Zheng He Tea House and another day in Malacca

A couple of months ago, Leong T. asked if I could host some visitors from the UK office. They were coming to Malaysia for a holiday. I figured, sure. No problem. So I started communicating with one of them, Tracey B via email to make the arrangements. They took me up on an offer to do a 1 day tour of Malacca.

When 26th Sept came around, I was to pick up the party of 4 (Tracey B. Paul C, Mark and Helen) from Traders Hotel. Couldn't believe that I was so careless. I had NO idea what they looked like. I called Traders to check if Tracey had checked in and was told " she had reserved a room in June, but.... had cancelled". Cor Blimey!!

Luckily Tracey did ask Leong for a photo of me, so she could recognize me. Phew!! Turns out they had booked in under Paul's name. not Tracey's. In addition to the party of 4 from UK, I had also invited Alexandra W to tag along if she wanted to get material for a Malaccan writeup. She accepted and so, including my son, we had 7 for Malacca that Saturday.

I had written about Malacca in general just a couple of weeks ago and so this time, I would like to highlight Zheng He Tea House (pronounced as Jerng Her). The tea house is part of a complex of the Zheng He Cultural museum, the Tea House and a Mazu Temple adjoining the museum.

2 weeks ago, we kind of stumbled upon the tea house when we were walking along Jonker street. We came across this strange entrance that was less than 1m wide, with the grilled locked up. Strange entrance, we thought. There was even a thought that this was an entrance to a brothel or something similar. The narrow walkway stretched about 50m in, with high walls lined with creepers. By the evening at 6pm, the grills are unlocked and a tiny Indian lady invites anyone passing by to step in. And that's how I made a new friend in Malacca - Bianca.

As you walk in, you will pass a room made up like the ship hold, with urns on one side for storage of food and a very tall giraffe on the other (or as one of my friends wrote - "come face to face with the BUTT of a giraffe"). This was to represent the ship that Admiral Zheng He used in his voyages to discover the world in 1421. There is a guided tour of the museum (fee not free) that is arranged by the museum people.

Bianca Pak, her husband, Mr. Laiand 3 kids run the Tea House on behalf of the museum and also takes care of the Mazu temple too (again on behalf of the museum). Unlike that very narrow entrance at the back, the front is a very normal entrance with 2 stone lions guarding it. The entrance to the Mazu temple is locked from the street and entrance is only via the Tea House as the Mazu statue is an antique.

Within the ground floor, you can find a 600 year old well, a huge bronze bell in the courtyard, a puppet theatre which shows the voyages of Admiral Zheng He and another area upstairs that exhibits photos and pictures (free not fee).

For a small fee (RM20 or RM30), you can get a pot of tea, with Bianca and family showing you how to prepare and indulge in Chinese Tea drinking. If you have been like many tourists, walking all over the Stadhuys and Jonker Street for a better part of the day, the Tea House offers a short respite to rest your weary legs while enjoying quality Chinese Tea.

I have just learnt on this visit that there is a 2nd floor (3 floors in total) and neighbors of the museum had only just recently fedback that they have been hearing children playing in the museum past midnite. There had also been instances when the drums were beaten around 3am. BUT...... nobody stays in the museum or tea house when it close for the night!!! The Chinese 7th month (also known as the Month of the Hungry Ghosts) just went by. You go figure.

And for this visit, Alex also made a new 'friend'.

Facebook and some of it's applications

Facebook offers an avenue to keep in contact with all your friends and acquaintances (if they have a facebook account and uses it). So what do you do when you do not have a need to contact your friends? You play games!!

At first, it was just a poke at your friends to let them know you are still alive.

Then you had social games, like all the variations of farming. I started off on Farmtown, then got invited to Barn Buddy, Happy Farm, Farm Pals, Farmville and so on. There was also mafia Wars, Restaurant City and so on, which made you jump through hoops to gain points and jump levels and earn money at the same time. After a while, you begin to realize that they became meaningless.

As of today, I have retired the following games
a) Farmtown. I have managed to reach the self imposed level 34 (in order to buy the mansion for 1,000,000 coins). Towards the end, the game became meaningless, other than to attain that mansion. Once I got that (actually I got 2), there was no incentive for me to continue. So I just redecorated the farm by partitioning the farm with all my fruit trees, place in several bungalows and just leave it as it was. No flowers to water, no plants to harvest. Finis!!
b) Barn Buddy. No I have not reached the top levels. But what is so interesting about a game that encourages you to steal from your farm neighbors? As every one's level went higher and they planted more expensive crop, you find that it became more profitable to steal their crops than to plant your own.
c) Happy Farm. For the same reasons that I retired Barn Buddy, Happy Farm is also retired. And not many of my friends are on this game anyway.
d) Bejewelled Blitz. Every week, the game is reset and you start all over. I've already found out that if I play it long enough, I will get anywhere between 100K to 125K. I have MAD friends who often exceed that. So what is the fun of playing the game?
e) Restaurant City. Sure, I buy or earn enough ingredients to up the levels of my dishes so that they can earn more points which in turn helps me to move up the levels. And then..... so what? I get a bigger restaurant with limited staff? It has become meaningless.

And when I went to edit my FB applications, I found at least 60 applications that serves really no purpose. Collecting hearts, hugs, puppies, cute animals, Starbucks, Winnie the Pooh, etc.. So I have gone and deleted all these applications.

I am now waiting for Farmville to reach level 34 so that I can buy the mansion and shut down my game as well.

