Last Friday, finally my registration as an occasional student was finalized and completed. I received my student card and that means I’m officially a Newcastle University student. Earlier, on Wednesday, I could not register because the post graduate admission officer was not around. I did not realized that the post graduate admission officer was only scheduled to be available before lunch hour. Hence, I have to come on the next day. On Thursday I came to the Newcastle University, paid the fee and registered. However, I was unfortunate because the officer in charged said that my IELTS has expired. The certificate can only be used for 2 years. My latest IELTS certificate was received in 2009. Just because of that I cannot complete my registration on that Thursday. I have to wait for somebody to approve my request as an occasional student despite of my “in-valid” IELTS certificate.

However, later in the same day, I received an email saying I can register. The IELTS rule was excluded for me due to my status as an occasional student. So, I proceeded with my online registration and the student center and took my photo at the same place. Everything was smooth, fast, efficient. No need to go to other buildings, rooms, sections etc. All in one place.

My student card. Simple.

Later in the afternoon, I met my supervisor and co-supervisor. We get to know each other and discussed about my project. Then my supervisor brought me for a brief tour at the Chemical Engineering School (The real name is “School of Chemical Engineering and Advance Material”) which is not that big. Although it’s not big, but the output is huge. That’s why I’m here.  To learn, explore, get expose, do some networking etc.

My school... not faculty...

My family after buying the duvet + its cover from Argos. We were heading home. We used the Metro to get home.

This was taken on our way home to our host's house after registration, after meeting my supervisor and after purchasing the duvet + cover. The houses in UK are so typical especially in the city.

This is the room temperature in our host house. It's quite cold but after the gas heater was switched on, the temperature gets warmer.

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We were supposed to transit in Amsterdam and wait for 5 hours before getting on the flight to Newcastle. However we faced a problem. Suddenly all flights from Amsterdam to Newcastle, Humberside and Manchester were canceled. They claimed it was due to bad weather. I’m not sure if some rain is called bad weather. Yes, there was rain but the type of rain I don’t think can be called bad weather. Malaysia’s heavy rain accompanied with thunder storm is far more severe than the rain in Amsterdam just now.

If they said that the flight is delayed, we have no problem. Yes, we can understand. Then we will wait. The problem here is they said the flight is cancelled and we have to rebook our flight to our wanted destination. Many passengers were seriously pissed off. There was such a long que at ticket counter T4, the location where all victims have to rebook their flight ticket.

Me sitting at one of the couches, writing this entry while monitoring our stuffs. Sleeping and tired but still can show some smiling face.

We queued together. However, the line movement is so slow. It’s 3 meters per hour. How can we cope with such a slow progress. I waited for our hand luggage in the que while my other half tried to make some phone calls and arrangement. After a few long roaming calls, she managed to get the ticket at 4.20pm. Remember, the original flight we were supposed to fly is at 10.05 am. We arrived in Amsterdam at 6 am. The airport is now our temporary home before we can get into the next plane to Newcastle.

We have to kill a lot of time now. Ikhwan, Marsya and Alya is playing with the tiny trolley. My wife is sleeping. She needs it more than me because she cannot sleep in the plane taking care of Alya and Marsya. I’m monitoring the hand luggage and the kids. I’m sleepy and tired at the same time. Since I cannot sleep and must stay awake, I took another opportunity to blog about this adventure. Luckily there was a line that give us 30 minutes of free wifi here.

The kids are playing with this small trolley. I let them to keep them occupied. Otherwise, Ikhwan (especially him) wanted to buy toys in the airport which comes with the Euro currency!!! Very expensive.

p/s: I would like to take the opportunity to thanks few important people who send us to the airport yesterday. They are my bro in law family, my parents + adi and my business partner – Azwan.my. Cheers mate. You guys rock!!!

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Do you love cats? I do. What cats do you have? Do you have a Persian cat? Or do you own a Siamese cat? Or just ordinary plain species of cat. One thing for sure is my in laws love cats so much. The entire family love those cats. There are a lots gorgeous cats taken care by them.

My mother in law is the chief of cat department. She manages the department from her home in Kuantan. There are 5 Persian cats under her supervision and she’s handling them with the assistance of the other family members. (Present Update 2012: There are too many cats inside her house… I cannot count it anymore. Interestingly, “Kitty” is the oldest cat in the house. Her age is 11 years old and she is older than my eldest son).

