The picture is pretty much self explanatory.

I had been meaning to go myself but just haven't been able to find the time or people to go with!

Hang on, fish spa you ask? Yup, these places are mushrooming all over in Asia it seems. Basically you go to these places to get your (normally) feet, or if you're up for it, whole body cleaned up by the fishes. You dip yourself in the water and the feet will eat off your skin, removing the dead and unwanted skin leaving you nice and shiny fresh skin.

At least, that's what they say. The fishes are known as "Dr. Fish" and their sizes can be from an inch up until around 4 inches!

The process is simple. Wash your feet, grab a towel and head over to a spot you like/available and dip your feet/self in.

Easy!

Anyways here's SY with her feet dipped in the water.

At RM32 for half an hour, you'd really be wasting your money if you're not leaving your feet in there! :) Heheh... actually it's easier said then done. There were a couple of people which I observed there that actually didn't dare leave their feet in for too long, constantly taking them out.

Hey... it does get ticklish!

Here I am trying to hold a strong face as I could have sworn there were about 20 over fishes pecking at the bottom of my feet.

There is also another Kenko fish spa at Midvalley and the environments in these vary a little.

There wasn't really much difference with SY's feet at the end of the half hour, but I guess my feet had really been super dirty or something because it was literally sparkling white after!

Go check it out! :)

Of course, I was very very excited about joining these events leading up, and I really couldn't wait for the weekends to arrive. I had to get the car ready, serviced and all mechanically sound - as well as getting the sponsor stickers up on the car for the first event - GRA.

I joined GRA thinking it was similar to the motorkhana I did previously in Melbourne. I was pretty wrong.

Firstly, the event was so much higher speed compared to the motorkhana. It was almost impossible to reach third gear in the motorkhana, but just on the main straight at the beginning of the course here, before you know it I'm already in third gear.

The objective was simple, running through the same course to get the fastest time. We went through 6 sessions, so we took the total of the 3 fastest laps. There were also two main classes depending on your experience and the car you are driving, the Grass class and the Pro-Grass class.

Because of my car, I had to compete in the Pro-Grass class against all the experienced fellows, and our session began at noon on the hot and very sunny Sunday afternoon.

Cones were placed around the course at points where we needed to navigate through correctly, and if we made a mistake of going the wrong way then it would be counted as a "no finish".

I made such mistakes in my first session, I was concentrating too much on trying to remember the route and made two mistakes going the wrong way which cost me. Luckily after that I recovered and ensured I finished all remaining sessions. Sad to say though, I was pretty much close to the bottom of the table with my times.

The whole event though was pretty fun and was a very good experience in itself. There were some very awesome cars at the event, and I managed to meet up with some familiar faces there, and made many new friends which is always excellent.

Of course, with such car events, there will definitely be girls as well. Here they are at the end of the event during the prize presentation.

Check out my entire album from GRA here.

Work was extremely crazy the following week, and I was very very stressed out. I really couldn't wait for the weekend to arrive sooner - for my first Malaysian "track day" organised by HPC to be held at the Sepang race track.

I was very fortunate to get into this event in the first place as I signed up late, and was able to get in through the waiting list through a friend (thanks again Suzanne and Alvin).

As I was in the morning session - I made my way to the south track of Sepang on Sunday. After registration, there was a briefing as the organisers explained about the track area we'll be using for today - which was just the south side o the Sepang circuit, which was pretty much half of the overall track.

There were 3 groups of participants. Group 1 was the "beginner" group, in which a HPC instructor would be sitting with the driver during the run to advise on braking points, race lines as well and making sure the driver was ok with the run.

Group 2 was for people with some experience, which have had some form of track experience before. This was the group I was participating in for the day... well half day to be exact. :)

Group 3 was for people with quite some experience, and consisted of quite a number of fast and heavily modified cars. Alex Yoong, our Malaysian A1 driver was here today with a Lotus Exige as well, and he was taking some people out on some runs in this group.

He was very fast. Each group for the morning session went out for 3 times each if I'm not mistaken. Each session consisted of almost 10 laps, and there was no warm-up laps.

The HPC organisers were very professional, and there were flaggies at each corner ready for any incidents with coloured flags to ensure drivers were taken cared of. I have to thank the organisers for a job well done allowing the drivers to concentrate on the track and knowing that their safety is a priority.

