Sunday, July 20, 2008

BatMan - The Dark Knight


Caught this on Sunday.
Been watching movies at cck lot 1 shaw recently. Last last sunday was Red Cliff.
I bought 10 movie vouchers at $80 so that catching a show during the weekends is still cap at $8 for myself.
Shaw cck isn't a very fantastic cinema, that's exactly the same idea why I always go there.
You can always get good seats for shows which are just released compared to GV vivocity or Cathay Causeway Point.

Have been watching Batman ever since I knew it.. Compared to superman or spidy, I prefer Batman. (My msn nick has 2 bats too. LOL)
Maybe because he has more cool gadgets compared to the other 2 guys.

So for this show... I find it enjoyable..
Nice attire, cool batmobile-cum-batbike ?

Joker... well... he's good... but as I says "maybe ppl get more popular after they die".
The only downside would be the show is very long.. it's around 3hours..

Next on my list would be... 'The Mummy 3: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor'.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Pagoh Challenge 2 Report

Hey hey, this time round, the Hornet Team is the winner. =)


The meet up at GP Petronas should be at 8am in the morning.

Normally, traffic should be fine on a Sat morning at 2nd link. I reached 2nd link at around 730am. Who knows there's a jam today and I was stuck in it for at least 30 minutes.

By the time I cleared customs and reach there, it was near to 9am. 1 by 1 the people start coming in and by around 930am, Spectrum decides to send the 1st group to Pagoh first. (There are still a num of ppl stuck in the jam.)

Did the usual briefing.






Once briefing was completed, we took the usual team photo and geared up.


Kes is the lead bike as Spectrum is waiting for the rest to come.
Endless is the designated sweeper.
Motrax & TCY are the last 2 shooters.
Me? Just as I thought I would be riding as per normal, I kena arrowed to be the num 2 bike.
What does the number 2 bike have to do?

No 2 has to make sure the convoy is not following too near to the lead bike. (normally 2 car length behind). He has to be the marker whenever there's a bend or divider so that the convoy doesn't miss the turn/exit.

The lead bike's job is to navigate and control the pace of the convoy.

And so off we went to Pagoh. It is about 150 km away from Gelang Patah. (~1 hour ride away)Traffic was smooth and soon I was marking at the Pagoh exit when Motrax came up to me to inform Kes that there was a super4 low on fuel.

I was like WTF ?? Super4's range should be around 300km.
I joined up with Kes and told him what happened.The last guy is following him slowly on the NSH.
Kes asked me if I know where's the chendol/durian place.
Yup, I know and suddenly I am promoted to be the lead bike. (like army field promotion u know?) Hahahaa... don't ask me y like that lah...

Ok... reached the Chendol stall and it seems like they are just starting to setup the stall... so I brought them to Mr Teh's durian stall.













Does anybody know what is this??


The usual team photo


Everybody's just eating so happily, testing this durian that durian.
Generally, there are 3 types there.
RM$3/kg sweet durians
RM$5/kg bitter durians
RM$18/kg mao shan wang (Mountain Cat Durians) - suppose to be the best


I did not eat any at all.. don't like the feeling of dirtying my hands and no place to clean them.. It's the 3rd durian trip with them and I have not eaten any yet.. haha..

After a while Spectrum and the rest joined up with us.
Motrax, TCY, pplater and me left for the Chendol stall first.





Later the briefing was done at the Chendol stall.
Once it's done, the Hornet team left immediately. Ya, we r very kiasu.
My team is abt the same as last year.
TCY on his Harley Nightster, Motrax on his Hornet 600, FY on his Hornet 900 and me on my Hornet 900.


1st stop, petrol station.
There is suppose to be 1 just beyond the junction.

Motrax hasn't been touring for too long, he turned left once he saw a petrol station sign when we are supposed to go straight. And so we went to a petrol station that's so much further away. Haha..! We will need alot of petrol stops along the way as the Nightster can only do around 150km/tank. Soon we get ourselves back on track on the NSH to the furthest target, Tangkak. We wanted to start from the furthest target and work backwards. Another reason is partly because we are hungry and need to lunch.

Took us awhile in this town... before we found the checkpoint.. the instructions are not exactly that clear too.

1st station - Tangkak Restoran DoDoDo Beef noodles.


Very tasty Beef noodles and soup
3 Big 1 Small


The view outside the shop.


Round 1 was done... and it started raining... so the guys decided to go for round 2...
Round 2 consists of Claypot Beef soup.. very yummy..




After 2 rounds of eating, no one from other group found this stall yet. Hmm....
The rain stopped and we decided to move on.
Next stop - Segamat Airfield
Fairly easy place to locate, it is an active airfield located beside a golf course.


The proof that we were there.


Spotted an iguana. Do we get bonus points for this?


3rd Stop - The white armour of Pagoh
This is an armour vehicle left behind during WWII.
There are a few located in various locations in Pagoh.
Unfortunately, it is in a police station and we don't dare to go in.


Last year we found another model and no, they are not beside each other.
Pic from 2007.


Ok.. 1 more stop and we are done.. Who knows this is the hardest... We even had to stop along the way because... diralang masuk (do not enter) already. Don't wish to go in and get shot at.




So we did a U-turn and restarted again... Even in the town itself, we went round and round and round before we found this place... and guess what.. Bird Nest farm of Yong Peng (#14 shop)



The proof that we were there.


Once done, we went to the RV point which is only 2km away... Yeah!! The backwards plan worked.
Reach there only to discovered that there is nobody there... so are we late or are we early?
Of cos we are early... muwahaha....Sat down, rested and we ate again...

This time it's the Hakka Yong Dao Hu.


The mee is nice...


