20 Minutes Of Splendor, 2+ Hours Of Traffic Jam

Picture Source: Courtesy of E. Click here for more pics.

Out of an impromptu plan, I joint E to Putrajaya on last Saturday (25 August) for the Malaysia International Fireworks Competition 2007 which is held from 18 August 2007 till 2 September 2007 at Putrajaya International Convention Centre (PICC). It was Team Italy performing. Checked the event official website (http://www.mifc.com.my/) before deciding to go, for it was a 20 minutes session. If it was a 10 minutes session, I would have passed it for it's not worthed the hassles and jam for just 10 minutes of fireworks display.

Though the event started at 10pm, having heard about the jam, we departed as early as 7 something in the evening from PJ and headed for Putrajaya via LDP. It was a bit jam, but the traffic was still moving and tolerable.

Reached PICC around 8:30pm. There was still 1 & 1/2 hour of time to kill before the event started. We wandered around to identify a good spot for photo shooting. E settled at a spot with his tripod at the side of the lake overlooked by the Seri Gemilang bridge. There were quite a number of photography enthutiasts stationed along the lake side, waiting for the moments of the magnificant fireworks performance. It was quite a large crowd near the lake. Some families even picniced there. As usual, you know who would normally picnic everywhere. As people could nicely watch the fireworks from outside PICC, along the lake side at a close distance, I wonder why would one need to purchase an expensive ticket to go inside PICC and watch from there. Could it be a big difference? I wonder.

Weather was good and not hot. Didn't feel the presence of mosquitoes either. There was a gentle breeze too, comforting the patient waiting of the crowd. We sat by the lake side, talking rubbish and observing the crowd, counting down till my bottom was numb. And yet, it was just not time yet for the performance to begin. Stood up a few times to relax the muscle of my buttocks to reduce the numbness. Yes, I have skinny buttocks (lacking of flesh) which will cause me numbness or slight pain if sitted for too long. Haha... Please don't laugh, it's not what I wish. There was so much time to kill, we should have brought some junk food to chew but we didn't. I dared not drink water too as it would be a challenging task to find a toilet there. I think my bladder behaved extremely well that night, not giving me any trouble of having the urge to pee the whole night while I was there.

Finally, the first few launches of the warm up fireworks ended the long haul waiting of the crowd. When the real performance started, the crowd was exhilarated. There was loud applause from the crowd whenever a magnificent one was displayed. I like watching fireworks. I was busy enjoying the fireworks while E, a photography enthusiast, was busy taking pictures with his Digital SLR camera. The magnificant view of fireworks across the lake was really enchanting. I was carried away to a world of my own, enjoying the splendid moments. An aeroplane flew across the sky illuminated by the fireworks, forming a special view. It reminded me of friends who are apart, currently travelling or living abroad and I miss them. Watching the borderless sky, decorated with the splendid fireworks, I suddenly felt so tiny and the thought of packing my stuff and leave to see the world flashed in my mind again. Yes, seeing the world is something I have always wanted to do. I was staring fixedly at the fireworks, not wanting to miss a single beautiful moment of the performance.

After 20 minutes, the fireworks performance had come to an end. Felt a bit lost, as good moments don't last long, as always.

Hurried E to get out of the place asap. Well, no matter how swift our actions were, we couldn't avoid the destiny of being stuck, at first 1/2 hour at the carpark and then horrible jam on the way back. It tooks us 2 hours & 15 minutes to get back to PJ, if I didn't miscount the time. What a journey.

As an aftermath, I suffered numbness and slight pain on my buttocks for 20 minutes of spendor and 2+ hours of traffic jam, though I wasn't the one driving. Haha... :)

Anyway, nothing is perfect. we can't have it all. Sometimes, things come in a total package. It's a matter of taking it or leaving it. It depends on how we view things, and the angles we view them. We can't change certain things but we can change the way we feel about them.

I choose to remember the splendor of the fireworks and forget about the jam as well as the buttock numbness and slight pain. :)

Please find more splendid shots of the event here, courtesy of E. Thanks E for the trip and the pics.

