The clock is ticking and it's now the final countdown for the business assignment in Manila. To be honest, I love this place better than last year. I am happy with the working environment here that I don't get pissed off in the office, at least not anymore :) I don't know why but I have a feeling that for my previous trip it wasn't like this.

And all these made my steps became so much heavier today. I learnt to move, but not move on! LOL! Guess what, a while ago, a colleague asked where am I going for dinner today and maybe we can dine together, I wanted to say "ahhh leave me alone, I don't like the feeling of leaving, don't make me cry", haha, well I don't cry easily but to be honest my heart just doesn't feel well when it comes to a farewell to friends that you don't know if you will see each other again in the future.

But I have to go home, thanks for all the great time here, I appreciate every moment spent with all these guys here. I sincerely wish everyone here is blessed everyday.

Hectic schedule is coming, the places that I will be at for the coming 3 weeks are: Manila -> Singapore -> Kuala Lumpur -> TaiPei -> HuaLien -> TaiChung -> TaiPei -> Kuala Lumpur -> Segamat -> Johor Bahru -> Kuala Lumpur

My life is all about travelling! It's time to put all these on hold and enjoy the moment staying back in Kuala Lumpur! And just because I have to be away that much, I realise that the best place in the world to go is home.

Labels: Career, Life, Memories, Thought, Trip

If you are a friend of mine in Facebook account, you'd probably (or maybe not) aware that I had wrote a note about a suicide case in KL sometimes ago. I can see a lot of friends do not agree with my statements, they don't 'like' it, or they ignored my advise and continued promoting this faggot simply because two reasons, first is because that guy is good looking, and secondly they think he is such a hero to sacrifice for love. ROFL!

For any of the reasons above that you've promoted this love hero, you should feel guilty now, if you haven't felt so yet.

Why? Again if you are not aware yet, suicide rates (especially among teenagers that haven't had their brains fully developed) reaches alarming numbers right after the Alviss Kong case. The father of this guy felt guilty and had been running here and there to spread the corrective information about appreciating lives. He is just a taxi driver and I am kinda sure that he has a low educational attainments, but he knew that he should do something for the younger generations.

But a lot of you, that many had went to high schools and some to universities, who had shared anything about this guy without condemning the act, is now officially one of the murders of these victims!

I wanted to save these young people but fighting alone is never easy, that's why I urged everyone to stop promoting that love hero act. Back in the old days when I was one of the members of counseling club, I did attended some psychology courses, for that reason I actually mastered a lil bit of these psychological effects thingy towards the young people. I might be wrong, but I played safe. Yea I was safe but you all weren't! *sigh*

Young people, if you are thinking about committing suicide because of failure in relationship, look at me, I have failed several times in my life but I am still here standing still, smiling and laughing almost everyday of my life. There is a great saying goes like this, the one who failed you doesn't worth your tears, and the one who worth your tears doesn't fail you. We all understand that, it is tough and painful when you first failed in a relationship, but if you stand up and keep walking ahead, I am sure somedays later you'll shine again.

Always remind yourself that there are plenty of people out there that care about you. You don't have to catch their attentions with this stupid and painful act. Just tell them that you need a listener and I am sure a lot of them will sit down and offer their ears. Otherwise, blog it! I usually go with the latter one, and it works. I felt as if I had already told a lot of people the words in my heart despite there may not be even one reader, I don't know, but I will just assume everyone reads it. =)

I'm not here to write something about myself in this post, so let's cut the crap. The message I wanna broadcast here is that: Love your life!!

Labels: Thought

A ship in harbour is safe, but that's not what ships are built for

Labels: Inspiration, Life, Memories, Photography, Thought

Today is the last day of weekend workforce in this year as we are going to freeze the development until next year. I guess no one want to break something during this period and spoil everyone's Christmas holiday, no?

Hence, life is moving on slower as normal beats (it was on remix beats for 3 months!) starting today, and guess what, I don't have any critical issue to work on today, so I decided to do a mailbox housekeeping after a hectic battle which I didn't even have time to tidy up my mailbox, a lot of trash mails in my inbox and consuming a lot of spaces, until the mail server have been warning me for a couple of times to archieve my mails. Well, sorry about that, but I am doing it right now, finally =p

I found a funny comic in my mailbox, shared by a friend some times ago, which I think is kind of fitted into my job situation. I am sharing it here, for the sake of fun, no offence to any other team =)

After this, I will be meeting family and relatives from all around the world! Ok, this round we are going to have it seperately in many different places around the world. But here in KL, we have relatives from Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, and Hong Kong! Can't wait any longer to meeting them!

