Gua Tempurung Trip

This is the 1st trip that i have with my colleagues after more than a year in the company, apart from work visit to Singapore. That doesn't count =)

This trip was organised by Joe though he's the person who join latest in our team here. He been to Gua Tempurung before and he's recommending it to us. Actually this is not my first time visiting Tempurung. It's my second time. I had a feel of it when i was 12 years old. ha ha... i don't remember much of it, but things does changed alot here.

We've 10 person in this cave trip which is primarily consists of iHR and TRI team plus Joe's and Teng Foong's friends. The plan was to reach there at 9 and it tooks around 1.5-2 hours journey. I think you can figured it out what time we depart from KL.

We divided into 3 cars, 1 from south, 1 from north, and another one is 1 way trip car(for those going back hometown to Ipoh). I'm from the south, so i'm travelling together with Joe, Joe's friend, and Kelvin. I have to reach OUG at 5.45am (supposed to be) to meet up with them and have a breakfast with them before departing. Um.. well.... i did reach at 6am+, not too late right =)

Taking breakfast @ mamak opposite Shell petrol station (6am).

On north south highway trailing Jimmy's car.

Teng Foong, his friend and Lee Chyee at our back.

The scenery along the journey.

This is what will happen when your age is catching up on you.

After approx 2 hours of driving, we finally reach the place. Exit Gopeng from the highway and you'll see road sign directing to here.

The price list. 

They have 2 types of tour. Dry and wet. Wet will be more adventurous and it'll cover the whole path, while dry only covers till certain section in the cave and which is the one we're going for (since a lot folks not keen on getting their legs wet).

Enjoying the scenery there.

he tour will start at 9.30 am, so we'll need to wait awhile for that.

Inside the cave. Everyone is very excited. The guy in black/orange is our tour guide (even him complaints Sasha talk too much).

The path is long and have a lots of stairs.

It's extremely dark in there and most of the picture that i took in the cave is not viewable =(

This is the bad of PS (point & shoot) camera in low light condition. But atleast Jimmy took some nice picture inside of the cave.

They have spot lights at certain interesting point in the cave and that enhance the beauty of it. Some of the scene inside is spectacular. Even gives you the feel similar to LOTR (the part when they're in the cave). The space in the cave is very huge and it has some drawings left behind from those staying there during the war. Some section in the cave is very windy and some stuffy.

One of the picture took in the cave.

That's all bout Gua Tempurung. Next we're heading for Perak Cave and Kek Look Tong in Ipoh. Teeng Foong is our tour guide now.

We had our lunch before heading to the next cave at Ipoh dai shu giok (eatery place under a big tree). 

Kek Look Tong cave. 

This cave is famous because there's a lake behind it. And well kept too.

This is the place for dating as i can see quite some numbers of couples there. Even Joe been there before with his ex gf.

Nice place to relax.

2 dslr worshipper exchanging techniques.

Leaving Kek Look Tong.

After this we proceed to our last cave of the day, Perak Cave. We couldn't do any more walking after this one. It's freaking lots of stairs!

You can write your name at the tiles. with some donations.

Kelvin got a (siong siong chim) dunno what it called in english. future forcast?

Half way to the top.

Haih, why everyone so slow one... can walk faster or not? 

This is only one of the picture. There's alot of steep stairs. It's very tiring to reach the top.


This is top. Lee Chyee and Teng Foong is enjoying the view.

There's another viewing point opposite our's.

It's already 3pm+ after visiting Perak Cave. and we're heading back to KL and call it a day. We stopped by Bidor for the famous duck noodle and by some fruits before continuing back to KL. The rains accompany us all the way back to KL and i reached my house at 8pm+.

After all the tiring walking and hiking, overally it's a great experince and should do it at least once? Hope Lee Chyee didn't regret following us for the trip at the last minute =)

Cute Bike!

I was heading for gym @ Leisure Mall on Saturday afternoon and notice this cute bike. I don't feel anything special bout this bike at the 1st glance, but after few seconds i was like "eh, how come this bike is like that?" and i quickly snap 2 picture and coolly walk off =D




Look at the body! so cute, haha! even the rim is in pink.

Fullhouse @ NZX

Heard about this nicely deco restaurant from my friends and pictures from their facebook makes me wanna try out this new place Fullhouse @ NZX. For those who don't know what is NZX, it's stands for Niu Ze Xui located at Kelana Jaya. But NZX is an acronym for "New Zealand Stock Exchange" too, so don't get the wrong idea about getting any stock tips or infos here =D

Going to the place is quite "not so direct" because it's like a hidden city similar to those in "Indiana Jones". You'll need to go through all the small residential roads and a tunnel before reaching there. The place is nice conceptually, but it turns out to be a bit of "rojak" and bad location. Imagine you can have a nice restaurant/cafe at a corner, but along the stretch you can get a lousy coffee shop. A very confusing theme i must say. As for the location, a feeling that you'll need lots of efforts in order to reach the place (maybe not for those who stay nearby). You won't have the chance of bumping into NZX (e.g. Mid Valley, Leisure Mall) and have a thought of "hey, why don't we just have our dinner here?". Doing business is all about location apart from your products and services (for retails). They're losing out there.

