Here’s the Project Alpha Season 1 reunion in Kuching, which kicks off Season 2, all compiled into an easy to watch complete series!
Catch the rest of the season at the official Project Alpha website!
Project Alpha
Annah Rais Bidayuh Longhouse
Last post from the Kuching Season 1 Project Alpha blogger trip! This time we headed to a longhouse in Annah Rais – I’m familiar with this area, there’s a hot spring in Annah Rais which took us ages to find last time we were there. Here I present to you Aud’s tulan face – she doesn’t take very kindly to people waking her up (or the sun either). >.<
What do you do when you go to a longhouse? Why, my dear friends, you indulge in the hospitality of the local folks by drinking some tuak (rice wine). It’s also for sale for RM 10 per bottle. I drank most of the gratis tuak and bought a bottle so that everyone can have a taste and even lugged it to the bus (but finished it before I got to Kuching).
Old skool kettle for…boiling coffee or something.
We Maoris, we once were warriors – headhunting and shit like that.
I met this lady who has a husband working for PDRM. I instantly sat down and helped her peel shrimps while talking with her, much to Aud’s amusement. She knows Inspector K, MK, Sargeant AD from Narcotics too! Good thing she didn’t ask me how I knew them. 😉
…and what longhouse visit would be complete without an old woman chewing betel nut?
Bukit Mata Seafood Centre
Permata Carpark in Kuching is host to some of the freshest catch from the seas if you’re not in the mood to drive down to Lundu or Serian. It’s smack dab in the middle of the city. My favorite is ABC Seafood (Stall #10) and we went to Bukit Mata Seafood Centre (Stall #25) this very day a week ago during the Project Alpha shoot.
Verily, much has changed in Kuching but the popularity of this al fresco (a very atas word meaning open air) seafood court has not waned.
We had beef, prawns, ferns native to Sarawak, fish, noodles, bamboo clams and crabs.
Me and Aud ate quite a bit of the chilli crab – it’s pretty big by normal crab standards if you don’t compare it to Alaskan King Crab.
Mmm…crustaceans.
The sauce is tangy and sweet, with a hint of spiciness to it. It goes very well with rice, I just love the eggy and starchy texture of the gravy.
It was so good that I didn’t realize I cut my index finger multiple times while digging for that elusive crab meat. Lacerations galore. >.<
Orang Utans @ Semenggoh Wildlife Centre
We were at Semenggoh Wildlife Center to look at Orang Utans (which always reminds me of the way Caucasians pronounce it – orang as in “Oh, the phone just RANG) during the Project Alpha shoot in Kuching. This place is about 40 minutes from Kuching city proper.
This looks like Mr. Hussein when he was captured, except his beard hasn’t turned white from fear of Death From Above (TM).
One thing that I learned from the trip was that orang utans sleep in trees at night. These are tall trees on which they built nests using twigs to avoid pythons and other predators. I wonder how it can support the weight of an orang utan with those slender branches at the very top. That’s a view of their nest – they actually build one every single night to sleep in!
Perspective: This is how high they build their nests.
We had to walk down a muddy path to the feeding platform. These orang utans are semi-wild, fruits are placed there and the orang utans knows it. However, they will only eat the fruits if they can’t forage food – apparently they also eat stuff like lizards.
Unfortunately we didn’t manage to see any orang utans…
Except this one.
…and a bunch of escaped primates. 😉
Let sleeping cats lie
I’ve been so sleep deprived during the long weekend that I can’t even think straight. I want to write about the Kuching Project Alpha shoot but I’m so sleepy I don’t think even propping up my eyelids with metal toothpicks would do the trick.
Thus, I shall just put up this photo of a sleeping feline I saw in the longhouse visit and get some sleep. Not. Able. To. Type. Coherant. Sentences.
Oh ya, speaking of Project Alpha, first time I met Jojo, she was with Stephanie Chai (a fellow Sarawakian!). She just started a wedding portal called The Wedding Guide.
I reckon this would come in handy for me soon considering I’m turning 29 in about two months. 😉
Now…the only problem is finding the bride. Heh!
Meow!
Hello Kuching! It’s been a while since I was here, and a lot of things have changed – new malls Spring-ing up (haha bad pun), new hotels, and generally a lot more vertically inclined buildings scattered around the city. I daresay it’s about as developed as Penang now.
