The “untouched” Domino. What are you guys waiting for?

Continue pizza feast’s story…

It shocked all of us when receiving the email from Jen yesterday, our writer for Vientiane, Laos. She had a terrible fall during her recent Tioman trip, 10 feet onto rocks and sand while having a BBQ dinner. Oh, she injured her neck and was in traction but recovering now. Her parents is taking care of her now.

Please don’t feel bad about any delay on our project. Nothing is more important than for you to get well soon, and we would love to work with you again!

We arrived at the hidden place at 11am. It is easier if you’re taking the Jalan Bangsar road, heading towards KL city. You’ll pass National Museum and KTM headquarters on your left, and you can find the lost, but remarkable place to visit - Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia. Read full story.

Followed by a series of Redang, BBQ, Farewell, Lunches, Dinners, Karaoke, Sales Drop… We’ve decided to start another series of Night Shift, Work to Die, Revamp Guidebook, Translation…

First batch of night shift friends reporting to work. Check out the guy on the right, he is going to buzz you for the coming months!

The last one leaving office will be the champion of the day - They will do anything to win, including this liquid-like hand protecting device.

Mahalo nui loa is Hawaiian for “Thank you very much!”

I recently talked to John, customer service of Wizard Publications. He is so helpful, and he is sharing few interesting words with me :)

“Eh… why this jie jie looks like my mummy one… ”

“The smile looks so familiar … like the first comforting smile I saw… while my backside still aching from the slaps by some crazy peoples…it’s the same round little nose and nourishing cheeks that tickle my body after my bath!”

“Aww… why these two uncles opposite there so noisy, getting all attentions of my mum and jie jie… trying to act cute ah? grrr… … oh oh… so cold… don’t want that purple thing, papa… it’s cold cold… stomach cold”

“waawaaa..waaaa…waaaaa… protest! protest! waaaaaaa” Sean, 10 months old now, has burst into tears.

Kylie took out an empty bottle from the back of baby stroll and a warm milk bottle has produced in seconds. Perhaps every mother is gifted with this dexterity when her baby is crying. With a few seconds of milk feeding, hugging and comforting, the little cute Sean is back in action to spread his appeal to waitresses, sale representatives and pedestrians. None of them can help themselves to return a delighted smile with their fonded heart, screaming “ohhh so cute!!!”.

Finally, Sean was dancing happily now on Kylie’s lap. Moment ago, poor Sean was pouting his lip in the baby stroll while we discussing on the Hanoi guidebook.

Let’s Poll:

1. Our Jusco Photogenic Baby Winner looks cute also when he is sad, what you think?

2 Do you think Sean is correct? Does his Vicky “jie jie” as pretty as her mum?

I must admit, I’m not good at writing at all. This largely contributed by the bad reading habit I have since I was in primary school. I know, it is an excuse :)

In those days, I read about 10 to 20 stories books a day. My book limit was easily over quota, and I had to use my friend’s name, simply to feed me, the book scanning machine. The reason is simple, I jump word by word and never go into details. It is like picking from every page, important keywords and guess the story. One bad thing about this is, I am never good at writing great essay, both English and Chinese.

We want to create a Most Remarkable travel guidebook and sell it on a best Travel Guide Platform. Me and my development team, come from a background of build and operate online business. To produce Remarkable guidebook, we have the best writers in our team joined us, and we will make it for sure, one day.

Yet, I believe, we shall find no excuse to also involve in the production of the guidebook. We would like to get involved, and know our products better. Eisen suggested to record down the activities in producing the guidebook, will keep updating this page :)

15 July 2008
Working on guesthouse in Malacca. I wanted to include Best way to book your room (SMS, phone, email, hotel booking website?). Emailed the owner of guesthouse to verify with them. This dirty job should be done by us first and include in the guidebook. Malacca can be divided to Heritage area and Malacca Raya area. Probably 2-3 guesthouse in each area. I have this idea, a good travel guide should help our travelers to plan, theoretically, they need not to refer to any other website, we should make sure all info are included in the guidebook. We have to help them to decide what is best guesthouse. Surrounding picture of the guesthouse is important. Picture shared by other travelers on that particular guesthouse can be included in the guidebook as well. I think it is crucial to interview owner of guesthouse to find out the availability rate of their guesthouse in general. I am thinking of including Youth Hostel and also info of those CSurfers who allow travelers to stay at their house. I might get more info from Hospitality Club or CouchSurfers website. Probably hot shower and WIFI info as well.

When Ryanne came to work the first day, I was not around. It was after a week, I got to know her more and find out how outstanding she is.

Today, she will be taking care of the whiteboard for one last day. After 3-months of her chasing-picture hard work and undertable activities, it was now full of proud members and endangered species!

Ryanne will be back to her college in Terengganu. If you are missing her, you can drive your way there to the east coast. For those who wish to visit her in her hometown in Malacca, make sure you know when she is back. If you are lost, get the Malacca guidebook.

I got an email just now from Agnes & Eunice. Looks like they have opted to adopt the poor whiteboard. Thanks ya!

Do well in your study, Ryanne! We look forward to work with you SOON!

