The Adventures of Tim Chin

One night, the 5 siemreapers congregated at my hotel room's living area... sipping Angkor beer, crunching honey mustard chips, and watching European league reruns... and suddenly I burst out in laughter, slapping my thighs and continued laughing hysterically.

I told the guys we have our own version of TinTin! i.e. Tim Chin from Brunei, and we started recounting all the various 'adventures' of Tim in this short span of time in Cambodia. Eventhough TinTin's adventures are usually harrowing and ends with him escaping danger with a piece of endearing story, which our Tim Chin will hardly match but i think our Tim Chin had one helluva odd jobs experience in Cambodia.

"TimChin in Cambodia"

1. This was actually his 1st job in Kuala Lumpur before Cambodia. We found an unsuspecting TimChin ironing work clothes.

2. Bouncer to Waiter - Not only did he had a Heart Of Darkness' uniform on, he had a name tag and order slips. Service: Very good.

3. Drinks vendor - After a couple of hours under the scorching sun in the Silver Pagoda, you'd crave for a fizzy can of coke even if it cost 1USD, and this is the only stall you will find. Smart bloke.

4. Laundry Service - We found him topless in a rooftop restaurant putting out the table linens and napkins to dry.

5. Indiana Jones - Wonder what treasure is he after...6. Library inspector - Why no fan? Why no proper shelving?6. Mentor - Promise me you will go to school!?6. Musician - This piece of instrument is his obsession. There seems to be one in every other place we go and he makes good random music.

And last but not least....
7. Tuk-tuk driver - TimChin's favourite line, "Lady, you want a tuk-tuk? I bring you go see temple."

One for my babies

This post is dedicated to my babies at work. Eventhough the stress level of our team has surpassed the acceptable range, most of us are still maintaining our cool.

This post is for a good laugh.

The 1st day of training. Jerry may look terrified but he aced it.

The multi-purpose PM.
The bloody photocopier wouldnt cooperate with Afshah, so i went on my knees.

.I hate copiers. Papers and photocopiers have a life of their own! They are both vengeful!

.Afshah, the amazing trainer.
.Fely and Boon are supposedly friggin' stressed but why do i see a smile on Boon's face??.
Note to Nonnie: this is the area where your Bobby sits, and where he gets influenced.

.And an even wider grin on Siaw Wei's face. I heard from Fely that she has been giggling by herself when building new pages.

And one day, when i wanted to check her progress, guess what she showed me...

So this is why...

2 more weeks of these madness, or shall i say fun.

Weekend in KB

.Weekends in Kuala Belait is as laid back as one can imagine.

Everything here seems to move in slow motion...

Until Elisa brought a new board game over, Time's Up, where you pick a card and depending where on the board you are, you will either draw, explain or act the clue. We were hooked for 5 whole hours screaming in heavy laughter and suffering from stitches.

Elisa's masterpiece
The line depicts 1 word with 3 syllables.
She started with a moon, followed by a bee hive. Hung solved this in no time.
Answer: Honeymoon

My piece of crap
It didnt hit me that my drawing is worst than a first-grader.
2 words; 1st word has 2 syllables.
I started with a butterfly which my partner eventually got it as "moth", then went on to draw an ugly mathingie that looks nothing like a horse, a caravan with a lady in it. Time was ticking and he still couldnt get the geist of it, so i drew a lady and a crystal ball. He was drowning in confusion! You cannot imagine the words that came out of their mouth, amazingly they could tell it's a horse, "lawyer", "caravan", "bus", "prison", "fortune teller". Muhuuhuu.
Answer: Gypsy moth

Boon's classic interpretation
I should have been able to guess this straight on BUT!
2 words, 2 syllables each.

He started with something that looks like a manhood, and then the female anatomy. I said "vagina", he nodded and went on to draw a cat. "Cat", "kitten" he nodded but it still wasnt the right answer. He kept pointing at the cat and then the vagina.
I was like "WHAT??? vagina?? Cat?? kitten??"
He gave up and moved on to the 2nd word, sounds like pillow. And time was up.

Answer: Pussy Willow
We almost laughed the roof off when we knew the answer. How did i not comprehend??

That was just the drawing. The acting was insane.
This is one good Saturday.

Loven Ramos

Random clicks landed us on this page - the House of Joyce - in his blog. This house is that of an American author who has written several books about Angkor's world heritage temples, snapped so eloquently that we thought "wow, we should go have a look".

So i exchanged mails with Loven, sadly it is not open to public viewing... but Loven offered to show us other interesting spots in Cambodia when we arrive.

I have just made my first friend in Cambodia.

My pet

I love this pic!! Eventhough i look like i havent slept for days. Shows what friends would do just to amuse you.This is one constipated look. Dont keeeeeeeeeel me babe!