Here's Alvin from HPC.

There were many types of cars here, and in my group there were Civics, Satrias, a Swift, a really interesting looking Supra and another Prodrive powered Subaru WRX driven by Zul. :)

My favourite picture of the day, is probably this one when I was running down the south straight.

I left the event with a big smile on my face, really happy that I finally drove on the Sepang circuit, which was something that was in my "To Do" list for the longest time ever.

Check out the complete album of the HPC event here.

Thanks to the friends that accompanied me to the event and many thanks to the organisers of both the GRA and HPC events again.

Looking forward to participating again in the future.

Anyways to start from the beginning, the weekend started with drinks at Slip Inn (again opposite the road) with the colleagues after work on Friday night, and I have no idea what in the world I was drinking but I got pretty tipsy after this shot they got me somewhere in between my second and third beer.

Here are some of my colleageus.

This Japanese place was really not bad at all, I had teppanyaki chicken, which was cooked right at the table on a hot plate. Very enjoyable especially after all those drinks earlier. This is the place we went to.

On Saturday, Grace and I took the bus over to Coogee beach to meet up with Julian. We were going to take the Coastal Walk right up to the famous Bondi beach.

There were really quite a lot of people on Coogee beach today - it wasn't that warm but there was very decent sun so I think everyone thought it was still a good day for the beach non-the-less.

Grace had never taken taken any jumping shots before so I got her to do a couple of attempts. Pretty good for a first time I must say!

I attempted a flying kick one here first (before the one I showed earlier), and we couldn't capture one of me with the kick in full, but this one actually came out pretty well. I really liked it too.

Anyways barely a while climbing up the cliffs by the side of Coogee - the beginning of our Coastal journey, we encountered this metal loops structure. Another picture opportunity (for me to monkey around). I think I copped a couple of disapproving looks from the older folk walking past taking this picture. Heheh.

We proceeded with the walk, past a bride and groom taking pictures along with their family and entourage. Very beautiful place to take these pictures, up in the cliffs overlooking the ocean.

It was up on these cliffs that I managed to take the flying kick picture earlier. Here's another angle - taken by Grace, in which you can see a boat going out.

We passed Gordon Bay next, a very nice small beach which I thought looked absolutely perfect for snorkeling. This was a beach that does not have lifeguard patrols though, so it might not be too safe for people who want to take swims by themselves here. Might end up in the South Pole or something if you get dragged under by currents and nobody would know.

We took a group picture here on the Coastal walkway.

Walking further up - passing Clovelly Bay, we arrived at Bundock Park. There was this nice little field there facing the ocean that looked like another great picture taking spot.

More opportunity for me to monkey around. I tried hand stands at first, and finally decided to try this move which came out quite well (thanks again to Julian).

Walking on, we had to pass a cemetery, a very old one too, with some of the graves dating through the late 1800s to early 1900s. Very serene and beautiful - overlooking the ocean up on the cliff.

We passed Bronte beach and Tamarama beach next, so this was 3 beaches so far we have walked past. There were quite a lot of surfers at Tamarama, and it was fun watching them attempting the waves there - with some of the surfers pulling off some very nice moves to ride the waves, while some wiped out after a short time.

The next beach was Bondi, which looked absolutely huge compared to the previous beaches.

All in all - we did a 9km walk from Coogee to Bondi beach. Julian's Nokia N95 was able to track our route, such cool features from technology nowadays. If you're interested, this is the route we took.

I met up with JW here, and he took me to the Bondi Junction mall to Kelly's Restaurant for dinner. I had an absolutely fantastic pork ribs and lamb loin chops combo - the meat was so well marinaded and the pork grilled so well, so absolutely yummy I'm still salivating thinking of it now.

That was practically the end of Saturday. We went to the Fish Market on Sunday, and met up with a couple more of Grace's friends there. We stuffed ourselves silly with seafood here. Lobster, calamari, prawns, sashimi, octopus, scallops, flat fish... and of course plenty of chips (which we couldn't finish).

We spent the remainder of the day shopping at Paddington's Market. We had an early dinner of ramen over at Ramen Kan in Chinatown (a place my friend Nelly brought me to in the past) - and we were able to beat the dinner crowd here eating at around 630pm.

