Chiangmai Trip

So I've been chastized for not updating the Lair for AGES!! Been busy at work and when i'm not working, i go for vacations!! Went to Chiangmai and Phuket since my last post update.

And YES! I went to "Love At First Bite" which is known for their fabulous cheesecake and highly recommended by Ling, Matt and Egg. Managed to find the hidden place thanks for Ling's direction on his blog. All was fine until one part where he said, "go NORTH", huh?! i was halfway walking and i see that... ahh?? where is north?!?! I don't have a compass with me!! lol... it was a crossroad and my first instinct was to head up straight.. apparently that's not north! Finally found north on my third try..hahaha.. I tried their white chocolate cheesecake and chicken pie. I guess my expectation was way too high after hearing all the good stuff from friends. The cheesecake was good and decent. About the same standard as Secret Recipe cheesecake. Didn't bring my big cam out that day and all the photos are in my Dopod, which I lost on my way back from Phuket few weeks ago!

Gonna make this quick so let's go straight to the Chiangmai photos! :)



Ride this elephant for half an hour across the village. Won't say that it was a peaceful and relaxing ride since every step was like going over a huge speedbump! And of course, had to lookout for those tree branches since i was so high!



My sticker to Maetang Elephant Park for elephant riding and bamboo rafting.



Bamboo rafting down Maeteng River. After going for whitewater rafting, bamboo rafting felt like a sedated ride.



Lisu tribe village



Also went for ox-cart ride



Picture made of gemstones. Chiangmai is well-known for their umbrellas and gemstones :)



Handmade paper umbrella



Random shot at Orchid farm... yawn.. it's part of the tour or i wouldn't have bothered.



Nightmarket near Changklan Road



Tuk-tuk ride at night


Food in Chiangmai!!!


Saturday market outside this shopping mall.. err, forgot the name.. that's what i get for posting my November trip now!



Bug snack!! Silk worm, grasshopper, whirligs, bamboo worms, etc. I've eaten them ALL!! hahaha



The grasshoppers are crunchy! :P



I like the bamboo worm! Bought some back for colleagues to try!



Also ate this... looks like normal egg cooked in banana leave right? Well... this actually is...


Egg with Ants' Larvae!!! Pretty okay stuff once you got over the ick factor... i got this milk-like liquid squirting out when i bit on those ants larvae... kekeke


Okay, that's that for Chiangmai. It was a pleasant trip but between Chiangmai and Phuket, i definitely prefer Phuket!! Love all the island-hoppings!! Similan Island is absolutely GORGEOUS!! Will post the pics from Phuket soon! ;)

New PDAphone - HTC Touch

2nd generation HTC Touch - I got this Burgundy color! :)

Lost my Dopod 838Pro a week ago and i got myself a new HTC Touch (2nd generation), not to be mistaken with HTC Touch Dual! HTC Touch Dual comes with a slide-down numeric keypad and a smaller screen. Didn't like the reduced screen size because i read ebooks on my pdaphone. Can't have a small screen for that!

So i went for the new 2nd generation HTC Touch in which HTC has wisely doubled up both RAM and ROM specs and added built-in Wifi feature. Yes! The original HTC Touch (1st generation) does not have Wifi but have 3G! So they switched that in the 2nd generation, put in Wifi and stripped off 3G! WTH! oh well, i'd prefer to have Wifi than 3G anyway so it works for me.

Considered HTC Tytn II but except for the built-in GPS, the build and design is very much like my previous Dopod 838Pro. Nothing new there especially since i already have external GPS paired with my previous phone. I'm now reusing the GPS with HTC Touch.


Sleek and slim - side by side comparison with Motorola Razr v3 (right)

Gotta love the sleek and slim design! My bag is now so much lighter! :) oh, not forgetting the TouchFLO too! :)

My only complaint is that it is really SLOWWWW when i open my ebooks on IE!! urgghhhh!! Had to wait few seconds for every scroll, oMG! I can't read that way!! So now i have to chop off my books into parts, thus smaller file size, to be able to read smoothly. yerghhh!! Other applications and phone features are fine though. Sacrificed some performance for the slim design?! yeah, why not! hehehhe

Desktop Peek

Got tagged by slowcatchupkuan who wants to take a peek at my cluttered desktop. hmm... so checkit out below!

yeah i know, it's pretty old and i need to get a new one. :P Took the screenshot last nite so i didn't cheat ya.. there's even time there. :) Gotta say that this is not THAT messy, i've had worse! Happy to note that my work laptop is tidier than this home machine, really! :)

Got my usual 24x7 applications open - Azureus, mIRC, Yahoo, MSN etc. The browsers are showing Facebook (i was throwing sheeps, biting chumps and throwing bombs at people as usual.. keke) and Gmail. Of course, there are many TABS inside my browsers!! haha





I'm tagging:
Patrick Ling
Egg
Loon (who needs to update his blog more often!! :P)
Forestfyre
Annice

Summarized instruction: Take a screenshot of your desktop immediately after reading this and post it on your blog. Don't clean up any of the icons.. no cheating ok! Then tag the next 5 bloggers. That's it! :)

Stuff I gobbled up

Yet more pics from the Terengganu trip! These are some of the food i captured on camera before gobbling it up!! Quite conspicuous lugging the big cam everywhere so i only bring it out occasionally.



