Nur Kasih The Movie

The whole family went to watch the much anticipated Nur Kasih the movie on 20th May 2011. For those interested, check out the trailer below.

I have separated the review into pros and cons. Read below: [SPOILER ALERT]:

Pros

1. Excellent cinematography. Some scenes, like the one at the cemetery, had a superb angle. We were gobsmacked!
2. Superb acting
3. Location of certain scenes was brilliant, especially the ones shot overseas (the one in Petra, Jordan)
4. Well defined plot with sub-plots that gave the whole movie an enjoyable depth
5. All characters had depth and were colourful characters (I guess that was inherited from the TV series, I am comparing this to the recently released Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa where the characters and plot were too simple)
6. Brilliant Islamic messaging that highlights modern stereotypes.
   • This is the scene where Adam invited an Ustaz to the rehab center that he owns for talk on a certain religious topic. The Ustaz refused to proceed with the talk as he said the audience (the boys and girls in the rehab) were not dressed appropriately and lack manners. Adam said there’s no point if we enforced manners and Islamic dressing if we do not help them with their inner understanding on the religion, rather than focusing on the facade. The Ustaz did not agree and he left.
   • Another is when the boss of a certain firm wanted to engage Nur Amina to design a night club (she’s an architect). Amina refused to accept the job offer as she said it’s against her principles to be involved in something that is not permitted in Islam (haram activities). The boss lashed back at her saying she sounded ridiculous, like somebody from a village, and with this mindset she could never progress in this modern world. He also said she is not being thankful as he said he could have given the job to anybody.

Cons

1. I know it’s a love story, but towards the end, when there was a small fighting scene involving Aidil and some gangsters. I was half hoping that Aidil would have some fighting skills, silat or anything of the sort.
2. Some of the scenes might be a bit overly dramatic, especially about how Adam had dreams of terrorist attacks in the Middle East. A stereotype, perhaps?
3. Towards the ending, where they showed Aidil and Adam growing old by using pictures of their future achievements, it was too short and it doesn’t give the audience a full grasp of how successful they became. Furthermore, the scene of the “old” Adam and Aidil with their kids showed their kampung house unchanged. To show that the timeline is now 30+ years in the future, they should have made the kampung house look older and the surroundings change (perhaps more buildings around it?)

Nur Kasih at Petra

All in all, I have to admit that this is by far the finest Malay (Islamic themed) love story that I’ve seen in the local scene. Good job to the director and the crew. The director, Khabir Bhatia, definitely has his own magical touch when it comes to cinematography. He previously worked on the TV series for Nur Kasih and that was a piece of art as well. I hope to see more brilliant movies from him in the future.

Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa

Finally, the long awaited Malaysian movie of the year was released a few days ago. For those who haven’t heard of this movie, check out the trailer below. Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa is based loosely on the actual Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa that written in the 16th Century (historians are still unsure exactly when it was written).

I went to see it with my family a few days ago and this is by far the best action-epic movie that a Malaysian producer has ever made. It was amazing. The cast, the fighting scenes and the special effects.

Anyway, here are my reviews [SPOILER ALERT]:

• Very good action scene. Fast paced, realistic fighting choreography and impressive show of epic battles
• Interesting plot with sub-stories, although they could improve by providing more depth on other characters
• Excellent casting. They got the perfect hero, and the heroin
• Brilliant display of culture and dressing of the time (~2nd Century CE)
• Beautifully written classic Malay language, especially the poems, absolute classic
• Not so brilliant choice of music, they should have created a proper theme song
• The ending was a bit rush, you would agree if you had watched it. They could use a few more scenes to show what happened after the battle. For example, they could use a scene to show Merong’s body brought back to his village and Embok crying over his body, while putting her hand on her tummy (she was pregnant), saying “zuriat-zuriat mu akan berlansung dari kandunganku and jadilah mereka raja-raja yang teragung di tanah ini” (English: your descendants would live on from my womb and they would be great kings of this land). Yes, that was my modest attempt at classic Malay.

All in all, it was a great effort by KRU Studios. I felt really proud watching it. Malaysian production has come a long way, and this movie is definitely gonna make it internationally. They have room for improvement, and I hope from here onwards we’ll be creating even bigger and better epic movies!