Of course, I couldn't pass out on the opportunity to end my eating binge with one of my favourite dessert places - Passion Flower over at Capitol.

As always here's the link to my complete album of this weekend in Flickr.

Pheeewww... what a weekend. One more week left in Sydney! I have to admit, time sure is flying!

Before I left Melbourne at the end of July last year, I told my friends I won't be seeing them for a long time to come, possibly a few years at least. Well it's just past seven months and here I am again arriving in Tullamarine airport.

Sydney the last few days had been pretty warm (around 24 degrees average) and I was really looking forward to some chilly Melbourne weather. I was quite relieved to feel the chilly 15 degree Melbourne winds when I walked out of the airport I had to admit. Now I finally get to put on my autumn jackets.

Ben and Horng Shii were very nice to come pick me up at 7:45 in the morning. I was going to stay with them over the Easter weekend, and again I really have to thank all 3 of them - Ben, Adeline and Horng Shii for their hospitality.

Anyways, I was really there to chill out, so during the day we really didn't do much apart from having a late lunch (yup I slept for a while) at Clayton, and then dropping by Andrew and Suyi's newly bought place which I haven't seen.

At night we went to Toodori, a Korean restaurant opposite the Victoria market for some authentic Korean BBQ. I had last visited this restaurant almost 4 years ago if I remember correctly. Ah... memories.

After that - we wanted to head over to Koko Black over at Lygon Street for dessert, but alas Easter Friday here means most places are closed so we went to Max Brenner, but it was also closed.

So we settled for Mcdonalds's McCafe for some cheesecake and coffee. Yup count on Macca's to be open even on public holidays. Mental note to self here - never ever ever ever order the Vienna coffee again. It's absolutely terrible.

We decided to have a breakfast the next day at about 9 am over at St Kilda beach.

Anyways, after breakfast we proceeded to the South Melbourne Coles supermarket to pick up some supplies before heading over to the city for... unbelievably... ROCK CLIMBING.

Yup, here I was in Australia and I was going indoor rock climbing again!

Hardrock is situated right opposite the Melbourne Baths (opposite RMIT) in the Verve apartments complex.

I was a little disappointed they didn't have bouldering here but hey there were plenty of climbing walls available, with almost all of them around 3 storeys high. Hardrock also had a very interesting belaying rope system, with a safety hook on the floors connected to each rope so belaying was really simplified here compared to the place I normally go to in the Klang Valley, M'sia.

Anyways, I was pretty glad that the gang really enjoyed the rock climbing experience. They're pretty eager to try it again heheh, so I guess in a way I have just influenced them. :)

After that, we headed back to Andrew and Suyi's place for a jointly organised BBQ with Kim and Brian's friends.

Oh, and of course we stopped by Dan Murphy's to pick up a couple of drinks. I managed to whip up some fried bee hoon as something extra - and we had the usual delicious chicken wings and sausages together with satay and steak!

Kim brought some props to spruce up the BBQ a bit, and all of us had a go at putting the wigs, masquerade masks and fake errr hair bits on.

Here's Kim and Tania.

Brian.

Suyi... heheh.

Adeline.

Me!

Fooling around with Horng Shii.

Ben trying to be cute here.

Winfred - hardly recognise him here.

This wig really looked so natural on Selwyn.

And of course the BBQ master - Andrew. Many thanks to him and Selwyn for taking turns at the grill.

Adeline made some delicious cheesecake for dessert later, and we practically ate non stop and went home feeling absolutely stuffed.

On Easter Sunday, we had yum char at Eastern Palace before heading off to the city. I met up with Jeremy and Lay at Cookie Bar in the city, and then with Davie and Amelia after for some delicious crepes.

Unfortunately I would have really wanted to catchup with more friends but with the limited amount of time, I couldn't really squeeze much more in. Ah well... I apologise to those that I couldn't meet up with. Until next time hey?

Anyways at night, we had something that I missed somewhat. Lobster noodle! We went over to BBQ house at Richmond and ordered it together with a couple of dishes and rice.

I flew back to Sydney the next morning - and practically crashed in bed for a while from the busy weekend.

