Now before we left for our trip, everyone seemed to be sick or getting sick. People in the office were hacking away. Updates on Facebook detailed how friends were getting sick. In fact, a day or two just before the trip we started feeling a little trickly at the back of our throat - not a good sign.
However, once in Phuket and with lots of sleep, we'd not felt sick in the slightest!
Not until our last day in Phuket. We woke up then with a bad case of backdrip that kept us coughing nonstop.
We figure that we never got better before the trip, and that it was the R&R throughout the trip that kept it at bay. After all, we slept at the beach twice in our trip...
...had facials at the different competitive stores. We're talking some pampering facials (of course, not with Leonard Drake cosmetics and the likes, but still we were in good hands literally and dozed off now and then...) at a price of around 300 baht! 'Course, here in Bolehland we've never been for a facial before, we consider it a luxury where we'd rather spend our money on something else.
Asides from two facials, we also had two massages at the C&N Hotel within the five days. During our Bangkok trip we had a traditional Thai massage and an oil massage, both cases we told the masseurs we wanted a strong massage, resulting in us sometimes being unable to breathe due to extreme pressure and pain. This time, we opted for relaxing massages instead.
Maybe make that three massages. First was the oil massage. Then on our fourth day, just as we arrived at the beach we were approached by this rather aggressive Thai woman who'd offered to do an aloe vera massage for the two of us, saying that it protect from sunburn, very cold, good for us. We weren't keen on it, especially since we've got our own sunblock and aloe vera lotion, but the woman offered to slather on a bit of aloe vera on the Chief as a sampler.
After a bit of haggling, we had the woman slather aloe vera on the both of us. She takes a piece out from her bucket, where it's all soaked in iced water, scrapes the aloe with a comb, and proceeds to butter us with it.
It's cooling because it's been in iced water. Best described is that it's slimy. Whether or not it did help with sunburn, we cannot say, although true enough we didn't get sunburnt at all this trip. We did regret getting that aloe vera massage just as we arrived on the beach, though - it's all washed off after we went to swim a bit in the sea.
Oh and we did help with her business, as soon after we saw her applying aloe vera for a couple of girls nearby.
And that night, after the 'authentic' aloe vera massage, we went for another aloe vera massage. This time it was aloe vera lotion (we suppose) replacing massage oil, and it was roughly the same as an oil massage.
After all that, on our final day, we started getting sick again. Sigh. And once we touched down on Bolehland soil, it was two weeks of nonstop sniffling, guzzling lozenges of all sorts, and progressing from irritating backdrip with unproductive coughs to chesty phlegm and sore throats.
But at least we're grateful for the fact that we weren't sick for our holidays!
And we were reminded of All Saint's 'Pure Shores'. One of our favourite songs, even though we've never watched 'The Beach'.
Our first trip to Phuket could be considered as an introduction to the things to do on Patong, and this time around we decided to add on something else so that we didn't just do the same old, same old. And since we were staying in Phuket for a longer period this time, we slotted a day in for island hopping around the Phi Phi Islands.
Details of the island hopping package wasn't clear, and at a cost of 1000 baht we weren't too sure if we were getting much out of it when we started checking out websites on touring Phi Phi Islands. Still, pricewise we actually thought 1000 baht to be fair, and when we arrived at the hotel we asked for more details (since we got the hotel to book the package for us).
In the end, we vaguely knew that we were going to go around the island, we'd to bring a towel, sunglasses, swimwear, probably a spare change of clothes, sunblock. And that, we did. Along with our iPhone as our camera (sadly we did not pack our iXus battery charger for this trip) and some cash as well.
This, you got to take note: the tour has been paid for, which includes the transfers to and from Rassada Harbour, the boat ride, our lunch, which technically means if we're not interested in buying souvenirs we don't need to bring any money. Somehow we thought it better to bring a bit of cash along, just in case. The Chief brought some too in case there were souvenirs worth buying on Phi Phi Island. In the end, we only paid for an entry fee of 20 baht to Phi Phi Island (we weren't told of this at all), which is used for upkeep.
Imagine if we didn't bring any cash along with us. What to do then?
So anyways our day started rather early, where we'd to be up around 6am, have our buffet breakfast, then wait for our transport which was scheduled to leave at 7am. Our transport arrives, we've gotten towels from the concierge, hop onto the van along with a Singaporean Malay family and two Malaysian Chinese couples, and...
...had to wait for some more passangers who were late. 20 minutes late. By the time four Indian guys climbed up the van, they were soundly scolded by the Malay mother: "Look at the time! We were suppose to leave at 7! What happens if we're late? If the boat leaves without us and my children cannot go, what are you going to do?" The Indians muttered their apologies only to be told, "Sorry no cure!" Garangnya mak ni... The Chinese guys also voiced loudly in Cantonese that even the latecomers knew the gist of displeasure everyone had against them (in our case we sent out a strong silent wave of displeasure).
