The Extreme is back!
Hey Yo, Everybody!
Finally I’m back from my long trip to Kuala Lumpur, and it’s been quite a 12-day trip I had. I actually got back last night, but have only now had the time to get to work updating my blog.
Due to my late return, I’ll be skipping my WWE RAW report and Spoiling the Illusion column for this week. But I’ll update some recent puroresu news if I can. They tapes consist of two classic All Japan shows, a Osaka Pro show and a DDT PPV.
Some good news, my tape order from GoldenBoyTapes just arrived today! I’ll review them and add them to the puroresu tapes section soon.
Also, expect some changes to the blog soon, so keep checking back.
My 12-Day KL Trip Diary
Day 1
Arrived at KLIA at about 3PM. Ignoring the ‘private taxis’, I head to the airport taxi counter to catch an official cab to Sungai Buloh Industrial Park thinking it would be cheaper, I instead ended up paying 78 bucks! It took awhile to find the TWI (The Welding Institute) office where my course was being held to get my hostel key. It took about an hour to get there and then we had to search for the place. Finally getting the key, we then had to find the hostel. We soon found it and as luck would have it, the cabbie was staying in the same area! So I got his number so I could arrange to for him to send me to KL city after my course was done.
The hostel itself was a small house with 4 bedrooms that were rented out as the hostel. I was in room 3, and man was it small! It was almost half the size of my PC room back home! And I had to share the bathroom with the next door room. After searching the house, even though I found traces of life, I in the end deduced that no one else was in the hostel but me since the course started Monday and I had arrived 2 days early.
That evening I went out to the small shopping area near my hostel, about a five minute walk. No offence to the local residents, but the place really sucked. Couldn’t even find any cyber-cafes. At least there was a drive-through McDonalds where I could get some real food every now and then. And they had milk shakes!
Day 2
Being Sunday and having nothing to do, I decide to figure out how the cab or bus system worked. A cleaning crew came to clean up the house and was surprised to see me there. I just gave them the OK to clean up while I was gone.
I couldn’t find a bus stop, so I caught a cab to KL town. I spent the rest of the afternoon blasting away at the arcades playing Time Crisis 3, King of Fighter 2003, SVC Chaos, and of course my two favorite sniper arcade games, Silent Scope 2 and Sogeki. Walking around, I even bumped into an old acquaintance of mine while walking around.
Getting to town was easy, but getting back to the hostel was HELL! The stupid cab driver had no idea how to get to my area, even after asking for directions from other cabbies! Fed up, I recommend he just drop me off at a cab stand so I can catch another cab that knows the way. It was about 2 hours since leaving Sg. Wang Plaza that I FINALLY managed to get back to the hostel.
Bit of a surprise later that evening when one of the other course participants showed up at the quarters and tried to open my door with his key. His name was Mr. Wong from Hong Kong, and he couldn’t read the number on the key, even I couldn’t! That brought out the other guy that had already came in, an Indian guy from Singapore. We just decided to try every door till we got a match and finally found it as door no.1!
Day 3
First day of the course and we had to walk to the training centre from the hostel. It was about a fifteen minute walk. There were quite a number of us taking the course, fifteen different guys from all walks of life; two shipyard workers from Sibu, a Frenchmen from Singapore, an Indian Dr. of Physics from Singapore as well as a host of others from all around Malaysia.
Our course instructor was Mr. Trevor, or Trev he’s have us call him. After the formal introductions, we got down to business. That’s where trouble started as I had trouble making any sense of what the guy was saying! Trev said things would be a bit dull and confusing the first day, but our interest would be caught tomorrow. How wrong he would be….
Day 4
We didn’t have to walk today as another course participant staying at the hostel from Melaka had a car and was kind enough to give us daily rides to and from the training centre.
Now yesterday things were bad, today things got really boring and even less understandable. We came to learn how to do blasting/painting inspection, but the guy is telling us how the molecular structure of paint works and what binds the paints together so it sticks! Needless to say, a lot of us were scratching our heads by the end of the day.
Day 5
Finally making some progress as we get our first chance to use several different paint reading gauges. Things still aren’t any easier though.
Day 6
Heavy on the practical today as we all had to learn how to use all the different paint measuring gauges. Finally something I can absorb without much difficulty at least. And I managed to bump up my exam date from Monday to Saturday morning by swapping places with one of the other participants. That means I get the weekend off without any interruptions!
