Phantom Reborn

I was like a Red Indian whom came from one of the eerie tribes somewhere in Africa ever since I came back home from Port Dickson. And this morning when I got up, as usual, I took a glance at my handsome face, but another glimpse caused me a slight scare. My face was as if being animated, I looked like Hellboy! How cool was that? And even more cooler, Hellboy with a skin-peeling face! I was wondering how should I face my colleagues when I get to the company?

Today is the very first day I drove my very own car, and drove it to my workplace. I should be disgraceful towards how my sense of direction has brought me up over the years, plus I'm a guy, for God's sake.

But what my intuition tells me all this while proves to be correct, so when you drive, you learn the way, you recognize the routes. "Argh, enough of these useless moaning!", you would probably thinking this kind of sentence right now. I'm so sorry to moan like a sissy girl over some sense of directions thingy, I really do. If you're still okay with it, then soldier on with the post, will ya?

Well... Jobs in a corporate are no new things for me, I'm definitely no first-timer for such kind of jobs. But things got a twist in the company I'm currently working in. In the past, temporary staff was my title. Therefore, it practically means whatever you do in the office or company, if correct, you might get praises from others; wrongdoings, others took the blames on behalf of you. But this day onwards till the end of the next 6 months, things correctly done - that's part of your job; mistakes committed - clean up your arse and prepare to feel the pain. The difference is just that simple, really.

So, basically... First impression is highly important for a newcomer, everybody knows that. So I drove my old junk to the destination and arrived darn early in the morning at 7.45am. Imagine arriving at a work place 1 hour and 15 minutes earlier, and the shops were not showing any signs of warm welcome towards the pedestrians. All shops were closed.

At about half an hour later, finally I saw one of my colleagues unlocked the door. When I first entered the company, every colleague of mine was staring at me, jaw-dropped. When I was introduced to one of the top salesperson in the company, he asked for my position in the company. The person who showed me around answered, "He's working as a nutritionist here." He exclaimed, "Nutritionist? Then why are your face like that?"

Oh come on man, that's sun burn, for God's sake.... =_=" The sun was really merciless to me the other day...

My dad used to work in Petronas many years ago, and due to unforeseen circumstances during that time, he stopped working in that company and held the title of "insurance agent" under his belt for many more years to come, and these number of years are still counting.

When my dad was still toiling under Petronas, my family members and relatives from my mother side used to go on a vacation together once iin every year, we used to live in a same old apartment which is called Tanjung Tuan in Port Dickson (there were a few apartment units in Tanjung Tuan belong to Petronas). But after the resignation, the annual PD trip faded in a blink of eyes.

During those older moments, me and my relatives shared very happy moments, we chased around in the apartment, flushing sea water towards each other, building sand castle at the seaside, and even fished a pair of socks from the sea once! Those are gay moments to be cherished back then.

Fortunately, my mother, particularly, and a few of her siblings had a sudden urge weeks ago, the sudden urge they felt, somehow was like remisniscing the memories back in their mind. Consequently, they quickly planned another trip in Port Dickson, hoping to recall the memories, in real-life style.



4 families, fully prepared and well equiped with baggages and luggages, marched toward the journey to Port Dickson on 27th December 2008. Many years back then, some of my older cousin brothers were the ones who somewhat played a major part of my childhood memories in Port Dickson. But this very recent trip, I was like somewhat playing their roles, leading a bunch of kids, fooling around in the pool.

Look at my uncle, isn't he gorgeous? Opps!

Favourite place for the children, the pool in Tiara Beach Resort!

When we arrived the destination, without any hesitation, the kids just pulled out their garments, and SPLASH! Into the water they jumped! Some of us starting to play water polo with a ball which we brought ourselves, some just kept themselves occupied with the water, especially those little ones, they treated the water as though it is their nemesis. It was hilarious looking at the way they dealt with the water.

Me & my cousin sister were riding on a twin-sharing bicycle, it was quite difficult to balance with her riding behind me, heehee :p


After a day long of water immersion and water polo, and under the scorching sun which did not show any mercy by unleashing its powerful sun beam onto our poor skins. Expectedly, our skins turned red, and some of us turned into black. And our skins, unfortunately, are making us feeling extremely uncomfortable... We are sun-burned! In this very moment, when I'm typing down this blog, my entire face is red in colour! Very much similar like pieces of freshly cooked Char Siew. But after some invaluable advices from the elderly (hopefully it is), applying some natural Aloe Vera, and some cream from China would really propel the progress of moisturization on my skin. Otherwise, my face would surely cause some serious aftermaths to my future colleagues in two days time.

