I have a confession. I have very bad taste in music: I love viral music.
Back when Rebecca Black’s Friday and Carly Rae Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe were popular, I listened to them repeatedly on Youtube not ironically but with full appreciation of the catchy lyrics and head bobbing tunes.
Currently on my Youtube loop (because I cannot buy it from the Singapore iTunes) is GANGNAM STYLE from PSY. Youtube charts
I thought about sharing the deep meaning of the song which parodies the dirt rich in Korea but I thought it would make you click the X button. Instead, I have compiled a list of Top 5 (in no particular order) covers of PSY’s song. (And leave the heavy reading to WSJ.)
From Malaysia:
ORANG SABAH STYLE (OPPA GANGNAM STYLE PARODY)
A Hakka version of Gangnam Style featuring my hometown (or homestate) Sabah. Lots of locations taken at places I am familiar with. The ending even has Bruno Mars.
Best line: Come to Sabah, wanna try the seafood. Go to island, Hey!
GANGNAM (SUPER KAMPUNG) STYLE
This is a version made by a Malaysian radio station. I think it’s really cool that the employees are sporting enough to do the invisible horse riding dance everywhere in KL.
Best line: “But in your kampung, you can wear sarong. Anywhere you go oh. Everybody knows oh.”
From Taiwan:
這群人 – 學尬乾那塞 (GANGNAM STYLE Cover/Skit/台語版)
“Studied like Shit”
A Mandarin + Taiwanese Hokkien version with a sexy dressed as a teacher/librarian. Sex sells, of course. Best line (translated): You… don’t study. Learn! Learn! Learn! Learn! Studied like shit
From Singapore:
Singaporean Style (Gangnam Style Parody)
Best part: Instead of the invisible horse riding dance, they have a shake your fist up and down dance.
Best line: “Ehhhhhh give me Tau Huay”
From Korea:
PSY (ft. HYUNA) 오빤 딱 내 스타일
“‘Oppa Is Just My Style”
OK, I’m cheating with this video. It’s actually a follow up to the original song, sung from the girl’s point of view.
UPDATE: Oppa KL Style
From KL, again.
The original video
PSY – GANGNAM STYLE (강남스타일) M/V
Have you found any interesting covers of GANGNAM STYLE?
A bit about Flocations, it’s a Web service that lets you pick Southeast Asian budget flights based on your budget and dates. Same end goal as Flight Lover (Cheap flights within my budget but different way of doing it.
PS I’ve just started my guest posting journey, which Alexis Grant from the currently-called The Travelling Writer recommends doing right at the start.
If you are looking for travel/lifestyle posts on Singapore, Malaysia or the Southeast Asian region, drop me a mail yqtravelling[at]gmail.com.
Extra: How to renew your Malaysian passport online
1. Sign into MyOnline Passport using Chrome.
2. Fill in correct information and upload a photo of the right format.
3. Pay using credit card.
4. Save the receipt onto your computer.
5. The passport should be ready at where you said you will pickup in 2 hours time.
How many travellers does it take to renew a passport?
The answer is one. But when the traveller is well-known for being a scatter-brain procrastinator, it might take a lot more than that.
My passport with the number H180XXXXX was expiring on Jan 30, 2013. But we need at least 6 months of validity for our passports if we want to travel overseas.
I’m working in Singapore with a Malaysian passport, I don’t think having an “expired” passport will sit well with the authorities.
While I was determined to get a new passport when I head home during the end of June, I only successfully retrieved the new passport on July 28, in Johor Bahru which is 8,000++km away from home.
Here’s the story of how I finally renewed my passport.
Pre-June 29. Location: Singapore
(Countdown to expiry 30+ days + 6 months) At the office
More than month till my passport expires. No worries.
I keep announcing to my colleagues that I will renew my passport when I am back home at the end of the month for my classmate’s wedding.
I even make sure to place my passport in my handbag (which is really redundant because I need it to travel home anyway.)
