Roaring Forties

The Race Continues from Ep 1 

Nov 29 – Marc and Rovilson hit back strongly to win the second race of the Amazing Race Asia 2. They won mainly because Pam and Vanessa’s mistake. Otherwise it would be an interesting race to the finish line.

Thailand’s Paula Taylor and Natasha Monks surprisely finished second. These two girls were flaunting their beauty and begged for money in the bus. Disgustingly sweet of them.

Malaysian mums Ann and Diane kept their cool and their third place.

My favourites Pam and Van finished fifth.

Jerko Edwin Lo and pretty Monica Lo got eliminated.

That’s pretty wraps up the second race. No enough drama in this episode. It was a bit slow. Even Terri was angelic in this episode without the fire. The way Daichi strolled towards the finish line speaks for the episode.

Well it is next Thursday then!

BYE EDWIN & MONICA

25 Nov - Wong Mew Choo has finally proved that she could be a World Champion in the China Open Super Series held in Guangzhou, China between 20 to 25 November 2007. It was no easy task as the entire passage to the finals looked like a “who’s who lineup” in the ladies badminton world. Wong ranked no 8 in the world, who has only won the South East Asian Games title in 2003, was not even seeded for the China Open Super Series. No one expected her to do well. It was an insult that the organizers seeded Petya Nedelcheva the world no 10 from Bulgaria ahead of Wong. Petya Nedelcheva lost in the first round proving the organisers were wrong in their seeding.

Wong had an easy warm up against China’s Zhu Jingjing (World No 56) in the first round. Then she took on Pi Hongyan, a Chinese born French who is the World No 5 and winner of 13 tournaments. Pi is also the runner up in this year’s All England Championship. Wong won the passage to the quarter finals in 3 sets.

At the quarter finals, Wong faced Chinese and World No 3, Zhu Lin who has won 5 tournaments including the World Championship this year. It was another 3 sets thriller and Wong managed to subdue Zhu for the right to play in the semi finals.

At the semi finals, Wong’s next opponent was Zhang Ning from China who is the World No 2 and winner of 22 tournaments which is the most wins by a single player amongst the currently playing women players. To add to that impressive record, Zhang has beaten Wong on all 7 previous meetings. Wong upset the records and surprised Zhang with a 2 set win to proceed to the finals.

It was only fitting that she took on the World No 1 Xie Xingfang in the finals.

Xie Xingfang has engraved her name as the winner in 16 tournaments. Xie’s illustrated career record and her mere presence in the court standing tall at 1.78 meters would scare away any lesser players but Wong at 1.64 meters, who has not won any major tournaments in her career, had nothing to lose, rose to the occasion. It was a case of David versus Goliath in Women’s badminton. It took 3 sets and 62 minutes for Wong to complete her fairy tale ending. Wong has now proven that she can beat the best.

Can she continue to do it?

Unfortunately, 2 days later Wong seeded 8th was sent crashing down to earth at the very first round of the Hong Kong Open where she lost to Thailand’s Salakjit Ponsana who is ranked 36th in the world.

Where will Wong Mew Choo go from here? Everyone would definitely hope that we see a new Nicol David in the making. Will she suffer the Malaysian Badminton syndrome where players win single tournaments and then fade into oblivion? Perhaps she should get some lessons from Nicol David on how to stay at the top.

What ever the future holds for Wong Mew Choo, I think she has done a fantastic job at the China Open Super Series. She deserves all the credit for her hard work and sacrifice all these years. Now that she has proven that she can take on the best in the world, I hope that she can continue forward and be a world champion.

Congratulations, Wong Mew Choo. I wish you all the best!

The poster made Jennifer Garner looked like the star of the show.

The movie trailer made the show looked very exciting.

The presence of Jamie Foxx made the show, “The Kingdom” a ‘must watch’.

25 Nov. – It didn’t take much to persuade May to watch “The Kingdom” as there were no other good movies in town. May being a horror freak and a mystery drama lover would have overruled my suggestion if she had a choice. We checked out the Curve and it was a good choice as there ample tickets there.

The Kingdom started off with a great montage sequencing the history of Saudi Arabia from the time oil was discovered, the involvement of America in influencing the supply of oil through to the invasion of Kuwait, Operation Dessert Storm, September 11 and Osama Bin Laden.

Two Muslim women who were sitting in front us stood up and left when they realize the theme of movie. This appeared to be another case of extremism like the “halal cups and non halal cups” incident.

