Category: Event Coverage

Hari Raya Open House

Hari Raya matters more to me this year compared to previous years. To my Muslim friends, it marks the end of Ramadhan.

Woke up this morning to find myself 3kg less than I was 3 days ago.

To me, it marks the end of my Detox Diet. Woohooooo!

This is Aileen, who generously invited me to her Raya open house.
I knew Aileen from way back. We kinda lost touch for a while, and now she’s an English teacher working in Johor. She told me once that one of her Form 3 students reads kennysia.com. Ehhh… my blog is not educational material ok!

I like going to Aileen’s place for open house because she always prepares gastronomical amount of yummy Malay/Indian food.

This is chicken korma, a mild curry made with yoghurt, cream and nuts.

This dish is super-tasty and oh-so-sinfully oily. The lamb curry is easily my favourite dish from the buffet table, and I don’t even like lamb.

Red chicken curry, or rendang, or masak merah, or whatever. I’ll be honest. I couldn’t differentiate between the different types of Malay dishes.

It’s not everyday you get to see kids in songkok dancing to the tunes of Siti on DVD singing live in Albert Hall.

Having been away for so many years, I forgot how beautiful the Malay culture is. Even back home, I live in the Chinese-dominated Kuching South and seldom get the chance to know many Malay friends. It’s fulfulling in a way watching friends and families coming together celebrating Raya.
These are Aileen’s friends, Amy and Cecilia.

I always thought Malay clothes look like pyjamas, but everyone at Aileen’s place look so fabulous in lustrous traditional Malay clothing. I actually felt out-of-place with my shirt and jeans.

This is Aileen’s cousin Amy. She’s the only finalist from Sarawak in the 3rd season Akademi Fantasia (Malay language version of an Idol-format singing competition). Gotta love her purple-coloured baju kurung.
I went home after spending a good 2 hours at Aileen’s place. I was full after two rounds at the buffet table, each time filling my plate to the brim with nasi briyani topped with delicious curry. You can’t blame me for being such a glutton though. I hadn’t touch meat for 3 days!


Crap.

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Matta Fair

MATTA is an association for Tour and Travel Agents in Malaysia, and the MATTA Fair is a twice-a-year expo where travel agents get to sell air tickets and tour packages at some ridiculously low price. Theoretically anyway.

I popped by the Matta Fair earlier yesterday to book my tickets to Perth. A return air ticket to Perth costs me RM1500 (tax inclusive), which wasn’t as cheap as I hoped its gonna be. They were going out for less than RM1000 last year.
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Most European and American destinations are about RM3,000 after tax which means I can pretty much forget about my European backpacking dream. There are some extremely good deals at the fair though. Phuket is RM608, and Hong Kong is just disgustingly cheap at RM708 return.

I almost laid down the deposit to fly my ass to Hong Kong next January, but I realised I won’t be able to afford accomodation over there. Cheapest I could find is a 3-star hotel that costs almost RM250 a night in Kowloon. Bloody expensive ok?
Anyone have any suggestions on accomodation in HK that does not involve a cardboard and the sidewalk?

Tourism Malaysia had a nice booth, but it was the Singapore Tourism Board who showed up at the fair in full force, along with their flat plasma screens and the works. Too bad the only thing they seem to be promoting is everyone’s favourite budget hotel chain.

Man, I can’t wait for my two dreadful projects to finish. I got two getaways penned down in October: a trip to Shanghai early October to visit Furong Jiejie for business (let’s hope they don’t ban kennysia.com in China), and then onto Perth on the 13th October to visit friends and family. So tired from overworking right now I’d prostitute myself to get me out of the office.

Nothing beats a well-deserved holiday after 3 continuous days of slaving yourself 16 hours straight at work.

MTV Asia VJ Hunt

I’m still not feeling well but I’ve finally succumbed to visiting the doctor after much deliberation. The doc suspected mumps and prescribed me with a whole lotta pills to swallow. He gave me an MC, but I’m not gonna be able to use it. In fact, I got so much to do at work, I’ll be staying back at the office this Saturday and Sunday.
Since I’m not in the mood for entertaining, I’m gonna bore you with my weekend instead.

I was strolling around Kuching’s shopping district last Sunday when I noticed MTV Asia staging their VJ Hunt at Crowne Plaza. I totally wasn’t planning on hanging around to watch the show but my friend Brandon Juan was there and he convinced me to stay. Besides, Guy Sebastian was there.


Fine, so I lied.
I thought long and hard whether or not its wise of me to put up their photos and videos, especially when these are all Kuching ppl and they can bash me up easily if they want to. But I decided since they’ll all be appearing on MTV Asia anyway, they shouldn’t have any problems appearing on kennysia.com right?

This guy was on Malaysian Idol before or something.

The contestants were asked to do a brief introduction of themselves, perform a special talent (usually singing), then do a spiel introducing a music video. More often than not, the results turned out quite horrendous.

The new MTV show requires the VJ to host upside down.

I don’t understand why so many of the contestants went on stage and decided to suddenly transform into an angmoh and speak in an obviously fake American accent. What is it with being a VJ and speaking with an ang moh accent anyway?
Whatever happened to Asian pride? Come on guys, you are from MALAYSIA and you’re auditioning for MTV ASIA. Why must speak in ang moh accent? Speak in Hokkien cannot ar?

He said “Dude, what’s with the fake accent?”

From what I saw, probably one out of every twenty of them deserved to be in the finalists. The rest were so bad, if I saw any of them on MTV screens, I’m gonna sue MTV Headquarters for insulting my intelligence.
Download video clip here. (WMV, 11.2MB)
Anyway, I waited for Brandon’s turn to go up the stage. Heh, I don’t think he did too well either.

