Before I begin, allow me to stress that Taman Negara is a BEAUTIFUL place, and is really worth going to visit! I am definitely going to go there again as I have not been able to do many of the trails and activities during this trip.

What’s UGLY are the people whom I had the misfortune to go with…

ISSUE #1 : THE YOUNG AND INCONSIDERATE

Okay, I know it’s quite harsh of me to write it like this. But I can’t help it. You can say that it’s because I’m “getting older” or something. But I do know that even when my friends and I were their age, we were certainly a lot more considerate about other people. Perhaps it’s just this particular group of students.

A group of students had joined us on the trip to Taman Negara under the same tour operator, and we had to pick them up from their university campus before heading over to Taman Negara. The students all spoke mainly Mandarin, and since I’m no Mandarin speaker and my fellow KL travellers (Adibah, Abby and Jie) are Malays, we didn’t really spend much time chatting with each other.

I WOULD like to say that they’re not all bad as they were polite, some of them were in fact quite helpful, and one of them had even offered to lend us a deck of cards to play with while we were waiting for one of the activities to begin. What irked me was mainly two things:

1. They were always late. Even if we had already arranged to meet for breakfast at 7.30am, they’d stroll down about 8.10am. That’s not too bad as the activity was only to start at 8.30am. The worst one was on the day of departure, which was a Monday. They had specifically asked the driver who was supposed to take us home to come as early as possible as they wanted to try to make their 4pm class. The driver actually arrived at 8am instead of the 10am he said he would, so we all jumped out of bed and had a bit of a mad rush to get ready so that we could leave as early as possible. Don’t forget, we had to drop these kids off at their university first, BEFORE we headed back to KL, which means we four adults had the longest ride back home.

   We four adults were done with breakfast at about 9.30am, and by then the kids were also done, with just one girl halfway through what looked like her last bit of toast. So we adults decided to head up to the jetty carpark where the driver was parked so that we could use the washroom, and the students assured us they would be up soon after. Their “soon” turned out to be half an hour later as they ambled up with their own selfish assurance they could make it for their 4pm class without any consideration about the rest of us facing a four-hour drive after dropping them off.

2. “We’ll go where WE want to eat for lunch.” Because the driver was a Chinese man who only spoke in Mandarin/Cantonese, he and the students got along like a house on fire.

   When we arrived at the town near their campus, the leader of the students suddenly turned around to the four of us who were seated at the back of the van asking if it’s okay to stop for lunch. Of course it was okay – it was lunchtime. But then the van driver suddenly stopped at a very run-down roadside wooden stall that barely offered any protection against the heavy rain, and the student explained that “we really want to eat Chinese food as we haven’t had Chinese food in campus for a very long time. Is it okay if you all eat this mamak and we go for our Chinese food?”

   This wasn’t even a mamak. It’s just a roadside stall.

   I looked at the stall and thought, “OMG I wouldn’t eat there myself” and  so I turned doubtfully to the other three and asked if the stall was okay. Adibah (who is sooooo nice and sweet) said hesitatingly, “Okay kut…” but the other two were so furious that they refused to answer.

   After a few seconds of silence, the driver got the hint and turned the van around to another more respectable-looking Malay restaurant that was at least within a shoplot. By this time the other three were so fed up that they just went. As for me, I chose to accompany them to than to hang around with the students and the driver, not  because I can’t speak Mandarin anyway (well… partly), but because I didn’t want to hang around a bunch of people who gave so little consideration of others in favour of their own wants.

   

   Where we were unceremoniously dumped for lunch

   It’s not that I have a problem with the students wanting a Chinese meal… having studied in a local university myself, I know exactly what that feels like. But if you want to split up, please don’t just dump the non-Chinese in some horrible little corner of your choosing and expect them to be okay with that. Some respect for people older than you, especially since you are supposed to be intelligent students, would be nice. At least let them make the choice of where they would like to eat before you go and hunt for the Chinese food you have been so desperately deprived of.

   As for the driver, what can I say? As the adult, he should have handled this as one. But from his tone of voice, I could tell he had little consideration for people other than of his race (and I hate to sound racist). But when he had pulled over to the roadside stall, he spoke in Mandarin very roughly (and yes, I do understand a smattering of Mandarin), “Ask those people at the back if they are okay with this.”

