The movie is always about great singers and great songs, just like watching American Idol. Everyone is trying to compete with each other, to be better than everyone else, and to win the competition … but suddenly, it contrast everything with this song … Enjoy the song “Imagine” from the deaf students and their sign language, with gratitude…

Imagine Lyrics (John Lennon)

Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

Gratitude [感恩]

Dansk (Danish)
n. – taknemlighed

Nederlands (Dutch)
dankbaarheid

Français (French)
n. – gratitude, reconnaissance

Deutsch (German)
n. – Dankbarkeit, Dank

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. – ευγνωμοσύνη

Italiano (Italian)
gratitudine

Português (Portuguese)
n. – gratidão (f), agradecimento (m)

Русский (Russian)
признательность

Español (Spanish)
n. – gratitud, agradecimiento

Svenska (Swedish)
n. – tacksamhet

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
感谢的心情

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. – 感謝的心情

한국어 (Korean)
n. – 감사

日本語 (Japanese)
n. – 感謝, 謝意

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) شكر, امتنان‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. – ‮תודה, הכרת טובה‬

Almost all the time, these are not good advices. Sorry to hantam you again, Mr Newspaper.

These so-called “financial planner” always use one and only one solution in financial planning. They approach is for you to save X amount of money while you are working and then after you retire, you will start to consume your savings until you die!

This is a very dangerous approach because even Sultan or Mahathir don’t know when they are going to die! It can be 1 day after you retire, or it can be 50 years!!!

So how do you predict and plan for that? If you assume you die at 90 and save enough money to be spent until 90. What if you are still alive after 90?

There is no flexibility. 2 outcomes always happen.

Outcome #1 – The retiree finish his savings long before his planned “dying” age. Most people finish their EPF within the first 3 years! So they either need to work again or expect their children to feed them.

Outcome #2 – The retiree is too afraid to spend and save too much, living in a very frugal way trying to keep as much money as possible in the bank for the future. Future for them is very uncertain and they always need to “save for the rainy days”. But isn’t it the reason you work so hard in your life is to enjoy life after you retire? How do you enjoy life when you are afraid to spend, when you are still worry about the “future”?

Both outcomes are undesirable. Unfortunately, this is what the financial planner “plans” for you. Or should I say, “set you up!”

No matter which group you are in, both are very suffering outcomes. The reason you will fall into group is because of your life-long habits.

Habit #1 – If a guy makes a lot of money and contributes to EPF, his EPF will be very fat at the end of his retirement. And since he knows he is “fat” by then, he usually spend a lot of his money on his Tag Heur and Armani. A person who has a habit of spending a lot of money in his life won’t change in 1 day. He is expected to finish his EPF in a short few years even they are meant to be used for 30 years!

Habit #2 – If a guy live frugally for his working life to save a lot of money, it becomes a habit too and when you give him a lot of money to use, he is still fearful to use and spend them. It has been a habit trained for a few decades.

So what is the solution?!

That’s why, if you really plan to retire. Everyone must read the book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” and “Cashflow Quadrant”, both by Robert Kiyosaki. Don’t read newspaper! How much can you learn from short articles that was taken somewhere here and somewhere there by the reporter? All they want to do is to fill up the newspaper with contents and they have to do it every fucking day. How do you have so much great contents every day? Contents that are great retain their value everyday. But in the newspaper business, you can’t publish the same content everyday or else who wants to buy your paper?

So read more good books, not newspaper. People are reading Bible and Al-Quran for more than 1 thousand years. Do bible and Al-Quran need to change everyday?

“Rich Dad Poor Dad” and “Cashflow Quadrant” are the 2 books that you must must must must must must must must read if you want to have a good retirement. If you find it very hard to read 2 books, God bless you. I have seen many of my Uni friends that can study so hard and read so many boring college books for exam but can’t find the energy and interest to read 2 simple books that read like story books. What a shame!