A photo of all my cousins who went to PD together with me!

These are the moments to be cherished... The most valuable memories not to be forgotten. After 22 years of living, I gradually realize that family bond is the most important thing of all. There's no other relationship which comes first before families.

"There's no home like the one you got, 'cause that home belongs to you." Quoted from Bolt.

Merry Christmas folks!

Finally the Christmas Day is here again...

In this year's Christmas, a carnival has been held in my church, featuring games organized by all the cell groups in church. Numerous relatives of the church members were invited to the church and join the crowd, playing games for free, and of course, playing games to win the prizes. The children were so delirious and engaged to our games.

As for my cell group, I've setup a game stall, featuring an exact game which had been used years ago during my Form 6 years, I could vividly remember that my best friend and another friend of mine invented the mentioned game. The game is basically looking for coins in the midst of flour, and with finding the right coins, the participants could win themselves lots of sweets. Hehe, yup, this game is mainly targeted the children. The game has been receiving great responses, even the adults were queuing up, and strive their best to immerse their crystal clear hands into the mud of flour, hoping to look for chances to bag some sweets for their beloved children in this Christmas Day.



Plus, I was performing on stage, singing some Christmas tunes along with some church members. Oh gosh, how long have I left the performing stage in church? I couldn't recall... Ever since I left Sunday School, the opportunities were always given to the little ones :) This year's Christmas, I reckon that it was the best Christmas celebrated in church.

Well, a question here... Why is Christmas celebrated world wide? Though many people don't really know the importance and the significance of this celebration. Basically, it's just a special day which is supposedly celebrated by Christians, to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus. Shouldn't it be like any other normal religion-related event, such as Wesak Day, Thaipussam Day? Hehe... Well, just a mere curiosity loitering in the brain of mine.

Last Christmas I gave you my heart
But the very next day
You gave it away
This year To save me from tears
I gave it to someone special

Once bitten and twice shy
I keep my distance but you still catch my eyes
Tell me baby Do you recognize me
If you kiss me now I know you'll fool me again


I like this song very much, this song has been playing inside my head over and over again, it reiterates itself involuntarily, even for now.

Merry Christmas again!

Prices of many commodities, daily utilities are hiking reluctantly, many people suffer because of it. To top it all, the government has announced that there will be many more jobless people in the country as the government needs to correlates with the current global economic situation.

When immature youngsters started to think that, "Oh, that's none of my business." The government is imposing another potential policy to somewhat balance up the degree of suffering between parental figures and their beloved children, especially movie-goers.

A shocking policy which claims that, a hiked admission fee for a Hollywood movie will soon cost at around RM20. The reason? Preventing the rakyat to shun away from local productions.

This piece of news reminded me of our beloved Proton somehow. By increasing taxes of imported cars, the people who are grouped in the category of middle or low income can only afford to purchase local cars. So well... the soon-to-be-implemented policy seems to be working out fine in the near future.

But somehow, movies are somewhat different. Cars must be purchased, movies can be downloaded from the net. If the admission rate of foreign movies increases, the rate of movies downloading would soon to hike to an unbearable level as well.

In the end of the day, shopping malls are empty because of the low-buying power of the nation, cinemas will also play their parts as desolated destinations, as normal movie-goers will now change their appetites, adjusting themselves with a relatively smaller tube.

Read a piece of news about a somewhat shocking and rare news which occurred in Malaysia recently. There wsa a movie produced locally, and one of the scenes involved two malay girls were suppose to lip-kissing each other, but you know, such production, and especially it is being made in a somewhat conservative country like Malaysia, the actresses were inevitably feeling shy about the requested scene by the director. Consequently, they just brushed both their lips for a short moment, for a few miliseconds I think.

After the complete production, many potential spectators were anticipating that scene. Because of that tiny portion involved, many non-malay movie-goers became malay movie-goers out of the blue. According to the director of that mentioned movie, the intention of embedding such scene into the movie is because there are too many such realistic cases happening in this current sophisticated society. Lesbians are on the rise??

But soon it turned out to be very unfortunate for those viewers as well as the director, that particular scene eventually has to face the board of censorship, and accepted the cruelty of being cut off reluctantly. The scene was not shown in majority of the cinemas nationwide.

