MySelangor Story| Day 1 - Shah Alam

Woots!!! It’s 2.40am right now as I type the post on Microsoft WORD.

What? Word? Why? Well, basically it’s because my lappie has gone berserk and refused to detect the broadband modem provided by P1. Yes. It’s my lappie’s fault and I have no idea why

Anyways, the main highlight of this post is not about my lappie, it’s about Day 1 of My Selangor Story!

The journey began upon departure from my humble abode in Klang, passing the federal highway and an important tourist attraction which I will mention later in this post.

At about 2.30pm, I arrived at Skypark Terminal Subang where I coincidentally bumped into Feeq at the entrance.

It was my first time at the Subang Airport, which was once the main airport for the state prior to the opening of KLIA. To my surprise, the Skypark Terminal was really nice and modern, as opposed to my thoughts of an old abandoned terminal. Lol.

Skypark Terminal was selected as the meet-up point as bloggers from outside Selangor, namely Penang, Singapore and Indonesia, were flew in by Firefly, the official airline for the MySelangor Story! I’m from Klang, so there’s no free flight for me *sobs*

I heard later on that those bloggers who were flown in from Penang got VIP treatment *jealous betul* But nonetheless, Firefly treated the bloggers to tea and light snacks at Kapitan Kopitiam in the terminal (Groud Floor, Unit 17, Telephone: 03- 79571975)

What followed was a introductory speech by Mr Raja Sa'adi, the Head of PR and Marketing for Firefly.

Firefly was also very generous and provided each participant with a bright orange football jersey!! Me likey!! Plus, we got to meet the HOT Firefly cabin crew and even got to snap pictures with them :)

That's myself and my sweet buddy for this trip, as arranged by the organizers, Denise :)

After all that, we adjourned to our hotel: Carlton Holiday in Shah Alam.

On board the bus, we were given out our name tags!

Pretty ain't it? The design was done by one of the bloggers who's also a great freelance graphic designer, Dania!

*Arrival at Carlton Holiday*

The hotel is right next to the Shah Alam Aquatic Center and is a really basic hotel.

Breakfast wasn't entirely fantastic, and there can be much more to be done to improve the hotel. E.g. cleanliness-wise, many of the bloggers spotted tiny-wheeny cockroaches in their rooms, and even a few crawling around the plates on the breakfast buffet table *yikes* Thankfully no one complained of food-poisoning after breakfast!

And one more thing, note that the door key is a KEY instead of the usual smart cards for hotels? That probably tells you how basic the place is :P

Back at hotel, we had a short break before being gathered, again. (This trip is somehow filled with little “meetings” or “gatherings” every now and then; kinda makes me feel like a kid going on a school trip all over again. Lol).

This time around, a more formal introduction on the crew from Tourism Selangor was made.

Not only that, we were once again given a little something.

Ta-daa, the “present” came in a white envelope.

Guess what’s inside?

*jeng jeng jeng*

*****

***

*

It’s a Pentax Optio WS80 Camera! And it’s in white *cantik kan?* It features include:

- 10mp, 5x Optical Zoom, Records movie in HD, and best of all, it’s waterproof! That means I can bring this baby to the Kanching Waterfall tomorrow (25/09/10) and even to Sunway Lagoon this coming Monday (27/09/10)!! *woots*

p.s: unfortunately this camera isn’t for keeping. It’s only LOANED to us, bloggers. NOT given lah. But anyways, thanks PENTAX (Official Camera) for loaning us the camera :)

A panorama scene in the hall whereby we gathered in the hotel *taken using the stitch mode on the Pentax WS80*

Next, the bus-load of bloggers headed to i-city.

There the CEO of i-city, Mr Eu, gave us a short talk explaining about i-city and it’s visions.

To be really honest, this is my first time being to i-city despite passing it every single time I use the federal highway, which I learned from our tour guide: kak Ning, is the oldest highway in Malaysia! *wow*

I have always wanted to visit i-city ever since I got home from Scotland, but I got mixed reviews from my friends. Some said it’s really pretty, some says it’s a just a big place with fancy deco and is a total waste of energy.

*ekk...is it really a waste of money???*

But after the talk by Mr Eu, I learned that the current i-city that we see right now is not the whole of i-city i.e it’s an ongoing project which is aimed to be completed by 2015. All right, this may get a little boring to some, but I really do want the public to see i-city from my point of view, which is the fact that i-city is more than meets the eye.