Waited for sometime before the 2nd group came back... followed by the rest..
And then we had a bad news... Desmond from the NTU riding team had an accident along the NSH.Seems like he was knocked from behind in a hit-n-run accident. We found out that the vehicle is from Kelantan. Not much damage to him except for some scratches and concussion. Luckily some kind Singaporean stopped and bring him back to SGH.

Done with the dinner and off I make my way back to SG.

It's gonna be awhile before I go touring again..

Total distance covered today - 558km


If you want to know how much does 558km cover, take a look at this map.


Pagoh Challenge 3.. Will you be there again next year?

Review of Red Cliff (赤壁)

Just finished watching this show...

Something that i wanted to watch back then.

Review: It's a little draggy (150mins), John Woo's probably trying to let the crowd understand what happened in the past before this war. Lin Zhi Ling is stiff with her acting, don't think she is suitable to be Xiao Qiao.
Liu Bei was defeated a number of times prior to this and with Cao Cao hot on his heels, he had no choice but to relocate his civilians with him.
A short scene of how Zhao Yun risked his life to save little Liu Chan always touches my heart.
(Only to find out that idiot turned out to be a good-for-nothing when he grows up.)

Some very 'cold' scenes appeared here and there.. I thought it was quite funny though.

Towards the end, there was a battle scene of how Zhuge Liang trapped Cao Cao's land forces with his Ba Gua formation. Pretty nice, I would say.

Worst part of this show is the ending... It just ended before the strategy could be discussed for the Battle of ChiBi.
To me, the most exciting part of this movie should be the naval battle where CaoCao's 80,000 strong force collapse overnight. BUT, IT DID NOT HAPPENED !!!
Instead, a flame of fire came out and there you go again.... 'To be continued....'

So.. do I have to wait until next year or two before I get to see the Naval Battle?

Monday, July 7, 2008

ERP rates to increase today.

Once again, the ERP rates went up today.
The rise was sharp this time... $1 instead of the usual 50¢...
5 new gantries were introduced at the same time..
The timing for all gantries into town were extended till 8pm...

ok.. I only rem the first 2 points... n didn't rem the last point..
And so when i came out of the office at 715pm.. it felt weird..
Y is there a traffic jam at this hour..?
As I waited at the traffic light junction, i look ahead... n wondered...
"Alamak, how come the ERP light is still on!? n got new design somemore..."

The manual GPS in my brain did an auto-route and realised the place that i am going to (bugis) is beyond a gantry.
Immediately did an illegal u-turn (muwahaha.. another gd thing abt riding a bike)... rode around Arab street and ended in the carpark just before the Bugis gantry.
I stopped there and realised there is a sudden change with all the human behaviour around me.
Everybody was waiting in the carpark (just like me).
All roads before the gantry was jam pack. (normally this isn't the case when i am going home)
Roads beyond the gantry was like.... 'empty'.
I wondered at this point.. Is there a need to control the amount of traffic going into town from 7PM onwards? Base on experience, the traffic that's in town at 7PM will not be so heavy until it will cause a traffic jam.

Was bored and decided to take some pics...

Look at the number of vehicles turning in order to siam the ERP.
Only the bus is moving straight.


Looks nice right the new gantry, especially at night.
ERP Version 2: It even has the pricing on top of the clock. (the colorful portion that's not clear)
If I didn't rem wrongly, at 730pm - 750pm:
Motorcycle $1
Cars/Taxi $2
Bus/Lorry $3

Tmr, I'm starting work at 9am.
With the 2 ERP gantries along the way, most likely I will leave my house at 845am instead. Most likely will reach office around 915am - 930am.
Cost of ERP: $0.00

If I were to reach my office at 9am, I will have to fork out $1.25 - $2 for ERP.

How to avoid ERP gantries?
This website has a feature to help you to avoid or plan a route to avoid ERP gantries.
Users can click on a gantry for a pop-up speech bubble displaying its operating hours and charges. Using Google Maps technology, there will also be a tool that allows drivers to plot the route to their destinations.

Pagoh Challenge 2007

Saturday 24 March 2007

A unique experience for motorcycle touring.
You get to ride, eat, sight-see all together.


Where is Pagoh?
It is roughly around 150km away from Singapore.
The game plan was to topo and find check points in this area.
Pagoh-Labis-Segamat-Tangkak



There are 5 objectives to find and take a photo of them.
I was in a team of similar bike model.
Presenting Hornet team B (2 hornet 900 and 1 hornet 600)


We spent the whole day moving around this area which is even bigger then Singapore.
We managed to discover the 5 locations.

Before moving off, we had a briefing at Ayer Hitam kopitiam.
Spectrum (moto-v leader in blue) always like to go to this place for breakfast.


After breakfast, 3 of us decided to go to Pagoh for
Check point 1 - The Chendol of Pagoh Jaya


Proof of our food (1RM each)


After finishing it, we rushed to the next check point.
By the time we reach this place, the weather is already super hot.
Parking our bikes under the shade.


Check point 2 - Hot Spring of Labis
This place is made up of hot spring water in swimming pool.











Proof that we were there.



Rested for a while and off we cheong to the next checkpoint.
Check point 3 - The Armour Vehicle of Kepong

This is an abandoned AV that is parked at a police post.

Check point 4 - Nanyang Kaya Roti at Segamat

They serve really traditional kaya toast on charcoal and good kopi/teh.
Best of all, it's delicious.


By now, my stomach is already very full with all these eating.
Next and last place.
Check point 5 - Beef Noodles at Tangkak
This is a very famous beef noodles stall in Tangkak.

The proof.


Met up with everybody here and we prepare to go back.


A backview of the hornets. I am on the most left.
Goodbye Tangkak and Pagoh Challenge.
See you next year!!


Yes!! Pagoh Challenge 2 will be held on this Saturday 12th July 2008.