Now, this further reminds me of something on one of the Saturdays recently. My sister was watching the tele one day in the morning, and the square box was showing some somewhat similar fighting scenes, you know, those scenes such as a hero who wears mask in his face and unleash their incredible power to fight against the monsters? Then somehow, the monsters would grow ridiculously bigger to an unbelievable extent where the size of the monster would now be even bigger than those skyscrapers.

Those shows have became a traidition in Malaysia, particularly on Saturday, a conventional holiday for kids. And these shows are actually being broadcasted exclusively for those young viewers. Well, when I was small, friends, relatives and me were engaged in show like Power Rangers too, we were naive children back then, playing our very own self-made reality show, involved in some Power Rangers role-playing game and broke a few vases in the house.

Many year later, it is my little cousins' turn to continue our legacy in such role-playing game. Their turns to jump down bravely from the bed, hitting their own cousins with some worn-out racquets... And yet, this will not stop within this generation, it will just continue in eons to come, because this is like a stream of blood line which flows within us, thanks to our Censorship Board.

It's always not an easy task to step forward and be a real leader, what is more, be a leader to a country, which is an even challenging task. Part of the nation does not seemed to appreciate our current Prime Minister, and they often pointing fingers, condemning the fall of everything in our country, blaming him for not implementing successful major projects, particularly comparing him to the previous PM.

It's almost impossible to expect another twin tower in the making, it is somewhat an absurd demand from the people. Yes, the country could have been better off with more concrete development. Such development without a doubt would surely gain further reverence from other countries, re-building the reputation and modest image from the eagle eye of the globe.

A simple quote from Kahlil Gibran tells that "Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart". I remembered reading a real life article, narrating a woman who once suffered from a kind of mental illness which is called "ugly phobia". She immediately transformed into a dafter whom often giving insane thoughts of herself being an ugly lady, but as a matter of fact, no one thinks that she looks ugly, instead, she was a pretty girl in the eyes of public.

The mental illness which she was suffering from tormented her for ages, she was not even bold enough to lift her head and meet the eyes of everyone revolve around her, she wore sunglasses everytime when she was needed to walk out from her tiny flat unit.

One day, she fell in love with a boy, but the silly thought struck her head again, telling her that an ugly duckling like her would not stand a chance at all. Her illness became even more serious to an extent that she could no longer bear the ugliness which she carried with, and decided to undergo plastic surgery, finger-crossing so hardly to grant herself a wish, which is to be the most beautiful flower in the garden.

After a successful operation under the knive, she quickly turned into the most confident person in the world, she could face the public with a smile on her face. And most importantly, she decided to confess her feelings to the boy whom she admired for quite some time then. But unfortunately, the boy re-triggered the pain she had suffered for so long, rejected her sincere confession.

A poor girl she was, thought that the reason being rejected was due to her own physical appearance, she thought that she was not pretty enough. In fact, that has got nothing to do with the rejection at all, the true reason was the boy could not get along with the attitude acquired by the girl. And what a poor girl that was, she commited suicide by jumping off a tall building, died eventually with a beauty face but an ugly thought.

A country's outer appearance is indeed important, but what stands out among all aspects is what has happened internally to that country. Can't you see that the number of corruption cases in our country is raised to a zenith level? To an extent that our country became so infamous because of it in the past?

Therefore, to some of you out there, please stop blasting irresponsible comments and judge senselessly towards the formation of MACC. MACC indeed is working fine, and most importantly effective enough to un-tarnish the ugliness within.

The Galaxy of The Stars, was a place where senior crew members who were wacky and grooving would host some talk shows and game shows. Our Assistant Cruise Director, Matthew Dason, was really a funny person to be with. He hosted several talk shows in The Galaxy of The Stars, and he indeed attracted a large numbers of customers coming forward to listen to his talk shows.

Well... There was once he hosted in one of his shows, he revealed some questions asked by the customers. You know, when you live in a hotel, and when you experience any difficulties, you call the customer service department, and they would provide the best services and try their best to solve your problems, right? This was what our host tried to tell us, some of the funniest questions the customers ever asked during our trip.

#1: Is the watermelon vegetarian?

That was a silly question without a doubt. Mr. Matthew jokingly instructed the person who asked this, to ask the watermelon itself.

#2: What time is the 9 o’clock show?

9 o’clock, of course J

#3: Is the water in the toilet bowl sea water?