Not halfway through the ride to the harbour, one of the latecomers opened a window, letting in a drought that brought in dust and smoke. These latecomers were getting less and less popular. One of the Chinese guys asked them to close the window, and that's where we all learned that one of the latecomers was feeling nauseous, not that we could see it.
Being very late in the first place, plus the fact that it wasn't apparent why they wound down the window in the first place, it was hard to be sympathetic to the nauseous fellow. If he'd actually thrown up we think everyone would have kicked out the four and head on our way.
Interestingly, the four Indians came dressed quite proper in shirts and jeans. Without any bags, without any towels, without any change of clothes. And throughout the entire trip they never changed out of those clothes either.
Luckily we arrived on time to board the cruise boat (our package was with the Sea Angel Tours), were given our tour stickers, and we were on our way! On our way there we somehow found ourself on the top deck as the inner decks (with proper seats and air-conditioning) were full with a large tour group. The top deck was still empty so we managed to set up chairs at the front of the deck, prime spots for the trip.
Here then poses another choice: start suntanning on our way to Phi Phi Island, or not? The angmohs were already in their swimwear and/or shorts and slapping on the sunblock. In the end we decided to suntan too, since we were on the top deck and it was bright and sunny and we weren't too keen on sweating our tanktop into a wet rag. And a good idea it was to begin tanning, too! It was bright and windy so we didn't feel hot and sweaty after all, and it took about an hour before we reached the Island.
Our first stop, Tonsai Pier, where another tour group got off. Here we went down to the inside decks to enjoy the air-conditioning (when the boat isn't moving, the upper deck heats up fast!) and soon we were on our way sightseeing around the Phi Phi Lay islands. Admittedly once sitting inside we couldn't pay much attention to what the guide was saying over the loudspeakers.
After the sightseeing bits we were stopped at Monkey Beach, given lifejackets and snorkels and allowed to go swim! We were worried that the lifejackets might have some smell, but thankfully not. The snorkels, however, we decided best not to think so much about who has used them before. Then it was time to dive!
Last time we did this was end of 2001, if we're not wrong, during our Redang trip with university coursemates. We snorkled then and even did a bout of scuba diving, where we donned on the snorkel, had a gas tank, and was dragged by a professional diver while we took snapshots of the sea bed and fishes with a disposable underwater camera that gave us...proof that we did go scuba diving, at least.
Anyways it was good to get to snorkel again, and we even swam all the way from the deepwater where the boat was anchored to the beach area, where there were loads of monkeys on the trees.
We just wonder how safe our belongings are when we go snorkelling, since not everyone will want to swim. But since everything was still in place when we got back, so we dropped the issue.
Arrival at the Phi Phi Pier...
...and we're informed that we need to pay a fee. Somebody did complain that this should have been informed early on the brochure, or that it should already have been inclusive with the package.
Directions were given by signboard...
...and where to go for lunch!
The PP Princess.
They've got these nice big pavilions set up but we're surprised at the lack of fans. Surely, some form of ventilation could have been fixed up?
After lunch, it was time to roam the island! The Thais show their sense of humour not only via their advertisements, but also their signages...
So reminded of Portal in a way looking at this photo.
Unlike Patong beach where the waves are consistent (but very relaxing as white noise), here the waters were calm. And if you want a deckchair it'll cost you 100 baht. We decided to walk about the shops instead.
Soon it was time to board the boat once more, and we didn't find anything to buy so we decided to head back to snag some good seats. Climbing up the boat we were initially shocked to see this.
Not wearing our glasses and whatwith the sedate nature of this trip, instead of immediately identifying them for what they were we thought they were memorial photographs of victims.
Another incident on our trip back to Rassada Harbour. Seats were getting full as the boat picked up more passangers for the return trip, and soon enough there was this Indian chap who came up to us, tapped our shoulder and asked if anyone was sitting on the seat next to us (where we had our towel draping to dry after wiping down from snorkelling).
Now to be fair, we do think that this Indian chap was self-consciously polite. When he flagged over a staff with a rubbish bag to take his trash, the chap wanted to take away our disposable cup that we've left in the netting on the back of the chair in front of us. When he wanted to go somewhere for a while and come back, he'll tap our shoulder and tell us in broken English his intentions.
Only...we left that cup there on purpose should we have any rubbish to throw, so we weren't happy and stopped him. And when he sat beside us, he had totally no concept of personal space, and so both of us had our elbows and arms pressed against each other as we fought for armrest space and his knee tried to make friends with our hip (oh chappy was slightly chubby). Plus he tapped our shoulder rather hard, which we considered as not polite. Not to mention, we already had a bad encounter with the latecomers this morning.
And he's really pressing onto us as if we were Siamese twins. We tried sleeping. Not too much luck.
Nearing Rassada Harbour we couldn't take it anymore and abruptly sat up straight, knocking his left arm out of our personal territory (also way way past the armrest and separating line that divides our seat from his).
Back at Rassada Harbour we were greeted by more souvenir photographs! But we've decided that, if we were to have people take photos of us, we'd like the background to show more of where we've been (ie Phi Phi Island) rather than of the harbour.