Before I start off, here are some basic facts about Mount Kinabalu:

• It’s 4095 meters high (13,435 ft).
• It’s the highest mountain in Malaysia, 3rd in South East Asia
• 20th in the world (in terms of peaks by prominence).

I first attempted to hike up Mount Kinabalu back in October 2010, but failed at Laban Rata, which is at 10,734 feet. I was affected by acute mountain sickness (AMS, also known as altitude sickness) and that essentially was the end of my trip. I didn’t do my research thoroughly and at the time I was hit by altitude sickness, I didn’t even know it was that! I thought it was some sort of severe headache or fever!

According to online guides, one of the ways to prevent altitude sickness is by having extreme fitness (yup, that’s right, extreme) or by getting Diamox. I’ll write a separate article on Diamox later. I figured I’ll never get anywhere near extreme in terms of fitness, but I guess improving mine by a lot would definitely help. Some people get altitude sickness, and some don’t. You might be as fit as a marathon runner and still be affected by altitude sickness (to a certain level). It’s a genetic thing. Everybody’s different. But by having a high level of fitness, you can somehow reduce its affect to a tolerable level.

The key takeaway from my failed attempt was that the mountain is a harsh place. Only people that have attempted high altitude hiking would understand what it really takes to scale mountains. It does not discriminate against men or women, the young or the old. That is the key thing that you must understand when dealing with high altitude hiking.

Training Regime

My training involved lots of running on different gradient level. For 4 months, I ran around 2-3 sessions a week, in which  each session would be 6KM long and I’ll be running up and down the hills in my neighbourhood. I would constantly push myself to ensure I’ve maxed out my energy and stamina in each session. To be honest there are certain sessions that I end up throwing up after running due to overexerting myself.

Hike

So, after some serious training, I headed back to Kota Kinabalu on 22 January 2010. I used the same travel guide, MatthewPaul Travel and Tours (email: matthewpaultravel@gmail.com). We arrived at Kinabalu Park around 4PM. We checked-in into our park accommodations. We were all excited with the chill weather.

Kinabalu Park - accommodation

Kinabalu Park - our room

Meals are provided at Balsam Restaurant, which is near Kinabalu Park’s HQ. The restaurant is a 10-15 minutes walk from our rooms, but with the chilly weather and the rich view of the forest around us, we really enjoyed walking along the path and inhaling the fresh cold air around us.

Balsam Restaurant

Timpohon Gate

The next morning, after breakfast, we were introduced to our mountain guide at Kinabalu Park. His name is Jaldi Jaidi (far left in the photo above). He’s very experienced and has a sense of humour, which is always a plus. Before we started hiking, he explained the route to us and warned us about the change in altitude and how that would lead to altitude sickness.

Trekking and hiking path

Note: From this point onwards, whenever I mention a location/building, there’ll be a distance unit beside it. E.g. location_example (x.x KM, xxxx m ASL). The KM would indicate trekking distance (on foot), and the ASL would represent “above sea level” vertical height.

We started our hike up from Timpohon Gate (0KM, 1866 m ASL) at 9:30AM. Our destination was Laban Rata (KM6, 3272 m ASL) where we will rest for a few hours before continuing to the peak. The total hiking distance to the peak is 8.7KM, and Laban Rata is kat KM6. There is a rest hut roughly every 1KM (photo below) which provides toilet facilities and drinking water (untreated, it’s fresh from the mountain).

Pondok Kandis - KM1 rest hut

It rained along the way and we had to pull out our ponchos. We took a break at Layang-Layang Rest Hut (at KM4, 2700 meters ASL) and had lunch there (the park had prepared a lunch pack for us). Hiking up Mount Kinabalu is about climbing thousands of steps, in which a large part are stones put together to form a path upwards.

Near KM4

The air got thinner from Layang-Layang onwards and the guys that were not prepared for this had difficulty breathing. This is also the same altitude where you would get affected by altitude sickness. The guide has instructed us to breathe heavily from our mouth and to maintain our pace. That really helped in ensuring our bodies have enough oxygen to adapt to the changing altitude.

Not that I’m bragging or anything, but due to my intense physical preparation, I was able to get to Laban Rata without feeling totally exhausted (by comparison, back in October I could barely walk after reaching Layang-Layang!).

We reached Laban Rata (KM6, 3272 m ASL) around 3:30PM (photo below).

