Year: 2008

Zuiho Daiko taiko drum performance preview

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preview

The Zuiho Daiko drum troupe from Japan performed in front of an enormous crowd last night. The drummers with intellectual disabilities were amazing! We were concerned about the acoustics due to the event being held in an open space, but the taiko drums were more than loud enough and the performers were giving it their best despite their grueling schedule. They had performed at a private function in Kanowit just 3 hours prior to this and taken the 1 hour journey back to play straight at the main Sibu Gateway function.

Zuiho Daiko is a professional taiko drum group with intellectual disabilities and this is their rendition with a flute playing a tune similar to Home on the Range before the taiko drums jumped in and the sonic assault begins. It’s spectacular, spectacular! =D

I’ll have the full writeup done later, they are heading to the airport now for the flight to Kuching for this afternoon’s performance at 3 pm at tHe Spring. Zuiho Daiko is also heading to Penang to perform but I don’t know their schedule over there since it’s handled by a different charity organization.

Zuiho Daiko drum troupe from Nagasaki, Japan

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zuiho daiko

The Zuiho Daiko drum troupe is a team of five people with intellectual disabilities hailing from Nagasaki, Japan. The Japanese drummers (together with 17 family and other support staff) arrived on Thursday night and will be performing later this evening at 6:30 pm at the Sibu Gateway.

zuiho drummer

This is the actual Japanese Taiko drummer that we used for the massive billboard promoting the event. He was ecstatic at seeing himself featured in the billboard and immediately posed for a photo in front of it. Heh!

salad

The organizing committee brought them on a city tour yesterday morning and introduced them to several local delicacies – this is the salad fruit, which they found oishii (delicious) – whether out of politeness or genuine ardor, I could not be certain. 😉

chicken

They were also very interested in the way we sell our chickens at the central market – alive, and bundled in newspaper wrappings with nylon for easy carrying for slaughter at the privacy of the purchaser’s own home. I told them it’s easier for the sellers too, since live chickens tend to run around.

pagoda

We brought them to the famous seven storey pagoda as well. One episode I found interesting was the level of amazement they experienced when they chanced upon a cluster of mimosa. Mimosa pudica is a herb that grows in the wild over here and it’s very sensitive to touch. It closes its leaves under any stimuli and they found it sugoi (amazing).

fat

The city tour ended at the Agape Center, our local facility for people with disabilities which includes Methodist Care Center, Sibu Autistic Association, Special Olympics Sibu and other organizations under the umbrella group. I know I look obese in the photo, it’s due to the double shirt I was wearing, tucked in some more.

press release

I am a volunteer in organizing this event and have been doing press releases for the local newspapers for the past week. The performance will be held at 6:30 pm this evening at the Sibu Gateway followed by another performance in Kuching at 3 pm tomorrow (Sunday) at tHe Spring.

OMG! I have been writing so many press releases that I’m starting to repetitively drive in the dates and times of the performances. 😉

rtm interview

I’ve also been involved in radio interviews to promote the event (which also ends up as an excuse for a press release for our week-long publicity blitz ;)) and it’s been a very long and tiring week, but it’s for a good cause.

pk

It’s a good chance for everyone to catch the performance of the Zuiho Daiko troupe, which has performed in two Paralympic Games and a UN function. The event will hopefully foster better understanding between the public and people with intellectual disabilities to promote awareness and tolerance.

Charity work is surprisingly fulfilling and I’ve learnt a lot in volunteering for the Zuiho Daiko event. See ya all tonight!

DIY handphone repair

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zhng phone

I don’t quite understand why a monkey wrench would be required to repair such delicate items like cell phones. It truly boggles the mind.

The text literally reads “Cell phone broken, can fix here” with a huge Phillips screwdriver and a monkey wrench (of all things) beside a Sony Ericsson cell phone.

