A couple of weeks ago I was treated to a 6D/5N trip to the Land of Smiles by Richard of Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT). It was a fantastic trip; I made new friends and in the process, got to know more about Northern Thailand, specifically Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai. Hello CK, Ernie and Terence!

As a vacation spot, Thailand has never failed to impress. Thailand was already one of my most favourite places to go for a break before the trip. During the trip though, I saw much more than its famed shopping, night life, islands and massages – I saw authentic Thai culture, architectures, history, animals and people!

#1 – Welcome to Thailand.

We reached Chiang Mai via Bangkok on Thai Airways. Right after touching down, we were whisked off to Chiang Mai Zoo. It is the first and only zoo in Northern Thailand where visitors can enjoy the experience of being with various animals in their natural habitat.

#2 – Giraffes.

There’s also a humongous freshwater aquarium housed in Chiang Mai Zoo. A humbler version of our KLCC’s Aquaria but no less interesting.

#3 – Fish!

Though the biggest highlight of the zoo must be the pandas! It’s my first time seeing a panda bear it had to greet me in the most unconventional way evarrr. Here’s a picture of daddy panda minding his own business…

#4 – Pooping panda

Basically, he was lying down with his arse over the edge and out went the stink nuggets.

You must be asking where mommy panda is? Since she’s just given birth, she had to be quarantined with the baby to prevent bacterial infections.

After daddy panda has relieved his bowel, he leisurely continued on munching bamboos.

#5 – Panda stocking it up for next round.

Everyone around the world goes to Chiang Mai Zoo to see the pandas. They love them!

#6 – Notes for pandas.

There’s also a beautiful Siberian white tiger which reminded me of Charlie. Don’t ask me how.

#7 – Siberian white tiger.

After Chiang Mai Zoo, we went to Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep, this is Chiang Mai’s most famous landmark and at 3,520 feet above sea level, it commands an exhilarating view of the city and its surroundings. You could scale a flight of 290 Naga-Flanked steps if you want, but I decided to take the tram instead :P

#7 – Tram to Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep

#8 – Or, if you’re in the mood for a little workout.

They’re right, the view was incredibly breathtaking!

#9 – View of Chiang Mai from Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep.

#10 – The Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep

After that, we checked into our hotel at Le Meridien Chiang Mai, where I was a man for two nights.

#11 – Mr Low. Quite a pimpin’ name actually.

#12 – The room.

#13 – View from the bathroom.

#14 – Bathroom mugshot.

Then it was a nice dinner at the hotel, followed by a superb massage at RarinJinda Spa.

#13 – On the way to dinner.

#14 – Prelude to an awesome massage.

Till the next post, kap khun ka.

My relationship with my boyfriend is filled with negotiations and deals. For instance, just a moment ago, I successfully negotiated my way out of vacuuming the house and drying Charlie up in exchange for him giving the mutt a full bath. Instead, I got to magic mop the whole house and comb him.

He thinks that magic mop is a farce and is essentially just pushing dirt around. I begged to differ. In fact, I think magic mop is one of the best inventions there is. I’m sure a lot of women would agree with me. At first, he asked why don’t I appreciate the vacuum cleaner. My answer to that: I can’t handle the long cable, and that someone should invent wireless vacuum cleaner (which I know exists and yes, I need to get one someday).

He called me a knob and then okayed to magic mopping but said that if he found the tiniest fluff of Charlie’s hair anywhere I would have to vacuum because it proves that magic mop is a sham. I told him to piss off cause even if I had vacuumed instead he would have found fluff somewhere…because I don’t have good eyes – my eyes trick me to think that the floors are clean. And he was like, you’re full of shit. I’m like no…I’ve got astigmatism, the light bounces off the floor and make me see things differently.