Better luck next time, dude.

The best thing that night was meeting a few kennysia.com readers who recognised and greeted me, instead of freaking me out by passing me a paper note that reads “Kenny, what is KNNCCB?”. Drop me an e-mail so I can send you the photos.
Who’s there sitting in a corner digging her ear?

No shit, its Denise Keller!

Denise sure got an eye for a guy like me.

Speaking of Denise Keller, I thought Christian Jigmo from Eye For A Guy look like a character from Journey to the West. Don’t you think?
Here, let me show you.

Sung Wu Kung!

I’m only saying that because a friend of mine thought he looked cute but I begged to differ. No, I’m not jealous. Really. Look at my not-jealous face.
Anyway, its not an insult, its a compliment. Imagine what Sung Wu Kung could do with his magical baton that can grow long and short.

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Shal Sagan

Shal Sagan is an independent music artist homegrown in Kuching, Sarawak.

I wrote about meeting her and her mate Brandon Juan at the Rainforest World Music Festival some time ago when JoyceTheFairy was in town. Prior to this I have heard of her though I never had the chance to listen to her music. Coincidentally, I bumped into them again at Bing the Coffee House last week. Brandon invited me to come to her gig on Sunday, so I figured why not.

For a 22-year-old, this fair-skinned beauty sure has accomplished a lot for herself. Shal Sagan has got some serious talent and I mean that in every sense of the word.
Get this – Shal doesn’t just sing. She wrote all her songs, composed all her songs, plays lead guitar, co-produced them, and on top of all that, started her own record label Shzogawa Records to distribute her music. And she did all these when she was just 21 years old.
When I was 21, I was still sitting in front of my computer play The Sims.

The gig was held at Somerset Gateway as part of a charity carnival. The bands performing that day were great but too bad the event was poorly organised. For some silly reason the organisers put the stage right in front of entrance to the condomnium, which means every now and then you get residents walking behind the performers to get to their suite, as you’ll see in the video clips later. Its very annoying.

It’s then Shal Sagan’s turn to go up there and do her thing as I readied my digital cameras and did my thing.
Halfway through her performance, I encountered a Freaky Fan Incident. Yes, I encountered it, not her.

A middle-aged man in his 40s or so (shown in this picture here) emerged from inside the building, walked past the stage and handed me a small folded note.

I looked at him quizzically and he smiled at me before walking away.
Now I don’t know if he’s the one reading my blog, or if he’s just playing messenger and passed me the note from someone else. But, guys! If you do happen to bump into me, there are less freaky ways to let me know you’re kennysia.com reader you know? Like, for example, “Hi Kenny, I read your blog. Nice to meet you!”

That guitarist bears an uncanny resemblance to Linus Chung from the movie Sepet.

Anyway, back to Shal Sagan.
Shal and band performed 4 songs from her debut album. They opened with Death’s Fatal Kiss and finished with a Green Day/Good Charlotte-inspired Newsflash, both of them uptempo rock tracks. In between, she sang a slow alternative track Message in a Bottle (think Smashing Pumpkins) and ballad track Just Fine, my favourite song from her album.

“These chicks don’t even know the name of my band… But they’re all on me like they wanna hold hands…”

Shal Sagan sounds a lot better live than my camera can apperciate, but here are the videos anyway (in MOV format, Quicktime Player required).
Death’s Fatal Kiss video
Just Fine video
Message in a Bottle video
Newsflash video
Samples of her songs can be downloaded from CD Baby. Pay attention and reflect on the lyrics as they are often the best parts to her songs.

Shal Sagan, Kuching’s Rock Princess and Kenny Sia, Kuching’s Rock.

Shal Sagan was nice enough to give me a copy of her CD. To show her my appreciation, I created for her a music video of her song ‘Just Fine’. Try to spot my Freaky Fan in there.
Download music video of Just Fine, crappily produced by kennysia.com
Low Res (17MB, WMV)
Hi Res (33MB, WMV)
Hi Res (alternate link) (33MB, WMV)
If you like what you hear, you can purchase her album from Tower Records if you’re in Malaysia, buy online through CD Baby, or just e-mail Shzogawa Records directly at orders@shalsagan.net.
Support our local indie music industry. 🙂

Kuching Festival Fair 2005

The Kuching Festival Fair is a month-long food, trade and cultural fair held annually at the Dewan Masyarakat (Civic Hall).

The event has been going on 17 years now. I remember I used to attend the event as a kid together with my late grandmother. I vaguely recall the dimly lit footpath, the wide range of local food, the hustle and bustle of the crowd that’s so characteristic of the Festival.

But that was 10 years ago. For 8 of those years I’ve been attending the very boring and expensive Perth Royal Show instead, so when I heard about the Kuching Festival happening I dragged my saliva-soaked ass there as soon as I could.

“Can cut food. Can cut wood. Can cut brick. RM20 for one, buy two get one free. CHEAP!”

The fair at the Dewan Masyarakat comprised of a food fair, a trade fair and a forgettable garden show. There’s also a stage for performances, but those performances are more like visual and aural torture for me.

He’s so hungry he could eat a microphone.

They actually introduced this guy as Kuching’s Dong Li Huo Che aka Kuching Train Station. Hopeless!
The trade show is very typical. Blenders, cleaning agents, blenders, knives, blenders, CD repairer kits, blenders, blenders, more blenders… However, I did notice a few interesting items on display, such as the most kiasu hi-fi system in the whole world…

Don’t play play, Mercedes hi-fi system. Pay RM1,500 for this set and boom your neighbour away.