Don’t borrow the book, BUY IT! Only when you buy it, you will really consider reading it. And try to be very excited about it. I suggest you to drive to MidValley or KLCC and do nothing else but just to buy the book and immediately go home to read it. With that effort invested, your mind know you are really serious and you will be able to get great results from it. [Don’t buy 2 books together, read “Rich Dad Poor Dad” first. Then drive again to buy the other book after you finish. So your mind know you are really serious]

“But you haven’t tell me the answer!”. Yes, I heard you.

The correct way for normal working people on retirement is, you don’t try to save a chunk of money that you plan for consumption when you retire. That means you don’t calculate stuff like I need 3k a month after I retire and that means I need 3k x 12 months x 30 years =~ RM1 million sitting in my bank account when I retire. So after that I can take out 3k every month from the bank account to use.

I am not saying that you can’t save that much of money. Actually you easily do so! But the problem is not on “you can’t save that amount of money”. The problem is that the plan won’t work easily after you have that 1 million sitting in the bank on the day you retire.

Why? Because as I have said earlier, people either overspent and finish them in a few years. Or they simply are too afraid to spend over worry about the future.

The problem is people get very confused when they retire. For their whole life when they are working, they are receiving salary from their job every month. They know even they finish their money this month, they will still have the money next month. So this allows them to live for a few decades without any problem.

But once they retire and is given a large chunk of money, the whole concept of financial and money changed! Now they no longer need to work. But that also means now they no longer have salary coming each month. Now what they have is RM1 million in the bank account. Do they know how to go forward from here?

If you are in this situation, do you know? If you wants to travel, how much you are willing to spend on travel? If you want a lot of Louis Vuitton, how much LV you can buy? If you need another wife from China, do you know if you can afford it? If you want to donate money, how much money you can donate before you need donation from someone else?

The consequences of all these is either – you overspend or your under-spend.

All of these happens because you (and the newspaper “expert”) focus on the wrong thing.

Newspaper way of financial planning is BULLSHIT.

To retire, you don’t focus on CASH. You don’t focus on that 1 million or 10 million in your bank account.

To retire, you focus on CASHFLOW. How much money you can receive each month when you are not working!

If when you retire, you own 4 fully paid off properties that will pay you 3k per month, you are well taken care of no matter how long you live! You can spend all your money with your new China wife or Vietnam wife or you can donate all your money to charity every month without worrying about yourself.

Because like old time, you know, next month, you have new money coming in. And better still, you won’t be fired because you don’t have a job! This is call “passive income”.

Isn’t this so much simpler than trying to predict how much to save and how long you will live? Isn’t this much more simpler than having to budget how much you can spend each month, how much you can donate, and what “grade” of China wife you can afford?

Your goal of retirement is to build passive CASHFLOW, not CASH.

For working adults, the most easy path is through rental properties.

That means, you are buying properties with the plan to rent it and not to sell it. And in your working life, you accumulate these rental properties and build up your cashflow.

For example, if you own 5 apartments in KL when you retire and the rental you collect is 4k, basically you are financially free for you entire life! This is very different than having a few millions in your bank account because you really don’t need to budget much and you can spend everything you have every month. Even if you can’t rent out 2 apartments, you are still covered by 3. Unless tsunami wiped off KL or you like to visit Genting Highlands, your financial is well taken care of. Plus rental income can keep up with inflation so your income will increase for years to come.

If you don’t want to own properties directly, you can own them indirectly through buying REITs. REITs are listed stocks in the stock market which their main business is to own properties and get rental income from it, then they will distribute the rental income it to its shareholders. There are many advantage and disadvantage of REITs but it is really a great tool for working adults. The best is you can start with very little money since REITs are mostly RM1 or RM2 stocks.

I will write more about REIT in another post. But to give you a quick example, say AXREIT (best REIT listed in Malaysia so far) is around RM2 and they pay dividend quarterly. One year you are likely to receive 16 cents after tax as dividend and that would means a 8% yield. If you have RM1 million invested on it, you can expect to receive RM80k per year (or RM20k payment per quarter to be exact).

