i know i have broken my promises to update on manila thingy, but sorry guys i dun have my laptop with me. its currently being fixed. wuuu~

i’ll upload those pix when my lappy is ready yah! take care!

luv,

Zam “painkiller” Hizami

my friends keep asking me, hey how about story day 3, 4, etc? Gomennnn. My apologies guys. Work there was tough and I spend most of my time thinking during work so I don’t have energy left to do anything after my working hours. Seriously. Balik bilik, order some food, makan, tv a bit and terus tido (there’s days where I slept in front of my laptop, while doing my work T_T)

right now im quite busy with my final exam. i got 1 paper on this coming friday. please pray for my success and for the meantime, just wait for the show yeah? i be back with my stories from manila and hopefully, some pix from the trip.

until then, take care guys!

Zam “painkiller” Hizami

after done all of the morning stuffs, we went down to have our 1st breakfast in Manila. No, not breakfast around the Manila… Just a quick breakfast at the hotel lounge.

What I had? Well all is vegetarian stuffs… cereal, toast and some juice. I wanted to take the eggs, until I found out that they fry the bacon on the same pan. Oh shit… So we had one quick meal there and now back to the hotel room.

We’ll have our first meeting with the hotel IT around 8.30 am. After that maybe we will have the tour around hotel so I will try my best to snap few pix and post it here… The reason I don’t post pictures on my post is because I don’t took any; it’s kind of dangerous to take out your camera and point it on the street.

Zam “painkiller” Hizami

So after I refreshed myself and relaxed a bit, Ift asked me out for dinner and the destination is Quiapo Street. The reason we are heading for that direction is because there’s Islamic center there and surely there would be halal food around the area. It was around 4 km away from our place, so we took a jeepney there. Jeepney is like a mini bus in Malaysia, but 10X of its roughness and fear factor. Hahaha!! Cost us 10 pesos (RM0.70) per person for the journey.

I would not go into the details on the food and all, but what I want to share now is about the condition around Manilla city as I saw through the jeepney ride. As I said previosly, Manila is quite a slump city whereby people sleep around the side of the road. It was a really sad and eye opening experience for us. The condition there reminds me of the slump area particularly around south america… its a very sad view.

Another particular thing that I would like to share is the safety around Manila. Don’t go out after dark if there’s not local accompanying you to the places. It’s really dangerous. Me and Ift was followed on a street.. luckily he realized about it and we entered a shop to break their attention to us. I think for the rest of my stay here I would have my dinner inside the hotel unless there is local accompanying us.

I always told my friend that Phuket is an example of the world’s paradise. But if people ask me what is the example of world’s hell; I would say without hesitation that Manila is one of it.

end of day one.

Zam “painkiller” Hizami

A Week in Manila – Day 1 (25 April 2010)

I arrived at Diosdado Macapagal International Airport, Clark, Philippines around 11.00 am today. The flight arrived the airport 10 minutes early, so I thought this would be a good start of my journey to Manila.

As I cleared all the immigration and custom checks, I walks off to the arrival hall. Since there’s no one here to pick me, I have to choose my own mode of transport. I went to one of the taxi counter and I was shocked knowing that the fees to Manila via the airport taxi would cost me around PHP (phillipines pesso) 3,900. The guy said my destination, Traders Hotel Manila was 100 km away from the airport. I have with me roughly PHP3,400 so I told the taxi guy that I would need to find an ATM as we travel to Manila. He agreed and he took me to the taxi. As I entered the taxi, he “forcefully” asked me for RM50 tips. I was like WTF?, but he insisted on his 50 bux tips. Knowing I have no choice, I hand him over my last 50 ringgit and the taxi moves to the destination.

As we move to find the ATM, taxi driver introduced himself. His name is Jass, and he speaks in a fluent english although I have few hard times to understand his accent. He explains that the place that we are currently in is called Clark Field, and it was a former US military base in the Philippines. Nowadays, the national force replace US existence there, as American abandon the place in 1991 due to the Pinatobo volcano eruption. When America left, it  caused a great depression to economy of the area because their existence keeps the economy in a healthy loop. When they left, no one buying as much as they do anymore causing business to close.

We went from 1 mall to another, but because of some unknown issue the ATM wont withdraw me any money at all. Fuck. What should I do? Im stranded in foreign country with not enough money to take me to the hotel. I insisted to Jass that if the taxi-counter guy didn’t force me for the 50 bux tip, I would have enough to pay for the taxi fare. After Jass made some phone calls, he decided to still take me to Manilla although that means that his salary will be cut for the short amount of the fair as he won’t leave me stranded here alone. Nasib baik.. I really grateful for his courtesy decision. So we left Clark around 12.00 pm following the 100 km journey to Manila.

Highway conditions in Philippines was not really in a good shape. It’s called highway, but I think jalan kampung around Sabak Bernam can easily surpass the highway quality here. And as my journey approaching the destination, I can see that Manila is actually a slump area. I believe the gap between poor and the rich here is very wide. I mean, I saw people sleeping at the roadside but there’s people driving in good car too. Speaking about car, there’s a lot of my fav car, the toyota SEG around here.. damn!!

Ift calls me as I’m reaching the city center of Manila. He said that he arrived in the hotel already and he’s waiting for me on the room. Alhamdulillah, so I told him that I would need to borrow him 1000 pesos and I told Jass that I can pay the fee in full amount. Jass was relieved as that simply means that his salary wont be deducted =P Long story short, I arrived Traders Hotel Manila, the place where I would stay and work for the following whole week around 2:30 pm.

… to be continued

Operations Research Introduction, 8th Edition

Enjoy dude!

Zam “painkiller” Hizami

Bloke: Hey dude nice ride.

Me: Thanks mate.

Bloke: How much you bought the bike?

