Da Tuan Yuan Restaurant @ Klang

This time around, I would like to introduce some good food in Klang town, other than Bak Kut Teh of course. Being a large town with a good number of chinese (majority hokkien), there are always good food to be found. We chinese always love foods and restaurant will just follow wherever we go.

Introducing Da Tuan Yuan restaurant located in Bandar Baru Klang. This post actually a year late, just misplace the photos until digging it out recently. I hope it's still open because it's a very nice restaurant in Klang. This place is a typical chinese restaurant that serve almost any chinese foods you can think of, and we normally call it "Tai Chow" in Malaysia. It opened up last few years ago and it's quite new.


Da Tuan Yuan restaurant is located in the commercial shoplots in Bandar Baru Klang (BBK) and it's on the 2nd phase of the shoplots development (new shoplots) area.


In good weather, they also open up more tables along the walkway and it's truly breezing with good food under the stars. Lots of table around with 2 shoplots and outdoor, but it will be packed on weekends, so go early if you don't like to wait. Let's go to food now.

Putrajaya International Hot Air Balloon 2012 is coming ...

The once in a year Putrajaya International Hot Air Balloon is here again and it's scheduled to held from 15th till 18th March 2012. It's a great event for families and friends, but also importantly, it's one of the major event marked in most photographer's calendar, either professional or newbie. Whoever holding a semi-pro or dSLR camera, don't miss the chance to snap some nice colourful hot air baloon photographs as part of your collection. Shame to say that I never been to this event before, going to participate this time.

The location is in Monumem Alaf Baru in Presinct 2, Putrajaya. For those that's not familiar with Putrajaya, look at the location map in their website http://www.myballoonfiesta.com/index.html. The website is rich in content, covering all the itinerary, activities, location, and etc. I copied some of it for sharing here.


Itinerary of the event, the most interesting for me would be the Hot Air Balloon Flight and the Night Glow Show & Fireworks. But it's 8-9 hours apart, what I'm going to do there??


Event map for the day, and it clearly show where to do what and etc. Good information.

Some photos extracted from the website, just wish I can get shots like these ....

Sepang International Circuit with my Fiat Coupe 20VT+

Life is suppose to be great and I love living it. I believe human are suppose to live to enjoy life, and that has been my life philosophy ever since However, nothing is free in this world. As I grow older and started to climb the career ladder, everything slowly becoming more affordable and my dream life started to come true. One of my hobby is car and everything start from the ownership of Alfa Romeo 147. I've been eyeing to get a chance to drive in the Sepang International Circuit (SIC) since then, but it needs a very deep commitment and also expensive preparation.

I didn't have a chance until 4th of February 2012. RCA organised a Prosperity Track Day at entry fees of RM350 for each car & driver, I grab the chance and register myself with my Fiat Coupe.



Sepang International Circuit is the home of the car sport in Malaysia, and I think everyone should try it at least once in their lifetime. I did my 21km marathon here last year with Energiser Night Race, but it's totally different kind of adrenaline rush standing on the paddock with my driving shoe than my running shoe. The track day start from 4.00pm till 7.00pm and we got 3 hours to burn our tyres. Great.

Reaching the track, we are brought up to the media room in 1st floor for briefing and registration. Safety briefing is given and within minutes, we are done and ready to roll.

Foh Sam Dim Sum Restaurant @ Ipoh

Everyone know what Ipoh is famous of. Pretty girls, taugeh chicken and of course, the Dim Sum as well. Growing up in Ipoh, it's part of the culture to go eat Dim Sum in the morning with the whole family, and we did just that, but only with a new member, my baby boy =)

If you are from Ipoh, then you will know the Dim Sum in other town is really bad, not that they are not good, but not as good as Ipoh. Lots of people can't tell the difference, but it's quite obvious actually. However, I don't really like to visit the Dim Sum restaurant in Ipoh, because it's always packed, there are exemption though. We go nonetheless because it's been really long time since we gather for morning Dim Sum. Choice of restaurant, the new majestic Foh San restaurant in the town. It's the most recognised name for Dim Sum around Malaysia and it's also the most packed restaurant. Holiday season, just want to enjoy the crowd sometimes =) Let's see.


It's best to have a lot of people when eating dim sum, as that's when you can order a lot of variety and test every bit of the specialty they can offer. It's pointless to eat dim sum with just 2-3 person. With an army of us, we ordered the above. So beautiful, abundance of wealth (as chinese put food as wealth. the more you put, the more wealthy you are, hehe. that's why chinese like to put mirror opposite the dining table to double the food / wealth).