THEME SAFARI - Think Wild

12th NBT Treasure Hunt
Hung: "Auntie, you're gonna peel off all of these stickers ok!"

Dont ask me why he calls me Auntie. He wasnt exactly keen when i started snipping off the sponsor' stickers into little individual bits, but hey what do they say about men!? 20mins later he goes, "Auntie, no more ah?? This is quite fun eh.. Why they give so little?" muhuuhuu...

At 12am, we had to force ourselves to bed, i.e. on a saturday night '_'~, at 4.30am we had to force ourselves out of bed.. to make breakfast. We prepared 8 hotdogs, 6 tuna sandwich, and 4 packs of indomee for the road, ehhh no one's gonna go hungry for sure.

.The disciples of Master Oogway. Friggin' lame, hahaha.

.L-R: Simba@Hung the driver (newbie), and his Queen@Elisa the zoom! surfer (newbie), Porky@Boon the trekker, and Auntie@Lee the navigator-nagger.

Some interesting bits of the hunt.

Head to Taman Peranginan Tasik and pose for a picture.
We had to pose as a group, one as a hunter, one as an animal being hunted and the other two as background scenery. We're supposed to get a minimum of 4 props. Not quite willing to waste time going home for props, we just grabbed whatever we could find in the park. Boon found a small and quaint wooden axe lying around a mini construction site. Some rocks and a few branches later, we took off for the next destination... but before we got far, someone hollered, "ehhh, bagi balik kapak atuuu" Damn, he was pissed off. Boon wanted to chuck it outside the park so no one else could use it. Wahaha...

The day before i had warned Hung that he'll get lotsa screaming and yelling from me, cos sometimes i just cant contain my excitement. And true enough, whilst on the way to Tungku Beach, i started criticising his speeeeed. You're supposed to be a friggin' drifter hung, anyways that's another story altogether.

Leg 2
Some of the answers to the questions were very straightforward, whereas some got us debating heaven&earth. I still cant get over this one:

A male goat a distance in. He has an enterprise here.

We knew a male goat is a ram. But as we parked to look out for clues, i saw this Awg Hussain/ Nasseruddin/whatever-enterprise signboard and went "HEY, a male goat a distance in, they're selling goat meat in there and there's a signboard stg-enterprise here. This must be it!" mumble, grumbles, and Boon still wasnt convinced. When they finally got tired of my million-and-1 explanation, we started driving off, and Hung spotted the answer "RAMDEEP ENTERPRISE la!! Hj what what what again" Hahaha...

Challenges
One helluva challenge, just goes to show how unfit i am. Kudos to Boon who went the extra mile for points and Hung and Elisa who outran me in their slippers!

By 4pm, we stank, some needed to poo, some needed a good massage.
Good news is for all that hard work, we came in 30th out of the 179 cars and won ourselves a Deep-Fryer mathingie. Jeff/Caryn's team came in 23rd and Steve/Weiwei won themselves tickets to HongKong at 2nd place!

.Grrrr...We gotto play strategically next year!.

We had good fun, even after the hunt. Hahaha.
.We'll be back.

P.S: We only ate 3 sandwiches out of the whole lot... so for those who's never joined the hunt and intend to next year, dont bother preparing so much food. U'll be too busy solving clues to eat 'em.

Dining Under The Stars

except there were no stars... huu huu huu but the musical fountain at Jerudong Park far compensated for it. The dazzling lights synchronised with music, and the cascading water turned the night into a lovely affair. Food was good though i was told to skip the fish 'cos it wasnt fresh =/, performances by Studio Scene were entertaining and i particularly loved the ballet routine. They looked like elegant little butterflies drifting across the stage with pointed toes and little details -the flick of the head, the longing gaze... it was a beautiful dance. Maria, the local singer, too made some waves with her Chinese rendition of "A Better Man".

I thought the night was made much more entertaining by Izan's antics. She sent Marilyn round the floor to hunt for a young, handsome bloke. I dont know about the young and handsome bit but we cheered for Andrew and he made the cut. Haha.. Dragging his feet to the centerstage, i think he secretly wished he gets to dance with Izan or even win a date with Izan. None of that came true, instead the dare was to drink a bowl of cream of mushroom soup to win a dinner voucher for two at Sheraton. How difficult is that?! And I had to say the mushroom soup that night was deeeelicious, but my friend being lactose-intolerant bluntly said, "Eerrr, can i have the oxtail soup? i dun like mushroom..."

Whilst Rano was laughing away hysterically, Izan wanted someone else for the next challenge, and ofcourse we took the opportunity to sabo' him. "Rano, rano, rano" Izan: "Aiyaaaa, he's gonna complain about me in his blog tomorrow."