Well... I did not really think this was a silly question though, well, look, where do the water came from as we were sailing in the middle of the sea?

#4: If you don’t mark the picture, how do you that the picture is mine?

Well... When we came onboard, there were mascots standing in the terminal waiting for us and took some pictures with every one of us, but those pictures were for sale. Hmmm... Therefore there would be approximately 2000 plus photos, so how do you determine which photos are you in if you don’t mark the photos? As if we do not have faces huh ? J

#5: Can you teach me the way to use the microwave? I put some bread into the microwave and played around with the switches, the breads were not baked!

Look, there was a safe and security box in every single cabin, and a poor guy he was, the questioner thought that it was a microwave!

In this trip, there was an inclusive special night where you need to get yourself registered in order not to miss all the fun, it was called the Gala Night.

Gala Night consists of firstly, “Gala Fashionista”, a fashion show featuring different Asian Traditional Costumes with a Parisian catwalk style finale. “Kid’s Gala Night” was an event for the kids.

“Captain Gala Cocktail” was the event which I loved the most, everyone who registered for the exclusive evening were invited to Grand Piazza, a ballroom-like venue where waitresses were walking around with cocktails, beers, red wines and juices on a plate. Those who were registered, could just go around the hall, picking drinks up, socializing, chit-chatting, and the dress code had to be semi-casual, every one dressed up so beautifully, with tantalizing music flowing in the air. Oh, I just love this so much! If there were people waltzing in the hall would be perfect enough! I even told my mother how I enjoyed those moments on the spot. And I received a somewhat serious answer from my mom, saying that if I’m happen to be so lucky to get married in the future with my beloved one, another “Captain Gala Cocktail”, with the ballroom dancing, or course, will be held for my wedding. Well... I did not trust my mother anyhow; just imagine how much money you got to pump in for such event.

Captain & the senior management crew

The Gala event of the night was the “Gala Dinner”. We registered ourselves at Bella Vista, and we had our grand dinner together with the Captain onboard, Jan Blomqvist from Finland along with several senior management crews. A really grand dinner that was, we were served with alluring western dishes and a pianist was playing sweet melodies in the restaurant. Appetizers, main course, as well as the desserts were so delicately displayed and appealing.

Musical performances have never quit throughout the ages of my life, and The Lido is my favourite place of all in the ship. Dazzling performances by handsome, pretty and sexy Ukraine as well as Belarus performers, and heart-thumping performances by acrobats all the way from Guang Xi, China, certainly caught the eyes of the audiences with mouth wide opened.

First Day

On the first day, Star Cruise presents ‘The Musicians of Bremen’. It was a modern day musical comedy by the Grimm Brothers about animals: the donkey, the hound, the cat and the cock, who travel to the two town of Bremen to become the town musicians. The story weaves around Troubadour, who meets the four musicians who joins him on his adventure. Love is in the air when Troubadour falls for a beautiful Princess who runs away from The Palace seeking for new adventures with the group. When I saw the description of the story, immediately I recalled the fairy tale which I came to know of when I was still a toddler. It was a fairy tale, but the performance was like those which were held in the Broadway. Snapping pictures from this performance was prohibited as professionals were involved.

Second Day

The stage performance of the day was ‘Movie Fantasia’. Crew members, other than serving their customers on-board, they were also performing for the customers! ‘Movie Fantasia’, according to the Assistant Cruise Director, was the first ever performance by the crew members, and they have been trained for months for this performance. Oh, how fortunate we were to have watched this!

‘Movie Fantasia’ is a performance where bits and pieces of movies combined together in one fabulous show. Pictures snapping and video recording are highly recommended for this one, to promote the cruise, perhaps?

A sudden familiar music revolved around The Lido, it was the remix version of “Lady Marmalade”, and crew onboard wore dazzling suits and costumes, dancing their hearts out like in a fiesta. “Moulin Rouge!” it is! "Sparkling Diamonds" then filled the hall with great fun sensations. Next up, “Rhythm of the Night (Moulin Rouge version)” by Valerie sounded even catchier when the performers correlated their movements with the music. Followed by the silly yet entertaining “Can Can Song”, the audiences were simply wow-ed away by the crew members. Suddenly, the fast tracks faded away slowly, exchanged with existence of the bittersweet melody, “Come What May”.

