25/04/2008

PUMM 2nd Committee meeting + Dinner with Tan Sri Ko.

I don’t know how much did the dinner cost but the food really looked fantastic to me as i had dinner in TheView EQ and it doesn’t look as good as the dinner we had that night.

Basically we have a change in roadshow chairman which is Mr JK Ong and vice chairman Mr Tay Lay Seong. I am merge with the business development beareau to help facilitate most of the activities.

basically we have confirmed the roadshow day as below :

Saturday, 26-July-08, 2pm – 7pm, Gurney Hotel

Saturday, 27-Sept-08, 2pm – 7pm, Gurney Hotel

Sunday, 30-Nov-08, Gurney Hotel, 1pm-6pm Seminar & 7pm-11pm Dinner (due to unavailability of venue on all Saturdays in November & December)

This year we are aiming high for the successful national speakers to come, they include:

1. Tony Fernandez from Airasia 2. Tan Sri Lee Kim Yew from country highs 3. Secret Recipe 4. Padini 5. Tan Sri Lim Kok Thai  and other big names as well as 1 seminar just for women entrepreneurs.

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As always, starting a business was never easy. If you were me, what would you do to start a tour agency?

At the very beginning, I started to ask help from friends and family which link me up to 1 having a resort in Redang. In actual fact she has 2 but another is partnership and she’s a minority shareholder. So what to do next? Well, simple for me it’s just asking my new partner which is ‘Madam Gan’ whether we can form partnership. In the end, we started from callin, faxing and getting to know some of the things required to startup. Also i also visited some other travel agent and learnt how they deal with customer, give quotation, invoice, logistic voucher and take payment.

By chance, i have been on holiday and found that it was difficult to search for holiday information and try to know more about Redang online. Then finally i found 1 website which got the information and emailed them but there was no reply. Finally after looking through the traditional tour agent that provided with me with even less information. I went back to this online agent which they got the neat and direct package with no hidden fee and booked my 1st online tour package with lots of worry. Why worry is because the tour agent didn’t reply my email at the end when i called they finally entertained me. I started asking question but they responded in a very impolite manner. In the end, i finally made the booking and paid them. 1 of the reason that i was worried because they were an ‘enterprise’ and the account that they gave me was to another person’s name which i don’t really know whether it’s link to the enterprise. If i were to go to redang and found that i was cheated, it would have wasted my effort, money and maybe made my girlfriend very very angry. Well, it’s just common sense that you should pay to a ‘Sdn Bhd’ so you can sue them if they didn’t deliver. Enterprise can be fake. Also giving money to people’s account was crazy. Finally i had no choice but to pay luckily in the end after calling the agent a lot of time it gave me confidence to go.The holiday was fantastic.

After coming back from Heaven which i really though it was. The sky which look really unreal and the clear crystal water.

Well, you have to go there to see it!

The best part was the summer bar which sang all the songs that i love. Oldies to latest song and the singers with great!I had one of the best time of my life and came back satisfied and wanting to share with others! But with the experience i had with the ‘online agent’ i was totally out introducing to other friends.Well, i suddenly thought to myself, why not i start my own online website tour agent and introduce my friends myself. I can get a commission from it and also really share great experience out. So this was the birth of www.moonriverholiday.com.

If you ask me why moonriver? Em…. i wanted something people can remember easily and something that can put a theme song into the website so in the end ‘moonriver’ holiday was created.But after i check wikipedia on ‘moon river’ only i know that it was out of coincidence that i created an interesting name, why is because “Moon River” is a song which won Academy Award for Best Original Song for the Breakfast at Tiffany which the movie was more about life, romance and finding true love. Well, you can just go to search for more info about it.

At the very beginning, i didn’t know where to start, but i was a terengganu boy. And redang was under state terengganu, so i called up my aunt and asked her whether we got any relative or friends who owns a resort on Redang. I was really lucky, Madam Gan was introduce and i started calling her to get some tips on how to create partnership.

From day 1 testing until implementing the website and 1st order until today. It has been a interesting journey. Not just that i have created a new business model automating part of the traditional tour industry but also created revenue out of my expectations. But from day 1 i have always kept my word of really sharing the experience and advise to customer who comes in as friends as i was once like them.

Day 1 - Tuesday - Sunny

18-09-07 morning

A day before today, I have arrived in KL and stayed over at YGL staff office together with their COO Mr Yeap Kong Tai and Marketing Manager Humphrey Ho. As our flight to Vietnam is 6:15am, we had to wake up at around 2am, take 2 taxi to KL Sentral then travel to airport via direct bus. When we reach there, it was around 4am. It took us around 2 and half hours to reach Hanoi from KL. I even saw the 1^st sight of sun coming out from the end of the sky slowly moving up the sea like cloud.

Well, first thing after we check in was to head out for brench (breakfast + lunch). And ‘PH24’ was the choice as it was nearby our hotel and the exhibition hall. We stayed over at ‘Hanoi Hotel’ which was in the center of the town and beside the main exhibition hall which is within walking distance of around 5 minutes.

So after looking at the hall, walking around, we just waited for Anna and Sam who took MAS to arrive. Again we check on the booth which required some adjustment as it wasn’t what we expect it to be. In the end, everything worked out as it always is. And after some rest, the gang went out for dinner with recommendation from the hotel manager which is called Quan An Ngan.

Day 2 - Wednesday - Sunny morning, hot afternoon and rained evening

2^nd day was all about setting up the booth and preparing for the expo. We even got a interpreter who is Miss Xiao Ling who is a china oversea student to help us which was a must in Vietnam where most Vietnamese don’t speak English. After the preparation, I started exploring the nearby neighborhood and went for a jog the next morning before the expo.