Wok Seasoning

Bought a new wok from Jusco when I moved to new place in BU as I will be able to cook again after moving out from the house of notes. Went to Tioman island few days right after moving in.

When I was back from Tioman, house mate complained to me about something was wrong with the wok as she had started using it to cook. Couldn't really comprehend what the problem was as I didn't really have the chance to have a grand opening using it with my own touch as I was away.

Finally, I started using the wok to cook my dinner. To my frustration, it kept blackening around the areas above the concave meniscus which were not in touch with cooking oil whenever I set the wok over high heat. The same blackening incident occured too if I didn't put oil after heating the wok for a very short while over high heat, which never happened before in my previous experience. Thus I could only use low heat to cook to prevent blackening, which was very time consuming and frustrating. After cooking, I got to thoroughly scour the blackened areas to remove the films of black coating that formed on the wok surface. It was really testing my patience.

Puzzled, I asked around and even did research on the internet. To my bewilderment, I found out that certain types new woks need a treatment process called 'wok seasoning' (开镬) before they are ready to be used. From my previous years of cooking experience, I have never really used a new wok to cook. All woks used were used woks that were ready to be use. Thus, I never know of such thing as wok treatment or wok seasoning. It's really an interesting and eye-opening new dicovery for me. This is the first time I am buying a wok by myself, how am I supposed to know? Forgive my ignorance on this. Hehe :)

Here are some simple hints & tips about wok seasoning that I found from the Internet:

Only iron and steel woks need to be seasoned. Stainless steel woks do not need this treatment, as they are far less porous than iron or steel woks. However with stainless steel woks, more oil is required to prevent the food from sticking and burning.

It is very important to season your wok. Seasoning removes the manufacturer's protective coating and coats it with a thin layer of oil, enabling foods to glide smoothly over the cooking surface of the wok. A well-seasoned wok is worth its weight in gold. Not only will food not stick to its blackened surface, flavors are greatly enhanced. Below is a general step-by-step instruction for seasoning a carbon steel wok. However, I'd advise you to adhere to manufacturer's instruction if there is one.

Method 1:

1) Thoroughly scrub it inside and out with soap and a steel wool scouring pad to remove the manufacturer's preservative oil, and rust, if any. Rinse thoroughly with hot water.
2) Fill it with water and boil it for several minutes. This is to dissolve stubborn coating that can't be removed by scouring. Empty the wok and scrub the surface with steel wool and soap again.
3) Set the wok over high heat.
4) When a sprinkle of water sizzles in the wok, wipe some peanut or corn oil on the entire cooking surface of the wok by using paper towels with the help of a long wooden chopsticks or tongs.
5) Reduce heat to low. The wok will start to absorb the oil. Wipe with another thin film of oil if the surface begins to dry off. After 15 minutes, remove wok from the stove and let it cool.
6) Repeat step 1 to 5 and the wok is seasoned!

It is important to properly clean your wok after each use. Run hot water into it and clean the surface using a bamboo brush or plastic scour. Dry it thoroughly. Avoid soap and scouring as these will remove the hard-earned seasoning.

If food sticks or burns, soak the wok well before attempting to clean them with the method mentioned above. Use abrasive material such as steel wool only as the last resort because you will need to re-season the wok if it was scoured this way.

Boiling water in a well-seasoned wok can easily ruin its hard-earned shiny, black patina. Try to avoid this as much as possible.

Method 2:

Another more thorough method of seasoning a wok is to brush polyunsaturted cooking oil on the cooking surface of the wok and then place the wok into an oven at 150'C for 4 hours. The oil in the wok will become pooled while heating in the oven, so about everyhour or so, take your brush and brush the oil up around the sides of the wok and continue heating. Obviously, woks that have plastic or wooden handles should not be put in the oven.

Not entirely sure what type of material that my wok is made of. But from the physical appearance, it looks like a carbon-steel wok. As no prior seasoning was done before the wok was used and suspecting the blackening was due to the heating of the manufacturer's protective coating which had not been removed, I decided to try my luck to do the wok seasoning, hoping that it could be rescued.

