West Winds Gin X Time Out Masterclass

A very hot day that day. It was a Saturday where I was invited to join in on the West Winds Gin Masterclass in collaboration with Time Out KL. Unfortunately, I couldn't get anyone to join me (So what's new? :Rolls Eyes:) but I decided to go for it anyway. Afterall, it's not usual anymore that I get a break from the cruel world and to reprieve myself with some much needed chill time without the burden and pressure of stress from this monstrous world. Ya, thanks to my unwitting self on committing social suicide and now everyone treads carefully around me and does not want to see me. Oh well. That's life for me. So then I decided to head over to it on my own and savor some great tasting gin of which I've never heard of the name before, West Winds.

It was just a short session but nobody wanted to join me, but this did not deter me from joining in. When I arrived at the venue, it's actually at one of those houses at Section 14 but it's a training centre in disguise I guess. As I enter into the venue, it had already started. The guru and mentor at the front was already talking away about how to appreciate the gin more and some history on it. He has a strong Australian accent and it seems that I was the only one who has problem grasping in what he's saying. Most likely because I may have developed ADD and I tend to phase in and out of his ramblings. But after adjusting myself for awhile, I'm able to catch on to what he's saying and pretty soon, it's not a problem for me understanding him.

Inside the room, there sits just a few other participants around and it was an intimate and up close session where we can comfortably concentrate upon the mentor. After some time spent on the history of it and talking about the tasting notes on some of the gins, they started to pour the first bottle of gin into our tasting glass. Overall, there were 4 gins savored, The Sabre, The Cutlass, Broadside and Captain's Cut.

The teacher taught us on how to nose the gin in a proper manner and that is to keep the mouth open a bit and whiffed the gin away from the glass first. After scenting on the liquid solution, it is time to taste it up.

The Sabre has a Citrusy taste to it while The Cutlass has a much grassy flavor to it. Both of which has sweet undertones to it and has a tropical mulch to it. At which the last 2 gin has me noticing that they had carefully crafted this tasting session well with the last 2 gins being of much of a savory taste. This will much help with the tasting as I can clearly distinguish their very dissimilar taste and it's much intricate characteristics.  The Broadside was savory and a little salty while the Captain's Cut is also salty, but woody and vivacious as well. The Captain's Cut has the most alcohol content in it as well with 63% of it in it. That's also an indication as to why they served that last. This is so that you won't be too drunk to taste before you hit the last glass. LOL. To me, it is also the most intense among the four and burns the most as it enters into my throat. But the taste of it was magnificent and I love it a lot. That was also my favorite.

I was so glad that I joined this masterclass despite me going on my own because it has helped me to appreciate gin way much more. I so love it a lot. I now look at gin at a different light and though I'm still a whisky lover first and foremost, my love for gin has been propelled as the 2nd type of hard liquor to go for when I have a chance. I went home satisfied and hope to join more of this type of alcohol tasting event. An hour well spent. :)

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A-Lone Diner Event Special: Minut Init Art Social Presents Star Wars Marathon

I have to admit, I never knew such a place existed such as Minut Init Art Galleria which also consists of a social room as well in the Uptown area.

Being close to the launch of the new Star Wars movie entitled "The Force Awakens" that is directed by J.J. Abrams, every fanboys' anticipation is high and to recap on how the whole confusing Star Wars Saga goes (since the original trilogy then got a prequel trilogy to tell the tale that came to be), a lot of places are running a Star Wars marathon to refresh the memories of those that know the series and to lure new interest to this hype as well. Minut Init, an art gallery, did just that from December 10 to 15.

As I walked up the dodgy stairs towards the social room where a bar is setup there as well, I entered a homely room-like settings where the Star Wars theme blared out with the projector ready to go. Unable to see any life forms in the room, I decided to take my leave to adjourn to a cafe nearby for some snacks and coffee and that's when a meek voice at the back of my head called up asking whether I was there for the screening and I said yes. He said that it will start around 30 minutes time and since there's time to spare, I decided to explore the area for a spot of coffee and cake. After all, I saw uptown booming with a lot of new cafes and eateries at the area. I stumbled upon The Culture Pot and will release my post on it at the next posting.

