Teo Boon Keong

I am featuring one of my childhood friends, Teo Boon Keong, the youngest son to the owner of the oldest kopitiam back in my hometown. Living under a kopitiam environment since he was a little boy, Boon Keong has been trained to become a person with great patience and great tolerance. Thanks to all the fussy kopitiam customers in the olden days, who, many were neither friendly nor tactful.

Today, Boon Keong has stepped into a big bang transition of his life, waving bye bye to his childhood, methamophosing himself into adulthood, forming his own family and playing a different role in his life and the society. In which we would pronounce, a matrimony.

Matrimony forms an invisible contract between a man and a woman to help each other in their life, sharing deep thoughts, keeping the torch of companionship burning wherever they go and which ever way they reach their destinations.

There are many phases in our human's life. We were once a toddler, a student, and with a blink of eyes, we get married, become parents and soon, grandparents. Along the way, some of us may miss one of these phases. Probably during the time when we were students, burning midnight oil at studies, some of our friends become school leavers or mat rempits just to impress ladies. Or probably, during the time while some of us are parents, many are still wandering out there, fooling around having one night affairs.

When all of us reach a certain point in time and look back, many may regret as they miss something important from the previous phase, while the others may get to raise their champaigne glasses, celebrate for victory, Boon Keong is one of them.

The dawn of 17th November 2007 marks the most important day in Boon Keong's history book.

On this day, Boon Keong has ignited his engine for a different journey.

Have a deep thought, have we missed something up to this phase of our life?

Entomophagy

Entomophagy is a culture of human taking insects as food, has been put into practice by the Thais since quite some time ago. Not sure when this practice got started, some says it was a culture being spread from Vietnam during the war between Vietnam and the US.

During the war time, Vietnamese refugees who were hiding in the jungle without food, started taking raw insects as their source of food to survive under extreme starvation. In fact, research has shown that those insects which were taken as food were rich in protein, and they are easier to be digested and more effective in building human cells as compared to normal meat.

Probably this was one of the reasons why Vietnamese managed to kick the US arse to the “Asian Waterloo”??

During dinner one day, one of my collegues bought a pack of grasshopper for a small Fear Factor challenge

Our lady collegue, Carroll took the lead for the first bite

My turn. seriously, i got goosebump all over my body when i started biting it. Hmm.. pretended nothing happened due to my male ego.hehe..Seriously, it was really tasty, especially the head, the feeling was like eating prawns!

The person who initiated this Fear Factor, Michael, took up one, and decided to put it back. He "waterlooed" and raised the white flag.

Humans got infected by all kinds of new found diseases without cure everyday...Probably, this is one of the reasons why it is so. Would it cause by Entomophagy? As insects tend to carry viruses? Gosh, i better go for a checkup the sonnest possible...

Yoshida Kaban
Have you ever heard of Yoshida kaban?? It is one of the most trendy brands specializes in the design of luggage, pouch, wallet and etc and is one of the youngsters’ “must have” in Japan nowadays. Yoshida wind is slowly blowing towards other asian countries like Hong Kong lately, it is simply a fashion statement now.

I am soooo lucky to get in touch of Yoshida Kaban during the last visit of Miho’s parents. Like Miho, They are extremely passionate persons who bring joys to everyone, with lots of presents wherever they go. Let me “show off “what I have got from them hehe, Porter range from Yoshida, million of thanks to her parents and also her brother for bringing me this all the way from Japan.

A wallet – The Porter range of Yoshida kaban

Porter, do we still have such occupation at airport, train station nowadays? Where have all the porters gone to?

Finally I have found a very organized way to put my stuff while traveling…numerous compartments

Now I know about the “real face” of Yoshida

I'm not a Plastic Bag

I was at KLCC the other day and something drew my attention, I was so curious to find out why there was a huge crowd of people lining up outside of this particular shop and everyone seemed to be so anxious for something. At first I thought some celebrity was inside the shop doing some shopping and those are his/her fans.

Me and Miho decided to join the crowd to find out what was so interesting in the shop, I found out that many people outside the shop were so annoyed and the guard had to try hard to disperse them. I was all ear to listen to what the people talking among themselves. I heard one said "I have been here since 5:30 am in the morning but out of sudden they said the management decided to stop it..." and another said "It's not fair right, I waited for so long but got nothing..."

At the end, we found out that this is the thing they are after...The "I'm not a Plastic Bag" handbag designed by Anya Hindmarch...

"I'm not a Plastic Bag" is made of material (probably canvas if i'm not mistaken) which is environmental friendly. The orginal price per piece is about 20 USD, and try to check on Ebay, and find out how hot this item is put on auction! The price could be 10 times more expensive and still buyers are swarming torwards it.

In fact, people tumble and fall to get this hot item not even in Malaysia, but around the globe! I hope we would'nt see this item at Petaling street, probably 3 for 10 RM? What do u think?