Me: I think around 15k.. can’t remember the figure exactly.

Bloke: Wow.. so whats the deal exactly? Downpayment? Monthly?

Me: I paid 7k for the downpayment, and monthly was 320 for 3 years sumthing.

Bloke: Hey with that kind of deal u can get a car rite? Just need to add few more years of repayment. Why don’t you get a car then? Kelisa maybe? At least you’ll be safe if its raining.

Me: Well I’m not really into cars. Plus hell yeah I’ll get soaked in rain but I’m doing it with style.

Hehehe.. what do you think guys? =P

Sunday, March 14 2010 10.30 am. Lovely sunday morning and I was having my good “night” sleep. *My phone rings*

Me: Hello?

A: Wei.. tgh buat apa tido ke?

Me: Yes… apsal?

A: Tolong aku weh. Kereta aku ada problem… xboleh nak engaged any gear.

Me: Adoi… dah try stop and start balik engine?

A: Dah.. xboleh jugak.. tolong la datang… aku dekat *censored* ni.

Me: Okla okla… tunggu kejap. I’m coming. Isk.

I washed my face, grab the helmet and ran off strait to help “A”. Upon arriving the place:

Me: Tunggu jap. Let me try the car.

I restart the car engine. Step on the clutch and shift to reverse gear. Car seems normal. Hmm… maybe the gear slips? So I step the gas and the car moves naturally.

Me: Ok je? Takde problem pun?

A: Try la lagi. Tadi masuk gear pun tak boleh.

Me: Ok, I’ll drive around. Tunggu kejap.

I shift to first gear, then drove off the parking area, straight to the open road. Engaged to second gear. And third, forth.. and so on. Hey there’s nothing wiered with the car. What the hell is “A” thinking? Then I get back straight to “A”.

Me: Apa kes? Ok je? Kacau aku tido je la.

A: Tadi tak boleh masuk gear langsung. Takpela.. meh aku try pulak.

Me: Ok.

Grab my helmet and get on the bike, with my mind thinks nothing but getting back to me bed.

A: *yelled to me* Wei ijam… tak boleh pun?

Me: *get off from the bike, pissed and went back to the car* Apa yang tak boleh?

A: Tak boleh masuk gear la…

Me: Did you step on the clutch properly?

A: Yerla.. tekan clutch la ni.

Me: *looked to where she stepped* WOI! Ko ni betul ke tak? Yang ko step tu clutch ke brake??????!!!!

A: Eh?

Me: ……… *then burst my laughter to tears*

So kids, please please please.. make sure you distinguished between the clutch and brake pedal properly before you called someone on “early” sunday morning and claimed that you are having issues with the car. Period.

Zam “painkiller” Hizami

looks normal from a undisclosed company right? well, take a look again:

when i browse through the URL it redirects me to the company page:

so much for confidentiality. Might as well they write “STUPIDITY” on the company name. LOL

Zam “painkiller” Hizami

sorry for the long disappearance but I’m back today with one great news. my baby’s back! and i have to say personally she’s a looker and I think I fall in love again! <3

3 weeks is such a long time and it took me much of my patience and obviously moolah (money) to restore her. whats up with my bike anyway? well approx. 4 weeks ago, it failed to start when I was trying to fire her for work. so after some consultancies from bro’s from bladers and zul oren, I decided to take her for repair, and at the same time to pimp her up since she was pretty much in a bad shape.

one of the many dents on my bike

ini juga…

overall look of the bike before the “pimpin’ scene”

so what I (we) did was to first of all change her look by giving her a new paint job. its purely aspirated from 2010 ducati monster color scheme so I wont be surprised if anyone told me she looked like ducati monster! XD *perasan*

this is where the inspiration came from…

and here’s the result of the paint job to my bike:

side view of my babe <3

the tank design. the stripe is stickers, and finished with clear paint to give its glossy effect.

the front fender…

…and the back stripe.

paint job on the rim and swing arm.

front look of the bike…

…and here’s the rear view.

so that’s pretty much sums up on the paint job. some of my friends asks “why red? its like the original color!”. my answer is hell yeah, I stick to red because I do not want to take risk on the end result coz some colors might look good, but its actually ugly when you apply it to the bike paint. So I’m playin safe here.

Apart of the paint job, there’s some changes and upgrades that I made to the bike. the most obvious one is I think the tyre and suspension. If you noticed, my bike look higher than it is before. thats because I changed the suspension to 650’s monoshock. It gives me more stability and durability while I ride my bike everyday to work and for my weekend ride.

The tyre changed to Battlax BT45 for rear:

Bridgestone Battlax BT45

Battlax BT45 is good for me because unlike other Battlax tyres, BT45 is actually made with dual compound; soft for the sides and hard on the center. So, it gives me balance between tyre durability and performance in corner. I’m more a into sports touring rater than sportsbiking so this tyre suits my needs.

And for the front tyre I’m using my fav, the Bridgestone Cyrox. Pure hard compund tyre on the front to give stability to the bike.

I didn’t touch anything on the engine, but I (we) did however dissemble the carb and retuned it. The reason for this is because the bike ’s tank was actually kaput (it was badly corroded) hence affected my whole carb. and the bike.  So we have to clean it up, otherwise the bike wont start. I would like to thank naza for giving me such a crappy tank that I have to change in 4 years.

There’s more changes, I wont go into details…. but the bike is not done yet. It’s only 80% done, there’s more changes to go especially on the exterior. This changes will gives my babe a new concept of my overall bike look. Stay tune for more, and I would like to thank my friends and family for supporting me especially during the time where I don’t have any ride and have to rely on public transport and friends and family  to take me here and there. Thanks guys!

The journey continues… on part II. Stay tuned!

Zam “painkiller” Hizami

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