A model recruitment agency…

The competition between modelling agencies just got a whole lot… bigger.

Ah Lian fashion at its best…

Guess? What Guess? We have GUEES!

There’s a lot of stalls whoring credit cards, all offering free annual fee, free gifts, free entries to competitions and so on.

Sometimes you wonder how they actually make money off credit cards.

I signed up with all of them and bagged their free gifts just for fun. Let’s see how many credit cards I’ll have after 3 weeks.

If this guy sold peanuts in Singapore, he’d be a freakin’ BILLIONAIRE right now.

The main attraction of the event is obviously, the food. I wasn’t disappointed. By my estimation there’s probably about 200 food stalls and 1,000 different menu items, all at very reasonable prices.

“Help! My food is on fire!” – Man cooking oyster omelette (‘Orh Chien’)

Let’s take a tour and look at what’s on menu shall we?

This is salad yew-tiaw. Yew-tiaw is some sort of deep-fried bread that’s crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. This version here has sesame seed sprinkled on top and is served with mayonnaise. Its good, though its not the best.
The best one is right here.

Yew Tiaw also got king one.

Declaring themselves ‘king’ in front of 200 other stalls is a pretty bold move. They’d better be able back it up. And lucky for them, they did.
JUST TAKE A LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT THING.

HOLY MOLLY! Those yew tiaw are almost as big as my dickonosaurus! But mine is still bigger okay.

Kuching sio bee enjoying a sauna.

This is sio-bee in Hokkien or siew-mai in Cantonese. Its warm and savoury. Its not unlike the sio-bee you can find in dim sum restaurants all over the world. Personally I think those are a little too soggy for my liking.
I think Kuching’s sio-bee is still the best, and Kuching’s best sio-bee by de facto is at the Open Air Markets. People here watch them grow from a humble dirty little stall infested with rodents, into a successful franchise they are today selling sio-bee all over Kuching. For them, next stop, THE WORLD.

I thought this signboard is a little bit mean. How could they make it look as if the lamb is there enjoying a nice hot bath? So wrong.

Everybody loves coconuts.

I couldn’t resist photoshopping ‘Wong Lee Hom’ onto the menu.

More local favourites. Belacan Bee Hoon (or ‘Mehoom’ in that picture) is one of my favourite Kuching dish. Its rice vermicelli soaked in a Malaysian prawn-based soup and paste called ‘Belacan’. So smelly, yet so tasty.

Fancy some camel or ostrich burger?

To be honest, I don’t know how the hell they could come up with stuff like these. I don’t think anyone knows what camel or ostrich meat tastes like anyway, so even if they put bullshit in there can call it ostrich burger, people are still gonna eat it.

Before he was turned into food, Willy the Wealthy Chicken owned five nests, three barns and eight hens.

Wealthy chicken. Heh! This proves one thing correct. It doesn’t matter how much money you have – if you’re chicken, you’re dinner, baby.

Spiderman’s latest victims.

These are actually called ‘Emperor Dragon Whisker Sweet’. I swear it sounds a lot more elegant in Chinese (Long Xu Tang). They taste like soft Australian nougats, except there’s granules of peanuts in there. Sweet, sticky and delicious.

Malaysian satays. An eternal favourite worldwide.

Jeff Ooi‘s little birds went to Thailand and never came back.

This is fried ice-cream. I have no idea how they did it, but they managed to deep fry a scoop of ice-cream without making it melt. The result is an ice-cream with a warm outercrust and an icy cold inside. Only RM1.50. Its heavenly.
Too bad you cannot print it out and eat it.

This is a dish with a fun name called Chee Cheong Fun. Chee Cheong in Mandarin means ‘Go clubbing’. So this dish sounds like ‘Go clubbing very fun’. In reality its just some boring prawns wrapped by very thin steamed skins. Nothing fancy about it.

Barbequed sting rays at only RM25 per kilo. You choose the size and portion of the sting ray, they barbeque it, served on a piece of banana leaf over sambal and lime. It’ll turn out like this.

Its spicy and sour at the same time. I had this for dinner.

This is lok-lok. They’re basically fish balls and other stuff skewed on a satay stick. You can have them cooked in hot water or deep fried, then served with your choice of chilli, oyster, or satay sauce. Its yummy.
Please don’t lick your computer screen.

I spent less than RM20 that night and I had such a total feast I need to roll myself back to my own car. There’s so much food to try, its truly gonna take one whole month for me to fully sample each and every one of them.
Note to self: Postpone diet plan till end of August.
Alright I’m done. You may wipe your drool off your computer monitor now. 😉

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Bloggers.SG – Singapore Bloggers Convention 2005

This is a much delayed recap of the Bloggers.SG Singapore Bloggers Convention that happened 2 weeks ago. Delayed because you-know-I-know-what-happened lah.

Tomorrow in the Sunday Times. Pun not intended.

Remember when I wrote about what I thought the bloggers convention would be like?
I have to say – I didn’t initally plan on attending the convention at all. My previous trip to Singapore before then was merely 3 weeks ago, and sadly my bank account experienced a severe drought after that trip. No money, can’t do anything.
That was, until the venerable mr brown dropped me an official invitation, compliments of SHINE, asking me to attend the convention on behalf of the Malaysian blogosphere. Jeff Ooi and minishorts were invited as well, but too bad they had to turn it down. Sucks, because they didn’t know what they missed out on.

