Year: 2004

Our father who art in heaven…

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our father heaven

Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name;
Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done;
On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our RM 50 note.

This was spotted on a construction site. It seems that some workers
took the “Give us this day our daily bread” part a little too
literally, for the poster was carefully cut along the palm of Jesus,
and a small printed RM 50 note slipped into the lined edge.

I would like to shake hands with the construction worker who carved up this art masterpiece. 😉

Seafood at Buntal Kuching

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buntal lim hock ann

Buntal is a fishing village about 35 minutes drive away from
Kuching. Buntal Seafood Village is a very popular place for seafood, as
it is located right on the beach and the produce is about as fresh as
it gets – straight from the sea. Lim Hock Ann Seafood is the longest
standing and most popular one in Buntal.

buntal fresh seafood

There’s a lot of fresh seafood; fish, crabs, prawns, lobsters,
oysters etc. Basically, if you can get it from the sea, they have it.
Lim Hock Ann is also popular due to it’s unique seating arrangements –
they actually have a platform suspended over the sea, with waves
lapping at the bottom while you eat!

buntal platform

Unfortunately, it was raining yesterday, so the platform was closed.
I was surprised to find a mini entourage of people waiting for me when
I came back from Sibu. I had called a friend to pick me up but when I
exited the arrivals hall, I was accosted by my friends who came in
several cars to whisk me off to Buntal. Jesus…

buntal dinner

Anyway, this is what the suspended platform looks like from one of
the photos in the popular Lim Hock Ann seafood center in Buntal:

buntal old

This outlet has been here since forever, or so it seems. It still
retains its old skool wood structures that I remember seeing when I was
still young.

buntal wood counter

Anyway, here’s what we ordered:

buntal kailan
Baby kailan
It’s a type of vegetable, very nice.

buntal butter prawns
Butter prawns
It came out very crisp and tasted divine. The granules are caramelized butter, it’s heavenly, I tell you.

buntal oyster pancake
O Chien
This is oyster pancake. I like Lim Hock Ann’s implementation of this
popular must-have seafood dish. It’s moist and there are generous
amounts of oysters scattered all around the pancake instead of just a
couple in the middle.

buntal crabs
Crabs cooked with egg and chilli

Here’s a video tour of Lim Hock Ann in Buntal:

buntal seafood

Download: Buntal Seafood [sixthseal.com]

buntal snap

I had a snapping good time, pardon the pun.

You’re an illegal immigrant!

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sibu illegal indo

No sir, I’m not.
Oh yes, you are!
Am not!
Am to!

It turns out that they were illegal immigrants from Indonesia after
all. The blue ones are police and the green ones are RELA (Vigilante
Corps). They were led away by the whole entourage in handcuffs. I was
walking by and saw this and stopped to listen and take photos. Things
like this always draw a crowd in Sibu.

I guess that says a lot about how exciting my hometown is. 😉

Shirley Wong

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shirley wong sibu

This is Shirley, who has an interesting relationship to me. She is:

my good friend’s cousin
the niece of one of my company’s management
the daughter of one of our clients (which of course I’m not at liberty to name)

She’s a nice girl and she has a really cute little sister who’s
about 2 or 3 years old and a younger brother which is probably 9 or 10.
I was apprehensive about putting up her photo due to the complex nature
of the relationship at first.

shirley wong me full
This is the full frame grab. We weren’t ready coz the speedlight takes several seconds to go off.

shirley wong me streets
This is the default attitude you see in Sibu while out and about.

I took a photo with her and she asked me to wait and she got her own
camera and wanted to take a photo with me as well. I told her about the
blog and asked her twice if she would mind me posting our picture up
and she said she didn’t mind at all. Thus, I have exercised due
diligence in this matter. 😉

shirley wong me smile
…and this is the last one which is a little blurry. The photos were all taken by her younger brother.

