Merry Christmas

Was gonna write out part three of my Malaysia trip but it was taking too long. I've saved the draft and decided to put this up instead.

Merry Christmas!!! ^_^

Malaysia trip Pt. 3

I can't remember too much of the rest of the trip but I'll try to recount it here.

Dec 4


My shift didn't start very early today so I was able to sleep in. Got up with just enough time to shower, change and go down for breakfast.

Ate much the same as yesterday with the inclusion of an omelette and yogurt. Yogurt, woohoo! =) It wasn't anything special, just the type available at supermarts in those tiny one-serving tubs. But then again, I don't normally eat dessert at all. Darren (the friend who advised me to take the early shift) took an extra tub of yogurt, this he brought to the con.

The con was already well on its way when we got there. It was much the same as yesterday except there was a Pokemon CCG tournment today in place of the Magic: The Gathering CCG tournament yesterday. Continuation of the Warhammer tournament yesterday, more screenings of fan-made sci-fi movies. I was getting a bit tired of Plazzo Palatti. ^ ^

After my first shift (second shift of the day) we (Colin, Darren and one of the Richards from yesterday) went for lunch. I can't remember what we had though. ^ ^ Anyway after lunch Darren, Colin and I went to grab some snacks from Carrefour (the french hypermart chain) in anticipation of after con gaming at in our rooms. The highlight of the shopping trip was finding an isle of canned sardines. Actually, that wasn't it. It was finding an entire column of sardines, identical cans, piled top to bottom. We got some pictures of it somewhere, I just gotta find them from Colin. It was just something to see. =)

Anyway, we got back from our shopping trip laden with snacks and went back to work. Things were really quiet for a while and so in between games I took a walk around. There were phototaking oppotunities with Starwars and Lord of the Rings cosplayers. We got them to do a shot with them playing Plazzo Palatti, pretty cool. =)

Eventually the day crawled to its conclusion. We packed up and each of us got a free game from the pool of what we were demostrating. I got 'Ticket to Ride', a game where you travel all over 19th century USA trying to hit as many cities as you can, gaining points for it and gaining more points for longer trips.

What happened next was a colossal waste of time. We had to wait for Colin to settle yet more problems with the hotel (housing the visitor group), we spent like over an hour just waiting. Add to the fact that none of us had dinner yet and by that time, all the shops in the mall had closed, we weren't happy.

When things were finally done, we went looking for food. After a trip via minivan to a local eating place to buy food, we made our way back to our hotel. We soon found out that the food was too little. Waaay too little for the eight of us.

We had to eat the snacks as part of dinner. Hotel food was too pricy for our appitites. By the time all the food was gone, were weren't full, but at least we weren't hungry. After that we got a game of battletech rolling.

Actually more like limping. After a few snags, the game started. Unfortunately half of us were getting too tired to stay up, me being one of them. ^ ^ Basically that was the end of day/part three. ^ ^


The fourth and final part should be up soon. This is actually way more work than I expected. ^ ^

Merry Christmas (again)! =)

Malaysia trip Pt. 2

Dec 3

Woke up early from the alarm clock, judged sufficient time for a bit more sleep before shutting off the alarm and going back to sleep.

Woke up again, this time by my roommate, Colin. Judged sufficient time for a slight bit more sleep before dozing off again (and letting him be the first to get to the bath, incidentally freezingly cold enough to really wake him up =D).

Woke up yet again, no more time for more sleep (if I wanted time for breakfast) but felt awake enough to stay awake from then on. Got changed into collared t-shirt and slacks before going down to the twenty-third floor for breakfast.

I'll digress a bit to describe our place of stay for a bit (and to make this post a bit longer =P). We, the volunteer group were staying at the Pacific Regency, a service apartment (serviced hotel?) building at the expence of a company sponsering Gamecon 1. Because of this, our lodging and breakfast were paid for, any other expense we would have to fork out for ourselves.

Perhaps incidentally perhaps not, the Pacific Regency building happened to be situated next to the main office of the company sponsering us. This (and certain difficulties appearently caused by our liasion) led to our ring leader labeling our place of stay as under the Eye of Sauron. Our room was the topmost of all the rooms set aside for us, hence closest to the Eye of Sauron. This little joke also led (with help from seeing twin hotel buildings (Hilton/somethingelse) along the journey) to discussion of a Hotel Sauron. It shall be composed of two closely placed towers, one named Minas Tirith, the other Minas Morgul. And at the top of both buildings a hologram generator shall form an image between the tips of both towers of a giant burning eye.

Aaaaanyway, breakfast was cool. Buffet style with a mostly western spread. Pigged out on the meat but forgot about the yogurt. Damn! There was time enough for a leasurely breakfast (to me anyway, Colin felt it was a bit rushed) before we had to leave (we were part of the first shift).