   I’m Chinese, but I’m ashamed to be associated with people like these.

And now, for the even uglier bit..

ISSUE #2 : TAKEN FOR A RIDE, DUMPED AT THE SIDE…

Oh, where do I begin? Let’s begin at the beginning…

I signed up for this trip with Braveheart Adventura which is run by a woman named Reha. I had once gone on a one-day white water rafting trip that was organised by her, and it turned out fairly well (in spite of a few hiccups – she hadn’t even known where the place was although she claimed she had been there several times). So I thought this would be relatively safe to go since she claims she had organised many trips before, including to Taman Negara.

What went wrong:

1. Facebook reminders are not the way! She sent us reminders by posting on our Facebook walls the day before to remind us to gather at KL Sentral by 7.45am, instead of calling or texting us. (Reha herself arrived at 8.10am) As a result, Adibah who said she had received an earlier reminder to meet at 9am and claimed she didn’t get the Facebook wall was very late. In fact we had to ask her to tell her cab to go to Gombak where we picked her up from a Shell station. The van driver had to go around in circles as Reha and Adibah couldn’t seem to figure out where we were supposed to meet each other, and it was only after Abby spoke to Adibah that we met at the correct Shell station and were then on our way.
2. We’ll be on our own during the trip. It was during the trip that she revealed that she would not be joining us for the trip. She claimed she had to come back to KL to prepare for a meeting and presentation over the weekend.

   Tell me, which tour operator just takes their clients to the location and dumps them there?

3. Wrong campus cost us about 2 hours. As  mentioned earlier, a group of students were joining our trip to Taman Negara. All she knew was that they were from Universiti Malaysia Pahang – but she didn’t know which campus. When we arrived at the Gambang campus (which was closer to the toll from the highway), she called them up only to be told that they were actually at the Pekan campus.

   So, she obviously didn’t do her research.

   We could see the driver was already very impatient, as he had already made an hour’s detour that morning to pick Adibah up. But he still drove without complaint all the way to Pekan (which is almost an hour from Gambang – one way!) to pick the students up, and after a brief stop for lunch, we had to drive another hour back to the toll, and back onto the highway towards Taman Negara.

4. No boat ride, and she didn’t know the way. Part of the Taman Negara experience was taking a boat ride along the river to our chalet. In this case however, we went solely by road, which took a few more hours from the Gambang town, and Reha kept looking at the milestones and trying to figure out how much longer it would take – as if she had never been there herself. She never even told us what to expect – whether there was a boat ride or whether we were going by road. Jie was furious about that, because she had been promised a boat ride.

   When we finally arrived at 5pm, Reha kept trying to call Stanley who was supposed to be our local guide, but due to poor reception it was a while before she finally got through to him. And when we arrived at Kuala Tahan where all the cheap chalets were (across the river from the actual gazetted national park), she didn’t know which lodge we were going to stay in, and where it was; and apparently Stanley had refused to tell her over the phone. It sounded very dodgy, and I was beginning to wonder whether we were going to get beaten and robbed, when Stanley showed up in an open-backed four-wheel drive.

   All of us except Reha and the van driver piled in, and Stanley drove us to our chalet, which was…

5. Park Lodge. Please don’t ever stay there. EVER. It really is that bad.

   During the trip, Reha had proudly told me that due to her connections, she managed to upgrade our rooms from quad-sharing to twin-sharing without a price increase. But when I got to Park Lodge, I only saw a few chalets which had two rooms each, and ALL of them looked like twin-sharing. Perhaps there were quad-sharing, but I did not see any of them there.Here’s what’s so bad about Park Lodge:

   a) The bathrooms are horrible. The bedroom itself is not so bad, but the bathroom looks like it has not been cleaned out properly. It’s as if the lodge operators relied on the room guests to maintain a certain level of cleanliness, and after the guests had left, they just spray the whole bathroom with water. I don’t expect hot water or hospital-grade sanitization. But some decent level of cleanliness would be nice. I say this because there was one night where there was no water supply, and I had lifted the top of the water tank of the toilet to check the water level. That little action was my biggest regret of the entire trip.