As an amateur reporter, I interviewed her about her Persian cats maintenance costs. Following are the gist of the interview:

1. Cat Food

5 cats require 7 kg of vetmaster/month (Vetmaster is a food brand that she used to feed the cat. It’s just like Friskies and Whiskas, but it is cheaper and contain less nutritions compared to those branded cat food). The cost of vetmaster is RM10 per kg. She buys the food at the local vet clinic in Kuantan. The cat food container cost between RM10-15 per piece.

For a baby persian cat, she will spend RM35 per kg Friskees which has complete nutritions and easily digestable for growing up kittens. If the kitten’s mum milk is not enough, she have to buy additional specially formulated milk which cost RM30 per can.

2. Cat Shampoo

Normal shampoo for healthy cat will cost RM15/bottle. Bath frequency is once week per cat and the shampoo can last for 2 to 3 months. For Persian cat with ringworm problem, a special medicated shampoo is required which cost about Rm30/bottle. The special shampoo must be applied until the Persian cat is free from ringworm.

3. Medication

Like us, Persian cat also require vaccine. The vaccine is injected around the butt area. The cost for one jab is RM 20 per cat and it is applied when it reaches 2 months old. A subsequent jab is carried out after 1 month and after that, it will need will annual vaccination to be perfectly healthy which cost RM20 per vaccine injection.

When the Persian cat experience high fever, it must be given an antibiotic injection which cost RM10 per cat. If the Persian cat has fleas, a special injection to treat it cost RM20 per cat for a duration of 3 months. The Persian cat also needs consistent eye drop medication to ensure its eyes are OK and that cost RM10 for a duration of 3 months which is applied once a week.

When the Persian cat is attacked with ringworm, besides the special shampoo, a special anti ringworm injection is required. It will cost RM15 per week and the jab is continuously applied until the Persian cat recovers. Another one is the “Ubat Cacing” which cost RM5 per cat per month.

Persian cat also need to be given vitamins for various reasons which include as appetizer and to maintain the healthiness of its fur. The cost are RM6 for a duration of 3 months (applied once a week) and RM8 every 3 months, respectively.

4. Cat Sex Fertility, production

If a male Persian cat need to be circumcision, it will cost about RM60 per cat. For a female Persian cat, to remove it’s uterus, it will cost RM180. To barren or sterile the female Persian cat, the cost is RM20 per cat per 6 months. These activities are mainly applied if we want to control the Persian cat production.

If a pregnant Persian cat experienced a late delivery, an injection need to be done to speed up the birth and to reduce the pain. If there is complication, then an operation (caeserian) must be performed and it cost about RM400 (luckily there is an interest free installment plan for it).

5. Cat Bungalow House Cage

A small simple cage will cost about RM60/piece while a bigger one will cost more than RM250 ++.

6. Others

A Persian cat needs sand to poop and the sand cost RM 12/kg. The hair or fur of the Persian cat need to be combed. The comb cost about RM30 per piece and can be used for all Persian cats. If my mother in law and the entire family is away for a trip, it is impossible to bring along all 5 cats. So, she’ll temporarily leave the cats at a pet shop or clinic. The pet shop or clinic will take care of the cat and charge RM10 per cat per day. So, if there are 5 cats, it will cost RM50 per day.

For a 2 month old Persian kitten, the value is about RM500-600. For a Persian cat which is more than 6 months old, the starting value is from RM800 ++. Other places may have different price range of a Persian cat. It is really expensive to buy a Persian cat and also very costly to maintain one.

TOTAL COST to maintain a Persian Cat:

A lot!!!! As I’m writing this entry, I’m already confused with all the dollar and cost of maintaining this cat because there are simply to much of things to take care. I love the cat but I’m not willing to take care of one. Well, I’ll just settle with stray cats!

What about stray cats?….

$0.00. No cost. Maintenance Free. Very easy to handle. In fact the easiest type of cat species to be handled. You don’t have to take care of them. They’ll take care of themself. You just give them whaever waste food you have and they’ll be very happy to consume it.

So, now you choose which cat to pick as your favourite pet?

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Once again we are away from the comfort of our home. This weekend (starting on Friday afternoon), we are off to Pulai Desaru Beach Resort, Johor. Before I proceed further, let me inform that this is not another vacation. This is another tour of duty (job trip) of my wife. She has some kind of work related to her research alliance. Never mind with that. Luckily all participants or may I refer to as researcher was given a room. That’s so cool. She can bring all of us (the family).

We’ve never been to Pulai Desaru Beach Resort before. So, personally, I was anxious to see how good is this hotel. Let’s check it out…

General First Impression

My first impression… This hotel looks cool. It has a very huge hotel lobby. The roof is high and thus provide great ventilation. Wind from the sea is enough to provide the cool breeze at the hotel surrounding. There seems to be plenty of room available. Our room is in the second floor. We need to walk, perhaps 2-3 minutes to reach our room from the hotel reception counter.