More elaboration later but the main idea is with RM80k per year passive cashflow, it makes your life much more easier than having a big chunk of money in your bank account that you need to decide how much to be taken out for consumption. You don’t have budgeting problem anymore.

At last…

These are very simple concepts. Most people can grasp it at once. But some people find it very hard to understand. And unfortunately, it is true that for people who can’t “get it” at once, usually they will need a lot of time to understand it. And since they usually don’t invest that extra time, they will have no choice but to screw up later.

If you are that person, my question to you is, “Do you prefer to screw up when you retire, or you prefer to spend some hard time and effort to understand the concept of cashflow?”

It’s your choice. If you have read this article, that means GOD has somewhere somehow given you a choice in your life. [GOD can’t show you his face and talk to your directly… he use many ways to tell you things…]

If you still screw up, please don’t blame GOD or anyone. It is you who have decided to give up. You’ve make a choice today.

First, you must read this page – How to flash your Samsung Touchwiz and Touchwiz phones. Read every word!

Phones discussed: S5230/S5233, S8000/S8003 (Samsung Jet), S8300, M8800 Pixon, F480…

You will initially have to install Samsung New PC Studio and the USB driver which comes from your software CD. Then you need to install Multiloader.

Then you need to download the correct firmware. [Samsung Jet 8000/8003 firmware] [Site require registration]

Here is the first tricky part. Firmwares are categorized into different regions and each region supports different languages and features. Each firmware is about 120MB large so it is not fun to really download and try out all of them.

If you want Chinese, you can only choose either Asian, China or Hong Kong. The last 3 character in the firmware code represent the version and the last 4th and 5th character represent the region.

GREAT NEWS! New S8000DXJC1 Firmware – Fixed all the problems stated below.

Asia Region [DX] S8003DXIG2

Contain English, Simplified Chinese and many Asian Languages (Malay, Thailand …).

Support 3G, Wifi and GPS.

Unfortunately, there is a bug that make the camera unable to function!!! When you launch your camera, it will say “Please Upgrade Firmware”. Some people claim to be able to solve it using the  “how to flash” tutorial mentioned above and also here but I have no luck doing so. It keep on saying [FAIL].

China Region [ZC] S8000UZCIK2

This firmware is unusable. The S8000UZCIK2.rc1 file is corrupted. So don’t download.

China Region [ZC] S8000CZCII3

This is usable. Contain only English and Simplified Chinese.

Does not support 3G and Wifi!!! I am not sure, maybe GPS is not available as well.

Hong Kong [ZH] S8000HZHIJ2

Contain only English, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.

Support 3G, Wifi and GPS.

Same unusable camera bug as Asian version.

Europe [XE] S8000XEIK1

Support everything but with no Chinese!

So? What is the conclusion?

Unfortunately, there is no perfect solution now. If you really need Chinese, you will either need to sacrifice your camera or 3G/Wifi/GPS.

So at the end, my girlfriend want me to flash it back to the Europe version, which means I am doing nothing meaningful for the whole day!

We will need to wait for another firmware that correct the camera bug.

Other issues I encountered

I encounter this issue while flashing where the Multiloader complaint Error: Rsrc1 Write [0.2s]

And the screen on the phone will show NAK_INVALID_ADDR.

I later found out that I forgot to load the “boot files” in Multiloader. I missed this *important* step in the tutorial. Maybe you want to check if you miss any steps as well.

Another issue is sometime after you flash the “boot files” the phone doesn’t reset properly but instead starts up as USB upload mode. You have to unplug the USB, remove the battery, reinsert the battery and reenter download mode. Then repeat your Multiloader flashing procedure again. It will work the second time.

Another issue is with “Factory FS” flash failed. This again means the “boot files” is not flashed properly and the steps are the same as last paragraph. The “Boot files” must be properly installed before everything else can work properly.

