My friend, Frolyn Pansi from Sabah gave me a Facebook message earlier today. She said she spotted me in Daily Express Newspaper yesterday with Dr. Mahathir, Malaysia former prime minister. I shook my head in disbelief. How did I appear in a Sabah based newspaper publication with Dr. Mahathir? Thus, I asked Frolyn to scan the whole article titled “Mahathir admits knowing little about business” and emailed to me.

Well, it was really me. It was on the local news of Daily Express Newspaper on 11^th July 2011.

The picture was taken where I bumped into Dr. Mahathir with Rachel and my friends a few years ago in his food outlet, The Loaf in Harbour Park, Langkawi. I share my experience here as “ I Met Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad @ The Loaf, Langkawi (Oct ’08)”. Once, again thank Frolyn for the scanned article and I hope they can credit me nicely next time with my picture.

How cheap is the airfare to travel to Hong Kong from Kuala Lumpur? That was my conversation with my friend as we traveled back from Hat Yai yesterday on the road. There are a few prominent airlines that fly to Hong Kong from Kuala Lumpur. The list includes Air Asia, Cathay Pacific and Malaysia Airlines. Hong Kong has been my target destination this year so I did check the air fares from Kuala Lumpur to Hong Kong from time to time. My friend told me that he recently bought a return airfare from Kuala Lumpur to Hong Kong for only RM 686 via Malaysia Airlines for later this month. I was having tough time believing him.

So then, I went back home and checked the dates this month and I found out that the RETURN AIR FARE from Kuala Lumpur to Hong Kong with Malaysia Airlines is only RM 686 with tax! My friend was telling the truth! Come on, seriously with Malaysia Airlines?

From 10^th Jan to 27^th Jan 2011, the MHLow fare is only RM 686. That includes meals, personal entertainment (LCD), 20kg baggage allowance and 30% to my Enrich Miles points. This deal is a steal! Since it’s a MHLow fare, it will be first come first serves basis. I am now looking at my calendar and probably will do a last minute travel to Hong Kong before Chinese New Year.

I hope sharing this would help others to acknowledge such a great deal is available now. I believe that sharing is caring and there will be more travel tips on PlacesAndFoods.com. To check out this great deal, go to MalaysiaAirliners.com. Have a great year ahead!

Out of blogging and traveling, I am a shopaholic myself. Many of my close friends know that!  I have tons of interests and huge varieties of collections. In years I have been spending more than I earned until I settled down with Rachel.

That’s me at Bangkok’s old airport with the Royal Thai Airways Check-in Booth

There’s something we have been keeping a secret. We are moving to a new place next year. Thus, recently, we have been shopping for our new place. Just few days ago, we bought a premium Slumberland bed for around 7k. We are looking for more things to shop since now is the YES (Year End Sale). To be frank, I don’t usually carry that much of cash and I usually pay with credit card as there is 20 days interest free and the free points as well.

With the American Express Gold Credit Card, I am able now to transfer my outstanding balance from other banks credit cards for 0% interest. The offer ends at 30^th April 2011. My intention now is to lessen the interest payment as well as termination other credit cards. It is no glamour to carry so many credit cards as it will increase your spending unexpectedly.

For more information on saving with the American Express Gold Credit Card balance transfer, please go to http://www.americanexpress.com.my/

*Picture is taken at the beautiful i-City in Shah Alam, Selangor.*

Here, we (Rachel & Wilson) from PlacesAndFoods.com would like to wish everyone Merry Christmas. 2010 has been an exciting year for us.  We recently got married in September and we had awesome honeymoon trips thanks to our sponsors. We would like thank everyone including our readers who helped and supported us. Without all of you all, PlacesAndFoods.com couldn’t be better. We hope for the best in 2011!

Merry Xmas and Happy New Year everyone!

Last week, the meteor shower named Geminids are visible in most part of Asia. Like many who lived in the city, the sky is too bright to watch the amazing phenomenon. However, a few days after the Geminids meteor shower, a friend shared an amazing video from Youtube.

Picture credits to http://www.astronomynotes.net

It is a time lapsed video was shot by Japanese “Mockmoon” at Yashimahagara Marsh, Nagano, Japan. The time lapsed was captured by using over 5000 shots. I was amazed by the video so I decided to share it her on my blog. The video is as below.

Beautiful Geminids Meteor Shower 2010 video

I hope to do the same one day with my camera. But I will need more than just than a camera. It takes a lot of patience and courage to produce something so beautiful like this.