Frankly i don't really know what this is. It's not lobster but probably a branch of lobster/prawn family. So freaking yummy!!!



Look like ebiko



Sotong bakar (grilled squids)... *drool*


That's the Garbage Bin drink on the right.. A layer of dragonfruit juice and a layer of mango juice with watermelon and laici on top for the complete rubbish effect.. haha.. On the left is lemon + apple juice with asam.


The purple drink is called the Amber Chia drink. If i remember correctly, it's blackcurrent and dragonfruit mix topped with laici and blackcurrent. On the right is a mix of kiwi and erm... gosh, i forgot.. that's what i get for procrastinating and posting this a MONTH after i've been back. :P

Anyway, we went the shop (it's a shop with no signboard opposite The Store in Chinatown) almost every night to try a new drink. The guy also made a few not-in-the-menu drinks in for us guinea pigs to try and made us guess the fruits in the mixture. Good thing that our stomach could handle all those fruit mixture.. :)



Nasi Dagang with ikan tongkol! yeah, i try to eat all the 'nasi' whenever i'm in Terengganu. Stuff like Nasi Dagang, Nasi Minyak, Nasi Kuning.. haha.. don't get those much in KL.



Fried ice-cream... Not a specialty there but something i came across and ordered. Not that good. I've tasted better ones.



Food aside, i have to post this.. haha.. took this shot from a moving car. Wow, they decorated the bus like a tradisional malay house!



Wood on the outside. Batik decoration on the roof inside... hehh



I was told that it's for tourists to hop in for a small tour around town for free. Nice :)

At the swamp river

Ibai's swamp river


More pics from my Terengganu trip. Went to the driving range in Ibai's Tuanku Mizan Golf & Country Club with both my sis and brother-in-law who came back for a hometown visit from Shanghai.

Golf is SO not my thing!!! Got bored after a dozen pitches.. blerghh.

Lucky for me, there's a swamp river beside the driving range. Spent half the time shooting there instead... hehh



No adventure, no thrill. Not my kind of sport - for now :P



... decided to take a walk and checkout the swamp river beside the driving range.



Ooo.. got fish around the riverbank



Crab hole.. hmm.. got crab?



oh yeah, lotsa tiny crabs.. what fun!



Here's another coming out from the hole






And it went back in when i put the cam closer.. ishh



It's so tiny i had to push the camera almost to the ground for these shots! No plans for telephoto lens though. Definitely too heavy for me. :P



Come out and play!



There are 6 fishes in this pic. Can you spot them all? :)



That's the plank i perched on while taking the pics above. Not that easy okay! Those fish and crabs didn't come out and just pose for the cam! The waiting game was quite fun though.. very calm and peaceful there and i had the entire place to myself! :)

Birds' Nest House Visit

Visited the swiflets' house to harvest a few nests when i was back in my hometown at Kuala Terengganu. okay that was like.. 3 weeks ago! In case you're wondering, swiflet is a species of bird which produces the edible bird's nest - a Chinese delicacy. Pretty good stuff if you don't think of the fact that the nests are made from the bird's saliva!! kekeke



This is the actual nest from the birdhouse - complete with feathers!! Swiflet's nest from the birdhouse are said to be much cleaner than the ones from cave



A fallen swiflet - this bird was slumped on the floor when we were going up to the birdhouse. Took it in my hand for pics and put the poor bird back where it's safe :)



Like a cave, the bird's natural habitat, it's pitch dark inside with a lot of bird's dropping! Euw, so smelly! We had to wear face mask and use this makeshift lamp whenever we go in to harvest the nests.



Gotta bring torchlights too! The swiftlets normally fly out and get back to their nests late in the evening, but there were quite a few hanging around when we went up during the midday



yeah, those white thingies are the nests!



Check if there's any egg or babies inside before harvesting the nest.



okay, time to harvest if it's clear



A baby swiftlet in the nest... probably newly hatched... geli lah.. haha



One of us accidentally harvested a nest with eggs inside! yikes!! We then put the eggs back in some other nest... hehehe



One of the many speakers that projects bird-like sound to attract swiflets into the birdhouse.



The nests we collected that day



Let's clean them and make some bird nest's soup!! Soak in water and pick out the feathers with this surgery-like tool... a freaking tedious process for sure!!



Especially those tiny, fine feathers!!! gosh, I have no patience nor the eyes (yeah, need good eyes for those tiny specs of feathers) for these!! My sis and the maid did it... nice and clean. Ready to be dumped into soup and eat! yumyum! :)



Still have a bunch of hometown pics. Will be posting more soon. They're all over my harddrive! :D