June 30. Location: Kota Kinabalu
(Countdown to expiry 30 days + 6 months) Home sweet home. No, that's not my house
I am supposed to renew my passport today. I have even planned out the day’s schedule: renew passport in morning, go to mall nearby while waiting for the passport to be churned out in two hours, collect passport.
But it didn’t happen. Why? Because I’ve forgotten to bring my Identification Card (IC) back home.
It did cross my mind that I should bring my IC back. But being me, I didn’t heed that small warning.
My parents grumbled. I told them to relax.
Instead of a new passport, I had passport photos taken.
July 2. Location: Singapore
(Countdown to expiry 27 days + 6 months)
Back in Singapore, maybe I can renew my passport at the High Commission of Malaysia here.
Oh no, Sabah/Sarawak passports need two extra months of processing since they need to send it back. This is ridiculous.
July 11-15. Location: Hoi An, Vietnam
(Countdown to expiry 15 days + 6 months)
Well, since I’m overseas having fun. It’s not possible to renew my passport.
Let’s not worry and eat this bowl of pho. Nom nom nom.
July 19. Location: Singapore
(Countdown to expiry 10 days + 6 months)
Only 10 days weeks till I’m considered an illegal alien. Gaa! Let me drink this cup of tea to calm my nerves.
Boss asks when my passport is expiring, gives hint of an upcoming trip.
I call up the Johor immigration office to ask if Sabah passports take a longer time to process. It doesn’t. (Phew.)
But the immigration office will be closed during the 21st and 22nd weekend because of the beginning of the fasting month.
Panic starts to creep in.
July 23. Location: Singapore
(Countdown to expiry 7 days + 6 months)
OK, do not panic. D suggests I sleepover in Johor and run to the immigration office as soon as the door opens.
Sounds like a plan.
July 24. Location: Singapore
(Countdown to expiry 6 days + 6 months)
I decide I should get the online passport renewal system, MyOnline Passport, a try.
I use Firefox which has always been more stable for important sites. After filling in all my details, I find out that I cannot upload my photo.
Panic.
I decide to use Chrome. Oh! Photo upload works. Let me fill in my credit card details, select Johor as my pickup point, and sent everything over. A Web page gives me the receipt for the transaction and says I can pick up my passport after 2 hours.
July 25, 26, 27. Location: Singapore
(Countdown to expiry 5, 4, 3 days + 6 months)
I keep worrying that MyOnline Passport doesn’t really work, while reassuring my boss my passport will be collected on Saturday.
July 28. Location: Johor Bahru
(Countdown to expiry 2 days + 6 months)
Today’s the day of passport collecting, if I don’t get it done, I will be stranded in Johor until I get it sorted out.
I wake up at 7am, take the bus to Woodlands, switched to a bus to the checkpoint. A cab drives slowly pass the lobby after the checkpoint, I jump in.
After a RM16 cab ride, I am at the Johor Bahru immigration center at 9.40a.m. I don’t know which of the four buildings houses the passport office. I sprint from the car park to the center of the buildings–if my online passport application hasn’t been successful, I will need to get the paperwork done before 10am as the office closes at noon on weekends.
The employees at the carpark stopped me.
-Where are you going?
-To get my passport renewed.
-Oh! I thought you dropped your passport or something. Take that lift to the third floor.
-Thank you!
I reach the office. The queue is crazy. I am going crazy. I ask the lady for a queue number. She sees that I am collecting my passport so send me to counter 11.
OK, not as many people here. I hand over my passport pickup slip, telling the person I renewed it online. He tells me to take a seat and they will call out my name.
I stand in the corner and send an SMS to mom to tell her that I am waiting to collect my passport. I see a man with a stack of passport coming from behind the office.
My name is called. I take a seat, sign my passport and give them my right thumbprint.
I’m in the office for less than 10 minutes and my brand spanking new passport is in my hands.