When I returned to the Minut Init, it got a lot more darker and subsequently more dodgier looking than before due to it. LOL. This indicated to me that they've already started playing the movie. As I entered into the room that I was before, it's now pitched dark with the movie playing upon the far ends of the wall. I was warmly greeted by the person in charge there even though the movie was playing and I took my seat at the most comfortable looking chair that I saw to view the movie.

Although "A New Hope" wasn't exactly a new movie to me, but due to me viewing it in my adolescent years, I had no understanding of what was ongoing on it's plotline at all. Re-watching it again now has helped me gain the understanding of the Star Wars franchise which was gibberish to me as a child.

I can't help but marvel at how the effects came to be even though the movie was release in 1977 and how George Lucas managed to conjure up a whole unique galaxy just so the whole plotline makes sense. In addition to that, there's also the many different characters that came into being just solely on that one movie itself.

As for Minut Init, as dilapidated as the place leading up to it may be, the social room setting that they arranged is cozy and comfortable enough. It's like a home setting. The Art Galleria is at the upper floor which I failed to visit due to my time constraint.

Though small in numbers for the event it may be, it still felt good to get out of the house after being cooped up for 2 and a half days in my room due to laziness and my abnormality depressive state, lacking in the motivation to move. I thank the guy who hosted it and am now armed with the knowledge of how Star Wars first came to be.

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A-Lone Diner Event Special: Absolut Electrik Launch

It started off with me thinking that I was supposed to accompany a friend to this event that she was invited. But it turns out, I was so very wrong. (That's why kids, never assume! LOL) It turns out in the end of just me attending the event for some strange reason that is still unknown to me.

Seeing it's more like a clubbing event and it was a Friday evening, the heavy downpour had finished not too long ago and now the night started with showers of rain instead. To top it all off, the United States of America's president, Obama, were in the city and there were some roads closed off to accommodate his smooth passage. It didn't affect me much driving from my office back to my home again, just took me 15 minutes longer than usual. So since I was early at home, I decided to take a nap instead. The event ain't going to start early anyway.

The night started to waned upon my heavy heart so I just had to have my nap to replenish my energy and sleep my unhappiness away. LOL. I woke up and had a beer as my dinner instead. I can't recall why I didn't had dinner but I think I can deduce that I had forgotten about it.

Drove my way to the event close to 9:30pm and arrived at Mid Valley at just over 10pm. It's jammed like crazy in the vicinity of Mid Valley where shoppers and the workers there migrated away from the place whilst I congest my way into it.

As I was there, I got myself a drink where they're serving 2 different cocktails concocted with Absolut Vodka. One where they put in the blue ice in it and the other the white ice. The blue one has more of a tangy flavor to it very orangey and a hefty amount of Absolut Vodka in it while the other one, the white one, tasted more like lime juice or lemonade......with Absolut Vodka in it.

Giant bottles of the Absolut Electrik Vodka bottles were stuck to some tables as decoration. The event started just when I was having my first drink where the representative of Pernod Ricard, the company that produces Absolut, started to give an introductory speech once he was introduced by the DJ. I can see that the PR handling this is no longer the ones I were familiar with. They're all absolute strangers to me. Once the speech is out of the way, along came the mixologist's demonstration of the cocktail and invited two guests to try their hand at mixing the drink. The launch was then officiated and that was the end of it with just music from the DJ booth playing and some dancing the night away. I did meet one friend of mine there. But I didn't stay long after he invited me to join with him and a friend of his. I ciao-ed once I settled my second drink and tipsied my way home. Mind you, it was already midnight that time.

Lost my car a bit where I couldn't find it at all. I had to exit the parking lot, reenter the mall and go through the door that I first came from in order to locate my car. I'm seriously losing my touch in my bearings. LOL.

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A-Lone Diner Event Special: iPick's Super Secret Bash

Actually, I kinda forgotten that I said yes to attending this event in order to catch up with some friends and so I took to a Whatsapp group that I'm in to see if I was invited from there. Someone over there sorta convinced me that it was at Facebook that I said yes to this event and so I went ahead and RSVP the email that I gotten.

