This is probably one of the few occasions that I took initiative to be the ‘organiser’. Nevertheless, without the participation of friends, the gathering won’t be successful. To cut it short, we had a successful outing of UTP friends who are doing our industrial training in KL. 10 people attended the gathering including myself. The rest are Li Yen, Kum, Joey, Yuen Bin aka yudan, cantopop Onn Lam, Sze wei and his lovely girlfriend Foong Foong, Ivan and lastly Wei Fa. What is a gathering without a ‘makan’ place? So through voting, we’ve came to the decision to go to Talipon, Kelana Jaya where they serve buffet grill and steamboat style akin to two plus one in Bercham, Ipoh. The gathering was to start at 6.00 pm, so naturally few of us have our own agenda before the grand dinner.

As mentioned, Kum, Li Yen, Joey and myself had gone for a little activity during the day light. Our itinerary started at 11.30am. The good Li Yen has agreed to come and fetch us in Platinum Victory apartment, Taman Melati, where Joey, Kum and I are staying.

Platinum Victory Apartment

I took over the driving despite having no clear idea which road to take but the passengers were a little sceptical about my driving skill.

Li Yen: Teik Hui, you okay wan ha? If not I can drive, no problem geh.

Me: Ok wan…(put into first gear and get myself familiarized with the gas and clutch combo – probably rev Li Yen’s precious car a little too much in the process)

Li Yen: Teik Hui, you can or not wan a? Do you want me to drive?

Me: Ok wan…(drove to the MRR2 junction. Seeing so many vehicles big and small I was thinking maybe it’s best to just hand it over back to Li Yen but since my male ego got the better of me, I persisted and managed to manoeuvre the car into the free way – with a few jerks)

Li Yen: Teik Hui, you be careful wor… This is my precious car, my only transport in KL. If you lost it, I don’t know how am I going to go to work.

Kum: (hehehe) Teik Hui, go straight. (I got my first honk here for wanting to change lane…not my fault, haih KL people…)

Joey: How long you’ve not been driving?

Me: Erm, quite long actually. I’ve never really got a chance to drive in KL since I got here. This is my first time driving in KL.

silence…..

Luckily at that time Kum was clear headed, and so we took the north route from MRR2 towards 1U and The Curve area in PJ and hopefully we won’t get lost. Alas, our prayers were answered. 30 minutes into our departure, we managed to see 1U and in one piece. That was my first real drive in KL. After some turns and misses, we finally settled to parking Li Yen’s dear ol’ Proton Saga in The Curve basement parking. To my surprise it was only RM 2 per entry. I was expecting something like RM 3 per hour. It was around 1.10 pm that time. As planned we headed straight to Cathay Cineplex and bought us four 2.15pm ‘Forbidden Kingdom’ move tickets and we even managed to get good seats. All went well. During the time in between, we decided to hunt for a place to get some light bites. Again after a few looks and turns around the open street area, we finally settled at ‘Vivo American Pizza & Panini’ which specialises in American pizza and desserts. What the heck is panini?

Vivo @ The Curve

(pathetic right?…I know..wait till I get my own camera ler !!)

We ordered two 4-piece different-flavoured pizza and drinks of our choice. The pizza was okay. The atmosphere was just so-so. I thought the choice of colour of blue and white was a little too health-care type. It gives me a feeling of ‘Oral B’ – the dental health care product. Anyway, what amazes me more was that they have white paper. Yes it reads ‘paper’. I think it supposed to be ‘white pepper’ but we never really got our answer. I asked one of the waiters whether the content was made of paper, but he was confused with my question. Instead he offered me one seasoning after another, and I merely just said ‘it’s ok, nevermind’. He wasn’t local so I didn’t want to poke further. After the small lunch, a good chat and RM 15 poorer, we left that pizza place and gone for window shop and look around inside The Curve. Nothing much to see actually – maxis was doing some promotion and in between only some shops that I couldn’t care much to enter. I was eager more movie time!

Movie Poster

Finally the moment arrived. Twice I’ve gone for movie in Cathay Cineplex, Damansara, and twice no advertisement to see. I like advertisements before the show on the silver screen. It’s like an appetiser before the main course. Too bad. So I found myself talking to Joey instead. Luckily we didn’t have to wait long before the movie began. So I locked my eyes back on the screen, eager to watch some cool ass-kicking actions since it was starred by the two biggest kungfu star – Jet Li and Jackie Chan. Let me start by saying that this movie is weird but not disappointing. One thing to note is that the starting screen is pretty nice and cool. It gives me a sense of nostalgia and respect to the Chinese martial arts culture

(WARNING: spoilers ahead!)