A fifteen minute trip later brought us to Mid Valley mall, the location of the con and also the largest mall in South East Asia. We settled in and setup the games. No problems that I know of during the time I was there. Bumped into an old friend Gary, who had worked in Singapore before. (Well, he was specifically looking for us.) A bit before lunch, Dawn arrived. She was down with a few of her friends. It turned out that Gary and Dawn knew each other, through a game store known as Wolf's game shop. Appearently the gaming community tended to congregate around the same areas, same as Singapore actually.

Anyway, after playing a few games it was lunch break for my shift (Shift A). Colin, Gary and Dawn along with one of her friends (sorry Dawn, I forgot his name ^ ^), a few others from Singapore (two Richards and a Brian) and I headed over to the food court. It was crowded so we went over to another place. The food was good though a bit pricer than I'm used to. Anyway we all chatted for a while before we left the place. Dawn had to meet some friends later so she left the mall. Colin had to stop by the hotel next to the mall (where the CCG group and con visitors were staying) to sort out some things regarding some misarrangements (yet another recurring theme) and Gary and I tagged along to chat. Dawn's friend and the others went back to the con.

After things were settled (or so we thought) we headed back to the con. Back there I figured I had enough time so I embarked on my quest for bubblegum. Dawn had suggested that Toys 'R' Us was a good place to look so it was there I went first. Couldn't find the type I was looking for though. It occured to me that the candy section of a supermarket may have it. After checking I hit the basement level and what followed wouldn't make a story by any stretch of imagination. I found the bubblegum (and that's Bubblegum, not those tiny flat strips of gum but large almost cube like chunks of gum that could be used to blow bubbles as big as your face). It was also smaller than I remembered. Certainly not enough to blow bubbles as big as my head (Though back then, my head used to be smaller...). Anyway, I was disappointed enough with the size, variety (I remembered dual apple/banana flavour) and packaging (gaudy with reflective bits and a picture of a duck with a mohawk?!?! O_o) that I only bought a triple pack (so long childhood memories *sniff*).

The rest of my shift (and all of my first) was teaching a simple game called Palazzo palati (something like that, I can't remember the spelling), a game played by building a platformed tower Jenga styled (remove pillars from the lower levels to place on higher levels). And a game called... called... Urmm... Ah yes, 'Pit'. Another simple game played by distributing out a deck of cards (which have images of various fruits numbering one to five) equally to 2 or more players. The stack of cards for each player are placed face down in front of them and each player takes turns to reveal the top card. The first player to hit a bell placed at the center of the table when exactly five fruits of the same type are revealed takes all the cards. The winner is the only player with cards remaining in hand. Yeah, they're simple games, I'm just not confident enough to teach the more complex ones. ^ ^

Around the con were various other offerings. There was a sci-fi corner wheresome sci-fi toys and collectables were sold. Also there was a screening of various fan made sci-fi movies (Star Wars, Star Trek and B5) and a couple of cosplayers playing Jedi knights, Sith lords, an Imperial Stormtrooper, Gimli and another LotR character (someone who wears scale-mail, I didn't recognize the character.).

Also around were demos of some larger scaled boardgames, Twilight Imperium, World of Warcraft (yes, the boardgame), Cosmic Encounters and I think a few others. Other slightly smaller scaled boardgames were also being demoed. In all, I think about half of the con area was devoted to boardgames. One interesting fact regarding boardgames turned up during the con, smaller quicker games are preferred in Singapore whereas larger and longer playing games are preferred in Malaysia.

There were Warhammer 40K, VS, Magic and a Pokemon tournaments being run. A Warhammer 40K demo/contest, various boardgame contests and a model making showcase. I managed to get a couple of pictures by borrowing Colin's camera so I should be able to upload somethings sometime soon.

After my second shift ended, Gary, Colin, Darren (another Volunteer), Eric (also another volunteer), Brian (from lunch), Richard (one of the Richards from lunch) and I went out for dinner and planned to stop by Wolf's Game Shop. Well we did go for dinner, after waiting for Colin for an hour. He just kept talking to the invited con guest and our sponsor liasion while the rest of us waited. While I understand the importance of his talking to people who could be potential investors or people famous enouth to endorse his products, I wish he'd think and remember enough of his friends to not keep us waiting for so long. (As a friend I should tell him off about it, but I'm just not confrontational by nature and am rather timid about such things. *sigh*)

A tradition Colin always followed when in Kuala Lumpur was to eat at a certain foodstall selling boiled pork bone soup (called 'Bak kut teh') in Petaling Jaya (an area just outside of KL). The trip over was almost an adventure; we broke into two groups to take cabs and our cabdriver didn't know the way and had to be directed by Gary via cellphone through Colin. Appearently KL's big enough that there are cabdrivers who don't even leave the city limits and can earn enough to make a living.

