It was 8.00 AM and together with my family, we went for breakfast. Let me say this earlier, we have not had breakfast together like this in awhile. And I’m thankful for it because of this general election. In addition, I witnessed many other families eating together. One man with his grandfather looked so happy and proud – a sight rarely seen.
After a good breakfast, we left for the polling station and parked our car not far off to walk there. As we walked toward the entrance, we stopped at the SPR counter to check our room.
SPR clerk verification counter
After the verification, I was given a paper with the room number.
Room number 8
And as usual, my Dad jokingly was talking about 4D when he saw I was room number 8. *facepalm*
So once we knew our rooms, we walked in and join the right queue. There were several lines formed and a paper stuck on the wall roughly indicated the location of the rooms.
My queue was stupendously long from 1 corner of the block, across the bridge connecting to the next block, up the stairs and all the way further.
I kid you not.
The elderly and senior citizens had it easier because their rooms were on the ground floor. Some of the rooms there even had chairs outside for the voters to sit.
Sit and wait
Back in my queue, some voters were requested to proceed to their rooms ahead because the lines were short. However, mine was a long way to go.
My room was at the end of the line
When I reached the floor of my room, I was wondering that it would’ve been more systematic if they used the middle stairs you see in the photo for my queue. Because this would make it less confusing of which queue voters should follow. All the voters from Room 5 to 8 were in my queue, then formed more queues when they were on the top floor as you can see.
Anyway, when it came to my turn to enter the room, I was hoping to get the middle clerk to paint the indelible ink for me because I noticed he was neater. Whereas I got the first clerk and… -_-
Rather messy if you ask me
Once we walked out of the polling station, I felt really proud to do my share this round and I was strongly hoping for a change. As much as I know it wouldn’t really happen, I was still hoping in this round we’d give them a run for their money and they’d be sweating buckets to know we’re the generation to deal with from now on.
Now partially deaf. Partially without voice. But worth very minute of the more than 1 hour concert performance by the Japanese rock band; SCANDAL in Malaysia. Awesome!!!
Me and my bro-in-law went to catch the performance today. By the time we arrived, got out of the lift, more than 1 hour before the show, the queue had already reached the ground floor of KL Life Centre. O.O
The opening act was a female artiste by the name Haruta (I think). By the time we reached our VIP zone, the emcee had already finished introducing the opening act. Her songs were very soulful and acoustic. And the crowd just gave their support, regardless whether they knew her or not. That’s the Malaysian spirit for you when it comes to music. They even started cheering on the SCANDAL crew member who came on to do sound test on all the instruments. -.-!
The moment SCANDAL band members; Rina, Tomomi, Mami and Haruna came on the stage, they delivered an awesome performance with high-energy throughout. The crowd was well-behaved and supportive. I totally felt it was worth the money I paid. Plus, comparing if this was Anime Festival Asia, I’d never be this close to the stage!
SCANDAL performed around 8-9 songs from various albums. In addition, the crowd managed to persuade them and probably the organizers to let them play an encore. What a finale that was!
We decided to leave as the girls exited the stage because I was anxious to get a copy of their new album. I saw them on sale while entering, but couldn’t get them at the time. Luckily, there were still left!
Lo and behold! Muahahaha. Oh, and it was only selling for RM55 at the concert.
Thank you Rina, Haruna, Tomomi and Mami for coming to Malaysia. (You are the best!)
So much to talk about, so little time. Especially when you’ve selected your photos, edited them then by that time, it’s already late and you just had to go to bed. Thought to self; the things I do when I write a blog post.
Anime Festival Asia in Malaysia
After much commitment from Malaysians heading down to Singapore yearly for the Anime Festival Asia convention, it has finally crossed our (and Indonesia’s) borders. Held in the old Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC), where PC Fair used to be until there was too many complaints of stuffiness and disgusting BO stories, I couldn’t help but ask; why there?!
Busy ticketing counters
The ticket counters had long queues. Long enough that it worried the PWTC officers monitoring the situation. This was because there was some other AGM or something going on. Plus, PWTC is located next to a political party’s tower. So yeay.
