Sunset Dinner

Oh! No! I think United for beaten. Certainly Villa was playing much better. Can't really complete if we got beat. They were just better in every department. Unfortunately, we did not have ESPN in our rooms. I warned the match at the bar with a colleague from Penang. He was an Arsenal supporters and did not stay for the second half.

We had a nice sunset dinner earlier. By nice, I meant the setting was nice, outdoors by the pool. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about the food. The salad was lame, and the rice dishes were basically fish, vegetables and chicken in layer of oil an inch thick. It was supposed to an outdoor barbecue dinner, and the only barbecue on offer was roast lamb. More cholesterol. I gave that a miss.

The company was good though. Spent the time chatting to guests from Australia and a colleague from private practice. I also spent time talking to a Pharmacist from Kelang, Ian. He also have an iPhone, a jailbroken unit. He put me through the paces of the alternative app store, where he could get most of the apps I owned for free. In return, I should him how I utilised my phone. Certainly I was more of an outlier from the way I use it.

U left the bar after Villa scored their second as the in house bags started playing their set. I can't really concentrate on the game by then, being tired did not help. I have another session tomorrow and have to pack early so as not to rush when we check out. The transport will be after lunch, catching a 4 pm. Flight. InsyaAllah, I should reach home by 6. I really need to rest after that as my Dad-in-law will be admitted on Monday for angiogram the next morning. Rays will be Wednesday and I may have to drive to Penang to visit my grandmother. She had been unwell lately and the whole family were concerned. I will be on leave on Thursday and Friday, and then will travel for an overnight stay in PD for another meeting.

Update on Sunday, November 14, 2010 at 8:35PM by Haris Abdul Rahman

Stop press! ManYoo drew with Villa with a couple of goals in the last 10 minutes! They still got it!

Return to Langkawi

I was writing this again upon landing in Langkawi. Will be here to give a couple of talks tomorrow before flying back Sunday. This time, we were put up at Sheraton, only 10 minutes from the airport. After settling in, we were taken for a nice dinner in Kuah town.

Dinner was Thai, and the dessert - pulut, sweet mango and coconut milk will definitely increase my cholesterol level! On the bus ride back to the hotel, I gave the boys and Anita at home a ring. I asked Irfan what he wanted from Langkawi when I get back? He said, he wanted an iPhone. Gulp! Boys these days.

Back from Langkawi

I reached KLIA at around 1.30 pm. The flight home was very smooth. Nice weather all the way. Straight onto the ERL and jumped onto a taxi for home. Reaching home, the boys went bananas with the Lego I got them.

After a quick lunch, we decided to visit my Mum at Bukit Antarabangsa she just returned from earlier in the morning. She was there for 4 nights on a shopping trip with her friends. She bought some toys for the boys and clothes for me, and no, the Merapi eruption did not disrupt Bandung. Business as usual over there. Her flight to Bandung was delayed for a good 4 hours, wasting her first day. That's Air Asia for you. I font think I can afford the time to take their flight as I would rather pay extra to be on time.

I was really tired when I finally settled down. Did some reading and here I am still up at midnight. Time to catch some sleep. I will blog specifically about the hotel I stayed later in the week. I also realised that I have been uploading plenty of pics directly from y iPhone 4 to Flickr. Might be a good idea to have some sort of link to have the uploads appearing on the aide bar of the blog. Need to make sure that it will not take too mug of the loading time though. Night night!

The cable car ride

Made it up. And made it down. It was quite the experience. Unfortunately the weather was cloudy and breezy when we got there. Even the platform was wobbling. With its spaced plank, you can look through in between and at times, that can be scary.

I went out with a group after the lectures when I was in Langkawi. I had the choice of either going to the town to shop or to the cable car ride in the north part of the island. I couldn't decide on what to do until late on. It all depended on the weather. It was bright and sunny at the hotel but looking at the horizon it was very clear that it could turn at any moment. Time to make the choice. Cable car it was.

After a 30 minutes bus journey, we reached the place. It was still sunny. Queued for another good half hour before getting onto the cable cars. Luckily we were in a groupi of six, the right size for the ride. We had a couple of photographer in the gondola, so they can't help but to stand at snap pictures. To be perfectly honest, the ride was steeper than I thought. There were a couple of stops. The first, being about three quarters of the way up - not much to see there. It took a good 5 minutes to teach this stage. Just a simple platform. We had to queue up again for the other stop. This second part was not as scary.

The magic was all on the second stop. A hike downhill took me to another platform, but this one arch between a couple of summits, making a great panorama. This was the scene I described in the top paragraph. The parabolic platform stretched for a good 100 meters. I was sure the view would have been amazing if the weather was right. Unfortunately as you can see from the photos, I was surrounded by clouds instead. Great fun if that was what you were looking for.

The journey down was actually nauseating if you compare to the ride up. The hiking from the platform to the station on the top stop was actually quite punishing. I would nit recommend it to elderly visitors or anyone not wearing the right footwear. There were more than a hundred steps to negotiate and the stairs were carved into onto the rockface. The handrails helped of course, but I can imagine it being slippery in the rain.

Would I recommend the ride to everybody? Definitely not for the elderly and those not fit. The cable car ride was scary for young kids I'm sure, and there were not enough warning beforehand to tell the patrons what to expect. Everything seemed to have been taken for granted. The safety aspect and the instructions on what to do during emergency. I expected charts and leaflet, or even video shows about what to expect being shown whole we were queuing. But, if you are a keen photographer like me, I would most definitely go again, but I will pray for the right day to do so.