Second trip to Big Bad Wolf Sale 2012 via The Public Transport

I went to BBW yesterday (Monday on 10th.. and I wrote this post on Monday night actually..oh well) and yes, I will go to the firesale again. Just look up on that post.

To those who was worried about the stock, they do restock some of the books after the first weekend of the sale but usually if it was the same book pile. So if you want to avoid the weekend rush hours, just come on the later sale period especially during the weekdays.

During the pre-sale, I didn’t get some of the books that my sisters and mom asked since I didn’t scour the tables fully especially the non-fiction areas. So I went back there to check up on the books that I might missed.

I’ve never been to The Mines before so I didn’t realize the mall near KTM Serdang is actually the infamous ‘The Mines’.

So here’s the gist :

1. The Mines is within a walking distance from KTM Serdang. Personally, it doesn’t feel too far for me which made its unnecessary to pick the Cab/Bus route unless you have some difficulties walking through the flyover.

2. The Mines is across the road from KTM Serdang. The MIECC is connected to The Mines via a walkway. It is fussy to walk out

3. KTM’s time management and scheduling sometimes do suck….. but the new coach is comfy and roomy

4. This time, I love the Non-Fiction section more than the Fiction section. If you need a reason, just go there to pick up some cheap cookbooks.

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It took me seven hours from home to MIECC and back. As the result, I end up finishing several books (APE : How to Publish a Book and Insurgent) while I was on this journey. Public commuting is an effective way for me to finish some books. You should try it.

Since I live in Kelana Jaya area, I took the T625 bus to Taman Bahagia LRT station.

As soon as I arrived at Taman Bahagia station, I purchased a RM2 trip to KL Sentral.

So, from Kelana Jaya line’s KL Sentral station, get a RM 1.70 ticket to Serdang and take the train heading to Sungai Gadut line. Just wait at Platform 6.

The train arrive a couple of minutes after 2.30pm but its quite okay. Not like you have to wait half an hour after already waiting half an hour before the ETA.  I’ve suffered through all that when I had to go to Bangi back to back. Seriously, it is annoying.

The journey from KL Sentral to Serdang is brief. When you’re there, go straight to the flyover until you reach across the road. The Mines is like two blocks away from where you are.

You can choose two routes, either walking through some buildings to the shopping mall or catch the scenic route via the water cab.

The scenic route only require you to wait half an hour for the water cab. It was just RM2 per one-way trip. If you’re not used to being on water transport, you might suffer some amount of motion sickness.

If you want to save RM2 by walking walk, as soon as you leave the bridge, go to the road heading toward the white apartment building. Enter at the side building through the atrium…

…until you reach these tunnels.

as soon as you went through them, you’ll arrive at The Mines 🙂

This path is just straight forward. You can choose to forgo the walkway but it is a hassle to walk out of the mall and around it to reach MIECC as you’ll have to walk the open roads.

The walkway towards the MIECC is at the 4th floor of the mall. Just go through these phone stuff walkway…

 

Walk straight through the central court and then walk forward until you saw the other escalator at the end. But you’ll see an archway where you’ll find the sign to MIECC.

And then you will find yourself on the second floor of MIECC. Take the stair down and you’ll reach the first floor of MIECC and here we are… yay…..

Again.. the map. It helps when its crowded and if you want to avoid some areas.

The hall’s playground rate

The upper floor map

There’s an overnight storage at customer service where you can store books overnight. But if you didn’t claim those books, they will pile up like this. These book are cheap, doesn’t mean they’re trash, n00bs.

And this is the fifth day… and the crowd… is….Uhhhh what crowd? You can dance through them and sing “Singing in the Rain”.

Honestly, after the pre-sale I didn’t really see why the need to brave the weekend crowd. I’m claustrophobic, I hate crowds. I did find good books around the fiction areas but that was because I read most of them. I found the non-fiction and cooking section have a much better bargain than normal BookXcess pricing rate.