Besides that, I finally got my Starbucks Planner 2011, a very nice leather planner, for me to start taking down notes on the coming plan. Probably would be nice for me to plan my expenses as I have to really learn how to manage my finance taking into account that I have a big debt on house loan :(

Lastly, wishing a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you peeps, another great year ahead!

And the same to myself too, all the best in 2011 Mr Stevo!

Labels: Family, Life, Thought

After a very hectic battle stablishing the employee self-service workspace application, with many long hours weekdays, dedicated weekends workforce, adhoc communications in the late nights on the devilberry, I decided to give myself some spaces to enjoy a sweet escape. I am not running away from the responsibility but I just need to destress a bit.

As such, I made a road trip to Johore Bahru and Singapore to visit friends and take some pictures. Tripping and photo shooting have been the best way for me to destress myself after I quit partying and dancing.

My holiday started on Friday. Went to shoot some photos in KLIMS, followed by shopping at Ikea to survey on the furniture price. In the night, worked on an adhoc issue from home, credits to the devilberry.

I actually had been requested to come back to work during the weekend but I turned it down, I just need a break. Saturday morning I went back to office for a while to visit the team and also organised a short briefting to Joyce, the person delegating my jobs during my absence.

In the mid afternoon, I headed down to Johore Bahru, arriving in the evening. I stayed in Johore Bahru for 2 nights, in Grand Paragon Hotel. After settled the accomodation, Seow Lin came and picked me up for a dinner at somewhere I forgotten the name. Met up with her friends, a guy and a pregnanted lady, ahhh sorry I forgotten the names as well, haha!

Grand Paragon Hotel @ JB

After dinner, we went to meet up with Danny, Raymond, Kai Chen, Zhan, and some of their friends that as usual I couldn't remember the names, at De Bali Pub. Guess what, these crazy folks took me to Singapore in the midnight because Raymond is leaving JB to Segamat on the next day and he wanted to gamble so badly. In the end, he drove us to Singapore but his stupid Garmin GPS doesn't want him to gamble, find no way to the casino and ended up we passed by Geylang and had a drink there. Ehem, sounds fishy right? Few gentlemen went to Geylang in the midnight, what is the better thing to do there? Haha, anyway we had a lady with us, so that's the best way to prove that we did nothing there! Haha!

They were trying so hard to find the way to the casino

And we ended up arriving Geylang, Garmin is playing us a trick?

It was a nice experience heading into Singapore at 1am, stuck in custom for 30 minutes and missing in the freeway for an hours or so, and ended up had a Roti Plata and Nasi Lemak supper in Singapore before heading back to Malaysia. It was already 5am in the morning by the time they dropped me off at the hotel, damn, I was so exhausted! Phew!

Quickly bumped into the blanket after shower. Forgot to display the DND card at the door and got woken up by the room cleaners at 10am, damn! I ended up slept until 3pm in the afternoon. After woke up, been ringing a few friends but everyone were busy with their businesses. Luckily I still have an OL friend who does not need to work during the weekend, again the same person, Seow Lin, who were forced to be the tour guide to Singapore again, LOL!

Arrived Singapore in the evening and we went to Clarke Quay for dinner @ Hooters, yea I just miss the chicken wings so much! But again, just like the Manila branch, they do not serve Daytona flavour chicken wings as well, sigh. And their Hooters Sling taste like cough syrup! I wonder where can I get a real nice Singapore Sling?

Hooters @ Clarke Quay

Chicken wings dinner @ Hooters Clarke Quay, Singapore

After the dinner, we went to shoot some photos at Clarke Quay. Poor Seow Lin who is not a photo shooting fan that she has to accompany me, haha! But I really appreciate the time you forked out to tourguide me, thank you very much!

Clarke Quay

Clarke Quay

Clarke Quay

Clarke Quay

Clarke Quay

Clarke Quay

Clarke Quay

Then we headed to Resorts World Sentosa to try our luck. As usually I don't have luck in any "pian chai", that's a Chinese word, meaning to say the money that doesn't come with hardwork. Anyway it was expected thus I didn't exchange too many tokens.

Again I took my camera running here and there to shoot some nice pictures. It wasn't as nice as I wanted it to be though, I am still improving my photoshooting skill okay!? Heh!

Resorts World Sentosa

DREAMS on...

Christmas is in the air!

Universal Studios Singapore

Universal Studios Singapore

It reminds me of last year's this period, whereby I was homesick at the States, shouting on facebook that how much I miss Malaysia and wanna come back so so so badly. Guess what, now I started to miss those days riding on a Subaru speeding here and there in the States, playing with snowballs, and chilling in the balcony enjoying Shiner, the Texan beer. And also, how crazy I was to ride all the way from Segamat to Singapore to visit a friend that I didn't get to meet up for very long. Those were the days.