Hi folks, I’m still in Hoi An, Vietnam, now until Sunday. Instead of showing you what I’ve eaten for the past two days, I plan to reveal it all in one go after the trip as part of my Glutton in Somewhere food series.
So today, I want to share the different seafood I had while I was back in KK at the end of last month. I didn’t do a Glutton series for Kota Kinabalu because the food was too familiar for me to cheer about.
KK is a seaside city and there’s plenty of seafood to go around. My favorite seafood is probably prawns but they’re a bit more expensive than crabs so I don’t eat prawns too often. I also suspect it’s because I don’t get to eat it so often that I like it more.
Mom usually brings me to this other seafood place when I’m back. But this time, they changed location to somewhere nearer my house. This new eatery opened while I was in Singapore so I never visited the place.
We had crabs (the seafood, not the STD).
Crabs
As well as some challenging seashells. She eats seashells by the seashore
On another day, my sister brought us to a roadside eatery for coconut and clams. (An odd combination, I must say.)
The clams were barbequed and quite yummy. But the chilli is what brings the yumminess to another level. Even I as a non-chilli eater liked it (but didn’t have too much of it). Clammy
So the next time you are in Kota Kinabalu, remember to stuff yourself with seafood!
My sister brought me and my friend to the upside down house (Rumah Terbalik) when I was back home for the weekend.
Sabah has lots of gorgeous natural tourist attractions so it was very funny to find this man-made attraction that’s trying a bit too hard to be popular.
The location of the attraction is very far from the city center. Even with our own car, we drove kilometers and kilometers until we are at the foot of the route to Mt Kinabalu!
To find your way to the house, you will need to pass the water reservoir on the way to Tamparuli. The house is next to the Shell station after the famous Tamparuli bridge (it even has it own song–“Jambatan Tamparuli”!).
There’s an entrance fee and locals pay a bit lesser than foreigners.
The rules there say you are not allowed to take photos of the inside of the house but you can take as many photos as you want outside.
You will be fined 100 ringgit if you are caught taking photos inside the house. (What draconian rules.) The employees said it’s to preserve the uniqueness of the house. Pfft.
Inside the upside down house
The inside of the house is more fascinating than the outside. It’s a rather tiny home and everyone has to crowd on the red carpet.
The layout of the house is a typical Malay home sort of place, except everything is glued to the ceiling.
There’s a living room, two bedrooms, one bathroom and a kitchen. There’s spare change scattered on the floor and even a bucket of KFC–a cute touch.
My favorite is the upside down washing machine because I didn’t catch it (not literally) until I was far away from it.
The backside of the house is really cute because of the upside down bicycle.
The most interesting exhibit is the upside down Kancil with upside down Angry Birds dolls. I tried to pose like I’m hanging outside a car, waiting for Spiderman to save me.
I just came back from a weekend trip back home to attend the wedding banquet of two high school classmates in Kota Kinabalu. Maybe I should say, the wedding of one couple who were both my high school classmates.
This post will be about Chinese weddings in Malaysia. From first hand witnesses, I’ve found out that Chinese weddings differ in Malaysia, Indonesia and China, so I’m trying not to lump every Chinese wedding together.
Here’s the lowdown of what goes on in a modern Chinese wedding in Malaysia.
The wedding would take about a year of preparation (from what I’ve heard). Not only is there the wedding certificate signing thing to finish, there is also the morning traditional ceremony and the dinner banquet.
If the family has lots of ties (relations, family friends, colleagues, business partners etc), we can expect an elaborate wedding banquet comprising of three changes of evening gowns and a hall-full of tables.
On Tuesday, reports about the Singapore police arresting a 25-year-old “vandal” trended on Twitter and my Facebook wall. I’m not sure what the exact cause of arrest was, I think she was taken in for spray painting “MY GRANDFATHER BUILDING” on a pristine white wall and “MY GRANDFATHER ROAD” on a pristine gray asphalt.