If you need help from somebody, use the forum darkforestgroup.com. Don’t post a comment here as I am not going to answer you! I am letting go of it until the next Asia firmware come out!

Is This Phone Recommended?

Nah. I prefer simple stuff. I don’t even use the MP3 feature in my Sony Ericsson. And I only use the camera to take down the “position number” while parking in shopping center so I don’t need to remember it. I am thinking that if my phone is broken, I will simply replace it with a second hand Nokia 8250.

KISS – Keep It Simple & Stupid!

Today I want to show you this picture, taken from the back of the MyVi.

Did you see the word “IMMOBILISER”? Do my MyVi need another Immobilizer?!

If he is an immobilizer sales man, he should know very clearly that my MyVi is equipped with immobilizer. (Unless he is a sohai)

And if he knows my MyVi already has an immobilizer and he still insist on selling me one, he is not a con man then he is what?!

And I still think my girlfriend senior, who comes to ‘help’ but end up asking my girl friend, “Did you promised to buy from him” is a really a dai sohai. You want to buy something from Mr M and later you find out that Mr M is a con man, you still say something like, “I have promised to pay him, so I will pay even I know he is a con man!” ?!

Don’t be a sohai, if you later find out somebody has bad intention on you, all previous promises and responsibilities don’t count anymore. If you are a Taxi driver and you took a passenger where later you find out he is holding a parang, sweating like shit and and keep eyeing on you, do you think you should ‘kept your promise and responsible’ to take him to the jungle place to let him rob you (or even kill you)? I think you will want to abandon the car and run for your life! If you promise your ‘friend’ to carry a luggage to Singapore and find out it is actually heroin, do you still want to keep your promises?

Don’t be a sohai! Live Smarter! Don’t let your sohai brain confused you!

What are BEST BRAINS? Do you like add math in SPM? I can never finish my add math in all my exams even in SPM. But a friend of mine can finish it and check the answers for 3 times and still have the time to look around! FINISH + CHECK 3 TIMES + LOOK AROUND.

Can you memorize phone numbers? I went to a phone booth with a friend. We saw a paper ads sticked to the phone booth regarding a house rental. We just had a glance on it. 2 months later I suddenly thought of the ads and wished that I had copied the phone number. Know what? This friend of mine thought for 2 seconds and recalled the phone number! I doubt the accuracy but after we made the phone call, it is correct!

We took a subject called Islam Science in Uni. The notes given by the lecturer was so terrible that he can write 100 words in 1 one sentence with all kind of subjects, objects, verbs and adjectives in it! I don’t even have the brain to read it smoothly. The same friend of mine, can memorized the whole sentence word by word in mere seconds.

Do you have friends that don’t need to study much for exam but can get very good results? Do you have friends that can listen in the boring lecture and understand everything the lecturer is teaching?

BEST BRAINS are those people who can do something that seems RIDICULOUSLY easy to themselves but RIDICULOUSLY hard for someone else. You can also call it TALENT.

Our government complaints that many of our knowledge workers (engineers, doctors, etc.) don’t want to serve in our own country but prefer to stay overseas. They say these people should be more patriotic.

Our government also complaint that we are lack of knowledge workers. While at the same time there are many graduates that can’t find a job.

The most STUPID mistake that our IGNORANT government is doing in EDUCATION -

Our government spend a lot of money providing FREE primary and secondary education us. That is 6 years of primary school, 5 years or secondary school and 2 years more if they take form 6, total to 13 years! 13 years or FREE EDUCATION and TRAINING!

Let’s take my school as an example. I study in Sam Tet, Ipoh which is considered one of the good school. In 1997 when I finished my SPM, there were 18 students getting 8As and above (maximum 10As only at that time).

6 of the 18 are now exported to Singapore. Singapore gives them full scholarship, let them choose the exact course they want to study and give them Singapore PR few months before they graduate! You don’t even need to apply for the PR! (some of them went after form 6, some of them went immediately after SPM to Junior College)

Malaysia trains these smart students for 13 years. Singapore train them for 4 years ONLY and have them work for Singapore for the next 30 years.