So anyway, on Friday the 15th July, I flew from Kuching to Johor Bahru via AirAsia (saving some RM500 in the process) and took a ‘Smiling Bus’ down to Singapore. Meanwhile, I sent a message to mr brown asking him which Hotel 81 branch I was supposed to be staying at.
mr brown: “We’re putting you at the Swissotel at Stamford, man. Its near City Hall MRT and just next to Raffles City Shopping Centre.”
Kenny: “THE SWISSOTEL? You’re kidding right? Too generous, mb!”
mr brown: “No worries, man. Its peanuts to us.”

I asked for a hotel and they put me in heaven.

Can I just say, Swissotel is the bomb.

Let me say that again. Swissotel is THE BOMB.

Talk about getting a total VIP treatment. The room was spacious, the interior decor was tasteful done and the harbour view on the 43rd floor is simply spectacular.

Giant fly hiding underneath the surface of Singapore, waiting for the right time to lay the smack down on those puny humans.

There’s nothing like going to bed with the city’s night lights, and waking up to sunny Singapore skyline. Meanwhile, minishorts is in KL ,sacrificing her weekend, pulling her hair out, desperately trying to finish her projects.

When I opened to door to my balcony, I finally understood why SPG prefered hotels over HDBs.

My Friday night was spent catching up with chio bu Apple Lim at Orchard, and having a few rounds with Big Fuck, Postmaster General and the very beautiful Linda Chia at The Hideout.

Saturday. 16th July 2005.
The day of the convention.
I foolishly underestimated the time required to travel from City Hall to Woodlands and arrived at the Woodlands Regional Library 30 minutes late – completely missing out on XiaXue‘s presentation.
I tried to reason with her. But she obviously wasn’t too happy about it.

It was also there at the morning session that I finally came face to face with the great mighty Zeus himself.
The blogging workshop presented by XiaXue, mr brown and Preetam was aimed towards would-be bloggers who wished to know how to get one started, and also to parents and teachers who might not know much about the blogging phenomenon.

The atmosphere was a bit lecture-ish for my liking, but I reckon the presenters were all very professional and effective in getting the message across. Take into account mr brown was ill, and Wendy didn’t sleep till 4am in the morning. I prefer their style of presentation here compared to their afternoon session actually. The three of them certainly did a good job dispelling the myths and paranoia the elder generation have towards blogging. My only regret was that my anti-blog mom wasn’t there to listen to it.

When that’s over, its another 45 minutes from Woodlands all the way back to the Esplanade.
Our conversation in the car went something like this.
Wendy: I very tired leh. I slept at 4 in the morning.
Wendy: *yak yak yak…*
Wendy: Can I sleep in the car? I sleep the car hor.
Wendy: *yak yak yak yak yak yak yak…*
Wendy: Are we there yet?
Wendy: *yak yak yak…*
Wendy: So tired… wanna sleep…
Wendy: *yak yak yak yak yak…*
Kenny: Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping?

The DXO Nightclub was the perfect location for hosting the Bloggers.SG Convention. I shudder to think what it would be like if the organizers stuck to their original plan and held it at the library instead. I think the organizers wanted a casual and relaxed environment without it being too distracting for the panelists talking on the dancefloor, and DXO certainly did that for them.

I’m also very impressed by the level of security provided courtesy of the Singaporean Army. I think the Singaporean government must have understood how us bloggers were putting our lives at risk by congregating in such a concentrated venue. Hey, you never knew if some anti-blog lunatic was gonna turn up and threaten to blow us bloggers all into smithereens. With machinegun-toting army men surrounding our perimeter, I see little chance of that happening.

Upon arrival, I was introduced to the many other volunteers and organizers of the event, some I heard of, like Agagoogaa, Tinker Tailor; some I read, like Barffie. These are elves working hard behind-the-scenes ensuring the convention ran as smoothly as possible. I was pleasantly surprised by their enthusiasm and the dedication they put into this project, like its their baby. They absolutely do not want anything to go wrong with it.
Outside, a line was already forming.

2pm. Doors opened. Within moments the entire venue was buzzing with bloggers, blog readers, and media people alike. Before I knew it, there were camera flashes going everywhere, people saying “That’s Kenny!”, and a few even asked me for my autograph. There are people who told me which of my past entries they like best. The euphoria I experienced at that moment was indescribable. I’m just a normal Kuching boy, but I felt like a celebrity!

Thanks Owen.

It was still a little difficult to get used to. People were taking photos of me standing up, sitting down, scratching my balls doing nothing. Everything I do sure kena scrutinised one.

Its a press conference style set-up. Panelists talk on stage whilst an irc chat projected on the big screen was running in the background.

I must have done around 4-5 interviews that day alone. I had another opportunity to talk to Straits Times reporter Melissa Lwee, who I remember as the person who once called me on IDD, conducted an interview with me for one whole hour, then wrote only TWO sentences on me when the story finally came out.

Huh? What’s this… IBM PC thing you’re talking about?

mr brown hosted a large chunk of the afternoon talking about the Singaporean blogosphere in general and the little blogging communities were all given a chance to introduce themselves. I chipped in there and talked about how similar the make-up of the Malaysian and Singaporean blogospheres are, and finished my spiel plugging Project Petaling Street.

Kenny: “So, that’s all… any questions?”
Girl #1: *raise hand* “Will you marry me?”
Kenny: “…”
Girl #2: *raise hand* “Can you show us your Dickonosaurus?”
Kenny: “!!!”
Singaporean girls are very very friendly.

The technology and law portions of the talk unfortunately weren’t as engaging, but at least the ladies on the floor had fun watching Mr Miyagi and lawyer Tan Min Liang. By then, some of the audience had already gone to the back and mingle around with friends or play with remote-controlled tanks on the 2nd floor. Rest assured, they all rushed back when they heard the bellydancers are about to perform.

