120 Movies watched in 2011. Hmm.. Slowed down considerably towards year end.. I know I can do better than this.

My Top 5 Movie Picks for 2011 goes to :

And here’s the complete list of movies I watched in 2011. The Movie Mania page will be reset for 2012…

2011

50/50 (2011)

The Adventures of TinTin (2011)

Immortals (2011)

Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol (2011)

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)

The Thing (2011)

I Saw The Devil (2010) Korean

The King’s Speech (2010)

The Lovely Bones (2009)

Dead Snow (2009) Norwegian

Conan The Destroyer (1984)

Conan The Barbarian (1982)

The Lives Of Others (2006) German

Mr. Popper’s Penguins (2011)

Ironclad (2011)

Dorian Gray (2009)

Green Lantern (2011)

Green Lantern : Emerald Knights (2011)

Zookeeper (2011)

Bad Teacher (2011)

Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)

Donnie Darko (2001)

Real Steel (2011)

The Ghost Writer (2010)

The Tree Of Life (2011)

Elite Squad 2 : The Enemy Within (2010) Portuguese

Elite Squad (2007) Portuguese

True Grit (2010)

14 Blades (2011) Chinese

13 Assassins (2010) Japanese

The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)

The Lost Bladesman (2011) Chinese

Space Battleship Yamato (2010) Japanese

Nasi Lemak 2.0 (2011) Malaysian

Splice (2009)

Stone (2010)

Rango (2011)

Incendies (2010) French

Johnny English : Reborn (2011)

Waltz With Bashir (2007) Hebrew

Inside (2007) French

Coco Before Chanel (2009) French

Attack The Block (2011)

Hanna (2011)

Your Highness (2011)

Win Win (2011)

The Dilemma (2011)

The Beaver (2011)

The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

The Warrior’s Way (2011)

The Hit List (2011)

Rio (2011)

Paul (2011)

Everything Must Go (2010)

Blitz (2011)

Arthur (2011)

Scream 4 (2011)

Dirty Movie (2011)

Little Fockers (2010)

Gnomeo & Juliet (2011)

Milf (2010)

Sanctum (2011)

Horrible Bosses (2011)

Just Go With It (2011)

Cowboys and Aliens (2011)

Conan The Barbarian (2011)

I Am Number Four (2011)

Karate Kid (2010)

The Mechanic (2011)

X-Men: First Class (2011)

Super 8 (2011)

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (2011)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

Thor (2011)

Priest (2011)

Fast Five (2011)

Source Code (2011)

Milk (2008)

The Green Hornet (2011)

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest (2009) Swedish

The Girl Who Played With Fire (2009) Swedish

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2009) Swedish

Limitless (2011)

Sucker Punch (2011)

Megamind (2010)

Grown Ups (2010)

Buried (2010)

Despicable Me (2010)

Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)

Ultramarines : A Warhammer 40,000 Movie (2010)

Enter The Void (2009)

Predators (2010)

Red (2010)

Battle : Los Angeles (2011)

The Man From Nowhere (2010) Korean

The Fighter (2010)

Winter’s Bone (2010)

127 Hours (2010)

The American (2010)

Kick Ass (2010)

Black Swan (2010)

The Rite (2011)

Unknown (2011)

The Tourist (2010)

Centurion (2010)

Hereafter (2010)

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) Thai

The Last Days of Emma Blank (2009) Dutch

Burlesque (2010)

Monsters (2010)

Love and other Drugs (2010)

Season of the Witch (2011)

Great Day (2011) Malaysian

Shaolin (2011) Chinese

Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (2010) Chinese

Machete (2010)

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)

All Good Things (2010)

It was an awesome experience. The freedom to go anywhere and do anything you want without having to conform to other traveling companion’s requirements. And of course, being alone encourages you to make new friends and chat up locals and strangers without a care in the world!

The City

The first thing I did was to get myself a driver and hit town for the day. Not for shopping mind you – but to soak in some Cambodian culture. I thoroughly explored the National Museum (a sneak peek to the real deal the next day), before heading over to the War Museum – the site for all the retired tanks, artillery, firearms, mines, and bombs.

My personal guide for the museum tour

A war veteran, he took part in the Khmer Rouge war, and is an amputee (stepped on a mine), has bone fragments still stuck in his half blind eye from the explosion, and has survived 3 gunshot wounds. And survivors like him are all just trying to find their way in a new life and a new Cambodia now.

I then decided to visit the very disappointing Cultural Village, an open theme park of sorts. Standards were low (kinda like Malaysia back in the 80′s), and there was hardly anyone around. I then saw a ‘Ghost House’ sign, and feeling adventurous and bored, decided to give it a try. ALONE. Remind me never to do something like that again. Cambodians have a strong believe in the spirit realm and mythology (hell, punishment, etc.) – and this house of horrors had all of it in spades.

Poor chap being crucified and sawed for some sin he may have committed...

Without a single other tourist or human in sight, with full blown speakers blasting maniacal laughter, moans of torment, surrounded by evil demons and blood soaked mannequins in various stages of torture – I was thoroughly freaked out. It was such a relief to finally reach the exit.