Geminids Meteor Shower info

The Geminids Meteors from this shower are slow moving, can be seen in December and usually peak around the 13th – 14th of the month, with the date of highest intensity being the morning of the 14th. The shower is thought to be intensifying every year and recent showers have seen 120–160 meteors per hour under optimal conditions, generally around 2am to 3am local time. Geminids were first observed only 150 years ago. – Wikipedia.org

We have been traveling quite a bit in this past few months. Rachel is an outdoor person and she tends to get tanned quite easily. For me, I am tanned all year round.

Rachel loves outdoor sports and she is an amateur 4×4 car driver herself. She got herself 11^th place at the 2009 Larut Hill 4×4 International Challenge, beating a dozen of her male competitors. She also loves swimming and jogging.

For me, I travel around with my traveling assignments as well as for my work. That’s why like I said, it’s hard to see me being fair.

Picture taken in Krabi, Thailand under the hot sunny sun

We definitely  loved our tanned skin but we do know the risk of skin cancer. According to the Malaysian Cancer statistics, in 2006, about 531 new skin cancer cases were reported and it has been increasing since.

We bought quite a number of sunblocks but the problem with most is that they are tedious. Some are not user friendly and tend to spill all over. Some are not environmental friendly as well. Most of them are not sweat and water resistant. We want something that is reliable, water and sweat resistant and convenient.

So then I was introduced to this sunblock brand called Ocean Potion. I always believe in buying certain items in trusted brands, for instance Ocean Potion for sunblock. Ocean Potion is one of the fastest growing sun and skin care products from Florida, USA. It has established in Malaysia at the end of 2009 in hopes of creating awareness to the general public of sun damage caused by the lack of sun protection. Ocean Potion is not made in Malaysia and directly imported from USA.

Convenient and easy to carry, the Ocean Potion Dab-On Spotstick

We tested the Ocean Potion Dab-On Spotstick and the cool thing about Ocean Potion Dab-On Spotstick is that it’s not greasy, it is water and sweat resistance and also fragrance free. On top of all that, , it can be applied on the face, nose, ears and scalp. This is good. I remember there are a few particular brands that give me the burning sensation on my skin when I applied it on the face. In addition, it comes in a stick form instead of the liquid form and it is SPF 50+ instant dry! This little stick is a total package! We loved the convenience of carrying it around while traveling.

We believed it is important to apply sunblock when we expose ourselves to the sun to prevent skin cancer. Ocean Potion carries a huge range of other sunblock products. To find one, simply visit Watson’s and selected pharmacies and sports clubs and outlets. Get Ocean Potion and get yourself protected today!

We are huge fans of Amazing Race Asia TV series. As much as we loved the show, Rachel always wanted to own the “backpackers” travel bag from the show so secretly I ordered one from AirAsiaMegastore.com

I ordered the bag a few weeks back from the AirAsiaMegastore.com. One of my friends recommended me this site and I found this lovely Deuter ACT Lite 50+10 bag on discount. I purchased it online. One thing I loved about this site is the discounted items as well as the original Lotus F1 Team merchandise. Trust me, this original Lotus F1 Team merchandise is really hard to get.

Rachel carrying the Deuter ACT Lite 50+10 Travel Bag
After purchasing online at the website, I received my bag 10 days later. The bag is huge and lovely. Since I bought it for Rachel, I chose the red color. Rachel loves it very much.

Rachel and Deuter ACT Lite 50+10 Travel Bag at LCCT Airport
I always believed to buy certain items with good brand reputation. Deuter is a reputable German brand and Deuter is famous for their range of bags. Though the ACT Lite 50+10 might look huge, it is very light when she carried it and it has a very good spine support design. You can check out their advance design system at http://www.deuterusa.com/systems/

Rachel with loaded Deuter ACT Lite 50+10 Travel Bag at Denpasar, BALI
We have been using the bag for our few recent trips.

Rachel used it for our trip to Bali. We loved the extra compartments as it is useful to put in the small items that we bought from the duty free shops in the airport. We use it as hand-carry bag and while traveling for short holidays, I will only carry this bag to avoid check-ins in airports. Trust me, for many reasons I try to avoid baggage check-ins.

I was carrying Deuter ACT Lite 50+10 Travel Bag at Subang Skypark Airport on my way to Tioman Island
It’s hard to believe the convenience of online shopping at AirAsiaMegastore.com. They have quality products, safe payments, quick delivery and good pricing. Again, we loved the Deuter ACT Lite 50+10 Travel Bag from AirAsiaMegastore.com. We will be on the lookout for more good deals from there. Thank you for reading!

I always believe in choices in life. We choose what we eat, what we wear and what to say. I believe that phones are about choices as well.