After zigzagging all the way from Dataran Prima, our well-known “little blue in the sky” has fetched its master Pin, the jet lagging Marcus and I, in nausea state, to the busiest spot in the city. It was our day out to Bukit Bintang for meeting up our little writer from Langkawi Island, Shirley. Her activeness in replying emails and passion in writing blog have gained our attention and motivation to invite her to join our big family.
The full story…

What does an animal ambassador do?

• Do research on the endangered species of the destination country.
• Write an introduction post on the animal. This will be featured into our travel guide.
• Look for local conservation organizations and build relationship with them.
• Write posts on the organizations and their latest activities.
• Write more posts on the endangered animal in order to create awareness.
• Help a4trip channels the conservation fund to a selected conservation organization.

What to include in the first introduction post?

• A royalty-free photo of the animal.
• Brief introduction about the animal.
• Distribution map of the species and description.
• Why is it in danger of extinction?
• What can you do to help the animal?
• List of conservation organizations/projects and link to their website.
• See the best example from our Malacca animal ambassador, Leona on The Clouded Leopard.

How to build relationship with conservation organization?

• Do research on the local conservation organization which is supporting that species, short-list and email them
• Brief them about our a4trip project, and show them how a4trip support animal conservation.
• Ask permission to feature their organization in our travel guide.
• Be friend, and you might get more information and photos from them!

What else to write?

• Information or updates of the animal to let readers know more. Just like how Leona did in Breeding Clouded Leopards.
• Activities and projects of the organization. Example: ProFauna Indonesia taking action for Indonesian Wildlife.
• Information sharing with our readers to know more about animal conservation. Shengnan, our Cambodia’s animal ambassador did it in What is IUCN red list?
• Or even a short but meaningful video! Check out Joke of the Bushveld

If you want to know how roses, swedish gifts and a farewell change the mood of our team members, check this out!

After 6 months of test and measuring with our first website (above), we are launching the new a4trip website, today! Yes, in the next couple hours! If you want to find out how we solve the problem of removing shopping cart, yet still allowing multiple orders - stay tuned!

The work will not stop here. We will continue adding more new languages, features and other fine-tuning… which would keep Weikiat busy for the coming days still. Weikiat, the very important peson behind this challenging revamp, is pushing our development to the next new high!

I did a quick search on Google.com with keyword ‘a4trip’ and it returned 8,170 results. Let’s see how much we can grow from here! It would be interesting to check this back in the future.

It was through the short article, we got to know Adline, working mum & freelance writer. Working on this project, it is great that we can meet wonderful friends out there.

“On May 28, I got an email in my VirtualTourist mailbox which I initially mistook for a spam. Curiosity got the better of me when 3 words on the subject caught my eyes: travel, guide, writer. ”

What did Aida do to that mail? Check it out now!

Hello everyone!! It’s good to hear that a4trip is growing as one big family now. But, how did this family grew to how it is today? Its from each and everyone of us joining as a team. This is a short story of how I joined.

Continue reading…

Fabien, our mapper for Malacca Travel Guide, doesn’t like to take photo of himself. He told us he was begging his friends for hours to send his picture taken by their camera for a4friends. Finally he found one for us, together with his sharing below!

Recently I’ve started working as a Marketing Executive. Still pondering about my future due to the petrol price hike :D I joined a4trip through my friend, Clarence the writer for Malacca Travel Guide English Version. He said my so called “skills” in photoshop would be useful for doing the map. Thus, he introduced me to the a4trip as a mapper.

Faith? If my friend have faith in a4trip, I’ll place my trust in them as well because I know my friend’s choice will not be wrong. v(*,*)v

Getting royalty would be rather profit-ful if the guide getting recognitions and sales in the future. This is long term planning. One-shot pay will not be very beneficial to a4trip. a4trip requires development, and by paying one-shot will burn holes in their pocket and hampers it from development.The amount of one-shot pay maybe little due to the a4trip’s current state.

a4friends? A bunch of crazy internet bloggers and etc… Just kidding. Appreciate the animal rights and environment awareness enthusiasm. By the way, with so many capable web developers.

Since a4trip website was first launched 6 months ago, we have been listening and getting your feedbacks and comments on the website. With that, we are developing a better and improved new website which aimed to serve you better. After two months of hard work, finally the website is going to launch by end of the month.

In order to cater worldwide market, the new website is going to supports 25 languages. However, we don’t speak all the languages. Therefore, we are seeking for volunteer translator who could offer a helping hand in the translation of the English version into your language.

Translator need to know:
1. translation to be done in PO Edit (freeware & easy to use)
2. involving time will be 1-7 July 2008
3. leave a comment below with your Name, Email & Language you wish to translate

In all true honesty, I’m just honoured that a4trip knocked on my door to enquire if I’m ok to do some writing for this website. I’ve been writing regularly on Virtualtourist, and that was how a4trip found me. I’m not here to make tons of money. Not in the case of a royalty fee offer, anyway. I’m here to write so that people can enjoy what I had the opportunity to enjoy. In truth, as travelling is my passion, nothing else matters. I take time to travel the world and have been trevassing this planet since I was 10 and ever since then, its a must to travel - to experience another culture, to partake the food consumed by the people in the country, to do things commonly done by the locals and not by the tourists.

So far, I see that the a4trip community has been pretty friendly and warm. Do continue to stay that way. As for me, I’m just looking for my next trip. Never liked those 20 in one country hopping type. Just one country at a time to get that opportunity to smell the flowers.