Angkor

Allocated the entire next day to exploring the famed Angkor ruins. Felt like Indiana Jones!

The gorgeous sunrise framing Angkor Wat - worth going early for!

Nothing like spending 3 hours at Angkor Wat itself – the largest ancient Hindu temple complex in the world. Walked almost every inch of the place imagining what it would have been like to live there during that era. While appreciating the bas-relief for the “Churning of the Sea of Milk”, I ended up meeting LC – another Malaysian working in Singapore who also happens to be touring Cambodia on her own. Naturally, we became travel buddies for the remainder of the trip.

At the base of the majestic Bayon Temple

The Bayon temple was equally amazing – with 216 gigantic stone carved Buddha faces on its various spires and towers. There was really nothing quite like it anywhere else – I almost didn’t want to leave.

Phreah Palilay - On the outskirts of the Angkor Thom complex

I of course spent considerable time getting my guide to drop me off at even smaller temple ruins just for the sake of exploration. This was one of them – hidden from the tourist crowd, I felt like I had this piece of history all to myself.

The sign said "Do Not Enter". As if that was going to stop me.

Tonle Sap

For the final day of the trip, we decided on a tour of Tonle Sap and the floating village there.

Tough life - are those vegetables on their boat for eating?

Not quite what I had in mind. It was more like floating squatters rather than a village. I witnessed extreme poverty that day – these people live on the lake because they didn’t have money to live on land. The water was horribly filthy. Villagers did their business directly into it, saw a dead dog float past, and yet not just a few meters away, someone would be bathing, washing their pans, fishing or drawing the same water to cook. It was appalling..

LC attempting to net a catfish

Our boatman eventually took us to a nearby crocodile farm. Not quite satisfied with the trip, I asked to pay for a catfish because I wanted to experience feeding the crocs.

Which we then fed to the crocodiles (not before toying around with them to see how high they can jump..)

And that we did..

Just before we left the lake for home, we got caught up in a truly amazing sunset..

While right behind us - my first ever 'complete' rainbow.

Getting around town later that evening without a driver was easy enough – we both rented bicycles (USD1 for the entire day), and stopped by the Old Market for a foot massage. I also made friends with one of the hotel attendants – a friendly local girl who shared with me her life story, and whom I left the remainder of my spending money with as a tip.

Endless rice fields.. and back to endless HDB flats

And with that marked the end of my short and eventful 3D2N Siem Reap trip. For those who’ve always wanted to try traveling alone – Cambodia is a pretty safe bet. The people are friendly, and they speak English. I’m not quite sure about Phnom Phenh, but Siem Reap was relatively safe due to its tourist heavy economy.

Whoever did this also changed my password so I could no longer get back into the account.

If this happened, there are many more ways I could get help but via Linkedin? Are you kidding me?

I thought to quickly resolve this by changing my password and issue an apology from within Linkedin but whoever did this also locked me out of my account. On top of that, Linkedin’s Password Recovery system DID NOT work, AND they still have yet to reply to any of my 3 submitted support tickets 48 hours later.

Frankly I’m extremely frustrated at Linkedin’s lack of customer support. As a ‘professional’ site for professionals, they sure aren’t very professional.

So until Linkedin can get their act together, the hacker has free reign with my account to do whatever he wishes. It feels like having a robber running amok in my house while I’m stuck abroad (please forgive the metaphor).

A BIG Thank You to all who went through the effort to inform me about this. My messages, emails and phone kept going off the last 2 days! Some friends found it hilarious, many showed genuine concern at the lost of my account, and some almost bought the spam message as authentic! A colleague from Hong Kong actually went as far as to contact the London Police Department.. *sweat*

Another friend replied on purpose to see what happens, and it seems the hacker even created a mirror of my gmail – vertigofoo@ymail.com – to solicit responses. Very unnerving. I really hope NONE of my contacts falls for this.

I guess we are simply not used to receiving spam from a legit source such as Linkedin – which goes to show the level of havoc that could occur if such a network gets compromised.

Possible Causes

Considering that I’m usually very careful with these things – never clicking or opening any suspicious links, files and attachments, I’m very surprised this happened to me. There are no weird processes running in the background and my antivirus should have picked up any keyloggers operating on my system. Furthermore, none of my other accounts were compromised (Facebook, Twitter, E-mails and others all share different passwords and are still secure).

Which leads me to suspect it could have been related to the recent severe Sony Playstation Network (PSN) security breach a few days ago. By chance, my PSN login and password are BOTH IDENTICAL to my Linkedin account. This person’s Linkedin account was also hacked into just 2 days ago.

Of course, this could just be a timing coincidence and there could be a thousand other reasons. Regardless, I strongly recommend you maintain DIFFERENT passwords for all your accounts from here on forth. Better to be safe than sorry guys.

No thanks of course to Angie, who not only introduced me to riding road bikes for my very first time, but also sold me her Polygon Helios 200 for a steal. The rest as they say, is history.