This is the hotel – Pulai Desaru Resort, Johor. I missed to take the photo of the front gate where the hotel logo is clearly visible.

This is our room. The room is quite spacious with no carpets. Instead the floor is decorated with a 2′ x 2′ light brown tile. It’s very cold when we step onto it. Maybe the reason for that is because the hotel is at the beach! We have 2 double beds here, not that big for the 5 of us, but hey, we can squeeze in. Not bad. We requested for additional pillow since there are only 4 pillows. We need the extra one because there are 5 of us.

This is a different view of the room. There is a desk for work and also some comfortable looking double sofa to relax. The sliding doors are quite huge and provide more than sufficient sun light into the room. I consider the room spacious enough for all of us and it is larger than a typical average hotel room. This room is by far larger than the hotel room that we stayed in Shanghai (we’ll be covering that soon).

Another angle of the hotel room. I think this picture completes all the angle needed for you to imagine how this hotel room looks like. The TV is a 25″ Samsung bulb tube flat screen TV. Works fine but the remote control cover is missing!!!

This is the favourite place of my kids – the bath tub. Pretty simple. However, to our surprize, only 2 towels are provided. No hand towel, no medium size towel, not other towels. Only 2 bath towels!!! What the hack! So, we called the receptionist and ask. We assumed the room service guys may have forgotten to place those extra white towels. But, in actual fact after I asked the boy that delivered our towels, one room with two beds are only entitled 2 big bath towels, 1 hand towel and one medium size towel for the floor. That’s it!!! OMG, that is too stingy, I think. Common guys, give your guess more towels. That won’t make you bankrupt.

This is the view at our balcony. No see view, no pool view. We got the football field view…haha…No prob. It is ok. Those lucky one will get the sea or pool views which are nicer paranomically. But as you can see, the plastic table and chairs look to old that it need to be replaced.

This is the view of the landscape of the hotel. It is well maintained, clean and peaceful. I have no complains on this one.

A simple playground is available for kids excitement. However, my kids are not interested at all because they already set their destiny… which is to the swimming fool pool.

The swimming pool of this hotel is fantastic. I like! Thumbs up!!! Superb. It’s huge and creatively designed. There are shallow section for the smaller kids and deeper ones for the big boys. There is also one short slide which is sufficient to make us and the kids happy!!! This hotel knows how to please it’s guess when it comes to getting wet!

Another angle of the swimming pool. This section looks like the beach but it is actually covered with tiny pebbles. No sand what so ever so it maintains clean. However, I can smell some chlorine. Yeah… you cannot escape from that. The swimming pool needs it.

Some entertainment such as the pool tables are made available for those who want to test their sharp shooting skills. Some carom tables are also available. A ping pong table is also prepared for the guess as well as some arcade game which you need to insert some coins. Not sure which coins – old Malaysia coins or new Malaysia coins…haha…

The beach. Looks quite nasty with fierce wave stamping its edge. This beach may not be suitable for my kids to play. Oh, I would like to bring them to a crystal clear sea water and a white sandy beach… but not now. Soon… Maybe Tahiti, Hawaai… Any suggestions?

The view of Pulai Desaru Beach Resort from the beach. This was taken at about 6pm. The sun was ready to set…

Another good indirect view of the ocean from the swimming pool area. The hammock that you can see on the far right corner of the above photo is very comfortable and peaceful for relaxing. I need that in our new house. It will be a good way to seek for serenity. But I will need to find out where to buy that hammock? Any idea?

The Most Important Facility – Internet / Wifi

Regarding the internet, it is a pity that this hotel charged RM5 per hour for the internet. There is no free internet or wifi even in the hotel lobby area. That is very disappointing.

I was very close to securing my daily celcom broadband to get access to the internet. “Fortunately”, it failed. I don’t know why it failed but that’s good because soon after that my wife get an internet pin from her workshop. However, she have to share the same pin with another 8 person. That’s fine, at least we can use the internet for a while using that pin.

To my surprize the internet speed is quite poor and not constantly stable. Luckily I did not purchase the RM5 per hour internet facility. Yes, I did not intend to buy the internet service but it will be a frustrating experience to those who purchase it.

Early Remarks

In overall the Resort environment was clean. I did not interacted directly with the staffs so I cannot assess that part. AS this post is written I have no idea yet what the room rate was. I’ll make Part 2, a follow up for this to conclude my overall experience here. Hence, the Cyza Sector Hotel Rating will come later.

