Unemployed

I hereby announce that I have completed my current internship. This effectively means that I am (once again) unemployed. It isn't a bad thing, since I intend to fully enjoy whatever remains of my uni life before stepping into work life proper. This involves sitting around and hanging about Penang until after Chinese New Year.

So for those who need to know, I'm free now, so you're most welcome to ask me out for tea or coffee. For the record I give guerrilla combat advice for free, though I doubt any of you will need it. I am also legally obligated to inform you that all advice given is subject to my whim and fancy, therefore no liability will be accepted in the event that you ambush an Apache helicopter with a glue gun after consultation.

And for now, good night.

Yosakoi

A few weeks earlier there was this Japanese street parade thing along Beach Street and Esplanade, so I decided to go and have a look. I only knew of this event because it was advertised on the rear end of a Rapid Penang bus, and I only looked at the bus because it was sending foul-smelling clouds of carbon monoxide at me.

Back to the parade. The earlier part of the event at Esplanade turned out to be pretty much the same as the annual Bon Odori, complete with Yukatas, funky Japanese food, cosplayers and kids lining up to catch fish (some sort of game I guess).

Some Japanese traditional toys for show.

Nice kite. An old chap tried to fly it but the wind wasn't strong enough.

Kids 'n Kotton Kandy =P

The second part of the parade, being the parade itself, was more interesting (probably because I haven't seen parades close-up for a decade). Those joining the parade were gathered at Church Street Ghaut at about 8pm. It wasn't as crowded as I expected, so I pretty much had a good view of what was going on without being squashed into human pulp.

Balloons...

I like balloons!

Some of the jolly members of the parade.

Some came with drums...

...some came with horses...

... and some came straight out of the movie screen.

I think these guys were into Japanese fencing or something. Just found their costumes unique.

And of course the night ends with fireworks.

Honestly I felt it could have been better. The performers in the street parade were actually spaced too far away from each other. While folks at the beginning of the line enjoyed all the action, I noticed some Ang Mo tourists towards the end of Beach Street getting annoyed because the last time a performance group walked past them was 15 minutes ago. But I guess things weren't too shabby for a first try. Better luck next time.

Hatyai Again

My family loves Hatyai. Not because we shop a lot, but because we can spend the weekend there eating whatever we want, then get back to our usual business during the weekdays. Yes, we like to eat. But then again, which Penangite doesn't like eating?

So a few weeks ago I found myself on a van heading for Hatyai again, together with a guest my family decided to invite.

She took this photo. Not bad for a novice :P

Credits to Ming the tech support and photographer guy.

They sell these for 50 Baht (approx. RM5) each.

And here's some of the Thai food we came for.

My favourite and Shingun's too. Deep-fried catfish.

It's always nice to check out stuff at the morning market.

Tiny fruits and veggies made with bean paste!

More colourful sweet things.

These ladies are wrapping multi-coloured glutinous rice with kaya/prawn paste.

A group photo with my aunt missing. Obviously she held the camera.

The number of photos had to be drastically reduced for this post. The line is so slow I'm finding it near impossible to upload anything with colour in it. Streamyx being Streamyx. Anyway it was a good holiday in which we all gained a few kilos and Shingun finally stepped into Thailand for the first time. Now, time for some exercise.

Dear Streamyx

It is not my usual fashion to start the year aiming corrosive projectiles at anyone, but I guess exceptions can always be made under certain circumstances. So here's a short one.

Dear Streamyx @ TMNet,

A very happy new year to you. Yes, I was sincere about that. No, I did not default on any of my internet bills. That invoice you sent (and which you claimed was several months overdue) did not belong to me, my dad, mum, brother or pet goldfish. Even the account number you quoted wasn't ours. In fact, your officers acknowledged that our account had a surplus in it because you overcharged us months ago when we switched packages. So stop sending us that same invoice asking for payment. With regards to that surplus, we're still waiting for you to offset the credit against our upcoming bill. Kindly keep that in mind.

Oh and it was very kind of you to have our phone line (and hence internet connection) cut off for 4 days (whether accidentally or intentionally). I'm also impressed that during this period of time you called us daily, sometimes twice a day, to advertise your Unifi package thingie. I'm still not even sure what it is, so your marketing team probably didn't do very well. Oh wait, it might also be because I'm not interested at all in what they have to say. That was a groundbreaking discovery, wasn't it? Next time we report a fault, just get to the maintenance job, please refrain from telling us about Unifi, Unity, Union or University. We're simply Uninterested. I don't care how good the deal is. Let me stick with my current package, and don't sever my connection just so you can advertise your stuff.

Ahhhhhh... that felt good...

Up next, a happier post about Hatyai, now that I have my good ol' internet connection back =)

Happy 2013!

Here's a short message to blast off 2013 in our ever friendly cyberspace asylum. Happy new year everyone (I'm sure you saw this phrase coming a mile away).

Your friendly inmates at this hysterical blog wish you a warm, cuddly, huggy, smoochy new year plus good health, great wealth, excellent bowel movements and a little bit of well-timed luck to top it all of nicely.

That said, have a great time and thanks again for loyally following Ewe Juan's ultimate state-of-the-art, jaw-dropping, eye-popping, heart-stopping, telephone-ringing, kangaroo-hopping Cyberspace Asylum!!!!!!