Who is smarter? Malaysia or Singapore?

Why they want to ’selfishly’ go to Singapore and don’t want to serve our own country?

1. Singapore give them scholarship so they don’t need to worry about money. They don’t need to worry that PTPTN will reject his loan.

2. Singapore give them the exact course they want so they don’t need to worry that they can’t get into the course they want in Malaysia.

3. Although Singapore has only 2 universities, both of them are far better than ANY one in Malaysia. UKM is currently bragging that they are the Top 200 Universities in the word, ranked #185 ahead of UM #192. Singapore only have 2 universities and they ranked as follow – NUS (National University of Singapore) #19, NTU (Nanyang Technological University) #61. Anything for the Malaysians to be proud of?

— —

But the primary reasons are still #1 and #2, the UNCERTAINTY that the Malaysia government is giving to these SMART BRAINS. They are worried about the future and they need to plan for their future too. If Singapore can give them the promise and certainty, why would they want to take the RISK of rejection from their own beloved country Malaysia? (How hurt does it feel when your own country doesn’t appreciate you?)

Every year we have a lot of STPM straight A students complain that they cannot get into Medicine (doctor). The Goverment says that if they allow all straight A students to go into Medicine, then other student with poorer results will not be able to get into medicine.

Well getting straight A means they are the BEST students with the BEST brain and medicine is usually consider the BEST course (and tough to study!). What sense does it make when the BEST STPM students are not GUARANTEED by the government to take the BEST course? Then what is the point of having the exam at the first place?

These BEST brains are the one who will be contributing the most to the country when fully utilized. They represent the future of Malaysia and they deserve the TOP attention. They should be given the VETO power to choose whatever course they want and not by a randomly picked-by-luck system. Keep the picked-by-luck system for your ordinary students, why RISK losing your BEST BRAINS?

Imagine what are the benefits we are getting by just focusing on keeping our BEST BRAINS from being stolen by Singapore! It won’t break the quota system even slightly because we are talking about the Top 1% people only. Apply the quota system to ordinary students like me! Put me and soufulow on the quota system, don’t RISK our BEST BRAINS! Just risk me! 

One of the hottest topic is the refusal of the Singapore government to let AirAsia land in their airport. I hate this myself because I do hope to fly cheaply to Singapore. BUT, before you think Singapore is selfish, do you know Malaysia is doing the exact same thing in MANY MANY ways?

Truth #1

Malaysia is building the double-track train system that connect the whole peninsular. Johor government refused to let the double-track to be connected to Singapore. They want it terminated at Johor Bahru. They are afraid that most people will actually ride directly to Singapore and will not stop at Johor, thus reducing the money flow to Johor and at the same time benefit their ‘enemy’ Singapore!

Isn’t that selfish? Isn’t that the same as Singapore refusing the landing or AirAsia?

Truth #2

We are so patriotic that almost all Malaysia families that own a car will own a PROTON! We are so patriotic that we actually need to pay a lot more money to buy a lousy car just because it is ‘Made In Malaysia’. We can’t own a better Toyota at cheaper price like Thailand citizens because we have to subsidize Proton. We have to ‘love’ our country because ‘Malaysia Boleh‘ Make Car. (Proton still lose money after 20 years of operation while Mitsubishi make a lot of money by selling engines to Proton. And we still can’t make our own engine. So technically we don’t make our own car, we make our own car cover only.)

There are lots of Nissan Sentra in Malaysia. Do you know there is a model called Nissan Sunny? You can’t find one here because if it is allowed to be sold in Malaysia, it will be too cheap!

Our government has disallowed other car manufacturers to compete equally with Proton. And who pay the price? We! The drivers!

Isn’t this the same as Singapore protecting their own airline company?

