Quill City Mall, Kuala Lumpur

Located along Jalan Sultan Ismail is a new mall called ‘Quill City Mall’ (http://www.quillcitymall.com.my/) which opened its doors in the month of October 2014.

It used to be an abandon project for about 10 years after former owner of the project Vision City (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd ran into difficulties during the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis (source: The Star)

It has 7 floors (Lower Ground (LG) to 6th floor), at the time of writing this only the LG till 3rd floor are open with various shops, eateries, and boutiques. The main anchor tenant is AEON (http://aeonretail.com.my/).

With Christmas is around the corner, the centre court of the mall is decorated with a Candy Theme. The weekend program from November till December (2014) includes dance performances, Christmas Carollers, and Santa Claus.

I was able to record the performance of the carollers on 30 November, and this group is from the Young Choral Academy (http://www.youngchoral.my/).

If you wish to see the live performance, the Young Choral Academy will be on every Sundays at 12:00pm, 2:00pm and 3:00pm (till Christmas day).

Santa Claus appearance are on the Saturdays and Sundays till Christmas day (25 December 2014). Shoppers were welcome to take photographs with Santa and Santa was also giving lovely treats to young children.

There are two sessions; ‘Meet & Greet’ where Santa is stationed at the centre court stage to meet the shoppers and their children for photo opportunities, and ‘Santa's Walkabout’ where Santa will be walking around the mall to spread joy and treats to all.

Getting There

Location: Same side of the road & just before University Kuala Lumpur, and directly opposite Sheraton Imperial Kuala Lumpur. Google Map location.
Monorail station: Medan Tuanku station (http://www.myrapid.com.my/rail%3Fcode%3DMRL#monorel)

A few Pros

• The location. If you’re not keen to drive there you have the option to take the monorail and stop at Medan Tuanku station. If you are working around the vicinity, there is an elevated & sheltered walkway / linked bridge that is connected to the mall.
• The walkways in the mall are large and there are sufficient benches for you to rest your feet when you are tired.
• There are ample car parks. 3 floors of them (P1, P2, P3) and designated areas for women drivers.

A few Cons

• The location, if you are driving to the mall. There is a possibility you will overshoot and pass the mall’s entrance ramp because the Medan Tuanku monorail station blocks its view. There is insufficient signatures before the monorail station stating that the mall’s main entrance & driveway is coming up.
• The Parking Rates. RM3 for the first two hours, RM2 for the subsequent hour, and then 5th hour onwards, it will be RM3 per hour (yes, the hefty parking charges is not the only turn off but it test your math calculation as well).
• The Exits. Existing the car park you have two options; the front of the mall which is ‘Jalan Sultan Ismail’ and the back of the mall which is ‘Jalan Dewan Sultan Sulaiman’. If you’re exiting through Jalan Dewan Sultan Sulaiman, the road goes through a road that is completed and you have to drive pass some roadside eateries which conveniently place tables on the road (meant for vehicles).

A few final thoughts

The GSC cinema and food court (Food Junction) are targeted to open in the month of December 2014 and January 2015.

To encourage more people to visit the mall, the PARKING FEE will be waived on WEEKENDS for the month of December 2014. YES FREE PARKING. You will still need to collect the entry ticket and validate it before you exit the mall - I suppose it is to keep count of the number of vehicles entering the mall.

The official opening of the mall was said to be on 13 January 2015 and there will be celebrative events & performances leading to the weekend, 18 January 2015. There was also rumours that the K-Pop artist Rain (Jung Ji-Hoon) will be performing there.

SWAT Paintball, Janda Baik

In the month of September 2014, I had my first experience with Paintball. Normally when I am invited to join in these activities, I will normally hear PAIN-ball (without the ‘T’), hence my reservation to participate.

Getting there

Locating this place was not easy because it was not marked on Google Maps, Waze, or Garmin maps (at the time we went).

1. Nearest landmark you can search for in Garmin Maps, Waze or Google Maps is ‘Masjid Sultan Abdul Bakar, Bentong Pahang’.
2. Upon reaching the mosque (masjid) there is a turning towards the river, Sungai Benus.
3. Cross the bridge and you will see D’Ark Training & Resort Janda Baik on your right-hand side.
4. Proceed down the road till you see SWAT Paintball on your right-hand side (picture). 