Day 7
Last day of the course before tomorrow exam and we find out that our notes aren’t complete! Trev had to scramble to get the missing pages printed for us to finish the course. After which we all gathered to take a group photo. Luckily I brought my digital camera to take a shot for myself. We also received our course participation/attendance certificates.
That night I spent all night studying, but it’s not as easy as it sounds as I’ve mentioned previously how difficult this course was. I studied till about 11PM and stopped there to rest my mind and watch Survivor on NTV7. Then I went to bed, but had trouble sleeping that night for some reason. Heck, I hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep since my first day here, but this was an anxiety insomnia attack at it’s worst. I think I got all of two and a half hours sleep total.
Day 8
Exam day! I had to walk by myself since everyone else at the hostel either had their exams in the afternoon or on Monday. I was a bit shocked to find out only TWO of us would be taking the exam that morning!
What was worse was that I had a SEVERE case of mental block once the exam actually started! Things eased up a bit during the practical, but I just couldn’t get most of the answers out for the written exam even though I knew the answers! Hopefully my overall score with my practical will be enough to get me a grade 3 passing mark.
After the exam, the guys who were taking the exam in the afternoon expectingly asked us what the questions in the exam were. I did my best to not give a direct answer, but the other guy flat out told them what to expect, which is totally unfair considering what I just went through! He may be confident in his passing abilities, but that is still no excuse to help the others cheat!
This would just be start of my troubles for the day. I had pre-arranged with my taxi driver from day one to pick me up and send me KL city this afternoon at 1.30pm. 1.30pm comes and no cab. I try calling the guy, but the damn line couldn’t get through. I was fed-up by 2.30pm and decide to go down to get another cab. Wouldn’t you know it starts to freakin’ rain! I was stuck at a gas station while waiting for the rain to stop. I finally managed to get through to the cabbie on the phone and the son of a bitch said he forgot about me and was currently at the air port!!! F#*k you @$$hole! I decide to get another cab when the rain finally stopped and met a nice cabbie by the name of Alex Ho. We went back to the hostel to grab my stuff and then to TWI to return the hostel key before heading out to KL town. Surprisingly he knew a short-cut to KL and got me there in almost half the time!
I checked in to Seasons View hotel, where my family always stays when we visit KL. I was surprised to find my hotel room was almost smaller than my hostel room and almost cost twice as much! Geez. Anyways, I didn’t have much time to make myself at home as I had to rush out (no pun intended) to meet my buddy, TenzanTeam2K at Sg. Wang Plaza. I didn’t even change out of my partially rain soaked clothes and just put my jacket on over it. We spent the next few hours talking all about what was cool and what wasn’t in the puroresu world. He’s probably the only guy I know that I could have an intelligent conversation about the Japanese pro-wrestling scene with.
That evening I called it an early night since I was almost exhausted. I didn’t even bother to review the answers to the questions I couldn’t answer in the exam.
Day 9
Finally getting a good night’s sleep, I felt good since I had the next few days all to myself. I decided to spend my first day of vacation going some place I’ve always wanted to visit: Zoo Negara! Yup, I like animals. I only went to the zoo once previously a few years ago with two of my good friends, but we had to cut it short since one of them wasn’t feeling well. I actually spent longer than I had anticipated ‘cause it started raining again and most of us tourists were trapped in the reptile house while waiting for the rain to stop. Only managed to leave the zoo at about 4pm. Then went to Kota Raya to look for cheap PS2 & PC games and Anime DVDs.
Day 10
Spent most of the day at Sg. Wang Plaza and the Bintang Walkway area again cause my feet hurt too much from the previous day from walking around the zoo all day. Found some good CDs in the bargain bin at Tower Records, but it’s hard to find any good CDs in Malaysia anymore that aren’t pirated.
Day 11
Went to City Square today and kinda got lost looking for the arcade! Finally found it and spent most of my morning there. After lunch, went looking around City Square, which was insanely HUGE. On my way back, I stopped by Imbi Plaza and bought myself a DSL Modem as I plan on applying for Streamyx soon. The modem was dirt cheap too!
Day 12
Really had nothing to do today except wait for my taxi to fetch me to the airport at 4pm. But unfortunately the latest the hotel could give me to check out was 2pm, so I spent two hours at a nearby arcade doing the best I could to defeat the evil Johann in Rage of Dragons. That victory over him still eludes me….
My taxi picks me up right on time and I get to the airport by 5pm. Had a small dinner/snack at KFC, then went to the departure hall to wait for my flight. 7pm I say goodbye to another KL trip and sleep off most of the flight back.