.Even Izan got down on her knees for him.

Overall, it was an entertaining night...something different, something new. We left before the show ended and before the rain began. Phew.

For more posts on this night, read here and here.

Friends you call family

.Wayne sneaking away with some kid's blown up whale, which of course left the poor kid crying.

It took me a while to figure out what Debbie is on about when she said "Wayne's got leukemia."
"Wayne... Yaw Ren's wayne?" That wayne??" Debs said he wasnt well for some time but nobody could imagine it amounted to leukemia. That was a huge blow to people who cares for and loves him.

Then it was the united call from friends to raise RM250,000 for his treatment.

The day came when he is to leave for KL for treatment. I couldnt make it to the airport, but my parents, aunt and a whole bunch of his friends went to cheer him on.

This group of friends have been his safety zone and the pillar that is holding his spirits together. His buds Ye Wei, Kevin from Brunei and cousin Chris Tine from Edmonton created a "We're here for you Wayne!" group in Facebook for him. Here, you will find Wayne's progress, words of encouragement, well-wishes and jokes from friends... all these ... besides the medication he is receiving has kept him going... stronger and stronger.

"Description: A place for those who can't get enough of Wayne =P

We love you Yayne/smack/*ngus ngus*/ing ingz/lau-ta/SChhtainnn/Nini/WAGNE (or whatever else we call u)! We're always here for you!

Show your support by leaving a msg for Wayne! Let him hear us and be kept up to date.

"Learn from the past & believe in the future. But most of all, livestrong in the journey" {livestrong.org}

Quote of the day:
What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it."

Here are some snippets of Wayne's progress from the group.

05 April: Dr. Ng will initiate Wayne's 1st treatment up to seven days straight. He said the induction therapy will be very "keng". The goal for this chemotherapy is to hit hard. If the outcome for this round of chemo looks positive, his chance for cure will be 75%. So ppl, this is the time where Wayne will need all the moral support he can get. To make sure he finish what he started and not quit half way. His new hp number is listed below. So if you have time, pls text him a msg or give him a call anytime. Don't wait anymore ppl, pick up the nearest phone next to you and start dialing! He needs us now! Let's continue giving him our utmost support to show that he's not alone at war =D Go Wayne Kek!

2.30pm_05Apr: Doc has suggested that Wayne should do BMT(Bone Marrow Transplant) Without BMT, Wayne's chance of complete cure is only 20% max by chemo alone. With BMT, his chance would rise up to a percentage of 40%. Which would be 20% extra. Wayne sister's bone marrow matching percentage is only 25%. They are still searching for a better match. All medical expenses including BMT & chemo is under RM 250 grand. More funds and charity support would be much appreciated. Wayne just had his 1st injection of idarubicine and they are monitoring him closely. Its alright to call him if anyone wish to, he would be happy to hear from you all =) Best time to reach him is late afternoon and evenings.

1.00pm_08Apr_c: After chatting to D online, I realized (more than ever before) how important you guys are as Wayne's support system. I call you guys his "backbone"--his strength, who got him thru the days previous, who will get him thru today, and will get him thru the coming days ahead. D emphasized how great it is when Wayne gets phone calls from you guys. It really picks up his spirit and encourages him to fight on. So all you kakis (*hehe*), give him a ring! He'll be so happy to hear from you =D

11.55am_19Apr: Beckie (Wayne's sister) will be getting her typing done in the next three(?) weeks. We all pray that her bone marrow will match Wayne's. Let's keep our fingers crossed and pray for the best. Other than that, he is still doing well. He's trying to set the record as Dr.Ng's fastest recovering patient from treatment! Go Schtainn!

.Wayne before and after. He has pictures of his friends on the wall to keep him close to home.

1.25am_27Apr: Wayne is progressing quite well. He has put on a bit of weight and is starting to feel much more comfortable (sitting) =D. His WBCs are stabling, while his RBCs are still abit on the low end. Danny says that the chances of him going home soon looks bright if he can continue to keep progressing upward. Beckie will be getting her typing done this Monday. Let's all pray for the best.

1.02pm_21May: GOOD NEWS!!! Our dearest friend Wayne Kek has found a matching bone marrow. It seems that he will be doing much better than we had expected. Wayne says that he will prob need only 1 more consolidation therapy instead of the total 3. Lets raise our glass for him and wish him the very best *fingers crossed* We all miss you Wayne. Faster come back!

This is the moment that everyone has been praying for. A bright light ahead of the tunnel. If you'd like to help this young man towards the exit of this tunnel, please send me an email at bubbles_222@hotmail.com. You know you will make a difference!

Wayne may not be very rich, but he is indeed very rich with truly amazing friends.