   

   The bathroom in our chalet

   b) Speaking of no water supply… the above happened when I was trying to take a shower, after coming back from night trekking. I hadn’t known why at that time, because when I turned out the tap in the sink, there was water; but the shower head refused to spurt out any water. Then I heard from outside, one of the students talking to someone, and that was when I gathered that their big water tank which was supposed to hold water for all the chalets in the lodge did not have enough water.

   I don’t know whether they didn’t turn on the pump or they turned off the tap to the water tank… because from the way they talked, it sounded like it was an oversight on their part. We had to wait for more than an hour before we finally had enough water for us to take a shower. We certainly did not have this problem of “no water supply” the next night.

   c) A horribly isolated location and no transportation provided. The reason Stanleycame to pick us up in a four-wheel drive instead of letting the van drop us off at the front of the lodge was because the way to the lodge was down a steep village road about 300 m lined with trees – and it’s the only road there. The van could not have possibly made it.

   And the only time we really got transportation was the first time we arrvived. All other times we were expected to walk by ourselves – for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and after our activities. And the road is pitch black at night because there are no lights lining the road, so it was fortunate that on the first night we had just finished night trekking and we had our torchlights with us.

   Our meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) were not at the lodge, but at a floating restaurant which was about 10-15 minutes walk from the lodge. So everytime we went for meals, we had to hike up that long steep road, then walk down a sandy beach to the floating restaurant. Because of that, we made sure to time our activities immediately after a meal so that we don’t have to walk to and fro too many times.

   We were actually told by Stanley that we were to walk, and they will NOT provide us transportation. There were only two other times we managed to score a ride: the second day for breakfast, when Adibah, Abby, Jie and I managed to catch a member of the staff driving the four-wheel drive up to the jetty, and the second night after night safari, where the safari guides willingly drove us to our lodge.

   

   Part of the trek we had to walk up to 6 times a day to get in and out of the lodge

   d) No water, no drinks, no food. When we first arrived, the first thing I noticed was the lack of a kettle. That’s usually what I look for because I like drinking hot drinks especially before bedtime.

   Not having a kettle was fine, if the lodge provided drinks… so in the reception area, I looked around and found a lot of signs listing their breakfast prices. I also saw a bottle of water in a dispenser, and some sugar and salt shakers on a table.

   But when I asked the only member of staff who was sitting at the lounge area, he said that the water bottle in the dispenser hasn’t been changed for months. And when I asked about the availability of buying drinks, he asked, “Erm… bila nak? (When do you want it?)” And I said, “Bila-bila (Anytime).” Then he looked confused and said that there wasn’t anybody working here at the moment, and if we wanted food or water, we would have to go to one of the floating restaurants or to the shops at the jetty to buy them.

   So, please. Don’t stay there. Unless you really are on a budget – the signs around Kuala Tahan said it costs RM38 per night for a “fan chalet” – which is a chalet room with one wall fan. The fan is actually quite sufficient because it can get really cold at night. But I’d recommend you stay in any of the other chalets that are much closer to the jetty, and to where the shops and food places are.

6. And now, the icing on the cake… stranded at the train station because the driver hadn’t been paid.After being unceremoniously dumped by the van driver at a godforsaken eating place in the heavy rain, he picked us up after lunch, sent the students back to their campus in Pekan, and then we were headed back to Kuala Lumpur.

   As we were driving back in silence, the driver suddenly spoke to me in Mandarin asking me if I know Reha personally. I said no, I only met her through Facebook, and asked why. He said that he’s been trying to call her but he kept getting her voicemail. Well, then the rest of us tried but obviously if he couldn’t get through, none of us could.

   Then he told us that he hadn’t been paid a single cent for this trip.

   Why anyone would be stupid enough to go ahead with a job like this without getting a deposit, I don’t know. That’s his own issue. But he said he very nearly didn’t want to come from KL to Kuala Tahan to pick us up on the last day, because of this, and it’s only because Reha and one of the students called him that he came.