It’s a Rm2.0 billion ICT-based commercial development which aims to be the world’s top business location with world class technology by 2015. Impressive eh? What I find even more impressive is this quote by William, the chief technology officer for i-city:

“By 2015, many will say that i-city is the silicon valley of the east. But the truth is, Silicon Valley will be the i-city of the West.”

Very very impressive. But how much truth does this carry? I don’t know but time will tell :)

(If you don’t know what the heck is Silicon Valley, go google it :P)

An artist illustration of how i-city would look like once its completed. *Fancy, eh!* Pictures taken from Property Malaysia.

The part that I like most about the whole i-city concept, is that the whole city has its very OWN fibre-optic network called One Network. It boasts the capability of transmitting up to one GIGABIT per second. How fast is that? I dunno la, but it’s wayyy faster than what I get from Streamyx at home. Lol. Plus, the whole city has FREE wifi. Yes, you read right. It’s FREE and it’s FAST!

So basically the who concept of i-city is an ideal cosmopolitan city whereby a knowledge-based community can exist in a campus work environment. Campus work environment, is something that is really cool as I think it offers a break from the conventional working lifestyle of bumming in the office. Thus in i-city’s planning, 40% out of the 72-acre of land is dedicated for landscape, parks and leisure activities. *sweet*

Okay, I think this gives enough idea as too how canggih the whole concept of i-city is :)

So now, back to fancy pictures of the city of digital lights.

The fastest growing tourist attraction in Selangor. Now, although i-city currently charges vehicles for parking, it should be noted that each vehicle parked will be given a voucher of equal value in return. And this voucher can later on be used to redeem items e.g. entry tickets(Rm2) to two really interesting parks:

1. Petting Zoo

and

2.Cold Room.

Once we listened to the talk by Mr Eu, the bloggers were treated to seafood steamboat by Tasty Boat Restaurant, VIP style! Yes, we were given 5 tables right in the middle, surrounded by the beautiful lights! *hohoho*

Well, as you know, I love eating, and once I ate the chicken wings by Tasty Boat Restaurant, I knew immediately why the restaurant got recognized by HoChiak! The chicken was so yummy that I had 4 pieces! And that’s before eating the seafood in the steamboat pot! Lol.

Yes, lights are extremely mesmerizing!

Kak Ning, our tour guide, and myself posing around :P

All in all, i-city is not only a great place for a family outing at night, but it's also a great place for business owners to set up their companies. And hopefully we'll all get to see a better i-city which will outshine Silicon Valley *evil laugh*

Details of i-city for those outside Selangor :)

Location:

D-1-1, Jalan Multimedia 7/AJ, CityPark, i-City

Shah Alam, Malaysia, 40000

Phone:

603-5521 8800

For more details, join i-city on facebook!! *JOIN*

Then at around 11pm, we made our way to Uptown Shah Alam.

Never heard of it? No worries, neither did I prior to the competition. Haha.

Uptwon Shah Alam is a night bazaar in Seksyen 24 of Shah Alam City itself, which operates from 8pm till 3am! It’s kinda like a mini-petaling street, minus the heavy crowd which makes you feel like being stuck in a sardine can. The selection of items for sale range from :

clothes,

to

sunglasses to

cute balloons

to

fancy props for Halloween & magic itemsto

this!!

*Boxers with cute animation on them! Spot Paul! Lol.

So to bargain hunters who are also night owls, you could try your luck at Uptown Shah Alam.

Location:

Kompleks Muhibbah,Persiara Sultan,Sesyen 24

Shah Alam, Malaysia, 40300

Phone:

03-55104926

Mon - Sat:

7:00 pm - 3:00 am

Sun:

7:00 am - 3:00 pm

Alternatively you can visit their website[here] and join their facebook page [here].
Btw, the ppl in Uptown Shah Alam posted an album on our visit on facebook! You can view it here :) [LOL...Our "mummy" Amelia sang a song on stage that night and told us NOT to put it in the blog, but I guess it's a little too late. Pictures of her singing are in the album, plus there's a video of her on YouTube. (But I shall not put the link here for fear that she'll cut me into pieces >.<)

Okay, so that’s about it for day 1! Stay tuned for day 2!

By the way, Voting for the contest has BEGUN!!!

Please please vote for me HERE. Gimme a 5 star okay? ^^

Xoxo,

Wen Yi