I was suddenly armed with a new found freedom never before experienced during my time in Singapore. I could finally explore the entire island at any time of the day, no longer constrained by the public transportation system. It was kinda like having my own car here, but in many ways even better.. I’ve even been tempted to take the bike out for a spin at 3 in the morning a few times, and I probably will one of these days.

It’s hard to describe the sensation of the wind against my face and body as I push hard on the pedals, or explain the smile that comes automatically as I soak in the scenery around me. Every ride is a grand adventure – even more so when I traverse unexplored paths. Cycling isn’t just about getting from Point A to Point B. For me, it has everything to do with the journey in between.

Here are some of my initial adventures so far..

Exploring East Singapore and Ubin

During these first two months of cycling, I’ve had an amazing time leisurely exploring the Eastern half of Singapore with Angie. We’d start off on the East Coast Park traveling along the entire beach, before hitting the Coastal Road and cycling alongside planes taking off and landing at Changi airport. We’d hit Changi Village for lunch, and explore all the other park connectors to Pasir Ris, Tampines, Bedok Reservoir and finally back to ECP. We even dropped by Ubin once just to explore the paved roads there!

Cycling to and exploring ALL of Ubin's paved roads...

On the boat on the way to Ubin

Unexplored territory - let's go!

I definitely have to return to Ubin one day to try the mountain biking trails here…

40km Cycling, Exploring & Sight-Seeing around Singapore North Region

I also signed up for a cycling session with the Singapore Adventure & Nature Lovers Meetup club to explore the North (virgin territory for me!)

Meetup - 40km Cycling, Exploring & Sight-Seeing around S'pore North Region

L-R: TS Chua, Daniel, FoOie!, Chee Wah, Audrey, James, Sandy, Rachel, Paul and Ruslan (kneeling)

Beautiful open jetty - you can actually see the causeway from here and JB seems near enough to literally swim over.

From Woodlands, we cycled down past the massive Seletar Reservoir, and into a beautiful park with the dam that separates Upper and Lower Peirce Reservoir.

Panorama of Upper Pierce Reservoir - click to view larger image

Even us roadies have to follow pedestrian rules

Our post cycling meal with Ruslan, Audrey, Me and TS

Felt a bit gungho after our lunch meal and decided to brave unknown roads and cycle home in the afternoon sun. With a GPS, it’s impossible getting lost in Singapore – but boy was I glad to finally see home in sight!

OCBC Cycle 2011

And of course, how could I miss the biggest cycling event in Singapore – the OCBC Cycle! Took part in the 40km Nissan Challenge alongside NINE THOUSAND other cyclists. Main roads and expressways were closed off for us and it was quite an experience cycling in the middle of a 4 lane highway.

OCBC Cycle 2011 - 40km Nissan Challenge

Crossing the finishing line!

With my cycling buddy Angie!

And to think she almost overslept and missed this!

Mountain Biking at Tampines Bike Trail

With all the road biking I’ve been doing, I’ve been itching to try some actual mountain biking for awhile now. While the road bike gives me unprecedented speed on flat roads – it has zero ability to navigate any type of uneven terrain. Mountain bikes however… in the right hands, they can go ANYWHERE.

Mountain Bike Intro with SANL

Rented a simple MTB at the Pasir Ris park before heading out to the Tampines BMX trail that only recently opened to the public. It was previously used for the Singapore Youth Olympics, so the full trail is actually quite challenging. Since we were mostly beginners, we tackled only a portion of it ..

The team! Clara - the only girl in the group (far left), Chief organizer Mark Lee (guy in red, 3rd from left), Louis - mountainbiking granddad (4th from left), TS Chua - founder of SANL (5th from left), Me! & Clement - youngest mountain biker extraordinaire (2nd from right)

I don't think even the pros could cycle over this!

Hiking and trekking on some of these trails would have been plenty of fun by itself, but bringing a bike adds an entirely new dimension to it..

Plenty of these nasty mudpits around the track - got my entire feet immersed at a few, and it's not easy cycling through one!

Dense jungle in some places...

This happened quite a few times, and to me as well.

Green rolling hills just for us!

And to the end of our journey!

Whoever said cycling was a low impact sport, has yet to try serious mountain biking. My arms and upper body ached for days after this simple morning activity (or maybe it was due to the heavy shopping I did at Ikea & Giant immediately after)…

P.S: Coming up next! A mega cycling expedition to Bintan for 3 days (which warrants an entire post on its own)…

Singfest 2010 Day 1

Okay, my decision to attend Day One of Singfest was primarily influenced by my lady concert kakis . So I found myself at what I would term “Flower Power Day One” – lined up with female friendly and girl power artists like Orianthi, Wondergirls and Katy Perry. Tokio Hotel was also a huge ladies puller here, probably due to Bill Kaulitz’s heavy eyeshadow, skinny leather pants and sexy good looks.