Curtain closed for the next “movie”, several hunks stood in the middle of the stage, “Step Up” is on the stage! Guys with caps on their heads, girls with light outfits were street-dancing fabulously. When you thought that this version of “Step Up” was made up only by the trained crew members, two professional acrobatic individuals from China appeared and displayed heart thumping acrobats, adding some icing on the cake.

Next up, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” showed up with.... Umm, an ugly big puppet in my opinion. That puppet was displaying some kung-fu styles in the middle of the stage with lame tricks. Perhaps that was part of the strategies to impress the children. Along came with voices of another beautiful Chinese crew member singing the soundtrack of that movie, originally by Coco Lee. When you thought that the next “movie” was on its way, amazingly, our cruise director, Zelda slowly walked into the heart of the stage and sang us “Ju Hua Tai”, originally by Jay Chow.

Out of the blue, the stage was like devoured by an evil spirit, eerie voices and melodies were chanted. Though the voice seemed a little bit creepy, but it sounded familiar enough for me to identify the upcoming “movie”. Ahoy, mates! “Pirates of the Caribbean” is in the house! Captain Jack Sparrow emerged from the crowd, trying hard to impress us. Another puppet came from the backstage; it was a pirate puppet this time, as though it had formed a tacit agreement with other performers, this one performed fine. The pirates cruised themselves down into the crowd of audiences and grabbed one of them onto the stage. I did not know what happened to that spectator after that.

Catchy tunes were heard, sounded like Abba came to pay a visit to the cruise. “Mamma Mia!” was the next show held on stage! Three hunks in sparkling costumes along with three pretty ladies were dancing and singing Abba themes such as the famous “Mamma Mia”, “Dancing Queen” together.

“The Gypsy” came straight after that. An obvious man-disguised fat lady with “sexy costumes” walked out under the spot light, making some noises with “her” trumpet. “She” shook “her” booty so hilariously, as if laughing gases came out from “her” booty. Along the way, there came another two men-disguised ladies shook their booties. I really liked this one, it was so horribly funny.

Then, the last “movie” came on stage. I did not know what movie theme that was; it seemed to be a famous Hindi Movie. Dancers were all in their saris and sleeveless shirts. A Chinese crew member danced so funnily as my sister kept asking me to look at him. Well, come to think of it, occasionally I danced the same way as he did too. Ugh... forget about it.

Third Day

The last performance we saw in The Lido was “Sports Unlimited”. Interesting theme with great performances by the Olympic medallists and acrobatic personnel exhilarated the auditorium. The performers did many incredible stunts which if their lives could not be spared should they failed to correlate for a millisecond.

Although my parents had been in the cruise before, but of course, another ship tour is essential. Therefore, we joined the ship tour as our first activity, led by one of the crew members, Patrick, a typical “banana” but with an untypical smooth Mandarin accent.

Superstar Virgo, comparatively with her fellow sister zodiac ships, is the largest ship with the longest length, and the widest width, the most number of cabins available, the highest numbers of decks, and of course this ship could sustain the most number of passengers on-board. There were approximately 2300 passengers during this trip.

All the star cruises are under Genting Corporation, of course, lack of a casino within the cruise is like a prohibition! For gamblers, Oasis is the place for them to deal with their inner lusts. Bingo with Jackpot prizes worth millions of Singapore dollars are often can be heard in the announcement Hands of customers often were itched with such announcement echoed throughout the ship.

There were so many well-prepared facilities in the ship, including a Virgo Medical Centre, The Picture House which offers a few of the latest movies to the customers, Starlight Video Arcade for street game fanatics, Universal Gym to train your 6-packed abs, Charlie’s Child Care Centre, The Library for book lovers, Activity Centre which offers various board games including mahjong as well as offering Internet service but at a ridiculous price per minute.

Other than that, Parthenon Pool for kids as well as offers free Jacuzzi services to the customers, Apollo Spa for guests 18 years of age and above only, Grand Piazza which holds sizzling functions, variety kind of cafes available in the likes of Bellini (Champagne Bar), Gelato Ice Cream & Juice Café (for ice cream goers), and Taverna Bar. Other moderate charged restaurants are Blue Lagoon (An Asian Bistro), Palazzo (An Italian Bistro), Samurai (A Japanese Restaurant), Noble House (A Chinese Restaurant), The Taj (Buffet full with Indian Cuisine), and Taverna (International snacks).