I, for one, am certainly not sending my cell phone for repairs there…

I don’t know what it would look like after the specialists in this epicenter of forefront, cutting edge cellular technology zhng the mobile with a monkey wrench. 😉

Penang BBQ Pork Noodles @ Sing Long

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sl bbq stall

I have been told that there’s a really good BBQ pork noodle stall at a coffee shop called Sing Long (Tian Long in Chinese) and the three of us headed down for breakfast to check it out. The stall has an impressive repertoire of BBQ pork products displayed at the see-through stall casement.

sl chef

The chef hails from Penang and serves authentic Penang BBQ pork noodles. The noodles are hand made and not the regular ones we get over here, but the ones from Penang/KL. The texture and diameter of the noodle is much thicker – it’s akin to Hokkien noodles.

sl breakfast

The stall doesn’t just serve BBQ pork noodles but also BBQ rice. However, their forte is definitely the pork noodles. It’s their signature dish and it would be heresy to order BBQ rice instead of noodles, which one of my coworkers did. A lot of people throng the coffee shop before office hours to eat breakfast so you have to go quite early to avoid the crowds.

sl bbq pork noodles

This is their famous Penang BBQ pork noodles (RM 4.50). I have seldom sung praises about coffee shop stalls, but I am yodeling now. It just has to be experienced – the sinful crunch of the crispy pork, the tender juiciness of the meat and the sprinkling of spring onions on top creates a dish that is greater than the sum of it’s parts.

Best place for BBQ pork noodles in Sibu. Hands down.

sl bbq pork noodle

Got pork?

Ferry Kebab – The quest for meat

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ferry kebab meat

…one Saturday evening

kebab autumn

16:20 – Autumn does some mental arithmetic in her mind collaborating her menstrual cycle to evaluate the safety of a bout of carnal gymnastics at the back seat of my car without prophylactics.

16:23 – I storm the pearly gates with the purple-headed devil. She gave me the mark of the beast.

kebab lovebite

16:42 – Play hide the hot dog while pondering on what to have for a snack after skipping lunch. Making grass sandwiches (+6 bonus points if you get this euphemism) made us think of kebabs so off we went.

ferry kebab

16:50 – Ferry Kebab is a popular kebab stall in Sibu that is renowned for its delicious kebabs.

kebab meat

16:51 – Kebabs over here are not chunks of meat on skewers but a huge mass of meat which is sliced off into a hotdog bun.

kebab mix

16:52 – The meat slices (you can opt for chicken, beef or a combination of both) are mixed with onions and cucumbers (both finely diced) as the filler for the bun.

kebab squirt

16:53 – Generous squirting (of the chilli sauce bottle) is applied on the bun and it is wrapped in a plastic wrap.

autumn kebab

16:56 – Autumn with her chicken kebab. She’s not a big fan of beef.

kebab naked

16:59 – A closer peek at the resplendent folds of Autumn’s luscious wet, pink…kebab. 😉

kebab feed 

17:06 – Ferry Kebab is delicious! It makes for really messy eating, but it’s fun to eat it at the roadside in the car for the authentic experience.

ferry kebab stall

17:13 – I drove back to take a photo of the stall coz I forgot to take the entire Ferry Kebab stall setup.

…a different kind of food review. Kaizen! 😉

Snail mail from Nicole Tan

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nicole mail

I just came back from a really enlightening conversation about life and relationships in general to a dark house and picked up two pieces of mail – one was for my car insurance premium for RM 1,704.60 (=_=!!!) which I have to pay before next month and the other was a padded largish envelope.

star metro

The writing at the back says “Sorry it took so long, but here you are”. It’s the autographed copy of The Star from two months back with a feature of me by Nicole on sixthseal.com.

star leaf

I have read the article in the online version of The Star and was surprised at the more positive key in the actual paper.

sixthseal

The front page Saturday Metro text has “Drug blogger turns over a new leaf” which is a much better angle than the “Former drug blogger comes clean about his past” headline that the online version features.

star metro kissed

I asked Nicole for an autographed copy of the paper and she finally got around to sending it to me. 😉 The article is an interview about sixthseal.com and my experience as a drug blogger in the past and how I’ve turned my life around.

nicole auto

Nicole wrote “To Huai Bin, Hope you continue to thrive in life, be happy in whatever you do” on the top of the article…

nicolekissed

…and autographed the bottom with “You’ve been Nicolekiss-ed!!” 🙂

Thanks for sending me the papers Nicole, much appreciated! I like the article in the off-line version, it’s much more positive.

