Here is an easy reference to the exchange rates when traveling to Malaysia, and a few other South East Asia countries. You can use the drop down to select a different currency too.
13th June 2011, Monday
It’s now past midnight, just. Today is a Public Holiday in Melbourne – I think it is for Queen’s Birthday (but I’m not very sure).
Anyway, we just came back from a wedding at Park Hyatt in the city. Maggie and Wayne! Congratulations to them and wishing them a lifetime of happiness.
Whenever I’m at a wedding, I never stop thinking about my own wedding-to-be.
We loved the huge wine glass with flowers in water, and little candles on top, and some pebbles at the bottom which was the centrepiece of every table. I can’t find any pictures on it online but there are some smaller version examples (taken directly from the main page of google images search) as shown below.
We loved the huge wine glass with flowers in water, and little candles on top, and some pebbles at the bottom which was the centrepiece of every table. I can’t find any pictures on it online but there are some smaller version examples (taken directly from the main page of google images search) as shown below.
We are not sure how much it would cost to get those for our wedding. Our package deco is very simple, but we really want more than that, so hopefully if cost is not too high, you may see something like these on our table!
- Wee Kin
- Wee Kin
Why the “Lah”?
You are not a Malaysian if you have never used the word “Lah”. It’s in our everyday language (which we call Manglish – combination of Malaysian (Malay, Chinese, Indian and whatever words that sounds good) and English!
When you are in Malacca, drop by the Orang Utan t-shirt shop to grab “To Lah or Not To Lah” T-Shirt with that tagline! Malaysia, truly Asian lah!
1. People who don’t use the –lah slang is considered a snob to a certain degree!
2. “Lah” simplifies a very long sentence that a Westerner normally use. It is used as an “economiser” that shortens sentences by 80 percent!
Example of commonly used – lah.
- Cannot lah
- OK lah
- No lah
- Yes lah
- Sorry lah
- Die lah
- What lah you
- Who lah
- Where lah
- Where got lah
- How can lah
- Don’t have lah
- Don’t worry lah
- Don’t lah like that
- Please lah
Don’t think of us Malaysian as lazy speakers, we just like to make things simpler and less formal. If we speak Manglish to you, it just means we are including you in our local social circle, so be happy about it, and try to use a little lah now and then – it may sound awkward at the beginning, but you’ll eventually get used to it! But don’t worry, Malaysians can understand proper English perfectly fine too (I like to think many of us can write good English most of the time, but we just chose to speak Manglish – a culture which we are proud of), unless you decide to use just extremely fancy words which we assume is used to impress only the super high-class in which you may come across as arrogant. So be yourself and keep it simple lah, ok? J
If you have time to spare, don’t forget to check out the Wikipedia for Manglish for your leisure reading.
Our Wedding Venue
Join our wedding celebration at Cyberview Lodge, Cyberjaya.
We are planning for an outdoor western style wedding ceremony (hopefully the weather is kind to us),
followed by Pre-Dinner Cocktail (for all) and Tea Ceremony (for relatives), and ending the night with wedding reception dinner at Verandah Restaurant (note that it is not at the ballroom but the restaurant – located on the right side of the lake as you leave the reception).
We chose the Verandah Restaurant over the ballroom because we liked the idea of a more informal feel, and the fact that it has windows all around to see outside! Of course, it will be better decorated on the day and not looking as plain as the photo below.
Perhaps you can steal some time before the wedding to cool down in the swimming pool that is made to look like a fake lake. Not sure about after though, but when it is all dark and quiet, no one will know!
We chose the Verandah Restaurant over the ballroom because we liked the idea of a more informal feel, and the fact that it has windows all around to see outside! Of course, it will be better decorated on the day and not looking as plain as the photo below.
Perhaps you can steal some time before the wedding to cool down in the swimming pool that is made to look like a fake lake. Not sure about after though, but when it is all dark and quiet, no one will know!
11th June 2012, Saturday
Today we are both busy with wedding planning on the computer!
I spent the whole day setting up this blog and posted 5 topics! Not bad for a non-HTML/java code reader person huh! Fortunately my many years experience in blogging (and deleting again and again) provides familiarity to have a fairly presentable wedding website for our guests in just 1 day!
Ben has been busy researching and planning ski trips (not related to wedding at all! SIGH! but well, he just got to do what he loves to do), and also finalizing our honeymooon plan!
