Latin American Festival

We just made a turn coming out of Low Yat, and the next thing we knew was there was a big crowd with loud music going on. A street party.

A closer look and it was a the 7th Latin American Festival, promoting tourism there. Hard to realise that they had been doing it for that many years. It came complete with party, bazaars, stalls as well as dancers. Pretty fun actually.

Unfortunately, we were not really able to sample the food since not all of them were Halal - one of the store from Cuba was, so we did grab a snack. The rest were alcohol-fuelled activities. Great fun, but we didn't linger around for too long.

I was sure the party would go on for a lot longer judging from the spirit of the South American crowd who turned up. They were dancing away as we left. Great stuff!

Definitely would be visiting again on the next issue.

Berjaya Times Square Again

I thought the increasing number of shops at the BTS during the CNY period was only short-lived. But I was wrong. The place was buzzing this Sunday afternoon when I went there with Anita.

Most of the shops on the lower floors were occupied and the restaurants were full. The bazaar on the third - called Central Park - floor was in full flow, where Anita did a bit of shopping. While she was there, I surveyed the upper floors and was surprised to learn what they were selling there.

Second-hand luxury items! Handbags and watches among others and they were going at some surprising rate. LV handbags for RM30K! Some Panerai watches going for around RM10K which I though was well below the market price. Worth having a look although I was sure I would get conned since I don't know much about them.

But certainly fun to look at.

Next stop was at the famous indoor amusement park. It was pretty quite. Guess folks were not into these anymore these days .... But the cinema was full though.

This huge shopping complex was certainly making a move forward. There was also some shows going on at the main entrance being televised from the looks of things. Would definitely be doing more reading about those watches ....

The Dodgy DVDs

I tweeted this afternoon that I was heading to Sungai Wang to get some ‘dodgy’ DVDs. The impression that I created to everybody was I was looking for porn! Far from it, especially there were torrents for those. I was looking for movies and TV series actually. Which bring me to the reason why I did that.

I wish that I was able to download these series legally in Malaysia. Unfortunately, there are a couple of snags to that, and I do not mean the problem with censorship. Yorais have to earn his living for that obviously, so I will just let him worry about that. The couples of problem I meant was the fact that legal outlets such as iTunes, Netflix and Hulu will never see the light of day in Malaysia. If you were resourceful, and many of us in Malaysia were, we can use a US credit card and have an IP proxy, and iTunes will be in your lap. Unfortunately, the second issue was more complicated. We have yet to have extensive really high quality fast broadband available. Without such service, these streaming and downloading services would be meaningless. Time Broadband sounded promising with the fibreoptics connections it offer - purported to carry data at up to 50 Mb/s. YES 4G was still not extensive, and once it has reached a bigger coverage area, the speed might start to suffer as well. Unifi seemed promising, but judging fromTM’s past performance with Streamyx, I would want to watch the space first before believing it to be the best thing since sliced bread as the service claimed to be.

Heavy traffic leading to Sungai Wang todayTreat for the boysIn the meantime, I could still download and stream some torrents down on my 1 Mb/s P1 Wimax connection. It had its moment, but lately, with the increased coverage in Lembah Kelang, the speed suffered as well. Alternatively, would be a quick trip to Sungai Wang to visit my friendly pirated DVD vendor to get my fix. Don’t get me wrong, the operating system and softwares in my computer were all original, even the games. Why did I buy them at such price? Because they were available to be bought. The vendor was kind today, and I managed to get hold of the latest seasons of Madmen, Entourage and Fringe! Puan Anita got her wish as well - Glee and Tru Blood.

Idlan and Irfan met the Power Rangers

It was Saturday once again and Irfan was due for his Pingu class. I had to do my ward round this morning. I had to leave early, finish the round, then headed back to fetch everyone back to Bangsar. Missing my breakfast, I had my brunch at Delicious in Bangsar Village II. Class finished by 1.30. Time to head for Sungai Wang.

Latte at DeliciousIt started raining heavily on the there, and parking was full. We had to move along and parked at Low Yat, right down to Basement 5. Brought the troops up and had to cross over to Bukit Bintang Plaza. For Christmas, Sungai Wang had a promotion going, with the Power Rangers character appearing during the weekends. There was an appearance at 4 pm. Since we arrived early and got our tickets, we waited along at McDonald's for more snack. We were right in front of the queue by 3.45.

Irfan browsing the toys while waiting for the RangersIdlan waiting patientlyThe Power Rangers appeared right on time. There were only 3 of them though, not the usual 5. It was not the original character, but the spin-off called Jungle Fury. Don't worry, my boys knew all about them, what their real names were and what they do. Daddy was disappointed as the good old pink Power Rangers did not make an appearance.

The stage where the Rangers came on to. Unfortunately I got my hands full with the biys when they came on stage and did not manage to snap.The scarf on their neck made the swans looked kinda .... gay!When the time comes to go up the stage for the photo-op, Irfan had a stage fright. Idlan was fine and went ahead to have his pics taken, all smiling. That cost us RM10, then we waited for about 15 minutes for the photo to be developed. We were all tired at the end, but unfortunately, the rain fell again and we had to wait for the drizzle to stop before crossing back to Low Yat.