There are the GPS coordinates;

• Degrees, minutes, and seconds (DMS): 3°20'03.5"N 101°51'41.0"E
• Decimal degrees (DD): 3.334300, 101.861404 (Location: Google Maps)

Price

For a group of 11 people, it cost us RM715 and we were provided 100 pellets each. It will be best to contact SWAT Paintball directly for pricing. Their contact details can be found below;

SWAT Paintball, Janda Baik's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/SWAT-Paintball-Janda-Baik/171199306285263

Safety Briefing

Before we were allowed into the battle field, the game warden gave a brief history of Paintball, it started in the west where loggers will mark trees to be cut down by painting on the trunk. Progressively they found a faster way to do that with an air gun that shoots out paint pellets. It was further customized and evolved to the game we know today. The game warden concluded, ‘It’s not a called ‘gun’ it is called a ‘marker’ ”.

The warden then proceeded to explain about our equipment;

• The air powered marker – always the safety on and barrel-sock on when not in play.
• The full face mask – never take it off during a game
• The body vest – reversible to indicate which team you belong to; basic black or jungle camouflage pattern.
• Paint pellets – made of gelatine which burst on impact. It contains a solution comprising of colouring and soup (to make it easy to wash off). Apparently it is ‘halal’– just in case you get hit in the mask and some of it get spread over the mouth, according to the warden.

The Rules

There were some rules that we needed to abide by before we started the battle;

1. There is a designated safe distance for shooting an enemy. Do not shoot is the target is less than 3 – 5 meters from you, it can result in serious injury. If you manage to sneak up on someone, point the gun but do not shoot, ask ‘Do you surrender?’, if the person surrenders, he/she put the marker safety ‘ON’, needs to raise both hands up, and walk out of the area. If there is a standoff (nobody surrenders), call for the game marshals (whom are in the area) to mediate.
2.  A shot is only a ‘confirmed kill’ when the pellet burst and there is splatter on the body. There are times the pellet may fail to burst on contact, graze the body (felt a pain) or ricochet & hit. When you felt a hit, touch the area of impact to confirm that is a splatter; if there is a paint splatter – you’re dead, if there is none – play on.
3. Headshot kill. There are times when the game is made more challenging when a kill is only confirm then the shot it at the head (with paint splatter). If you get hit on any other part of the body – play on. This can be an extremely painful affair as the enemy might torment you but hitting everywhere else EXCEPT the head. DO NOT SHOT THE BACK OF THE HEAD.
4. Once a KILL is confirmed (or a surrender occurs), the ‘dead’ needs put his/her gun safety ‘ON’, raise both hands up and exit the battle area. Wait till the next round.
5. DO NOT shoot the Game Marshal(s) – they will identify themselves and normally wearing bright identifiable colours.

There may be other rules based on the provider, game warden and/or game marshals so LISTEN CAREFULLY for a fun-fill experience and to avoid undesirable outcomes.

The Surrounding

Extracted from their Facebook profile;

This 3 acre centre has 2 fields – one field is suitable for beginners and smaller groups that can be customised and divided into 2 or 4 smaller fields; and another of natural, jungle terrain catered for the ‘hardcore elite’- with natural stones and forest trees possibly hundreds of years old as obstacles. Our objective is to create that natural forest, ‘jungle warfare’ feel to your games, which is why at SWAT Paintball, we use minimal artificial props as possible.

We were shown the field of battle,

where we will play two types of battle;

• Capture the Flag – the objective is to assault the enemy camp and capture the flag
• Last Man Standing – the objective is to wipe out the enemy, leave no many ‘standing’.

Few final Thoughts

At the end of the event, we played about 2 rounds of ‘Capture the Flag’ and 3 rounds of ‘Last Man Standing’ … by then we had players who declared they were too tired to carry on and are ‘permanently dead’. We still had some paint pellets left and the Game Warden suggested that those who wish to continue can either play

• ‘Target Practice’ – shooting water bottles there are suspended on a pole
• ‘Show down’ – where two players have the same amount of pellets, stand a safe distance, face each other, and take turns shooting each other. The person getting shot can evade by moving the body only (it is supposed to give you a chance to be like in the ‘Matrix’ – bullet time & evade).

All in all I had two noticeable bruising to show for; one on my head and another on my belly. I had an enjoyable time and if I were asked to play again, I will give it another go.

More photos of the surroundings;
Photos of teams playing at SWAT Paintball, Janda Baik's Facebook albums

Bayers Dual Stage Slow Juicer (JAT Demo)

A month ago we shared about a purchase, Bayers Dual Stage Slow Juicer.
Write-up: http://www.justathoughtah.com/2014/09/bayers-dual-stage-slow-juicer.html

To provide a bit more information on the product, we prepared this simple 2 minute clip to demonstrate its usage.