   So Jie got onto Facebook using her Blackberry, and found Reha online, and asked why can’t we get through to her and why hadn’t she paid the driver. Reha claimed that she had dropped her handphone and it was now spoilt, and kept reassuring her that she would call the van driver. She even said that she didn’t want to bring the money on Saturday (the day we left KL for Taman Negara) because she would be alone with the driver. That didn’t make any sense at all. Was the driver going to rob her of his own money?

   And after constantly reassuring Jie that she wasn’t going to cheat the driver, she went offline.

   One hour passed, then another. The van driver still hadn’t received any phone calls, and by then he was extremely irritated and furious. We were actually worried that he was going to leave us stranded at one of the rest stops along the highway; but fortunately he didn’t. He asked if we had already paid Reha in full, and we said yes; we paid months ago.

   He said that she told him that she would pay him when we arrived at KL Sentral (which was supposed to be our drop-off point), but that day we knew that was a lie. Reha had made no effort to contact any one of us; if it was true, she’d have been trying to call us to find out where we were, because it was way past the ETA of 5pm.

   When we finally arrived in KL at about 6pm, he refused to send us to KL Sentral, saying that it would be extremely jammed to get in and out, as it was a working day (Monday). So he dropped us off at the Batu Caves KTM station where we could take a train to KL Sentral, for which we were grateful for; he at least was considerate enough to drop us at a place where we could find our way home, instead of leaving us high and dry. After all, we weren’t the ones who were cheating him.

7. How Reha handled the issue. Adibah, Jie and Abby were already furious because they knew her as personal friends, and have lots of other bones to pick with her. This was my first issue with her, and I was already tired and angry from how badly organised this entire trip was, including the driver not being paid. But I was still willing to give her a chance. Unfortunately…

   The next day Reha sent out an explanation via SMS, saying that she had gone to the bank to withdraw money to pay the driver, but her handbag was snatched, causing her to injure her hands and legs, and her handphone was dropped and in pieces. She ended the SMS saying that if no one trusted her again, she could accept it. Her only apology was the word “Sorry” at the beginning of the SMS.I checked with the others, only to find out that she only sent the SMS to Abby and me.

   Adibah had posted on Reha’s Facebook wall asking why she hadn’t paid the driver, but the post was deleted immediately. I suppose it was rather public, but if she had nothing to hide, she could easily reply by explaining the truth, right? That way people will sympathise and will, in fact, understand.

   Jie bumped into Reha a few days later, but Reha made no reference to having her handbag snatched. In fact, she said that she had wanted to pay the driver earlier but he had refused to take the money; which made even less sense than the theory that the driver would try to rob her of his own money. Mind you, remember that Jie and Reha are personal friends; wouldn’t the first thing you do would be to complain about your misfortune of having your money snatched to anyone who would listen? Especially with a character like Reha (if you know her).

Anyway, I hadn’t replied nor acknowledged the SMS because I was simply too furious about the whole issue. But here’s the latest news.

Reha has removed all of us from her Facebook friends list.

I was still going to give her the benefit of the doubt, and had even considered not posting her name nor her company name although many of my friends, after hearing my story, insisted that I should, to do whatever I can to protect people from getting cheated by her.

This only happened a few days ago. I don’t know when exactly, but I know it is recent because her news still appeared on my news feed a few days ago.

So this is the final straw. I don’t care about being friends with her on Facebook – not after what has happened. But that’s not the point. She doesn’t have cause to do that, we do. We are the ones who feel that we’ve been ripped off, we’re the ones who got stranded at the train station, we’re the ones who paid RM460 each for a trip that wasn’t even worth half that price. Yet she was the one who knocked us off. What does she have to hide?

So, people, if you are considering joining any trip organised by Braveheart Adventura or by Noreha binti Md Jani, I’d ask you to seriously reconsider.

And Reha, if you’re reading this, you need to ask yourself what really happened and why you let this happen.