Nevertheless, if you are interested to check out further on this resort, which is a family member of Pulai Spring Resort, near my house, you can google it yourself or go straight to:

The Pulai Desaru Beach Resort
PO Box 29, Bandar Penawar, 81900 Kota Tinggi, Johor, Malaysia.
Tel: +60-7-822-2222 • Fax: +60-7-822-2223
Email: reservation@thepulai.com.my

Read Pulai Desaru Beach Resort Part 2.

*If you like to follow my musing, get updated whenever I publish new entry. Just subscribe to me by email >here<.

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It is a festive season again as Chinese New Year will be celebrated tomorrow. Not only Chinese citizen but also the rest of the races in Malaysia used this splendid opportunity to go home to their hometown. We also decided to go back to my wife’s hometown in Kuantan as we have not been back there for quite some time. We started the journey in the afternoon. I actually wanted to start the trip in the morning but my wife wanted to spend the nice peaceful weekend to relax. She also has not started packing up our clothes and bag. As a result, we started to hit the north south highway at 12.30pm after having lunch at a mamak restaurant in Skudai.

I have anticipated that a heavy traffic jam will be waiting for us. And that’s true. As we entered the north south highway, we can already see a spectacular view. It’s the long traffic jam that we have not experience before.

I did not snap the photo at the beginning of the highway. It looked worse than this photo. This one was captured when we nearly reached the toll plaza to take the ticket.

And guess what. This is after exiting the plaza toll. The que and traffic jam is really enormous. Never did I experience such a heavy traffic jam like this before after exiting the toll plaza.  I witness many people snapping photos of this remarkable traffic jam as well. If I’m not mistaken after1 hour the traffic resume to a normal speed (90-110 km/h).

Now, I’m in Kuantan but I need to go to a local grocery shop. After getting back from there I’ll continue with the tips to avoid traffic jam ok…

OK, back to the real business. How to avoid traffic jam when returning back to your home town?

This is some of my brainstormed ideas. There are many more tips that you can find in the internet but some are not relevant to our situation (festive season) or some others are more related to traffic jam when going back and forth to work. So, here they are:

1. Take an early day off . This means that take an early holiday. Don’t travel the same time as others i.e. during the public holiday itself. You will be stuck with the rest that also plans to go back on that same holiday as well. By taking an early day off, you will save time and money because chances of you trapped in a traffic jam like me is greatly minimized.

2. Travel as early as possible (morning). If you cannot afford to take an early holiday off for whatever reason, then that’s still ok. What you need to do is pack your bags few days early and then when the holiday started, travel as early as possible. The earlier the better. If you can start your journey at 4 or 5 am, then there are huge chance that your journey will be smooth. This is because, more people tend to start their journey later in the day.

3. In Malaysia, it is wise if you follow PLUS Twitter Update. They provide 24 hours real time updates on the highway traffic situation. You can do that by following the PLUS Twitter service at www.twitter.com/plustrafik. If you don’t have the luxury of data package internet, then you can at least contact the PLUSLine at 1800 88 0000 which is available 24-hour every day. Please save this number into your mobile phones. If you are don’t have mobile internet data package and lazy to call Plusline number, then the next thing to do is just tune in to your favourite radio stations. From time to time, a report on the traffic condition will be aired.

4. Ditch your own vehicle and use public transport. One cool alternative if you are single or just married, you can choose to ditch your car and use public transport. A suitable public transport for this scenario is aeroplane and train. That will be convenient and probably more cost effective, depending on the distance of your hometown to where you are staying. If you are like me, having all together 6 person traveling, then public transportation may not be cost effective at all. So, just use your own vehicle to travel.

5. Get a GPS device with live traffic updates. These devices will usually cost at least $200, and some require an additional subscription cost. Some decent GPS that can aid you on this include Garmin Nuvi 265T and Garmin Nuvi 265 WT which provide the best value. This type of GPS is cool and can provide you with constant live traffic updates as you travel on the road.

I think that’s it for the time being. If you have any other ideas, maybe you can share it with us here. Sharing is caring, ain’t it?

Here are some more screenshots of the great traffic jam around us:

Sorry, this photo is quite small. I got this from Facebook. Somebody shared it there. This is one condition that happened if not mistaken yesterday (Chinese New Year holiday). Location, I don’t know.

This is a traffic congestion in Beijing. I also took this from Facebook. Somebody has posted this. How true or how real, I’m not sure. I just sharing a good example of a bad traffic jam!.

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