Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Cycling at Shah Alam Botanical Garden

It's been over a decade since I really go cycling. I used to cycle to school during my secondary school years because the school is near to my house.


Cycling in a morning is a pleasant thing to do, imagine the cool morning breeze on your face and a road with not much traffic that will run you down. But cycling after school in the afternoon or whenever it's raining is not a pleasant thing.

With so many years of cycling back and forth to school and tuition centers, I used to have some muscles on my legs one, don't play play.


But since I got my motorbike license and car license, cycling is the last thing I want to do, you know
lah, lazy ma, some more not cool if your friends are riding a motorbike and you are cycling like hell behind trying to keep up.

Since I started work I noticed that I no longer have my leg muscles, and I am slowly turning into a
Michelin Man. So in order to return to my glory days, I decided to give cycling a try at the Shah Alam Botanical Garden.


The Botanical Garden is basically erm... a botanical garden with lots of trees, flowers, hills, and ponds.

Dragon fruit plants


A run down pool

Nothing special caught my eyes except for some cute animals in the mini zoo area.

Dried leaves also eat, I think they didn't feed those deers well enough


Satay Rabbit and KFC

I rented a bicycle and went on to prove that I can still cycle a long way.

My ride

When I got my bicycle I was amazed that the bicycle was equipped with 21 gears, and you can shift up the gears using a button, like a sports car using paddle shift gearchange, si pek high tech. I still remember the time my bicycle was equipped with only 10 gears and it was the best in Kangar already...


At first I thought that the roads in the botanical garden was flat and straight, too wrong.

If all the roads were like this...

The road was kind of steep uphill and I had a hard time cycling up, even with the lowest gears. I cycled like half an hour and I am too tired to go on, so I had to admit that I am no longer as fit as before and came down from the bicycle and push the bicycle uphill.


So embarrassing whenever there were people riding past me on a uphill road, damn.

I made up my mind already, whenever I am free on a weekend I'll go cycling or swimming, to exercise so that I can be as fit as Arnold.


My blog post for today ends here, not free now, got to go online purchase movie tickets for the weekend, have to postpone my Arnold plan, got nice movie
ma.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Saman

These stupid papers are the legal way used by the government to collect money from you whenever they ran out of money.

From left to right: Saman from Petaling Jaya, Penang, Kajang, Ipoh, Kuantan, and Penang (again)

In order to kapit that piece of chee-bye paper on your car windscreen, the government will have to build less parking spaces and parking ticket machines in a very populated area. For example, there will be only 5 parking lots in an area with 5 billion shops and offices.

This piece of paper is called parking offence ticket, or saman (Malay).

Until today, I already got 6 samans in 6 different places all over Peninsular Malaysia, all for parking offences such as:

1. Didn't show my parking coupons, tickets or whatever it is on my car dashboard (Different places different payment system, how the hell am I suppose to know?!)

2. Park at a yellow-lined roadside (Because there were not enough parking spaces available)

3. Park beside a road junction (Dangerous, I know, but imagine youself finding a parking space for more than 1 hour in a busy town, I'll say you have a very good patience if you keep finding)

4. Didn't pay for my parking fee (I got no coins ma...)

See... I have good reasons for all my offences. I don't understand why the enforcement bodies keep penalizing us normal citizens for minor offences whereas there are so many robbers, snatch thiefs, rapists, car thiefs or cold-blooded killers out there who live happily ever after?

Among all the samans that I got, the one from the Majlis Bandaraya Petaling Jaya remains the most chee-bye saman.

Behold... on the left is the longest saman in Malaysia, don't play play

First of all, it was the longest saman I've ever got, I don't know why they wanted to print such long saman with all the contents of a law book printed on it. Stupid act number 1.

I got that saman because I parked at a yellow-lined roadside. Ok I admit that it's my fault because this may cause foerign investors to have bad impression on Malaysia thus causing a major economic downturn, but isn't it a bit too much to ask for RM100 for a parking offence? I can watch 10 movies at the cinema with that amount of money you know?! Stupid act number 2.


And one more thing, I think the people from the Majlis Bandaraya PJ who saman me must be stupid or he was sleeping while working, because he keyed in my car colour as unknown (tidak jelas). WTF?! Stupidest act ever.


Even a three years old can tell that my car is brown colour ok...

They should hire a smarter people next time.


Monday, December 15, 2008

Zoo Negara Malaysia

On one weekend I got so bored so I decided to go to the Zoo Negara (National Zoo) to check it out.

It's been more than 10 years since my last visit to the Zoo Negara, I still remember my last visit to Zoo Negara was with... erm... the standard six graduation trip? kua...


The zoo is managed by a non-governmental organization which is fully funded by only gate receipts and sponsors, so it didn't change much since decades ago, imagine how much food the animals needed, maintenance fees, workers salaries and macam-macam costs, they've already done a good job maintaining it until today and still managed to breed some endangered animals and add in some new animals.

So here are some of the pictures that i took in the zoo. I am not a zoologist so I don't know the exact names of some animals.

Fish


A penguin house with a few penguins inside


Hippopotamuses


Tupai Pahang that I saw at Tasik Chini


KFC


Pony


Giraffes


Big birds


Elephant


Hornbill


A deer trying to get food from me


Real lions


Fake lions


Some multiple shots of the tigers showing off their swimming skills


Buffalo


Damn big guinea pigs


See, my biology isn't that bad right, at least I managed to recognize all the animals.

The zoo also has free animal shows for to the visitors, but the shows are basically the same many years back. Parrots tricks, sea lions jumping here and there... How I wish that I can see Penguins flying a plane, just like in the movie Madagascar 2, that'll be fun.

Nonetheless, the show was still a hit among the visitors with the mini stadium fully packed.


Sorry for the blurry photos, I was late for the show because I got lost in the zoo and had to settle for a seat way behind the mini stadium.