After setting up the booth, we prepared for the expo to start and lunch was ordered to the booth.

As for dinner, it was already pre arranged by the exhibition organizer at another hotel.

This funny incident happened on the 3^rd day where one of the visitor brought a kid and came to our booth, so he pointed to our laptop and keep on asking us question which was in ‘Vietnamese’ so we called in our interpreter. In the end, the father was asking how much is our laptop and how good was it. He was thinking of buying to his son. So in the end we gave the boy a pen.

So what have I found our about Vietnam after 7 days there?

With the help of some Vietnamese friends as well as the hotel manager, hotel waitress, the shop keeper for souvenir shop and the casher at the bread shop outside the hotel I gathered down the below info, it might differentiate a bit as I think Vietnam is growing very fast by the second.

1. The average per annum income is USD800 per person.
2. The waitress in the hotel earns USD150 per month, their manager earns USD 350 per month, the shop keeper at the souvenir shop who work 6 hours per shift get USD80 per month and the sales girl the bread shop earn USD 90 per month.
3. During the fair, I started asking about the income of engineers and managers as well which gives us the below value :

Engineer USD350-600 monthly

Manager who works for multi national companies is USD600-800 montly.

4. Out of 100 adults (age 20-50) 95 has a mobile,
5. Out of 100 adults (age 20-50) 30 knows how to go online, most of the younger age group of 20-30 would be 60 knows how to online.
6. Out of 1000 family, 35 has desktop computers, 10 has a laptop and 1 has a digital camera.

Why is there such a low rate in having computers yet high rate in knowledge to get online is because

1. The cheap rate of cyber café having around.
2. The per average income is too low to afford a computer as well as laptop no to mention digital camera
3. Because the bank system is still not well structured, out of 1000 less than 10 people has credit card so it’s impossible to do installment to buy computer not to mention digital cameras.

So what conclusion we have about the trip?

Most of the visitor that came actually ask how much is this laptop rather than what does your software do. So I feel that well, computer maybe the next big business here since Dell is not here yet. Also we paid visits to

This is my first blog using wordpress, since wordpress already created a Hello world! I might as well use it to say Hello to the world and you who is reading through my blog now! Cheers!

Today i went to a grant seminar organize by Invest Penang (www.investpenang.gov.my) which included MDec and Mosti grants available. To summarize and benefit readers who are in the software or technology industry, I am sharing all information to you guys through my blog.

I am lost in this world where I couldn’t find my way out.

7^th January 2008, one of the saddest day of my life. My grandma passed away! The news was broke off by my mum to me after I sent off my beloved girl friend Vinnce to work and ready to go to office. The phone rang when I was wearing my stockings which should be normally around 8:35am. I remember when my mum said out ‘ Tau Hoong, Ah Ma Si3 Liao3. Ah Ma Si3 Liao3.’ At that moment, I suddenly felt time has stopped, my mum repeated again and asked me whether I was listening as I couldn’t speak out. Finally I burst out my voice ‘ I am going to Mentakab Lancang now, I am going immediately!’ I just couldn’t stop myself that I would see my grandma right away, hoping that there is still a chance to say goodbye!

Finally my mum said ‘no need, if you come in a hurry and anything happen then your grandma would be even worrier, just ask your sister and brother whether they want to come along’. So I called up my younger sister and told her about it and then on my way to work, called up my brother and told him we were leaving at 11am but in the end 1pm.

When I called up Vinnce on the phone to tell her the news, I had already let my tears drop down my face for a few times which I couldn’t stop myself of doing so.

Everything went the same in office and I felt like I was like a machine without life just working my way through time.

This brought me back to the current situation I have that what were I doing? Were I just lived like a robot or machine working my life through time without feeling anything? What was I really doing?

Would I die tomorrow and what would happen? Am I really living through my life? What is the thing that I really want? What do I really want to do and love to do?

Love is a thing that has an attachment to it. No love is pure and it comes with something in return, the love of parents is pure but in return parents ask their children to fulfill what they couldn’t had done in life. They put their expectation on their children and that is love with price. Just like my mum who wants to be proud of her son, which she requested high expectation to her son. This go same to my dad, though their love for me is irreplaceable but yet that is still not the purest. The love we have for our soul mate goes the same. There is an expectation that you have to reach like appearance, outlook, quality of education, status of family, rich or poor and many more that led us ultimately to our partner which has a tag on it to be fulfilled. The purest love and not requesting anything back is from my grandma, what she requested was only to take care of ourselves and still take very good care of our life. She asked for nothing in return.

Grandma first touch me when I was born where I had a lot of thing grown on my head which was not just hair itself but funges. She would wash my head and wipe it with brandy to kill off the gems. That is when I first felt her love for me.

9 February 2008

Today is 2^nd day of Chinese new year. Was speeding back from Kuala terengganu side to grandma place again to have dinner with my cousins tonight. Because of speeding so was caught by police for speeding. Well, the best way to settle this in Malaysia is to take out a 50 buck note and the police would say thank you back. This saves me a lot of trouble and I continue to storm through the high way. On the way almost back to Mentakab, there was a group of motorist speeding at 140-150km/hour, which I caught up with them because I was running at 160km/hour. Then I horn them as they were blocking my way, 1 of the motorist started swinging his motor in front of me curling in front of me side by side of the road. And after that he was trying to race with me, that was when my blood start pumping and there is a feel of nervousness. It made me felt like over the cloud and finally I found my answer to my purpose of me being here in life. It was the need for speed over cars, work and life. What I lack was slowing myself from time to time hiding my capacity and potential from people.