Just be honest, I don’t speak “phone languages” like apps, Android, Symbian and such. I use the mobile phone for the most basic thing and try to learn a few new “tricks” or functions. To me, a mobile phone is just a phone, anything extra will be a bonus.

Having the Nokia N8 for the past week is nothing but fun. I must not forget to thank Maxis for the opportunity. With its capabilities of capturing video at HD format with 720p, I couldn’t ask more for a phone.  I have been capturing some special moments using Nokia N8 with just a click of a button with the Nokia N8.

Video of friend, Hooi Nee trying to speak in Chinese Cantonese dialect

Video of my friend showing us how to eat abalone.

Video of Rachel walking on the runway!!

So then if you ask me if I have a choice of choosing a mobile phone, I would choose Nokia N8 for the camera and video capabilities. The ability to video out to Plasma or LCD TV with a HDMI output capability, I can never ask for more for quality. Some might prefer to choose a phone with more apps or games, I prefer to choose something I believe that is fun. For us, Nokia N8 is about fun, fun and fun!

Many know about RSS Feeds but don’t really know how to use it. To be frank, I’m not a RSS Feeds user until iTalkWhoa!

So what is RSS?

RSS is short for “Really Simple Syndication”. It sounds like a mouthful but it is just a label. Well, you will see more of it below:

The beauty of RSS Feeds:

RSS Feeds enable you to get news feeds and updates on any topics that interest you fast and easy. You don’t have to check or be on the lookout on what’s coming.

It delivers the headline, short summary and a link back to the full text every time an RSS news feed is updated. So if you are fans of a few blogs or websites, this is a cure for you.

How does it benefit you?

• If you have been worried about giving your name and email address to subscribe to any newsletter, the RSS feed in iTalk Whoa! has come to your rescue. Subscribing to RSS feed does not require you to do so. No more e-mails and no spams too. Your privacy is assured.
• You will get updates automatically on your iTalk Whoa’s account.
• For those who have got used to bookmaking pages, this is no longer necessary.
• If you are a content owner or publisher, you are able to distribute your contents without being sent to the junk folder.

How to configure RSS feeds on your iTalk Whoa’s account?

Pop up box [RSSFeed Category Name] will appear and please input any name for the new group – example News

To input any info on News category, just search for RSS News that interest you. In the example, the feeds gather from The star newspaper.

Just go to the The Star Url – http://thestar.com.my/

Scroll further down till the end of the webpage and you will see image as below:

The RSS icon placed on the right side and click on it –

You may input or place any RSS in iTalk Whoa! for any website that have the RSS icon

You may get RSS Feeds from:

• Any newspaper – The star [http://thestar.com.my/rss/]
• At PC/Entertainment website – Apple [http://www.apple.com/rss/]
• At blogger website

Shown above the link for RSS Feeds in The Star newspaper. Thus you can just choose any topic that interests you the most. In this example, Sport under News been selected.

Just right click on the RSS icon besides the Sport News and select ‘Copy Link Location’.

Go back to your iTalk Whoa’s account and highlight the News icon, input ‘Sport’ under ‘Feed Description’ and paste the url copied previously.

All the Sport highlights will be display in split second and you can just click on any link to read/view the full story of the day.

Notes:

Sometimes, the link create does not appear immediately. Thus user need to wait for a few minutes before the link to appear. Or user may logout and login again into iTalk Whoa! to view the link.

So basically more the less you understand RSS Feeds now, so you can add my RSS Feeds at http://feeds.feedburner.com/placesandfoodscom

Don’t wait, follow us at RSS Feeds in iTalkWhoa!

It has been more than a month since our final wedding lunch in Melaka. A few weeks ago, we spent 5 days in Bali for our first honeymoon. Then, a few days ago, I went to Tioman Island for a media launch for 2 days leaving Rachel alone in Kuala Lumpur.

We are still in honeymoon mood and Halloween is coming. Not forgetting my birthday is on early next month, we plan to celebrate all of them this weekend.  A good 3 days 2 night getaway is our ideal choice.

We wanted to go somewhere near Klang Valley, hopefully with sea, sand and sun (I know it’s tough to find such place). The place must be quiet, relaxing, entertaining and fun. At this point, I believe that we are slightly too demanding? But seriously we do hope to find such place with a good pricing, we have limited budget for this.

We are now searching on the internet for our little 3 days 2 nights private retreat for the this weekend. It will be amazing if anyone can help out our little problem here.

If anyone could gives me the best suggestion for my holiday for this weekend, I’m going to throw some prize for it. A small gift I bought personally from Ushuaia, Argentina, the “Lighthouse of the End Of The World”. It’s rare piece only available in Argentina. Please suggest somewhere viable by commenting this blogpost. Thank you and Good Luck!