Finally I’m back from my long trip to Kuala Lumpur, and it’s been quite a 12-day trip I had. I actually got back last night, but have only now had the time to get to work updating my blog.
Due to my late return, I’ll be skipping my WWE RAW report and Spoiling the Illusion column for this week. But I’ll update some recent puroresu news if I can. They tapes consist of two classic All Japan shows, a Osaka Pro show and a DDT PPV.
Some good news, my tape order from GoldenBoyTapes just arrived today! I’ll review them and add them to the puroresu tapes section soon.
Also, expect some changes to the blog soon, so keep checking back.
My 12-Day KL Trip Diary
Day 1
Arrived at KLIA at about 3PM. Ignoring the ‘private taxis’, I head to the airport taxi counter to catch an official cab to Sungai Buloh Industrial Park thinking it would be cheaper, I instead ended up paying 78 bucks! It took awhile to find the TWI (The Welding Institute) office where my course was being held to get my hostel key. It took about an hour to get there and then we had to search for the place. Finally getting the key, we then had to find the hostel. We soon found it and as luck would have it, the cabbie was staying in the same area! So I got his number so I could arrange to for him to send me to KL city after my course was done.
The hostel itself was a small house with 4 bedrooms that were rented out as the hostel. I was in room 3, and man was it small! It was almost half the size of my PC room back home! And I had to share the bathroom with the next door room. After searching the house, even though I found traces of life, I in the end deduced that no one else was in the hostel but me since the course started Monday and I had arrived 2 days early.
That evening I went out to the small shopping area near my hostel, about a five minute walk. No offence to the local residents, but the place really sucked. Couldn’t even find any cyber-cafes. At least there was a drive-through McDonalds where I could get some real food every now and then. And they had milk shakes!
Day 2
Being Sunday and having nothing to do, I decide to figure out how the cab or bus system worked. A cleaning crew came to clean up the house and was surprised to see me there. I just gave them the OK to clean up while I was gone.
I couldn’t find a bus stop, so I caught a cab to KL town. I spent the rest of the afternoon blasting away at the arcades playing Time Crisis 3, King of Fighter 2003, SVC Chaos, and of course my two favorite sniper arcade games, Silent Scope 2 and Sogeki. Walking around, I even bumped into an old acquaintance of mine while walking around.
Getting to town was easy, but getting back to the hostel was HELL! The stupid cab driver had no idea how to get to my area, even after asking for directions from other cabbies! Fed up, I recommend he just drop me off at a cab stand so I can catch another cab that knows the way. It was about 2 hours since leaving Sg. Wang Plaza that I FINALLY managed to get back to the hostel.
Bit of a surprise later that evening when one of the other course participants showed up at the quarters and tried to open my door with his key. His name was Mr. Wong from Hong Kong, and he couldn’t read the number on the key, even I couldn’t! That brought out the other guy that had already came in, an Indian guy from Singapore. We just decided to try every door till we got a match and finally found it as door no.1!
Day 3
First day of the course and we had to walk to the training centre from the hostel. It was about a fifteen minute walk. There were quite a number of us taking the course, fifteen different guys from all walks of life; two shipyard workers from Sibu, a Frenchmen from Singapore, an Indian Dr. of Physics from Singapore as well as a host of others from all around Malaysia.
Our course instructor was Mr. Trevor, or Trev he’s have us call him. After the formal introductions, we got down to business. That’s where trouble started as I had trouble making any sense of what the guy was saying! Trev said things would be a bit dull and confusing the first day, but our interest would be caught tomorrow. How wrong he would be….
Day 4
We didn’t have to walk today as another course participant staying at the hostel from Melaka had a car and was kind enough to give us daily rides to and from the training centre.
Now yesterday things were bad, today things got really boring and even less understandable. We came to learn how to do blasting/painting inspection, but the guy is telling us how the molecular structure of paint works and what binds the paints together so it sticks! Needless to say, a lot of us were scratching our heads by the end of the day.
Day 5
Finally making some progress as we get our first chance to use several different paint reading gauges. Things still aren’t any easier though.
Day 6
Heavy on the practical today as we all had to learn how to use all the different paint measuring gauges. Finally something I can absorb without much difficulty at least. And I managed to bump up my exam date from Monday to Saturday morning by swapping places with one of the other participants. That means I get the weekend off without any interruptions!