Another one call it quits

This year seems to have a record in terms of the number of people leaving the company in the KL Sales Office!!. Just in the past 3 months, we had Oi Chan and Jayson followed by Ee Chia and last Friday, we did a farewell bash for Kah Weng. Are there more to come?? Do they truly have better prospects elsewhere or they just quit because they cannot take it anymore? Your guess is as good as mine!

For KW's farewel, the organizing committee suggested a few places and the majority opted for Tenji Restaurant at Solaris Kiara. The place served Japanese buffett at RM88 ++ per head for dinner. Including KW, we had 15 people for the night. Getting there was almost a nightmare because of the traffic and poor road directions that we got from the net. All of us managed to make it eventually.

Tenji had a wide spread in their food selection. There was even a section serving local dishes. Outside of the dining area, there was a BBQ pit with a lamb roasting over it and another with crabs and satay being prepared. Dinner is from 6 to 9pm. After that, supper is served for another RM88 ++ per head!.

By some's reckoning, Jogoya has better value for money. Hey! You never know till you have tried.

Kah Weng- wish you all the best in your future endeavors. Burp!!!

Malacca for a weekend

We had planned to go to Malacca on the Merdeka weekend, but since that was an extended weekend holiday, there were no rooms available. So we opted for the following weekend, which was also an extended weekend holiday but only for selected states.

We?? Who's we?? Essentially it was Elaine C and her family together with my family. After having made the arrangements, my wife tells me that she can't go as she had another dinner that she had committed to that same Saturday. Oh well, as room arrangements were hard to manage, we went ahead. there was Shirley, her 2 daughters and their respective boyfriends in tow. And there was Alex and I.

Elaine told me they will start their journey from PJ at 7am, so I got Alex up by 6.30 so that we could meet up either half way or in Malacca around the same time. Turns out I was a little earlier than them. So we drove around a bit to get our bearings and stopped by at the Santiago gate. This part of Malacca is famous as the area where the Father of Malaysia made the historic announcement on the British granting independence to Malaya. The car which was used to transport Tunku when he made the announcement is on display here.

When the Cheongs arrived, they parked at the Stadhuys, so I re-parked there and from then onwards, we walked all over between Stadhuys and Jonker Walk. Within a short while, we were hungry. First stop was at the Hoe Kee Chicken Rice shop. They serve the famous A'Famosa balled rice chicken. Chee Meng who is a pseudo Malaccan on account that he had spent significant time in Malacca before, says that this stall was good. Hmmmm. I swear the Hainanese chicken rice in Kl and PJ tasted better. In any case, all the Chicken rice stalls in Jonker Walk had long queues after 12 noon on account of the huge influx of tourists!!.

Then it was Chendol time - again on Chee Meng's recommendation. Man!! The Gula Malacca used was so thick and syrupy!. But as we were walking into the chendol shop, some of us could smell something deliciously odorful from the next stall - assam laksa. So after chendol, it was assam laksa. I was having a bacterial infection in my stomach and had to forgo this, but it sure looked delicious.

And we then went off to Batu Berendam to eat coconut jelly. This was a pandanus type of coconut which was processed in such a way that the coconut juice became jelly. Very interesting and the jelly tasted pretty good too.

After more walking and shopping, it was time to check in to the hotel, take a short rest and recharge for the night.

Dinner was at the Portuguese Settlement in Ujong Pasir. We did talk abut going to the Malay stalls much further out, but since this was the fasting month, we could run the risk of not getting any food at all. The food wasn't too bad. I liked the Portuguese BBQed fish best of the lot. Just right. And this was even as I am recovering from a really bad stomach upset. The crab?? I think I do a better black pepper crab. This one was too salty for my taste.

Then we go back to Jonker Walk again for the night market. After driving around for a bit, we managed to park the car. As luck would have it, it was near the place that Elaine C was looking for - the pineapple tarts place. This shop has freshly baked pineapple tarts - hourly!! They had also won an award in 2004 from the Malaysian Book of Records.

Of all the wares hawked all over the night market that night, Shirley wanted the CD repair kit the most. Even scratched CDs?DVDs could be repaired by this magical kit. I think what the vendor did not say clearly was that the repair MAY be temporary only and a backup should be made.

It was a long day!!

Day 2 started with a quick stop at McD to get Alex his fix before all of us proceeded to a Dim Sum place recommended by Chee Meng, our honorary, pseudo Malaccan. Sad to say, he lost points big time on this one. Never mind, CM. there will be other times to make up for this!!

The Cheongs went back to Jonker street to walk about while I went back to the hotel to do the checkout. Then I rejoined them a little later.

Spent some time in the Cheng Ho Tea House (which I will write about separately later) and finally ended up in Nyonya Suan for lunch before heading home. Had my camera all ready, but when the food arrived, forgot to snap any pictures. WTF!!

Tiring but enjoyable weekend!!

I will be back end of the month as I host 4 visitors from Agilent UK.

Yet another colleague leaves

25th Aug was EeChia's last day.

Some of us got together to give her a farewell dinner on the previous Friday. We had our do at Euro Deli located in Damansara Kim. Euro Deli serves a range of Sausages, Bacon, Ham, Bread rolls - you get the idea. Essentially, Euro Deli (as the name suggests) serves European food. Duh!!!

We ordered a couple of sausages platter, a couple of pork knuckles and beer. Some of us shared a 1 pint beer (cost effective) and some thought they could finish off a pint by themselves. All I know is that Irene and Kah Weng loses their inhibition after a couple of gulps of beer. Very interesting.

Good Luck to you Ee Chia in your future endeavors.