Find the second method very complicated. Put in the oven??? How??? What kind of big oven that can accomodate a wok inside??? To make thing simple, I chose method one and tried to salvage my wok. I followed the steps and did it patiently especially the scouring part.

I spent the whole night doing wok seasoning treatment. when I eventually completed the procedures, I was so excited to test if the wok was working fine after the treatment. Guess what? To my dismay, the wok rescue operation failed! The blackening still occured. Aikss! Wasted my time and efforts! It was already 12am! Rounds and rounds of scouring using the dish wash liquid with my bare hands were vain, leaving only dryness, wrinkle and skin peel on my hands. Sigh... I DECIDED to give up and get another new wok.

On the next day, CH brought me to a specialty shop which sells all sorts of cooking untensils and kitchen stuff at PJ Old Town. I ended up buying a new alloy wok which needs no seasoning treatment, hassle free. The new wok cost me RM70. Oppss, forgot to ask that uncle who sold me the wok on the metal combination of the alloy wok. Don't bother much, as long as I don't need to take the trouble to season it, I am perfectly fine with it.

So far, my alloy wok is working fine. Guess what happens to the first wok? It has lost its 'first wok' status and has been put aside or is only used for steaming purpose if the new 'first wok' is to be used concurrently.

What a lesson to learn about wok!

House of Notes

Yes, I have been MIA from here for a month since the last post.

What have I been up to?

I was busy packing, packing, packing, and packing for moving, almost every single weekend. Right after moving in to new place in Bandar Utama, I evacuated myself from the city to Tioman for a 4-day escapade to breathe some fresh air.

Talking about packing and moving, it's never a fun thing to do. I've been in KL for about 10 years, thus you can imagine how much stuff I have accumulated over the years. I had actually thrown tonnes of stuff from the last round of moving. Some were still nicely boxed, not even unpacked before the recent round of moving. So it was really a time consuming task for me to go through all my stuff to identify those no longer needed to throw away or to give away. Most of my weekends were filled with massive housekeeping and throwing. It was seriously drop dead tiring till my body was aching all over.

Prior to moving, I was staying in an interesting house of notes with an unique lady notes. This house house of notes is a double-storey linked house at Taman SEA, PJ. I was renting a room there. In this house of notes, stays a lady notes (the landlady, a 40+ years old single lady) whose hobby is to stick notes all over the house of notes. This is how literally the house of notes and the lady notes got their names from me. Haha...

So, what are these notes all about? Basically, lady notes has a lot of house rules and reminders for her tenants to follow and she loves to stick the house rules all over the house in small notes. Wanna know what are written in these interesting notes? Well, where do I begin with since the notes are all over the house of notes? OK, let me share with you some of them that I can recall, though not entirely the same word by word. I actually wanted to take picture of or jot down all the notes, but too bad I didn't manage to as it was quite rush and I didn't have the time to do so.

OK, let's begin. The moment you step into this house of notes, your journey of notes begins immediately.

At the back of the front door -Pliz do not wear shoes in the house, as I need to spend time mopping the floor (meant for Ms. Messy, the air-stewardess tenant who liked to wear shoes in the living room whenever she wanted to leave for the airport. Lady Notes didn't like that. Miss Messy moved out after rounds & rounds of rule breaking and mess-up)

On the row of switches on the wall, next to the front door, some main switches for light and fan are labelled, which is of good intention.

On the main electrical swith box near the front door - If it trips, push this switch up

If you walk further down, there will be the bathroom and the kitchen. This is an area where you'll find most of the notes.

On the row of switches outside the bathroom - Please off all lights before you retire

Inside the bathroom:

On the heater - Dealer's advice, when not in use, power must be off. (Something like that, I can't remember the exact sentense, as there are too many notes all over the house. haha...)

Around the heater (her own advise) - Leave it, no need to off when not in use (refering to the cap that controls the temperature). Don't turn the knob (controlling the water volume) too tight, use a light touch.