Plus the Chief had already bought us the souvenir aka memorial photographs earlier on, heh.
And what's there to shop in Phuket? The souvenir t-shirts? The beer branded tank tops?
One reason to shop overseas is to get stuff we can't find back here in Bolehland. And off-hand, two things comes to mind when it's Thailand: foodstuff, and Boots (it's amazing, there isn't a Boots in Sporeland too!).
During this trip we'd two malls to cover: Jungceylon at Patong and Central Festival in town.
It's a bit odd to see this on the chairs around Central Festival. Makes us wonder if kids go missing...
Jungceylon being the nearest, it was our first stop after lunch on the day we arrived. The main reason? To stock up on drinks and snacks that you don't find back here. This included a brand of mixed fruit yoghurt drinks, packets of soya milk mixed with honey and bottled water (the two bottles the hotel provide daily sometimes just isn't enough). Oddly enough this time we weren't interested in buying junk food to snack on when in the hotel, though...normally we'd jump at the sight of those little packets of Twisties or some other flavours you can't find back here.
And Boots (and Watsons), also for stuff you can't find here. Both have their range of products, like Boots with their Body Wash with a watermelon and mango scent, or Watsons with their Classic Pooh creams and lotions, packaged very nicely (only recently has Guardian's packaging taken a turn for the better with their own stuff). Also not to mention we get Decolgen there cheap, and we still tend to get shocked to find contraceptives available off the shelf, along with other stuff that's considered Pharmacy Only or Prescription Only back here.
Anyways seeing how we've not used the stuff we've gotten from Boots since last year we refrained from buying more, even if they were on offer.
However, we did get this from Carrefour in Jungceylon.
Assorted pork-flavoured instant noodles and crispy pork slices snacks. Because you don't find pork flavoured instant noodles here, and the crispy pork slices go oh-so-well with the instant noodles! Supper takes a whole new turn of satisfaction.
And in Central Festival, we'd not find much in Tops but we did come across this.
Hersheys in a tin box. The Hersheys were good, and it wasn't long before we'd finished one box. Now, if only we have any idea what to do with the box...
Our best buy considered from Central Festival and for this trip, was this iPhone cover.
The Q-Pot Loves iPhone chocolate case.
We'll blame a YKLS member for our looking around at iPhone cases. While we may not be singing with them this year, we still drop by once in a while to say hello. And one day when we were visiting, we'd recently bought the SwitchEasy Capsule Rebel case (aka 'The Watermelon' as it was in two tones of green) and we were dressed in a green t-shirt and in green shorts.
So this fellow, he asks us, did we buy the case to match what we wore? No, we answered, we just like the colour green. But that got us thinking along the lines of getting more iPhone covers, although probably not the ones you can get from Machines or Mac City as those can easily cost over RM100. But even those sold outside tend to be somewhere RM35 or more, and we've not come across any other casing we'd fancy.
Until the Q-Pot. Left upside down and in the box that comes with it, it could really pass off as a box of chocolates. And while this casing is much more bulkier, we can actually stand it upright without needing a stand! Makes it easy watching Sailormoon sometimes!
And as far as we know, there's no such cover here in Bolehland yet! We've a totally unique cover! We're chuffed up over that, haha. To our shame, otousan has also asked if we could get him a Q-Pot cover too, but we're declining to do so for now (well not to mention that we aren't going back to Thailand anytime soon).
As for the Chief's best buy, it would be when we walked into McThai. With football fever going on at the moment and McDonald's having this Coke Footbal Glass collection going on, the Chief has so far three of the glasses. And when we walked into McThai, we saw this.
All the glasses, in a special collector's box, at a rather attractive price of 199 baht. It's at times like these that we feel justified in bringing a rather large and sturdy luggage even for a trip that doesn't require much in terms of clothes or shopping. So naturally we bought the entire thing!
Oh, and since the Chief's already halfway through collecting a set of glasses, the Chief's still going to finish that set. Which means we've got at least three days of large McValue meals with sundaes as we've to help complete that set. We'll get the glasses when we have a craving for fried chicken, then.
MEALWHAT(tm) interrupts the Bangkok Photolog series to present you this special edition!
We begin with LUNCHWHAT(tm) on the first day at Phuket! After checking in and resting at the hotel, we head to a favourite spot for lunch: Restaurant No 6!
This place serves decent meals that doesn't cost a bomb and most of their drinks are either served in tall glasses with lots of ice, or in bottles with a foam cosy to keep the beer icy-cold.
After some mulling for where to go next, we decided to splurge a bit for DINNERWHAT(tm)!
Two people.
Four dishes.
All of them, mouthwateringly delicious.
Although we must admit, the butter and garlic sauce may be just a little bit too much for two people...
Every morning, for BREAKFASTWHAT(tm) we would indulge in a heavy buffet breakfast consisting of porridge, pastry buns, toast, pancakes, pork sausages, ham, scrambled eggs, juice, and tea or coffee.
On our second day in Phuket, whatwith a heavy dinner the night before and a heavy breakfast in the morning, LUNCHWHAT(tm) saw us taking it easy and sharing just one dish once we arrived at Central Festival!