After the intro, the movie move on to a secured compound of an American oil company in Saudi Arabia where two imposters in police uniform started shooting up a baseball game before being gunned down by security forces. As the panicked crowd ran, another uniformed man directed them to a safe shelter where after gathering enough victims, he detonated himself. It was utter chaos and when the dust finally settled down, you have people crying, people in a dazed, dead people scattered around and the injured lying all over place. Help came and there people all over; the police, the paramedics, the government agents. Special agent Fran was reporting via his mobile directly to Washington when “Kaboom”, a much larger bomb blast went off, totally annihilating everyone to bits.

This first 15 minutes was definitely the highlight of the movie. The scenes were well constructed. The depiction was very graphic and believable. You could feel the terror portrayed and when the second bomb went off, you could almost hear the audience skip a breath.

The story then switched to Washington where FBI Special Agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx) miraculously managed to blackmail the Saudi government in allowing him and his team to go and investigate the attack when the top echelon of the American government has been rejected in the first instance. So our “heroes”, Fleury with his team consisting of Special Agents Janet Mayes (Jennifer Garner), Grant Sykes (Chris Cooper) and Adam Leavitt (Jason Bateman) head out to Saudi Arabia where they were met by Colonel Faris Al Ghazi (Ashraf Barhom) whose assignment was to chaperon the agents and to prevent them from actively investigating the bombing.

As the story goes, Fleury managed to negotiate his way for more liberty and when they were allowed to play a more active role in the investigation, they could miraculously find out the cause within hours and identify the bombers. Suddenly, all hell broke loose as the agents were ambushed and even though the SUV they were in flipped more times than I can count, none of the agents were hurt.

Somehow, only Leavitt was abducted from the wreaked SUV, making you wonder whey didn’t they go for all 4 of them. The obvious reason was to pave the way in the movie for the 3 other agents with the help of Colonel Ghazi to pursue their attackers. Their pursuit ended being boxed in a neighborhood alley where they were hit by bullets and rocket-propelled grenades from all directions. Somehow, the bullets from their shooters, including those from the top of buildings could not even gaze any of the agents but the agents’ returned fire were all deadly accurate.

The movie also included a scene “a la Daniel Pearl” where Leavitt was captured to be beheaded but somehow the captors keep screwing things up to allow just enough time for Mayes to show up and blow up their heads.

At the end, ‘goodness’ triumph over ‘evil’. All four agents survived and Colonel Ghazi was the only casualty from the ‘good’ side.

My View – The Kingdom was an extremely entertaining movie, the finale of the movie was almost like “Black Hawk Down” but the movie lacked depth and it failed miserably in realism. Under the current Saudi Laws, it would be impossible for Special Agent Janet Mayes to walk in the local streets dressed as she did. Secondly, it is unreal that they were able to solve the case so easily and thirdly, it is really absurd that none of the agents got hit when they were boxed in during the final battle.

Nevertheless, with nothing worthy to watch in the cinema scene during mid November, “The Kingdom” definitely is the One Eye King.

Note – while making this movie, Lance Gunnin a construction worker was killed in a motorcycle crash on his way to work on the set, Thomas Aguilar a prop maker, died a week after admitting to the hospital for stomach problem which was diagnosed as prostate cancer and finally Nick Papac, a prop master died in an on set collision between a SUV and a crew vehicle. These are the unsung heroes of a movie.

Nov 24 – Manchester United fell to a Nicholas Anelka spell in the 11th minute when Gerard Pique failed to intercept a free kick from Ivan Campo and Anelka coolly controlled to ball, turned and tapped it past Edwin Van Der Sar. Without Rooney and Ronaldo, the Red Devils looked a sorry sight and just could not  get the equaliser, even though they laboured on. 

The 1: 0 defeat to Bolton was the first since August and the second for the season. It was also the first loss to Bolton since December 1978. Another proud record went down the drain.

Nov 27 – Cristiano Ronaldo returned and proved why he is the most valuable player for Manchester United when he scored from a 25 yard free kick during the second minute of stoppage time to secured a fifth consecutive win over Sporting Lisbon for Manchester United in the Champions’ League and keeping the Red Devils as the only team with a 100% record in this year’s competition. 

Next game – 3rd December at home versus Fulham.

Just when Israel of all teams presented the Euro Finals 2008 to England on a platter by pulling off an upset in Tel Aviv on 17^th November by beating Russia 2:1, England had to self destruct by losing 3:2 to Croatia at home in Wembley.   

Undoubtedly, Steve McClaren faced an uphill task when injury and suspension forced key players like Rooney, Ferdinand, Neville, Terry and Owen out of the home clash but his poor choice of players and poor tactics ultimately caused England’s downfall.                       

The toothless lions team looked more like the visitors in front of their home crowd in a game where Croatia took the initiative and controlled the game with 52% possession and made 10 attempts at goal compared with England’s 6.