Truth #3

Digi is the most well run mobile company in Malaysia, their marketing and growth outperform Maxis and Celcom (run by TM – Tak Malu). But because they are 60% foreign owned, they are not awarded the 3G license and the WIMAX license. If you are standing as a mobile user and internet user perspective, do you wish Digi could have won both licenses so we can benefit from this great company? Or you want your service provided by Tak Malu that also provide your fucked-up STREAMYX connection?

Isn’t this the same as what Singapore is doing to AirAsia? While AirAsia can benefit even Singaporeans, they choose to protect Singapore Airline instead of benefiting their own people. Our government want to make our own national car and we have to drive lousy car that is more expensive and yet more dangerous on the road because it is made by recycled Coca-Cola tin.

(At least Singapore is launching a new budget airline call Tiger Airline to benefit their people)

Truth #4

Most of us will have a Maybank account because it is the largest bank in Malaysia. So probably you must have dealt with a Maybank staff before. What kind of treatment do you get? How long do you need to wait just to place a Fixed Deposit? How long do you need to wait to apply for an ATM card?

The last time I close an FD, it took the staff 30 minutes just to serve me alone! It took me another 30 minutes to reapply my lost ATM card. And that time doesn’t include waiting for my turn! It is just the time the staff took to do my work alone while letting a lot of other customers waiting!

If you have been to a Singapore bank, you will actually thought you are in a Hotel! The bank staffs will wait for you at the entrance! They will do anything you need while you sit on the sofa reading your favorite newspaper. In Singapore, customers is the boss. In Malaysia, customers is the slave.

This is happening because Malaysia banks are over protected by the Government. Only until recently Citibank are allowed to setup a few more branches. Before this, Citibank only have 3 branches in the whole Malaysia. So again, why Government choose to protect local business, we pay the price.

Isn’t that what the Singapore government is doing to AirAsia?

— —

If Singapore Government is selfish, what about our Government? While Singapore Government might have been selfish, they have actually done a lot of great things for their people which we can only dream of! They are SELFISH but they are SMART too!

I use fucked-up Streamyx. You probably use Streamyx too. TM has a monopoly of the last mile connections. Unlike other countries, Malaysia has not passed any legislation for the unbundling of last mile connections. This gives little chance for other third party companies to compete with TMNet and has thus created an unhealthy business environment.

Look at our crime rates! We have tons of notebook thieves wandering around KL. We have tons of snatchers planning to snatch your mum’s handbag. We have tons of robbers that want to break into our house everyday.

Compare our Internet connection with Singapore!

Compare our crime rates with Singapore!

Compare our public transportation system with Singapore!

Compare our local universities with Singapore!

Compare our Ringgit Malaysia with Singapore!

Compare our Police with Singapore!

WE ARE FAR FAR BEHIND! WAKE UP MALAYSIANS! WAKE UP! We both started at the same time! We can’t blame our population and size because we will then need to compare ourself with Japan and Korea, which is even more scary!

(Japan need to recover from World War II and they don’t even speak English. Korea have to fight Communism and have their country split into half and they don’t speak English as well.)

WAKE UP MALAYSIA! Just talking ‘Malaysia Boleh’ is not enough, we have to work hard and PROOF IT!

1. All people eat mandarin oranges, even Malay and Indians buy them. But I haven’t eat one this year. I eat some last year, but I didn’t eat any in 2004 as well. I love to eat, I just don’t eat. Hmmmm, what is the logic?

2. All people buy new clothes. Chinese believe they have to buy NEW clothes for NEW year so they can have good luck. If they don’t wear NEW clothes in NEW year, they will have very bad luck for the whole year! Bullshit. I didn’t buy and wear any new clothes for CNY in 2003 and 2004. And I do very well in 2003 and 2004. I buy new clothes in 2002, 2005 and 2006 (no money in 2002, girl friend force me to buy in 2005 and 2006), and those are my fuck up years, having screw up in almost everything (study, work, love) in 2002 and do nothing productive in 2005 and 2006.