THE BAD

1. Closed, closed, closed. Many of the attractions in Taman Negara were closed when we were there, including:

1. Canopy walkway – only half of it was open. We managed to walk the first half, but had to go out through the first exit as the second half of the walkway was closed for maintenance.
2. Trek up to Bukit Terasek was closed – and strangely, even the guides themselves didn’t know this. The closure for the canopy walkway’s second phase was quite clearly displayed at the entrance of the canopy walkway; but for the Bukit Terasek trail, there was no notice until the intersection of the hiking treks. Our guide had brought us all the way until we suddenly came to an intersection where all the turn-offs were roped off; we had to go back down the way we came.
3. Ear Caves had been closed since July 2010, according to a sign we saw. This is due to some compromise in its safety structure.

The section of the canopy walkway which was closed

The trail to Bukit Terasek that was closed without any earlier notice! This was the only notice we got.

Me with some of the Orang Asli children. We asked permission before taking the photo.

Seeing the Orang Asli did make me ponder though… many of them will not know of or have the opportunity to experience electronic gadgets like our smartphones, GPS and laptop computers, or even of conveniences like modern plumbing, fast food delivery and electricity, but does that mean they are necessarily worse off than us? After al, that probably means they will never need to suffer from work stress, mortgages, financial crises, and modern life-induced diseases such as cancer, heart diseases, and diabeters. I’m not saying they won’t ever suffer from diseases, but the major contributing factor for a lot of the diseases we suffer from nowadays is due to our modern lifestyle, and since they don’t live a modern lifestyle, their chances of contracting these diseases are significantly less. The other diseases they could contract from their living arrangements  – now that’s a different matter altogether.

What I mean is that sometimes we may think that denying them the chance to live in our modern world would be a bad thing – but is it, necessarily? After all, now they don’t have to worry about putting food on the table, or medical bills, or … well, money. Perhaps they’re really better off than us.

That’s still not a lifestyle I’d choose though. I’d miss playing Plants vs Zombies on my iPhone.

Next up: The Ugly!

There is just so much to say about this trip, and so much I need to share, that’s why I also took a considerable amount of time to think about how to phrase it.

So I’m breaking my post about this trip into three posts instead of writing it into one gigantic unreadable block.

THE GOOD

1. Taman Negara is a beautiful place. As it has been gazetted as national forest, developments, logging and hunting have been banned in order to preserve it.
2. The water in the river is relatively clean. I say relatively because there are actually many different streams that lead to the main river, and THOSE streams are super clear and clean. The main river has muddy brown water, but although the water isn’t clear, the water isn’t dirty. There was one activity (shooting the rapids – we sat in this wooden boat which went at high speed through the water) which left all of us in the boat soaked from head to toe, but we didn’t feel any itch that usually comes with coming in contact with dirty and/or contaminated water.
3. And since I’m talking about the super clear and clean streams… there was one stop we made where we splashed in one of those clear streams to our hearts’ content! That was the best part of the entire trip to me!
4. I made a few new friends – Gee, Abby and Adibah. They’re awesome fun people!
5. I’ve found out I have truly caring friends. When I tweeted about how I was left standed at the KTM station after my trip, Norulain and Christian immediately contacted me to check if I needed help, which was very sweet of them, and I was really touched.
   How did I get stranded? I will be explaning it in the third post…

That’s it. And yes, that’s the (sadly) few good points about my trip to Taman Negara. Now, on to the bad part…

The water is so deliciously cool, clear, and clean!

Kylie Dance Squad Member!

Last Saturday I had the opportunity to take part in a flash mob for the first time! Sae Min of i-dance studio had informed me about the Kylie Dance Squad weeks ago, but I didn’t have the chance to join the rehearsals. It was only a couple of weeks ago that I found out that I could still join the squad even though I didn’t join the rehearsals. So without hesitation, I registered and I got my sister to sign up too!

OK… truth be told, the reason we signed up was because members of the Kylie Dance Squad would get a free concert ticket to Kylie’s concert in conjunction with the Formula One race happening this weekend. And yes, I WANTED TO SEE KYLIE. She’s been a pop icon since before I was a teenager! I still remember the Locomotion song  – I used to listen and dance to it every day when it was first released.

If we didn’t attend rehearsals, we were supposed to learn the dance from the videos on F1 Rock’s website. I only managed to view them the night before, on Friday. My sister was even better – she never watched the videos until Saturday, just before we were leaving!