Laban Rata

We checked-in into our dorms and later had dinner at 6PM. They prepared a nice buffet and it really feels satisfying having all that hot steamy white rice in that cold weather. Laban Rata is around 7 degrees Celcius.

Laban Rata Cafe

After dinner, all of us went to bed to ensure we have enough energy for our ascent later on. We woke up around 1:30AM and had supper at the cafeteria at 2AM. We dressed heavily as we’ve been told that this time around the wind is really strong and we’ll be experiencing very cold weather. The temperature should be around 2-4 degrees at the peak. I had 2 layers of pants on (1 on top the other), 2 long sleeve t-shirts and a waterproof jacket. We ensured all our headlamps are working before moving on (photo below).

Laban Rata - night hike

There was a bit of forest hiking between Laban Rata for about 600 meters. After that, we encountered the “danger zone”, where we need to climb around the wall with a steep cliff. The “danger zone” lasted for about 250 meters. Bear in mind that all this is done during pitch black with the only lights around us were our headlamps. I’ve provided a daytime photo of the “danger zone” below.

Danger Zone - KM6.6

After the “danger zone”, we arrived at Sayat-Sayat Hut (KM7, 3668 m ASL). It is the last checkpoint before heading to the peak. A park officer was there to check our passes. It was around 4:15AM and it was really dark. We refilled our bottles with the free flowing mountain water, and we continued our ascent. A daytime photo of Sayat-Sayat is provided below.

Sayat-Sayat Hut - KM7

From Sayat-Sayat onwards there were almost no more trees. We were completely exposed to the strong mountain winds blowing around 40-60 kmph. The temperature dropped and we can really feel the difference. Due to the heavy mist, from Sayat-Sayat onwards we continued our journey by following the white rope on the floor. The white rope was available from the “danger zone” through Sayat-Sayat and all the way to the peak. My mistake was that I brought cotton gloves. Certain parts of the rope was wet, and the water went through my gloves. My fingers almost went numb from the freezing water! Make sure you bring a thick waterproof glove (the ones used for skiing is perfect).

From KM8 onwards, the strong wind coupled with the low temperature resulted in my lips being numbed. It was quite funny how my friends couldn’t understand what I was saying (at this point I wished I had bought the ‘wind mask’ that were sold at Kinabalu Park). In the photo below, which is at the top of mount Kinabalu (near the peak, around KM8.5) you can see the low visibility that we had during sunrise. Sunrise was blocked by heavy mist and we didn’t get a clear view of the sun.

Mount Kinabalu - near the peak

We reached the peak around 5:30AM. After all that struggle battling altitude sickness, harsh winds, cold temperatures and long strenuous trekking, we have reached Low’s Peak (KM8.7, 4095 m ASL). It was the most satisfying feeling I’ve felt in a long time. Low’s Peak is named after Hugh Low who did the first ascent in 1858.

The peak

We stayed at the peak for around 10-15 minutes. We would love to stay longer, but with the temperature being around 2 degrees, we had to descent to lower altitude. As the sun was up during our descent, we have a fantastic view of the mountain top and its surroundings. I saw some of the groups arriving at the peak before sunrise and then rushed down even before the sun was really up. It’s a pity they didn’t stay for the majestic view which is only available at 13,435 feet.

We took lots of pictures on our way down back to Laban Rata. We arrived at Laban Rata around 9:45AM. We had breakfast and we started our descent from Laban Rata downwards around 11AM.

Laban Rata - aerial view

Our walking sticks really helped a lot during our descent as most of the guys could feel their knees aching.You see, when hiking up, there’s not much strain being put on your knees as you’re using your thigh and hip muscles. But the thing about going down is that, all your weight (including your backpack) is being put on your knees. I highly recommend you getting the walking stick before starting your hike, it’s only RM3.

Post Hike

All of us had muscle sores for at least 3-4 days after the hike. There are a few ways you can cure these muscle sores. First is by doing a short jog (less than 1 KM) after resting for a few hours, this will act as a “warming down” for your legs, or you could just go for a few massages. The mountain guide highly recommended the “warming down” jog, but I believe most of us went for the leg massage.

All in all, it was a great adventure. As a Malaysian, I am extremely grateful to have such an amazing natural wonder in my country. This adventure has sparked an interest among my friends to seek more outdoor adventures. We hope to conquer Mount Tahan (2187 m ASL), the tallest peak in the Malayan Peninsula and perhaps, in the near future, Kilimanjaro (5895 m ASL), the roof of Africa!