I really want this book for research…. but its called lust…. and the thing is HUGE… lol

If you are a first year medical or biomedical student who have to draw anything by hand for lab reports, just pick up this copy. You’ll thank me.

Impressive….For the fans. I want NIN.

I read this book last year, and its short but you could see that the movie did dramatize the story. Figures

My second sister wanted this…. and I was like… hello… this book is the size of average medical textbooks. I was on limited budget anyway so I just told her I’m not picking it up. I can imagine trying to lug this book around in a plastic bag…. just… nope…

I really want this book…. sigh…

I adore this series. Its a young Nick Gautier series from the DarkHunters series. Its set in an alternate world than the series but if you haven’t read the DH series, you wouldnt be too lost in this series. But you’ll miss important characters and stuff. (though its a YA book, the main series is paranormal romance, dont say I didnt warn you)
I really want to get this book.. hmm.. but I have too many dystopian to read anyway…

And this….. I’ve been searching this book for years… Arghhhhhh… But its a trilogy that was out of print. Sigh…. I’ll just try to get the omnibus version…

I love this series and if you ever found this book, read it. I know some people got pissed off by something but I still heart Beck and its all worth it.

Update : I love this series. It’s a proper fantasy series by the way despite the stereotypic fantasy romance cover. It was dead bloody and depressing.



Pretty tempting for Doctor Who fans… or John Barrowman’s fan.

For those wanting to get married and wanting some ideas…

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And the god awful books that I never will NEVER recommend you to get even at dirt cheap price.

I’ll give you my copy if you wanna trade. I just hate ‘edward cullen’ess in this book

I put it here to tell you to not get this book. If you don’t like Twilight, then avoid Cynthia Leitich Smith at all cost…

I have a confession. I have read Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons and I like the movies due to Tom Hanks, Ian McKellan and Ewan McGregor but I hate reading this book. This book is just vile even if it is the version with visual aids. Sort of Da Vinci Code plus Angels and Demons except demonizing Free Masons. *yawn*

If you don’t want to be traumatize by bad antagonist and bad copy of Indiana Jones…. Avoid this book.

I look at this and wondered why she destroyed her face with plastic surgeries

Pains me to see the price since I bought the book at quite a normal price. I like the first book and read it through the third book but I can’t stand reading the fourth book. I do feel the series go poorly after the first book.

I read The House of Night in early days of university. I love it and then I grew to hate it. The publisher is just sucking the book and the writers doesn’t know how to end the book. Its still on-going series even after the ninth book without any resolution to ANY of the plots.

But I could say Dragon’s Oath is what nearly saved the series.

Its the HoN’s side-story of two of the professors in House of Night, Dragon and Anastasia. What it suppose to do was adding a reasonable motive for Dragon in the eight book.(since in the book series, Anastasia was killed by the raven-mocker Rephaim and after a few books, Rephaim was  redeemed himself and was forgiven by Nyx but Dragon didn’t accept it and then goes into the dark side in book 7 and 8)

But when I found out that the series is NOT EVER GOING TO END and Chloe is still stuck in her heptagonal love after all these years, I was really furious.

I did like reading the Dragon and Anastasia story but since I know what happen to them and what happen in the eight book.. I just flip up.

But that’s another story.

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And while browsing I saw this cute thing…

Awwww….

And this time I went to the Precious site and I do notice the size had somewhat diminished from the presale

Some of the stuff doesn’t attract me to anything but I really want this Star Trek book with these cute quiz thing

And I found this cute BBW tshirt which I would be tempted to buy had the BBW people advertise them at the spot during pre-sale instead of putting the mannequins at the entrance. Sigh

There’s people selling badge pins at the end of the exit. You should look that up. I found some interesting stuff but I lost too many pins before so I just skip the section. Besides, I rather buy a RM10 book than a RM10 small pins. pfft

And the haul..

And we just create a mountain of cookbooks… thank you… thank you

I really like this book. Its like art and manga and short story combined. Too pretty to let go. And I saw stacks of it on the table.

Two books that I get for my younger sister..

and my mom’s

and the total is…

For mostly all hardcovers….. that is actually not bad.