I really pity the majority English fans from the 88,000 paying crowd, who must have felt utterly cheated when Scott Carson made a school boy error and let in a ridiculous 77^th minute 20 meters shot. It doesn’t make sense that McClaren would gamble on an inexperienced goalkeeper when his defense is already depleted of his first choice defenders; Neville, Ferdinand and Terry  David James would have been the better choice to give the team more experience and stability. 

Steve McClaren deserves to be sacked. But I think the English FA can only blame themselves as they had wanted an Englishman to lead England after the Sven Eriksson debacle. Just take a look around. How many Englishman managers have proven to be successful? The top 5 teams in EPL are lead by a French, a Scot, a Swede, a Spanish,  and an Israeli. The line of managers for the top 5 teams speaks for it self. 

If they hire Harry Redknapp or Sam Allardyce, they will be repeating the same mistake all over again. Martin O’Neil? Celtic and England is a totally different ball game.

My personal preference would be Felipe Scolari. I think he would bring style and imagination to the English game. 

Euro 2008 would definitely miss the English fans.

November 22 – TARA 2 or the Amazing Race Asia 2 started its second season and Malaysia really rocked the opening episode when the Chong sisters; Pamela and Vanessa showed everyone what they are really made off by beating two very competitive guys teams to finish first. It was 3 way race between the sisters against Filipinos Rovilson Fernandez and Marc Nelson and Singaporeans Colin Low and Adrian Yap. All the other teams were clearly no match for the top 3 teams. Lady luck was smiling on the other Malaysian duo; Ann Tan and Diane Douglas who finished 3rd when the taxi for Colin and Andrian got lost.

The bitch of the first episode definitely has to go to Terri Reed of the Philippines, who was screaming incessantly at her poor husband all the way. If she win the bitch award then the pig award has to go to Edwin Lo  from Hong Kong was equally irritatingly vocal. I pity his pretty partner Monica Lo.

It was a fabulous start. Definitely better than last year’s.

The way Pamela and Vanessa  ate their balut was awesome. I felt the ultimate compliment was when Marc said :- “these girls are inhuman”.

Pamela and Vanessa, that was a really great performance.

Malaysia loves you.

What’s in the News?

Nov 20 – The Government has called off negotiations with two international car manufacturers – Volkswagen and General Motors.

What’s really happening? It appears to be another wag the dog story!

The local media reported that the Second Finance Minister Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop said the Cabinet Committee (which comprised several ministers) on the National Automotive Policy had met and decided that circumstances to seek a foreign strategic partner has changed and the objectives for such a partnership have also changed. 

Tan Sri Nor Mohamad was also reported that he expected Proton to return to profit in 2009 and that during Proton’s next financial year, the losses would be “significantly reduced.” 

What are these circumstances?

What would be forecast performance for the next two years?

After all it is the National Car and the public deserves to know. Proton has lost RM 500 million during their last financial year and this is no small change. Most importantly, the decision makers must be accounted for their decision made.

The current way that the running of the National Car is being handled is like kids playing “masak-masak”. One day they want to sell and the next day they decided to call it off. Professionally, such a decision is making the country a laughing stock. They could have continued the negotiations and ask for a much higher sale price and maintain to this price throughout. It the price could be agreed upon, it would have been a very good deal. It not, we still could have achieved the original objective of not selling Proton and we would have kept our reputation intact. It would have been a win-win situation either way.

Now the questions haunting me and also I believe most Malaysian are;

What if we lose more than 500 million in the next financial year?

Can Tan Sri Mohamad take responsibility for his comment that losses will be – significantly reduced?

What happens if we continue to lose by 2009?

Will some one accounted for the decision made today if we fail?

Will the rakyat still be penalized by the high prices of imported cars to reduce Proton’s losses?

Will the decision made on November 20, 2007 signify the final straw for the drowning national marker?

Only time will tell !

Nov 18 – After our beef noodles lunch and a noon downpour, we decided to go for a drive and check out some waterfalls in the Ulu Langat area. It was more of a recon trip for future activities.We headed for Semenyih via the SILK highway and turned to Ulu Langat in Semenyih.

There are two other ways from the Klang valley to go to Ulu Langat, one was from Cheras and the other from Ampang. Ulu Langat can also be assessed from Kuala Klawang. Our way from Semenyih is the longest route from Kuala Lumpur but we had the time and we wanted to check this other route as we have taken the Cheras route previously.

The signs at Semenyih town for Tekala Falls and Batangsi Falls were quite adequate. We just followed the signs and we drove passed the Nirvana Memorial Park.

A couple of kilometers after the Memorial Park, we come across a huge wall decorated with many birds’ figurines. It was a spectacular sight from far. Very catchy. It was beautiful. As we approach near the wall, we realized that it was the Christian Nirvana Memorial Park. We didn’t know that that there was such a memorial park in the first place.