Harian Metro

Well, at least it can’t get any worse than this. 😉

Tiger FC Fantasy League 2009

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tiger fc

I would imagine that any red-blooded male would have played fantasy football at some point in their lives. It’s practically a religion over here with the Premier League, UEFA Cup, and World Cup as the Holy Trinity of sports. 😉

I’ve seen the banner ads for Tiger FC Fantasy League for this season and signed up subversively at work. I have been nefariously building my team during office hours and it’s doing relatively well for this season.

Anyway, for people unfamiliar with the concept of fantasy football, it’s a game where you assemble a team based on real life players. The fun in this is that the scores you get are actually based on the real life performance of the players during that season. This is like building your dream team and watching how it plays out during the league. 🙂

players

You can start playing anytime during the season and get ranked with other player’s teams. It’s quite fun and addictive even if you’re not a football fan since it’s like managing a football team. I’m sure some management skills can be gleaned from the game. 😉

My current best player is Emmanuel Adebayor. My team (Team SixthSeal.com) has scored 7 goals and conceded 6 goals thus far. You get to transfer players at scheduled times and the first one that’s getting the boot (pun intended) from my team is John Terry. He’s not carrying his weight in the defender position. 🙁

team

The Tiger FC Fantasy League also allows you to create a mini-league(s) to challenge other players. The Nuffnang bloggers are joining a league together – you can challenge our player lineup if you think you’re better than us. The login details are:

League Name: nuffleague
Password: tigerfc

The Tiger FC Fantasy League is surprisingly addictive. I’ve found myself checking the papers in the morning to see the scores and then logging on at work to see how my team is doing.

tiger

I’ve even taken to logging on with a Pocket PC while dining out just to check on how my team is doing.

You can get some of the action too by signing up. You think you’re better than Team SixthSeal.com? Prove it! 😉

Pasar Ramadan

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pasar ramadan

Ramadan is the holy Muslim month of fasting, where practitioners of the faith abstain from food and water from dawn until sunset. Malaysia has a sizable Malay population and the best part about Pasar Ramadan (Ramadan Bazaar) is the sheer amount of food available. The Pasar Ramadan is a setup consisting of independent stalls selling food, and most of the consumables are excellent.

pasar ramadan stalls

I always make it a point to visit the Pasar Ramadan every year. It’s held annually during the puasa (fasting) month and a lot of good eats can be found concentrated in the bazaar. All cities and towns in Malaysia have a Pasar Ramadan setup a month before Hari Raya Aidilfitri, which is the most important celebration on the Muslim calendar.

pasar ramadan girls

I went to the Pasar Ramadan with a couple of buddies yesterday evening to check out the place. Pasar Ramadan is only open for several hours in the evening and I figured I should go this week since Hari Raya Puasa falls on next Wednesday. Thus, it’s just about a week left before the annual Pasar Ramadan shuts down for the year.

pasar ramadan camwhore

The people manning the stalls are generally a friendly lot and being the quintessential blogger that I am, camwhoring is a must on the To Do List. I can’t help it – I’ve been blogging for six years! 😉

pasar ramadan drinks

The Pasar Ramadan sells food and drinks of all sorts. I have noticed a trend this year where the local shaved ice drinks like ABC Special, Chendol, etc are all sold in huge packs. It’s at least 1.5 liters of fluid in there! I guess it’ll look appealing after not drinking the entire day, but still, that’s a lot of liquid!

pasar ramadan otak

The sheer variety of food at the stalls is amazing. There is everything from otak-otak…

pasar ramadan lekor

…to keropok lekor, a fish cracker originating from Terengganu.

pasar ramadan noodles

There are also more conventional fare like fried noodles and nasi campur cooked on the spot.

pasar ramadan cake

One other trend I spotted this year is that the cakes sold at the Pasar Ramadan has been given the Premium Treatment (TM). Gone were the days of kueh lapis (layered cakes) and other delicious but aesthetically lacking cakes. The cakes sold are now topped with cheese or encapsulated in pudding.

