When my Sister upgraded to become my Guardian Angel...

I will never forget the night of 16 September 2016. It was the last night where my Sister looked at us with opened eyes, trying to talk to us albeit having difficulty to speak and make a proper sentence. Never did I suspect that, it was really the last I would look at her eyes, and the last I would hear her voice. 

Past midnight to 17 September 2016, she fainted and was rushed to the Emergency ward. She was still alive; but in a very not good condition according to the doctor on duty. The naive me started to plan to cancel the Australia trip and instead to spend the time to take care of her during her recovery; refusing to accept that she was in a life or death situation.

She was transferred to ICU in the afternoon. And still in coma. I was shaking during the whole period. Keep asking myself, what was happening? One day before, Sis was still talking to me, very much awake, telling me not to worry and go ahead with the luncheon which we had initially planned to go together. And now, she was lying on the hospital bed, with all the machines supporting her. And we had no idea at all what was happening. Doctors suspected she having SLE. Gosh what is SLE? But this could only be confirmed after performing the lumbar puncture procedure, but there's a problem...Sis was very weak and the platelet count was very low, thus the procedure could not be done, until she is slightly better.

Applying Australian Electronic Travel Authority for Tourism Activities

Visiting Australia has always been a hassle-free, at least for the travel visa application lol.... Many years ago, when I visited Perth with my sister, we applied the travel visa via online and I was thinking, this got to be the most convenient government services that I ever encountered. Think about saving the hassle to visit the Embassy, not to mention the terrifying KL traffic and parking woes!!

Image credit: https://www.gapyear.com/articles/215790/the-ultimate-3-week-australia-itinerary

As I am visiting Australia again soon in coming October, again I visited the Australian Immigration website to apply for the travel visa, which is actually called "Electronic Travel Authority (ETA)".

This is the website for the online application: https://www.eta.immi.gov.au/ETAS3/etas

​What is an ETA?

An Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) provides authorisation to travel to and enter Australia and is electronically linked to your passport.

It is for short term stays for tourism or business visitor activities.

Business visitor activities do not include work. If you want to do short-term, highly specialised, non-​ongoing work in Australia, you can apply for a Temporary Work (Short Stay Activity) visa (Subclass 400).

Get the best out of Pos Malaysia Postal Solutions for Parcels

Update @13 Nov 2016:

Pos Malaysia and Pos Laju has increased the price for FlexiPack and Pos Laju services...as I do not have time to update the post yet, please do refer to their websites for latest pricing...thanks :)

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Update @8 March 2017:

Did a random internet search on Flexipack and stumbled upon a blogpost, in Bahasa Melayu, directly translated from my this post. With no notification to me, with no credit whatsoever.
As a seasoned blogger with integrity, I always ensure my blogpost is original and produced by myself; my writings, my ideas, my opinions, my thoughts etc. If I had to borrow other's information, I will give all credit duly to the material owner.
Please support to stop plagiarism.

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While many people complaining about the service of Pos Malaysia every now and then, I have been a satisfied customer of the parcel delivery services offered by Pos Malaysia. Since 2014 when I started to sell my unused and unwanted stuff online at dirt cheap prices, Pos Malaysia has been my trust-able delivery partner. (▰˘◡˘▰)

Being an avid user of the Pos Malaysia parcel delivery services, I have also came to being familiar with most of its postal solutions. It's an advantage to be knowledgeable because then you can make the right decision on which postal solutions that best suit your needs. Almost all the time I went to post office, there would be at least two or three persons inquiring about parcel delivery and would get confused due to the various options available.

image credit: http://www.themalaysianmirror.com/pos-malaysias-revenue-rises-15-per-cent-to-rm1-7-billion-in-fy16/

But you don't have to be the confused person. I'm going to share here the comparison between some of the postal solutions for parcels that I commonly used, and my personal reviews and experiences of using them. (◑‿◐)



Pos Laju

Pos Laju is the national courier that offers affordable price in courier services. You can either pack the items yourself and pay according to the weight and destination, or you can also opt for the Prepaid Envelopes (or Boxes, if you have bigger or heavier items), or referred to as 'Prabayar'.

Party with Bananas from various countries...

When you traveled to a new place or country, one thing you cannot forgo is the food and special local delicacies. For the past almost one year, I have traveled to few countries, and one thing I couldn't help but noticed is, the similarity of how banana is being 'popular' haha...or maybe just banana flavour (─‿‿─)

Seoul, South Korea

Visiting Korea? Then you mustn't, mustn't miss the famous Binggrae Banana Milk o(^∀^*)o This milk quickly become my favourite drinks during my trip there that I had it almost every morning!!! Easily available at any supermarket or convenience store...

Dear Malaysians....you do not need a Visa to enter Japan!!!

Fuji-san and Kawaguchi-ko

Slightly more than a month earlier: "Honey, let's go to Japan..."

Japan has always been my dream destination, so finally!!!!!! I was so happy I wanna cry o(^∀^*)o

As the flight booked was just about a week away, I was busy searching for hotels, planning itineraries, packing the luggage; completely forgotten about the travel documents!!

Not till the last few days before the flight, I suddenly thought of travel VISA....omg do we need Visa to enter Japan??? With less than a week away, even if we were to apply then, the approval and issuance could take some time!!

So I asked a few friends who have traveled to Japan recently...and what they told me was, "if your passport cover is hard-plastic sealed AND has the 'chip' logo on front cover then no need Visa..."

Which was god damn it the new Malaysian passport issued since 2 years ago I think...hb has no problem then coz he just renewed his passport, but what about me?? My passport was issued in January 2013, has the 'chip' logo BUT has no plastic seal whatsoever (￣□￣)  (I learnt later that the logo is actually the 'ICAO' logo lol)