And then he groaned, mustered something unintelligibly and went on to wash Charlie, then dried him with a towel. I magic mopped the whole house in under 5 minutes including replacing the cleaning sheets (magic mop IS magic), blogged this and is about to watch tele while sipping a tall glass of fizzy tonic and apple juice concoction. The man’s probably going to comb Charlie later on too, I know I’ll figure out something to say.

So yes ladies and gentlemen, the moral of this story is that: if you want to get out of something, keep on…talking, even if it doesn’t make sense.

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i should be blogging, but am really not feeling so verbose these days. oh well i’m going to try.

i got roses this morning at the office. the babber secretly sent em to me for my impending birthday. he had just given me a brand new white nokia n97 just about a week ago. my bf is the best one in the world :)

i ought to blog about my recent trip to thailand but i just haven’t got the bleeding time to process any picture. i endeavour to at least write a proper post by the end of the week.

here’s a picture of my room at le meredien chiang mai as a teaser.

btw, i’m on leave till monday. am determined to pamper myself properly before going back to work…manicure, pedicure, massage the works. i can’t be hitting 25 looking like a banshee :P

wow, i’m going to be 25 very soon.

here are my posts of when i was:

21
22 – errr, i was depressed in Singapore so no birthday post :P
23
24 – Post 1, Post 2

I’m now blogging from my hotel lobby in Chiang Rai. Just got back from a 2 hour traditional Thai massage which had managed to knead away the aches and pains from the previous massages I had been receiving daily. Yes life is pretty good.

In a tram at Chiang Mai Zoo.

I spent two days in Chiang Mai where I saw a couple of temples and the cutest elephants. Do you know that you pay to learn to become a frekin’ elephant whisperer?? Okay, I made that term up but you get my gist…you could pay to learn to command and communicate with elephants at this elephant sanctuary. More on that after I get home to my big and lovely laptop (my fingers are aching already from typing on the eeepc).

Elephants painted this, I kid you not. Going for 500 baht each.

Thailand is a much more animal friendly country than Malaysia, every stray that I’ve come across looked well fed and pretty happy. Though I was nearly driven to tears just a while ago seeing a couple of sad looking puppies being sold by the cages at the night market. Needless to say every animal that I’ve chanced upon reminds me of Charlie including a mean looking white Siberian tiger. So bite me, I miss my dog :P

Am going to the infamous Golden Triangle, the motherland of opium trade tomorrow and to have lunch by the Mekong River. Then will be in Bangkok the day after, And don’t know when will I blog again so take care!

Guitar Hero is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. It helps to relieve my stress accumulated from work and general dreadfulness of living. My passion and lurve for Guitar Hero deserves a description no less dramatic than Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag.

Guitar Hero makes me feel like a major rock star, you know what I mean??

Playing guitar hero is no coward’s game. It’s really tiring, all those fingers movement and your head rocking back & forth. So I’ve got a delicious and healthy way to keep my energy level high – LURVE multigrain chips!

I’ve been a fan since it first came out, a little pricey but worth every cent. Lurve is made with no artificial flavouring, no added preservatives and is trans fats free. Where else can you find a snack so delicious and healthy at the same time? I totally agree with healthier snacking!

So I eat Lurve while I play Guitar Hero!

Here’s a video of me prepping up for another hardcore session doing something I Lurve, Guitar Hero! Check out my mad skills:

So do you have any Lurve affair? Have your friends tried to hook you up with Anonymous yet? If you do, then you stand to win a Mac Book Pro (13 inch,2.26GHz) by participating in Lurve “What’s Your Lurve Affair?” Contest. Just write a blog post entitled “My Lurve Affair with object/activity” and how you can relate it to the yummilicious Lurve multigrain chips. Submit the blog post lurveaffair@nuffnang.com with your full name, IC number, contact number and the permalink of your blog post. Also not to forget to include a line in your email saying that you agree with the term and conditions. Before that, read the T&C from here.

The Lurve Affair Contest runs from 23rd June – 12th July 2009. Entries will be judged based on creativity, content and style by representatives from Lurve Twisties. Winners of the contest will be notified via email or phone.