I made it a point so I will be there to pass some goodies to my friends as well so there's an extra motivation for me to go. Else I would just be too lazy to go all out to a place that's unfamiliar to me and the pressure of being sociable among people and also the uncomfortable ridicule I get from some people I know.

Anyway, good thing my friend reminded me of the actual time else I would've thought the end time was the start time of the event. LOL. So I got there and greeted some fellow friends and had the lunch that they provided over there. I didn't know that there was a contest that was held prior to the event where you snap photos and put it on Instagram and hashtag it and you may be pick to be on display at the event. During the event, people will vote for the best picture that's on display and the winner will get something extra.

This event is actually about Tencent's (the company from China that developed WeChat) new mobile application called the iPick. The iPick is an application that's kinda like the combination of Foursquare and Instagram where you can search for food places, rate it, post photos of it and also to create meetup with friends in a specific restaurant of choice in that app. The problem I have with the app at the moment is that it's slow to load and it's tied to a social app that I never use even though I have an account, WeChat. So, there's nothing social that I have about it because I don't have any friends on it. LOL. Also, so far I'm not seeing a lot of updates on recommendations and their blog except for the blog entries that are fed to them where most of it are the ones I'm familiar with. So there's no motivation for me to visit it to get ideas on where to go. But then again, this app is at it's early stages. If there's more people contributing to it, who knows, it may grow better. But right now, it's not my go to app for place recommendation like how Foursquare is to me sometimes.

Currently, there's also no way to add a restaurant if it's unlisted in there. I also see a lack of other social media integration like how Instagram can easily post to some of the commonly used social media apps once you've posted your photos.

The event also got around with the attendees playing a game that revolves around the iPick app. We're split into groups preassigned and take on challenges as a group to perform tasks with regards to the iPick app. Though after the lunch, we did see a few that had left even before it got to this stage.

I left as soon as the event ended and it was goodbye to friends over there.

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A-Lone Diner Event Special: Sime Darby LPGA 2015

Golfers are such hardworking creatures (not to be mistaken with gophers). The doors open for the public from a 7:30am onwards and knowing my habit of not wanting to wake up so early on a weekend, I open my eyes when 9:30am came. Contemplating as to whether to head for breakfast or straight to KLGCC (that's where the tournament is held) and take my breakfast there, I soon settled for coffee at home instead.

Departed from my place at around close to 11am, I soon reached the vicinity of KLGCC half an hour later. During that late hour of the morning, you can see the very many numbers of cars parked along the side of the road and stretches all the way towards KLGCC and beyond. I think it's probably a 10km stretch because it's from the entrance side of the road all the way till the end where the border to TTDI is. I parked at where the TTDI area is (if I'd known, I'd straight drive to TTDI and park there which is much nearer) and seeing some of the uncles that's clearly golf enthusiast awaiting for something, I concluded that there must be shuttles towards the main venue. And sure enough, there are shuttles available which was a relief for me because it would be crazy to walk all the way there. LOL. From the amount of cars there with all the car parks filled and the side of the road almost filled to the brim with only probably 10% more spaces available, I gathered there must be thousands of people there.

Sure enough, upon reaching KLGCC itself and got my pass, the first thing I saw over there is the Courtyard area consisting of the many food stalls prepared by their Chef Arnold. Heck, there's always a head chef over there to oversee the operations as well as his minions do the cooking and serving. Dishes over there are capped at RM10 a dish so the portions are proportionally smaller than a normal usual dish. The Courtyard is filled to the brim with people with no vacant tables as far as the eye can see. I didn't obtain any food from the Courtyard area and remembered my objective being here to visit the food trucks. There were 6 food trucks in total that are there for the LPGA event which are:
1) Cowboys Food Truck
2) Burger Giler Power
3) Ken's Food Truck
4) Thyme Out
5) Wheeloaf and
6) The Malaysian Ninja Truck