3. People like the food in CNY, chickens, ducks, pigs, yucks, I hate bloody meat. Lion and tiger eat meat because they don’t have a choice, they can’t think. But human can think. And if human really meant to eat meat like animals, then do the way animals do. EAT RAW MEAT! No lion cook their dinner before they eat. And no tomato sauce please!

4. Ang Pow sucks. I receive around 30-50 ang pows every year (my grandfather have 1 daughter and 10 sons, the daughter is the eldest making 10 sons a straight set, who say probability works?) Quantity doesn’t mean anything. The total income from my ang pows total to less than RM100 for many years. These guys don’t understand inflation, 20 years ago, the ang pow size is RM2. Today they still give RM2, don’t they know Pop Piah was selling for 40 cents 20 years ago and now it is selling for RM1.30 for the SAME POP PIAH? My parents also give me RM2 ang pow for many years. Note: Not RM2 from Papa and RM2 from Mama, it is RM2 from Papa and Mama together sharing the same ang pow!!! So I tunjuk perasaan (boycott) 2 years ago by refusing their ang pow. It worked and they agree to increase it to RM10 per person. Wahahaha.

Happy belated Chinese New Year to all who read my blog!

Website: Kinokuniya

Ordering books from Kinokuniya is very fast and shipping cost is only RM6 flat (RM30 for east Malaysia). If your total order is above RM300, shipping is FREE! However, I do not recommend you to order RM300 of books just because you wanna save the RM6! I did that once with 7 books, and end up that I am only able to finish 4 of them, leaving 3 untouched in my book shelf. The theory is that if you buy a lot of books at the same time, you won’t appreciate them and thus won’t be able to finish all of them. You will also feel overwhelmed having to read so many books at once (especially if the book has 1,000 words per page and it is as thick as YellowPages!)

I usually order a book at night. They will processed and shipped my order the next day. So I usually got my book the very next day!

I have to rely on Kinokuniya a lot because in Ipoh, the availability of books are very limited. There are only 2 mini Popular Book Store and 1 tiny MPH. Unless the books you need are very popular (like Rich Dad’s series that take up a whole cupboard), you don’t have a lot of choice. And that’s why Kinokuniya online comes to rescue!

While RM6 of shipping looks like an extra, I am happy to pay for it because of the speed and convenience to someone who is not in KL! Even if you live in KL and you can go to Kinokuniya KLCC directly, you still need to pay for petrol, tol and KLCC per-hour-based car park fee. That will be more than RM6.

How do you pay for your oder?

Credit card.

What about Amazon?

I ordered twice from Amazon. They give big discount on books (usually over 30%). Unfortunately with the shipping fee (cheapest option), it end up being the same as non discounted price. This is not the problem. The problem is for Amazon to ship the books from US to Malaysia, it takes a few weeks! When the books arrived, you might not have to mode to read it already. hahaha. You may choose more expensive shipping options (where shipping will be more expensive than your books!) and it still need to wait minimum 10 days although they say 5 days. Why? Because it takes them another 5 days to prepare and pack your books.

What if a book you need is not available in Kinokuniya but Amazon?

This should be rare with the size of Kinokuniya, but it happened to me last month. On Nov 19, I searched for the book The New Buffettology and it is not available in their database. So I emailed them. They replied the next day and told me that they can actually order the book for me. I ask them to go ahead and I got my book yesterday (1 month)! I am very happy with their service

What about MPH and Popular book store online?

Popular have removed their online search and order system few months ago. MPH do keep it until today. However, popular books takes 1-2 weeks to ship and unpopular books take 4-6 weeks! Do you want to order from them?

Update: Pelf commented that you can order book from MPH Online for RM4 postage (Free if order above RM80) and delivery only takes 1 day! Making MPH a very good choice if the book is available.

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At last, if you know any other online book store that is good for us, please kindly share it here so I can give it a try. Now, check out their website here.