But then, that was because we simply didn’t have the time, and I had assured my non-dancing sister that we could wing it

My sister and I on the train to KLCC

So anyway we made our way over to KLCC on Saturday at the appointed time to pick up our wrist straps (prior to the flash mob), and it turned out they were having last-minute rehearsals, so we jumped right in to learn the steps on the spot. My sister did really well in spite of having very little dance experience *so proud of her*

My sister and I in the practice hall

We were told to wait at the Esplanade at about 1.50pm, and that there would be two lead-in songs before the flash mob was supposed to start. The first lead-in song (Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head) was played at about 2pm, but the second lead-in song (Kelis’ Milkshake) didn’t come on until after about half an hour. By then the adrenaline had already disappeared, our excitement was gone, and we were just tired and hot from the heat radiating from the concrete tiles.

Our guess is that one of the speakers were spoilt because we noticed one of the speakers had “disappeared” during the time between the two lead-in songs. We didn’t notice the “disappearance” because we ourselves kept disappearing – into the airconditioned cool of the shopping mall.

Waiting for the music cue in the hot, hot sun

However when the music for the flash mob came on, the squad zoomed in onto the unsuspecting crowd and we put on quite a fantastic show. There apparently was a weirdo group that walked right into the middle of the flash mob and just stood there, interfering with the dance, but fortunately that didn’t stop the squad from doing well. I didn’t notice this group because I was quite far away from them, but you can see them towards the end of the video below.

You can actually see me in parts of the video, but I’m not telling you when or where I was in the video because I made a few obvious mistakes during the flash mob. Well you can’t blame me, I only really learnt the dance that morning itself.

My sister and I had a quick tea with Callista Chuah before we went off as my sister had a bit of birthday present-shopping to do.

And… here’s the disappointing news. KYLIE’S CONCERT HAS BEEN CANCELLED! With barely an apology from F1 Rocks, the only reason we were given was that it was “due to unforeseen circumstances”. Both Kylie’s and Kelis’ concerts were cancelled, and they were supposed to be this Friday and Saturday respectively. I don’t really care for Kelis, but it was Kylie I wanted to see.

We were supposed to be informed of the replacement concert and we were supposed to get tickets to this free concert, but to date we have not received any news. The news in the grapevine is that Nicole Scherzinger of Pussycat Dolls and SNSD were the replacements, although strangely this replacement concert is not organised by F1 Rocks.

But still… it’s extremely disappointing news for all the members of the Kylie Dance Squad. I feel really bad for the organisers of the flash mob who took a lot of trouble to gather people, to choreograph, to teach, to organise rehearsals, to arrange the venue…

We can’t help wondering what’s going on internally. It’s bad enough that Malaysia is beginning to be known for its habit of banning concerts, and now without even reason Kylie (and Kelis) have been cancelled without so much as an explanation. I can’t help wondering… did Kylie even know she was supposed to perform in Malaysia in the first place??

I-Vee and I were at Royale Chulan yesterday for the Malaysian International Dance Championship, and after our prize presentation, we decided to celebrate (as well as fill our empty stomachs).

We went to Warisan Cafe which is inside the six-star hotel, which unfortunately had service which was far from six stars.

When we arrived, we wanted to sit at a table which had a couch instead of at the table with chairs; however the two tables that were still available hadn’t even been cleaned up yet. So we had to take a table which had chairs instead.

We waited for a while before I-Vee finally flagged someone for the menu. Mind you, it’s not that they were unaware that we were there; a waitress had tried to direct us to the standalone table before we attempted to take the table with the couch.

And even so, we found that the staff were more focused on cleaning up the two tables that we initially took a look at, instead of handing us the menu.

We placed our order, and then waited for our early dinner to arrive. We whiled away our time chatting and/or playing with our phones (we were actually too tired to chat) before finally impatiently wondered what was taking our meal so long.

I didn’t actually check the time because for once I wasn’t wearing my watch, but judging from the Plants vs Zombies game I was playing, it was probably more than 20 minutes before our food arrived.

I-Vee had ordered tenderloin steak, whereas I ordered the rack of lamb. And as we picked up our fork, we suddenly realised that it was only accompanied with a spoon and a butter knife.