Originally, I had planned to try out from 3 of the food trucks but due to my very bad failing memory, I forgot what was I gonna have and proceeded to try from Burger Giler Power and Cowboys Food Truck. Before doing so, there was a nice angel (read: Somersby babe) that started handing out free Somersby for passersby to try and I manage to get one. :D

Before I tried the food trucks' food, I went to explore further. The Chip-4-Charity was generally a dead place. From the outside you'd think that there's nothing going on inside but from the inside there's actually people there awaiting for somebody to come along and do the Chip-4-Charity thing. The Chip-4-Charity is actually an area for you to play in order to win some prizes like a complementary weekend pass but then again, it's already the weekend and whoever is there already had their passes anyway. No wonder there's nobody around to play it. LOL. In addition to that, every participant will get a free Magnum ice cream which is quite a deal since it's only RM5 for 5 balls and the Magnum ice cream costs exactly RM5 there. In addition to that, there's also a chance to win other prizes. There are 2 games. 1 is to drive the ball to a specific painted area and another is to be the one that drives the ball the furthest thus calling it the Longest Drive Challenge. That area is super hot being cooped up in a tent with no ventilation. I wonder how those people manning that station even stand it. The charity is for breast cancer research. In fact, every RM5 Magnum purchased the proceeds go there as well.

I soon had the Burger Giler Power's chicken cheese burger to try. The burger is rather plain looking with minimal vegetable save from the charcoal burger bun. In fact, I didn't see much cheese on it so I guess the cheesy part would probably derive from the sauce. The chicken patty wasn't anything out of the ordinary for me. It just taste like charbroiled teriyaki chicken. Hence I wasn't that impress with Burger Giler Power. I then walked in to the sponsor village to have a look. People were on a mad buying frenzy at the MST section while the One World Hotel and Auto Bavaria stand at rather quiet pace. A most noteworthy thing that I saw were cotton candy being shaped into a lovely flower with a very jovial and friendly person grabbing the attention of passersby. That of course is for charity.

Besides the Courtyard, there were also lesser food and drinks canopy area setup along KLGCC.

After dropping by at Sponsor Village, I headed out towards the golf course to have a look at the tournament. I settled to see the group consisting of Ha Na Jang who was at the lead after Round 2 along with Xi Yu Lin and Inbee Park, the no. 1 women's golfer in the Rolex Ranking and 2nd in the CME Ranking. After watching that one hole, I decided to give up and return to the Courtyard area due to it being too hot for me. LOL.

This time around, I decided to try Cowboys Food Truck. I asked the friendly person who's outside the truck that takes orders what is their bestseller and he told me that it's their Wings, Chicken Wings with Nachos. I wasn't feeling like eating Chicken Wings and so I went with their next best thing which is the Beef Chili Cheese Hotdog with Nachos. The hotdog was awesome. I can see why their Beef Chili Cheese is unique. It's no A&W hot dog but their Beef Chili Cheese has their own brand of flavor to it. Amidst the usual chili flavor there resides a sweetness to it. With the squirts of cheese condiment on top it completes it. It may be called chili but you know these chilis aren't the spicy kind. The only gripe I have is with the nachos. It's merely there to provide some crunchiness. I didn't really taste anything in the nachos. Maybe it's overpowered by the awesome taste of the beef chili and hotdog.

After that stint of eating and the heat, it left me parched and dry. And so I obtained a Somersby at the Courtyard. The 2 Somersby Girls that are manning the booth seem to be glum and gloomy. LOL. I hardly see smiles on them unlike that one individual who passed me the free one earlier on.

Anyway, there seems to be a very big difference from the day before where I went to claim my tickets and the day of the event. During the day that I went to claim my tickets, I seemed to be approached by a lot of strangers who happily chatted with me. I guess it must be due to that wide smile I had on that day. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said on the day of the LPGA. People around me don't seem to be that friendly even though I carry that same smile with me. I had to invite that stranger and told him that it's okay to sit at my table because I'm only a person of one. And during that whole time he seemed so uncomfortable with his son until his friend came along. And like I said before the 2 Somersby Girls just seemed so gloomy. Hardly a smile. The emcee was having a good time singing along with the music and stuff until she saw me. Her appearance totally changed. I guess I must be looking like a hermit or some hobo that day since everyone around me just seems to have a mood change when they see me. LOL. Well, except that one girl who gave me free Somersby. Haha. Oh well. That's life for an overthinking loner like me.