Revive The Messy Water

I have kept the "mute" button activated on this blog for quite some time...

Remember I desperately browsed this song at the Karaoke so that I could "force" you to duet with me? Let me unmute my blog. and hey, the lyrics is not applicable to us, just enjoy the music.

Flea Market

I always love to crawl in and out from a flea market in search for something which cannot be found in the current market anymore. Perhaps something, which could bring back some of the old memories, childhood memories, perhaps?

I am soooooooooo thirst for retro clothing, these are the things that I have got from one of the flea markets! Auction, anyone?

Retro Lacoste Shirts, You wouldnt be able to find one of these in a Lacoste shop anymore. Miho has got share in these. Hope she wont throw away
A pair of Levi's 501 Jeans made in 1988, the first owner probably has "gone"

Puma shoes for indoor soccer

Shit, look at the crack, now i hate flea market so much. Anyway, i can get a cobbler to fix it

But luckily i got this pair of K-Swiss for consolation...

Green

I like green color in photography and I have taken a number of pictures over the weekend outside of Bangkok at a place where serenity is brought by the combination of green colors with different intensity.To an amateur photo-simply-shooter, green color is very much a decorative element in a my picture, probably green color has a soothing effect to the person who views it, a bad picture will eventually turn out to be better one with the help of lots of green color in it. Don't trust me? Give it a try yourself.

After a week of stressful working days, I reward myself with a breakaway in the green, let's indulge in the Ancient City where the green still prevails...

Water is supposed to be blue, but here, it is green, green prevails

I enjoy looking at calm picture with deep breathe, very relaxing...Zzzzz

This place is so well maintained, probably because it is a king's project. Nobody could question the sincere respect of the Thais to their king, and that's the reason why...

Even the signboard is in green

Guan Gong came to Thailand! What a mixture of cultural artifact...

The symbol of pride for the males...

Green makes people calm, as it is quieting, refreshing and reassuring. We feel reassured, when we see green, as green signifies something good. Green at a traffic light means you are safe to go, green food keeps you healthy,green means young, or perhaps, green color on the fertility chart means you are safe to have sex without a condom...

Sawadeekrup Thailand

I am currently in Bangkok for some not-so-silly-monkey-business here. My impression on Thailand is that, it has the friendliest people in the world who are full of courtesy in showing respect to their acquaintances and also their visitors. You will truly feel that you are someone important during your stay in Thailand. I also notice that Thais don’t differentiate each other by their ethnic groups, they mix around with everyone without considering, what kind of skin color they have and what kind of background they are from, or perhaps, what kind of gender they are… Male, female or? (You know it).

This attitude has been instilled and has become their culture since few hundred years ago, Remember what we studied in history during secondary school time? Thailand was the only country in South East Asia, which had never been colonized by anyone before. Their strategy was through the sincere respect and understanding shown by the Thai King to the “Giants” who came here with the intention to grab their resources.

Pictures taken at the hotel room...

I Hope that I own this queen size bed…

…The LCD TV and a little space for laptop

…And some cabinet areas to store my junks, I got a lot of junks

Some old pics digged from my old desktop PC, I realized that I was fond of taking candid pictures of people

Thai Youngsters on the street

Some Thai Street fashion ?

My favorite pants, I am wearing a pair now!

Ang moh, in search of "kang tao"

Singlet for scorching heat

Sky train

Plenty of Japanese bookstores are available in the town, probably Thailand is a good place for retired Japanese to settle down?

Huge Billboards


Look at the huge billboards, I guess the rental for advertisement space is not so costly

An old cinema spotted. There was one in my hometown, I remember some male visitors would take off their clothes during movies because of the scorching heat... Those were the days

Water Thief?

Just my assumption

I saw a fire department's water hydrant along the roadside with an additional hose attached to one of the outlets. hmm... I was wondering if somone has attached this purposely to get free water from it. Anyway, just my little piece of assumption. I hope there is a water hyrant outside of my place so that I could get free and strong stream of water to wash my car. Where can I get one of these hoses.

The hose was attached to one of the outlets on the water hydrant. With the other end of the hose hidden under the metal lid, so that no one will see it.

No pain no gain. I am sure the person who attached the hose had made a painstaking effort to open up this huge cover. It is not easy to get free water though...

Let's open the metal lid to see what the hose looks like. Ya, it is a hose, the source of "Free" water

One of the economic theories says:
There is no free lunch - Everything in this world comes with a cost. Even if you are too lucky to pick up something valuable on the floor, don't you ever think it is free when you have no need to pay for it. There is definitely a cost associated with the thing you pick up. Someone might have dropped it, and that person has to bear the cost for losing it. The cost does not come to you, but it goes to another person. Come to think of it, Do you still think it is free?