I-Vee hailed the head waiter and all she did was hold up the butter knife and gave him a look. Fortunately he did know what she was referring to, because he promptly called a waitress to get steak knives. I couldn’t really hear what he said, but there was something about “if they are not at the back, get them from…” and I couldn’t make out where.

And it was another five minutes before the waitress appeared through the front door (she had gone out through a side door) with two steak knives. By then I had eaten all my accompanying vegetables and mashed potatoes as I had been pretty hungry.

The food was not excellent. I would say that the quality is acceptable, but not excellent. Because the restaurant is in a hotel, they charge extremely high prices; the tenderloin steak was RM55 and the lamb was RM60 – before tax. If the food quality matched the price, I wouldn’t blink an eye. But the thing is, I’ve had much better food at other restaurants at a fraction of the price. Like Monte’s  – ooohhh, I love Monte’s!!!

In fact, I-Vee’s steak was still very raw although she asked for medium. Halfway through, she sent the steak back for further cooking, and when it came back, it was not much better. And in I-Vee’s words, “Six star hotels would usually rearrange the vegetables on the plate to make it look nice.” That’s based on her experiences of six star hotels. Her plate came back looking the same way she sent it back. Personally though, I’d probably prefer it that way because it means no one (theoretically) touched my food.

Anyway. After we ate, I-Vee called for the bill, and that again took another five minutes before she flagged another waiter for the bill, who said that the bill was on the way. When it finally came, we didn’t have enough small bills and had to put larger bills – we didn’t want to wait for change. And true enough… it took a long time before the change came back. The waiter who returned the change explained that their “system was down”.

Right. That would certainly explain why everything was so slow then. Including the handing of the menu and the appearance of steak knives. (insert dripping sarcasm here)

This is not to say that the service staff were not polite. They are polite as most staff are in the service industry. It was just not six star service. The price and star rating hardly justified the service we got.

I think the only people who would eat there are hotel guests, or like in our case, are already there and just need something to eat. I would certainly not bother to go out of my way to this restaurant in this hotel for a meal. I have been to much better places closer to home with far better food and better service, at a signficantly lower cost.

Yay us!

Twist Potato (from www. twistpotato. com.my)

This post is quite overdue, but I must make this special mention because we had a fantastic sponsor who helped us!

Last year, in a bid to raise some money for our class fund, my homeroom of 2011 (5 Columbus) decided to open a stall during the school’s Merdeka Day carnival. This carnival was held in conjunction with the country’s National Day, and it was an open carnival which meant that public could come into the school. Many classes and clubs opened stalls to sell food, drinks, and products, and some ran games stalls such as a dunking booth and even Haunted Houses.

5 Columbus wanted to set up a food stall that sold fried finger food (I can’t remember the name of what it was they wanted to make initially) and smores (marshmallows with melted chocolate served on cream crackers). The smores were deliciously fabulous, but the fried finger food that they tried to make did not work out so well. They showed me a photo of their failed attempt – it tasted quite good, they said. But it wasn’t in a presentable form. You wouldn’t have bought what they were trying to make.

I knew they were frustrated, and I wanted to help them find something foolproof that they could make. And honestly, the moment they told me they wanted to open a food stall, I already had the solution for them, although I wanted them to figure something out for themselves first. When they hit this roadbump, I immediately called Twist Potato Malaysia.

Twist Potato Malaysia is actually a division within Fresco Cocoa Supply, and this division sells machines that makes potatoes into a lovely spiral – hence the name “twist potato”. Even when uncooked, the shape of the potato is aesthetically pleasing.

However what would make the potatoes sell is not the machine, nor the shape. It was the taste. If it was delicious, no matter how it looked, the potatoes would sell.

And this was where I found Twist Potato really awesome.

The Twist Potato machine is very easy to use. Just a quick twist, and voila! Click on the photo to view the rest of the album.

Twist Potato Malaysia does not only sell the machines to make the spirals; they also sell their Magic Flour, as well as more than twenty different flavouring powder to accompany the twist potatoes. The key to the delicious twist potatoes lies not in the twist potatoes, but in their Magic Flour.