I actually want to turn back and get another book but then I saw the lines behind me and I just.. left.. hmm

I’ll wait for the firesale. I know they say they don’t do aftermath sale this year but firesale is every year in BBW. So even if they don’t have aftermath sale.. just wait for the end of the sale period. I might be at MIECC again on the last day though.

The Pre-Sale of Big Bad Wolf Sale 2012

After a year of silence and the possible news of Big Bad Wolf never coming back, The Big Bad Wolf Sale 2012 opens its door again but this time in a much bigger venue than MAEPS. After struggling with the weekly online contests set by the organizer, I managed to procure two preview passes before the official opening date of 7th December. Last year, I managed to get the preview pass for the 2011’s BBW so I know what I’m going to expect this time around.

My niece Afia wanted to tag along with me to the sale and despite my insistence of keeping kids away from the sale (as a BBW veteran *the term that  my sister seems to like* I have experiences with children ), somehow I was quite relieved by the vastness of this venue. BTW, Afia did get hit by a board book but I managed to keep her out of harm’s way and she survived untraumatized, thankfully.

Note to everyone, the MIECC have children’s zone upstairs. Its a huge hall and there’s a huge playground above it. Okay, the place is now quite child-friendly but same problems arise when the crowd thickens. So, be sure to come early and avoid the lunch hours.

We had lunch at the shopping mall connected from the convention centre. And apparently, this is also the first time I entered “The Mines”. I never frequent Seri Kembangan except for BBW in 2010 and 2011’s firesale, the time where the whole biomedical science batch went on to the chocolate factory (yes, I remember having Charlie and the Chocolate Factory theme in my head) and when I had to go to Palace of the Golden Horses for my final year dinner last year.

The place is like any other mall. It used to be one of the hippest mall when I was a teenager since its connected to Mines Wonderland. Well, Sunway Pyramid is lot nearer if I want to play ice skating, so I never found a need to go here. Except for now.

When I got my trolleys, we went back to the front door and I saw Bruce Wayne’s car. Apparently its a Lamborghini with Wolfie’s stickers on it. So this is where Selina Kyle kept the Lamborghini. In plain sight.

We had to queue to enter. Its not really a slow queue as the BBW’s minions are collecting the passes. Last year, they gave the pass back after making holes on them. I threw mine away because Alif (who was 1 years old then) gnawed onto it. Some people make it into collections so I guess, its collectible now?

There’s a map of the BBW venue. I managed to snap it before entering the hall.

And the sights…..

sea of books…

Was MAEPS and MIECC were any different? Well… MAEPS does feel like you’re in a concrete. MIECC does have that intriguing presence.. posh, I think.

The temperature was good, the music is good as there’s a DJ near the escalator that was where the playground set, smell of new books… and flash forward to a couple of hours later.

Afia is rather well behaved. I am impressed with how responsive she was with the books around her. She love it all and sometimes when she caught sight of something in pink, she would pick it up and look at me with that pleading look of hers.

And I was like “Okay”.. and okay I went… in the end, she have a collection of princess, fairies, disney and any other pink books.

Boy she look happy. I was actually crumpling down under the weight of these books. I thought I had worst with my own hardcovers? Kid’s books are more worse to your back. I was dragging my trolley and it actually weights a tonne. LOL

And I count and count.  And after three counts and another last minute additions.. we went to the cashier…

The B-i-L have OCBC card so we get 5% off the price.. which in my case… around rm30…

As for the said books…

All except for the Elmo puppet which was left at my sister’s car, arrived safely home and to my nieces and nephew delight.. they get a MOUNTAIN of books that I can’t even have the necessary motivation to photograph each and every one of them because it really is a mountain of books.

We actually brought home… 64 books…. if 18 is mine and 2 is my sister….my nieces and nephew and my eldest sister bought 44 items today which didn’t include the whole multiple books in one package things especially with these kid’s book.