We will not share much about our honeymoon plan until after, I think. Honeymoon is more between 2 person, while wedding is more for everyone to celebrate together - so we'll stick to just writing about our wedding here, for now at least! :)
- Wee Kin
I spent the whole day setting up this blog and posted 5 topics! Not bad for a non-HTML/java code reader person huh! Fortunately my many years experience in blogging (and deleting again and again) provides familiarity to have a fairly presentable wedding website for our guests in just 1 day!
Ben has been busy researching and planning ski trips (not related to wedding at all! SIGH! but well, he just got to do what he loves to do), and also finalizing our honeymooon plan!
We will not share much about our honeymoon plan until after, I think. Honeymoon is more between 2 person, while wedding is more for everyone to celebrate together - so we'll stick to just writing about our wedding here, for now at least! :)
- Wee Kin
Flights to Kuala Lumpur
There are 3 airlines which offer direct flights from Melbourne – Kuala Lumpur.
2. Emirates
3. Air Asia
From our flight experience, price ranges from AUD500 – AUD1800 return. Yes, such a huge difference indeed! Normal price is about AUD1100-AUD1200.
Travel time from end of December – mid January is actually peak period (because of Christmas, followed by Chinese New Year). Therefore you should hop onto the next best deal you see as early as possible, otherwise the price can only go up and up.
You may be lucky for super cheap deals with Air Asia (where you must be on top of promotions, first ones to book at 2am or 3am, and be patient with page refresh). We recommend you hop onto the mobile web to book your flights (less traffic), and complete your add ons later on. Note: Air Asia is a budget airline, therefore the initial price quoted is excluding food or luggage or entertainment, so be vary when comparing prices! Plane seats are generally slightly smaller. If you are a big person, pay a little extra for Premium Economy or stick with the non-budget planes. We suggest reserving a seat towards the back of the plane, because it’s usually where extra empty seats are available (provided the plane is not fully booked).
Air Asia’s terminal is LCCT (not the fancy KLIA), which do have sufficient share of Duty Free shopping and restaurants. Just take note when you are arranging connecting flights. LCCT is about half hour drive away from KLIA. All other international airlines fly into KLIA terminals. Another local budget airline (Firefly) and resort flight (Berjaya) uses Subang airport (which is about 1 hour drive from Sepang where KLIA/LCCT is located). Check out the other post about airports in KL.
Emirates tends to have lower prices closer to the travel dates. You may get good deals about AUD800. However, we worry that it may be too much of a risk to wait for the promotion prices to be updated as it gets closer to the peak period. Generally we hear of good experience with Emirates, beware that the flight times are very odd (3am!). We were upgraded to Business Class on our very first Emirates flight (and I suspect it is because Ben carries a Western name!) which has excellent service, of course. But we had some "period-mood" stewardess on the way back and it sucks.
Malaysian Airlines prices are very dependent on season. There are promotional prices at times, but be vary of the restriction (e.g. not allowed to change the travel dates of the ticket). If you can get a full price economy return ticket for AUD1200 or less, grab it because we predict it could go up to AUD1800 as the date draws closer. If you are thinking of a holiday outside of KL (other parts of Malaysia / Asia), do look out for Melbourne à Destination à Melbourne with Malaysian Airlines as it will have stopover in Kuala Lumpur, and you will be able to travel to another place with only a little extra, or sometimes, strangely enough, less than just heading to Kuala Lumpur! You are not able to book stopover dates via Malaysian Airline website, but you can do so on Expedia website and call up Malaysian Airlines office in Melbourne to have a sanity check on your online transaction for your flights and perform minor changes easily for free (unlike Qantas which charges anything and everything they can as soon as you speak to a human!)
Others: You can also hop on to one of the following which flies into KL via Singapore (SIA and Jetstar) or have the option of travelling by bus / train (5 - 7 hours) from Singapore to KL.
1. Qantas
2. Singapore Airlines
3. JetStar
I (WK) personally do not like Qantas for international because it is normally more expensive than the others, and no hot stewardess! Also, I’m just anti Singapore Airlines though a lot of people seem to like it. Jet Star is only good when there are cheap deals (watch out for Friday fares) - the best fare we hopped on was AUD200 one way but the promotion was only for 2 hours (I think) on a Friday evening!
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