Fellow concertgoers! L-R: Airin, Irene, Me!, G and Nips

I remembered going WOW when I first saw her play as Michael Jackson's lead guitarist in 'This Is It' - and now here she is rocking her way to stardom

And onwards we move to what is easily one of the most overplayed pop bands from Korea – the Wondergirls! Shhh.. I don’t think much of their singing or anything, but seriously – So Hee (2nd girl from the left in the image below) is just soo damned cute!

I want nobody nobody Butchu! I want nobody nobody butchu.. Nobody Nobody, Nobody Nobody!

Bill Kaulitz. Almost looks like Adam Lambert. What's with women going crazy over all these androgynous men?

I didn’t exactly know any of Tokio Hotel’s songs, having never been a fan – until they started singing World Behind My Wall which I recognized! Suffice to say I thought they performed very tightly, good looks notwithstanding, and well enough to justify the legion of screaming female fans hehe.

Katy Perry was the highlight of course and she didn’t disappoint. Keeping true to her funky fun loving sexy image – she traipsed onto stage in a latex bikini, belting out series after series of her radio hits – I Kissed A Girl, Teenage Dream, Thinking of You, Hot N Cold, the really saucy Peacock, and of course California Gurls!

"So hot, will melt your popsicle..."

"I'm living a Teenage Dream | Don't ever look back, don't ever look back!"

Singfest 2010 Day 3

Decided to skip Day 2 – Am not exactly a big fan for Hip Hop or RnB much, and Kanye West? I ain’t gonna contribute to that asshole’s already deep pockets

Day 3 however was a different matter.. Smashing Pumpkins!!! Of course G came along for a completely different reason – Jared Leto!! Sorry no photos of Ian Brown here – didn’t know any of his songs. One of his tracks was particularly familiar though, and I was sure was in one of my many house albums, but I couldn’t pinpoint it.

Singfest Day 3 Concert Kakis! L-R: William, Alvin, Me! & G.

I'm gonna get free | I'm gonna get free | I'm gonna get free

A nice alternative warm up set by The Vines to be followed by what is arguably the most energetic Singfest performance in all 3 days – 30 Seconds To Mars!

"To the right, to the left, we will fight to the death, to the edge of the earth, it's a brave new world!"

This was how close I was to touching Jared Leto (not that I wanted to mind you..) Please pardon the horrible sound – close proximity to a stage does bad things to a compact cam’s mic

"We are the Kings, we are the Queens!"

I have to say that Jared Leto really knew how to work the crowd. His pumping, inspiring scream-along tracks helped soup even the traditionally reserved Singaporean crowds into a frenzied mess. A Beautiful Lie, This Is War and Kings and Queens won’t sound quite the same again after having heard the energy filled live version..

It was a good thing we had some time to recover our breath for Smashing Pumpkins. Having grown up through the years with their trademark songs, hearing Billy Corgan sing live was just plain AWESOME.

Billy Corgan in the flesh!

"It's you that I adore, you will always be my whore, You'll be a mother to my child, and a child to my heart, we must never be apart, we must never be apart.."

Nothing quite like yelling along to “Today is the greatest day I’ve ever known..” right there, rather than into a Rockband set . And let’s not forget Bullet with Butterfly Wings, Tonight Tonight, 1979 and Ava Adore!

Awesome Singfest – Wonder what’s the lineup gonna be for 2011!

F1 Singapore GP

Being a HUGE fan of Daughtry – there was no way I was going to miss his rare performances as one of the lineups at the F1 Grand Prix.

Waiting for Daughtry to start - Spotted a few of us in this photo off the web

G, Pat and Me!

"It's not Ovveeerrrrrrrrr!!"

Sang (more like yelled) along to ALL of his major hits – It’s Not Over, Home, Over You, Crashed, Feels Like Tonight, September, What About Now, No Surprise and Life After You. Immensely satisfying.

Adam Lambert on the other hand, was more on the pop end of things – a lot of fun, but not as fulfilling. He had immense stage presence though, with outlandish outfits and a thoroughly charismatic personality. Not to mention pulling off his famous gay stunt of kissing his guitarist smack on the lips!

Glamnation Tour! "If I had you, you you you you you, you you you you you!"

A great evening of music accompanied by roaring F1 cars.

No I did not make any plans to catch Mariah Carey here the next day

Zoukout 2010

Having experienced a transcendental Zoukout last year during Armin van Buuren’s set, I could hardly resist coming again despite feeling a little too old for this… Having Tiesto as one of the main lineups for his Kaleidoscope tour made it doubly more interesting…

With Andrea at the Singtel VIP area, whacking free drinks (I pretty much KO'ed after just one cup haha)

Tiesto's Kaleidoscope Tour - or at least what little I could see of it..

The experience however was marred by massive overcrowding. More than twice as many people as the year before – a total of 27,000 ravers – showed up. The crowding became outright crazy during Tiesto’s set as there was hardly any place to move, and the crowd actually spilled over the beach barriers. Such a shame really as Tiesto’s set sounded pretty good.