Day 7
Last day of the course before tomorrow exam and we find out that our notes aren’t complete! Trev had to scramble to get the missing pages printed for us to finish the course. After which we all gathered to take a group photo. Luckily I brought my digital camera to take a shot for myself. We also received our course participation/attendance certificates.
That night I spent all night studying, but it’s not as easy as it sounds as I’ve mentioned previously how difficult this course was. I studied till about 11PM and stopped there to rest my mind and watch Survivor on NTV7. Then I went to bed, but had trouble sleeping that night for some reason. Heck, I hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep since my first day here, but this was an anxiety insomnia attack at it’s worst. I think I got all of two and a half hours sleep total.
Day 8
Exam day! I had to walk by myself since everyone else at the hostel either had their exams in the afternoon or on Monday. I was a bit shocked to find out only TWO of us would be taking the exam that morning!
What was worse was that I had a SEVERE case of mental block once the exam actually started! Things eased up a bit during the practical, but I just couldn’t get most of the answers out for the written exam even though I knew the answers! Hopefully my overall score with my practical will be enough to get me a grade 3 passing mark.
After the exam, the guys who were taking the exam in the afternoon expectingly asked us what the questions in the exam were. I did my best to not give a direct answer, but the other guy flat out told them what to expect, which is totally unfair considering what I just went through! He may be confident in his passing abilities, but that is still no excuse to help the others cheat!
This would just be start of my troubles for the day. I had pre-arranged with my taxi driver from day one to pick me up and send me KL city this afternoon at 1.30pm. 1.30pm comes and no cab. I try calling the guy, but the damn line couldn’t get through. I was fed-up by 2.30pm and decide to go down to get another cab. Wouldn’t you know it starts to freakin’ rain! I was stuck at a gas station while waiting for the rain to stop. I finally managed to get through to the cabbie on the phone and the son of a bitch said he forgot about me and was currently at the air port!!! F#*k you @$$hole! I decide to get another cab when the rain finally stopped and met a nice cabbie by the name of Alex Ho. We went back to the hostel to grab my stuff and then to TWI to return the hostel key before heading out to KL town. Surprisingly he knew a short-cut to KL and got me there in almost half the time!
I checked in to Seasons View hotel, where my family always stays when we visit KL. I was surprised to find my hotel room was almost smaller than my hostel room and almost cost twice as much! Geez. Anyways, I didn’t have much time to make myself at home as I had to rush out (no pun intended) to meet my buddy, TenzanTeam2K at Sg. Wang Plaza. I didn’t even change out of my partially rain soaked clothes and just put my jacket on over it. We spent the next few hours talking all about what was cool and what wasn’t in the puroresu world. He’s probably the only guy I know that I could have an intelligent conversation about the Japanese pro-wrestling scene with.
That evening I called it an early night since I was almost exhausted. I didn’t even bother to review the answers to the questions I couldn’t answer in the exam.
Day 9
Finally getting a good night’s sleep, I felt good since I had the next few days all to myself. I decided to spend my first day of vacation going some place I’ve always wanted to visit: Zoo Negara! Yup, I like animals. I only went to the zoo once previously a few years ago with two of my good friends, but we had to cut it short since one of them wasn’t feeling well. I actually spent longer than I had anticipated ‘cause it started raining again and most of us tourists were trapped in the reptile house while waiting for the rain to stop. Only managed to leave the zoo at about 4pm. Then went to Kota Raya to look for cheap PS2 & PC games and Anime DVDs.
Day 10
Spent most of the day at Sg. Wang Plaza and the Bintang Walkway area again cause my feet hurt too much from the previous day from walking around the zoo all day. Found some good CDs in the bargain bin at Tower Records, but it’s hard to find any good CDs in Malaysia anymore that aren’t pirated.
Day 11
Went to City Square today and kinda got lost looking for the arcade! Finally found it and spent most of my morning there. After lunch, went looking around City Square, which was insanely HUGE. On my way back, I stopped by Imbi Plaza and bought myself a DSL Modem as I plan on applying for Streamyx soon. The modem was dirt cheap too!
Day 12
Really had nothing to do today except wait for my taxi to fetch me to the airport at 4pm. But unfortunately the latest the hotel could give me to check out was 2pm, so I spent two hours at a nearby arcade doing the best I could to defeat the evil Johann in Rage of Dragons. That victory over him still eludes me….
My taxi picks me up right on time and I get to the airport by 5pm. Had a small dinner/snack at KFC, then went to the departure hall to wait for my flight. 7pm I say goodbye to another KL trip and sleep off most of the flight back.
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