And like our Malaysian road signs – not knowing it’s there until it’s too late, I heard from goldfries that apparently, there was an exclusive counter opened if you were a Canon user. Well, thankfully I got my tickets the previous day. By the way, speaking of bad signages, PWTC should look at themselves too because I didn’t notice any sign saying where was hall 1 and 2. The only hall I saw from the parking lot was Dewan Tun Razak 1 & 2. How’s everyone suppose to know THAT is hall 1 and 2?! *facepalm* Don’t get me started of having to walk across a bridge to the place. *sweats*
Once inside, we started patrolling the booths to see what goodies which interest us. We walked end to end within 15 minutes. It was very obvious which booth were real crowd pullers; maid cafe, butler cafe and KKNM (together with littleAkiba – friend of mine).
Ladies queuing to the butler cafe
Guys trump ladies with longer line to maid cafe
The queue goes around the KKNM booth
The other booths which were open (if I recall) were:
Danny Choo
GoodSmile company
Bushiroad
Macross Malaysia club
Online gaming
Sony Music
Canon
AFA shop
Event organizer
Malaysia Hatsune Miku party booth
Some other booths selling anime merchandise and cosplay items.
Danny Choo was not only hosting the festival shows but also promoting his Moekana Japanese language cards. And of course, he brought the lovely Mirai Suenaga with him to the AFA Malaysia edition.
Danny Choo figurine in his iconic storm trooper uniform
Mirai Suenaga figams
Mirai greeting people in her ride
Well, hello Mir...wait a minute...who are you?!
Hmm, I read quite a bit of chatter on Twitter about the Ultimate Madoka figure. Though I’m sure there’s a very good reason, please do tell me about it. However, I believe this was the model they were oogling.
Ultimate Madoka
When it got really crowded, making for little room to move *cough – PC Fair history* we mozied over to the next hall. This was where the stage activities were held along with the concert in the evening.
Ah memories
I must say though, using this hall for the concert was definitely a good move. It’s spacious just like AFA Singapore.
Making our way to the stage
The first show of Day 1 hosted by Danny Choo was with Tomohiko Ishii introducing the upcoming anime film; Re:Cyborg 009.
Tomohiko Ishii (left) and Danny Choo (right)
The Cyborg 009 production dates back to the 1960s for manga and the latest anime production was in 2001. I don’t recall watching the anime but I must say after watching the upcoming movie trailer, I’m going to hunt for the recent anime.
After Ishii-san’s segment, I noticed camera bearing guys moving to the front of the barricade. I pondered staying in my seat in the 3rd row then later standing on the chair, but I didn’t want to risk it. So I secured a seat in the front row.
Sitting beside me was a girl taking notes while her girl friend was snapping photos. They looked like journalist but my bet is they were real hardworking bloggers.
Spiral Cats (SP Cats) cosplayers
The reason for this camera horde was because professional cosplayers were coming on stage. Plus, both of them were Korean girls to boot.
The horde
Other than Danny Choo, he had a sweet lady co-host with him. Don’t remember her name.
Ohayou~
The SP Cats are a Korean group of cosplayers who are rather serious in the hobby. It takes them awhile to produce the gear and costumes. The pair who came down for AFA was the group leader; Tasha, and youngest member; Miyuko. Okay, I will shut up now and just post the pictars.
Q&A with SP Cats - Tasha and Miyuko
Tasha and Miyuko
Kuroneko and Black Rock Shooter
Tasha was looking at me!
She was doing it again!
Sweet Miyuko
Miyuko in what I call the Hmph pose
Surprising how a small change in pose makes a difference
Classic innocent skirt holding post
By the way, here’s a picture of the crowd seated during the morning show.
Don't think I'm in there
We had to leave AFA earlier because of lunch plans. And I found out later I missed the opportunity to snap some artistes on stage because they came out to wish the crowd. Oh well.
My only plunder of this event was the latest SCANDAL album. Primary reason being I didn’t have enough cash on me. From another perspective, that sounds like a good thing.
SCANDAL japanese band album
Overall, AFA Malaysia was alright. I’m hoping to see more booths open next year and that time, I’ll make sure to bring more cash. Also to the organizer, please bring down more Japanese acts!
And if you could, please give me a media pass next time. Pretty please. ROFL!
P.S.: When Joshua shared this photo, I couldn’t believe it.
Oh Em Gee I tell ya
Come to think of it, this isn’t Sheryl Nome from Macross right? Or, is it?
While driving back from an appointment one day, I was spacing out though my attention span was still on the road. Don’t ask me if that’s possible, it’s just something I do.