pasar ramadan roti john stall

I also managed to find a Roti John stall. I haven’t seen Roti John in Sibu ever! It’s RM 2.50 each and comes with either a chicken or beef filling. The etymology of Roti John is quite interesting – it was created for Caucasian tastes during the British Colonial rule and the name came about from the colloquialism for Westerners at that time.

pasar ramadan roti john

Caucasians were referred to as “John”, a very common English name and thus Roti John was born. It’s literally translated as John’s Bread. 🙂

pasar ramadan me 

I love Roti John and have only seen it in KL, so it’s nice to eat it again. It’s basically a sandwich with a minced meat patty inside. Sarawak has a version of Roti John, which we call kebab. It was fun to walk through the Pasar Ramadan again, since I missed it last year. It’s just so chill and relaxed, and I like the throng of crowds buying food during the two or three hours it’s open.

pasar ramadan koran

You Don’t Mess with the Koran, er…I mean, Zohan. 😉

My best fiend

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sms text

I’ve had a best fiend since high school. I did not make a typo, fiend as defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary is:

Fiend
(noun)
Devil, demon, a person of great wickedness or maliciousness

I have in fact dedicated two entries in the annals of sixthseal.com about my best fiend. The one post I remember back in 2004 was about schadenfreude – the German word for gaining pleasure out of other people’s misfortune, which he personifies.

Anyway, my fiend has been talking behind my back and generally spreading rumors about me. I was amused for a second this morning when someone related to me a really funny rumor that was so untrue (since the time line does not compute) but the bulk of what he said really annoyed me.

I called him this morning but he didn’t pick up so I texted him:

You have nothing better to do than to backstab me, spread lies about me and create false stories about me izzit? Is your self esteem so low or are you so jealous of me that you feel the urge to talk shit about other people? I’m not pissed off at you. I pity you.

It’s a bit harsh, granted, but friends, I mean, fiends, should be able to give honest opinions about each other right? 😉

…and I really do feel a little bit of pity for him. He doesn’t just do it to me, he does it to all his friends. He would talk about other friends behind their back, putting them down derogatorily, usually with other people who doesn’t know the person around. He never does it in front of the person, he pretends to be nice to everyone but he’s well known amongst our group of friends as being a backstabber.

I used to accumulate an excess of temperature beneath a circular, tight fitting clothing component (Get hot under the collar in unpretentious terms ;)) by his behavior but I’ve come to terms with it and not be bothered by it, since most people who have known him long enough knows what he’s like.

My friend (this is a real friend, not fiend, and different from the person mentioned in this entry) told me never to text or write or react when I’m angry, which is good advice. However, I look at things in the Drawing of the Three.

The Drawing of the Three by sixthseal.com
1. Is the relationship worth it?
2. Can the person help you in the future?
3. Will the person help you in the future?

If it’s no on all three counts, then by all means, flame away. 😉

The most important aspect of it is #1 and #3. #3 is more important in a business oriented sense. Just because someone can help you in the future doesn’t mean that he will. My fiend is definitely not someone who is willing to help any friends, since all he cares about is putting them down.

It’s like he’s trying so hard to be the good little boy that he doesn’t even realize the social skills and PR required in the real world. Well, it’s not my problem anyway, and it’s not my job to tell him, since I’ve tried that before and he never changes.

It’s like sending dense shelly concretions through the air to fall in front of stout-bodied, artiodactyl creatures. 😉

Pat yourself on the back if you can decipher that last bit. Heh!

Do you have a fiend in your life?

Give me Libertas, or give me Death!

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liberty or death

Libertas is a South African Cabernet Sauvignon bottled at the West
Cape. I have been taking advantage of the new 5-day work week
implemented by our company to chill out on a Saturday afternoon after
sleeping in late.

libertas kfc

Melody brought some KFC over to my house and we ate the
X-Meals (is is just me, or has KFC burgers shrunk over the past
decade?) while I opened up the bottle of wine. I have now acquired the
discipline of keeping liquor around the house without the temptation of
consuming it immediately, which my addiction counselor would term as Progress (TM). 😉

libertas

Libertas is Latin for liberty, and the title of the post is made popular by Patrick Henry. Anyway, a 5-day work week may be the norm in KL and other parts of the country, but over here in Sarawak, it’s cause for celebration! =D

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