Anyway, there's still a gem there in NZX =) Nicely deco restaurant/cafe, one of its kind in KL (AFAIK). Lets the pictures do the talking (camera phone, bear with the quality).


Sitting near the entrance.


The cat clinging on the glass bowl can be taken off, it's just hanging on it. How cool is that?


Cappuccino mushroom soup (mushroom soup with foam on top).


Tea on pot.


Upstair, just after the staircase exit.


They're selling accessories and cloth too!


The Entrance.


Coincidentally bump into Becky, she blogged about this outing too.

Conclusion, foods so-so, environtment nice, service good, location bad.

Running Java 5 Compiled classes/Jar on JRE1.4

Most of you might not need and bother to know about running Java 1.5 compiled classes on JRE1.4. Why? you don't need to. Run with JRE1.5 or higher. No issues.

But sometimes, though i admit it is very annoying that you need to run in that behaviour. You might happen to have a set of codes which relies on an 3rd part API that is Java 5 onwards compatible (i.e. Apache Camel) and it's working great and *SNAP* there's 1 client that still running on JRE1.4 that need to have that functionalities. I've panicked for about 5mins myself until i came across this "Retrotranslator".

Retrotranslator enable you to run Java 5 compiled class on JRE1.4 or 1.3 in 2 ways.

1. Transform the classes/Jar into Java 1.4 compatible.

2. Run Java 5 class on JRE1.4 using Just-In-Time(JIT) Retrotranslator to translate Java 5 byte codes to Java 1.4 on the fly.

Personally i'll prefer first option (not knowing how is this Retrotranslator behaving). After using it for some time, i found it's quite stable and have no problems at all =)

Here's how you convert a Java 5 classes/Jar to Java 1.4:

java -jar retrotranslator-transformer-n.n.n.jar -advance -srcjar 

The "-advance" option is to resolve compatibility issues between Java 5 and 1.4. Such as new methods that found in Java 5 but not 1.4. But it has only limited support. After running the Command, the jar file will be converted into Java 1.4 compatible. Now you can use this Jar on JRE 1.4. 

For more information, please refer from http://retrotranslator.sourceforge.net/

Bad Shoes Day!!

I was attending my friend's house warming on friday night and had a crazy night cuz alot of my old college friends were also there. Playing alots of stupid drinking games... really play until you scared. Ok good. Party over. everyone go home... say bye bye to everyone. So drive back lor.... reach home at about 2am+. open the main gate, close it, take off my shoes, open the door, go inside, close it, and straight to bed and dozed.

So everything is great and fine until my mother knocking on my room door in the morning and told me that all of our shoes got STOLEN!!! I was like... WTF? my leather shoe, nike sport shoe, adidas sneaker, GEOX casual shoe all GONE! luckily i left my slippers in my car and that's the only things i can wear on my foot now! Those thieves nowdays... even shoes also want to steal.

Now i can't go to work, gym, or any outings that requires you to wear a shoe! here goes few hundred bucks to get a new leather shoe for work and a sport shoe. At least my working shoe before next tuesday. If not i'll be wearing slippers to work =D

The moral of the story is keep your shoes locked or inside the house and curse you all shoes thieves!!!!

Buck Consultants's New Office Opening Ceremony

This is the new office of Buck Consultants located at IBP (International Business Park), Jurong East. Moved from GB Building, Tanjong Pagar. The new location is similar with TPM (Technology Park Malaysia). A lots of trees, large area... etc etc.. but not as convinient compare to the previous office because not much shops around and the MRT is a bit far from office (15min walk).

I'm sure the ppl in Buck will miss the old place. But in return they'll have larger, new fresh office and cheaper foods =)

Anyway, here's the opening ceremony video. Enjoy.

Boon Lay's Night View

Boon Lay, Singapore. Taken from Summerdale 7th floor.


night view when the Jurong Point is well lite up.


Different white balance setting.


Quiet night.


Night view after wee hours.

Buck's New Office

Specially posted for Acser. This is how new office looks like :)


Creative building, IBP (International Business Park)


Building lobby.


This is the looong ..... walkway we need to endure everyday :(


Jean in action.


Caught Lee Chyee secretly use my laptop while i'm taking picture ><


The Pantry.


Larger space compare to previous office. Notice the glass room on the left? That is an outsourcing room which is secured by access card. Only permitted staffs are able to enter.

Lunch @ Fong Lye

Both of us me and my sister were at home and wanted to go out for lunch. After a hard time thinking where to go for our lunch she recommended us to try out 'Fong Lye' a Taiwanese restaurant at 'The Garden' Midvalley. There's a lots of new eateries opened at the new Midvalley mall extension.

So we're drove all the way to 'The Garden' from Sri Petaling and the great thing is NO JAM :) Today is a public holiday though i can't remember what holiday is that.

The restaurant is nicely decorated and the food is nice. But a bit at the pricy side. Anyway here's some picture.


Enterance.


Taken from the outside.


We ordered rose tea. Not nice :(


My sis lunch set.


Typical Taiwanese stuff.


Mine.

The Food is okay. But considering paying RM14-20 per set of the meal is not really worth it. Better go to Dragon-i. But just for the sake of trying it out.

Took some of the picture of Garden outside of the restaurant.


Zig zag bridge.