Condo for Rent : Zen Residence Puchong

Location : Batu 14 Puchong
Unit: 19th floor
Size: 1411 sqft
Room : 3 + 1 utility / maid room
Toilet: 2
Furnish : Semi furnish, kitchen cabinet and 3 air-cond and lighting and iron grill, curtain grill and shower screen for both bathroom.
Parking Lot : 2 lot at level 4
Flooring : 2ft tile for the hall and laminated wood flooring for bedroom
View : Looking towards Puchong Bandar Puteri. Amazing view and lots of cooling breeze.

Suitable for couple with 2 children and a maid.

Rental : Asking for RM1800.
Contact: chew_et@hotmail.com or whatsapps : 012 232 8840 / 012 652 6655

Is cheaper to eat KFC

Recently Saudi Arabia banned export chicken to Qatar mainly they have shortage for their own people and also price hike. Bad news for Qatar as Qatar import about 90% of their food and pretty much this country depend on other country to sustain themselves.

A fresh cut of chicken about 8 drumstick used to cost about QR9 and now it cost about QR35 for chicken imported from other country. There are some place sell local Qatar chicken but stock are very limited and most of the time the shelf is empty the moment it is displayed.


I am still waiting for the price to drop as I need to buy chicken to make herbal chicken soup but I think is gonna take a while. Nothing survive in Qatar. My personal opinion, the billions of dollar Qatar spend on World Cup should use on agriculture and solar system and even electric car.

I am sure they will be very famous for being the first oil and gas country to run entirely on renewable energy!

Qatar National Day

Today is Qatar National Day. It the day to commemoration of Qatar unification at 1878 and is celebrated December 18 every year since 2007. Qatar gained their independence on September 3rd 1971 but the Emir of Qatar decide to declare 18 December as a National Day and a public holiday.

As usual I will stay at home and watch the event on TV rather than getting into the heavy crowd and heavy jam although it would be nice.. I would just wait till evening and go out to watch the fireworks.

Qatar Sand Dune

Last weekend, I finally gather enough people to go for a safari trip after being at Qatar for over a year. Mainly hard to find my friends to go with is because many of them fear death. There has been a lot of death in desert safari especially among young Qatari. Somehow tour desert safari are much safer than the stunt done by those young Qatari. Many young Qatari race their Land Cruiser in the desert the moment they obtain their driving license but tour desert safari are driven by professional.

Well I would recommend anyone who are in any desert to go for sand dune bashing. Is trilling, is scary and most of the time is fun.........  We took the trip from a local tour QIA. It cost us about QR 250/pax after very hard negotiation.. The driver name is Salem, he is independent driver who work part time for QIA where is day job he is an accountant.. :P and he speak good English.

We speed off from our pick up point about 140 km/h towards sealine and there is where he deflate the tire to get better grip on the sand. From there the sand dune bashing start and it is about 30 minutes... we took a few deep plunge.... and is crazy... everyone laugh when we are back on the ground.. maybe because the car didn't flip over .. :P

Part of the package is they will stop at the beach close Saudi Arabia  and have lunch.. The lunch was so so which I could had at any Arabic shop in Doha. Well to summarize all here are some of the pic I took.

Pork cube

Being at Malaysia for such a long time and all this while I thought Malaysia is lenient on haram food such as pork but never in mind that I thought I would found this in Qatar.....

The song speaks it all

Sekeping Serendah

Sekeping Serendah is a private land in a forest where they have several chalet for rent. It is just outskirt of Rawang town and it is not deep inside into the forest. It is pretty cool if you want to get away from the city for couple of days as it is not far from KL.

Everything is really nature... you really enjoy peace and quiet (some) as there is no TV, no AC and not even cell phone signal. There isn't a reception to greet you.. everything is manual.

Makan Makan Malaysia - USJ Murni

Those who have been a patron of Murni SS2 mamak can visit their branch as USJ Taipan. I know many of you have know about it as they have open the branch for quite some time ago but I only been there like 2 weeks ago... Anyway, as always I order my favorite mee raja but sadly the one at SS2 taste a lot better. At the same time I also order the spaghetti meatballs and it is fabulous.

It is a good place for me as it is much nearer to my home and there are more parking over there. Hope to go there again when I am at Malaysia again.

You hate your job?

Update Jelly Bean on S3

Successfully update my S3 to Jelly Bean today after several attempt due to KIES keep prompting error message that the phone is low in battery. I thought it is an error because the phone was plug into the PC via USB. In the end I waited for the battery to be charged up to 85% and try to update again and it works this time...

S3

After such a long consideration I finally got myself a new phone 3 weeks ago and mainly it is because my current phone is given up on me as some of the button no longer work. I have been using for 3 weeks now and so far it is pretty stable and being a smartphone it help me to organize my stuff better such as calendar and reminder.

Battery wise, I would say it is still not as good as what it claimed. Heavy usage of WIFI will drink the juice of the battery fairly quickly. Well nothing much to say but I am enjoying it.... :P

The real SALE

When I first arrive at Qatar during summer, I saw sales everywhere at the shopping mall and I thought it is the same for this year but I was wrong as actual thing are really cheap during a second sales happening between Hari Raya and Hari Haji.

I went to a watch shop today and found they slash 50% of branded watches. Some are cost around QR300 and I was tempting to buy but I didn't as my current one is still good. No point having plenty of watch when I only use one most of the time.

what is cheap in Qatar

Well you find hard that this post ever rise up for any blogger stay in Qatar as pretty much everything is expensive here except car and petrol and water and electricity bills because there are no tax on automotive import and government subsidize for the latter.