The Bloggers.SG Convention successfully drew to a close with a very impressive display of fireworks over the Singapore River, proudly sponsored by the Singaporean government. I think that’s to signify the “explosive impact” Singaporean bloggers have made within the country and around the world.

The evening was more of a casual chat and mingle session where the bloggers have a chance to bond over alcohol and get to know each other a little better. For me, I just enjoyed finally putting names to the faces.

With mr brown

Carrie and Adri are proof that life is unfair. If life is fair, these two sweet-looking girls wouldn’t be lesbians. Therefore, life is unfair.
[Edit: mb just informed me that Carrie is straight. Life is fair again.]
And if you haven’t yet realised, portions of this entry were fictionalised. I’m sure you’re smart enough to figure that out right?

With Carrie and Adrianna of popagandhi.com

For many many other photos, click here.
The Singaporean blogosphere ought to be congratulated for successfully holding their first ever Bloggers convention. I reckon they all did a wonderful job. I take my hats off to them, and they took their tops off for me.
Hope to be back soon, Singapore. Thanks for the mammaries!

Miss Tourism Pageant 2005 VideoBlog

Missspore
I finally managed to compile the video clips I took from the Miss Tourism Pageant 2005 preview show and made it into a videoblog. Its a little long – 30 minutes to be precise.
You would need a player capable of playing WMV files, eg. Windows Media Player. Do let me know if you run into any technical issues and I’ll look into it.
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Highlights of the clip include:

The opening dance.
Miss Pakistan‘s excellent Bollywood dance “Sharara-Sharara”.
Miss Singapore‘s “Rolling Dog” Aikido demo.
Miss Malaysia‘s FULL 5-minute-long rendition of the song “Zombie”.
The FULL cocktail dress parade.
The crowning of Miss Damai.

I understand the file is a bit large, so I’ll split the file into small downloadable pieces later. Check back this evening if that’s what you prefer. 🙂
crap
What are you waiting for?
Download Miss Tourism Pageant VideoBlog [128MB]: here. (down) or
here
.
Complete Videoblog now available for download here.

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Miss Tourism Pageant 2005 Kuching Show

Just got back from the Kuching preview show of the Miss Tourism Pageant 2005 last night.
misst
I didn’t even know this type of beauty pageant exist, until I caught the bunch of them having lunch at one of the hotel cafes. Miss Tourism is very similar to Miss World or Miss Universe, only less glitzy and particular emphasis is placed on the contestants tourism knowledge and background.
misst

Photos here will not be in chronological order or in context.

The Kuching ‘Preview’ Show was held at the Crowne Plaza hotel ballroom. The tickets are expensive at RM300 per person and are difficult to get by. I’ve called the organizers a few times before but they’re unwilling to sell individual tickets as they’d rather sell by the table.
misst
I was finally given a chance to buy the elusive RM300 ticket at the door on the actual event. Having gotten into a minor car accident earlier in the day, I was hesitant to part with my hard-earned cash. So I tried a trick.
I put on my best dress shirt and tailored pants, wore a (borrowed) huge ass digital SLR camera on my neck, and at the actual event I walked into the ballroom confidently as if I own the whole freakin’ place.
misst

No these are not the contestants. Its a warm-up show. I reckon if the bellydancers at the Bloggers.SG conference are anything like this, the whole trip to Singapore would be worth it.

I walked past the reception. No response.
Walked past hotel security. No reaction.
Walked past the organizers. Nuh-uh.
I found my table (they made a mistake by revealing my table number before I even got my ticket), pulled a chair, sat and started eating the shark fin soup and butter prawns they served. Still no dramas. People look at me as if its very common for strangers to share a table like that.
Yes you heard it right. I got to dine at a 5-star hotel, rub shoulders with snobbish socialites, and meet with 30 other beauty queens, all for abso-fucking-lutely FREE. FREE. FREE.
Thank you, lax security guards!
misst

The show opens with what the MC called a ‘thoughtful and inspiring’ speech by the Tourism Minister.

The minister’s speech can be summed up as follows:
1. We’re not here to see pretty girls, we’re here to promote world peace and harmony.
2. Tourism is important so all the government money spent on this beauty pageant is worth it.
3. I got to see all these pretty girls backstage before all of you do, and I took pictures with all of them too. So obviously my balls are bigger than yours. (I’m serious. He did say something to that effect.)
Anyone wanna bet his stupid speech is gonna make the headlines tomorrow?
misst

Contestants appear in dazzling Sarawak cultural costumes. I like Miss Brazil. I wanted to ask her to show me her Brazilian wax.

Letting someone like me sneak into the Miss Tourism Pageant was the last of the organizer’s concerns. A number of contestants have withdrawn or miss the show completely.
misst

Miss Venezuela looked fabulous in that pink empress outfit. I reckon she looks like UK singer Billie Piper.

Poor Miss Ethiopia for example, was quarantined at the KLIA because she can’t produce her medical certificate and the officials here fear that she may have yellow fever or something like that. I think she’s gonna be so traumatised that when she goes back, she’s gonna have yellow Asian fever.
misst

Miss Pakistan doing the Bollywood dance.

Perhaps the most high-profile scandal was the one involving Miss Tibet. The Chinese government forced her to compete as Miss Tibet-China, but she refused and ended up withdrawing from the contest instead.
misst

Miss USA looks like she has a dislocated her hip bones playing the hoola hoops. Don’t you think she bears an uncanny resemblance to Jessica Simpson?