P.S: If you're interested more on Food Truck food there's a Food Truck Festival held every 1st and 3rd weekend of the month at Dataran Merdeka. Open on every 1st and 3rd Saturday and Sunday where Saturday it's open from 9pm-1am and Sunday 6:30am-9:30am.

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A-Lone Diner Event Special: 1st Selangor Wellness Living Expo 2015

Headed off to Sunway Pyramid specifically for this 1st Selangor Wellness Living Expo 2015 instead of the newly launched Hello Kitty Cafe located downstairs. But I did go around at the Hello Kitty Cafe to see how many people are lining up to try it and from what I saw, it was manageable. During that time, I was there around 12pm and judging from the crowd and the space constraint along with the assumption of the turnover rate about 30 minutes to an hour for a table, I'd say if I were to line up at that moment, it would probably take me around earliest 4pm to be seated. LOL. Anyway, the interior didn't look as nice as I pictured it.

I didn't notice that this was the first Selangor wellness exhibition until I saw my goodie bag having a 1 that looks like a seven. LOL. To my surprise, I'm quite fascinated by this event. It did pique my interest even though I'm used to be known as a guy who live life on the edge and never care about taking care of my health or eat healthy. But I guess partially I was there because I know it's about high time I try to look into my health issues instead of ignoring it since it's affecting my daily living now.

Unlike other public events that I been to, this time I decided to register and obtain a goodie bag before embarking on a visual and hearing feast on what is being offered at this expo. I approached the registration counter and I didn't know what to say so the woman at the table told ask me I want to register is it? And proceeded to ask whether I have a name card. I flick out one of my old blog name card and handed over to her which she took it with wide eyes. After a momentary pause, she stated whether can they keep the card and to my puzzlement I replied affirmatively. She explained that she asked is because my name card looks expensive. LOL. Haven't garnered such a respond over my name card in such a long while due to me not blogging on my events blog anymore.

After receiving my goodie bag, I straightaway went into the hall where the Health Talks were given. The ushers were very helpful ensuring on where I wanna go and also explained to me on the layout of the place. What wasn't really that good though is that there's no signage indicating that the expo is further in if you come up from the escalator of Sunway Pyramid to the Convention Centre.

When I entered the hall where the Health Talks were given, Dr. Chong Kuoh Ren was giving his talk on the topic of Common Myths and Misconceptions in Fertility. The audience listen with a keen ear and there was a lively Q&A session at the end.

The talks then break into a 1 hour interval which I took the opportunity to look around at the exhibition hall. Seeing that this exhibition is handled by Tourism Selangor, there are about 2 booths that doesn't relate to Health and Wellness Living but more towards tourism hence the odd booths there. One would be the Tourism Selangor booth themselves which took the most prominent position of all which is directly in front of the entrance while the other is the Thai Odyssey booth where they're giving out free massages.

There were not many exhibitors there most likely due to this being the first ever such exhibition handled by Tourism Malaysia but the big popular medical facility names were there such as Pantai Hospital, Sunway Medical Centre giving out free health checks to visitors. There's also a booth that caught my eye that's having a more traditional approach and it looks like it's doing some kind of massage and relaxation therapy at their booth.

The most engaging booth to me would be the Medifoods booth where they took a proactive approach towards the expo visitors. There was this game to guess the type of beans that are in a container and the type of ingredients in another container and finally coming to a guess how much sugar is in the displayed products. After doing so, you are entitled to a lucky draw to win a prize. I also got to know that they have restaurants on their organic food and one is inside SJMC itself. Come to think about it, I vaguely remember my boss telling me about it since one of my colleague is vegan. I browsed through their menu and would like to try out their food one day.

