all over the place because some of them got leaches stuck to them. I also had the joy of having a leach stuck on my shorts except I did not scream or run. One naughty leach did end up under my t-shirt (god knows how they got here) and I only realised it after it was trying to give me a hickey. Again, that made more women and children scream. FOR GOD'S SAKE PEOPLE, its just a little worm that sucks your blood!!! I pulled it off and threw it away on the ground. I should've aimed it at the screaming women and kids LOL

After our little excitement with the leaches, we waited at the platform in scorching heat for the feeding time. You don't really get to see them unless its feeding time because they hide in the trees and does their monkey business when they are not eating.

Check out this dude ....

....and the Orang-utans.... they are pretty cool.


After visiting the monkeys, orang-utan and the whole leach experience, we went to see the crocs. They even put on a wee show for us!!!



I asked how much these guys gets paid for their dare devil work and apparently the get RM$4.00 per show ... thats about NZD$1.60!!! I think I'll keep my job. I recognised one of the guys when I visited this place 4 years ago so I guess these crocs are relatively well trained to not to eat them.


Saturday, June 7, 2008

Walking Around In The Dark

SUNDAY 27 APRIL 2008

After we loaded our truck with all the flowers from the ballroom and have taken single thing that we could possibly take LOL (...just joking of course...) I took a stroll around the resort at 1am in the morning......mad, I know....(A proof to show that I am not one of those horrible drunken young people of today's society LOL)

This was really the only time that was available to do it seeing as I Looove hotels and I wanted some pretty night shots of the place....again...mad!









Isn't it pretty...

Wedding Bells

SATURDAY 26 APRIL 2008


Well, not really, there was actually no bells. Tonight was just an excuse for us to eat and drink lots because we can. Alyssa and Chico got married in January, this was just a party for the family back in Malaysia. We also used it as an excuse to escape cold New Zealand for 3 weeks so I we are not really complaining.



I can't actually remember the last time I went to an 'Asian' wedding. Unlike the ones we have in New Zealand, Asians tend to invite the whole city to their wedding and the bride and groom doesn't actually know 90% of the people attending LOL .... We've decided to keep it small and only had 70 people.....not 1000 like everyone else. It was minuscule compared to the other weddings over there.

See what I mean, the jockeys also attended. We've never ever seen them before.... (My uncle race horses).....

We had about 20 million courses ... (Its actually 8 I think) and the room was quite nicely decorated. A bit cheesy in a way.



There was even a big giant recyclable cake that they use for every wedding.

I'd be wanting a real one when I get married. It'll have to be the same size of course.

The room was decorated with roses and more roses. You are actually allowed to rip all of them out and take them home with you. Shocking behaviour, I know LOL .... I guess you might as well do it if the hotel charges you a fortune and unlike the cake, they can't recycle the flowers. So, this is what we did.


Overall, it was a great night to catch up with all the family in one place and consume *sOmE* alcohol......It wasn't excessive ;)...I had to keep up my good image while I still can in some countries.

I also came across this T-Shirt. He'd made it quite clear on what he doesn't like .... May be he loves New York and is friend with Madonna.

So there you go, a taste of an Asian weddding.


Thursday, June 5, 2008

Commonwealth Bank Ad, Florida or New Zealand?

I saw this ad while I was travelling in Melbourne recently and thought it was quite funny. Its a total piss take of New Zealand LOL

Baaaaaaaaaaaaa.....