And here we go, the song that inspired my homesickness last year.

Labels: Trip

a key...

I think my blog is a bit messy, with a lot of stupid posts. This is definitely not my usual style, I used to have them in very structured way, no?

Well, I decided to do a lil bit of housekeeping work on the blog. Removed those stupid posts with only one picture and one word, yet mean nothing to the readers. Oh yea those pictures do mean something to me but people reading it may not understand it. So, I decided to move it to draft, just to keep it there as diary.

Life had been very tough, you know, I am a person that always strive for work & life balance, that never in my life I'd have thought of working continuously for the whole month until when I am bearing the house loan. It's going to take me 35 years to clear my debt, and I don't want it to be that long, so I am working hard to make more money and I wanna get it done in 15-20 years. Yes I know that's tough but I'll strive for that.

The forth quarter of every year seems to be the most miserable season for me. On top of working during weekends, look at this receipt below then you will know how many working hours for me per day! (ok it's not that bad lar, the receipt is showing the longest working day for me in 2010, hehe!)

It may not be the most expensive car park receipt I ever had, but it is one of the longest working day for me

Guess what, I got a Blackberry Torch 9800 from the project budget! Cool eh? Heh! It may look cool but may uglify my nights & weekends. Let's hope I don't have to standby too much with this cool gadget, just FB-ing with this cool gadget all time without needing to reply mails. Dream on, dream on, Steve Kwok, wake up now and be realistic!

I wish I still remember how fancy my Friday night used to be...

*Sigh* I am officially a slave of money now... :(

Labels: Career, Life, Technology, Thought

To a lots of Malaysians, basically how this Island, Boracay, got famous among us is thru the news about the wedding of a famous Malaysia songstress, Fish Leong Jing Ru.

The wedding of Tony Zhao & Fish Leong @ Boracay

Before I came to Philippines, I was told that this is a must-go tourist spot. Everyone looks like pretty excited talking about the white beach there. So, even though I know it is gonna be a boring trip to go alone, still I did it. Just for the sake of some memories in Philippines rather than all those stuck-at-home dull stories.

Boracay is an island of the Philippines located approximately 315 km (200 miles) south of Manila and 2 km off the northwest tip of the island of Panay in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines. In 1990, it was voted by the BMW Tropical Beach Handbook as one of the best beaches in the world and again in 1996 by British publication TV Quick as the world's number one tropical beach. The island comprises the barangays of Manoc-Manoc, Balabag, and Yapak (3 of the 17 barangays which make up the municipality of Malay), and is under the administrative control of the Philippine Tourism Authority in coordination with the Provincial Government of Aklan. Boracay is divided into three stations, Station 2 is roughly in the center of the white beach, with Stations 1 and 3 respectively roughly midway to the north and south endpoints.

These are some very useful tourist maps, click to enlarge.

Map 1: Identify where are the three stations, and different beaches

Map 2: Detailed map including all the points of interest, hotels & resorts, bar & restaurants, etc

Initially I was supposed to fly with Cebu Pacific, which I booked online for 1D1N stay package in Boracay. But last minute I thought that it might be too short for a trip, but I wasn't allowed to make any change on the flight itinerary due to the terms and conditions for a tour package. I ended up booked another flight ticket with Philippine Airlines to depart a day earlier, and flew with its partner airline, Air Philippines. Basically, it is about an hour flight to the nearest domestic airport of the island, Caticlan Airport, also known as Godofredo P. Ramos Airport. The runway in this airport is very very short and only propeller planes can land there.

It was a Friday morning flight, thus I applied a day leave, as it may not be nice to charge one full day on a domestic flyback travel, and thanks to the assignment manager and line manager who approved it just few days before. Arriving in the noon, the weather in Boracay was just nice, neither too hot nor too cloudy.

Ahhhh... Before I forget, this is the core public transportation in Boracay, tricycle. Rides are inexpensive, usually about 50-100 pesos, and can be found almost everywhere along the main road. It might not be comfortable but it is convenient. :)

Tricycle

Tricycle

There was a tour guide from the tourism association who served me since I stepped out of the airport, this guy helped me to carry my luggage and guided me to the station 2 to look for a hotel for my first night stay. He is super nice and helpful, credits to the tourism association! We walked for around 15 minutes to visit a few hotels and ended up I picked Seabird Hotel as it offered a big room with reasonable price, and also it is located only a minute away from the white beach!