Standard Chartered KL Marathon 2012 Registration

Since my last full marathon event, my body suffered and I got into fatigue mode. Within 2 months, I fall asick for more than 4 times, and that's why taking care of own body after full marathon event is very important. I'm recovering and to keep my ownself healthy, I registered for the upcoming Standard Chartered KL Marathon 2012 that will be held on 24th June 2012.



Early bird promotion is up till end of this month at RM55 for 21km runners, and afterwards it's priced at RM65. No reason to pay more, so whoever interested, go register now. In addition to that, something new is that now the organiser charge for issuance and delivery of hard-copy certificate for RM3.00. That's absurd in my opinion, why charge?? Electronic copy is available online, but still, weird. I want to certificate, that's why my sum is RM58 instead. Not happy.

Standard Chartered KL Marathon 2012 is one of the formal event for runners and the half marathon distance is 21.178km, in accordance to distance set by the regulations. As shown below, starting point is Dataran Merdeka, run towards KL Sentral, turn into Federal Highway, turn into Loke Yew, turn in Jalan Cheras, Jalan Tun Razak, Bukit Bintang, KLCC, and finally to Jalan Raja and back to Dataran Merdeka.



As we used to travel these places in cars and with the traffic jam, it seems quite far away, but that's just 21km distance, and sounds incredible to cover almsot the entire KL. If you are impress by this, try look at the 42km route, it covered basically everywhere you can think of. It's crazy, cannot believe that I actually completed the 42km last year in Penang. Maybe later this year, but now still got nightmare on earlier experience =P

Penang Bridge International Marathon 2011 - My 1st Full Marathon

Last year is the busiest year of my life and I accomplished many things. One of the most remarkable thing I've done is to complete a Full Marathon run and till to-day, I'm still resting trying to recover my body after almost 2 months from the event. However, I never regretted the experience as I know, finally I'm in the top 1% of the 7 billions world population to have ever complete a full marathon within qualifying time! Yes, I completed the 42km run within the 7 hours qualifying time, so grateful. It's not all glory, read on for the details and how I struggle to complete the astonishing distance.


This is me with my trusted gear taken before leaving the hotel to embark the important milestone in my life. A00781, that's tag that I've been aiming to wear since I started running back 2 years ago. Finally. I'm in my most healthy body ever since college and unfortunately my body weight didn't drop but instead I replaced those fats with muscles as I felt stronger and stronger everyday I train.

As my little baby is with us during this run, my wife cannot fetch me over to the event and give me support, so she stay in the hotel with our baby. Therefore I didn't bring a camera and only snap some photos with my iPhone. Bear with me on the bad quality of the photos, enjoy =)

Fiat Coupe 20VT+

I've changed my ride again, and this time is less than 3 years since my ownership of Alfa Romeo. It's not that the Alfa Romeo is not performing up to my expectaction, it's a fantastic car and I totally agree with Jeremy Clarkson that you are not a true petrolhead until you've owned an Alfa Romeo. However, life needs to move on, so with my eager thirst for more power, I took the plunge to jump into the power of turbo despite warning from my family and friends.

My next choice of upgrade, the Fiat Coupe 20VT+. My choice of car seems to be always circle around the brand that's not liked by Malaysian, but there is a good reason for it. My old ride Alfa Romeo 147 2.0 Selespeed Twinspark is churning out 150bhp and 181Nm and I need something better than it. For a mere mortal like me with a limited budget, going turbo seems to be the only way. Further with continuous poison from the Italia Auto Club that I frequented, it's easy to be converted to love the big brother of Alfa Romeo brand, the Fiat.

Solution for Stucked with Low Resolution Screen in Windows Vista / Windows 7

This is a record for myself and also whoever that face the same problem, a solution that I've been searching for almost 3 years and finally I cracked it! If you notice my computer gear listed at the right side of the blog, I'm running the following hardware:

Mainboard: ASUS P5K-PL
Graphic Card: XFX GF 9600GT (650MHz) 512MB DDR3 256bit
Monitor: 22" Samsung 2232BW 2ms 3000:1 (Analogue + Digital)

Nothing wrong with the combination and some techie might ask why I use a cheapskate mainboard? Well, it serve the minimum requiremnets that I need and I don't hack the mainboard for more juice, so no different to me. Problem is with the monitor. Samsung 2232BW display is very vivid and sharp but unfortunately that Samsung is only famous in the world of television, and not personal computer. Samsung never update their monitor driver and it's daunting in the world of technology that move in light speed.