Not an uncommon sight - plenty of us don't know our limits

I’ve never heard of David Guetta before this. Despite originating from mainstream pop music, he seems to have suddenly left a mark on the dance sub-genre no thanks to a few lucky streaks such as winning a Grammy and helping create the rhythm for Black Eyed Pea’s I Gotta Feeling.. To be honest, his genre of pop house and hip hop mixes wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. But I really appreciated my raving kaki Angie for fighting her way to the front lines so we could at least greet another Zoukout morning!

Greeting the Zoukout dawn once again!

With Angie and a chick who was partying next to us right till the end..

If Zoukout 2011 is going to be anywhere nearly as messed up with the crowd as 2010 was, I might just give it a miss…

Speaking of which – I doubt 2011 would be a year of concerts for me as I’m consciously trying to save more $$ now. As I type this post, I’ve already missed Eric Clapton, Taylor Swift, Bob Dylan, Janet Jackson, Iron Maiden, Deftones, Eagles and Faithless – all in Jan & Feb!.

The only gig on my plate now is Maroon 5 in a few weeks time. Will post an update once that’s over.

Despite all that went wrong with 2010, there were still plenty of memories worth cherishing – filled with great friends, wacky adventures and first times.. here’s some

Irene’s Birthday Picnic @ Botanic Gardens

Got invited to a little picnic by the Botanic Gardens to celebrate Irene’s birthday. It was my first time here, and boy what a gorgeous place for a relaxing evening! We laid our mats at the edge of a long green valley facing a raised stage on a lotus filled lake, while a Polish and Japanese pianist serenaded us with Chopin.

Irene, Nips, Melvin, G, Barney and Me!

Chocolate cake to the face!

Thanks to Nips and his GF1 for the photos!

Summer Break Vol 1 @ Pangkor

This ambitious mass road trip of youths aged 21 and above was organized by Youth Asia (via Khai Lee) in conjunction with Firefly and the Perak Tourism Board. Together with Edmund, we pretty soon had our own small little convoy joining a few hundred guys and gals off to Pangkor Island Resort!

Summer Break’s tagline “The Weekend of Our Lives” never rang truer for we had an amazing amount of silly good natured fun.

It's always summer here... Laughed our hearts out just waiting for the next big wave to come engulf our little group

This was supposed to be a jungle trekking session but we got conned into doing community service for the resort instead lol. L-R: Li Yi, Eteng, Selina, Gerardine, Edmund & Desperamond. I mean PUA *koff* Desmond.

Edmund is undoubtedly the only one who can pull off the cute poses that Eteng does oh so naturally..

Why sleep when you can duke it out with Catan!

What beachside adventure is complete without some watersports? Fun stuff speeding around the entire beach inlet on high powered jetskis.

Sitting on the sea - literally, as the waves washed up around our feet, while we played Truth or Dare (Minus the Dares ) - Instead we got to know our resident Pick Up Artist a little better hehe

Foosball addiction! Let's not forget table tennis too, and a vending machine that kept giving us free drinks as long as you pressed the right buttons. We emptied it.

Edmund reveals his innate talent at the trip by pulling off some crazy breakdance moves, not just here - but smack in the middle of the dinner dance floor crowd, to everyone's amazement!

Aspiring bunch of explorers as we bouldered our way to this secluded corner, only to run right back to civilization the moment we got swarmed by leeches

Even if the place wasn’t exactly carved out of paradise, I’m sure none of us wanted to leave. Good company can turn even the most ridiculous of holidays into an unforgettable experience.

Thanks to G, Li Yi, Eteng, Edmund for the photos!

Via Ferrata @ Orchard Central

I used to do a little indoor rock climbing, but this was something new. Via ferrata (a system of iron rungs lodged into a cliff face) does not require a belaying system. Instead, imagine climbing a crooked, unevenly spaced out ladder, with awkward angles at the more difficult corners while you attach your own safety cables at each designated section. At 30m tall, this is supposedly the highest indoor via ferrata in the world. It was quite fun and not too difficult..

Right before our arms and feet turned to jelly...

Climbing up in a group (two separate trails), and that's me absailing down.

TwestivalSg 2010 @ Brewerkz

160 Singapore tweeps converged on Brewerkz for dinner and drinks as part of a fundraising event while similar Twestivals took place concurrently across the world. It was nice meeting up again with a number of old Twitter friends whom I got to know back in the early days of the very first Tweetups. Now they’ve gone on to organizing these massive get-togethers while I’ve gradually slipped off the Twitter radar .

@clicktokill, @nikipaniki and @goshprincess!

@smithankyou, @ctham and head honcho @mikefoong presenting me with my lucky draw prize (special passes to an exclusive Audi fashion show which I gave away as I wasn't in town that weekend).

Panoramic shot of the room!

Credits to @inrsoul for the photos!

Sandie visits Singapore!

Got a rare chance to meet up with adorabilia Sandra aka Squiikivois when she dropped by Singapore to surprise her friend on her birthday. The last time I got to see her felt like ages ago. I actually got lost getting to their dinner location and arrived after they’ve finished their meal haha. Eventually ended up at PS Cafe for dessert.