Food and accommodation remain the most expensive item as Qatar import 90% of food and most raw material for construction and also because most building are owned by Qatari so the rental are controlled by them.

Nonetheless, there are thing that I know it is really cheap compare to Malaysia which is personal hygiene products such as toothpaste, toothbrush, facial wash / cream, tooth floss, shampoo and etc etc. I not sure why, maybe because it is tax free and also due to Qatar currency is weaker than Malaysia. You be surprise to find thing made in Malaysia but it selling cheaper in Qatar than Malaysia....

Apart from this, I notice Qatar retail shop carry brand which I can't find in Malaysia for pretty much anything such as fast food chain, watches, grocery products and many more... So it kinda nice if you like to try other brand. Currently I am using a toothpaste called Signal and found it good as reduce my tooth sensitivity better then Sendodyne and it cost me QR10 for 2 tube of toothpaste and  abottle of Lifebuoy hand wash.. Dirt cheap right?

Edit
 Oh ya...... Subway is cheap too and is even cheaper when they have promo.. is about RM8 for 6inche

Patience is virtue

Recently when I move in with my new housemate we chat a lot on guys talks but mostly about work and economy and it seems many are getting more tired working at Qatar. Tired of the work and tired of the life and of course the people.

Is pretty unstable in terms of having the feeling being secured. We also worry and taking precaution of the neighboring country such as Syria and Iran. If there is a war there could be a lock down and everything is freeze such as our bank account, that is why everyone transfer their monthly salary back to their home country immediately when the pay check arrived. Sadly for Malaysian like me the currency is getting weaker. Each transfer back home we need to incurred 20% lost!  :(

It seems next year economy would be much improve as Europe and US economy won't be recover by then and it is in a very slow pace and China and India economy are slowing down as well. Somehow Australia seems to be a better choice as they are able to sustain themselves and their economy are pretty strong. A simple comparison of the currency with US currency will say it all.

I have friend decided by hook or by crook they will go back next year when their contract end as they have enough with the boring life and dumb work. Well, I wanted to go home too but still haven't found a job and I need to be financially stable in order to help my parents and my younger brother financially. So it is a lot of decision to make but just hope my prayers are answered.

I will keep looking for job and at the same time just have to be patience.......

Makan Makan in Qatar - Ponderosa

I have a super heavy lunch today which allow me to skip dinner and next day breakfast at Ponderosa Steakhouse. I didn't have the grill and stuff and opt for the buffet lunch instead. It cost QR49 and was pretty OK..

Vaccine Done

Just a reminder that I got my final shot vaccine for Twinrix.  All 3 shot were done by QP clinic and is FOC

Makan Makan in Qatar - Thai Corner

Found a Thai restaurant today inside a parking lot of a mall called The Center. Guess the restaurant is also at the center of the parking lot. I had a glass noodles spicy salad and it is really spicy. I would say it is good and authentic as it is run by Thais.

Air Cond leaking

Both my room and my housemate room AC leak couple of days back and today the maintenance guy came to fix the issue. Was kinda surprise how the clear the pipe that has been clogged up that cause the leak. He simply insert a rubber hose into the AC (not exactly sure where but I assume the pipe for the condense water) and the other end of the hose is tied to a AC gas cylinder. The moment he turn on the valve, the pressurized gas simply push all the dirt that is inside the pipe and yay it is clear and no more leaking.

Dubai Trip

learn a new word

Few days back I have a chat with my lovely cousin which I had never spoke more than 100 words in our life time and somehow after I added her in Facebook we chat a lot. Surprise and happy at the same time as I always wanted to get close to my cousin as I don't want to end up like my parents generation where cousin and siblings are not close.

So we chat and chat and she used a word that I do not understand. At first I thought it was a typo error and I leave it for days until when I wanted to clear my chat history I stumble upon that word and do a search on Google and found out it is actually a word / slang used by people to curse someone. that word actually means FUCKing but instead of using FUCKING,  effing is used. which is cool. I didn't know about it.

Another phrase I stumble into is I long for you... for sometime I was thinking what that means....Thanks to Google, this phrase means I want you, I miss you, it is used when someone want sex from you... :)

Makan Makan in Qatar - Red Lobster

Lobster Pizza

Seafood Pasta

Moving to new crib

Yesterday I have moved to my new rented apartment of 3 bedrooms. This place was previous occupied by a government employee Qatar Foundation and they moved out last July. During that time I was actually looking for a new place but somehow this apartment never cross my mind even it is just located beside where I was staying previously. But lucky enough the rental drop which I am not sure why so I save 1000 bucks a month more. Current price is 8500 per month with Internet , water and electricity I have to pay myself which I think is cheap as it is subsidized by the government and I think is only 0.08 per unit?

Currently I am sharing this apartment with 2 other Malaysian which is also QP employee. One is around his 50s and has worked at QP for over 10 years so it is good as he got good exposure and able to advise if I need and he also an IT guy working in server department. The other guy is in late 30s from Sarawak and working in the contract department. This guy is pretty funny and give good advise on property and stock investment.

So far so good, I thought I won't able to sleep yesterday because of new bed so and so... but somehow I slept through the night and almost late for work this morning. I like this place, parking is good, the apartment is spacious and so far it is most occupied by a westerners.