Sipadan Part 2

OK, now the journey continues :)

Everybody's busy sorting out seats on the boat

Hey, got rainbow

Finally we got to Mabul. Can't wait to get wet!

Everybody's busy pretending to listen to the briefing while they're actually thinking "can we go dive now..."

Ikan busy handing out keys

Next would be underwater pictures, in the next post that is....

Sipadan Part 1

I know it's a week late but I've been really occupied with work since I took a whole week off during my Sipadan trip. So here goes my Sipadan Picture Trip Report :)

My trip started at 11pm March 17th. After some logistics arrangement I took the 1st bus out of KL Sentral to LCCT at around 3.15am.


This is part of the luggage that took us about 1.5 hrs to check in. Check in was a chaos as we had to 1st declare our extra luggage as sports equipment (to enjoy the RM30/15kg additional allowance) then check in the normal luggage, then bring the extra luggage to another check in counter to get in checked in, then to another counter to pay for it. 3 counters just to check in our extra luggage? I wonder why can't we just do everything at the check in counter.

I slept all the way in the plane and also all the way from Tawau airport to Semporna so no pictures there. Anyway, we reached Semporna near noon and checked in at Lee's Resthouse as our boat out to Mabul island is only the next morning.

Semporna town

Lee's Resthouse

Another look at the variety of diving gear waiting to be loaded in the van to the jetty

More pictures coming up soon in part 2 :)

I'm Back!

I'm back and feeling tired and sleepy. I only got home around 2.30am this morning and still having the so called "Post Diving Syndrome". Mocha has been asking for pictures (sorry for you camera bro) and I'll try to upload them tonight should I finish unpacking and cleaning my diving gears. I'm sure they're smelling quite nice now at home as some are not so dry when I packed them and it was raining when we touched down at LCCT yesterday.

Anyway, overall it was a good trip. Sipadan was not as I expected due to unfavorable weather condition and bad timing. But I did have fun at the other dive sites namely Si Amil, Kapalai and around Mabul island. It was a long 1 week journey and now I think I'm hooked. I'm already looking at the calendar to see if I can slot in another trip this year (yes honey, I'm thinking about going back there but this time I'll take you along heh :) ) should I be able to come up with the money needed that is.

Pictures coming soon.....stay tuned

The Day is Tomorrow...

I've been keeping my diving equipment dry ever since I came back from the Kaleebso LOB trip last December. Yup, not a single dive since then, not even in the pool, although a miscommunication made me miss one of the pool session that I was planning to attend. So tomorrow I'll officially start my 2008 diving season diving in Sipadan until Sunday. It's my first time to Sipadan and I'm hoping for the best there. After all those stories and pictures, it's my time to personally experience it.

I don't know how many dives would I be doing there, but I'll try to slot in as much as possible. I do by all means plan to break the 100 dives barrier this year (so far I have no luck breaking 100 in golf so maybe I'll try it in diving) and I'm planning to do the bulk of the dives earlier in the year this year.

I'll definitely be posting lots of pictures for this trip that I'll be taking 2 cameras with me for trip (thanks to gafiL for lending me her camera) so that I can capture every single step of the journey. So stay tuned for reports soon.... :)

I've been Tagged by Ardy & Bakawali

The Linking Tag Rules

1. List out five favourite links - the links can be of business sites, affiliate links or whatever that suits the blogger.

2. Tag five more people to share their links, so hopefully, at the end of the tag, we would be able to share good links with each other.

3. The links MUST be clean. No X-rated sites.

4. List out only FIVE links.

5. You MUST tell the FIVE people you chose.

6. Provide the link back to the person who tagged you.

7. Obviously, it should be an active link.

Well then, my five links would be:

1. ESPN.com - My official sports website except during summer
2. Gizmodo - The gadget/tech site I love most. Thanks to Ass-rif for introducing it to me way back then
3. Google News - I just love the way they put news from many different sources in 1 site. And not to mention that they update it frequently too
4. MalaysianUnderWater.com (MUW) - Without them, my diving gear would just be gathering dust
5. Wikipedia - I'm always hungry for information, history and facts, this site provide them all

Now let see, who should I tag?

1. Judd
2. Ass-rif
3. Nurhi
4. Maya
5. Don't have a no 5. All the people I know had been tagged :)

Keep On Winning and Climbing Rockets!

Yup, the streak officially reached 16 games today. A new record for the Houston Rockets and they've been winning 4 straight without Yao. Anyway tomorrow they're playing Dallas (without Dirk that is who's serving a 1 game suspension) and the Hornets is coming by the weekend.

The Rockets had already beaten the Hornets before but not the Mavs but I hope the streak would continue. Anyway, the way they're playing right now, I have no regrets even if the streak ended. I know what the Rockets can do now and they'll just be stronger next season. Go Rockets!

Catchy Phrase, Crappy Service

After breakfast, I decided to deposit some money into the bank with the Yellow Tiger Logo for car installment payments etc. Yes I can do inter-bank transfer but why wait 3 days for the transfer to complete when the bank is just on the way back from breakfast. As soon as I reached the bank, I noticed a long line (mind you it's only about 9am+ and the bank had just opened) and found out that only 1 out of 3 cash deposit machine is working. After around 15 minutes of waiting, it was my turn and I noticed the greeting message on the machine. It reads:

"Stop the queue! Use XXXbank Cash Deposit Machine"

Frankly speaking, this is not the 1st time I encountered the same -Cash Deposit Machine out of service- problem. For a bank located at KLCC where thousands of people work, I do think that they should have keep their machines in working order all the time. So far, there's rarely an occasion where all the cash deposit machines are working at the same time. What's the point of having multiple machines when like 70% if the time, only 1 machine works.

I guess maybe so many people are using the machines that it get full quickly. But hey, if you know that's the case, why on earth do you have only 3 machines? I know the other bank nearby have like 5+1 machines and most of the time all are in working order.

I think if they're going to keep it this way, they would be better of with a greeting message like this one:

"Stay in the queue! Use the XXXbank cash deposit machine and don't bother coming to the counter as we'll charge you 50 cent"

Anybody else having the same experience?

Roses for Prof Dr Rosnani Hashim

Prof Dr Rosnani Hashim is my great mentor, the person who encourage me to be strong and stronger since day 1. She`s leaving us now, but all her kindness, support and love will be remembered until forever.

Pharmacy Dept, FSKB, UKM KL (old pic, sorry)

Lunch at KL Tower

MSc in Clinical Pharmacy 2006/2007

NajiBEST with Prof PT Thomas
(Longhorns 2005 vs. Longhorns 1993)

NajiBEST and GafiL - Pharmacy Nite 2008