Anyway, after the initial introduction of the contestants, a selected few were invited to perform their ‘special talents’ on stage. Most danced. Miss USA did it with the hoola hoops.
Miss Singapore was scheduled to do an Aikido martial arts demonstration. But when she stepped forth, she…
misst
… rolled on the floor.
… and again, to the left.
… then again, to the right.
And before you know it, its all over.
misst
I thought I came for a beauty contest, but I went to a dog-rolling contest by mistake.

misst
Miss Malaysia easily had the best performance of the night. She sang a rendition of ‘In Your Head’ ‘Zombie’ by The Cranberries and her vocals was simply awesome.
I shall upload the videos tomorrow or something.
The evening wear parade was next on the list.
misst
Miss China is damn skinny, but she got a nice albeit flat face though. I dig Miss Hong Kong’s outfit (2nd from left) and Miss Brazil (3rd from left) looks fantastic in just about anything.
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Miss Slovakia on the other hand has a great body but a very ‘plastic’ face. I managed to snap a photo of her later in the hotel lobby.
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WAH! Look like she just walked out of a Barbie Doll box.
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This is that curvilicious Miss Belarus’ back. I reckon she has the best dress out of all the girls that night.
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Miss Venezuela in her snake-print outfit. Miss Vietnam in the background. Why is it that all the beauty queens seem to hail from Venezuela?
I was looking forward to a swimsuit parade. Too bad with the conservative politicians in the audience I see a fat chance of that happening.
The next session of the show features the contestants in cocktail wear.
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Miss Brazil looking fabulously neon pink. Check out Miss Belarus in that black dress! She looked like she jumped out of a watch ad or something. Those two are definitely my favourites alongside Miss Venezuela. Miss Cambodia in the background kinda pale in comparison.
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Miss Romania looks like a total doll without Miss Slovakia’s plasticky feel. What a queen.
That’s Miss Russia by the door in the background. She’s another one of those with a good body, but her face something wrong one.
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Miss Singapore Celest Foo definitely had the BEST evening wear of the night.
I spoke to Miss Singapore when I stalked bumped into the contestants during lunch a few days ago. That’s how I remember her name. Its quite clear to me that she’s not the most confident one of the group. She commented how intimidated she felt since the girls there are all so tall.
But Celest is very down-to-earth and I felt as if I was talking to my high school mate or something. There’s no pretentious “I’m better than you” air about it. I like her.
The subsidiary title of Miss Damai was to be given out that night, but before that we were rudely interrupted by an intermission program.
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George Michael would be so proud of his sense of fashion.

Cheebye lah. Talk about from one extreme to the other.
The moment of truth. Who will win the crown of Miss Damai (whatever the hell that is)?
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Make a wild guess?

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Miss USA giving the look that says “Pick me! Pick me!”

btw, that’s Miss Tunisia standing on the far right. Not Miss Tiuniasing ok.

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Congratulations Celest! 🙂 You totally deserve it.
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Don’t go using your special Aikido talent and roll back to Singapore now.
Coincidentally I’m in Singapore right now, looking forward to attending the Blogger.SG conference tomorrow. Pop by DXO at the Esplanade if you’re in town alright.
This wraps up my account of the Kuching preview show. The Miss Tourism Pageant Grand Final will be held in Miri City on the 23rd July. I have my favourites – specifically Miss Brazil, Miss Belarus, Miss Romania and Miss Venezuela. I hope they win.
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Bye bye…

Well, who do you think should win?

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Rainforest World Music Festival 2005

I heard of the Rainforest World Music Festival amidst all its media hype, but I never bothered much about it. That is, until every second friend I have pestered me with questions like “Ehh… are you going to rainforest?”
I thought they meant jungle trekking.
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The music festival attracted a lot of hippies. Not sure why Sunsilk sponsored this event since hippies don’t usually wash their hair anyway.

The Rainforest World Music Festival is an event that brings together traditional cultural musicians from all over the world. It is held at the Sarawak Cultural Village, itself a living museum amid lush rainforest located some 30 minutes away from the hustle and bustle of Kuching city.
Cultural performances usually bore me to tears, but I was curious when I learnt that people were coming from Miri, KL and even overseas just to attend this cultural bullshit.
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The beer ran out, so Joyce started to nibble on the can.

Joyce the Fairy, whom I met at the PPS Bash, was one of those who flew to Kuching to see me to join in on the fun. She was here on an unapproved business trip, taking photos of the event for the magazine she was working for.
I wanted to catch up with her ‘cos we’ve met too briefly in KL. Besides, I wanted to witness for myself her acclaimed alcohol drinking prowess.
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The audience pretends to be interested.

The afternoon workshops at the RWMF weren’t particularly interesting. There were three classes running simultaneously at the different auditoriums around the village. Most of the time the musicians were trying in vain explaining aspects of their music. Too bad the audiences just wanted to hear music / don’t give two hoots about their instruments / don’t fooking understand what the hell they’re talking about.
Seriously, their accents are so bad they make characters in The Sims sound like English teachers.
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Sarong Party Boy sighted in Kuching.

The Colombian musicians are slightly more entertaining. For some odd reason, they would get so excited hitting their drums, they would start stripping, jump around madly, chase all the girls, and justify it by calling it ‘the Colombian dance’.
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Kinky Blue Fairy goes to work.

I find this Polish Celtic band called Shannon more suited to my musical taste. Its Irish music pumped up with drum and bass – think ‘Riverdance’. Its very unique. Check out the video clips I took here or here.
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I really wanted to get their CD, but the frickin’ thing costs RM75. Heck, I don’t care how much I like their music, but to charge someone RM75 for a CD is blatant abuse, man. Just ‘cos Sarawak has lots of trees doesn’t mean our money grows on trees.
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There’s a break between the afternoon shows and the evening’s major concert, so I joined Joyce and her mates by the beach to catch the sunset.
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“ARGH! My face is stuck onto the camera! HELP!”