I'm running Windows XP when I assembled the unit and I'm still stucked with it for almost 3 years till yesterday, because I couldn't get the monitor to display the optimum 1680x1050 resolution in Windows Vista or Windows 7. Last week I got a bit bored so decided to play with it again trying to complete my long quest to solve the problem. Finally I manage the find the culprit of the whole problem. If you have problem with resolution stucked in low range in Windows Vista or newer, then read on as 99% of the people out there have the same problem.


Ugly stucked at 1024x768 =(

Reveal of culprit, EDID. EDID stands for Extended Display Identification Data that eventually what Windows Vista has been start using that change how the communication between the monitor and Windows works. For those people that stucked with lousy-no-update monitor manufacturer (like Samsung), they are most likely to have this problem. With the old driver, it doesn't transmit EDID information to Windows and it get treated as an old monitor that's running 1024x768. There is no way to change it, no matter what you do to the graphic card or mainboard driver, as Windows cannot talk to the monitor. There are two solutions.

1. Modify the connection on the monitor to break the EDID communication between Monitor & Windows. It's hardware modification and I don't have the plan to damage any of my expensive stuff.

2. Hack the EDID and give a fake communication to Windows. It works by manually writting the EDID information on the monitor driver to tell the Windows what we want the Windows to recognise.

I'm doing no.2 solution here, as I prefer soft solution rather than breaking hardware. You will need 2 programs, first is Phoenix and second is MonInfo. Both link is available as highlighted, so download it. Install the latest driver for your monitor and run the Phoenix. In Phoenix, click registry toolbar and select your monitor driver. If your monitor driver doesnt show up then you are using wrong driver, try other driver and start over. Once recognised, then click on the pencil toolbar for changes to the information. Go to standard timings tab and change the Timing ID #1 to your monitor optimum resolution.

Example for mine of 1680x1050 @ 60Hz, I set H.Active pixels to 1680, 60Hz refresh rate and 16:10 aspect ratio.

Disabled the rest of the Timing ID if you wish to avoid confusion and dont touch the rest. Press file and save the EDID. Then run the MonInfo and open the EDID file that you just saved. If MonInfo doesn't recognise the EDID file then you are doing something wrong. Re-do everything to be sure. Once opened, go to file and click create INF and save it. Go to your computer hardware control panel and choose to update the monitor driver manually and choose this file. Once installed, restart the computer and you should see the new resolution is available for you to choose. Kau tim!

My beautiful 1680x1050@60Hz running Windows 7.

The above solved my problem with VGA cable, and I havent' try the digital HDMI cable yet. If your HDMI cable doesnt work with this, then stick to VGA cable. Better than none. Cheers!

PS: for those that's adventurous, this method can be use to hack the display, but do at own risk ok. As it might "smoke" your monitor, hehe ...

Things Done to My New Ride

I'm sure you know that I've gotten myself a new ride, and it's been all busy with the new commitment. Can't write much, time is never enough. Let the pictures do the talking.


First thing to do, a good check up and major service to ensure the car is in tip-top condition. Finally I moved to fully synthetic oil, yeah, I'm cheapskate that I feed my old ride with semi-syn only =P


Time to tear it apart, not really la. Just installing alarm system for the car. It's an old ride, came with immobiliser but not alarm, weird right?


Finally, tinting at Cool World. Previous owner couldn't convince the JPJ to keep the tint up, so no choice but to put it back at my own cost. This is the first time my ride show up fully in my blog, say hi =)

Famosa Chicken Rice Ball @ Jonker Street, Melaka

Had a chance to visit Melaka so decided to drop by for a good lunch. Most of the city in Malaysia have their own local special food, and for Melaka, there are plenty of choice. One of the famous food that's only available in Melaka is the Chicken Rice Ball. Funny thing that I don't see copycat for this dish in other part of Malaysia.


The famous traditional Famosa Chicken Rice Ball Restaurant in Melaka. They have 3 branches around the city, and there are 2 branches along the Jonker street while the remaining one located in Jalan Bendahara. Are they genuine traditional restaurant, that I dont know. Have to ask the local people.


The famous busy Jonker Street in Melaka, it's actually named as Jalan Hang Jebat. I don't understand why the authority want to allow cars to use this road. Just block it off and make it like Petaling Street in Kuala Lumpur, much better. Dangerous to have cars moving around in such a narrow street with lots of pedestrian.


Famosa Chicken Rice Ball Restaurant just located beside the Jonker Street and with it's red building with yellow signboard, it's hard to miss it. We went to this branch instead as it has more space and easier to find table.