So I was thinking of how recently we’ve been talking about fairness and corruption in the country. Then, a thought came to me. What would it be like for 1 day, if all of us didn’t give the road authorities any room of opportunity to be corrupted?
*ting*
It’ll be like an awareness campaign to fight corruption. Or, the fun part about it, seeing the faces of the authorities who have no excuse to write you a ticket or stop you. Or the least, creep them out.
In other words, we’d drive them nuts. *grin*
This list is some of the common mistakes we shouldn’t let the authorities take advantage of, though I know it can be difficult for some – out of habit.
Wear your safety belt
Renew your road tax, on time
Use a hands-free bluetooth headset
Respect the traffic light – don’t beat it
Follow the speed limit – as stupid as it may be
Avoid making illegal turns
Park in allocated spaces
Pay for parking (or, at least check if you have to)
So, if we were to follow the law for 1 day or during the seasons when most drivers get caught, they’ll be driven up the wall thinking, “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG TODAY?!”
Because there would be little to no tickets to write. *evil laughter*
I know. My spaced out thoughts are living in a world too perfect at times.
Ariel had a friend down from Hong Kong and it’s her 1st visit. So, naturally as Malaysians, we’d show our friends from out of town our number 1 attraction – food. Here starts our journey of eating like a Malaysian.
The 6 meal path
It was said that we Malaysians eat a lot. Instead of 4 meals a day, we can eat up to 6 meals a day. This includes:
Breakfast
Morning tea
Lunch
Afternoon tea
Dinner
Support (better known as mamak)
Starting with the morning, we went for our national dish; nasi lemak (fat rice – litteral translation), at Village Park in Damansara Uptown. It was my 1st visit to this place too and after eating my first spoon of rice, I understood right away the attraction. The rice was very fragrant and the sambal (pronounced sum-bal) was just nice.
Unfortunately, I had to avoid the fried chicken because my sore throat wasn’t giving up on me. Damn you!
Morning tea – I think
After we took some time to kill and digest, we went off to SS15, Subang Jaya. I’m not a die-hard food hunter, however Hawk brought us to another food gem I never knew about, though Ariel did. We took our friend to have some rojak (mixed fruit) and cendol (traditional dessert).
Once again, I had to avoid the rojak because I was concerned the sauce would irritate my throat too much. And why do I care so much for my throat? Well, I’ve still meetings to attend the coming week and I don’t want to mime my clients later.
I did have some coconut next door and it was really refreshing. Plus, there was a lot of the coconut meat to eat. By the end of that, I was already full to the brim and I knew this was enough for lunch.
No room for lunch
Our earlier meals were still lingering in our stomachs. So we decided to take our time in Aquaria. And this was my 1st time, watching the feeding session at the main hall. However, me and Ariel with our backs to the wall could only catch glimpses of the fishes. Or, the much larger ones like the stingray, sea turtle and sand tiger shark. The shark was as big as the diver?!
Skipping lunch, we chilled at the food court and took in some ais kacang aka ABC (air batu campur), otherwise known; mixed ice shaving. This was another meal I evaded because of the sugar content found in this dessert.
The rest considered dropping into Pavillion or Sungei Wang, just to show our friend what those places were like, but I had to suggest for us to go back. It wasn’t so much of my throat but my body was feeling aches and I felt like I had chills once in awhile.
Preparing for dinner
After resting up, we headed over to Bangsar for some banana leaf rice. We found a great parking right in front of the Nirvana restaurant – wooohooo! It was already quite busy but we got seats in less than 10 minutes.
The mutton curry here is spicier than the one I frequent at Jalan 222. But I’ve to admit the deep fried bitter gourd here is tastier. So I pretty much killed my throat in the night.
Ending the night with mamak
Once we were done checking out both Bangsar Village centres, we headed on over to William’s for supper. The #1 dish we’ve introduced to most of our overseas friends here is the cheese naan. And we always tell them it was a must to eat it after dipping into the condensed milk. No questions asked – no matter how disgusting your friends may think it is. Because you’ll see their face light up and admit how good it is later.
So that’s 5 out of 6 meals, as we tried our best to eat the Malaysian way. If we maybe had less rojak and cendol, our bloated stomachs would’ve some room for fried koay teow. Or, maybe we went wrong somewhere else? Hmm…
They even started cheering on the SCANDAL crew member who came on to do sound test on all the instruments. -.-!