Joyce is such a social butterfly and a lot of people she hang around here are from the local media, arts and music scene. I swear she bumped into more people she knows than I did, and I’m supposed to be from Sara-bloody-wak dammit!
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Joyce, Shal and Brandon. The innocent looking bottle on the sand was actually filled with Evil Joyce’s Malibu.

As soon as I was introduced to him, Brandon recognised me and asked “You’re that guy who blogs, right?”
Shal Sagan was a little quiet. She’s a talented singer/songwriter from Kuching who recently released her alternative rock debut album “A Special Note”. It should be available at Tower Records now, so go check her out if you’re into that genre of music.
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Drunk people fooling around. I think they forgot the ‘woman’ was supposed to be the one ‘blowing’, not the other way round.

The Village turned into a rather dodgy place by the time we returned. There were lots drunk people loitering around, some even smoking weed joints out in the open. It definitely wasn’t a very family-friendly place, despite the fact that it was a government-organised cultural event and that children were allowed into the area.
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The musical performances for the early part of the evening was fairly forgettable, but amazingly the crowd was HOT – both figuratively and literally speaking. It was a rare sight for a place like Kuching where major staged events were far and few in between.
The crowd bought the whole act and they were crazy throughout the night like it was some sort of rock concert or rave party (replace DJ with American folk music and you get the idea). The atmosphere was simply awesome.
Download crowd video here.
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The Yelemba drummers from Ivory Coast at the end just stole the whole frickin’ show away. I’m still amused at how they can make the mad rush to the toilet seems so interesting.
Download Ivory Coast dummers’ video here.
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I don’t know if that’s meant to be a tiger or a bumble bee.

By the time I parted with Joyce she had already consumed more than ten cans of drink, only two of those were non-alcoholic. Yet, that woman fairy was still sober. She must be right – fairies run on alcohol.
The show ended at around 12:30am. It was definitely an entertaining evening, but the rowdy and sometimes unruly crowd wasn’t what I expected. I wonder how many girls emerged that night ungroped and unscathed. Still, I appreciate the performers who dedicate their life and soul preserving and sharing their cultural music with us.
But hey, at the end of the day, people enjoyed themselves and if there’s a similar event next year you’d definitely see me there.
Other people writing about the RWMF:
Joyce the Fairy [Kuala Lumpur] has tons of pictures.
This So Called Life was amused.
Arthur [Miri] gave it 10/10.
Irene [Kuching] was disappointed.
Michelle @ syntaxfree [Singapore] looks forward to next year’s.

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That PPS 2nd Anniversary Bash

The Project Petaling Street 2nd Anniversary Bash was held at Charlie’s Place, a little old bohemian Western restaurant next to an art gallery, located not far from KL’s Masjid Jamek.
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I arrived at Charlie’s Place fashionably late – literally – when the hairdresser I was with turned my haircut from a 45 minute job to a 1.5 hour affair. 8:30pm and the place was already bustling with bloggers. Random bloggers and readers greeted me and I shook hands with them as I made my way into the restaurant to order my food and to introduce myself to Aizuddin Danian, the selfless owner of the PPS blog portal and host of the event.
A typical conversation at the bloggers meet-up went something like this.
Blogger: “HEYYYYYYY…. Hello Kenny Sia!”
Kenny: “Ummm… hi!” *scans for name tag*
Blogger: “Its me, my name is HunnyWunnyBunnyKins [or some other obscure online nicknames]. Remember?”
Kenny: “Oh! Hi! Yea yea, I remember you! You commented before. How you doing?”
*Repeat process with 20 other bloggers*
This being my first bloggers meet-up, I was very lost until I was spotted by Niki Cheong, an old friend from my involvment with Curtin University Student Guild some 3 years ago, and a rather well-known journalist himself. Thanks for the beer, Niki.
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I know. Stop saying that we look like twins in this pic. Or worse, gay couple.

Its a different excitement having people commented on my entries to me face to face. A lot of people liked my Datuknametoolongitis entry. Few sent me their condolences and letting me know they cried reading what I wrote about my father (sorry!). Then there are those who told me the results they got from my ‘Which Malaysian Blogger Are You?’ personality test. Its all very interesting.
After the initial frenzy cleared up I began to spot some more notable faces in the crowd.
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minishorts, Dave “Itchyhands”, Freckled Adam PeterPan, some guy I never met in my entire life, and KinkyPug Kevin

minishorts is indeed totally hot. Don’t be fooled by her sweet smile and good looks, ‘cos if anyone rubbed her the wrong way she has a tongue sharper than Gilette Mach3 blades that will not hesitate cutting you up into a million pieces. As a resident PPS crawler, she knows almost everyone at the venue. That girl’s social network is bigger than the whole freakin’ Internet, baby.
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Whoa! Check out minishorts’ boobies custom-made top!

Niki introduced me to Adam, whom I recogised from JoyceTheFairy’s blog. Adam is also a host for 8TV. Too bad I don’t know what show he’s presenting ‘cos I don’t get 8TV here in Kuching. Otherwise I’d be squealing like a little girl having her first orgasm.
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KinkyBlueFairy. Neither kinky, nor blue – but definitely a fairy.

Award for most glamourous babe of the night goes to Joyce ‘The Fairy’ Wong of kinkybluefairy fame, who came sashaying in with her red top, short skirt, sleek L.A.M.B bag in tow. Wow. Joce is the kind of photographer that looks fabulous behind the lens and in front of it.
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ShaolinTiger aka Shaolin Harimau aka Shao Lin Lau Hu – arguably Malaysia’s favourite expat blogging geek. He’s the co-founder of security-forums.com

Nolah I’m not as tall as ShaolinTiger – he was sitting down and I was standing up. I am damn ashamed to say that this guy is more Malaysian than I am, right down to him speaking with a perfect Malaysian accent.
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Fip, Kenny, Nessa Yeo and Lainie Yeoh.