Fooie, Sandie, Hazie, Gary!

Heaven and Hell @ Perak

Nothing quite like a spontaneous decision to head to Ipoh to visit our lonely and bored doctor Yuin Yin! Furthermore, how could I say no to her offer to go spelunking through the 1.9km long Gua Tempurung?

Packing some energy before our underground adventure. L-R: Kok Fye, Darrell, Li Yi, Yuin Yin, Me! & Zhi Yuan

It's nice to know YY has absolute faith in me driving her car..

One of the lit portion of the caverns with stairs and walkways.. Breathtakingly surreal..

The lit portion only lasted for awhile though. Soon we had to begin our descent into the darker portions of the cave, eventually hitting the underground river…

They weren't kidding when they said we'd get wet.. This wasn't even the narrowest point..

Down the rabbit hole...

Boy were we glad to see sunlight!

Some parts of these caves were filled with bats, and you wouldn't know they were there unless you shone your torch up into the ceiling..

This was easily the trickiest portion of the journey, and looked much scarier in the dark. Thankfully the guys at the bottom helped support our feets just before we slid off the edge..

Journey's end! (Together with some strangers from Singapore)

After showering, resting and having a yummy Ipoh chicken rice lunch, we headed over to the nearby Kellie’s Castle for some more exploring and camwhoring…

Jumping at the top of Kellie's Castle's roof - even the bird in the background decided to fly with us

As the night began to set on our first eventful day, and with nowhere else to go – we made another crazy spontaneous decision. Check out Taiping Zoo’s Night Safari – more than an hour’s drive away! We weren’t disappointed in the least for the place was huge and had plenty of beautiful animals, kept mostly in ‘cageless’ enclosures (similar to the Singapore zoo). I particularly loved watching 4 massive black panthers prowling just 1 feet away from me, separated only by a glass panel.

An underrated hidden gem - Taiping's night safari was really quite impressive.

Our 2nd day’s agenda was to explore Cameron Highlands. However, due to a massive traffic jam heading into the Boh Tea Plantations, we took a slight exploratory detour and after some harrowing driving on gravelly narrow roads, found ourselves at the top of Gunung Brinchang. Gunung Brinchang is 300m taller than Genting Highlands, and is the tallest mountain in Cameron Highlands. The completely different plant life coupled with the foggy environment here made us feel like we just walked onto a Lord of the Rings movie set..

Eek! Skinny weirdo!

Our hunger eventually drove us back down to the famous Boh plantation valley for a late lunch..

Sitting at the popular Boh Cafe having our tea, scones and cakes, enjoying the cooling, peaceful and beautiful view..

More wacky jumping around!

Spot the idiots

After that it was just a short trip back to Cameron Highlands market and town for some major fresh produce shopping before making our way home.

Bought incredibly tasty pearl corns, fresh cherry tomatoes, strawberries, capsicums, veggies, street fried mushrooms and roses for my mum..

In the span of 2 short days, we managed to visit both the deepest and the highest publicly accessible points in Perak. I’m pleasantly surprised that there’s still so much of Malaysia yet to be explored, and only have my fellow spontaneous friends to thank for this particular opportunity!

Really camwhoring trip this one – 3 x DSLRs (Darrell, Zhi Yuan, Yuin Yin) & 2 x Compacts (Me & Yuin Yin) for all the photos

There’s many more photos and experiences I’ve decided not to upload here – One blog page is hardly enough to piece together all the memories with friends for an entire year.

Here’s to hoping adventures, spontaneity, exploration and great company never ends. Looking forward to what 2011 has in store…

It’s been a helluva rollercoaster ride, emotionally and psychologically draining with failed relationships on almost all fronts – friends, love and work – all of which I will not dwell on too much here. Let’s just say that rather than blame it on bad luck, much of what transpired was the result of cause and effect – events that I could have foreseen, prevented or plain out avoided had I been less impulsive or stubborn.

Every cloud has a silver lining though as it was also a year filled with personal lessons. My principles have been shaken, broken, and reformed over the course of the year and I can still feel the repercussions of my actions that has led to me redefining myself and what I stand for once more. I guess what doesn’t kill me, makes me wiser (or so I hope).

Anyway moving on to happier topics – there are some highlights to 2010 that I’d be glad to share, the more promising moments that kept me going

I landed a new job!

Joined a US based recruitment firm with better prospects, and was hired to manage their marketing activities. What totally caught me off guard was me being invited to join office on an incentive trip to Bali. I was barely 1 week into the job.

Group checkin at Nikko Bali - a 5 star resort in the isolated reaches of Nusa Dua

Yummy Balinese Group dinner at Warung Made in Kuta

Gorgeous view of the pool and beach from Nikko Bali

Although I didn’t get to do as much adventuring as my previous trip to Bali, it was still a nice getaway to some sun, sea and sand. I took the opportunity to do nothing but relax by the beach, get massages and enjoy good Balinese food.