The movie started with this white dude named Jason, who likes kungfu. He’s closed to the old man who manages a pawn shop that sells old kungfu movies and ancient antics. On his way back after getting some ‘cetak rompak’ kungfu vcd/dvd which probably I’ve seen countless of times myself on TV2 or TV3, he encountered a group of bully. They forced him to become a reluctant accomplice in a robbery. In all the fiasco that ensues, Jason found himself bearing the responsibility to return an ancient staff (the monkey bar that belongs to the monkey king) back to its rightful owner. He was somehow magically transported back into old times of myth and mythology thousands of years ago.

This is the part where it gets weird. In that place, he stumbled into an old hop played by Jackie Chan. He spoke Chinese at first but all of the sudden he speaks English. Imagine people in ancient China in thousands of years ago speaking English. I was like huh? Okay, I know this is a movie, a Hollywood movie to be exact, so fine, I accept Jackie Chan speaking English. I don’t want to be the one who spills all the beans here, so I’m just going to tell you what I feel about this movie.

The movie gets even weirder as it goes on because everybody starts speaking Chinese including the emperor jade and the monkey king himself! What a joke! I’m not trying to sound discriminating here, but I think the movie will be better overall if they’ve all just speak their native tongue and leave English to Jason because it affects their performance. You can pretty much figure out who’s not comfortable with speaking English because it sounds so scripted and fake (probably had taken 100 shots before they got it right). Here’s a few example:

  1. The villain Jade Warlord played Collin Chou has a habit of dragging his last syllabus.
  2. The sparrow played by Liu Yifei, has a habit of identifying herself as ‘she’. I mean, who the hell speaks like that? Sounds too poetry. Why can’t she just use ‘I’? Plus her acting is just so-so compare to another actress Fan Bing Bing.
  3. Yes, even Fan Bing Bing spoke English. But surprisingly it was good – at least better than most of the other chinese casts.
  4. Jet Li’s English was odd. He’d be better speaking Chinese.
  5. Unacceptable: Emporer jade and monkey king speaking English? What the hell? But emperor jade’s English is quite good actually.

Tada! I’m The Bad Guy!

There is quite a lot of action scenes in the movie, so it live up to my expectations. The best fighting scene is nonetheless, between the silent monk played by Jet Li and the drunken master by Jackie Chan which I think lasted about 5 minutes or more. On the two, I would say Jackie Chan stood out more. He’s more entertaining and spoke better English. Plus the monkey king character played by Jet Li is also not convincing enough. I still like Dicky Cheong version. Between the two female casts, I prefer Ni Chang, the white-haired assassin played by Fan Bing Bing not only because she was devilishly hot, she spoke better English than Liu Yifei. I think the latter tried too hard to appear innocent – not quite convincing enough for me. White-haired assassin’s hair will send Rapunzel green with envy – damn strong, straight and silky. Nice!

The White-Haired Assassin VS The Sparrow

This is one of the movie with happy ending. Jason was sent back to reality to faced the bullies. It won’t take a genius to figure that he’d managed to kick back their asses with kung fu and triumphed! Classic but I like it.

Overall this movie is entertaining because it’s got balance between action scenes, jokes (wana see Jet Li pee on Jackie..on the face?!), great special effects, cool backdrops, nice cinematography and soundtracks (rhyme well with scenes and mood), formidable casts (but unfortunately was affected by having to speak in English) and straightforward plot (no surprise and twists).

My overall rating: 7.5 / 10

The four of us were sent back to reality when the movie ended. We exited the cinema through a hallway that leads us out and in that hallway there are many ‘props’ for up and coming movies. The one particular I like was the ‘Prince Caspian’ prop. We took some photos on the throne.

Who’s Got The Royal Blood?

Of Course Me lah

After getting my rightful title, we went for somemore window shopping aound the curve. Since I don’t usually shop, I watched the event Maxis had organized and saw pretty promoters giving out balloons. So I approached one and got myself a balloon too. Unfortunately before I had the opportunity to take a picture with my balloon, the string slipped past my finger and flew away, up up into the bright sky. I waved it goodbye and said this to myself, “I’ve got to get myself a camera!!!”

The time was near 6.00 pm when we start headed towards Talipon. Li Yen took over the wheel and this time we weren’t so fortunate. We lost our way a few times. After wasting a few good litres of petrol, we found the place.