After some shopping what better way to rest than to indulge in some ice cream?
And after even more shopping later, it was time for DINNERWHAT(tm)!
We decided to walk into Yayoi after seeing a poster of the yakisoba with omelet.
And while we're able, most of our dishes will feature pork!
Day three in Phuket had us going island hopping to Phi Phi Island for most of the day! LUNCHWHAT(tm) was a simple buffet lunch setup that filled the stomach after our snorkeling session.
For DINNERWHAT(tm) we were introduced to MK Gold by the Chief! However, the branch at Jungceylon was a steamboat setup and not the barbeque setup that the Chief intended to introduce to us. Nevertheless the food was still good!
Everything was poured into the bowl and it all came to a boil quickly.
What we're really reminded of with the sauce is the sweet sauce you get when eating dim sum. What else is in that sauce, we've no idea. But it's tasty!
Day four saw us having our meals at Restaurant No 6 again! A very convenient place for food indeed.
Day five was our last day in Phuket! Yes, somehow we either have been having Thai food or Japanese food when dining in Phuket.
Fuji's food was still good, although must make note for Chief to not order the Fuji Green Tea Fit in the future.
The pork rolls were a delight, mixing pork and cheese!
In future trips to Phuket, we will explore Deutsche Kneipe if they still have their All-You-Can-Eat offer, and Hard Rock Cafe (to get the Phuket Hurricane glass!), and perhaps one of the other recommended seafood restaurants!
It was only last year when we first visited Phuket, and now we've gone for a second trip! Better yet, this time we had a longer stay of 5 days and made the most of it!
Interestingly, by "making the most of it", we actually mean "spending time sleeping at the beach".
Our plans were kept simple. Within the 5 days we were there, we would do 2 facials, 2 massages, tan at the beach, swim at the hotel pool, walk about at Jungceylon when Thailand's Sale starts, go island hopping to Phi Phi Island, stock up on food and drinks found only in Thailand, gorge ourselves out on the food at Patong and catch a movie at the SFX Cinema in Jungceylon on our final day.
And by the end of our trip we managed all that (save watching a movie - we would have watched Sex And The City 2 for only 800 baht instead of 1200 baht but timing was rather tight), and more! There was shopping at Jungceylon and at Central Festival, there were aloe vera massages as well, we bought things we never expected, and we slept off all our sleep debt!
This trip was also planned to fully maximize our time in Phuket, hence our departure flights were 7.25am to Phuket and 9.05pm back to KL. Which meant that we'd to leave to KL Sentral at 4am, take the AirAsia Skybus shuttle by 5am so that we could reach LCCT by 6am. Slept throughout the journey on the bus, checked in and then headed on to the Plaza Premium Lounge for some breakfast. Once aboard the plane we didn't get to sleep as we had our pre-booked meals to dig into, although we must admit the quality has diminished from what we hand previously (yes we also had the Asian Fried Rice that williamnyk had!)...
Upon arrival at Phuket International Airport we soon got a cab and slept the entire journey to the Royal Paradise Hotel.
After checking into the hotel at about 9am, we unpacked our stuff and slept.
Even on the following day, while tanning at the beach, we slept soundly for a couple of hours.
The drawback about leaving so early to head to Phuket, especially with only a couple of hour's sleep the night before. But no matter, as it all falls into the plan! This trip was meant to be a relaxing getaway!
So let's see. This year there's been a fair number of shows that we had expectations from, but so far we've been let down now and again. On the upside the Chief has been winning lots of free tickets so we've both been enjoying a fair number of movies too! Let's do a recap on some of the shows...
Book Of Eli. Didn't expect much although from the trailer the first impression we had was, "Fallout!" No expectations, so no disappointments but not really that interesting for us. Miss.
Edge Of Darkness. Mel Gibson still puts on a good show, and the show makes sense in the end, but also not really memorable. OK.
From Paris With Love. We'd no idea what this show was about when we went in to watch it! John Travolta shocked us with a different look and Jonathan Rhys Meyers is still King Henry to us but this comedy was ok.
Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief. We suppose since we never read the books it wasn't as good as the Harry Potter series. But we were fine with them taking liberties with Greek mythology as it was a modern setting, and Uma Thurman really, really make an awesome Medusa. Watchable.
Valentine's Day. Somewhere at the start of the show we thought, "Love Actually!" We need to watch that show again. What really impressed us about the show wasn't how everyone was connected in some way in the show but the house that Ashton Kutcher stayed in, and Anne Hathaway as a phone sex worker! Watchable.
Shutter Island. We actually saw the ending while browsing at the DVD store. Then went to watch the movie to appreciate the beginning. Not a horror show as we thought it was in the trailers, but nevertheless a good movie. Good movie.
Alice In Wonderland. Most people told us that they were rather disappointed with this movie. We could not see why. It's a slight deviation from the story book (oh our goodness we tried reading the book and wanted to kill Alice) but Helena Bonham Carter made the Queen of Hearts the star of the show! Oh and Anne Hathaway amazes us by showing she can act slightly weird (unfortunately we've locked her as the sweet Andrea of Devil Wears Prada)! Watchable.