Besides eateries, entertainment venues such as Out of Africa Karaoke, Out of Africa Pub, and Celebrity Disco & KTV lounge are available, but of course, with moderate charges. There was also a customers’ favourite place of all time, The Galaxy of The Stars, where crew members and director would often host talk shows and game shows over there. And how would we left the famous stage exists in The Lido? The Lido is a place where dancers and actors strut their stuffs to impress their audiences.

For shophaholics, and I’m referring to real shophaholics with mounted moneys in their pockets here, various branded items are up for grabs in the Star Cruise Boutique as well as some of the duty free shops in the ship.

Several decks from the top offer you with panoramic views of the ocean. One of the famous places was Amphitheatre, a place where you could see the wide ocean like you’ve never seen before. Apart from engaging in the blue blue sea, Amphitheatre also offers some sport activities to the customers, such as one of my favourite sports, table tennis. There was also a mini golf course, a basketball court, as well as a tennis court on the top deck.

These are about all the famous and all-time high rated places by the customers in this famous thirteen-deck Superstar Virgo.

Many years ago, there was a moment where my parents went for a cruising trip. My mother was very lucky to have a generous boss then, for her boss organized a company trip where Superstar Virgo was the venue they decided for that trip. My parents came back with numerous beautiful pictures; their three little children were drooling looking at those photos. The famous three golden horses which stood in awe magnetized and formed a strong urge within me to reach out for that cruise.

Many years after that, it was high time for us to make our dreams realized. I have to particularly thank my grandparents for that, if it weren’t for them, the dream to step into the cruise would never be granted so soon. But well, I want to thank my parents for that too, of course.

To get into that cruise, we had to arrive at Singapore’s Harbourfront. Aeroline, a double decker bus, was our choice to get to Singapore. Aeroline has a lounge located in the bottom deck of the bus, how cool is that? But the lounge was so much tinier than the one appeared in my mind though.

The above is the lounge in Aeroline.

5 hours passed, and we arrived at our destination. Looking out into the sky, you could see the big words “Super Virgo”, placed up in the sky, and these words were attached to a magnificent white-in-colour, and meticulously crafted huge particle.




When it was our turn to walk into the terminal which links to the cruise, there were many mascots around, as well as delicate dancers standing in the midst of the route and greeted us, taking pictures with us. We felt so good for their warmth welcome.

Smiles can always be seen in the faces of the crew members, I never see any of them frown or anything, all of them were simply so likened by their customers! Bravo for them in that! Many of the crew members were from China and Singapore, professionalisms were absolutely well-trained.

The cabins which we were live in consist of four beds, with 20 television channels to choose from, kids particularly like my sisters, would never be bored hanging around with Disney characters, as I engaged in CNN news as well as sports channel, Chinese soap operas were readily tuned in for both of my grandparents and my mother, and my dad... Hmm.. I don’t know what he watched though, he prefer serious meetings with the Sleeping God.

Whenever we think of a way to fill our empty stomach or just for some bites and crunches on food, these are the only restaurants where we look for, as they were the only inclusive restaurants:

Mediterranean Buffet/ Terrace




This is an inclusive buffet, a place where we consume our food daily, and all of us were like getting bored of its food. But what can we do, this is one of the three inclusive restaurants which are available. Others were posh restaurants which were charged with exclusive price per head.


Bella Vista


Bella Vista has very well decorated and nice surroundings, one of the nicest I’ve seen in my life I should say. Monuments and big masterpiece portraits were hanging around the walls. Huge windows with illuminate glasses can be seen every time you turn your head and looking out to take a glance at the beautiful ocean. The restaurant is served with typical western dishes which my grandmother did not keen on it very much.

The Pavillion



Many Chinese gathered around in this particular restaurant and enjoyed Chinese dishes. The dishes were fixed at each meal, so you don’t have to worry about the food selection. Everything dish is arranged for you, there would be approximately 5 Chinese dishes served for each meal. In addition, you can always refill the dish which does not seem to get enough for no additional charge. So every time we left the restaurant after each meal, it would be as if we just ate and did not pay a single cent for it.

I have to admit that my sister is not a sociable person like any of her friends out there who keen on hanging out. After her major examination (SPM), she needed some time to enjoy herself, to celebrate her one phase of accomplishment in life. But somehow, when her friends invited her to throw a party in a mall or something, she denied her own will and turned down the offer.

