Petronas Twin Towers shot from KL Tower.

I had previously planned to visit the KL Towers on the weekend, but since one of my colleague from the States visited, my boss decided to treat him at the revolving restaurant at KL Tower. Ha ha so I saved on entry tickets.

The food in the restaurant is good and the view from the top at night is fabulous. To add to it, there were fireworks display at Lake Titiwangsa. What a bonus. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos of it cause I figured my camera wouldn't be up to the task, what with revolving floor and all.

Shot this pic from the observation deck where there are less cutlery to worry about.

In short, this place is worth visiting, if not for the food, then at least for the view.

Memories of 2005 New Year.....

I remember 2004 was a good year. Lot's of travelling and I was closing out the year with a trip to Taipei.

Visited the Taipei 101, which had just dethroned the Petronas Twin Towers as the tallest building in the world. The mood was festive, there was also local elections then in Taipei, and I enjoyed myself.


Hong Kong followed Taipei, and the Christmas celebrations are even bigger here. There were sales and streets were crowded. Did some sight seeing, shopping and pigging out before leaving for Kuala Lumpur for the Christmas holidays - since it was the holidays, no one was working on the project, hence there wasn't any valid reasons for me to remain :(


I remember watching the breaking news of the tsunami in KLIA. Everyone was transfixed by the early scenes on TV. I took the flight out with those early images in my mind.


As days go by, the immense destruction of the tsunami hit home. Donations were going around, celebrations toned down and the HK government were receiving some flak for it's inaction.

On the street, even though the mood of festivities were still present, my heart was blanketed by a veil of sadness. I think most people were too, with the constant heart breaking scenes from Thailand and Indonesia.

I walked the famous tourist belt taking in the scene, but as most restaurants were crowded, I just bought whatever tidbits that catches my eye during my walk.

There were a box from a bakery that has the most heavenly smell as I walked by. A slice of cake for dessert, and some Norwegian salmon with rice in a box!

Thus that was my end of 2004 dinner in my cosy hotel room with frailty of life flashing on the screen.



I left the following day back for Kuala Lumpur with memories of an eventful 2004 that ended with a bang.




Note: Unless if I happen to travel during the New Year, there would not be any special entries during New Year's day. I am keeping personal entries in a separate blog.

Awana Genting, 18-20th Nov 2006

Another weekend, another chance put in some miles in my under utilized car. Drove up with good company and was surprised that it lasted barely an hour because of the light Saturday traffic.

Awana Genting Resorts is about 7km from the peak so it's not overly cool. You can still walk around in Ts and shorts comfortably.

Visited the Misteria show at the Pavilion and did some walk around. Otherwise, it's a pretty quiet and straightforward weekend. Managed to drive 150 balls at the driving range. Unfortunately the squash courts do not have any racquets for rental.

While I had good company for this trip, unfortunately there were still a lot of issues on my mind. Nice place but definately not one of the better time for a trip.


Ok, now the rants!

The most dissapointing aspect is that both the tread mills in the gym are broken! So is one of the two exercise bicycle...the other one is probably broken but by then I just wasn't interested anymore. Furthermore they don't provide any towels at the gym. On hindsight, the broken equipment is probably why they didn't bother. What a disappointment.

When I first walked into my room, it was still not made up. That was at 2:30pm. Both beds was clearly been slept in and towels were all over the place. To their credit, the housekeeping appeared less than 10 minutes after I called the front office. However this shouldn't have happened in the first place.

Looks like the management in both Awana Kijal & Genting is getting a bit slack.

How I relax in Manila - November 2006

Getting room service...


...and the ability to swivel the flat screen tv towards the bed and catch up on some VCDs.

The week in Charleston, 21-27 Oct 2006

21st October - Saturday

The day started late for me. Probably still have jet lag...and the pork chop doesn't help either. After the daily routine of checking my emails via the ultra fast in room wifi, I headed out looking for the shop that sells Sebago shoes. According to the website, one should be on Alexander Street, while the other is on King St. Since I expect to be going along King St. quite often, I decided to check out the one on Alexander first. Based on the map, I would need to head east along Calhoun St.

Even after walking along the whole stretch of Alexander St I couldn't find the store, so either I got the wrong Alexander or the store has closed. Along the way, I had walked into a neighbourhood that was just awakening. The sun was out on the quiet side walks and some residence were probably surprised by a Chinese tourist walking by greeting them.

Since I was so far east, I decided to continue walking towards the harbour. That's where the Imax and Aquarium are located. There's also a long line waiting to go on the ferry tour of Fort Sumter. Howerever I have a meeting at 2pm, so I decided to skip those attractions and just walk along to enjoy the sights.

A few pictures taken at the harbour. The one below is taken near the private piers. The clear water and sun makes it look very tempting for a good swim except for the cold wind.






After the walk, I didn't have much time left before I had to attend my meetings, so I decided to hope into Juanita Greenberg's Nacho Royale. It's a mexican restaurant that I had read about before the trip. Inside the restaurant, there's a bar where you can place your orders. The tables are on the right side and also at the back. The place looks a bit old but clean and has the old town charm to it. I ordered the 1lb. Burritos (beans) and I think it's the biggest burrito that I have ever laid both hands on. No complains though, it was great.



[updated:25/1/07]

22nd October 2006

Woke up real early to view the dawn in Charleston. Most of her inhabitants were still sound asleep when I looked out the window at 7am. The blue and orange hues across the sky was majestic.


After a short shower, the sun was rising. I just sat at the window sipping my first cup of coffee and drinking the scenery.


Meeting officially starts today on a Sunday. Stretched till after lunch and then there was a golf program. But by then, it has started to rain and I was dead tired. So I left those crazy enought to drive a small white ball in the rain, and retreated to my cozy room to sleep the afternoon away.

In the evening, we had our company dinner at a local Restaurant called Poochie Porch. It was 10 minutes walk away from the hotel in the cool evening. Most business have closed by then so the streets were quite deserted.

Food was reasonable tasty, though of course there were some dispute about whether the same food was better in Louisiana.


[....trip report to be continued...sorry busy season]

25th October - Wednesday