Clash Of The Titans 2010. Can we cry? The trailer, especially with the minus one of The Used's 'The Bird And The Worm' giving the action an edgy but great feel, gave us quite high hopes for this show. Major letdown as the 3D version had nothing but 3D Chinese subtitles, while the show, dark to begin with, was darker when wearing the 3D glasses. A visual feast but somehow that was all.
Ip Man 2. Great martial arts show that does as well as the first, although the storyline seems similar. Of course the scene to watch for is Donny Yen fighting Sammo Hung. Must watch.
Iron Man 2. No expectations except a reminder to stay till after the credits. Overall the show was good, Robert Downey Jr entertained, and thankfully there was no need to be a Marvel fanboy to enjoy the show (we wonder how many found the Captain America's shield bit funny). Good movie.
Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time. Another show that we hoped would do well. It did...formulaic. Those who didn't know what Prince Of Persia was all about would be wondering what was with all the athletic jumping and swinging. The conversations between the Prince Dastan and Princess Tamina was entertaining, but somewhere in the show it suddenly felt like Pirates Of The Carribean.
Honestly we had even more memorable shows coming from Lady Gaga's music videos. Speaking of which Alejandro is out!
So we had to pick up our jaws at the bed scenes. But our gripe is, "Why can't BodyJam have choreography like that any more?!"
And tonight we got to watch A-Team!
Also another show with no expectations since we've never seen any trailers, only the poster. Only, this movie is so far in our opinion, the best show we've watched so far for this year. There's a lot of budget for the action scenes like Iron Man 2 has but the humour in A-Team outshines Iron Man 2. This is one show not to miss! Even from the second front row in Cathay we had no difficulty enjoying the movie (thumbs up to Cathay for having seats near the front that doesn't need one to crane up and look left and right just to watch the show)!
Oh and honestly Bradley Cooper in the movie. We want his genes. That wavy hair. That five o'clock shadow. Those eyes. That smile. And disturbingly, as we're not a fan off this, the chest fuzz. We want them genes!
Sigh we guess we'll have to resolve to boiled chicken breast meat for two weeks, more cardio and longer workouts. And make do without the hair.
So an ex-coursemate names his photo album of pictures taken around Glasgow over the weekend, 7 years after we've all left the place. And everyone who'd probably only write a wall post to each other when it's their birthdays or the occasional comment here and there, who you've not heard via email or text nor seen in ages, gets drawn to the photos (us included). It's not as if we've all forgotten each other entirely, there're coursemates already married and living overseas and working all hours and the likes...
Sometimes all it takes is for someone to put up photos, probably tag a few people, and next thing you know it becomes a sort of university fun project.
Like when we posted up our batch graduation photo from Strathclyde with most of everyone in it. Since ours was a developed photo from film, we'd to scan it in before uploading, and the resolution once uploaded was iffy at best when it came to detecting faces. Since we had the actual photo we tagged those we could, then it was up to everyone else to try and make out who's who. That photo had a fair number of ex-coursemates tagging people!
We liked how our friend captioned this photo, 'Hate/miss the staircase'.
And now our ex-coursemates, us included, are going through Kepong Bicep's photos as he's currently there, taking photos of landmarks as they now are and everyone's reliving memories - from prices of meals at China Express to the temperature of the swimming pool at the U of Strathclyde's Centre for Sport and Recreation and all other landmarks...
Nothing like nudging the ol' personal nostalgia to bring people together a short while.
This probably started with everyone on Facebook raving about Kylie's upcoming song 'All The Lovers', and the YouTube links posted along with it. Only we'd not the opportunity to check it out earlier so it was only this week in the midst of all the hectic goings-on that we somehow decided to destress by looking for the music video.
And we must say that it grows on us, once we got over our initial shock at how the music video started and started listening to the song.
Funny, Madonna's music videos never shocked us. Pet Shop Boys' videos never shocked us. Lady Gaga...well, even Telephone wasn't shocking because Kylie shocked us nine years ago with the music video for 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head'. After that video what's some tape over the nipples? Although admittedly if we never watched 'Bad Romance' first and jumped straight to 'Telephone' perhaps we might have been shocked at the near-nudity scenes.
So anyways we'll wait for Kylie's new song, hopefully we'll appreciate most of the songs in her new album (unfortunately since we enjoyed the dancefloor album that was Fever, Body Language and X didn't have too many songs that caught our fancy as they were more pop than dancefloor...). And while we wait, we'll busy ourselves by watching back her old music videos, especially those from Fever. Those were great music videos!
We've got to thank Parlophone for putting up her videos in HD.
Only...why isn't there a music video for 'Like A Drug'? That's our favourite from X!
And for a while now we've had Lady Gaga thematically on our iPhone, with the startup screen from Tapulous' Lady Gaga Revenge as our wallpaper and all ringtones from her songs. We're thinking of making a Kylie theme, but we'll wait a while as Lady Gaga's 'Alejandro' music video will be out soon...