Above the toilet bowl - Please keep toilet bowl clean. Splash more water before and after use. Got residue/'sai' in the toilet bowl. (hiyoh, as if we don't understand residue in English, providing translation somemore. This one is also meant for Ms. Messy as he stayed in the room downstairs)

Somewhere on the bathroom wall - Please pick up own hair

At the heater swith far outside the bathroom - Remember to off switch after use (after new tenant moved in, this note was refurbished with bigger font, significantly magnified as compared to the old note)

At the kitchen:

On the fridge door:

- Please limit your items to 2. I may need to use other space

-The house is meant for female tenants, please entertain boyfriend outside

- Please do not bring friends to stay overnight

- Please throw own rubbish and sanitary pads. Rubbish collection is on every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

- and some other rules that I can't remember

On the side of the fridge - There's a fanstatic poem (with rhymes, don't play play), 1 full page of an A4 size paper, about the house rules which I can't remember the contents.

On the table where I placed my rice cooker and slow cooker - Please limit to 2 pots to keep clean and tidy (you mean 2 & only 2? control freak??!!!)

Near the sink:

- Please keep the sink clean

- Please don't leave food package overnight, must throw must throw (ya, must throw x 2, no typing error) every night, or else it will draw cochroaches and lizards.

- Please don't place cooking pot under this area, it will heat up the formica

- Please use the chopping board for cutting, or else knife will get chipped

There are 2 other major rules, surprizingly unwritten in notes:

- Cannot use the gas stove (not even to cook instant noodle)

- Cannot use the washing machine

Now, let's get upstairs.

On the switch at the begining of the staircase - Please leave lights on during Raya week (stuck before last Raya week)

There are 3 rooms upstairs, 1 master room which is occupied by lady notes, and 2 medium rooms for renting. I was occupying 1 room and the other room (used to be occupied by a gal who then moved back to her hometown) was vacant before I moved out.

On the wall near the door of lady note's room:

- please close the door gently (obviously for tenants to see, it doesn't make sense if this note is meant for herself)

- Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm, I need to use the phone line (Sometimes, when I was on MC or on leave, I used the phone line to dial up to go online, to work from home for urgent matter. So this is definitely meant for me as the other tenant upstair wouldn't go online)

Let's get into my room.

It's a furnished room with wardrobe and cabinets. At a corner near the wardrobe, there's a 3-tier round table rack.

On the 2nd and 3rd tier of the rack: Please do not put heavy things on the round table (the notes were there before I moved in)

Now, let's proceed to the atached shared bathroom.

In the shared bathroom:

At the back of each door - Please unlock the door after use

On the wall at both sides of the mirror:

- Shared bathroom (who doesn't know it is?)

- Throw own sanitary pad

- Please clean the basin and toilet bowl. Splash more water into the toilet bowl before and after use.

- 1st week - xxx (refers to tenant 1 on duty)

- 2nd week - yyy (refers to tenant 2 on duty)

- 3rd week - xxx

- 4th week - yyy

Somewhere on the wall - Pick up own hair

Let me do a quick count on the no of notes. Gosh, there are more than 30 of them! A lot, right? I might have missed out some though.

So basically this house of notes owned by the lady notes expects you to go to work, eat outside, just come back to take your shower and sleep, and visitors are not encouraged. So it's place where there will be only you & your room.

Anyway, lady notes is actually not a bad or difficult person, she is very friendly instead. She used to come to my rescue when I was in need of help once and I used to go to pasar malam with her once in a while. She also never bugged me when I forgot to pay my rental on time. I personally don't have any problem with her. Just find her 'hobby' of sticking notes all over the house a bit overdosed. The main reasons for me to move out is because cooking is not allowed and not much freedom but a lot of boredom staying there.

My new place is a brand new apartment unit. Now, I have a nice and spacious room with new curtain and comforter set, a spacious living room, house mates that I can interact with, wireless broadband internet access (an upgrade from the dial-up stone age to the wireless age, hehe), and a kitchen that I can cook! Feel reborn. Yeah, I can cook again!

Hate the hassle of packing and moving, but please don't ask me why I don't buy a place of my own instead of renting. Who doesn't wish to have his/her own place to stay?