Besides spray painting, she was believed to have pasted stickers at on top of the button of pedestrian crossing lights. I find the stickers whimsical, something Zooey Deschanel would do after she checks the directions with Siri:
in Singapore
According to the Singapore Vandalism Act, enacted in 1966, those who are found guilty of vandalism “shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $2,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years, and shall also, subject to sections 325(1) and 330(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code 2010, be punished with caning with not less than 3 strokes and not more than 8 strokes”. (TL;DR version.)
It’s strange that we’re still using a law enacted in 1966 for the arrest. Back then, gloves were still a hit among the ladies.
Street art overseas
Discussing this with D, she said the point of argument should focus on “how art cannot be a crime?”
I remember being impressed by graffiti during my travels so I scoured my photo collection for some street art/acts of vandalism.
In Nantes, this caught my attention because of Darth Vader and Little Miss Vadar. in Nantes
Make love, not arrests. in Barcelona
The city of Yogyakarta is famous for its graffiti.
in Yogyakartain Yogyakarta
The Mission in San Francisco is famous for its murals. There’s even an app for that.
in San Franciscoin San Francisco
I suspect the graffiti in KL were city-sanctioned and even sponsored by a paint company.
in KL
I hope Sticker Lady would be given a lighter sentence instead of prison time.
I’ve only stayed at Tune Hotel once before the Ipoh Tune Hotel stay. It was in Kelantan and the twin bed room wasn’t too bad. My parents who have stayed at Tune Hotel KLIA-LCCT complained that their room was too tiny they can’t even open their luggage.
Tune Hotel Ipoh opened in March 2012. They had a sale in mid-January and I snatched up two RM39 double-bed rooms.
Similar to AirAsia’s tickets, the bare price only includes the minimum “comforts”, so I had to pay an extra RM15 to buy a package of 12-hour air conditioning, rental towel and “free essentials toiletries kit”. All together, it was RM61.14 for the room, with service charge.
Well, I didn’t know much about Ipoh before heading there. The most common thing I’ve heard when people talk about Ipoh is its food–hor fun (white flat noodles) and white coffee.
I tried doing research on sites in Ipoh but the four-pages of description in guide books made me underestimate the place. I didn’t even bother jotting down sites to see (except Kellie’s Castle). Luckily, Lilian did her research and informed me of some interesting places.
Instead of a travel guide book, I brought along a food guide instead. (Typical YQ.)
Food guide book
The guide was helpful not only as a food map but for me to coordinate myself on the grid. Sometimes my human compass skill fails me and Lilian would step in and ask for directions. (I am still allergic to asking for directions. Problem of being an ISFP?) Continue reading “Glutton in Ipoh”→
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I had the chance to take the overnight Malaysia train on Feb. 10 from Johor to Kuala Lumpur to meet my friend who was visiting from Ho Chi Minh.
As it was my first Malaysian night train, I was excited even when buying the tickets. The train that I will be taking was called Senandung Sutera. Singapore’s Prime Minister’s Office translated it as Silken Serenade which I took to mean the train would emit a low hum while on the tracks.
I’m not a train romantic but since it was my first overnight train in Malaysia, my imagination run wild.
In your dreams
I imagined that I would leave for my train with a small hand carry and a gorgeous vintage travel dress (much like Nellie Bly’s round-the-world outfit).
On the train, I would sleep like a baby as the train gently rocks me. In the morning, I would wake up fresh from the night’s sleep. I would then alight the train with light steps and in my hand, I carry the small lady-like hand luggage.
In my gorgeous vintage travel dress, I would step out on the platform while the wind blows and tousles my hair. Something like what these ladies are doing.
Of course, things never quite work out the way I want it to. For one, I have two luggages–a backpack and a gaudy Lesportsac sling bag. Then, I have unflattering glasses and messy hair. My only consolation is that I do have a nice sundress. Good enough, I suppose.
YQtravelling 