I think I’ll file this under People instead of that other category. 😉

KFC Satay Burger

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kfc satay burger

KFC Satay Burger is a newly launched product – the latest burger
from the KFC fast food franchise, targeted at local market tastes. I
like the satay fan image behind the logo, it represents the fan satay
sellers use to manually fan the hot charcoal in the past, but they use
auto fans for that nowadays…it’s a trip down nostalgia lane.

satay burger combo cup

I couldn’t resist reviewing something like this of course, so I went
for the KFC Satay burger combo meal. It comes with a free KFC tumbler
and I had the red one. The KFC Satay combo meal comprises of:

1 KFC Satay Burger
1 Potato Wedges (4pcs)
1 Carbonated drink (R)
1 Cool Cup
(available in 4 cool colors)

Hey, don’t look at me like that. I wasn’t the one who wrote it. 😉

satay burger combo

This is what the KFC Satay Combo Meal looks like. I should explain
what satay sauce is at this point – it’s a peanut based sauce, with
predominantly sweet flavors and is used to complement satay, which is
meat skewed on sticks. The satay burger from KFC only retains the satay
sauce and cucumbers as the topping.

kfc satay burger wrapper

The Satay Burger comes in its own wrapping; the easy cone shaped
wrapper that has become the de facto standard nowadays – eat without
getting your hands dirty! You can think of satay sauce as chunky peanut
butter with a less creamy texture and with a saltier aftertaste to it.
It tastes better than it sounds.

satay burger cone

Now, we come to the meat of the matter (excuse the pun). The Satay
burger is basically a Zinger with satay sauce and cucumbers on it.
Honestly, I heard the KFC supervisor on duty say that. 🙂 The cucumber
slices are nice and crisp and I like how the satay sauce tastes like,
although it seems to confuse itself with sambal sometimes.

satay burger messy

It looks kinda messy, but it tastes great.

…and you get a free KFC water tumbler to boot. Mine is red. What’s yours? 😉

Sugarcane drink at Central Market Sibu

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pasar sentral sibu

I arrived in Sibu late yesterday night, the flight was delayed
(again) due to an engine problem. I woke up early this morning and was
on site at 7:30 am. I’m on a break now and I went to Central Market to
get a sugarcane drink. It’s a hot day, and I reckon one of these would
go down well.

pasar sentral sugarcane skin

It seems that the coconut + sugarcane or cham cham as they
call it in Hokkien has hit Sibu. IIANM, the pioneer of this 1/2
sugarcane, 1/2 coconut juice with coconut flesh is the SKH food centre
in Kuching. It seem to have propagated to Sibu now, with even the
central market doing it.

pasar sentral sugarcane togo

I got one to go. I like this stall coz they actually skin the
sugarcane plant before grinding it in that grinder you see on the
bottom left. The majority of stalls just shove the whole sugarcane in,
but this one manually and painstakingly removes the outer skin from the
sugarcane before processing it, ensuring a smoother drink.

pasar sentral sugarcane

This is the reserve sugarcane bunches they have on the side.

MBKS news coverage – photos of me in major papers!

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papers stack

I have managed to get my photo in SIX newspapers! =D There was a
press release yesterday afternoon organized by MBKS (South Kuching
Council) for the CCTV system we installed for them. Our company
actually specializes in remote surveillance solutions, but we can and
do provide conventional security solutions as well, and this one has an
option to upgrade to off-site monitoring and recording.

Sin Chew Daily

sin chew macro

This paper gave us (meaning me ;)) the best photo coverage. Although
it’s not front page, it more than makes up for it with the multiple
color photos. It’s on page five of today’s paper and I took great pains
to stand as close to the mayor as physically possible to increase the
probability of my photo appearing in the papers. 😉

sin chew 1

Here’s a close look at the first photo. It probably helped that I
gave out my business card to every press photographer and turned on my
charms on the predominantly Chinese female photographers. 😉

sin chew 2

This is the second photo. I can’t read Chinese, but my coworkers
told me that my name is also mentioned in there along with my position
(System Engineer). I was asked for my Chinese name, which I can’t
write, but a helpful reporter managed to get it right for me. 🙂 I can
recognize the characters, I just can’t write it.

The Borneo Post

borneo post macro

I got into the second page of The Borneo Post, which had a black and
white photo, but it was a good one nevertheless. It’s the largest
English daily over here too.

International Times

intl times macro

This one gave us front page coverage. woot! Color photo, and the caption has my name and position too.

