I made a video about my pet red ear sliders and uploaded it to YouTube last year. I’d like to share it here too! 🙂
Cascadian Lake Headquarters: Upcoming!
March. Crazy-ass month. Between building my newly joint online business with Khai Ng and preparing for an extreme sports tournament over the weekends, I spent the weekdays to scout for the next place to move to. And this time, make it my permanent home.
Ever since I moved back to PJ in 2007, I have been hopping room from room, apartment to apartment. I had no fixed plan and with a business I can operate from virtually anywhere, it was really ‘anything goes’ for me.
Five years later and I am deeply rooted here again. Moving places was fun at first but after several house shiftings later, now just the thought of moving again – even for the last time in a long – is revolting.
Property prices are shooting up like nobody’s business in the Klang Valley and even though my friends who are in the real estate business predict there will be a bust and price drop, there is no certainty as to how much and when. Assuming it does happen, it won’t be anytime so soon; it can take a few years. And the general opinion I got is that the overall housing prices will not dip much. Probably 20% or so.
Not gonna wait man. I make my move right NOW.
Way I see it, saving 10% to 20% but trading away a few years of my life waiting is unacceptable. I will be in my early 30’s by then. And that is ASSUMING the overall prices of properties in the Klang Valley DO drop, and usually the market forces have a way of giving rude surprises to everyone.
So I hit up the Property.com.my website, and started my search from there. I spent one whole week checking out properties and ultimately I decided on the Cascadian Lake House in Puchong. It’s a new area and when I visited, the townhouses were nearing completion.
Nice and beautiful surroundings. Convenient as well – variety of food stalls and restaurants within walking distance and Carrefour is 5 minutes drive away.
The big downside is that I will be staying further from most of my friends in PJ and Puchong is notorious for terrible jams. I drove back and forth at different times throughout the week to get an idea on the traffic congestion. Fortunately I work from home most of the time and I seldom leave the house to meet anyone; might as well be at night when the traffic is smooth. Besides, the traffic congestion in PJ is becoming no better now.
The sheer amount of paperwork and loan application were a HUGE put off though. And the frustration does not even begin to describe it.
I started off getting screwed by a former Alliance Banker – the same guy who helped with the loan application for my first property in Johor. After he failed to follow through with my application and didn’t have the balls to pick up my phone call since, I had wasted three weeks. At the risk of losing the deal to another interested buyer, I hustled my own lawyer to extend the deal and finally was able to secure it for my own.
I successfully secured my loan with Public Bank for this house but man, the amount of papers to sign was sickening to a fault! I cannot help wonder if the complicated process was deliberately designed to wear out and fool uninitiated buyers, in the name of ‘giving full protection and covering legal loopholes’. I spent a lot of time quizzing my real estate agent, lawyers and the mortgage specialist on every clause my mind did not compute – I normally don’t ask a lot of questions, but this was no time to be fucking stupid.
A recurring remark I heard: this was their first time dealing with someone as young as my age buying a property on their own. I was flatterred, but could that be the same reason I wasn’t taken seriously at first? No, blame my casual attire consisting of geek t-shirt, 3 quarter pants and sandals.
I regret not following my mother to at least witness the full procedures when she bought the house in Johor a couple of years back. Would have had made things somewhat easier and less surprises too. I entertained the thought of buying properties for investment reasons but after all the paperwork fiesta… having second thoughts there now.
Now I am glad that most of the boring paperwork had been done and dealt with, I am timing my move to the new place. Since the property is new and built from scratch, I need to hire an electrician and get some renovation done as well.
To me, this is going to be more than just a home. It is to be my latest accolade in career achievement, doubling as my home office, private armory for my favorite extreme sports and bachelor’s crib goes without saying.
6 to 8 months countdown starts now… in the mean time, I am gonna hang tight, make lots of moolah and stay alive.
IO Park 1st Ultimate Tactical Sports Tournament of 2012
Good game peeps! Also one of the most hillarious episodes to start the year. 🙂
Gym Training – Month 11 Update
Measured again for the first time in 4 months. I had been travelling for the past several months however I managed to keep my training consistent by making up the following week.
Right now I weigh in 60.5 kg, a 2.3 kilo drop since last October. And so is my body fat percentage, now 15.1%! It was 16.4% when I last measured.
However this also means a drop in overall muscle mass.
Which is ironic, considering the past three weeks all the intensive trainings were focused on muscle building workouts.
The hardest part for me isn’t in the training itself; it’s the eating part. I am not a big eater. While my appetite has improved since before I started my training, it was only marginal. I get nauseas easily when I am near full and there were so many embarrassing moments I was struggling not to vomit out my food when I was in public or with friends over a meal.
I wonder if it is a medical condition? To think of it, I got this nauseas problem since 1st January 2009. I remember the exact date because it was also when I started to have chronic eczema. Only months ago the skin problem had dissipated to the point of nearly vanished (still holding my breath on that though). However my nauseas problem remains.
Now I need to gain at least another 4.5 kg to reach 65 kg. Bulking is going to be tough in my nauseas condition, I plan to see the doctors at Pathlab when I go to Johor again for the Chinese New Year holidays. About time anyway – it’s been 3 years since I last went for an overall health check up. I am confident they will strike out ‘high level cholesterol’ this time. 😉
The Malayan Box Turtle Discovery!
This is something that doesn’t happen all the time! Not long ago, Ashley stumbled upon a stray turtle walking somewhere outside our Lakeview house. 🙂
It might have walked away from the lake so Ashley was carrying it back, only to realize its legs were injured and there were scratches underneath the shell, possibly from walking on the hot tar road.
So she decided to take it back home and nurse it to health. 🙂
Initially shy, the stray turtle (we name it Nomad Kura) now stays in our backyard pond with the rest of our red ear sliders. Ashley and I discussed this over the phone and since it’s a stray animal, it would be best to let it go again after it is fully healed.
Days later, Ashley read about the illegal pet trade going on in Malaysia and coincidentally this turtle type was mentioned. It’s called the “Malayan Box Turtle” although it goes by many other names.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Its current species status is “threatened” or “vulnerable”! There was an article about it in The Star last Saturday (10th December 2011) – I am unable to find the article online but this older article pretty much sums it:
http://thestar.com.my/news/
In short, this turtle is a prime target for poachers. Common tactics of duping include a guy coming over to tell you it’s illegal to possess it; he will take it away and what you don’t know is that he’s a poacher.
That said, we cannot risk returning the turtle to the lake since people go there to fish now. As of now, we are taking care of Nomad Kura until further notice. Fortunately, for a stray animal, Nomad Kura seems to adapt well with our pond and our other turtles! 🙂