It’s a full day of shooting for us Project Alpha Season 1 bloggers and I only slept 4 hours last night so today is gonna be a long day! I’m quite excited though coz things look so new and different now.
We’re staying at 360 Hotel if anyone wants to drop by. It’s a pretty good boutique hotel.
Most of the people are here for the first time, and as a Sarawakian, I had to put up with a lot of “Oh, Kuching also got Shell/7-Eleven/(insert common franchise)”.
>.<
Project Alpha finale
This is the final video of my Project Alpha episodes. It’s also the last episode in the show which I dub “The one where I breathed fire using kerosene”. I was hoping for this to be in an episode by itself though. Oh well. This is a 3-in-1 episode which has:
- Fire breathing
- Drinks at Helo Bali
- Wrap party at Euporia, MOS
I actually got very, very excited by the fire breathing and did it several times in a row, much to the consternation of the crew. I guess it must have looked like I have an unusually healthy disregard for the safety of my life and limb. 😉
However, it wasn’t that hard – closest I got was a lil burning sensation on my lips when I didn’t expel the kerosene with enough force AND draw back (which is crucial so you don’t burn your lips). It was a lot of fun!
w00t! Now I can do this neat trick at BBQs or functions where an ample supply of kerosene or other flammable materials are available! 😉
Bad Idea (TM)
I may have ingested more ethanol based drinks than I ought to during the wrap party.
Worse Idea (TM)
I crashed my car straight after that and it cost me RM 11,000 in repairs. Sigh.
Worst Idea (TM)
I guess you can say that this episode cost me 11k, so go watch it!
Best enjoyed with Streamyx, of course. 😉
Hey, it really works for me – no buffering or crap like that when I watch it with my Streamyx broadband at home. I even wrote a dissertation analogy about the reliability.
The incriminating Episode 6
This is the episode I have been dreading. Cherie (my ex-girlfriend) came on set and gave the lowdown on how she met me.
I WANT TO GO ON RECORD HERE! That is not how I remember meeting her. T_T
The photo above was taken when we first met – Cherie is the one in green. This post describes the event leading up to when I first met Cherie and it does not involve toilets, washrooms, water closets or latrines. None. Nada. Zilch.
I wish Jojo and Michael would just run amok with the editing scissors and cut out the majority of the stuff. Heh! We did a couple of takes and there were things said which can best be described as uncomplimentary. 😉
However, there were some good things said too, which didn’t go into the final episode. Can we have an outtakes episode? :p
This episode was fun to do coz I had a (more than) a couple of beers while shooting the scene. You see, there’s this thing called “scene continuity” so if you mess up a scene but took a sip (or a gulp) from your freshly opened beer while at it, you’ll need a new one so it doesn’t look weird.
This means you have to finish the current bottle. FML. 😉
It was a good scene though, I like this one coz Cherie knows me well. I guess you can say that we’ve been through a lot together – it’s a chemical romance with its ups and downs but at the end, it’s nice that we can still be friends and say “Hey, when it was good, it was great right?” 🙂
Here are the other episodes that I haven’t posted up:
Episode 5
Episode 4
I use Streamyx broadband at home and I love the speed it gives me. I’m on the 1 Mbps package and YouTube videos loads right away. Instant gratification! =D
Project Alpha: A Peek Behind the Scenes
Episode 3 is up!
Okay, what on behind the scenes of a production like Project Alpha?
BTW, you see what I mean about not being able to move much on camera lest I fall down? My left ass cheek is on solid rock but my right butt cheek is hovering precariously off the rock. :S
There are a lot of makeup artists (MUA) doing what they do best – making you look pretty on camera. I even let them reshape my eyebrows. T_T
A lot of waiting under the hot sun…
…and a whole lot of shoots and retakes.
Okay, I’m a bit off today, promise I’ll do a proper post tomorrow!
Mama my nen nen got thing stuck inside
I love this chest X-ray. Pretty nifty eh? I don’t have a light box so I improvised with my window. Check out how my nipple piercings show through. =D
Project Alpha Episode 2 is out!
I finally remember why I’m so rigid in the episode – I was sitting precariously on a stone and couldn’t really move or risk falling down. T_T
I’ll post up behind the scenes photos soon!
Okay, gotta go, just received a BBM on my Xpax BB for breakfast!