After having a cup of coffee downstairs, I proceeded to go back to the Health Talks. During that time, Mr. Aaron Ang Aun Yuan of Mediplex was giving a talk on Principles of Healthy Cooking. This seems to have almost filled the hall out with him giving out many interesting points as if it's a cooking class and many eager to find out more when the Q&A session wasn't long enough.

The last talk that I attended before I decided to head home was by Dr. Chong Chin Kooi on the topic of Uterine Fibroid: the Most Common Benign Tumors in the Uterus. What is the Implication on Women's Health and Fertility? Dr. Chong seems to be less fluent in his speech and often hard to grasp for me on what he was saying. As he warmed up at the podium, it's easier to understand his speech which I think English may not be his main language. The topic that was presented by Dr. Chong merely touched the surface of it, a general overview on Uterine Fibroid, it's effect and treatments on it, and yet he did blurt out with a lot of medical jargons. During his talk, a quick Google on the topic revealed that although his general overview on Uterine Fibroid is informative enough and is relevant, it's not updated enough. He did say that he's not going into detail about it anyway so I guess time constraint may be the factor of omitting some info.

During Dr. Chong's lecture, I noticed some young audience among those seated had no interest at all in listening and were either sleeping, playing with their phone or just talking with their friends. I have no idea why do they even bother to be there in the first place if they're not there to listen. It's not like they're forced to sit through it or they've paid for it. It's just a free talk for interested people and yet there they are? I wouldn't say they had nothing better to do too because if they really don't, there's a shopping mall downstairs. Wouldn't it be better to have a walkaround or sit somewhere down there and chill instead of disrespecting the speaker? Kids these days. -.-

After that, I decided to head on home as I don't want to spend too much time at Sunway Pyramid or else I'll become a permanent fixture there. LOL.

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A-Lone Diner Event & Travel Special: The 7th Gold Ribbon Grant-A-Wish Campaign 2015 at Perdana Botanical Garden, Kuala Lumpur (KL)

I actually wanted to participate in the Grant-A-Wish campaign by being a donor but decided against it when I saw what I need to fulfill as gifts. I had a great fear in not only being a spectacle in front of people while giving my gift to the underprivileged but also a fear of getting a gift that may not fit the size of the kid or a design that the kid won't like. LOL. Sure I can appoint a representative to give my gift but you do realize I'm A-Lone Diner who don't even have people wanting to hang out with me most of the time let alone asking them to run my errands? It's a silly fear but it's one that overwhelms me incredibly. And so I mainly decided to be an observer rather than a participant.

It's held at the Perdana Botanical Garden, Kuala Lumpur which is the first time I'm hearing about this place. Looking at it's website, it got me very interested to venture around at the garden surroundings in addition to attending the event.

Saturday came and the haze was back at a very bad level. But I was so pumped up to go anyway I went ahead. Finding the entrance was like a maze but I reached near the venue and saw many of the volunteers at the front. The guy spoke to me on where to best park my car as the entry over that place they're manning are not allowed for public to drive in (that's what I gather from the little bit of Mandarin I know. LOL). I drove further down and eventually came to a parking area and so I parked there.

As I exited my car, I spotted a place to eat but the problem is it looks like some kind of lone food court kind of stall. That put me off greatly as I was imagining a cafe-like atmosphere would be ideal in this kind of location but no, there's none. And so I followed the "yellow brick road" to begin my journey into the park.

As I move in more and more, I find some nice place to had a bit of a lookaround. The entry that I went in was very deserted, nobody around, totally empty like a ghost town. Moving further in, you see some buggy parking area and some signboards from previous events that weren't cleared. I walked further in and still no signs of life till I approached the Sunken Garden. To tell you the truth, this was the only place that's the best. It's the only garden like atmosphere that looks the most beautiful out of the whole park. And it was the first stop that I encountered. LOL.

There were also many gate enclosures which sealed off some particular area and section which I have no idea why. There's totally nothing much in there anyway so it's not that intriguing to go into. I stumbled upon a map of the place and took a snapshot of it to refer to as I walk. I first went into the Herb Garden but it was a total disappointment. There's totally nothing there to see. Sure you can have a look at the different herb names there but the arrangement and landscaping of the place were almost non-existence. There's zero effort in beautifying the so-called garden.