Seabird hotel @ Station 2

Seabird hotel @ Station 2

Seabird hotel @ Station 2

After check-in, I took a real short nap, follow by a real quick shower, then headed to the shopping mall named D'Mall to have my lunch. I was too hungry so I simply grab a quick lunch at a stall that selling BBQ chicken.

D'Mall

After that, I headed to the White Beach to enjoy sunbathing and photoshooting. Stepping on the white beach that many friends of mine are craving for, I must say I am so lucky. That's why even I knew it is gonna be boring to come alone but still I came, I just want to feel lucky! Hahahaha! I know, I am lame! :p

It wasn't too crowded as it is off peak season, since July is a supposed to be a rainy season. Again, lucky me, that there was only about an hour of light rain on the Friday evening throughout the entire trip! No typhoon, no tsunami, lucky me again! Hahaha, I am a bit insane now, so just ignore me.

I actually planned to go to Puka Beach in the afternoon, and then Mt Luho, but I was kinda tired after watching football games for a couple of nites, so in the end, I decided to call it off and move them to the second day. In the end, I did not make it happen also on the second day, no reason, just lazy to travel here and there by myself, somebody please tag me along. *sigh*

White Beach sneak peek

White Beach

White Beach

Willy's Rock

Along White Beach

Sand Castle

Steve Kwok in the castle

White Beach in the dusk

In the night, referring to the map, I was supposed to head to a restaurant recomemnded by Paolo, followed by some drinks in Hey Jude bar opposite the restaurant owned by his friend. Guess what, I walked for 20 minutes trying to find for the restaurant and bar without success, ended up a local resident told me that both the restaurant and bar were closed for renovation, PHEW! Where is the luck!?

And because I was too hungry so I simply picked a restaurant by the beach that serves local delights buffet dinner. It costed me about 500 pesos (RM35-40) for the meal. The dinner was not bad, especially the Adobo, freaking nice wuey!

After the dinner, I went bar hopping. I spared about 2 hours hopping among bars and found it was a really boring thing to do, when you're alone. So I decided to call it a day.

On the second day, I got myself transferred to the prebooked hotel at Station 1, the Crown Regency Hotel. Station 1 is where all the well known hotels located. But I still prefer the location of the previous hotel, lower class accomodation though.

Crown Regency Hotel @ Station 1

Crown Regency Hotel @ Station 1

In the morning, I walked around the beach, light shopping at D'Mall, and netsurfing at cybercafe. After lunch, I got a tricycle ride and headed to Crown Regency Hotel. Guess what, I was again given a room with 2 beds, 1 single and 1 queen size, exactly the same size with the one I stayed a nite earlier, no wonder the package came with much more expensive price than usual, now only I realised.

After check-in, I decided to follow the itinerary, to visit Balinghai Beach. I took another tricycle ride to the beach. You need to pay in order to get into the beach but then the entrance fee is consumable at the restaurant. Balinghai Beach is freaking small, I guess the pictures below can tell.

Welcome to Balinghai Beach

Balinghai Beach

Balinghai Beach

Balinghai Beach

Fish

Coral

Balinghai Beach

Balinghai Beach

Balinghai Beach

Balinghai Beach

Balinghai beach is located a bit far from the main road, so basically there is no way to get out other than walking for like half an hour to the main road. You can always talk to the receptionist to call for tricycle.

I went to a dinner at station 2, then headed back to the hotel. After shower, I quickly bumped in the blanket, was tired. I plan to wake up in the nite and go to a bar nearby to watch the Fifa World Cup game. In the end I woke up late and I felt uncomfortable to go out that late as the street was kinda dark. I ended up had a beer in the hotel room with some chips that I bought earlier in the convenience store.

The next morning I woke up early to check out as I have a flight at 11.30am. Got up at 7am. Have been really long time since I woke up that early to have breakfast. Finished the breakfast at 8.30am and proceeded to check-out from the hotel. I requested for a airport transfer because I am lazy to get into tricycle, get down, go to counter for ticket, then onboard the boat, then get into another tricycle, phew, that's simply too tiring. Crown Regency provided me a good service on airport transfer that they sent me to Caticlan in boat even I was the only passenger in the boat.

Airport transfer by Crown Regency Hotel

Airport transfer by Crown Regency Hotel

Airport transfer by Crown Regency Hotel

Airport transfer by Crown Regency Hotel

Airport transfer by Crown Regency Hotel

In the flight

Back in Manila

Boracay is definitely a nice place for a weekend trip with friends and family. In this trip, I learnt a lesson, will never travel to a beach alone anymore. The boredom kills!

Labels: Career, Memories, Trip