Photos: Our Mount Kinabalu photos are available here.

http://www.mataharibooks.com/sejarahmelayu/

They call this project Sejarah Melayu Reloaded. After reading a few chapters on their website, I started promoting it to my family and friends. I insist that they must read it.

Sejarah Melayu

I totally understand the difficulties in reading old text. I have my own hardcopy of Sejarah Melayu at home. You have to be a die-hard history fan to want to read the original copy. Just like Shakespearean English, the original Sejarah Melayu has an elaborate (not to mention archaic) language structure that the average person would have difficulty understanding. The Reloaded version is funny enough that it builds up interest for the average reader. What better way to make the younger generation understand history better!

Kudos to the guys at Matahari Books! If you guys ever produce a printed version (perhaps with some pictures in it), that’ll be awesome!

1. You need to call Unifi (1300881222) to inform them you want to sign up. They’ll ask you which plan and all other details. They’ll then schedule a time for the Unifi guys to come to your house to set up
2. You need to close your Streamyx account. From a user point of view, this is plain stupid. A user simply doesn’t care if Unifi and Streamyx are 2 different business units in TM, because a user simply sees TM as 1 company.  Anyway, I had to go a nearby TM Point to fill in a form to close my account. Thank god the whole closing down experience was fast and smooth.
3. A few days later the Unifi guys came to my house. They arrived on-the-dot as promised at 9:30AM and they were very friendly. The agreed SLA from TM is that the installation would take less than 6 hours (my guess is that they’re playing it safe), but turns out the actual installation took about 2 hours+. The Unifi guys had to pull another cable from the TM post outside my house and wire it directly to where I want to set up the Unifi box.

The unifi package came with 4 devices (photo below)

The tall grey device on the left is the TV Set Up box. It gives you 21 IPTV channels and TV-On-Demand (TVOD).  The small white box with 2 antennas is the wireless router, and the white box on the right is the modem. A cordless phone (black) comes with the package too. All these 4 devices and the installation process were free-of-charge from TM. Awesome.

The Unifi guys did everything. The wireless network was set up with all the appropriate security settings. They even helped me perform a speed test which the results was more than pleasing:

Yup, that’s right, I signed up for the 5Mbps plan but my actual speed is 6.4Mbps! Now my internet at home is faster than what I have at work! Youtube videos loading the point the page loads, and I was able to download a 1GB file for around 1 hour! That’s how fast it is! TM definitely got it right this time around. Well done TM!

http://umno-kgserdang.blogspot.com/2010/05/sultan-payung-negeri.html

The article was well written and it is a timely reminder to all of us. One of the interesting bits is that my ancestor was mentioned in the article:

Masih segar juga dalam sejarah, apabila al-Marhum Sultan Ahmad Tajuddin yang memerintah bersama regu ulamanya Sayyid Hussain al-Faradz mengisytiharkan Undang-Undang 99 sebagai undang-undang keadilan bagi jajahan Perak. Yang zalim dihukum, yang mangsa dimulia, yang lemah jauh dari dihina, yang kaya diwajib menderma. Maka hiduplah rakyat jelata dalam aman sejahtera, makmur dan bahagia.

I have written an article about the descendants of Sayyid Hussain al-Faradz al-Jamalullail on wikipedia. Check it out.

Yes, you’re seeing it right. It’s a stuffed soft toy of faeces, human excrement, or to be blunt, shit.

I cannot see how could such a disgusting object be portrayed as ‘cute’ and ‘cuddly’. It’s absolutely disgusting.

KUALA KANGSAR: The Sultan of Perak Sultan Azlan Shah expressed regret at the actions of certain individuals and groups who disgraced their own country at international forums.

This, he said, gave an opportunity to outside powers to interfere in the internal affairs of the country.

“I call on the people to use their wisdom for the sake of the nation and not to be influenced by their emotion based on desire which would eventually be to the detriment of the country,” he said at the investiture and pledging of loyalty ceremony in conjunction with his 82nd birthday at Istana Iskandariah here yesterday.

Sultan Azlan Shah noted that all members, be it in Parliament or the state assembly, should respect the sanctity of the august House.

“Those who are called the Yang Berhormat should show exemplary behaviour,” he said.