We've been rather late in discovering YouTube Downloader. Prior to YouTube Downloader we've been kickyoutubing any videos we were interested in (not a lot), but when we found ourself occasionally heading to watch Lady Gaga's whacky Telephone music video, we thought it best if we kept a copy handy on our iPhone instead.
Beyonce's 'bad girl' line never fails to crack us up.
Then there were the parody videos, our favourites being Sherry Vine's take on Bad Romance...
...and the Key Of Awesome's Telephone.
YouTube Downloader made us a very happy man by making it hassle-free downloading the vids! Then, of course, iTunes had to inform us that some of the videos that we downloaded weren't able to be copied over to our iPhone. It happens. No biggie. We'd just use iTunes to convert it to an iPhone compatible format.
Leaving it overnight to convert as it was rather late and the file wasn't small, we sync'ed it the next day and what do you know, when we watched it the resolution was compromised. Bloody disappointing. Then we recalled reading the review on YouTube Downloader (we think this was a review on Download.com) about YouTube Downloader being able to convert files as well, so we thought, what the heck, might as well give it a go.
Not only was the conversion much faster, but it kept the original resolution!
Finally, something that made putting videos on our iPhone much easier. Then there were the Gag Che videos that, while in Cantonese which meant we understood less than one third of what is talked about, were still funny (thanks Little Prince for introducing!) and so we snagged everything.
That led us to editing all the information so that it doesn't just clog up our video's section on the iPhone, but is categorized under TV Shows etc. Our iPhone videos section now looks much neater!
After all that, we decided to try using the YouTube Downloader for one more experiment: converting Real Media files to Quicktime format.
And so, we now have the entire Sailormoon Sailorstars season on our iPhone! Happiness is us! No more waiting to use the telly, making supper, then proceeding to slot in a DVD to watch an episode! Now all the episodes can follow us wherever we go! Joy! The moonlight carries the message of love!
Too bad we only managed to convert the Sailorstars season. The first season of Sailormoon were in a slightly different Real Media format, .ram, while the Sailorstars season were in .rm format. YouTube Downloader couldn't convert .ram to .mov as far as we tried, hopefully in the future this will be improved on!
Recently we've actually picked up a slight interest in Portal (after listening to Still Alive and watching some of the Portal YouTube clips admittedly) but never did get around to borrowing the game from someone - for one thing first-person shooters give us vertigo, although alakazen tells us that since Portal's very much a thinking game rather than running and gunning the vertigo shouldn't be so bad, and for another we wondered if our PC could support the game.
What really got us intrigued about the game was GLaDOS. Not the thinking using portals and definitely not because it was a FPS.
Then just last week, we got word that Steam was releasing Portal for free!
Hence no need to wait to borrow from anyone. And we'll be owning an original copy.
So far, we've only found time to play the game twice, and both times we could still feel the vertigo come on (although not as fast as, say, when playing CounterStrike or Left 4 Dead!) and we're quite happy that Portal runs smoothly on our PC...when the video settings are set at the bare minimum. That's fine, since GLaDOS kept us entertained with her exclaimations and the game doesn't really need to be played in high-end graphics to be enjoyed.
Our only gripe? Playing via Steam meant we at first spent the entire night and following morning downloading the 5GB game, and then finding out after that that we need to be connected online to play! We're not sure if we need to maintain the internet connection while we play, like for Command & Conquer 4 or Assassin's Creed 2, but we don't like the internet dependency as set by Steam.
What happens if something happens to our connection, like our modem getting fried?
At least with Good Old Games we can download and play anywhere anytime. At least Steam chose a good game to lure us in. Otherwise we might just forgo the download (and getting games from Steam in the future) and just borrow Portal from a friend. For now, we'll be busy exploring the depths of Aperture looking for cake.
Now we pretty much could have made do with using our old modem, but there was one particular thing that had us got us looking for a new wireless modem router.
See, it all started when William mentioned about playing Scrabble with SK, now that they've joined the ranks of iPhoners. That caught our attention, we never paid much attention to that app in the iTunes Store as we never fancied playing with AI, whatmore needing to pay USD4.99 for it. Asked him and it turns out to be a free app, so we jumped onto the bandwagon for some gametime.
And this pretty much happens.
Prior to playing Words With Friends Free, our data usage mid-April was some 250MB. We'd never really hit 500MB with our Maxis data plan and thought 500MB was a comfortable limit for us, we could Facebook, email, surf, navigate via Maps and not really worry about hitting 500MB. So when we started Words With Friends Free, every time it was our turn and we were free to play we would be looking for word placements. And it being the free version instead of the paid version, advertisements featured heavily in the game, especially after every move we made, an ad will pop up.
Now, come May we checked our usage and saw we were close to the 500MB mark. We weren't really sure how much but thought we were safely within the limit. But our Maxis bill told us otherwise - from the RM100 average to RM150ish! Overshot.
That got us to slow down playing Words With Friends Free unless we're in a wifi area, and so no playing at home.