Therefore, I guess, that’s one of the many reasons I was being dragged by my sister to make her company today to Sunway Pyramid. I was not really willing to join her though as I have tons of my own business to deal with lately, but then since she was yearning to go and was so exhilarating when speaking about ice-skating, so I thought I should be a nice big brother once in a while.

Thus, we stepped into the territory of the Egyptians at noon. After watching a movie about a dog and having a luncheon, we were all set to go for an ice-skating session. Ridiculously as you may say, this was the first time I went ice-skating in my entire life. Though I’ve live for so many years in an area where the Ice Atrium is just located a few kilometres from my house, I never get my feet into the boots of blades. But today, the first exposure of feeling the edgy sport, emerged.

Wonder how I fared in the icy field? After I tried so hard getting into the field, many incidents occurred in front of my own eyes, there were so many patterns and styles of falling, some fell terribly, there were people who giggled, there were also people who laughed so exaggeratingly at those who fell without any sense of mercy. I stuck myself onto the wall, like a starfish leaning hard on an oyster. Step by step, I moved my legs slowly, right foot forward, left foot followed next. That was great, the rhythm felt just right. Gradually, my hands left the wall untouched; all the nerves directed me to leave the wall alone. Naturally, I was able to at least walk like a penguin living in the North Pole.

Two hours passed, BeNC the penguin is still walking weirdly on the field. Suddenly, a session for practitioners was announced. The trainers then had occupied a small portion of area for their trainees, and this led to a quarter parts of the walls unused. Fortunately, I learned the way to at least walk on blades before the session started, but I felt sorry for those who just joined the circus as they must hold on tight to the wall from preventing people scoffing at them. Therefore, some people left the place because of that.

But I was like, “I’ve mastered the art of penguin-walking, so what is there left for me to afraid of?” My sister, who had challenged the sport months ago, suggested that we skate around the field, but without the reliance of wall. I coolly agreed with it.

First round, no problem at all, it was like a piece of cake! I felt like a person who just took on the world, I mean, can there be a person who does not happen to fall in his first attempt in ice-skating? Well... Alright, alright, there can be individuals achieve that, but it should be very rare, shouldn’t it? I mean, perhaps it will be like about... umm.. One in fifty, maybe?

After the first round, time was running out, and I suggested to my sister that we are supposed to leave the North Pole and proceed back to our Great Sahara soon. But then my sister was so thrilled with it although this was already her third attempt in ice-skating, and requested for one last round.

What’s the big deal? I just agreed to have one last round of slow penguin walk. While I was doing the last round of grand tour on the icy field, I was so happy that I managed to walk on the slippery floor with just two clinical pieces of metal scraps under my feet. At the front view, there were delirious people skating wildly around the field, professionals indeed. When I reached a spot nearby the training area, somehow, my right foot couldn’t strike a balance, out of the blue, my left foot reacted involuntarily, stepping vigorously to the front in order to maintain the balance, but it seemed to be adding more complications to the situation, my unbalanced right foot then march forward without my intentional instruction again, and this resulting an awkward fall, a BIG one. I could say that was the biggest fall of the day, I didn’t see anyone fell that way. In what way you asked? It was like a person stepped accidentally on the skin of banana and fell so dramatically with his back landed on the ground first. It was not just that, to top it all, my spectacles was slung backward.

Oh gosh... What a magnificent fall that was... And I thought I would not fall in my first attempt.

The global crude price is going down drastically in these recent days, this is certainly one piece of the good news which we could take heart from, since there are so many unhappy events and incidents occurred globally as well as throughout nationwide.

Malaysia used to subsidies the price of petrol to a great extent previously. Just imagine, the government used to do a very good deed as in selling the petrol for only RM1.60 per liter, how cool is that!! Well... since the price of crude oil plunged to a newer record today, our government decided to further reduce the price of petrol for 10 cents, which is the 6th reduction ever since the skyrocketed increment of the price initially. And, very fortunately, the government is planning on for the 7th reduction very soon.

But there are points to be pondered though... If the decreasing inclination continues, so, theoretically, our government will keep on doing the same thing, reducing the price of petrol. But is this really a good thing to do?

What if the price of the petrol shoots up suddenly? Will trepidation aroused among the nation? Should the price increases again, the government would probably increase the price of petrol again by a few more cents. When the global crude oil price plunge again, decreasing of petrol price, is once again implemented.

Can the government make a static position for the petrol price, and use the financial resources to develop other useful alternatives such as biofuel?