I'M BACK (FOR A WHILE)

I was in Miri last week for Lee Ling's birthday. Just came back last night! Was a great rest for me and therefore, I totally done too little of my work as planned. Sigh!

I have submission on the 25th April and a presentation on the 27th April so I will have little updates then apart from probably Champions League football, hehe!

I got a presentation tomorrow too. Therefore, I need some time off!

Will write abit about Miri when I am back after 27th April. Here are some things I found about Miri when I was there:

1. The weather is not as scorching hot as I thought it would be when I remember I was there when I was in my teens. I remember I was soaking in the hotel swimming pool and still sweating away! Probably because Sibu weather has gone hotter and I am used with super damn hot weather conditions like in Penang, Malacca and Kota Kinabalu. Sea breeze is definitely the main cause for all these coastal cities.

2. Miri food seems to be sweet generally. From fried kueh tiaw to their kampua, everything has a sweet taste - char siew sauce being the main cause.

3. Miri is dominated by Boulevard and all other shopping centres are almost half alive or totally dead. It is really very bad when you go into shopping centres and you only see like 10% of the shops there still operating.

4. Miri chicks are not bad, they are generally spending more time, money and effort on their wardrobe and makeup than Sibu chicks.

5. Miri only has 1 cinema left run by Star Cineplex, which is crappy! Ok, they have 4 cineplexes altogether. The Sibu version will have intervals where sound won't be heard from the speakers, the focus being totally lost on screen or sometimes you get a totally blank screen. Many times I find myself going out or somebody else to shout at the staffs to do something. Crappy! The Miri version has this constant problem of sound suddenly disappearing from your left or right speakers. No, it is not surround sound effect I tell you!

6. Miri city is actually not big. Probably the size of Siby city as well. Maybe just slightly more bigger.

7. Miri is populated more by the Hakkas so you can still swear in Foochow there to go unnoticed. Hehe!

8. Miri's two side to side resorts, Rihga Royal Hotel and Holiday Inn Hotel no longer existed and it is now Marriott and ParkCity Everly Hotel. I stayed in both the resorts when I was there during my teens and was surprised by the change! I dined at Marriott and it was not really as splendid as the one in Singapore. Rumours have it that the boss who owned both Rihga Royal Hotel and Holiday Inn Hotel was forced to sell them because of the debt of his son/s who bet too much in football matches!

9. Miri's food pricing is almost like in Kota Kinabalu. Kota Kinabalu has higher living standard because of tourism and Miri has oil.

10. Miri is very much a Taoist and Buddhist town. I went to a Methodist church service during Easter and they have like a congregation lower by around 150 people. They can easily identify newcomers for sure even how hard you tried to hide yourself! The evening service is even worse, like 50+ people looking at the bulletin report!

11. Miri has many parks which look nice and they have the 3 lanes roundabout. You always find traffic entangled on the 3 lanes, people wanting to go extreme left from extreme right lanes and vice versa. You can easily find many situations where accident is going to occur.

12. The city and housing estates are badly lit at night. It is all too damn dark with those ancient yellow lights.

13. They have a night market just like Sibu but only operating on weekends from Fri to Sun.

14. Miri has really huge mansions (especially on hill tops and sea sides) which have extremely rich owners with unlimited garden space. Still, when I see those huge mansions in Brunei, those in Miri are nothing. I saw one house in Brunei which has a main entrance gate with a road like the airport runway, lighted up just as long enough probably for the private jet to land. It is literally like a runway at night when the rows of lights are on! The garden is like 100 times bigger than my garden at home. They have this gigantic water fountain in front which is like those you get at giant city squares! Damn man! Talk about super luxury life!

We also drove to Brunei (which explains why I saw the gigantic mansion above). I will review the trip there too after the 27th. This is my second time there since when I was in my young teens. 10 years back? Man, the Jeludong Park is like a ghost town now! I recalled when I went there during my first time, it was fully packed and fully functional. Now? Most of them are dead and you need to pay! The good thing is probably you get to enjoy anything without needing to fight over long queues but the choices are extremely limited.

I just had my longest bumper car ride there. You hardly have crowd there so basically they let us drive through 3 full songs! Yeah man, you get to drive till you are sick of the bumper cars. Since there are like probably only 10 of us in the ring, the 3 staffs have to join in the action to give more bumping in the ring. Now, you understand bumper cars suck if there are not enough people in the ring. You hardly get bumped! Haha!

There is a time when we were at the road when the police came in their motorbikes and asking us to pull over for the Sultan's somebody in the fiery Lamborghini to drive through! Rich people have special treatment. Those lucky souls!

I just want to say that they have really damn nice rice! The rumours are true then that Brunei has good quality rice! Now, the last time I had great rice was the imported expensive American grown rice, the Japanese imported rice and the rice I had in South Korea. Reminds me of how awful our rice actually taste like.

OK now, you guys have a nice week ahead. I leave you with two steamy hot news from Japan.
Tomomi Kahala
Fertility Festival (check the video too!)