“It is embarrassing that proceedings in the august House are done in an environment filled with shouts and abuses,” said Sultan Azlan Shah.

“It is also an insult to the assembly if members bring placards with degrading words and hurl abuse at each other,” he added.

At the same event, Raja Muda of Perak Raja Dr Nazrin Shah said elements of ill-mannered behaviour by people in high positions and professions were not happening on the streets or in markets but in places that should be regarded highly and respected.

Dr Nazrin said courtesy was the key factor that determines the rise and fall of a country and its leaders.

“Politeness plays an important role in shaping a society let alone a prosperous and steady country,” he said.

Perak Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abd Kadir said that the Barisan Nasional government would do its best to maintain peace and harmony in the state while continuing with its development.

Dr Zambry noted that he had during the March 31 state assembly, called on Pakatan Rakyat state assemblymen not to jeopardise the people’s welfare with their never-ending politicking.

At the investiture ceremony Sul­tan of Johor Sultan Ibrahim Ismail Almarhum Sultan Iskandar headed the list of 912 people conferred with awards and medals in conjunction with Sultan Azlan Shah’s birthday.

Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin was conferred the Darjah Kebesaran Seri Paduka Sultan Azlan Shah Perak Yang Teramat Dimulia (SPSA) which carries the title Datuk Seri Diraja.

No Pakatan state assemblymen were present during the ceremony.

When contacted, state DAP chairman and Sitiawan assemblyman Datuk Ngeh Koo Ham said the Pakatan state assemblymen did not receive any invitations to the ceremony.

“We have been waiting for the invitations but none of us received any,” he said.

State secretary Datuk Seri Dr Abdul Rahman Hashim could not be reached to verify Ngeh’s claim.

The firm has been emailing internally for a while and I guess I should make an attempt to help HR in their recruiting efforts. The long list of vancies for the KL Office is displayed below:

Services Workforce

1. Accounts Analyst
2. HR Analysts
3. SAP Applications Helpdesk Team Lead
4. Business Analyst
5. Digital Publishing Platform Support
6. Digital Advertising Analytics Support
7. HR Helpdesk Analyst
8. Billing Operation Analyst
9. Contract Management
10. Contract Specialist I — Service Centre

Solutions Workforce

1. Oracle BEA Weblogic Portal Consultants
2. Solution Architect – Telecommunications
3. Java Developers
4. Oracle Order & Service Management Developers
5. Oracle BEA Development Implementation and Configuration
6. SAP FICO Professionals
7. SAP MM Expert/Consultant
8. SAP PM Data Lead/ Consultant
9. TA Siebel Administrator
10. Oracle Applications Specialists

Consulting Workforce

1. SAP Functional Consultants (BI,CRM,SD,APO,MM)  
2. SAP Functional Consultants (BI/BW/PM/PS/SCM)  
3. SAP Functional Consultants – Human Resources (HR)  
4. SAP Functional Consultants – Materials Management (MM)
5. SAP Managers / Senior Manager  
6. IT Strategy & Transformation Professionals

If you’re interested and require more details, please email me at imran.jaafar@gmail.com

Apart from that, I received an express mail from TM the week before stating that my housing area (TTDI) is part of the 1st phase deployment for HSBB, hence, I’ll be eligble to test HSBB (free of charge) till mid-May. Good stuff. Although, they should have used normal post instead of using registered post where I had to go collect it at poslaju depot in PJ (I don’t recommend going there during lunch hour, killer jam at the wretched Rothmans roundabout)

Although I have yet to experience HSBB, my usual Streamyx experience has improved tremendously. Check out the screenshot below: (usually my test returns a 200kbps average, but now it’s 300+kbps!)

Anyway, I look forward to trying HSBB out. I went to their new HSBB website, http://www.unifi.my, and I believe I’ll be more than happy to sign up for the 5Mbps plan. Looks reasonble and I don’t see how I would be needing any bigger bandwidth than that.

However, earlier, I heard that TM was thinking of implementing a maximum download limit (at around ~60GB+ depending on package), but later the idea was scapped. Good thinking. We don’t want to spoil a wonderful project with petty limitations such as that. We should learn from the Australians (where their ISPs implements a download cap — only to receive hateful complaints from netizens in the country) and be better.

I’ll post again after trying out the new package.