It was really good to be back in Melbourne. I didn't really know how much I missed it until I arrived back there. I guess that's just life eh. Just have to move on.

Thanks to everyone who so graciously made this Easter weekend a memorable one.

Here's the link to my Flickr album for this weekend.

The guys here have been treating me pretty good as well, which is great and I really appreciate their hospitality. I have realised that I have also forgotten how big the portions of food here are.

Not that I'm complaining.

Yummy fish and bean curd with rice from Chinatown. What will I do without Chinese food.

Anyways I brought some autumn wear along but the weather here really feels more like summer than anything else. My first weekend here arrived with a Friday of after work drinks that pretty much lasted until 10 pm with work colleagues at the Slip Inn (Australians know this place as the infamous bar that the Danish prince met his Aussie wife, now Princess Mary).

Unfortunately I had also forgotten to bring my sunglasses along with me to Australia this time. I wasn't about to commit sight suicide going out on the ferry on such a sunny day to be blinded (not to mention dry out my contact lens) so I had to buy a pair before we jumped on the ferry. Yup, $10 pair from a souvenir store. Excellent, now I'm ready.

Apparently, according to my boss the best way to enjoy the zoo is to take a ferry, grab the cable car up to the top of the zoo and walk down from there.

Well I have to say he's right. Coming out of the cable car, I got to take this picture with this giant koala. Much better than the real thing.

I'll always remember Sydney zoo as a zoo full of spiders and also probably the zoo with the best view I have ever seen in my life. The spiders were literally everywhere! Their webs were everywhere and at times when you looked up you see a few of the webs right above your heads with them waiting there patiently for any silly insects.

Check out the view.

Taronga Zoo was pretty fun - and compared to the Melbourne Zoo, the animals you see are pretty similar. If you're ever in town and feel like checking out some wildlife - I would definitely recommend this place - and take one of the chartered ferries. That way you get a tour of the harbour area and its surrounding areas leading out towards the ocean as well.

One of the highlights was us passing one of the nudist beaches. I figured it probably wouldn't have been very polite to take any pictures of it so I didn't. We were practically less than 100m from the beach and we could definitely see the men and women who were practically letting everything errr "hang loose".

Here's Grace my colleague traveling with me from the KL office, and Rosh and Nishan while we were on the ferry heading back.

At night I managed to catch up with Rinesh over some Japanese food - and boy do I miss the Japanese food here.

This bento cost me $22, but goodness was I stuffed after.

Anyways check out my full Sydney album here.

I'll continually update that Flickr folder with the new pictures I take while I am here.

To be honest I'm not a fan of living in Sydney, but rather than complaining I think I'll make the most out of the trip and even make a short trip back to Melbourne during Easter while I'm back there.

This is one of my favourite pictures of Sydney - which I took just last year.

Anyways, I hope there's internet connection where I'm living so hopefully I'll be able to continue blogging!

She really surprised me today when she sprang the news that we actually went to the same kindergarten as well! What's even whackier was that she had scans of the kindergarten pictures ready!!! How's that for some nostalgic shock for a Tuesday afternoon hey?

See if you can spot me in the picture. It really took me a while to even recognise myself.

What really amazes me though is how little I remember of my kindergarten years. For some reason that phase of my life really seems to be a blur - heck "it seems like I've got amnesia and I'm trying to go walk back down memory lane" as Ying Lai mentioned!

Interestingly though, the only memory I have of my kindergarten years was this moment when I was in the headmistress' office because I needed to make a phone call home as I was not feeling well.

The headmistress asked me what my house phone number was, and being the young silly thing that I was I looked at the phone and replied "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0". Yup I thought the numbers on the phone was our phone number.

That's about all I can remember about my kindergarten years unfortunately! I really don't know why it's such a blur to me. Maybe hypnotism can bring back these lost memories of mine.

Now Ying Lai also sent me this other picture, and for the very life of me, believe it or not, I can't tell if I'm in it.

Click through the pictures if you want to see a bigger version.

For some reason I have always thought that I was pretty good with remembering faces. Unfortunately I think this only applies to the short term department. My long term memory just sucks.

Ah memory lane.

If you still can't figure out which kid I am in the first picture I'm the last one on the right - third row standing.