Utusan Sarawak

utusan sarawak macro

The largest BM paper put us on page 3, with a B&W photo. I’m
“Jurutera Sistem Encik Poh Huai Bin”. 😉 The caption reads: Pilot
project…The mayor of MBKS Mr Chan Seng Khai (middle) listening to the
explanation of the functions of the CCTV system that was installed in
the MBKS building grounds from System Engineer Huygens Asia Sdn. Bhd.
(Huygens) Mr Poh Huai Bin (left). Also seen is the Marketing Manager
Mr. Ainsey Lai KC (right) in Kuching, yesterday.

See Hua Daily News

see hua macro

This one gave us a large front page splash and a large column. It’s good. 🙂

United Daily News

united daily macro

This is the paper that scooped all the others yesterday. It gave us
front page again, with a color photo. This is the sixth paper that has
a photo of me. There were other papers covering the press release, but
those were only text only or didn’t have photos. I managed to get into
every single photo that has the mayor in it. 🙂

I’m leaving for Sibu tonight

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huygens sibu second

I’m flying off to Sibu again tonight to coordinate and oversee
another deployment. It’s a short notice trip, I only knew yesterday and
the company gave me the tickets today. I’m going off tonight, my
apologies for not having time to reply the comments and post more, I’ve
got a lot of work to do. Jasmine, please email me again, coz there’s a
huge amount of mail to sort through and I can’t find yours.

Update: Kuching’s most exciting police chase just
passed by and I missed it!!! It’s the photographer’s worse nightmare,
five police patrol cars with sirens and lights flashing, chasing two
people on a motorbike. The police were armed, and pointing at the
fleeing culprits (from what I don’t know) but they didn’t shoot. I ran
down, digicam in hand, just in time to catch two patrol cars with a
police leaning out with a firearm in the first and the suspects in
front, and pressed the shutter release…and it told me “Card not
present”. I left my CF card in the card reader upstairs.

Bombastic Cafe

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bombastic cafe

Bombastic Cafe is the…er, bombastically named cafe where one of my
coworker’s girlfriend works. It turns out that one of my friends has
also worked there before. I went there for dinner with a couple of
friends to check it out, coz I heard they have really interesting
drinks.

bombastic interior

The interior of the cafe is nicely decorated, with very trippy
visuals adorning the walls. It got me wondering whether the mushrooms
in the rice I ate for lunch were the magical kind. 😉 The proprietor is
a nice guy too, talked to him and introduced myself, for no particular
reason, just coz I felt like doing it.

bombastic rome holiday

This is what I ordered – Rome Holiday. It’s a yam based drink with
pearl balls (is that what you call those? Taro.) which is ice blended.
Very nice. My friends had the other interestingly named drinks like
Gone With the Wind and Winter Sonata.

the bomba spagetti

I had two main courses – I wanted to try both of their flagship
mains. This is The Bomba Spaghetti. I like the dusting of parsley on
the side, it makes it look nice. The sauce was meaty and tastes great,
and one of my friends who ate some from mine concurred. She had a mixed
plate of some sort, which I forgot the name of, but it was nice too.

the bomba chicken

This is the second main I had – The Bomba Chicken. It doesn’t look
like chicken, it looks a little like lamb, but it tasted like chicken.
It was breaded and deep fried and complemented with a great sauce,
fries, coleslaw and other veggies. I found it delicious. I finished
both plates and then some, but that’s normal for me, I usually eat
double portions.

I would heartily recommend their flagship dishes, it’s really good.

Bombastic. Simply fantastic. 😉

United Daily News features photo of me

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united daily huygens

I graced the pages of the United Daily News today. Unfortunately, it
was just a back shot of me. The article spans a whole page and the
photo of me is here:

united daily mbks

I’m the one in the purple shirt. The one in the blue shirt is my
coworker and the only one with the visible face is my CTO, Alex.

united daily photo

Here’s a closer look at the photo. I think the paper wanted to scoop
all the others by one day since the official press conference was held
today. Look for photos of me in the papers tomorrow, coz being the
publicity whore I am, I stood as close to the mayor of MBKS as
possible, thus increasing the probability of my photo appearing in the
papers. 😉

My apologies for not posting much and not being able to reply the
comments today, I’m swamped with work and I’ll have to fly to Sibu
tomorrow again to oversee another installation. It’s part of the work I
do, even though I mostly develop systems and do R&D, I also propose
solutions and supervise the deployment of it.

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