Stole This From kyspeaks.com

We were the first customer and the first batch of people to arrive at the gathering point. After a while, the rest gradually came, one after the other and we started our indulgence of steamboat and grill. Nothing special about the food. It was normal. The good thing we came early is that we can get as many prawns as we wanted before it was snatched up by others. Below are a few things to note or do in a steamboat cum grill place.

  1. Sit your back facing the wind direction so that the smokes (when cooking) will not blow onto your face.
  2. Ask for more aluminium foil when you grill pan gets too black.
  3. Take moderate amount or you’d find yourself unable to stuff all of them towards the end.
  4. Get cloth to wipe off oil droplets on your spectacle.
  5. Peel off prawn shell, dip it in the chilli sauce and grill it over the pan.
  6. Don’t wear white clothings, and/or put too much makeup.

The cost of the dinner at Talipon was RM 21.20 per head. It was okay, everyone was happy with chatting and catching up more than enjoying the food itself. I think I ate the most in the gathering.

The Only Picture I Got @ Talipon

After dinner, we left for a high-class ‘yum cha’ session. We headed to The Curve..(yes again) and chose a pub-like place at the end of the street (didn’t note the name). Apparently a big football match was going on between MU and Chelsea, and between Liverpool and Birmingham. Thus the atmosphere was lively. In fact, they had the center open area liven up, and Phat Fabes and Serena C were at their usual best entertaining the crowds of Tiger FC Club members. We proceeded to ordering our drinks. Most of them wanted Heineken but being a Tiger night it was, only Tiger beers were sold for the beer category. So everyone drank Tiger that night….except me. I ordered high-class pineapple juice that cost me RM 12.50. Cilaka! and it doesn’t come with fresh pineapple – just the liquid! Anyway, to decrease the staring of friends who were so proudly drinking Tiger and gave me all the grown-up-look, I took a bottle and added some good few mL into my high-class pineapple juice. The blend was okay – pineapple taste was still dominant but no thanks to Joey, she spoilt it all by pouring few hundreds litre of Tiger into my juice – or so it seems.

Joey: (Took a few sip) Eh nice la.

Me: (Staring at her) Why you do that?

Joey: You try and see. Nice la

Me: (Sucked a little through the straw). Eeeeyerrrr…. bitter la. My sweet pineapple juice becomes bitter d… =(

Joey: Hehehehe

Me, Joey, Yuen Bin aka Yudan & Kum

Li Yen, Ivan, cantopop Onn Lam, Sze Wei and his Lovely GF, Foong Foong

(where’s Wei Fa? – no picture of him apparently, sorry dude)

The place was okay and the surrounding was cool. Each and every other chill-out place were almost full and each sets a different ambiance and decorations. Nice! The corner place was not particularly entertaining for me because the inside didn’t have a dance floor although the DJs were pumping music with solid beat (man I’ve gotta get myself a camera to take more pictures). Anyway, at least I’ve tried high-class ‘yum cha’ in KL. The outing ended there about 11.30pm. I managed to finish my pina colada and we say goodbye and went our separate ways. On the way back, Joey showed me on her phone, a real ghost captured on the screen. It was recorded by her friend she said. I never quite believe it, but it sent me a chill down the spine. Li Yen said she was having a weird feeling of something was not right, so she said she would drive herself back first and let us have her precious car back to our apartment. Li Yen being herself was worried again.

Li Yen: Eh you becareful with my car wor….

Kum: Yah no problem, we’ll go back after taking a fun ride.

Li Yen: What?

Kum: No no.. just joking. Eh actually if park outside the apartment quite dangerous. Scared got break in case and got something stolen from your car especially the audio player.

Li Yen: What? Your place so dangerous?

Me: I think Kum’s place is brighter outside, should be okay. Or we can park in front of mamak. They can help look after the car.

Kum: what if the mamak fella is the one who will break into your car? Eh wait, maybe can use the visitor pass. Okla we’ll park inside apartment area using visitor pass.

So Li Yen gone inside looking rather weary – I guess she was really tired since she woke up at 7.00 am that day. So I took over the wheel and began our journey back. Kum started trying to pull the audio player out but to no avail.

Me: Eh Kum, isn’t visitor pass is allowed only for 3 hours. If you exceed that, your car will be clamped!

Kum: Really? I didn’t know that (still trying what he was doing)… Haih…When reach only try again la.

After a while, we reached our place and parked the car outside. We gave one last try in getting the audio player detached and it was successful. Yea!

Word of advice: Don’t use bull strength to yank some mechanical things out If you’re not sure and try cutting the engine before trying again.

Kum, Joey and I went back to our respective unit. I spent a total of RM 70.00 for this outing. Well spent? Ya kind of. Erm… once a while it’s okla….