Until now, that is! Currently we're on par with William, derek, carpe diem, poor SK keeps opening up opportunities for triple word and double word scoring, and Legolas is absolutely trashing us!
Now sometime late last year to the start of this year our Level One ADSL2+ Modem Router sort of gave up on us. Couldn't figure out why we couldn't connect online with it. All the light lit up and all, but we couldn't connect to the web-based manager. Thankfully we still have the old modem supplied by Streamyx, so we switched to that.
Trust us not to realise the simplest solution available, not until we brought it to Computer War for a diagnosis: "kena thunder".
Anyways, there wasn't any urgency for us to get our wireless modem router fixed, since we've not been playing our Wii for quite a while (sadly), neither do we go online with our DS, and we've a mobile data plan for 500MB now.
We were hoping that it was somehow salvageable but we expected it to be otherwise. Better yet was when the guy at Computer War told us that our model only had a 1-year warranty, and that since last year Level One started a lifetime warranty policy on their newer products. Had to start looking at a new wireless modem router, then.
And when we started looking around, we were a bit confused. Prior to our visit to Computer War we had a look at a few other stores, and generally wondered at the difference in prices. The way the products were named didn't help. And yes, while we're fairly capable in techy things we've never been able to follow every bit of techy stuff there is. Like, we're able to fix up our wireless modem router, but get slightly lost when they ask us if we're using PPPoE or PPPoA and what is our encapsulation etc...
And shopping for a new wireless modem router wasn't any easier at first. You see why we're calling it in full? Because all this time we just thought 'router', thinking that all routers would have the functionality of a modem, a router, and wireless networking. The first router we saw was priced about RM60ish, and that led us to think that prices for routers have gone down. Then we saw another router that went for twice that price.
So we started paying a little more attention to what the words said on the box, and got lost reading about G Wireless, N Wireless, N+ Wireless etc. After asking around it was clear that the cheaper ones were just routers without a modem, our previous wireless modem router was a G standard and that N standard meant stronger wireless signal strength. And most brands don't call it a wireless modem router, they term it ADSL/ADSL2+ Wireless Router.
Now we know.
Back to when we had ours diagnosed at Computer War.
Technician says ours is fried, we think, okay, it's time for a new one. The only two brands that offer lifetime warranty are Level One and Belkin. We ask the technician if he has a Level One current model that is similar to what we have. He checks and tell us that there's no more stock at the moment, and offers us the next best thing, a model with the N Wireless standard at around RM250ish. How about the Belkin? There's a G Wireless standard at RM200ish.
The Belkin looked aesthetically much more pleasing compared to the Level One. And based on our experience with the G Wireless standard, we didn't think we needed something faster. Plus, we're not connecting wirelessly to our pc, that's still via network cable so the wireless standards don't apply. And it actually says G Wireless Modem Router on the box! Nearly plain English!
You can pretty much tell which we chose, heh.
And to cap it off, even installation was much easier! The installation CD definitely had the laymen in mind as everything was asked in plain English. And now we're wireless once again!
...when we woke up. After coming home and falling asleep on the couch last night when we got back from our movie. Then we showered and set our iPhone up to sync. After that, we couldn't go back to sleep, try as may. It couldn't be because of the movie we watched, The Descent 2, because we never thought about the movie again after we'd watched it.
There we were, lying in bed thinking about how we missed Glasgow and partly our school days, and how we wouldn't mind reliving some of those times but with present knowledge. Then we remember about homework and projects and assignments and then we give a shudder at how it probably wouldn't be as enjoyable reliving those days.
It's also not because we found out that Glee's third soundtrack, Showstoppers, is out on iTunes and we were tempted to get the Lady Gaga songs.
Perhaps it was because we decided to leave the table lamp on for once, but we never had trouble sleeping with the lights on as we tend to fall asleep with our bedroom lights on before.
By 6.50am we gave up trying to catch forty winks and got up, got shocked at our slightly-haggard appearance and sunken eyes, watered the plants, wiped off the morning dew off Aidan, had our breakfast, showered, and prepped for work.
And am now subsisting on coffee to get us through the day.
So there was this time three years ago when we actually voiced out our thoughts about the iPhone, and wasn't too keen over it because of how it lacked quite a fair bit compared to other phones (yes we will say it still lacks quite a fair bit even now).
Then we played around with a friend's iPhone and what woo'ed us was Safari. Surfing was a bliss. That sold us onto the iPod Touch, being a tad more affordable (compared to the iPhone, that is).
Then from being just a mobile surfing and email device with only web apps you could bookmark on Safari (which required a wifi connection to access), Apple introduced apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch, the ability to rearrange icons, cut-copy-paste, and a fair bit of updates, our iPod Touch became more of a PDA than our phones ever were.
The main reason? The speed and the fast response rate. For example, the time we take to mark an appointment on our iPod Touch calender, we'd only be halfway through typing it on our Nokias.