What’s so special about their Magic Flour?

The Magic Flour, which is made from their secret recipe, makes it so easy to cook a potato. All you need to do is add some water, oil, and salt; then coat the potatoes with the batter and deep fry them. Quite frankly, you don’t even need twist potatoes, or even potatoes. You can just slice potatoes thinly and coat them with the batter, or even use other foodstuff like fruits or vegetables. Coated with the Magic Flour batter and deep fried, they’ll taste better than our local delicacies such as goreng pisang or goreng nangka.

Twist Potato Malaysia helped me out without hesitation when I called them; I wanted to rent the machine, but instead they lent it to us for free, and even sponsored us three different seasonings. They even lent us their buntings which reduced our need to decorate our stall. All we needed to do was just buy the Magic Flour, and promote twist potatoes.

Actually, we didn’t even need to promote them. The twist potatoes promoted themselves.

The twist potatoes sold like hot cakes during the carnival; we sold so much more twist potatoes than our smores did. We had so many repeat customers, and the lines were so long. We made a lot of twist potatoes in advance, before the lunch crowd came in; but when the crowd really began to swell, the twist potatoes were snapped up so fast that we had to start taking orders instead. We didn’t expect the twist potatoes to sell out so fast; in fact, we had been quite worried that we wouldn’t be able to sell enough to cover our cost. Our home deep-fryers were not able to cook fast enough. Had we known we were going to sell out, we would have brought our own gas stove!

The stall busy selling Twist Potatoes. Click on the photo to view the rest of the album.

We still had orders coming in way after the official closing time of the Merdeka Carnival, and were forced to stop only when the carnival official politely but firmly told us that it was time to call it a day.

Thank you very much, Twist Potato Malaysia! Your wonderful twist potatoes sold so much that we not only covered our cost, we made a considerable profit. (In fact we had losses from the smores because they didn’t sell as well as planned, but the twist potatoes more than covered that loss.)

Hon Wye enjoying a twist potato! Click on the photo to view the rest of the album.

If you are looking for business opportunities with Twist Potato Malaysia, I would tell you that they are a fantastic company to work with, without a doubt. Even though we were merely using their machine to sell twist potatoes for just one day, they were very generous and they were willing to spend a considerable amount of time to teach me how to make the twist potatoes to ensure that they will sell. I tell you the truth – it is so easy to make the twist potatoes that are ready for sale. I didn’t even need to teach my students ahead of time; I brought all the items with me on the morning of the carnival, and spent about ten minutes teaching them what to do, and they took it from there.

I would also like to say : to 5 Columbus 2011, you guys rock! All of you really worked hard and contributed so much to the class through this stall. You know I miss you already!

I’ve got tonnes of things I want to share, but simply didn’t have the time to write. If you ask why should I bother now since some posts would probably almost a year overdue? … well, it’s because I think some things are really worth sharing.

So, don’t get shocked when you see me write about something that happened in 2011.

Stay tuned!

I have a tendency of reading horoscopes, even though I don’t really believe in them. In fact, I have this habit of reading my horoscope from many different sources until I find one that I like (because it has positive predictions), and that’s the only one I remember.

My sister snorted when I told her this, and asked me why I bother then. Well… I guess it’s just psychological. If I believe something bad will happen to me, then something bad will most likely happen. And likewise for good things, hence the focus on the positive.

And no, I don’t bother to remember the actual detailed predictions. I just remember the overall “it’s going to be a good year!” prediction.

Happy Chinese New Year, everyone!

Gong Xi Fa Cai! Happy 2012!

Anyway, just wanted to write a quick mention here that I have appeared on Soo Hon Wye’s blog!

Who is Soo Hon Wye and is he important? No, he’s not. He’s just a former student of mine starting his own blog. I’m not even mentioned by name. I thought it’s just cute how he had selected a photo with me in it to represent his school days.

By the way, the comment I left on his blogpost was true at the time it was submitted. He changed it accordingly after I pointed out the error.

That's me in Hon Wye's blog post!

Update 6:18pm: Hon Wye added my name in his blogpost after I wrote this post. Thanks, Hon Wye!