I'm pretty sure I wasn't allowed to do this, but what the heck

Chilling and leeching wifi from Starbucks at Kuta Beach

The culture in my new job is very performance driven, and I am surrounded by colleagues who are incredibly focused and capable at what they do. I never realized being a recruitment consultant could be so lucrative – makes me wonder if I’m in the right profession .

I guess I’m also grateful for the small things in the job switch, one of which is that I no longer have to work Saturdays. The transition felt liberating.

Me, Georgie, Edwin, Alex, May, Markus, Kelly, Irene, Maureen, Kriz, Tricia, AudreyC at Casa Latina

With Jamie and Craig

In order to keep things interesting, we sometimes organize fun group activities – like a honeydew carving competition (amongst other things)..

We couldn't source enough pumpkins for Halloween, so we made do with honeydews..

My favourite melon carving

With the resident office Santa Chris Jackson and my kringle gift!

And Christmas celebrations! All the more reason for the company to celebrate, as we closed 2010 with a nice profit margin. A committee was formed and together we came up with a derby / wild west theme to fit the dinner venue at a nice restaurant next to the equestrian club. Gave away some really attractive prizes too including an iPad! But as is customary with me and lucky draws – I never win anything

Christmas Party Committee - Me, Yee Hui, Wendy, Jamie, Doreen, Luno & Florence

Of course not forgetting my wonderful ex-colleagues who have also been great friends during my time with them. Hope things are going well for all of you!

Meet Audiophile Anton and The Devil Melvin

Happily trapped between Celes and Pratishta

Our trip via Tiger Airways was fairly uneventful, and only took less than 2 hours total flight time. Coupled with pre-arranged transportation from the airport to the resort, we got to where we wanted pretty quickly.

My lovely travelling companion

If you ever travel to Krabi, I highly recommend that you stay in Railay - as long as you don’t plan to do much shopping. Railay is completely surrounded by tall cliffs and is only accessible by boat, giving it a much more secluded and private feel compared to the other resorts in the main town and Ao Nang beach.

Our cozy little 'Privacy Cottage' - with its own outdoor garden, deck chairs and jacuzzi!

Where we were staying, surrounded by imposing cliffs perfect for rock climbing enthusiasts...

As we still had the evening to ourselves after checking in, so we decided to go for a quick seaside swim and watch the romantic sun set at Railay itself (the bay faces West).

Catching the gorgeous sunset at Railay on our first day there

Some little buddies wanted to tag along too!

Our dinner consisted of some mediocre Thai fare (Spicy chicken with basil, Green curry soup) at a neighbouring resort restaurant. We also booked seats for our next day’s agenda – a snorkeling and island hopping expedition to Koh Phi Phi to the south!

Leaving Railay for our full day trip to Phi Phi islands - 45 km and 45 minutes away by speedboat..

The bad sunburn experience from Mt. Apo has shown me just how important sunblock is!

Our first stop at Phi Phi Leh was the famous Maya Bay itself. Accessibly only by boat between November and April due to the shallow waters, this was where Danny Boyle shot his adaptation of Alex Garland’s ‘The Beach’. Simply beautiful – you could just wade out into the crystal clear waters and swim with the large colorful fishes. Now if only there weren’t so many people…

Phi Phi Leh's Maya Bay - Every bit as perfect as I imagined..

Panoramic Shot of Maya Bay - click to enlarge!

Was hoping to find a lost settlement of friendly natives, but this idyllic path leads only to the toilet...

Fine white powdery goodness! Guide said the sand here was amongst the Top 10 in the world. I thought that was a bit far-fetched, but it's still pretty damn nice.

Our boat then took us to another nearby bay for some snorkeling. Highlight was catching a view of a long silver sea snake!

Crystal clear waters at Lohsamah Bay

Gross stuff! The slimy thing actually turns hard when it wants too, and squeezing it a little makes it squirt water! We actually eat these things?

A huge deep cave at sea level, named after ancient paintings of boats found in it. Now accessed by a private company who pays royalties to the Thai government to harvest swallow birds nests from within.

A short 10 minute stop at Monkey Beach..

Big monkey doing what he does best - annoying the female monkeys..

And off to a nearby wide expanse of sea where we snorkeled some more..

Open sea snorkelling at Hin Klarng, a large coral reef formation.

Our guide actually dived down to bring one of these guys up! Looking at them up close, I never knew they had small little legs that allowed them to slowly crawl over the sea bed..

And our final stop at Bamboo Island.

It's amazing that you get to see hordes of colorful fishes right by the beachside..

Back at our resort with 2 more hours of sunlight remaining, we decided to explore Railay a bit more (and by exploring, I usually mean monkeying and climbing all over the place)

Poser Taken along the myriad cavelike formations on the cliff side as we were walking to Phranang beach from Railay

My pants nearly came off while doing this. but nice shot thanks to April! Wading around a shallow cove with overhanging stalactites and rocky caves = adventurous fun!

Right at the base of Phranang cave, was a colourful shrine dedicated to some phallic deity - strange awkward silence as we paid reverence to penile sculptures..