We've been a loyal fan of Nokia but over the years it's been losing out when it came to the smartphone market...after our Nok7710 there weren't any other touchscreen models, and when everyone was on to capacitive Nokia was still on resistive...and we'd played around with the Nokia X6, and sadly it didn't seem a joy to use at all. Not to mention, program loading times were still bad when you're used to instant loading speeds. Nokia's OS no longer does it for us, unless we're opting for a simple phone just for calls and messaging (but even then we love the threaded messaging that iPhone has!).
Anyways, we were thinking about the iPad.
Would you be getting one?
Our initial reaction? Nope.
There's no camera, or a port for a keyboard, and the price of the iPad or apps for the iPad won't be cheap, all this don't really make the iPad much different from an iPod Touch except for the size and the interface (Mail reminds us of Outlook now).
What would really have made the iPad much more appealing to us would be the ability to play DVD movies and audio music. Rather than having to convert our DVD movies and tv shows to a compatible format, all we'd need to do is to pop in a DVD into the drive and watch our shows on the go anywhere we want. Now that would certainly make it much more worthwhile!
Hmmm we've ripped off a few DVDs to watch on our iPod Touch, but those videos take up anywhere from 500mb to 1gb, limited to how much space we have available (our best moments was having all episodes of BBC's Pride & Prejudice ripped and copied onto our iPod Touch, then having the iPod Touch hooked up to a mobile stand and FM transmitter, so we could watch the series when stuck in heavy traffic). If they included an optical drive in the iPad we could enjoy watching Spartacus: Blood & Sand while lazing in bed without even having to first synchronize the files from pc to iPad!
Never mind. Save money and wait for future generations of iPad to get better. Or perhaps by then we would get a MacBook to do the job instead.
...when we find ourselves totally doing easy options in both BodyCombat and BodyJam when it comes to moves pertaining to jumping (except sometimes for old BodyJam tracks and for the jump knees in BodyCombat's Muay Thai track) because we kinda feel the twinge in our knees;
...when into the second track of Jam/Combat and we feel a stitch in our sides and our stamina is shot;
...when we don't seem to be hanging out so much sweaty dri-fit clothes to dry before washing;
...when, and most obvious, our shampoo and body soap runs out far more faster when compared to three years back when we used to go to the gym about three times a week and shower there.
First we had Angry Birds to occupy much of our time. Not only did the game had many green pigs to kill and birds to launch, they do a pretty good job getting us to come back to the game again and again, first to finish all the stages, then to score three stars for each stage, and with the recent update, a new episode with more stages and a new type of bird.
Now that that's over with, we're waiting for more episodes from Angry Birds to occupy our time. In the mealwhile, we've found two other games that tickle our fancy:
First up was Babel Rising. Was free for a while back, looked simple yet interesting for a god game, and so we figured no harm trying and downloaded the app. We had a good laugh with this, as we visited all sorts of divine retribution against the heathens building the Tower of Babel. Very addictive app, and after a few games we gave in and bought the (in-app purchase) Campaign and Fury Modes.
The Campaign Mode allowed for slight variations in gameplay (ie, the tower begins half built, a level is added to the tower at the following stages) and allows abilities to be upgraded, while the Fury Mode has the workers being invulnerable to certain abilities (blue workers cannot be electrocuted, for instance). In fact the longest we'd played on a single stage was in Fury Mode (normally somewhere within 10 minutes the workers would have overwhelmed us) was just over 30 minutes! The battery drain we faced!
Then we were introduced to Crush The Castle. Admittedly when we first saw this app on the iTunes Store we weren't impressed. Only recently we got around to trying the Flash version online, and it's sort of a mix between Angry Birds and Babel Rising. Instead of birds on a catapult attacking pigs, it's a trebuchet launching stones at castles with people in them. Kings, knights, maidens, all must be killed to clear the stage. Blood splatters everywhere as they scream when rocks fly, walls shatter and everything plunges and crumbles.
Using the trebuchet isn't as easy as the catapult but that doesn't stop us from now trying to score gold for every castle!
Now, if only there was a free version of Canabalt for the iPhone. We find ourselves singing Erasure's 'Always' when we play that. Oh yes, and there's also Canabalt Typing Tutor to try as well...
You can start calling us Unker Janvier now, while we start thinking of stuff to do and get, like a craft album for our sis for photos of Little Kay. Or baby stuff. Or toys. Or clothes.
We figure that we never got better before the trip, and that it was the R&R throughout the trip that kept it at bay. After all, we slept at the beach twice in our trip...
...had facials at the different competitive stores. We're talking some pampering facials (of course, not with Leonard Drake cosmetics and the likes, but still we were in good hands literally and dozed off now and then...) at a price of around 300 baht! 'Course, here in Bolehland we've never been for a facial before, we consider it a luxury where we'd rather spend our money on something else.
Asides from two facials, we also had two massages at the C&N Hotel within the five days. During our Bangkok trip we had a traditional Thai massage and an oil massage, both cases we told the masseurs we wanted a strong massage, resulting in us sometimes being unable to breathe due to extreme pressure and pain. This time, we opted for relaxing massages instead.