May being ultra superstitious, warned me not to stop the car because she knows me perfectly. I would have stopped and snapped a couple of pictures.

Come think of it, the name Nirvana is often associated with Buddhism and I don’t think the Memorial Park developer did their home work properly. It would have been better to name the place in a more Christianly theme such Sanctuary, Jerusalem or St Luke’s but definitely not Nirvana. Sack the PR guy!

Anyway, in a very short 5 minutes after the Nirvana Christian Memorial Park, we reached the Sungai Tekala Falls. The place was absolutely crowded. Cars were parked all along the road shoulders.

We continue straight and passed the Semenyih Dam. We arrived at the T-Junction to Ampang/Batu 14. We proceed straight towards Kuala Klawang until the next T-junction where we turned towards Batu 18 town. About 7 km from Batu 18 town (look out for the milestone), there was a sign for turning to Air Terjun Gabai. We turned at this turning and went straight for 10 minutes through a narrow kampong road before reaching a village road block.

The pakcik manning the road blocked collected RM 2 from us before allowing us through. 

The entrance to Sg Gabai Falls lies just 200 meters from the village roadblock. There were two rolls of cars parked on either side of the narrow kampong road, making it even narrower. We decided to park at the outer part so that it would be easier to leave. Did not fancy navigating through gauntlet of parked cars.

We walked the remaining way and we were instantly greeted with screams of Malaysian Idols Wannabes doing their karaoke singing at the entrance building. My Gawd! How could they do this in a park or waterfall? Was it bad enough that people pollute the water and the grounds? They have to pollute the ambience as well with high decibels tone deaf singing? Bloody morons.

We passed the entrance building to the first falls which was utterly crowded. There were people every nook and corners. But the falls looked great despite the crowd.We started trekking up the stairs to the second falls. It was still crowded at the second falls but at least we do not hear the karaoke anymore.

We witness an amazing sight of a man standing in the middle of the falls. He just stood there as still as a doorknob with water rushing down all around him. The view was so Zen like. It was amazing.

Up we went to the third level and again we saw people and people. The third level looked to be the perfect place to picnic. There was a natural slide and people were taking turns to slide down the water here. It looked really fun.

The Gabai Falls is beautiful and we made up our mind that we will return one day, on a normal working day when it less crowded.

18 Nov – After a non event of a salted chicken dinner, we decided to stick something safe for lunch. There are 3 good places for beef noodles in Kuala Lumpur but we opted for Yang Kee Beef Noodles in OUG.

We have been a regular there ever since discovering it about 6 months back. The reasons why we keep going back to Yang Kee is that:-

1. They have been very consistent with the quality of their noodles. Each time, we go there, the taste is equally good.  The noodles at Ngau Kee in Tong Shin sometimes could sometimes be a bit undercooked.
2. They have an adjacent stall selling yong tow foo where they serve a very good stuffed white tow foo.  I could eat just that.
3. It is a coffee shop with air cond.
4. Their home made drinks, barley or lor hon kor are above average.

We were not dissappointed. Yang Kee lived up to their consistency. They are in my books, one of the best beef noodles and one of the saviours of KL gourmet.  

Do try them  out. You won’t regret it. They are at:-

No 52, Jalan Hujan Rahmat 2, Taman OUG, Jalan Kelang Lama, 58200 Kuala Lumpur.

Tel. : 03 7784 3739

Yesterday, we tried another a place featured in the Angel Wong Chui Ling’s  1 day 5 meals gourmet show and this time we chose the Restaurant Yipoh at Damansara Utama. There were 15 of us, so we could choose almost everything off the limited menu. We choose; Yi Poh Salted Chicken, Szechuan Tan Tan Noodles, Herbal Noodles, Peking Sui Kow, Fried Foo Chook, Fish Fish Cake, Fish Balls, Siew Pak Choy, Tow Foo, Omelette, Hor Fun and Yi Poh Beansprouts.

Their signature dish the Yi Poh Salted Chicken was quite tasty but definitely not the best we have tasted. The rest of the dishes were dissappointing.

I would not intentionally make a trip there again for food but if I am in the area and if I ran out of choices, I would visit them again for the salted chicken.

So far Angel’s features hasn’t revealed any real gems. Guess that’s what the Malaysian media is all about. It is just publicity without much essence.

From those who has caught the show and want to try out Yipoh chicken, check them out at:-

25, Jalan SS21/56B, Damansara Utama, 47400 Petaling Jaya, Selangor D.E. (It is located along the same row as The Ship.)
Tel : 603-77222172