Okay.. I don’t want to count anymore…

Below is my oldest niece’s stuff, which I try to get stuff that have a bunch of stories in it, the middle one is Alif’s which include a book by Neil Gaiman and the rest of the singular stuff above was Afia’s. By bulk, Afia wins. By gems, Alif won with Neil Gaiman and one of Alif’s stash is in Ida’s car which is an Elmo’s puppet which I am assured that he would be in love with when he sees it.

My sister’s cookbooks exclude one book (A huge book on children’s cooking aka the book that can make Masterchef Junior out of these girls) which Ida borrowed. The cooking books area in Big Bad Wolf is HUGE but the stuff is actually repetitive. I tried to find the cook books that my sister wanted from the list she gave me but its near impossible since I kept seeing the same titles all over again.

My parents decided to check out BBW this Sunday. Maybe we’ll find the rest of the list this weekend. My mom wanted sewing books but the non-fiction section is huge and I have a toddler with me.

And MIECC hall is GIGANTIC!! The labels that the BBW provide didn’t actually help anything! Literary fiction, thriller and romance kept mashed up together. So, if you really need to find specific item…. good luck.

Sigh… I still brought home more fiction. Oh well…

I finished Ugly Duchess last month and frankly I didn’t like it much and I haven’t reviewed it. My sister however wanted more Eloisa James and this is the only book I found today. My other sisters spotted them.. and never pick it up… sigh..

One of my Book Club have this book and told me about the 3D cover and they included the 3D glasses and hmm… the thing does seem to pop up…

I bought Shiver from 2010’s BBW but I never seem to find myself connected to Linger. I left the book halfway through. Maybe because I read it in ebook. Some books does need to have printed pages to sing. I still love Stiefvater in Shiver and I hope Linger wouldn’t fail me again.

This is the Alanna series which I’ve been mulling to get since a couple of months ago but I only found the second, third and fourth of the series in BBW. I have the book on the tablet but it doesn’t feel the same.

Yes, I have read it. Whatever, folks, I love this book and I found a pile of Finnikin of the Rock in BBW. It made me happy.

I was curious about the series for months… some seemed to rave on the sequel.. and it does won Goodread’s Paranormal Fantasy… but since 50 Shades won on Romance genre (?!) well, I am curious and its RM8 and hardcover. I can still use it to fight ninja assassin by the weight of it.

I try not to be so skeptic over Robert Pattinson in the movie but I did like the ending of the movie. And its a NaNoWriMo novel…

I love the other book cover and the sequel book covers but never seem to be motivated enough to read it on my kindle… maybe this hardcover can change? (oh I love saying ‘hardcovers’)

I’ve been eyeing on it at Bookxcess. I love the story and the movie by the way. Again, its on my Kindle… what, a person can have any other reading format that she could read…

I saw the book with the other cover.. I find the premise interesting but never seem to get into it via Kindle. I heard its good.

They’re making a movie about it and atleast its not another Twilight fanfiction. It just have mary sue. Doesn’t nearly all YA does?

Wanted to read it, but never seem to get into it in ebook.

I love the movie. When it does, the book is usually much better…

Again, I watch the movie first and I love EVERYONE in this movie. I’ve been trying to read it on ebook but the physical form does seem to add more substance.

I’ve read Patrick Ness’s Siobhan Dowd’s book, I know I said the plot does seem hanging (because of the obvious reason) but I like Ness’ style. BBW does have the subsequent sequels.

Another raved book in my Kindle that I haven’t read yet, I will.. I will..

and before I end this….

here’s the receipt.

Honestly, I never spend this much on books… *even I am sinister in this pic* and frankly, with the amount of what I’m paying and the value of these books, this is actually quite cheap. Its actually barely £100 or USD190. How many book can you get with those? 10? 15?

That is why its called the biggest baddest book sale on earth.

Was it worth waiting a year for it? Yes, it was.

Note: Since I bought stuff over RM200, I get to redeem rm10 cash voucher from bookxcess, rm2 off kiddyland (whatever it is) and redeem a year membership from bookxcess.