I did some additional research, and it seems that this ‘phallic deity’ was actually in fact the Hindu god Shiva. The penile sculptures (aka lingams) symbolize virility, fertility and good health and are left there by fishermen as sacred offerings. The cave itself has legends regarding a Princess Goddess that is said to reside there. As to how this princess legend and Shiva came to merge – hmmm..

The gorgeous Phranang Beach, just a short walk south of where we were staying.

Ok, we couldn't help it. Not everything is beautiful here..

Our 2nd sunset at Railay, and this time April just couldn't resist..

April wanted to buy me dinner, and she chose the poshest place on the block – the 5 star Rayavadee resort’s private restaurant – Raya Dining. Everything was exquisitely prepared – even the rich ice cream sorbet dessert had a fine flake of caramelized brown sugar, a dark chocolate stick, and a butter shortbread sprinkled with cinnamon powder… Talk about some nice fine dining by the sea!

Delicious fresh buns and sesame crackers. Huge chunk of a Thai gulf white snapper. Sauteed wild mushrooms in garlic and parsley. Seared duck breast and leg confit.

And thus our 2nd night comes to a close. Sucks that we will be heading back to work and the hustle and bustle of city life the next day. At times like these, I seriously contemplate just running away and eking out a carefree life as a bartender by a beach…

Note : All the above gorgeous photos are taken with April’s trusty Lumix (the panoramic view of Maya Bay was expertly stitched by April too). My supposedly waterproof and shockproof camera decided to finally fail on me during this trip, and I have as yet been unable to salvage the photos in it (they are on a silly non standard Olympus XDCard format).

FoOie, Andrea and NicT!

Alex and Fooie!

Faizah, Fooie and Jocelyn

The opening act by Prima Donna was kinda mediocre with lots of guitar grinding tracks that didn’t sound very inspired. Kudos for their effort though, and the whole saxophone with rock thing going on.. We were all just biding our time, waiting for the legendary Green Day to come on stage.

Let the show begin!

Green Day rarely performs outside of the US, and their ‘first time ever’ coming to Singapore was a big thing for the fans in the region. There were plenty of hardcore Malaysian and Indonesian rockers in the crowd who attempted to turn the free standing zone into literal mosh pits. I nicely elbowed one guy who just kept slamming his body against me trying to get to the front, then overheard him tell his friend “aduh, kena elbow lar!”..

Regardless of the assholes the energy was insanely high and infectious, and Billy Joe Armstrong really knew how to work the crowd. We were kept constantly cheering, shouting, waving and singing along to everything.

They opened their act with songs directly from their latest album 21st Century Breakdown, and from there progressively went back through time with their biggest hits from their older albums.

Following that, they played songs from their American Idiot album before moving to their glory Dookie / Insomniac days (the REAL reason I decided to go for). Ah, to be able to scream-sing-mosh ‘When I Come Around‘, ‘Welcome to Paradise‘ and ‘Basketcase‘ along with thousands of others is something that’s 15 years overdue. Better late than never I say.

Each ‘phase’ in their performance is marked with different stylized Green Day backdrops. The main stage was equipped with pyrotechnics that was used to great effect too. Only drawback with the setup was the lack of projector screens cause lots of the shorter audiences (their female / younger fans) couldn’t catch what was going on.

Mike Dirnt!

The legendary Billy Joe Armstrong!

Billy Joe had plenty of antics up his sleeve to keep us entertained, pulling off random short covers from Black Sabbath, Elvis, The Beatles and more. He called up many lucky fans (small kids included) to sing along with him but the best was probably this spirited mat rocker with green hair who sang the entire ‘Longview‘ flawlessly to a cheering crowd.

Water hoses and supersoakers, drunken bunnies, toilet paper shooters, gas powered T-shirt cannons and silly costume props abound. Billy Joe apparently mooned the crowd too! But I didn’t get to catch it cause my view was blocked at that moment (not that I wanna see his ass mind you).

Supersoaking time!

Toilet paper madness

Billy Joe with pink bunny ears

20 years down the road, and Billy Joe could still rock away. It’s amazing how his voice didn’t waver or break at all despite shouting and singing for almost 3 hours straight (while most of us left the concert voiceless). Both Tre Cool’s tight as hell drumming and Mike Dirnt’s trippy bass lines was the stuff of legends – they sound a thousand times better live than their album recordings.

Pyrotechnics backdrop - ooh yeah

He eventually ended the show with ‘21 Guns‘ and ‘Minority‘, before coming back for the first encore with ‘American Idiot‘ and ‘Jesus of Suburbia‘. The 2nd encore was simply beautiful though, with Billy Joe performing a triple solo acoustic set of ‘Last Night on Earth‘, ‘Wake Me Up When September Ends‘ and the perfect finale track ‘Good Riddance’ (Time of Your Life)’. Well I sure had the time of my life.

Thanks and credit to Andrea for squeezing all the way to the front and taking the above awesome close-up shots!