Are they as excited to see me as I was to see them or what? I’ve been following Lainie’s blog way before I started blogging. Hilarity is guaranteed almost everytime Fip or Nessa is featured. Those girls are so naughty you can’t help but to fall in love with them.
Fip said she couldn’t help but to stare at my crotch. Coming from a lesbian, I find that comment very flattering. 😉
Nessa Yeo is hot. You probably can’t tell because everything she’s in front of the camera, she’s either making silly faces or flashing her ass-ets in front of me. Hands down, the wildest 16-year-old I’ve ever met – seen it all, done it all, even had a song written about her.
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RSF Award-winning Jeff Ooi needs no introduction.

Check it out – its the little bird and the big bird! In that order, of course.
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Reta, who has been reading since wayyyyyyyyyy beginning.

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Jolene, who posted 3 (count it, THREE) photos of my butt on her site. The devil! What is it with women and their obsession with men’s butt?

I was elated to see Jolene ‘cos I thought she’s not gonna turn up. The SarongPartyGirl news in local media indirectly caused her conservative parents to think that blogging could lead to their daughter baring her titties on the internet. That and other reasons almost forced her to stop blogging altogether. Silly right?
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David Teoh all the way from Melbourne. Visit his blog for awe-inspiring photography.

I’ll forever remember him more as ‘That guy who made me a millionaire playing BlogShares’.
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Peter Tan (not to be confused with Peter Pan), the most heart-warming Malaysian blogger on two wheels.

I’ve chatted with Peter on numerous occasions. He’s the classic example of how blogging changes one’s life and one’s outlook on life. Its difficult not to like this guy because everything about him is so positive. I have to admit seeing that smile on his frail face reminded me of someone of my past. Eat a little more, Peter.
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HB, one of the pioneers in the Malaysian blogosphere.

This is Huai Bin (HB), also from Kuching, whom I mentioned numerous times before on my blog. Later that night, he cheekily asked “We’re gonna do some K, wanna join us?”. I felt like replying “Nah its alright you can go ahead. I’m not very good at singing Karaoke!”
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I know Suanie has been looking forward to this gathering like no tomorrow.

Suanie hugged me countless time throughout the night. As you can see, I was very shocked.
Quote from her site:
“I WANNA HUMP THEM LIKE MAD DOGS! … I’m going to have wet sweet dreams tonight.”
Scary.
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FireAngel used the word ‘fuck’ a lot in her blog. Too bad she didn’t say the same thing to me.

I swear I was molested by sultry FireAngel that night too. (no link to her blog, sorry) Her over-reaction cracked me up.
Quote: “HUAI BIN AND KENNY! OMG! TOO CUTE IN REAL LIFE! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE TAKE ME! I’ll BE GOOD! I’ll DO ANYTHING!!!!!!! PROMISE! OMG I CAN’T STOP GRINNING EVERYTIME I THINK ABOUT THEM OR MENTION THEIR NAMES! TOO CUTE IT’S SINFUL! WHY CAN’T THEY HAVE A TWIN!!!!! WHYYYYYYYYY! ARGHHHHHHHHH!”
Scary!
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Amanda, whom I got to know through Jolene. And ShaolinTiger in the background pretending as if he didn’t know we’re taking a photo.

There’s a lot more photos but I’ll try not to kill my server’s bandwidth, especially after I freshly upgraded it. Feel free to click on the links here.
The more formal part of the evening was the PPS Blog Awards ceremony. Mack Zulkifli was made the MC of the night, and he was such a natural entertainer. He did a fantastic job electrifying the crowd.
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Don’t be fooled by the seriousness of his blog. This man has charisma.

Quote of the Night goes to TV Smith: “And the nominees for PPS Ping of the Year are… Sarong Party Girl: My left boob is bigger than my right boob.”
I presented Simon with the Neophyte Blog of the Year award. Jeff Ooi added the Ping of the Year award to his collection. Damn that bastard. If it weren’t for that Anwar dude commenting on his entry he wouldn’t even have appeared on newspaper and won! What did he do to deserve that award?! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! This is so unfair I deserve to win that award and I was robbed, I tell you. ROBBED! Congratulations Jeff.
I snagged the Blog of the Year award. My balls are now officially huge.
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I’m glad the shirt fits, ‘cos my balls sure aren’t gonna fit into my pants.

To those of you who thought that I went back to my hotel with my ‘groupies’. Nah, it didn’t happen. 🙂 I have my witnesses.
That’s how Malaysia’s largest blogger meet to date ended. It was a great night and I totally enjoyed meeting the 60 over bloggers and non-bloggers alike that were in attendance. Credit once again to PPS owner Aizuddin for bringing together and truly defining the Malaysian blogosphere. Without him, none of these would have happened.
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When a cockroach mischievously crawled up her knee, Xav climbed all the way up the bartop.

Such diversity of people in the blogosphere. Blogs are the word-of-mouth of the 21st century, and I say it never looked so good.
So, seen anyone you fancy in the Malaysian blogosphere? 😉
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Next up, Kenny ventured deep into the dark alleys of Singapore, joined a gang, and became one with The ‘Hood
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Think twice before you cross two of the baddest rappers of Singapore – 50 Seng and Snoop Doggy Cow.

Peace, duuuuuudddddeeee!

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