According to Gary, the state of public transportation in KL was terrible dispite two Light Rail Transport(transit?) a Monorail system and a cityful of taxies. It seemed that it used to be easier to get around previously (something like 10 years back) when there was a mini-bus service around (which I later learned everyone was probably better off without (reckless speeding, overloading of passangers, etc)).

After arriving at the place (the trip took like maybe half an hour, I might be wrong) we had our supper and spent about an hour and a half chatting.

Actually, the others spent an hour and a half chatting, I spent an hour and a half alternatingly listening, puzzling over what was said and straining to hear what was being said over the noise of the occasional vehicle (our table was actually on the street). I was kinda upset that we never got around to visiting Wolf's Game Shop, it was kinda late when we finished chatting and none of us know if the shop would still be open. We left for our hotel rooms after that, and the trip back was uneventful.

Back at the ranch some gaming was in order in one of the other rooms but I stayed in to put down some notes. Too bad I fell asleep before I could finish.

*looks over the post and blinks* Okay, maybe I remember a bit more than I thought. ^ ^

More another day. ^_^

Malaysia Trip Pt.1

Just (more or less) got back from a three day trip to Malaysia. As it's my first trip out of the country in like 18 years, I felt I ought to document it. If only to preserve my prespective of it at the time. =P



Dec 2

The trip began quietly enough, I met a pair of friends at a game store (board and role-playing games, not computer) before taking a cab together down to the departure point. A hotel that a Malaysian coach company based its Singapore stop at. We were going to Gamecon 1, South East Asia's first and biggest game convention (or so the line goes, there were actually mini-cons held in Singapore before, though they were more just tabletop-wargaming-with-a-side-of-anime cons) as volunteers. At the hotel that was our departure point we met up with the others that were going to the con, volunteers, visitors to the con and CCG tournament players.

The Coach was cool, double-decker with a lounge, mini-toilet and infli-err.. indrive(?) movie. Way better than what I expected it to be (I was expecting just a more comfortable version of a standard air-condidtioned bus).

At the point when I began taking notes (about 6PM; 3rd hour of a 5 hour trip), there had been one hitch (well, two counting my realisation that I forgot to bring my camera). At the Singapore departure checkpoint in Tuas (western part of the island), a passenger also going to Gamecon 1 (a VS CCG player) forgot to check his passport during his preparation for his trip. It was already expired. Because of that, he had to drop out of the trip.

Anyway, we got through Malaysian customs with no problems and shortly after, the coach staff served the meal. I wasn't expecting much (low expectations from years of living in Singapore =P), but the actual food was way better than I'd imagine. I was told to expect rice noodles (bee hoon to us locals). What I expected was the noodles in a plastic lined (folded) paper packet with a pair of cheap wooden chopsticks. What I got was plastic utinsils atop a plastic tray with like 5 partitions (with veggies, mini-spring roll and fried fish fillet).

After food time was game time, a game of Modern Art. A pretty okay game of buying and selling modern art pieces. In between the meal and the game (and during each as well), I spent a bit of time looking out the windows at the countryside. There is a -lot- of countryside. =) I was also mildly surprised to see quite a bit more palm trees than I was used to.

The highlight of the trip was a game a bunch of us played called Werewolf (not the one from White Wolf), well highlight to me anyway. =P There were three roles in the game, Werewolf, Villager and Seer. No role-playing was neccessary, it was more of a guess-the-culprit kind of game. In the three games we played, I was a Werewolf, a Villager and then the Seer. Whoo, pretty fun! =)

Anyway after the third game and a bit of writing it soon got too dark to see much of the countryside. It was a short while later that we started seeing suburbs and I thought that we were getting close to our destination. The journey continued on for a bit longer than I thought and along the way, I saw another thing (well, things) that was stood out from what could almost be another part of Singapore. The very large advertising billboards. There're hardly any in Singapore, the only one that I remember clearly is a large old Coca-Cola logo painted on the side of a building, I can't recall any freestanding ones.

During the trip, a friend mentioned that the city layout in Malaysia seemed like something from Simcity (i.e.: 'Hmmm, I think this looks good over there.' 'I wonder what does this do?' 'Does this work over here?' etc...) To me, it just seemed like Singapore, just less strictly planned out (I would later revise my opinion of that).

We reached our debarkation point fine and from there it was a short hop via mini-van to our actual hotel (actually serviced apartment (I think)). There was a bit of a mess regarding our room assignment but that was straightened out pretty quickly (I was to later find out that the CCG tournament playing/Gamecon visitors group had their own far larger share of problems). After a light supper and an hour or so of (board)gaming we all turned in as it was already midnight. In what was to be a recurring theme for the trip, time passed quickly when we weren't paying attention (that and lotsa time wasted waiting, the other recurring theme for the trip).





Well, that's it for the moment. Part 2 tomorrow or something.