Thai Food Treat at Chok Dee

Our friendly training buddies from Rambo Gym, Michael and Tong, gave me and Felix a dinner treat at Chok Dee Thai Restaurant last night, seeing it's our last week in Batu Pahat. Speak about hospitality!

Tom yam soup with seafood

The food was great! We ordered a variety of dishes, which I wished I had snapped some pictures of. They look good and tasted good. The company was awesome, too, the friendly Batu Pahat folks!

Roasted pork!

I dedicate the photo of the roasted pork above specially to my friend, Hady. He likes pork and sometimes acts a bit porky, but his religious commitment makes him refraining from indulging in pork. That's just too bad coz the roasted pork was really nice, tender, lean, succulent... and comes with a special dipping sauce!

Dipping sauce for roasted pork

Not only did they foot the bill, Michael also served us the soup and made sure we tried all the dishes on the table by getting the dishes on our plates, before his children's. That's top notch hospitality!

L-R: Tong, Michael's son, yours truly, Michael's daughter, Michael's wifey, Michael, Michael's eldest son Felix

Tong then drove us around town after dinner, showing us his house, Michael's house, Chua Soi Lek's house, some mafia's house, golf clubs, churches, bungalows, and then headed towards the outskirts of the town to Senggarang. He nearly drove us all the way to Rengit. He blabbered non-stop in the car. We had a 2-hour sight-seeing in the dark, as Felix aptly puts it.

This is one helluva experience I'm sure I wouldn't get if we were to be posted anywhere in KL, or any part of the country for that matter.

Community Project

Spent the past weekend at Kampung Parit Sulong, Batu Pahat as part of our final semester Community Project. We were to conquer a religious school and turn it into a health screening base for the village folks - for free! And yet only 100 odd people turned up. Well maybe next time we'll have to invade each and every kampung houses, just to be holistic.

Sekolah Agama Seri Maimon @ Parit Sulong

The project consisted of stations that measure blood sugar, blood cholesterol, blood pressure, body mass index, visual test, dental check-up, prostate and breast examination, and Pap smear. For the kids, there were de-worming pills too. There were also health talks on dengue, breast and cervical cancer, etc. I was in charge of the health exhibition on diabetes mellitus.

Clowning around, getting my blood pressure checked before the health screening starts

My job was rather simple, those who were found to have deranged blood sugar levels would be sent to the exhibition site so that I would repeat myself again and again on "banyakkan exercise tiga sampai lima kali seminggu, 20 hingga 30 minit setiap kali, dan kurangkan gula, garam, lemak, banyakkan makanan berserat tinggi seperti sayur-sayuran dan buah-buahan, supaya gula dalam darah terkawal dan tidak mendapat kesan-kesan buruk seperti angin ahmar, serangan sakit jantung, rosak buah pinggang, buta, kaki kena potong... ... ..."

This is how the station I'm in-charge with looks like...

After the screening program, there was this Projek Keluarga Angkat (Foster Family Project) whereby we were put into groups of threes and assigned to a house to spend the night with total strangers. IMU wants us to taste the kampung life...

My keluarga angkat

We were then brought to our rumah angkat (which is huge), dump our stuffs into our bedrooms and headed out to the school hall again for the Indoor Games with the villagers.

Three-legged race

After the games, we went back to our foster family. Had a nice cold shower, and clowned around the house, checking out every nook and corner while waiting for our bapak and emak angkat to finish their prayers.

My bed for the night... having it all by myself! Hahahaha...

Me and my ibu angkat

Us on the dining table with ikan masak asam pedas, prawns with curry and garlic, and veggies.

Me and the gossip queen, Missy Shahira.

Then there was the Malam Budaya after dinner. Will try to get some photos and post them up here soon. The next day was gotong-royong day. We were assigned to groups responsible to paint the balai raya, plant 100 banana trees, and cleaning up the school hall.

Tanam pokok pisang.

Cleaning up school hall.

Scraping and painting the balai raya.

Lastly, it was the closing ceremony. I was assigned to hand over a souvenir in the form of a framed photo of the three of us with our foster family on stage.


And here are some group photos...

Kuey Chap

I was hunting for food after my gym workout last Wednesday. There wasn't much choice around Rambo Gym, as the Swee Bee Chicken Rice Shop was closed. As I was rushing for my bus journey back to KL, I ended up ordering a bowl of kuey chap from Restoran Soon Lai, which is directly below Rambo Gym.

Kuey chap is a Teochew dish of flat, broad rice sheets in a soup made with dark soy sauce, served with pig offal, braised duck meat, various kinds of beancurd, preserved salted vegetables, and braised hard-boiled eggs. I opted for beancurd and two braised hard-boiled eggs. They came up to a total of RM3.50, if memory serves me right. They are nothing to shout about, MSG-laden, but a cheap and good source of quick-food!

Rambo Gym

What does a gym rat does when he moves to a new place? Look for a new gym lor... And Batu Pahat doesn't disappoint! In the middle of the town where pre-war buildings are scattered among dizzifying and seemingly erratic one-way streets, one of them houses the Rambo Gym!

This gym was recommended by one of my recently graduated seniors, who was a hardcore gym rat himself. I joined this gym in September, as soon as I moved over to Batu Pahat. Back then my body was totally out of shape (think inverted "V"). Two months down the line, my body is... not much difference lar (LOL! modesty... modesty...).

Rambo Gym is the old-school type of gym, no fuss, just heaps of free-weights and muscular Ah Peks (and Ah Bengs) with minimal weight-machines. The guys are friendly too, as with all Batu Pahat inhabitants.

The gym members here are really friendly. I've got to know two of the veteran bodybuilders quite well, and received quite a few invaluable pointers from them too! One even offered me his RM10,000 mountain bike so that I can join his gang for mountain-biking! Speak about hospitality!

Rambo Gym used to be the head office of Persatuan Bina Badan Batu Pahat (Batu Pahat Body Building Association), which is currently a defunct association coz no one pays the association fees (according to the gym keeper Mr. Soh).

Working out here is a great experience, with it's conducive environment and the friendly regular muscular kakis. It's affordable too! Registration fee for first timers is RM30, and the rate for students are RM40 per month, while adults pay RM60 per month. I'm paying the student rate, of course. This is definitely better than the UAV Gym and Family Gym, the two gyms I used to frequent when I was in Seremban.

It is worthy to note that the recently crowned Mr. Universe, Mr. Sazali, used to train in Rambo Gym too! He was in the gym during the Raya break, but unfortunately I missed the opportunity to cam-whore with him as I was back home in KL.

Finally, a short message from the Rambo Gym's janitor:

Operating hours:
Mondays to Saturdays, 2.00pm to 10.00pm (Closed on public holidays).

Address:
Will update soon!