Besides a chance at winning the Macbook Pro, the Top 3 winners will also get to appear on TV for a full 4 minutes and be interviewed on 8TV Quickie.

I’d lurve to show off my Guitar Hero skills, what about you?

So we’ve been shopping for a home. Yeah, we figure after 4.5 years, it’s about time to go to the next level..but we need to get a house first. A place with ample space for our cars, for Charlie to run around a bit and a functional kitchen. We’ve been living in this tiny apartment for so long and I’ve particularly gotten really sick of it. Doesn’t even have enough space for a damn washing machine.

Long story cut short, we found this double storey terrace house near where we’re living right now and instantly fell in love with it. Told the agent we’re taking it. Told her we’re going to get the house valued by the bank and then come back with our offer price. Which we promptly did. Bank came back with the price that is about RM40K lower than what owner has listed. So after about a week of negotiations, we got the price down to our ideal…which is about 16K more than the bank’s actual valuation. We didn’t mind paying the extra, it’s a business after all and we really wanted the house.

So we got to arranging for our mortgage and after nearly 2 weeks, nothing has happened yet. Apparently, the owner has refused to handover the title to the bank for processing. Why?

Apparently, a different property agent has told him that she could sell his house for RM20K more thank his initial listed price!!! And to our horror, this greedy asshole of a house owner believes that his un-renovated, 15 year old, dirty house is worth RM60K more than what the banks have valued. So he refuses to sell it to us. Okay, so he’s greedy and stupid. What can we do? We can do nothing. Except for looking at different houses, which will be his loss eventually. Good luck selling your house dumbass.

What I’m really angry about is how what these agents appear to be doing, they are essentially spoiling the market for both buyers and sellers.

By seemingly jacking up house prices in order to make more money when there are ample buyers out there who would willingly part with their money for a reasonable above average market price. I am extremely pissed off by this and to whichever property agent that is reading this and is trying to pull a fast one, FUCK YOU.

Anyway, we eventually found out that the agents who in my opinion have been speculating with the market is these bunch of agents from this agency called J A Valley Properties. Their names are Judy Chong, Steven Chong and their daughter, Jesse Lee. If you’re looking to buy properties in Petaling Jaya, beware. It seems their modus operandi is to find out the owners of the properties, contact them and then promise to sell their properties at a much inflated price. Then they’ll get their colleagues from the same agency to do the same and before you know it, the owner is totally convinced that they have underpriced their properties. Mind you from what I’ve heard, these people don’t even physically value the properties or see pictures before conveniently stating the price. And who get screwed? Uninformed owners (and of course, greedy ones) and sincere property buyers like you and I.

I’ve actually contacted them way before this to view some houses they have listed on http://www.iproperty.com. But we eventually decided to stay away from them because I found that they tend to offer their properties around RM50K more than the market value or other property agents. They seem really damn shifty as well and keep shoving down your throats properties that are way beyond our budgets. Like wtf, stop wasting my time. Very persistent and annoying as well and doesn’t understand the meaning of “It’s beyond my budget”.

Here are a couple of house buying tips:

1. Drive around the neighbourhood you want and just browse for houses row by row, street by street. From our experience, calling agents up are frustrating. Of course, that said, there are professional & good ones out there, we’ve met a few. So good luck.

2. Always have the banks value the property before making a price offer. With the bank’s valuation, you have a solid benchmark for making an offer.

3. Check out Judy Chong, Steven Chong Lee and their daughter (whose name I can’t remember Jesse Lee) of J A Valley and learn what kind of property agents you should watch out for from them.

4. Research, research and research. Don’t ever be an un-informed buyer.

So, yeah we’re still looking albeit frustratingly. I hope we’ll find our dream home soon cause I’m itching to decorate.

p/s: Just because of a few rotten eggs does not mean that J A Valley Properties is an unreliable agency.