So I walked on further in order to get to the event. I could hear distant and faint announcements and move along towards there. As I go on, I keep getting distracted to deviate to the left and to the right to see what that path there leads to. I'm quite put off by the many constructions that's ongoing at the park. It looks like they're trying to erect more things than I can see greeneries. I arrived at the boathouse and it looks very dilapidated. The condition of the jetty looks rickety and I don't remember seeing any boat docked anywhere. But I do remember seeing a river which the boat suppose to run through.

As I draw closer to the sound that's blasted through a microphone, I realized that it wasn't from the Grant-A-Wish event. It was rather from a truck making sound checks that's getting ready for an event. There's a lot of construction going on and a few small lorries unloading the goods in preparation of this other event which looks great on it's setting up of their unfinished area.

I trudge on further to go to the Grant-A-Wish foundation event and finally arrived at the lake area. Over at the lake area, there were some ducks that were swimming in the pond in flocks. I decided to head back a little as the Deer Park caught my eye. Inside the Deer Park looks a little more pleasant than the other pathetic park and the good thing about this park is that it houses some Mouse-deers. Mouse-deers are also called Chevrotain. In Malaysia, it's mostly known as Kancil. LOL. It took me a while to remember what their English names were. The mouse-deers were housed in some glass entrapment. and they're quite difficult to spot if you're just walking by. You've got to take your time in stopping at the glass cage to really peer inside since the sun light hits and reflects on the surface. Around the Deer Park, there's also other wire cages all around. Upon peering in to see what it contains, I found out that they were only roosters. Why they wanna house roosters all around is beyond me. It's not like they're endangered or anything. The deer park seems to move further up the hill which I decided not to go there after seeing from a distance that there don't seem to have much of anything interesting.

I headed back towards the lake and move towards the Grant-A-Wish campaign event. Over there, there were many people in the ROLF (Rainbow of Life Forces) T-shirts and there were people fanning furiously over the seated kids all around. They seem to be seated in groups and according to their respective orphanages and there's one smaller section giving out gives and taking photographs with the donor and the kids while a much bigger section that has a microphone with them were announcing the kids and donors name to match them up so they can go to the front to exchange hands on the gifts. I can see some musical instruments lying around but since they're still giving out gifts, I guess the buskers weren't performing yet. I grew bored of watching the gift giving ceremony after a while and felt really hot there due to the lack of wind blowing in that area and decided to head off further around the park to see. By the way, the ROLF community (which I see consists of a lot of volunteers) do this every year in addition to other kinds of charitable activities. You can check out on what's next and offer a helping hand at their home page: http://rolfcommunity.org/

As I walk around at the very huge garden (which I was actually really lost and don't really know where I am), I was determined to find that waterfall area that I saw earlier on the map. I eventually found it and it proved to be a really big disappointment. It didn't look as nice as I envisioned it. In fact, the mini-waterfall at the Deer Park looks way much better. The only good thing about this waterfall is the soothing gushing sounds of the water falling from the rocks.

Tired, hungry, thirsty and hot, I was feeling very dizzy and couldn't really walk straight after finding the waterfall. So I decided to head back to the car. But I had a huge problem. I have wandered off so much in circles that I forgot where's my car! And so I wandered aimlessly at the direction I assume would be where my car is. Along the way, I found out that the Amphitheatre was also under construction. This park is not new right? It's been here some time right? What's with all the construction going on? It's as if this place is not ready at all. I staggered around and soon found a familiar territory which I remembered passing at. I followed the trail and managed to go back to where the kids playgrounds were and luckily got back to my car.

This place dashed my hopes of a nice quiet serene park surrounded by lush greens where you can enjoy a quiet sit down time at the benches. Instead, all I found were many ongoing constructions, many unnatural items that aren't acclimated to nature, a very unappealing view of the surroundings and with the haze around, it just worsen the outdoor experience. If you ever wanna come to this place, just stay at the Sunken Garden and head on inside the Deer Garden to see a real life mouse-deer. Other than that, there's nothing appealing about this place, not even the main lake of the garden.

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