EAT: Satayyy.. Satayyyy..

Have you heard about satay???? A delicious food by Malaysian and you can find any where in Malaysia.. but of course, finding the best one is quite hard .. you must know from the locals on the best satay place.. the normal Sate Kajang, is not so nice anymore.. it used to be one of the famous satay brand in Malaysia but probably people get bored and start to change to other supplier .. 

So .. yesterday night, we arrange a gathering for Couchsurfers to eat Satay .. my dearest sister (not by blood), Derya wanted to eat satay before she fly back to Germany to her hometown (going to miss you dearie!!!) .. so Adida suggest that we go to Satay Ismail Dato' Keramat (the place name) .. it turn out to be one of the yummmyyyyyyy satay I had .. it's juicy, just the way I like satay to be ..

Look at that!!!!! ... looks tempting, isn't it?

Satay was like a BBQ stick .. but what made it different from other westerner BBQ style? the ingredients... we use local ingredients like turmeric, belacan (shrimp paste), coriander seeds, cumin, lemongrass, and more (google it for the complete ingredients) ...

Great crowd .. so much fun ...

Derya & Cyrill

How to get there:-

Take a LRT train to Damai ... exit the station, turn Left ... you'll see ESSO (gas station) .. go to the corner @ Esso, and you'll see smokes from the stall.. 

just straight to the stall or we call it GERAI .. to enjoy the juicy Satay like we just had. .. :D

Ms Surayya and Ms Dida

Couchsurfing anyone???

Let's talk a bit about this organization .. I've known Couchsurfing for more than 2 yrs now.. it's all started with my dreams to travel around the world with minimum amount of money, or at least with some amount that I can afford.. I used to read a forum Travel & Living in Cari.com.my, reading other people experience traveling around the world .. then a forumer mentioned about Couchsurfing ..I registered and surf the forum from one room to another .. I found it very interesting and it may be a place where I can expand my knowledge in traveling and pray that one day I'll have my chance.. so I give it a try .. 

Open my car to a strangers .. hahahaha not house yet .. just my car .. what I did is, I offer a ride to Penang from Kuala Lumpur on a Chinese New Year Holiday in 2010. That's where it started .. I didn't put high hopes that anyone would reply, but someone did ..actually 3 travellers accepted my offer .. first, Giuseppe from Italy, then he asked wether I can accept another lady from Japan (Fumi), and few days later, Ivan from Russia sent me a request as well. So my car is full now, that's what I thought .. on our way there, Dexter from Penang give me a call .. he got my number from the forum .. the bas he took broke down in Perak, on the way to Penang .. so we stop over to take him with us.. my car was not just full, it was packed .. hahahahaha..

But the people in my car were so much fun .. we laugh all the way from KL to Penang with lots of stories .. they were travellers and they have lots of experience with people and culture .. They end up staying at my mom's house (except Dexter, as we sent him to Penang to his family) .. and they stayed for 3 days before I went back to KL .. they continue their journey further up north (Giuseppe to Langkawi, Fumi to Alor Setar and Ivan to Thailand) ... 

That was my first and great experience .. After that I did join few other events and I did open my house to others (will tell that stories later) .. I also tried couch other people house when I was in Paris last December (2011) .. again, will tell about it later too .. hahahhaaa ..

We stopped by Gua Tempurung in Perak on our way to Penang

Giuseppe, Ivan and Myself

my guest - Giuseppe, Ivan and Fumi

Giuseppe cooked us dinner that night :)

family photo with our guest in traditional outfit

Giuseppe and Ivan in traditional outfit

Back to their outfit as backpackers ..

I love the experience .. it really open my eyes and preparing my brain, guts, courage and everything to be ready for my own journey ...

Retreatttttttttttttttttttttttttttt everyone..

Time to work and enjoy ..

Who said while working you can't have fun .. most of the companies I've worked, always put the word "fun" as part of the working term .. In Intel Penang, they use the term "Great Place to Work (GPTW)", and in Shell, I think they use "Work Life Balance", not too sure but I'm sure they always have something going on other than work .. of course, you can't put work as everything .. although I love working, I love to have fun in my life tooo .. When I was with Intel, I joined the "New Intelliers Club" and we organize events for new staff .. then in Shell, I joined the sports mostly, played netball although I'm not too good at it .. in my current company now, I joined futsal .. never played futsal in my life, but I have no choice as they don't have netball team.. but I kind of like futsal now.. still need lots of foot practice..

Last weekend, my division had a retreat outside of office.. we went to Avillion Hotel in Port Dickson. It's about 1.5 hours drive from my place .. not to bad especially when I'm driving alone after almost 12 hours in a bus back from Perhentian (a really bad journey, really hate it, will tell about it in another blog as this one is for my division retreat) ...the retreat was meant for us as the team to get together .. as now our team has upgraded from a department to a division, and all of us has been split to different team, it's good to have some time to be together as a team again .. we had lots of laugh, and we enjoyed everyone's company .. I just hope to have all the negative vibe out from the team and start working together..

Anyway, we had fun .. especially during the team building.. too bad I didn't bring my camera during that time.. 

Playing with the camera settings .. white balance and changing aperture..

I need a professional class for my photography settings.... hahahaha

Auni, Fid and Azimah .. my models of the day..

Dive 3: Batu Layar

Our second dive for the day is Batu Layar .. it's somewhere in the middle between Perhentian Besar and Perhentian Kecil .. it's a lovely place with thousands of fish .. which I adore so much.. and we get the chance to dive with Mr Turtle .. 

Dept: 8 - 18m

Vis : 8-10m (quite good for February season)

Some info I got from the internet:

Located on the west coast of Perhentian Besar, "Batu Layar" (Sail Rock) is a submerged reef with a huge staghorn coral field in prefect condition and massive table corals, making it one of the best hard corals site in the Perhentian's.   
Doing diving in the beginning, it's kind of nervous because you don't know what down there.. I used to have this feelings like what people always said "butterflies in your tummy"... but once you get used to it, you stop thinking about the unknown and enjoying the beautiful creatures instead .. that's what I really love about diving.. exploring new beautiful things every dive.. 

some of the hard corals .. i will improve my camera settings, i promise!!! :)

Dive partners

Nice try Sham!!

Myself and Midd .. we look like fish too.. hahahaha

I LOVE DIVING!!! wuhuuuuu